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  MESSED UP

  by

  Molly Owens

  MESSED UP—October 2011, Molly Owens

  All rights reserved.

  This book and parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  www.mollyowens.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  There are eight long hours between California time and that of Edinburg, Scotland. When I picked up the phone and dialed the fifteen digit number that would connect me with Hannah, I knew my call would be ringing in her sleeping house at four-thirty in the morning. So I wasn’t surprised by her mother’s less than thrilled voice, “Chelsea, do you know what time it is here?” she asked, not attempting to hide her irritation.

  “Sorry Ellen, but I really need to talk to Hannah. It’s imperative.”

  “Imperative, huh?” she grumbled, too tired to put up a fight, “Hang on.”

  I could hear Hannah’s confused moan as her mom explained that I was on the phone. Her voice sounded three quarters asleep when she finally spoke into the receiver, “Chelsea? Are you okay?” she croaked, “Why haven’t you written me back?”

  “I’m sorry Han, it is a long story. I promise to tell you later, just not now. I need to ask you a huge favor.”

  “Does this have anything to do with that hot guy you’ve been seeing?” she asked with a yawn, “I knew he’d be trouble. Guys that cute always are--it’s in their DNA.”

  “I really can’t explain now,” I said hoping she would give me a chance to get my words out.

  “So what’s so important that you are interrupting my precious sleep?”

  I took a breath and explained slowly, “I sent you something in the mail. When you get it, hide it in a safe place and guard it with your life.”

  “What is it?” she asked sounding suddenly captivated.

  “I can’t say over the phone. Just promise me you’ll keep it safe.”

  “Okay Ms. Vagueness. Fine,” she said sleepily, “But I hope you know I’m going to need an explanation for all this at some point, very soon.”

  I prepared myself to say the next part; the piece that I was sure would be hard for Hannah to hear, “Hannah, if anything happens to me. If I go missing, or… die… You need to take what I sent you and destroy it. Promise me.”

  Hannah was silent for a second, “Okay Chelsea,” she said in a whisper, “This isn’t funny. What the hell is going on? You don’t talk to me practically all summer, when you email it is superficial and lame, and now you call me at four in the morning with this dire request. You’re really beginning to freak me out.” I could hear a car pull up in front of my house. I recognized its quiet hum immediately. There wasn’t time for explanations.

  “I’ve got to go, Hannah. I’m really sorry, but please do this for me. Don’t mention it to anyone, whatever you do. Please Hannah. I love you,” I hung up without another word. Despite her anger, I knew she would follow my instructions.

  1

  Maybe it was because I had nothing better to do that I finally relented and went out with Toby Fanning. I had never considered him attractive. He was skinny and short, no taller than my five foot three inches, fohawk included. He had small pixie-like hands that were covered with freckles. His entire body, in fact, was saturated with the little brown dots. Not that I don’t have a few myself, but there was something about his that I found excessive. And then there were his lips. They just seemed much too big for his face. Plus they looked like they would feel squishy, kind of like little Jell-O filled sausages.

  He did have nice eyes, though. They were actually quite beautiful; the color of sea foam. But there is a lot more to desirability than a set of lovely eyes, and I simply was not attracted to Toby. I reasoned that, although very slight, there was a glimmer of hope that he would grow on me, and not like a toxic mold, but like the soapy flavor of cilantro—an acquired taste. Toby was friendly and outgoing, almost to a fault. He laughed at my jokes, which has always gone a long way for me. My mom would say he had a good heart. And he did. He really did.

  It had been exactly one week, two days, and four hours since Hannah had left me to fend for myself for the entire summer vacation and the two remaining years of high school. Hannah Larson had been my closest friend, my only friend really, or at least of any consequence, since the fifth grade. We’d met when we were both sentenced to five consecutive months sitting next to Dennis Fabrinni and Matt Specks, the two biggest troublemakers at our elementary school. We were there to act as NATO forces, to keep the peace. Mr. Rivers hoped that our common status of over-achieving grade grubbers, would rub off on said losers. No such luck.

  Every morning when Hannah got to school she would pull out her glittery purple pencil box from her desk, and carefully place her prized collection of food shaped erasers in a neat and tidy line: hamburger, ice cream cone, sushi roll, orange Popsicle, root beer bottle. I would watch her with envied fascination, as I glanced down at my own, rather uninspired heart shaped eraser. I didn’t have the courage to speak to Hannah until the third day of our stay in purgatory, when I’d offered to share my crayons with her; a jumbo box with a hundred and two different colors.

  “Nah,” she’d said, “Crayons get stuck in my braces.” We’d looked at each other and started laughing like that was the most hilarious thing that had ever been said in the history of the world, no, universe. From that day forward we were inseparable. Attached at the hip, Hannah’s mom would say. I loved Hannah’s random and bizarre sense of humor, and she was delighted by my constant scheming.

  I was the one who orchestrated Hannah’s first, in a rather overpopulated series of relationships, with the tallest kid in our class, Nathan Scott. She’d spent practically every night at my house the following summer. We’d sneak out of my bedroom window and meet up with Nathan and his friends. Hannah had her first kiss on the stairs of my garage. By default, my boyfriend was Nathan’s elfin best friend, Sean. I could never even make eye contact with him. Hannah was the extrovert with all the bravado. She was the Batman to my Robin.

  The next year we started at Lincoln Middle School together. All our friends became obsessed with being popular. This translated into wearing the right outfit, not eating or even sitting at lunch, talking only to the cool boys, and being evil and vindictive to your friends. Hannah and I tried to do the popular thing, but failed miserably. After three months of feeling overly self-conscious and very hungry we decided to forfeit our chances at popularity and sit. We found a tree by the grass and ate our lunches. Then and there we decided two things. 1. We were best friends, but since the term, best friends seemed to be the kiss of death for friendships, we would stick with the label, closest friends, and 2. As long as we had one another we really didn’t need to put up with the crap that other people were throwing at us.

  Eventually, other girls joined us under the tree. We had a group of friends that would come and go. We’d watch, shaking our heads, as other girl’s best-friendships ended in turmoil. We continued this way into high school. Things got easier there. We had a large group of kids we hung around with, but when it came down to it, it was always me and Hannah. At parties, at dances, on dates, Hannah was my constant. Knowing she was there gave me courage. No matter what I did, what social faux pas I made, I wouldn’t be alone. Hannah wasn’t going anywhere. That is, until, her dad got a job in Scotland, of all randomly obscure places, right?

  My life without Hannah had sucked just as much as I had anticipated. My mom, the therapist, had warned me that I would go through the typical pattern of grie
f that signifies a great loss. DABDA was the acronym she’d assigned for Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Maybe it was due to my current state of perpetual PMS, but I swear to God, I’d gone through each stage of grief concurrently rather than one at a time, which is probably why I felt so emotionally strung out the day Toby called.

  As it turns out acceptance is just a psychobabble term for being fed up by one’s own whiney thoughts. So basically, what I’m trying to say is, Toby caught me in a moment of weakness. The phone rang and I answered it immediately, anything to break the monotony of another boring, Hannah-less, summer day.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Chels! It’s Toby,” he sounded like a hyperactive puppy. If I could see him, I was sure he’d be jumping on all fours, his tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Oh. Hi Toby. What’s up?” I did my best to not sound pissed that I didn’t screen the call, but I was. Really freaking pissed.

  “I’m having some people over tonight to go swimming. You wanna come?”

  I quickly thought about whether or not it would be rude to ask who else was going to be there. I figured it would. “Sure,” I conceded, “I mean, yeah, that sounds fun.”

  “Great! So I’ll see you around eight?”

  “Okay.”

  “Great!” You said that, “Bye!”

  “Hasta.”

  I flopped back on my bed, annoyed by life in general and by Toby Fanning specifically. The thing is, Toby had been crushing on me for the past six months, ever since we’d ended up together in Mr. Miller’s sixth period art class. Toby was into art, but I was there by default. My guidance counselor, Mr. Truman, had said that NYU was looking for well rounded students and furthermore Survey of Arts was the only class that would fit into my schedule if I wanted to take both Calculus and Latin 3. So I’d found myself rubbing elbows with a mixture of loaded burnouts and drama girls with China bangs. Oh, and Toby, who was neither.

  Toby and I had been friendly acquaintances since middle school, but thanks to the art class and the fact Hannah had hooked up with his bestie, Sam Arns, I had suddenly found Toby glued to my side like a superfluous appendage. Note, my use of SAT words, thank you very much. In any event, I had been dodging his advances for months. And now, I was facing a night with me in a bathing suit and Toby’s leering eyes. So gross.

  I reached for the phone, first to call Hannah for moral support, then realizing it would be the middle of the night in Scotland, to call Toby back with some justification for flaking. I could tell him that I had suddenly come down a case of Swine flu, or that my parents said I had to stay in. Both sounded like lame excuses. People don’t generally become ill within a five minute period, and my parents never said no to anything, they’d given up on that when my older sister was in high school. I decided to go where no girl had gone before, and give good old Toby a chance. I mean, seriously, what else did I have to do?

  2

  About an hour north of San Francisco, past countless pastures of grazing cattle and several outlet malls is the small city where I live, Santa Juanita. It’s nestled between two unassuming mountain ranges which work to trap in both the insufferable heat of the summer, and the bitter cold of the winter. Santa Juanita was a quiet town for most of its history, its population hovering around twenty-five thousand. Then there was the advent of suburbia, and like an overstuffed burrito, the town burst wide open. In a matter of a few years the number of people moving to town doubled, and then doubled again. Real estate investors swooped in and housing developments filled with custom-tract homes were erected. Hannah and I, and basically everyone I knew, lived in one of the neighborhoods of suburban sprawl, called Sun Valley.

  My house was on Violet Way; Hannah’s was on Marigold Road. The developer who built our particular subdivision thought it would be cute to name all the streets after flowers. There was also Dahlia Street, Rose Avenue, and Pansy Place. I thought he was really pushing his luck with Chrysanthemum Court; imagine writing that every day for the rest of your life. The streets were all deep black with bright white and yellow marks, indicative of recent repaving. On either side of the obscenely wide lanes were clean sidewalks that were very rarely utilized by pedestrians. Santa Juanita was a driving town, sidewalks were reserved for little girls on pink ten speeds and soccer mom’s walking their rat terriers.

  Toby lived about two minutes from me on Honeysuckle Lane. I left my house at eight fifteen, figuring I’d attempt fashionably late this time rather than my customary on-the-dot punctuality. When I pulled up to Toby’s sprawling ranch style house, my eyes searched the long driveway for cars that I recognized. I groaned as it became apparent I was either the first to arrive, or the only one invited. I quickly popped my 1994 maroon Volvo into reverse and headed for 7-Eleven. If I was going to be stuck alone with Toby Fanning for the next several hours, caffeine would be essential for my survival. And what better way to get my fix than with a two liter Double Big Gulp of Dr. Pepper. I reasoned that the detour would also delay my arrival by at least twenty minutes, which was an obvious bonus.

  Everyone who breaths oxygen and concurrently attends Montecito High School spends time loitering at the 7-Eleven in Sun Valley. Some people, and I am not even kind of joking here, actually call it Club Sevi. For the record, I am not one of those people. I sat in my car for at least five solid minutes mentally preparing to walk through the crowd of curly haired lipstick chicks and intoxicated football heads that were stationed in a pack by the entrance.

  Had Hannah’s dad not decided to uproot his entire family and force his daughter, my partner in crime, to move six thousand miles away to a dark and dreary country, I wouldn’t have been alone that night, practically stalking a minimart. In fact, I would not have been watching through the store’s huge windows as Darrell Carpenter, pervert extraordinaire, shoved a four pack of strawberry flavored wine coolers into his backpack. But I was there, taking a deep breath, climbing out of my car, slamming the heavy door shut, and pushing my way through the double doors of the convenience store.

  I went directly to the beverage bar and grabbed the super enormous, colossally big, altogether gluttonous Double Big Gulp cup in my two hands and began to fill it with the brown syrupy liquid that had been my savior time and time again. From my periphery I could see Darrell moving towards me, with his clearly rehearsed swagger. Normally I would have groaned inwardly, but that night, I went with all out with an audible, Oh my God, do I really have to deal with you? sigh.

  “Chelsea,” Darrell cooed as he reached my side, “I want to kill myself knowing that my fantasy of a Hannah Larson, Chelsea Mallory sandwich will never come true.”

  “Yeah, that’s really a loss. You know it’s always been my dream to be with a guy whose penis is the size and shape of a fingerling potato,” I scowled at him.

  “Dude Chelsea, what do you even know about dicks?” he scoffed.

  “I know I’m looking at one,” I spat back at him, nearly overfilling my cup with soda.

  He laughed, “You are so screwed next year with Hannah gone. You are more than a nobody now.”

  “Sorry if I’m infringing upon your territory, Darrell,” I said snapping the lid on my soda.

  The thing that made me mad, that really pissed me off, was that Darrell, with all of two gleaming brain cells, got right to the heart of the issue. A guy, whose claim to fame was that he could inhale spaghetti through his nostrils, saw that I was a nonentity without Hannah. She had been my backbone. Without her, I was a spineless piece of nothing, just biding my time until college. If Darrell saw that, then surely everyone at Montecito would.

  My anger at Darrell was bubbling hot inside me as I walked purposefully to the cash register and placed my dollar ninety-five on the counter, “You see that guy over there?” I asked the clerk, motioning my head toward Darrell, “The super grimy one who looks like he’s washed his hair with canola oil?”

  The clerk nodded, and pushed a strand of his own rather greasy hair behind his ear
, “Yeah?”

  “He’s got a pack of your wine coolers in his backpack,” I informed him.

  “Thanks,” the clerk mumbled as he moved around the counter, and headed for Darrell.

  It was at that precise moment, as I turned my head to watch the ensuing confrontation, that I first saw a set of eyes which would ultimately change the course of my life. You know how in movies, when something really important happens, everything freezes except for the main characters? Well that is exactly how it was when I first saw him. There he was, not ten feet from me, in line at the next register. He looked right at me with a tiny smile at the corner of his lips. My eyes met his, deep and dark blue, piercing, like they could see into me. I quickly turned away. It was like being punched in the stomach. I literally gasped. I tried to concentrate on putting my change into my wallet, but my heart was pounding so determinedly in my chest, I was unable to focus. Get a grip, Chelsea, I thought, it’s not like you’ve never seen a hot guy before. But I hadn’t, not like him anyway.

  Then I heard him laugh as he walked past me toward the door, holding a six pack of beer in one hand. His eyes landed on my face and for the briefest of moments, I froze. He smiled as if we were sharing our own personal joke, and nodded his head slightly as he walked out of the store. “Oh my god,” I said, sticking my straw into my mouth and gulping up a swig of Dr. Pepper.

  I hurried to the parking lot, my jumbo soda held securely in my two hands, just in time to see Mr. I Am the Hottest Thing to Walk the Face of the Planet climb into the driver’s seat of a navy blue BMW SUV. His car pulled swiftly onto Gladiola Lane, and just as it passed, I caught a glimpse of who was riding shot gun, Bryce Fanning, Toby’s step brother.