Messed Up Page 2

  Okay, so I shouldn’t blame my heart for doing its job, but I found it rather annoying the way it was beating like a friggin’ race horse on steroids inside my chest cavity. For one thing, how lame is it to get that excited over a boy, right? And secondly, it’s glaringly obvious that said boy was so beyond my league, it was like Ugly Betty getting excited over Zac Efron. But nonetheless, there was now the distinct possibility that Drop Dead Gorgeous Guy was going to be at Toby’s pool party. My pulse was racing at double speed as I drove toward Toby’s house for the second time that night.

  I was relieved and admittedly disappointed when a certain SUV was not parked in the Fanning’s driveway. I climbed out of my car, pulled my backpack over my shoulders and headed toward the door. It dawned on me that this was the first social function I had attended without Hannah in as long as I could remember. Knocking on Toby’s enormous front door would be so much easier with her by my side. Damn her father, damn Scotland, in fact damn the entire British Empire.

  Toby and Bryce lived in one of, if not the biggest homes in Sun Valley. It was one story, but exceptionally long. Its shape was something like a boomerang, with the wide angle looking out at a view of the valley for which our neighborhood was named. To the left of the house was a sports court, and beside that was a separate garage which stored Bryce’s father’s collection of Porsches.

  Bryce’s father was a lawyer, a successful one I surmised. He had married Toby’s mom when we were in middle school, thereby creating our school’s version of the Brady Bunch. Bryce and Toby each had sisters who were two years younger, Sophie and Shawn. They’d all played on soccer teams together and were good friends when their parents married. We’d been invited to the wedding, where Hannah and I had spent most of the night taking random pictures of Hannah’s plastic lobster, Seymour, and laughing uncontrollably.

  I rang the doorbell which chimed enthusiastically. Toby swung the door open, an eager smile pasted on his face, and I was inside before the doorbell was done with its recital of Pachelbel’s Canon.

  “Hi! You’re here!”

  “Yup,” I responded to his obvious statement, my soda’s straw still shoved in the corner of my mouth.

  “Come into my room, I was just picking out some CDs for the pool,” I followed him down a long, long hallway noticing the school pictures of each of the four kids progressing from kindergarten to high school. “We just put in a really killer sound system out by the pool,” he continued jabbering.

  I tuned out his words as we entered his room. I began looking casually at the pictures on his desk, my eyes immediately finding what they were looking for. In a simple silver frame was a picture of So Cute it Should Be Illegal with Toby and some other boys I didn’t recognize. They were standing by a lake; several of them holding dead looking fish. The photo was small, but Mystery Boy’s deep blue eyes stood out like they’d been BeDazzled. I moved the frame closer to my face to get a better look. He had short black hair that appeared to have been dyed. It was spiky in that way that looks perfectly imperfect. He was wearing a white t-shirt and black board shorts. His legs looked muscular as did his arms. I could feel myself breathing a little faster, oddly fascinated by his image. Toby paused in his monologue and I realized that he’d asked me a question.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Music? What do you like?” he seemed annoyed having realized I wasn’t listening to him.

  “Oh. I don’t care. Whatever.” Toby turned back to his CD rack. “Where was this picture taken?” I asked trying to sound nonchalant.

  Toby moved in, positioning himself behind me, looking over my shoulder and pressing his body against my back, “Oh, yeah. That’s at Blue Lake. Check out the fish I caught!”

  “Mmm, hmm,” I replied not moving my eyes, “Who are these guys you’re with?” Casual, casual.

  “A bunch of friends I have over at St. Jacobs.” Well, that explains the BMW, I thought. St. Jacobs is the private Catholic school where all the rich kids go so that they can do drugs and get into Ivy League colleges. Toby’s hand reached around me to point to the figure I was scrutinizing, “That’s my best friend, Levi.”

  “As in the jeans?”

  “As in Bennett. Levi Bennett.” There it was. A name I will never forget, as long as I live, Levi Bennett, “He’s a senior,” Toby added.

  “I didn’t know you kicked it with St. Jacobs dudes,” I replied putting the picture down on the desk and turning around to sit on the edge of it, trying to put some distance between myself and Toby. He went back to his CDs. “So, what’s his story,” I asked lightly trying to look uninterested.

  “He’s super into music. He has like every mp3 ever made. You wouldn’t believe it!”

  “Sounds amazing,” I replied unenthusiastically, thinking how easily boys are impressed.

  “Levi’s crazy though.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere, “In what way?”

  “He has no fears or limits. He does whatever the hell he feels like,” Toby looked up as he said this, like he was thinking about something specific.

  “What do you mean?” the curiosity bubbling up in my words.

  “Well,” Toby lowered his voice to a whisper. I instinctually leaned in, “This one time we were--”

  Suddenly, Bryce Fanning and Sam Arns burst through the door. Toby and I both jumped, like we’d been caught doing something R-rated. Sam got a massive smile on his face and winked at me conspiratorially. I glared at him hoping to clearly illustrate that absolutely nothing was going on between me and Toby. Bryce was much less subtle, “Oh! Did we interrupt?” he said with a huge grin.

  “No!” I practically yelled. Bryce and Sam broke out into raucous laughter, Toby turned several shades of red, and I looked up at the ceiling summoning my inner Hannah.

  3

  So what, you might ask, is my excuse for calling Toby the next afternoon and asking him to hangout? I mean, it’s not like he’d won me over the night before with his impressive box collection of the Ramones. Honestly, I don’t have a good answer, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I didn’t have a lot of other options that night. And as we all know: desperate times call for desperate measures, and beggars can’t be choosers. I’m sure both colloquiums were invented by the same lonely adolescent girl.

  In any event, Toby seemed beyond thrilled to hear my voice, which isn’t bad on the old ego. I asked if he’d like to go with me to a movie that night. I didn’t have any particular movie in mind, and was willing to see anything.

  Of course, the anything movie that Toby chose turned out to be a freaky slasher movie about the devil coming to wreak havoc on a small town. The devil’s manifestation in this particular film was as a serial killer in a Dick Cheney mask. What a subtle metaphor. I screamed and laughed noisily throughout the movie and it felt really good to be having fun, even without Hannah. At one point Toby reached over and grabbed my hand. He laced his fingers through mine. I didn’t really mind either, until his hand became exceedingly sweaty, at which point I pulled my hand away to cover my eyes, conveniently.

  After the movie, Toby drove me home talking incessantly and so fast its amazing his tongue just didn’t give up and fall out. I could hardly keep up, and for once I was actually trying. He told me a story about a time he thought he saw a ghost when he was camping. It involved him running franticly toward the river, and accidently falling in. I laughed effusively with him, thinking to myself how if Hannah had been there we would have been laughing at him. I didn’t miss the fact that he had been camping with Levi Bennett at the time, but I restrained myself from getting sidetracked by my strange obsession, and let it slide. I figured there’d be plenty of time for interrogating Toby about Mr. Hottie.

  When we got to my house, I surprised myself, and I think Toby, by inviting him in. My parents were out for the night with some friends; probably enjoying the respite from their wallowing daughter. Toby sat at the kitchen counter on a bar stool. I forced myself to ignore how far his feet swung from
the floor. He continued to relay story after story, most of which had to do with some insane band he’d seen in concert. I made popcorn in the microwave and poured glasses of Dr. Pepper. I tried not to focus too closely on the fact that this was me and Hannah’s late night routine. I was not going to allow myself to be depressed anymore. It was acceptance time. Period.

  Eventually Toby either ran out of things to say or needed a chance to breathe, and insisted on seeing my CD collection. This boy has a music obsession. We took our glasses into my room. Toby sat down at my desk flipping through my rather bleak music collection. I plopped myself on my bed, leaning against the wall to face him.

  “Really? This is it?” he said raising his eyebrows in mock disgust.

  “Yup,” I nodded, “That’s all I’ve got.”

  “This is pretty bad,” he laughed.

  “Listen,” I said, a little annoyed, “All my music has to fit into one of two categories. Either it is something I can sing all the words to, or it makes me laugh.” I hadn’t actually considered this before, but it seemed to ring true. “Or it’s from a movie soundtrack,” I amended.

  “That’s three categories,” he smiled.

  I shrugged, “You got me.”

  “My best friend Levi would shit his pants if he saw this selection.”

  “That would be very unpleasant for him,” I said trying not to stumble over the reference to Dream Boy, “I mean the shit in his pants part.” Toby moved next to me on the bed. He got very serious all of a sudden and turned to look at me in the face, “Yes?” I asked, smiling slightly.

  I didn’t see what was coming at all, I swear, but the next thing I knew there he was. Toby began pressing his obscenely large lips onto me, first missing my mouth completely then correcting slightly and moving back in for the kill. Shoot, shoot, shoot, I thought. His mouth was hot, and way too soft. I felt my face being drenched in his saliva. This was worse than I had anticipated, if I had anticipated it, which for some reason, I hadn’t.

  Then, as if coming to my rescue, the phone rang. Praise God, Hallelujah! I practically leapt from my bed. I grabbed the phone off my desk, while wiping my mouth with my sleeve as I went. I turned my back to Toby, not ready to make eye contact. I prayed that this distraction would buy me some time to figure a way out of my current sloppy kissing dilemma.

  “Hello?” I said into the receiver.

  As if whispering into my ear, I heard the softest, most liquid like voice I had ever encountered, “Is Toby there?” the words seemed incongruous to the voice that said them.

  “Yeah,” I answered slowly, startled, by both the voice and the question. I knew intuitively who was on the line. Who else would have such a sexy voice?

  “Don’t give him the phone,” he said quickly with an edge creeping into his soft tone, “Could you just give him a message for me?”

  For you, anything, “Sure.”

  “This is Levi,” his voice was calm, “Tell him I need him to meet me at the hotel as soon as possible,” he paused, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” I could hear the subtle smile in his voice.

  “Absolutely not,” I stated definitively. At this he laughed gently; a laugh that put a tiny smile on the edge of my lips.

  “Thank you, Chelsea,” and I heard the line click. I took a breath, returned the phone to its base, and turned to face Toby. He was still sitting on my bed, trying unsuccessfully, to look alluring.

  “That was your friend, Levi?” I said acting like the name was only vaguely familiar, “He said to tell you to meet him at the hotel right away. He didn’t say what hotel though, so I hope that makes sense to you.”

  Toby bolted up, startling me with his sudden movement, and headed to the door, “Did he…sound…mad? At all?” he asked without looking back to me.

  “Nope. Why?” Toby’s body seemed to relax a fraction. He sighed, and continued to leave. I followed him down the stairs and to the front door, “Toby, is everything alright?”

  “Totally,” he answered unconvincingly, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He then bounded to his car without looking back at me.

  I stood at the door, my mouth hanging open in stunned shock. Had I just been fully ditched by Toby Fanning? Wasn’t he supposed to be my number one fan? Apparently I wasn’t the only one with a thing for Levi Bennett. I decided to attribute Toby’s fleeing exit to the doomed best friend label, or maybe a boy-crush. But then again, neither explained the look of sheer panic that had crossed his face. Toby had looked downright frightened. I wondered what was happening at the hotel. The whole thing added a layer of intrigue to Levi, not that he need it to solidify his place as my current and greatest infatuation. Nope, his complete and utter hotness had done the job. Whatever the story was with Toby, I was relieved to have gotten out of the abundant saliva fiasco relatively unscathed. By the way, I brushed my teeth twice just to be sure I’d gotten rid of any Toby Fanning contamination.

  As I lay in bed that night, I closed my eyes and tried to bring back the sound of Levi’s hushed voice to my mind. I was desperate to hold on to it, but disappointingly, his voice was nowhere to be found. I could, however, remember his eyes. So as I drifted off to sleep I focused on that.

  I woke up the next morning feeling more contented than I had since Hannah had left. The mystery of Levi was fascinating, and kept me from dwelling on my lonesomeness. I knew I was being a little bit of a stalker about this guy who I didn’t even know. I figured it couldn’t hurt, seeing as he would never be the wiser. I decided that I would stop pursuing Toby, due the obvious flaws in a relationship with one-sided attraction. In any case, after Toby’s exit last night, maybe the chemistry was nonexistent on all fronts. I would give it a couple of days and then try to revive a friendship with him.

  I don’t know about you, but I am constantly misplacing my remote control, so I was actually on my hands and knees, halfway under my bed when my phone started ringing. As I shimmied back out, a spring from the bed frame caught a chunk of my hair. “Crap,” I muttered, reaching my hand to my head to free my hair from its captor. My phone rang a second and third time. The spring was gripping my hair like its very life depended on it. I finally resorted to ripping out a sizable chunk before freeing myself, “Ouch!” I shouted, grabbing the phone and flipping it open, “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s Toby,” Oh, Jesus, Chelsea! You couldn’t have just let it go to voicemail?

  “How’s it going Toby?” I sighed.

  “Good,” he sounded like his cheery self again, “Guess what? My friend Levi, got you a ticket to Lollapalooza tomorrow night! Do you want to go with me?”

  “He got me a ticket?” I asked trying not sound flattered, but I totally was.

  “Well, he had an extra one and told me I could invite you,” he explained.

  “How nice of him to give you permission,” I joked, “What is Lalla-whatever?”

  “Oh my God, Chels. Your music knowledge is really pathetic. It’s a concert with like ten different bands,” he began to recite a list of bands as my mind drifted to the original ticket holder.

  “Will this Levi guy be there?” I asked interrupting him, “So I can thank him, I mean.”

  “Are you serious? Of course!” he was aghast that I would ask such an apparently asinine question, “So does that mean you will go?”

  “Sure. It sounds like it will be very educational for me.”

  I might not have accepted so quickly had I known the concert would begin at noon and last until at least ten-thirty at night. Listening to music for an entire day sounded like my idea of hell on earth-- if you haven’t figured it out yet, music is not one of my passions. Not to mention, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t know the words to any of these songs. But on the other hand, getting a better look at Levi Bennett would be worth the suffering. Toby told me he’d pick me up at eleven. Fantastic.

  4

  As I got dressed the next morning, I reasoned that I might actually meet God’s gift to my eyes, so I ignored my mom’s advice about dressi
ng in layers in favor of looking cute. I put on my too expensive denim skirt with the pocket flaps that made my butt look good, and a plaid tube top. For shoes I chose my gray Converse low tops, without socks. I inspected myself in the mirror carefully and commended myself for pulling off both kind of sexy and kind of punk.

  I packed my trusty green backpack with sunscreen (how sensible is that, right?), a thin button up sweater, a rather tattered copy of The Catcher in the Rye, an apple and a bottle of water. I waited in the living room for Toby as my mom gave me the requisite parental lecture about not drinking or doing drugs or taking candy from strangers. I thought it was about time she drop that last one. I heard a knock at the door. Before heading down the stairs, and glanced out the window. My heart sunk.

  Toby’s mom was sitting in her convertible white Mercedes in front of my house. Toby’s sister was next to her in the front seat. No, I thought, this can’t be happening! My mom had answered the door and was shouting to me, “Chelsea, Toby’s here.” Is it too late? Can I cancel now? I could hear my mom talking with Toby. She sounded very pleased when he told her his mom would be driving us to the concert and staying for the whole dang thing. “Chelsea!” my mom called again. I dragged myself down the stairs slowly, still not giving up the hope that a suitable excuse for flaking would come to me before I reached the door. But alas, I was denied by my own sucky brain.

  The drive to the concert was a two hour car ride from hell, in which I was battered by the wind at seventy miles per hour, leaving my hair to look like a rat’s nest. I cursed the evil people who design convertibles. We finally arrived in a sprawling gravel lot where we had to park practically in another state. The concert venue was miles away, across a vast expanse of cars. We began weaving our way through the cars toward the stadium’s entrance. Toby and I broke away from his mom and sister. He took my hand in his. I immediately moved it away.