Stalk Me

“I meant it too.”

“I got excited when I learned I had sponsors. I thought you’d support me. That you’d be here, I’d be off competing, but that we’d still see each other, still be together. I really hadn’t thought it through. Like the logistics of it. I was thinking all about me and my dreams.”

“I know. It’s okay. With everything that’s happened, it’s probably best for you to be gone anyway.”

“I don’t want us to lose touch. You’re my best friend, Keats, and that part of our relationship means a lot to me. I’ve been trying to make sense of all this. What you said the other day about me liking part of you. You’re kind of right about that, and it’s not fair to you. You need a guy that appreciates everything about you. Not just the surfer girl that I love.”

“You know what’s fu

“Really? Maybe fate intervened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe there’s someone there that you’re supposed to meet. Maybe you chose the wrong path back then, and fate is fixing it now.”

“Brooklyn, fate is when you miss your flight and end up on the next one sitting next to the guy you’re destined to be with. Fate is when your alarm doesn’t go off, and you avoid a pile up on the highway. Fate does not almost get you kidnapped.”

“Maybe it does. You didn’t get kidnapped, and now you’re going where you were supposed to go in the first place. Maybe the guy of your dreams is waiting there for you.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I’m pretty sure neither one of us knows what we want, Keats. That’s the problem.”

“As in, you don’t know what we are. You haven’t known all summer, have you?”

“I’m sorry. I really do care about you, and I do love you. I guess I’m just not ready for a relationship.”

He gives me a kiss. It’s a goodbye kiss, not a we’ll-be-together-again-someday kiss. Even though I broke up with him, the kiss makes me sad, so I change the subject. “So, there’s a table full of actors sitting around out there trying to write a script for my fake life.”

He laughs. “They come up with anything good?”

“Let’s get high, then I’ll tell you all about my fake lives.”

“Let’s not.” He moves our plates onto my desk, pulls me into his arms, and falls onto the bed with me. “Just tell me.”

“They wanted to make me poor, an orphan, or a scholarship student. Seriously? At a private school like that? They might as well have made me a leper. Then—let’s see—I just got out of rehab; I got kicked out of another boarding school; oh, I got pregnant, had a baby, and gave it up for adoption. Then Mr. Moran suggested my dad just died, and I got pissed off and walked out. I sounded like a little bitchy starlet throwing my script down and marching off the set going, I demand a rewrite. If it weren’t so horrifying, it would be almost comical.”

“So you still need a story?”

“Actually, no. James helped me figure it out. He said I should keep it as close to the truth as possible.”

“So, who are you, Keats Monroe?”

I hug him tightly. “I’m going to miss you terribly.”

“I’m going to miss you too, but I was thinking about what you said about wishing you could make real friends. In a weird way, you wished for this. Going away to a place where no one knows who you are. The experience might be good for you.”

“My grandma always says, Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. I never understood her point until now.”

“So I get to surf, see if I’m as good as I think I am. And you get to make friends, where no one knows who you are. You get to figure out who you really are. So what’s your backstory?”

“I’ve traveled the world, been tutored. I love to surf, play soccer, and dance. And we lived in L.A. for the last couple of years.”

“Oh, that’s good. It’s all true. So why boarding school? Especially your junior year?”

“Mom and Stepdad decided to live in France. I didn’t want to go, but they wouldn’t let me stay in L.A. alone, so they shipped me off to boarding school, and I’m not happy about it.” I give him my pout face. Then I say, “Or I am happy about it,” and give him my biggest smile.

“You know you’re a natural when it comes to acting. I think that’s why sometimes you aren’t sure who you are. It’s so easy for you to play different roles.” He runs his hand slowly down my arm and looks longingly into my eyes. “Can we pretend that tonight you’re still you, and I’m waiting for you on the beach?”

Thursday, August 25th

Everyone will love you.

5am

Brooklyn left at three this morning.

Last night.

I don’t even know what last night was.

I guess it was just mostly saying goodbye.

He wanted to pretend I was still me, the old me. But I’m not the same me anymore.

And I’m not in love with him anymore.

I knew in Europe that it wasn’t going to work out, but I didn’t want to admit it.

I kept lying to myself, because once again, I had some stupid script of my perfect dream life imagined in my head. The kind of life where Brooklyn and I would live happily on a beach somewhere. Probably the kind of script no boy could ever live up to. The kind of script I could never live up to.

Brooklyn was right about one thing.

Life is messy.

And I know that I shouldn’t have kissed him. I know that I shouldn’t have slept with him.

But I did.

Is it so bad that I wanted to have one night where I could pretend it was still summer, and my life hadn’t been turned completely upside down?

Afterwards he tried to be sweet. “I love you, Keats. Even if it’s just as friends.”

“So where does the sex fit in?” I asked.

“With the love,” he said.

“You make it sound so simple. It’s just not that simple.” Because we all know now. It is not that simple.

“Yeah, it is. You complicate it by trying to make it fit into a box, so you can update your Facebook status. A relationship should be defined by your feelings not by a status.”

I wanted to fight with him about it, but it wouldn’t change anything. We’re just over. So even though there is a part of me that will always have feelings for him, it’s a much smaller part than it used to be.

After he left, I fell back asleep and had another bad dream. A dream where I was ru

I woke up afraid.

Ready to run.

Ready to get on that plane and not look back.

I drop my bag in the entryway to be loaded in the car. Mom and Tommy’s bags are packed and waiting. Tommy already had a trip pla

I want him to know I’m leaving. I want to know my sisters are safe.

Garrett determined that since there were already rumors about my supposed drug addiction that Utah would be a perfect place for one plane to go since there is a famous rehab center there. They have someone who fits my physical description going on that plane. She will wear big sunglasses and get dropped off at the rehab facility. From there, she will sneak out the back or something, drive to Salt Lake City, and take a commercial flight home.