All We Will Never Know

Emilia Fitzgerald stared at the face of her alarm, the noise echoing in her ears. To the rest of the world, it was just an average Tuesday morning in August, yet for the town of Everwood, it was far more. Mia was not fully aware of what might happen, nor was she ever close enough to the Armstrong family to find out. All she knew, from the articles in the paper and the news vans that had been circling the neighborhood, from the gossip that kept the town alive, was that Will Armstrong’s arrival was going to cause an uproar. And it was happening today.

Despite the fact that his return had little to nothing to do with her, she found herself tossing and turning throughout the night, her mind spinning with possibilities. And despite the truth, the rumors, and the odds, she felt sorry for him.

With a sigh, Mia sat up in bed and ran her hands through her hair. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking about it. She shouldn’t be worrying about someone else’s problems when she had a handful of her own, but constant stress was one of the many characteristics she had inherited from her mother. She just couldn’t help it. As much as she wished otherwise, it would be on her mind all day long.

She tossed her duvet to the side and got out of bed, stretching her arms high above her head and letting out a yawn. To top off the gossip-worthy event of Will Armstrong getting out of jail and returning to town, it was also the first day of school. The first day of Mia Fitzgerald and over two hundred other students’ senior year. Maybe the reason she had been tossing and turning all night was not because of Will at all, but because of Bella, his younger sister who would not be joining her classmates in the halls of Everwood Academy today because her untimely death may or may not have been the reason big brother was in jail to begin with.

Mia shuddered, trying her best to push her thoughts aside long enough to get ready. I shouldn’t worry about it, she repeated. After all, there was nothing she could do to change what happened. No one could.

“Damn it!” Through the paper thin walls of her family’s home, she heard her younger brother, Wyatt, screaming at the TV. He was playing video games, which meant he mostly likely hadn’t slept a wink all night, for reasons far less detrimental than Mia’s own restlessness.

“Turn it off and get ready for school!” Mia banged on the wall with her fist and yelled over the noise. She half-expected him to ignore her, but surprisingly, she heard the TV click off and his footsteps on the floor a few moments later.

Mia walked across her room to her closet, opened the door, and admired the gorgeous, brand-new Rebecca Taylor dress hanging on the door of the armoire. The dress happened to be the only thing that made her remotely excited about starting senior year, so much so that she had been keeping the closet door open just to take a peek every time she walked by. Ever since she and her friends saw it at Saks last week, when she had gushed over how adorable it was and bought it without hesitation, she had been excited to wear it. It seemed silly to be so enamored over a piece of clothing, but Mia simply needed something to make her happy.

When she imagined this day several years ago, she imagined it much differently. For starters, she had always pictured her mother here with her, preparing her for the ups and downs of her last year of high school, teaching her how to enjoy herself while also staying focused on the future, instead of resting in a mahogany casket at the cemetery across town. She pictured entering school wearing a leotard under her clothes so she could rush to pointe directly after, to practice all night long until her toes were sore and bleeding, to be preparing for the audition of a lifetime. She imagined walking through those double doors, hand-in-hand with Jake Delrossi, her head held high, knowing that she was happy and loved and life was perfect. But none of these things were happening. Her life had changed so much in the past five years, and it really didn’t matter how many times her father and her grandmother and her friends told her that bad things and unforeseen changes happened for a reason, she wished nothing more than to rewind back to when she didn’t have to force herself to be happy.

Mia wiped the tears from her eyes, embarrassed even though she was in her room alone. She told herself she wasn’t going to cry, not today, but here she was, blubbering in her closet anyway. Over a dress. She was crying over the dress, right?

She reached up and ran the silky white fabric of the dress between her fingers and felt a small smile twinge at her lips. She was instantly reminded of standing in the store, debating on whether she wanted the dress in black or white, and how Kassidy had said “choose white, because it’s pure, unlike you” with a satisfying wink. Then she felt silly for crying at all. She had faced a lot of challenges over the past few years, but the one constant in her life, the one--or let’s say four--things that kept her going strong were her friends. They were extraordinary, the best people in the world--

And they would be here to pick her up for school in twenty minutes.

“Shit!” Mia grabbed the dress and a clean pair of underwear and sprinted to the bathroom. She stripped out of her pajamas and jumped in the shower in one motion. There was a knock on the door over the sound of the running water.

“What do you want?!” Mia yelled, reaching for the bottle of conditioner. She scrubbed the soap into her hair and washed it out simultaneously, hoping her rush wouldn’t backfire into a bad hair day.

“I ran out of toothpaste, can I use yours?” Wyatt hollered back.

Mia rolled her eyes, turning off the water and wrapping a towel around herself. She grabbed the toothpaste and opened the door so quickly that Wyatt took a step back.

“Woah, killer,” he chuckled, took the toothpaste, and walked off shaking his head.

“Just bring it back when you’re done!” Mia called after him, turning to the mirror to put on her makeup.
She hated being rushed, but it never failed, she almost always was. She was a terrible procrastinator and really bad at time management, more less-than-favorable characteristics that her mom had passed down. Fortunately, this meant she had gotten pretty great at doing things as flawlessly as possible in minimal time.

At exactly 7:15, Mia was standing on the front porch, wearing the gorgeous Rebecca Taylor dress and a pair of wine red ballet flats, her hair dried and curled to perfection, a full face of makeup and a smile awaiting her friends as they pulled up in Alexis Carmichael’s Range Rover.

“Look at you, hot stuff!” Cordelia Hawthorne stuck her face out the window as it was rolling down, giving Mia a clap of approval.

She smiled, walking toward the car following a bow. “Thank you, thank you,” she chided.

“Ugh, that dress is perfect for you,” Alexis scoffed, catching Mia’s eyes in the rearview mirror as she pulled away. “Bitch.”

Mia laughed, sandwiching herself between Cordelia and Peyton Ziegler in the backseat.

“Hey, Pey,” Mia smiled, turning toward the beautiful, redheaded girl sitting beside her. She gave her a comforting squeeze on the knee, which Peyton returned immediately. It was a small tradition they shared, a way of telling the other that they were doing okay without voicing it to the rest of the group. Being the two quietest in a rather rowdy group of friends, sometimes it was necessary. To be there for each other, even if it was in silence.

“Jake is going to die when he sees you,” Cordelia said, pulling her phone out of her pocket to document the event. She pushed the fake cat eye glasses further up her nose and pursed her lips, leaning into Mia to take a picture.

Mia looked over Cordelia’s shoulder to examine the photo, noticing the stark contrasts between she and her friend’s faces, from the blank stare in her own eyes to the lively expression in Cordelia’s, to the bleach blonde of Cordelia’s shoulder-length hair pressing against Mia’s dark curls. It always amazed her how five very different girls ended up being so close. She watched Cordelia post it to Facebook and write, “Senior year bitches!” She thought again of Bella Armstrong, who wouldn’t get to post about senior year.

“Hello, earth to Mia?” Cordelia nudged Mia’s shoulder.

Mia jumped back to earth. “Oh yeah,” she said quickly, pressing the hem of her dress against her thighs. “Well, actually-” she paused, glancing up to see Peyton, Alexis, and Cordelia all staring at her. “We aren’t together anymore.”

She had almost completely forgot that in the midst of contemplating her entire life, including her relationship, she hadn’t consulted her friends. It had been a long summer of trying to avoid Jake while she was figuring out what to do. They were entering their senior year, which meant in a few short months, Jake would be heading to whatever school he could slide his way into and eventually drop out of, and Mia would be going to Princeton. It was inevitable. While she loved Jake and truly enjoyed the year and a half she spent with him, she knew it would end this way. Just like her friends, they were very different people. Mia was ready to move on with her life, onto bigger and better things, and Jake simply wasn’t ready to grow up, let alone start a real life with real problems. He had even specifically told her, on more than one occasion, that he would stay with his parents as long as possible because he didn’t want to pay for anything on his own. Breaking up with him just seemed so clear to her, she never imagined it seeming like a big deal to everyone else. But apparently it was.

Alexis hit the brakes so hard that Peyton’s face smashed into the headrest, Cordelia’s phone flew under the passenger seat, and Mia ended with her hands sprawled out on either side of the front seats, her head two feet from the stereo.

“Jesus, Carmicheal!” Cordelia yelled, squirming out of her seat belt to reach for her phone.

Peyton muttered an “ow,” tending to her sore face.

Mia swallowed hard, looking up to meet Alexis’s wide blue eyes.

“When were you going to tell us?” Alexis said, her voice surprisingly calm after the dramatic stop.

Mia looked out the windshield and noticed they were in front of Kassidy Edwards’ house, the last pickup before school. Maybe the sudden stop wasn’t because of what she had said, maybe it wasn’t really that big of a deal. Maybe she could start senior year worrying about Will and Bella Armstrong and her mom being dead and her dad being alive but gone for work and her brother being annoying and not doing ballet anymore and wondering if she ever would again and hoping she could not worry about stuff long enough to get through the year without going completely insane… but maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to worry about her friends’ varying opinions about her breakup with Jake Delrossi.

Mia sat back in her seat, pulling her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know, it just happened. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, and so I finally did it.” She looked up under the rim of her lashes.

Alexis had turned back toward the steering wheel, but in the rearview mirror, Mia recognized that look in her eyes. She was disappointed, but why? It wasn’t her relationship, in fact, Alexis had never really been in a relationship… Mia bit her lip, suddenly realizing that Alexis was probably just upset that she had thrown hers away so easily.

Cordelia’s jaw was hanging open, her cat-eye glasses crooked from Alexis’s questionable driving. Peyton was just staring at her, a sorry look in her eyes but the corner of her mouth lifting slightly as if she didn’t really know whether to be happy or sad. To be honest, Mia didn’t either.

“I just hope you did it for the right reasons,” Alexis said finally. Her voice was quiet and unsure.

Mia tried to meet her eyes in the mirror again, but Alexis had leaned against the door, out of view. A second later, Cordelia’s jaw snapped shut and she sat back in her seat, throwing her arm over Mia’s shoulders and pulling her in.

“Of course she did,” she said confidently. “Our Mia knows what’s best for her.”

Peyton made up her mind and smiled. “Just think, now you can look forward to college boys,” she said with a laugh.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Cordelia yelled, throwing her hands in the air.

Mia tried to smile as her friends laughed and carried on around her, but the whole time, she kept wishing Kassidy would come outside and join them and say what she really wanted to hear. Unlike the others, Kassidy wouldn’t pause and give Mia questionable stares as if she had just thrown her life away by breaking up with a high school boyfriend. Instead, Kassidy would have looked Mia straight in the eyes, took her hand, and said, “It’s your life, babe. Time to live it how you want.” That was her mantra, her go-to phrase when it came to any decision. Kassidy Edwards was a lot of things, but one thing she never did was judge her friends for their choices. At least not in private.

Speaking of Kassidy, she still hadn’t come outside.

“Where the Hell is she?” Alexis peered out the window and honked the horn.

Mia glanced at the Edwards’ house. She tried to look for a light through Kassidy’s bedroom window, but the sunlight made it hard to tell.

Cordelia pulled out her phone, which had miraculously survived the crash to the floor, and dialed Kass’s number. “Hold on, I got this.”

She held it to her ear. “Hey Kasshole! Playing hooky on the first day of school?” she asked a few seconds later.

Cordelia put the phone on speaker and held it out in the middle of the car for everyone to hear.

There was a pause, a shuffle of noise, before Kassidy’s sultry, raspy voice came across the line.

“Sorry, guys. I can’t.” There was something different in her tone. She didn’t sound like the cool, confident girl that had single-handedly picked her friends from a crowd in the sixth grade. There was an emotion hanging on her words that Mia couldn’t quite put her finger on. Was it sadness, or was it fear?

Cordelia opened her mouth to speak, surely to ask why, before Peyton’s small, pale hand reached across the center console and rested beside the phone. The girls turned and caught the warning look in her eyes.

She shook her head softly and mouthed one word, one name: Will.

Suddenly, it made sense. Alexis grimaced at the reminder, and Cordelia was silent, which was always rare, while Mia simply recalled the same person she had been thinking about all night long. The person she would never openly admit she had been thinking about in front of her friends.

There was a long pause. “Don’t act weird about it,” Kassidy said softly. “Just go to school and have fun. I’ll be fine tomorrow.” She hung up before they could say another word.