I'll Be Here

It’s not like that got cancelled because Dustin broke up with me.  A girl’s voice asks who is on the phone and Taylor covers the mouthpiece so the sound is muffled but I can still hear my name.  I can’t make out anything else that is said.  Taylor giggles.  It echoes through my ear canal like a yell.   
    “So…”  I start awkwardly but Taylor interrupts. 
    “Wiiii—iii--loooow!”  Sometimes she does this: says my name with too—oo—oo many syllables.  She’s buzzed.  She’s happy.  And why shouldn’t she be?  She’s a teenager at a party with all my friends.  My ex- friends.  “I’m so bummed about you and Dustin, you know?  But don’t worry about him.  He’s just a guy and all guys are pricks, right?  Total pricks.  Pricks on sticks!”  She giggles at her joke.  “How about you?  Are you doing okay sweetie?”
    I sigh.  “Yeah.  Thanks.  I’m okay I guess.  It’s just—” 
    It’s just what? I think.  But I don’t need to finish.  Taylor’s mouth is at work and she’s telling me that she thinks it was a mistake and blah blah blah.  I thought this would make me feel better—less empty—but it doesn’t.  The more she talks, the more her words slur together.  Great.  I want to ask her if she knows who the other girl is—maybe she’s at the party even—but something stops me.  I do want answers but I know that once I learn them I can’t unlearn them. 
    I am so pathetic.  The line falls silent and I’m clued in enough to know that even though she hasn’t said it in so many words, Taylor wants to get back to the party.  I say goodbye and we hang up with promises to talk tomorrow. 
    If a dress could laugh, my gold prom dress would be laughing at me from its hanger.
    I close my eyes and take it all in: the break-up, the sad prom dress, me—friendless and still in my pajamas from the night before, the laughter at Roland’s party and Taylor’s pity.
    And a new thought takes shape in my head and it’s as real and solid as I am. 
    The world spins on without you Willow.

 
     
     
    Crawl ‘til dawn on my hands and knees
    Goddamn these vampires for what they’ve done to me.
    ~Mountain Goats
    “Damn These Vampires”

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Monday is a school holiday.  It’s one of those ambiguous teacher workdays that shows up in the middle of the semester.  Normally, I love these days.  I’d sleep in late and Dustin would come over just before noon and we’d chill on my bedroom floor alternating between making out and eating junk food.  Today I wake up to a black hole the size of multiple galaxies that’s decided to take up residence in my stomach.  
    Mom and Jake are at work, and Aaron is enjoying the glue-eating and hair-pulling joys of pre-kindergarten.   As I yank on a pair of baggy shorts and a wrinkly t-shirt from the dredges of my bottom drawer, I wonder if Dustin chose this weekend in particular to end things so that I would have an extra day of no school to recover.  I think so.  In a way, that seems nice of him, but in other ways it embarrasses me even more because I wonder just how long he’s been planning this.  And how long has he been carrying on with someone else behind my back?  I think about him and the still faceless girl making out, sneaking phone calls in darkened rooms, holding hands, talking about me . 
    On a whim, I decide to reorganize my room.  Using up all my arm strength, I move the bed from under the window to the east wall and I corner the desk and bookshelf creating a sort of nook.  I hide the gold dress in the back of my closet between my winter jacket and a grey corduroy jacket that doesn’t belong to me and has a story all it’s own. 
    Underneath my bed, trapped under a stack of last year’s textbooks and the sketchbooks I stopped filling diligently my sophomore year, I find an old poster of astrological signs that my mom gave me on my twelfth birthday.  I decide to tack it up on the wall above the desk because the colors are bright and the illustrations are beautiful.  Despite myself I start to read the descriptions of the zodiac signs.
    According to the chart, Capricorn is an earth sign and generally considered compatible with other earth signs. 
    I am a Gemini—an air sign. 
    Ugh!  I sound like my mother.  Is it even remotely possible that a thing as complex as love can be simplified by a guide written by a group of star-gazing old men a thousand years ago? 
    The last thing I