by McLean, Jay
I can’t help but smile, and that smile only widens when I catch her cheeks flame red as she looks away.
“What about you?” I ask, inconspicuously shifting closer. “What’s your greatest fear?”
She releases a breath, low and slow, her eyes doing that distant thing when she’s deep in thought. Fingers curled around the stray strands of grass beside her, she closes her fist and pulls out a clump. Roots and all. And then she rests them on her bare thighs, separating each blade one by one. “I have this recurring nightmare,” she starts, pausing to push down her emotions.
I sit taller, face her completely.
“I’m, like, five years old, and I’m in my grandpa’s truck. He takes me to this antique store in town, and he hands me some money and tells me to get whatever I want.” Her words are slow, methodical. “So I go through the aisles one by one, picking up random things every now and then. Then the store’s roof gets higher and higher, and the aisles get wider, or I’m getting smaller; I can’t be sure. But it feels endless. Every corner I turn brings me to another corner, and I can’t seem to find my way back to my grandpa, and I’m crying and calling out for him, and he never appears, and then I’m at a bay of windows looking out to the parking lot, and I can’t see my grandpa’s truck anywhere... and then I wake up.”
She sniffs once, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes are glassy, soaked with a level of torment I’ll never understand. In my head, I run through all the different things I wish I could say, but know I can’t verbalize.
“Holden’s parents are getting a divorce,” she says, cutting through my thoughts. “His dad’s staying because of the farm, and he and his mom are leaving.” She turns to me, a single tear leaving a trail across her cheek. “That’s why he called me the other day, and I just—I’ve spent the past few days trying to understand why I’m being so selfish—”
“How are you—”
“All I can think is that they’re leaving me. Tammy—Holden’s mom—she’s the only mother I’ve ever known. She practically raised me along with my grandpa, and now... now I’m…” She takes a breath, and then another. “Holden’s my only friend, Leo, and we had plans. He promised that he’d find a way to get us out of that town and that he’d take me with him, and he’s breaking that promise.” I push aside my jealousy and focus on her words, on her heartache. “And it’s so selfish of me to think that, to throw that in his face when he’s going through what he is, but I can’t… I can’t go to high school without him. I wouldn’t even know what to do. We were supposed to go to school together, and then college, and then we were going to travel the world and actually start living.” She wipes at her tears, now flowing freely. “He’s been by my side since we were three years old, and I don’t know who I am without him.” A sob erupts from deep in her throat, and I finally, finally reach out and pull her into me. “How messed up is that?” she cries into my chest. “I don’t know how to stand on my own.”
“Mia…” I breathe out, trying to ignore the knot in my chest.
“And that’s not even the part that I’m most afraid of,” she says, shrugging out of my hold. She hugs her knees to her chest, her breaths uneven when she adds, “I’m terrified of being forgotten, Leo. Of people abandoning me.”
“Like your parents?” I ask, voice gravelly from emotion.
She shakes her head. “I just feel like I latch on to people, whether they like it or not. My grandpa, then Holden and his mom, and then I come here thinking I’m going to start some amazing relationship with my mom, and she—she hates me.”
“No, she doesn’t, Mia. She’s just—”
“And then you.”
I rear back. “Me?”
“I latched on to you because she wasn’t there, and you—”
“Like it,” I cut in, grimacing as soon as the words leave me.
“What?”
I stumble over my thoughts. “I like being the main character in your story,” I tell her. And I like you, I don’t say aloud. “And I promise you, no matter what happens, I’ll never, ever forget you, Mia.”
Chapter Ten
Leo
“No,” Mia snaps.
“Why not?”
“Because… no.” She’s holding firm on her response, her eyes narrowed, jaw tense.
“But why?”
“Because no is a complete answer, and I shouldn’t have to elaborate .”
“It’s not like a blowout; we’re just having a… gathering of sorts.”
She thumps my forehead with her palm.
“What the f— ow!” I rub at the spot.
“You’re talking to me, Leo. Do you think I know the difference between a blowout and a gathering? And no. Let’s talk about something else.”
“But I want you there.”
“And I don’t want to be there.”
“Why not?”
She growls. Lip snarl and all. And it takes everything in me not to laugh at her. “I’m two seconds away from throwing you off this ledge.”
I scoff. “Fine.”
We’ve been at the water tower for four hours, listening to music and talking about… I don’t even know. We’ve stopped caring about what time we get back to the house, only leaving when one of us gets tired or hungry. No one seems to question where we are or what we’re doing.
“You’re awfully cranky this morning, just FYI,” I edge, gripping onto the ledge a little tighter just in case she decides to push me off.
Mia sighs as she checks her phone. There’s a picture of her and who I assume is her grandpa as the wallpaper, but no notifications. “I didn’t sleep well,” she admits. “I argued with my grandpa, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward.”
“Sucks,” I say, releasing the bar and tugging on her sweater to bring her closer to me. We’ve been a little more… physical since the day at the lake, but we’ve never crossed the line between friendship and more. I don’t think she’s quite ready for that stage, and to be honest, I’m not either. Besides, I like how we are at that moment, and I like who we are to each other. Still, I find every excuse to be near her, to touch her somehow without it leading to actions we can’t take back. “You want to talk about it?”
“He thinks I should still go ahead with my plans of going to a normal school, and I—I don’t want to. Not without Holden.”
I push aside the mountain of jealousy and ask, “Why does he want you to go?”
“He thinks if I don’t, then I’ll never get out.”
“Get out?”
“Of that town. It’s too small, and there’s nothing there for me, but he thinks if I don’t go to high school, I won’t go to college, or I won’t get a decent job. And he thinks I need to go to boost my confidence or something.”
“You seem confident enough to me,” I almost laugh.
She faces me. “That’s because you bring out a side of me that no one else does.” She says it so nonchalantly as if it holds no meaning, no weight, no depth. But I feel every word. Revel in it.
“Not even Holden?” I don’t know why I ask that. I just… my brain, sometimes, I swear.
Mia sighs, grabbing my arm and pulling it around her shoulders so she can settle in beside me. It isn't the first time she’s done it, and I hope it won’t be the last. “He called last night.”
“Yeah? How is he? What did he say?” If I’m honest, besides the fact that he’s a staple in Mia’s life, I give very few shits about this Holden guy. I only pretend to care for her sake.
“He said he misses me.” Gross. “He’s never said that before.”
“Bet that was nice to hear, huh?” Vomit.
“It was. And then he belched into the phone, told me he had to take a dump, and hung up.”
I chuckle. “Stellar guy.”
“He really is.”
Aaaand I’m done talking about him.
But not talking means silence, and silence allows my thoughts to race, playing havoc with my heart until I can feel it beati
ng wildly in my chest.
It’s not the first time the idea has come to me, but I’d kept it to myself, fearful of her response. I edge forward, trying to gain a reaction before I put it all out there. “Hey, when your grandpa comes to pick you up, can I meet him?’
Against my side, her body tenses. “Do you want to?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
“You could have met him last year,” she says. “But you weren’t there.”
“Yeah…” I huff out a breath. “I’m not a fan of goodbyes. They kind of suck.”
She shuffles closer to me, and I hold her tighter. “I might have to start working summers from now on, so this year might be our final goodbye—at least in person, so yeah… that’s going to suck a heck of a lot.”
And… Go Time. “Unless you stay.”
She rears back, head tilted to look up at me, her brow dipped in confusion.
“Just hear me out, okay?” I pause, not really knowing what more I can add. “Stay.” It’s a single word—a plea.
“Leo, I can’t—”
“Stay,” I cut in. “You can go to high school here. I’ll be there. We’d be in the same grade. I could be your new Holden.” Puke. “And if I talk to my dad, I’m sure he’d let you stay in Lucy’s old room or something. She’ll be on campus.” I’m rambling, trying to voice all my reasons for her to stay before she can come back with one reason why she can’t. “And I’m sure there’s a bus or something that can take you back home to visit your grandpa, and it would make him somewhat happy, right? And this way… this way, we wouldn’t have to say goodbye.”
There.
I said it.
Everything that’s been on my mind is now laid out between us, and then I wait for her to counter or roll her eyes to let me know I’m stupid for even thinking it. I wait and I wait, and then finally, with tears in her eyes, she asks, her voice breaking, “You’d be my new Holden?”
I’d be more if she’d let me. I swallow my nerves and nod. “So?”
“So…” she says, releasing a pent-up breath. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe,” she repeats, then looks away again. “Is that okay?”
My smile is stupid. “Well, a maybe isn’t a no, so that’s good. Because you know what they say about no. No is a complete sentence, which means that I couldn’t add to my convincing argument, and if you’d said no, then I’d be throwing myself off this ledge.”
Mia giggles, the single sound flipping my stomach. “You sure talk a lot for someone who doesn’t really say anything.”
I laugh. “That’s because you bring out a side of me that no one else does.”
Chapter Eleven
Mia
I promised my grandpa I’d try one semester of “normal” school and, if it didn’t work out, he promised me that I could come right home, no questions asked. But, since I wouldn’t be seeing him much during that time, I wanted to spend the rest of the summer with him, which meant saying goodbye to Leo—but only for a little while.
It was strange... how so many things could change in such little time.
Puberty, friendships, family.
Mr. Preston was on board with the plan, allowing me to stay in the basement, which had its own bathroom. He even mentioned that he was happy to have me.
My mom—on the other hand—was another story. For some reason, she assumed that me staying there would add to her responsibility of, you know, being my mother. I’d gone twelve years without her. I’d do just fine. When I told her that, she threatened to call my dad about my “insolence.”
I doubt she even had his number.
I doubt he’d even care.
It was good to spend time with my grandpa. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the little things about our daily lives, like making him a coffee in the afternoon and sitting with him on the porch, him in his rocking chair and me on the porch swing. Music played in the background while he told me about things that happened during my time away. He only kept a handful of friends since retiring, so most of his stories involved trips to the store, or the bank, or the church, and he’d relay almost word for word entire conversations he had with people. I sometimes worried that he was lonely, but he lived such a peaceful, quiet life, and he seemed so content to just… exist.
While being there felt like home, I couldn’t help the constant awareness of the emptiness that existed within me. Every time a car drove by, I’d get that hint of excitement to see Tammy or Holden, and it took me a moment to remember that they were no longer there. I couldn’t just hop on my bike and pedal the ten minutes to see them. The tire swing on the tree by the driveway—assembled by Tammy and put up by my grandpa—still had our names etched into the rubber, the memories of our childish laughter continuously plaguing my mind. For now, they were staying with Tammy’s parents in Tennessee. Tammy had spent her entire adult life being a mother and a wife, and now… now she didn’t know what to do. Holden would call every day and do his best not to show how much the move and the separation were affecting him, and I’d do the same. But I wasn’t as strong as him. I hadn’t been much of anything without him. Every time I’d cry, he’d hand the phone to his mom. And then I’d cry some more. Every time we got to the goodbyes, I had to stop myself from asking them to please, please, remember me.
And then there was Leo. He called occasionally, but mainly, he kept to text messages. Short ones. Ones that didn’t hit any cord, even though I wanted them to.
I was gone for four weeks, and really, I had no idea what he was doing during that time, and technically, I didn’t have a say. Still, it didn’t stop me from missing him. From waking up at 4:20 without an alarm, and wishing that he’d be there, waiting at the bottom of the stairs with that sly smile on his face, ready for another sometimes silent, sometimes informative adventure. The butterflies were the strongest those first couple of minutes with him, and they never really disappeared. Just faded. Slightly.
Obviously, I was crushing on him. Hard. But I didn’t know the first thing about what to do with those feelings, and now that we had at least a semester to work it out, I wasn’t all that worried about time.
“I’m proud of you, baba,” Papa says, both hands on the wheel as he focuses on the highway in front of us. “I know it’s tough for you with Holden gone. You were always his rational voice, and he was always your strength, so I know how hard it is to put yourself out there, to go out of your comfort zone.”
I squirm in my seat.
“This is the best thing for you, I think. It’s not good for you to limit yourself. You’re at the age where you make lifelong friends and build relationships, and you become who you want to be.” He glances at me, smiling. “And you—you can be anything you want. You can be a lawyer or a doctor or the President of the United States of America.”
A giggle bursts out of me.
“I’m serious,” he says, turning up the radio. “A Change is Coming” by Sam Cooke fills the cab, fills my heart with joy when my grandpa chuckles. “This is America,” he shouts over the music, his accent thick. “Land of the free. Home of the brave.” I lean into his touch when he strokes my cheek. “You’ve always been the bravest girl I know, Mia Mac. And I know you’re going to make me proud.”
I lied to Leo when I told him that my greatest fear was being forgotten.
My greatest fear was disappointing the one man who never stopped believing in me.
* * *
We’re a half-hour away from the Preston house when my phone alerts me to a text.
Leo: So I was thinking about school. I don’t think I can be your Holden.
I stare at the message and read the words over and over repeatedly, the pain in my chest making it impossible to breathe. I glance at my grandpa, hoping he can’t see the current state of my imminent meltdown. Why? Why would he tell me this now? He had four weeks to change his mind, to tell me how he felt. I can’t ask my grandpa to turn around, that would be… pathetic. And he’d be so di
sappointed.
Leo knows… he knows I can’t do this without him.
Hands shaking, my thumbs fly over the screen in rage as I reply:
Mia: Are you serious right now?
I watch the three dots appear and reappear as he types out a response, and with each second that passes, I can feel my airways closing, the heat behind my eyes and nose unbearable.
Leo: Well, you said Holden’s just your friend, right? I don’t want to be just your friend, Mia. I want to be more. I want to be your Leo.
“Oh my god,” I murmur, dropping my phone on my lap.
“You okay, baba?” Papa asks.
I nod, my cheeks hurting with the force of my smile.
The rest of the drive seems to drag on, and when we finally pull into the Preston driveway, the first and only thing I want to do is find Leo. I don’t know what I’ll do when I see him. I’ll probably hug him and pretend as if his text never happened until he’s willing to bring it up himself.
Tom is the first to come out of the house with little Lachlan holding on to his leg. He comes down to the car to greet us, hugging me and shaking my grandpa’s hand. “Thank you,” Papa tells him. “You giving my baba this opportunity means so much.” Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. “I give some money now, some later.”
Tom lifts his hands. “No, sir. There’s no need.”
Papa’s a proud man, and there’s no way he’s going to allow me to stay here for free.
They continue their back and forth while I look over Tom’s shoulder, up to Leo’s bedroom window, and around the yard. I can’t see Leo anywhere.
“Okay, time to go,” Papa says, bringing me back to the present. He hugs me tight and says in my ear, “You be good for the man. He’s a good man.”
With a smile, I hug him back. “I’ll come home soon. It’s only two bus rides.”