Operation Beautiful

“So...what made you want to hang out at this absurdly early hour?” Trevor asks as we meander through the downtown sidewalks.

“Nothing. Just bored and I thought you’d be up. Heard anything from Haley yet?” We pause at a crosswalk.

“Yeah. She called last night when she landed and then again this morning.” He looks at me quizzically. “She said she was going to email everyone.”

“I haven’t checked, to be honest. I, uh, I took Emma ice skating yesterday.”

Trevor raises an eyebrow. “Really? Are you guys going out now?”

A grin breaks out on my face as I nod as nonchalantly as I can manage. “Pretty much. I had to sit through her dad’s grilling this morning.”

“Ouch,” Trevor says sympathetically. “Well, parents can go a little overboard sometimes.”

“Oh no!” I say quickly. “He was really nice about it, surprisingly.”

“Well, considering you were at the hospital with Emmaleigh more often than he was, it’s not too surprising,” Trevor points out. “Though that wasn’t really his fault.”

But the mention of my conversation with Mark makes me think of something else. “Hey...have you thought about next year?”

“What do you mean?” The signal for us to cross lights up and we begin to walk across the street, the incessant beeping of the signal following us.

“Where do you want to go to college?” I ask him.

Trevor barely considers the question. “Harvard, hopefully.”

“And Haley?”

He frowns for a moment, thinking about it. “She applied all over the place, but her mom wants her to stay close to home, even if she does stay in the dorms.” His face clears. “Oh! That’s what you’re worried about.”

I shrug. “Well, Em’s dad brought it up and I can’t stop thinking about it now.”

“Dude,” Trevor says, clasping me on the shoulder. “Stop. It’s March. You have plenty of time to think about this stuff. You and Emma got together this morning. Be happy for a little bit before you start worrying about something four/five months from now, okay? Let’s talk about something else.”

“Are you worried?” I ask.

“About what?”

“About you and Haley. If you’ll be in different states.”

Trevor stops me on the other side of the street, both hands on my shoulders. “Stop. Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, trying to think of something else to talk about. Well, since we’re already talking about Haley... “Did Haley say anything interesting on the phone?”

He shakes his head. “No. She just wanted to tell me she’d reached. And then this morning she called to tell me that, uh...” he scratches the back of his head.

“That what?”

His words come out hastily, like he’s trying to reason away his sentimentality. “I gave her something that I thought would help with her nightmares and she called to let me know that it had worked.”

A curious smirk comes over my face. “Really? What did you give her?”

“Hey, look at that!” Trevor says quickly, pointing off into the distance.

“Dude, I’m just going to ask Haley, you know that right?”

“Whatever,” he mutters. “Anyway, what are we doing here?”

“We’re hanging out,” I say, playing along with his horrible subject-change. “Like old pals.”

“Mmm.”

We walk around in silence for a bit, enjoying the LA scenery.

“Thanks a lot,” Trevor says with a sigh, stopping in front of a See’s Candy.

“What?”

“Now you’ve got me thinking about it.” He sighs again and ruffles his hair. “College and shit.”

“You and Haley haven’t talked about it?”

“We’ve thought about it, obviously.” We start walking again, Trevor looking more agitated. “But we haven’t really discussed it. I mean, I told her I was applying to Harvard and she didn’t suggest that I should aim for anywhere closer to home or anything. And I guess the fact that we’d be in different states didn’t really register with me when she talked about staying in LA.”

“So what are you guys going to do?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says with a shrug. “I think that’s the best we can do, right?”

“I don’t think you can do nothing,” I point out.

“You know, for some reason I thought this outing was going to be less stressful than this,” Trevor says pointedly.

“Sorry, sorry. Let’s just...keep walking.”

***
A few days pass. Thanks to the time difference, emailing Haley has been a bit of a hassle.

Sorry I haven’t replied until now. My dad’s been showing us around. The boss-lady? Yeah, my mom dealt with her real quick. So not a threat ;) Not a happy boss-lady now, though. And my dad is so clueless! He doesn’t see any of it. It’s kind of ridiculous.

Yeah, I’ve been sleeping fine. Trevor recorded some of the songs he sings when I have nightmares for me, and that’s been helping a lot. I don’t want my dad to notice anything weird about me just yet. He’s always been the stricter, more distant parent. I’m not sure how I’m going to explain anything to him. He already flipped out when he heard I was dating a guy when he and mom weren’t around. Anyway, we’ll see how this goes.

Well, Trevor isn’t going to hear the end of this if I can help it. Singing to his girlfriend, ha! I can’t stop my laughter, causing Matt to sit up in bed and glare at me.

“Dude. We have, like, five minutes before we need to get up for school. What are you doing?” he asks.

“Haley sent an email,” I explain.

“Oh. That’s nice.” Matt turns around and goes back to sleep.

Singing to his girlfriend, huh? I reply. Well, isn't that adorable. Well, best of luck with your dad. I'm sure it'll all work out. Maybe you should hope he doesn't come home, for Trevor's sake. I've had to sit through a mild Dad grilling and that was awkward enough.

Speaking of which, Emmaleigh and I are going out now! As of Sunday. I’ll tell you more later, I have to get ready for school now.

As I hit send I hear Matt groan and sit up.

“Corey, I think I’m screwed.”

“Oh?” I twirl around in the desk chair to face him. “Why?”

He rubs a hand over his face and looks at me. “I think I might want Janice back.”

“What? Why?” I ask, standing up and going to the closet to find some clean clothes.

“I don’t think that’s a question I can answer,” he growls. “I just do, okay?”

“Okay. But why’d you break up with her in the first place?”

“She was clingy,” he says, throwing the covers aside and joining me by the closet. “But now--”

“But now she’s pushing you away,” I note with a laugh.

“Yeah. And that makes the other stuff I liked about her stand out more.”

“Like how sarcastic she is?” I joke. I mean, really. How could someone like Janice?

“She’s like a cactus,” Matt says with a sigh, bringing a t-shirt up to his nose to sniff it. “The spines are only on the outside. Hm, this seems clean.”

“Yes,” I say, snatching the shirt from between his fingers. “It also seems to be mine. But, really. Do you even know if she likes you back?”

“No,” he says, riffling through a pile of shirts in one corner of the closet. “She could be going out with Steve for all I know.” He tosses a pair of jeans onto the bed behind him. “She’s extremely vague when I ask her about him.”