My Life After Now - By Jessica Verdi Page 0,25

meant it too—he would be far better off without me.

Evan swallowed and nodded, but his expression didn’t change much. I realized he’d been expecting me to say that.

“Why?” he asked.

I looked away. “I don’t know.”

“That’s not good enough. Give me a real reason.”

“It’s…just not working. With us. You know?”

“But that’s what I don’t get,” he said quietly. “It was working. You said you wanted to be my girlfriend. I don’t understand what changed.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

“Lucy, I love—”

I sucked in my breath sharply. “Don’t say that,” I said, and ran out of the car and into my house, slamming the door behind me.

I threw myself onto my bed and buried my face in my pillows to muffle my sobs. It was the first time I’d cried since I broke down in front of my dad that first day. I felt like my heart was being shredded apart. The pain was so bad that it was almost…good. At least I was feeling something. It reminded me, albeit in a sick, terrible way, that I wasn’t dead just yet.

But my meltdown was interrupted by a knock on the door.

God, why couldn’t I just have parents who ignored me, like everyone else did?

“Come in,” I croaked.

I was startled to find that it was Lisa. She hadn’t set foot in this room since she’d blown back into town.

She handed me an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a picture of the baby. I went to the doctor today. My five-month checkup,” she said.

I studied the ultrasound image. I didn’t know what to think, sitting there holding tangible evidence that life goes on with or without you. So all I said was, “Is its head supposed to be that big?”

Lisa shrugged. “Yeah, they said that’s normal. Yours must have looked like that too. I don’t really remember.”

I slid the photo back in its envelope and handed it back to her.

“It’s a girl,” she said.

I blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Lisa looked like she was expecting something more from me, but I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” she asked eventually.

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Congratulations.”

She beamed. “Thank you,” she said, like she hadn’t just had to pry that out of me.

“Do you know what you’re going to name her?” I asked.

“Not yet. Maybe you could help me come up with something?”

What was this? Mother-daughter bonding time? “Oh. Um, I don’t know. I’ll…think about it.”

“Okay,” Lisa said. “Good.”

15

The Past is Another Land

“I still don’t get it,” Max was saying. “Why did you break up with him, again?”

We were in the cafeteria. Evan hadn’t arrived yet, so it was just me, Max, and Courtney, and Max was pelting questions at me like I was on trial.

“I told you, it just wasn’t working,” I said for the zillionth time.

“What wasn’t working? He’s hot and he adores you. This doesn’t make any sense,” he said, popping open his Diet Coke with an incensed flourish.

I turned to Courtney, who hadn’t been saying much. “You understand, right, Court? When it’s not right, it’s just not right. Must be a women’s intuition thing,” I said with a little shrug, hoping getting her on my side would make Max feel outnumbered and give up on the whole subject.

But Courtney surprised me. She put her sandwich down and sat back in her chair. “You know what, Lucy? I don’t understand. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve never even had a boyfriend. And neither has Max, unless you’re counting online relationships.”

Max stuck his tongue out at her. “There’s nothing wrong with Internet dating.”

“That’s not the point. We’re here, desperately wanting what you always seem to find so easily, and you don’t even appreciate what you have when you have it. You broke up with Evan on no more than a whim, as far as I can tell, and now you want me to back you up on that? Gimme a break.”

Max burst into a round of applause. “Amen, sister.”

I glowered back at them, unmoved. They weren’t going to make me feel bad.

I did have a good reason for breaking up with Evan. Courtney was accusing me of being selfish, when I was actually doing the most unselfish thing I knew to do.

“Whatever,” I said, pushing away my untouched lunch.

“What the hell is going on with you, Luce?” Max demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really, you don’t?” he said sarcastically. “Well, lemme fill you in. You’re obviously lying to us about whatever it was that happened with Evan,