Then You Saw Me by Carrie Aarons
3
Taya
“I’m going to murder your boyfriend.”
My mood is a toss-up between sour and stressed to the max as we walk into the Sunrise Diner.
“You’ll have to get in line, because he’s currently on my shit list, as well,” Bevan grumbles, tossing a lock of midnight-black hair over her shoulder.
The Sunrise is packed, per usual, since it’s one of the only places to eat near campus. Talcott University sits atop a hill, and our street is about a five-minute drive up it. While there are a ton of restaurants and shops down on Commons Avenue near our house, the Sunrise is the only place to eat a quick bite before driving to class. Since we don’t have meal plans on campus anymore, we usually stop here a couple mornings out of the week.
And today, I was definitely in need of a pancake fix.
Amelie puts our names in as I wave to two girls sitting in a booth that I know from an International Studies course I took last year.
Shortly thereafter, we’re escorted to our table, a four-top right by the window overlooking the lake view Talcott University is known for. Nestled in the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York, my chosen college is as beautiful as it is frigid in the winters. Cayuga Lake is its crown jewel, a massive body of water where the college students swim, water-ski, and congregate in the two or three warm months that exist up here. The whole college town is built on the hill that slopes above the lake, and the neighborhoods are winding one-way streets all funneling into Commons Avenue, the trendy downtown area that turns into Drunk Central past the hour of eleven p.m. The three biggest bars in a fifty-mile radius exist there, and I’ve only managed to sneak in underage once. Not that we didn’t try. A lot.
“Three chocolate milks?” Randi, our usual waitress, smiles as she walks up to our table.
“And a coffee, please. It’s been a morning.” Bevan gives her a pained look.
“Thanks, Rand.” Amelie is her usual cheerful self, but I can see the bags under her eyes.
She’s probably been crying in her room since she dropped Gannon off at the airport. Imagine driving the man you love to a flight he’s taking to go fall in love with someone else. Even in the midst of my internal freak-out, my heart ached for her.
Randi brought back our chocolate milks and Bevan’s coffee, took our orders, and then we sipped. Chocolate milk is a call to our childhood days, and we can’t quit them, no matter how mature lattes or cold brews would have seemed.
“So, are we going to talk about the A-bomb that Callum dropped?” Amelie focuses on me.
I saw only one more glimpse of Austin as the three of us girls left for breakfast. He was in the kitchen, filling his water bottle at the sink. I tried to tiptoe out, but he must have bat ears because he turned and smiled, and my stomach dropped to my feet.
At least I had on mascara, a bit of blush, and my hair had been curled by that point. However, the image of my rumpled, sleep-worn face and body were probably seared into his mind. Jesus, I’ll have to start wearing a bra and lipstick around the house now, won’t I?
“Que diable vais-je faire? Je ne peux pas vivre avec lui!” I mutter into my palms and then press them to my eyes.
“Uh-oh, she’s gone full Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap. We need those pancakes, stat!” Bevan looks at me like I’m crazy.
As a foreign languages major, I tend to switch to my best second language when I’m really upset. Which is French. I also speak fluent Spanish, Italian, and plan to master Arabic and Mandarin before I graduate.
I want to work for a government agency, specifically the United Nations, if I can swing it. My nerves are too jumpy for the FBI and CIA, plus they dig into your life. A lot. I don’t have much to hide, but I’ve definitely smoked too much pot or something else trivial that would exclude me. There is something about going to work for an agency that promotes peace and unity, though I know it may be unrealistic at best, that speaks to me.
“Sorry. I’m just wondering how the hell I’m ever going to live with Austin freaking Van Hewitt?” I do a dramatic sob and flop my arms and chin onto the table. “He saw me in my freaking pajamas, not even matching ones, with pimple cream on my face.”
“If it makes you feel any better, he didn’t notice you for the entirety of our lives in Webton, so he probably didn’t even notice.” Bevan does her best sympathetic pat on my arm.
Yeah, remember when I told you we’re brutally loving and brutally honest? Bevan is the most honest one of us all. She has serious intimacy issues from her dad disappearing and showing up out of the blue every other year until high school graduation, which is probably why her relationship with Callum is such a mess.
“Gee, thanks. Makes me feel so much better.” I roll my eyes at her.
Am shrugs. “She kind of has a point. I mean, how long did you crush on him? Or are we still crushing on him? I thought that ended when he blew you off at that homecoming dance—”
“Please, do we have to spend this breakfast recounting the most embarrassing moments of my life?” The annoyed growl that works its way out of my throat is accompanied by a hunger pang.
Where are my goddamn pancakes?
“I just want to make sure you’re okay with this. It can still be remedied if you’re not. Callum should have given us a heads-up.” Amelie’s fingers lace with mine across the table.
“Yeah, that dickhead. He gets on me for studying too late but forgets to inform the entire house that he found someone to sublet the attic bedroom and it just so happens to be Austin Van Hewitt?” Bevan seethes in her seat next to Am.
Amelie gives her a warning look. “We’ll get to your problems in a second, but you know I’m going to tell you the same thing I always have.”
The two of us have been telling Bevan for months now that she and Callum should break up. For at least a month or two, and he should move out. Yes, I love Callum like a brother. Yes, it would make the housing situation messy. But the two of them are toxic. They couldn’t have a healthy relationship, and it’s slowly eroding both of their souls. You can practically see it.
“Fine. Taya first. She’s the more pressing issue,” Bev agrees and turns to me with an expectant expression.
I hate the way they both study me, Amelie’s blush-pink blouse perfectly laying across her enviable chest and Bevan’s leather moto jacket intimidating. My best friends are a seriously scary package, and I throw up my hands.
“I don’t know what you want me to say! I’m not the one who did this.”
Randi returns with our food, thank God, and I get a reprieve for a few minutes as we all shovel pancakes and bacon into our mouths. I didn’t go out last night, but this week’s set of quizzes was annoying and exhausting. Why does every college professor insist on testing your knowledge during week two of a new semester?
Amelie breaks the silence. “Tay, we know you didn’t do this. But you’ve had a crush on the guy for like ten years. And he doesn’t know it. And now he’s living in our house.”
I roll my eyes. “Give me more credit than that. I’ve barely seen him in the last four years, you don’t think I’ve moved past it?”
“The way you stared at him like an alien had just invaded Prospect Street would say you have not. Maury determines that is a lie,” Bevan cracks, and I scowl at her.
“Fine. I mean, seeing him brought back some memories. Some feelings. But like you said, he’s never known I existed. It shouldn’t change now. What does it matter if he’s living in the house?”
I’m trying to act nonchalant, and my best friends see right through my bullshit.
The truth is, it matters. A lot.
I’ve been half in love with Austin Van Hewitt since … well, probably the fifth grade. The first time I ever saw him was at a town carnival, and he and his seventh grade friends were goofing around on the Ferris wheel. They kept getting out of their cars and hanging from the bars, and the ride attendant was so pissed. But in typical pre-teen boy fashion, they were obnoxious and cocky enough to stick around and laugh about it.
Everyone thought they were effortlessly cool. Especially me, but only about one boy in particular. Austin. With his young Justin Bieber haircut, smile that made my heart skip a beat, and wrist full of woven bracelets made by some seventh grade girls … he was my heartthrob.
Then I learned who his family was, they practically own my hometown, and it was even harder not to be obsessed with him. And obsessed is the right word. I daydreamed about him all hours of the day, as one does about the boy they think they’re going to marry even though they’ve never talked to him or been in the same room as him.
As I got older, the stupid little crush became a living, breathing thing. When I got to high school, things intensified. I got pretty, or as pretty as I’d ever be. I watched him in the halls at our shared lunch period. I was on the freshman girls’ basketball team, while he played varsity for the boys, and I’d moon over him at practices. I thought someday he would notice me.
Cue my sophomore homecoming, where my mission was to get him to talk to me finally. Or at least dance with me. And dance we did. I’d been scooting myself over to his position all night, trying to look cool and not desperate. But my plan was for him to notice me. Notice the effortlessly beautiful high school sophomore with hair that was too stick straight since I had wrestled my waves with a hair tool and eyeliner out the wazoo.
Austin bit. He finally noticed me, and as the opening chords of “Yellow” by Coldplay floated over the dance floor, he took me in his arms. We swayed; he said something about how he liked my sparkly navy dress. They were the best four minutes of my life.
And then the song ended, a rap beat came on, he grabbed a different girl, and I was forgotten. For the entirety of that year, until he graduated and went off to Talcott two years before I arrived, he never once noticed me again. I was devastated. I’m pretty sure I took a sick day when I realized he never even asked my name.
My crush on him is—was—completely irrational. I know most everything I’ve learned about Austin Van Hewitt through hallway gossip, secondhand conversations, and that one dance we had. As ridiculous as my feelings were, I just couldn’t turn them off.
Coming to Talcott and knowing he attended college here as well gave me a spark of hope. But we’ve barely run into each other. And my crush has cooled off. It’s been over four years since I drooled over him, since I cried when he didn’t fall madly in love with me after one dance.
I’m more mature now; I have things I’m focusing on and a list of requirements that I want in a boyfriend. It’s why I don’t date much; I’m too picky. Who even knows if Austin actually fits my perfect mold.
With a defiant nod that my friends look bewildered over, I settle it within my own soul.
This will not affect me. Who cares if Austin is living under the same roof that I am? I can be an adult, I’m not in love with him anymore, and we barely know each other. I’m a strong, independent, valuable woman who doesn’t need a man to make her whole.
Absolutely nothing is going to happen between us, and I am completely okay with that.
Now, if only I can convince my rapidly panicking heart.