This Girl: A Novel

the door, then turn around and punch it over and over, harder and harder. When I can’t feel my hand anymore, I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead against the door. I’ve had so much to process these past two weeks—I don’t know how to process this, too.
    What the hell has happened to my life?
    I eventually make my way back to the bed and sit with my elbows on my knees, head in my hands. My mom and dad are smiling at me from the confines of the glass frame on my nightstand, watching me unfold. Watching as the culmination of all that has happened these last two weeks slowly tears me apart.
    Why weren’t they better prepared for something like this? Why would they risk leaving me with all of this responsibility? Their ill-preparedness has cost me my scholarship, the love of my life, and now, quite possibly, my entire future. I snatch the picture up and place my thumbs over their photograph. With all my force, I squeeze until the glass cracks between my fingertips. Once it’s successfully shattered—just like my life—I rare back and throw it as hard as I can against the wall in front of me. The frame breaks in two when it meets the wall and shards of glass sprinkle the carpet.
    I’m reaching over to turn off my lamp when my bedroom door opens again.
    “Just leave, Vaughn. Please.”
    I look up and see Caulder standing in the doorway, crying. He looks terrified. It’s the same look I’ve seen so many times since the moment our parents died. It’s the same look he had when I hugged him good-bye at the hospital and made him leave with my grandparents. It’s the same look that rips my heart in two every time I see it.
    It’s a look that immediately brings me back down to earth.
    I wipe my eyes and motion for him to come closer. When he does, I wrap my arms around him and pull him onto my lap, then hug him while he quietly cries into my shirt. I rock him back and forth and stroke his hair. I kiss him on the forehead and pull him closer.
    “Want to sleep with me again tonight, Buddy?”

2.
    the honeymoon
    “WOW,” LAKE SAYS in disbelief. “what a selfish bitch.”
    “Yeah. Thank God for that,” I say. I clasp my hands together behind my head and look up at the ceiling, mirroring Lake’s position on the bed. “It’s funny how history almost repeated itself.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Think about it. Vaughn broke up with me because she didn’t want to be with me just because she felt sorry for me. You broke up with me because you thought I was with you because I felt sorry for you.”
    “I didn’t break up with you,” she says defensively.
    I laugh and sit up on the bed. “The hell you didn’t! Your exact words were, ‘I don’t care if it takes days, or weeks, or months.’ That’s a breakup.”
    “It was not. I was giving you time to think.”
    “Time I didn’t need.” I lie back down on my pillow and face her again. “It sure felt like a breakup.”
    “Well,” she says, looking at me. “Sometimes two people need to fall apart to realize how much they need to fall back together.”
    I take her hand and rest it between us, then stroke the back of it with my thumb. “Let’s not fall apart again,” I whisper.
    She looks me in the eyes. “Never.”
    There’s vulnerability in the way she looks at me in silence. Her eyes scroll over my face and her mouth is curled up into a slight grin. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t have to. I know in these moments, when it’s just her and me and nothing else, that she truly, soul-deep loves me.
    “What was it like the first time you saw me?” she asks. “What was it about me that made you want to ask me out? And tell me everything, even the bad thoughts.”
    I laugh. “There weren’t any bad thoughts. Naughty thoughts, maybe. But not bad.”
    She grins. “Well then tell me those, too.”

the introduction
    I HOLD THE phone to my ear with my shoulder and finish buttoning my shirt. “I promise, Grandma,” I say into the phone. “I’m leaving straight from work on Friday. We’ll be there by five but right now we’re running late, I need to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
    She says her good-byes and I hang up the phone. Caulder walks through the living room with his backpack slung across his shoulder and a green, plastic army helmet on his head. He’s always trying to sneak random accessories to school. Last week when I dropped him off, he was out of the car before I even noticed he was wearing a holster.
    I reach out