Although she doubt he’d go for it.
She had to make him talk.
She had to.
Somehow Ari had known that when she walked into her room she would find the bed remade, the dishes gone from the side of the bed, and no trace of Charlie in the house. He was like a ghost. She sighed, dropping her bag to the ground. Her blood twisted in her veins, hot with frustration. Her computer chair rolled out away from her desk towards her. She flopped into it.
“Thanks, Ms. Maggie.”
Even her poltergeist was more real than Charlie.
~5~
Can You Party in the Past?
Rachel’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Duff, were awesome. They hugged Ari close and congratulated her on graduating and told her how proud they were of her. They made sure she was in every photograph and when she had stood up on the stage to collect her diploma they had cheered just as loudly for her as they had for their own daughter. Graduation hadn’t been so bad so far. Despite her own fears for the future, the atmosphere vibrated with so much excitement it was hard not to be positively affected by it.
Though Charlie should have been graduating with her.
She’d called him that morning but he hadn’t picked up. Feeling lonelier than ever, Ari had wandered into her dad’s room, picking up his favorite cologne and squirting a little into the air. As she’d glanced around his bedroom she’d realized how bare it was of anything familial. Derek’s parents had died when he was eighteen, leaving him all alone in the world. Ari guessed that’s why he didn’t see anything so wrong about leaving her so much. He didn’t mind the alone time, so he probably didn’t realize how much she minded it. There weren’t any photographs of her grandparents, nothing to give her any kind of connection to her lost family, and her dad never talked about them. He didn’t talk about a lot of stuff. Her eyes had fallen to the one photograph in the room, sitting on his bedside table. It was a picture of the two of them, hugging outside Disneyworld the summer she turned ten. They’d gone with Michelle, who had taken the photograph of them.
It had suddenly struck Ari as she stood there in a conservative white dress her dad would have loved, her hair pulled back in a French plait, pearls he had bought for her sixteenth wrapped around neck, that she would be all alone at graduation. There would be no grandparents. No father.
No mother.
For the first time, a shocked breath of air escaped her at the thought. She’d never wanted a mother… but that morning, in that dress, getting ready to graduate, Ari had realized how wonderful it would have been to have her mother there. She saw how Rachel was with her mom. They were as close as two people could be. They told each other everything.
Shaken at the seemingly out-of-the-blue yearning that had taken hold of her, Ari had fled from the room, hurrying downstairs to wait on the Duffs.
“Let me take a picture of just Rachel and Ari,” Mrs. Duff said. The grin she wore had planted itself there an hour ago and clearly refused to leave. Her good mood was infectious and Ari wrapped an arm around Rachel’s waist, pulling the shorter girl close for a photograph that would forever capture that one moment of contentedness on this momentous day. “Beautiful.” Mrs. Duff nodded, putting the camera down for the first time.
“My family’s ready to leave,” Staci said, sweeping over in her cap and gown, A.J. trailing at her back. She smiled sweetly at the Duffs. “Are you ready?”
The two families, plus Ari and A.J., were gathering together for a graduation lunch at Nellie’s on Main Street, the best burger place in Sandford Ridge. Staci’s mom had wanted to go somewhere a little more upmarket but the teens won the vote.
“Sure,” Mrs. Duff began. “Let me—”
“ Everybody just wanna fall in love !”
Ari winced as her loud ringtone interrupted Mrs. Duff. “Sorry.” She shuffled around in the little purse she’d brought, pulling the cell out and cutting off Metric when she saw the caller ID. “Dad,” she breathed happily into the phone, so glad he hadn’t forgotten.
“Hey, sweetheart. Congratulations on graduating and happy birthday.”
“Thanks, Dad. We’re just heading off for lunch. Wish you were here.”
“Me too, kid.” He sighed heavily. “You got everything you need?”
The question sparked a riot of questions and longings. It was like graduation had flipped a switch inside her. Suddenly Ari felt a wicked slice of pain across her chest and she took a deep breath, wandering away from her friends as she replied, “I don’t know.”
Sensing her tone, her father’s own grew clipped. “What’s happened? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I mean…” she glanced around, feeling lightheaded as she prepared to tell him. “I… just… I’ve been thinking about Mom today. Isn’t that weird?”
Derek exhaled. “Ari, she’s not your mom. She’s your mother and she left you. She has no right to this day.”
But you do! Where are you?
“I know. I just… it would have been nice to have family here.”