Page 45 of Under the Weatherman
“Let me guess. She was more popular?”
“She was a queen bee.”
“What did Meghan say when you broke the date?”
“She told me she was only joking anyway.” Why did that memory always taste like iron in my mouth even after all this time? “She said she didn’t actually want to go out with me.”
“Do you think she was trying to save face?”
“At first, I thought so. I worried I’d actually hurt her feelings.”
“Did you end up going out with Vicky?”
The skin on my neck heated, and I tugged at the collar. “No.”
Dr. Zimmerman tilted her head, encouraging. “What happened?”
“When I went to pick her up, she told me the exact same thing. It had all been a joke.” I swallowed. “She said I was delusional for believing she’d want to go out with me. In a way, it was like the lacrosse tryouts all over again.”
“Oh, Evan.” She reached out and took my hand, something Dr. Price had never done, and that small bit of empathy made me crack inside. “Walk me through how it made you feel.”
“Being rejected didn’t hurt as much as feeling tricked, lied to.” My throat constricted, and I brushed my cheek, catching a hot tear. “At the same time, it felt so deserved.”
“No.” She squeezed my hand. “No, you didn’t deserve their cruelty. That was not your fault. Do you understand?”
“That was just the first of many shitty things that happened my sophomore year, but at least after that betrayal, I was prepared for the abuse. I just kept my head down and tried to ignore them, but it was hard. The worst was that I was convinced everyone hated me, old friends and new. I couldn’t go back, but I couldn’t see a way forward. I didn’t know how I was going to survive three more years of high school.”
“So how did you?”
“I did make a few friends, people who didn’t take the low road, who didn’t care about the rumors the bullies would start about me.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“Like I supposedly banged seven girls in a closet one after the other, which was hilarious to me because I couldn’t get a date with anyone with my unfounded reputation. Not that it mattered by that point, I’d stopped trusting anyone. Still, the nickname Seven followed me through high school.”
Dr. Zimmerman held up a finger. “Can we go back to the woman you met recently?”
“You see? It’s a pattern for me.” And I hadn’t even scratched on my boss’s wife, the secretly married girlfriend, or less dramatic betrayals I’d endured.
She set her iPad aside. “You mentioned that you felt bad for ditching your middle school friends. I’m assuming that includes this Lizzy you used to know.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you believe you’re being punished?”
“Like karma?” I sat up straighter. “I’m a scientist. A meteorologist to be precise. I believe in chains of cause and effect. I believe that my actions have consequences.”
“Which actions, Evan?”
I weighed the question again. “In this case, betraying people for something as vain as a higher social status.”
Her eyes softened. “When you met this woman, when you thought she was your old friend, what were you hoping to get from her?”
“Absolution.” I said it like the punchline to a joke, but when Dr. Zimmerman wrote that down, I wanted to walk it back.
“Were you looking for forgiveness for being a bad friend?”
I blinked back new tears. “What I wanted was a do-over. A chance to see where different choices might have led.”
