I Was Meant for More novel · Chapter 2 of 16

Chapter 2: The Garden

At Courtney's party Erica follows her two best friends into the garden and watches them kiss and laugh about keeping her stuck at home, until Courtney turns around.

I didn't answer him until the sun came up.

Then I typed, "See you at 7."

I spent the day at the kitchen table pretending to read.

My mother came home from her night shift at eight and found me there.

"You look like you haven't slept," she said.

"I haven't."

She kissed the top of my head and went to bed in her scrubs.

I didn't tell her anything.

I didn't know how to say the first part out loud.

At seven, I walked up Orchard Hill to the Fultons' house.

It was the biggest house in Millbrook, white with black shutters and a fountain in the back garden.

Courtney's parents had hung lights in every tree.

Half our graduating class was on the lawn with red cups.

Courtney met me at the gate.

She threw her arms around me and pressed her cheek to mine.

"Erica! You came!"

Her dimples showed when she smiled.

Everybody liked Courtney.

When she transferred in sophomore year, she sat down next to me in chemistry.

"I'm not here to come between you and Trent," she'd said. "I just want in."

I had believed her.

She pulled me across the lawn by the wrist.

"Trent! Look who's here!"

He was by the grill, his sandy hair still damp from the pool.

He grinned at me the way he always had.

"Sunny. There she is."

He hugged me with one arm.

He smelled like chlorine and Courtney's vanilla perfume.

Courtney clinked a spoon against her cup and climbed onto a patio chair.

"Everybody! A toast!"

The music went down.

"To the Three Musketeers," she said, and pointed her cup at me and Trent. "Bradford, here we come!"

People cheered.

Somebody whistled.

Trent lifted his cup at me.

I lifted mine.

Courtney hopped down and slipped her arm through mine.

"So you got everything in before midnight? No last-minute panic?"

"No panic," I said.

"And you put Bradford. Obviously."

She was still smiling.

Her eyes weren't.

"Bradford," I said. "Obviously."

She squeezed my arm.

"Good girl."

Trent laughed at nothing.

Courtney's mother waved from the patio door, and Courtney went off to help with the cake.

A minute later Trent set his cup down and said he was going to find the bathroom.

He didn't go into the house.

He walked around the side, toward the back garden.

I waited for the count of twenty.

Then I put my cup on the railing and followed him.

The garden was dark past the lights.

I heard the fountain before I saw it.

I stopped behind the tall hedge by the path.

Courtney was already there.

She'd gone out the kitchen door.

Trent walked straight up to her and kissed her.

Not a quick one.

His hands in her hair, her back against the stone rim of the fountain.

I had known it since the video.

Knowing it and watching it were two different things.

Courtney pulled back and laughed softly.

"Did you see her face? 'Bradford. Obviously.' I almost died."

"Be nice," Trent said.

But he was smiling.

"I am being nice," she said. "Cedar's twenty minutes from her house. She can live with her mom forever. Everybody wins."

"She's going to be upset in July."

"So? She'll cry for a week, and then she'll get over it."

Courtney traced a finger down his shirt.

"I just don't want her at Bradford, Trent."

"I don't want her in our dorm, in our dining hall, calling you every night about her feelings."

"I know."

"You promised."

"I did it, didn't I?"

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Anyway, Cedar's fine for her. She'll get a job in my mom's office. Filing, answering phones. She's good at that kind of thing."

Courtney laughed and kissed his jaw.

"You're so good to her."

"I'm a very good friend," he said.

They both laughed at that.

I stood behind the hedge with my nails in my palms.

I had spent every Saturday of junior year tutoring him in calculus so he could keep his swim scholarship eligibility.

I had written half of his college essay at this same party last year.

He was going to get me a job answering his mother's phones.

A branch snapped under my sneaker.

The laughing stopped.

Courtney turned her head toward the hedge.

Her face changed in the fountain light.

She let go of Trent and took one step toward me.

"Erica?"

Her voice was light and sweet.

"How long have you been standing there?"

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