Little Do We Know

by Tamara Ireland Stone

  I killed the music, took out my earbuds, and set the timer on my phone for ten minutes. I tucked my chin to my chest. I closed my eyes and let the sounds of chirping birds and passing cars drift in and out of my mind.

  Luke was all buzzy when I found him in the lobby an hour later.

  “I take it you and Emory talked?” I asked.

  “Until three in the morning.” He blew out a breath full of nervous energy and gestured toward the café. “Let’s get a coffee while we wait for the cab.”

  I laughed. “You do not need one.”

  “Whatever.” He walked off, talking as he went, and I followed him, trying to keep up with his words and his steps. “We talked about everything. What happened to me. What I’ve been dealing with. She asked me questions and let me babble, and…I told her things I hadn’t told anyone. Things I hadn’t really even admitted to myself.”

  “That’s great,” I said. It made me a little sad to think there were things he hadn’t told me, but I knew deep down that was unfair.

  “I can’t wait to do this interview, get home, and get back to real life.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what real life looked like anymore. I hadn’t spoken to Aaron in two days. I was keeping my responses to Alyssa’s messages as short as possible. I was only responding to my dad when he texted me about logistics. And I had no idea what my mom thought of any of this, because I was avoiding her phone calls completely.

  “She’s upset about me missing the play tonight,” Luke said. “She’s upset that you’re missing it, too.”

  Maybe I wasn’t supposed to see that as good news, but I did. After all we’d been through, I didn’t think she’d care if I was there or not. The fact that she did gave me hope.

  Luke stepped up to the counter. He studied the chalkboard menu on the back wall but kept talking to me. “And she’s upset that David’s going to be there. God, she hates that guy. I don’t get it. He’s always been nice to me.”

  My stomach dropped. Luke didn’t understand why she hated him so much, but I did. I understood completely. I pictured Emory standing onstage in her costume, peering out into the first row and seeing him sitting there.

  “Want anything?” Luke asked, pointing up at the menu.

  I think I shook my head. I must have, because I heard Luke’s voice, ordering a coffee and a bagel. Just the mention of food made my stomach turn.

  She had to perform in front of him. I had no idea how she was going to do that. And then I realized she’d been performing in front of him, and in front of her mom, every second of every day since last December. She’d been performing as she and her mom shopped for dresses and planned seating assignments and decided on flower arrangements and addressed invitations. She had to be prepared to perform every morning as she walked to the kitchen, just in case he’d spent the night. She acted her way through every meal with him. I had no idea how she’d done it. But she had.

  It had to stop.

  I had to make it stop.

  I was the only one who could do it.

  “Hannah?” Luke was staring at me, holding his coffee and a small bag. “Hey. You okay?”

  I wasn’t okay. I was far from okay.

  “You have to go to her play tonight,” I blurted out without thinking.

  “Yeah.” Luke looked at me sideways. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  My stomach twisted into an even tighter knot.

  If you tell him, that will be it, Hannah. I’ll never be able to forgive you for that. Our friendship will be over forever.

  “I have to tell you something.” I felt like my mind had separated from my body, like I was no longer fully present in that café. I wished I hadn’t said those words. I wanted to take them back. But deep down, I knew I was doing the right thing.

  Luke steered me over to a nearby table and we sat, facing each other.

  “What’s going on?”

  My hands were shaking and my chin was trembling and I had no idea how I was going to get through the next few minutes. I hadn’t planned any of this.

  “Emory has been there for every major event in my life. She’s literally in the photograph of me taking my very first steps, out on the grass that separates our houses.” I wasn’t thinking about the words before I said them. I just opened my mouth and let the thoughts tumble out the way they wanted to. “She was at my baptism and every big SonRise competition and when I took my driver’s test. When my grandmother died, Emory didn’t leave my side for, like, a week solid. She brought me candy and crawled in bed with me to watch movies in the middle of the day, and let me cry until I didn’t have any tears left.”

  Luke’s eyebrows pinched together, like he was trying to figure out where I was going with all this, but he didn’t stop me.

  “The two of us drifted apart a little bit once we started going to different high schools,” I continued. “We drifted apart a little bit more when she started dating you, because she was so into you. But we were still us. Can you even imagine what that’s like, growing up with someone, having them be part of almost every single memory?”

  “Um, yeah. I’m a twin.”

  I’d forgotten that for a moment. “Emory’s the closest thing I can think of to having a twin sister. We’re different.” Picturing all the ways we were different made me smile to myself. “We couldn’t be more different, but that has never mattered.”

  Luke nodded. “Why are you telling me all this, Hannah?”

  Sweat was beading up on my forehead and under my arms. I shifted in place, wondering how I was ever going to get through this.

  I’ll never be able to forgive you for that.

  “I’ve been keeping a secret for her.” I had no idea how I was going to get this out.

  “Tell me,” Luke said.

  Our friendship will be over forever.

  “I can’t.” I brought my hand to my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up.

  “You have to.”

  I scanned the café to be sure no one else was within earshot. And then I rested my elbows on the table and leaned in closer. Luke mirrored me, closing the distance between us.

  Keeping my voice low, I told him the whole story, starting from the moment I came home from church that day and found Emory waiting in my bedroom, looking pale and disheveled, scared and in shock. I told him how I’d gone looking for my mom but found my dad instead. I told him what Dad said about Emory. And what I’d said back. And what I didn’t say that day, and what I didn’t do.

  Luke reeled back, eyes wide and full of anger. “When did this happen?”

  I spat the word out like it was toxic. “December.”

  “You’ve known this for more than three months?” he asked, and I nodded slowly. “And you kept it to yourself?”

  “She begged me to.”

  “What the fuck does that matter?” he yelled as he slammed his hand on the table. Everyone behind the café counter turned to look at us. Luke didn’t notice. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He covered his mouth and stared past me.

  And then he reached into his back pocket for his phone and began typing on the screen. I reached across the table and grabbed it from his hands. “You can’t tell her you know…Not before she goes onstage tonight. You can’t do that to her.”

  His eyes narrowed at me. “You want me to go all day without telling her I know? No way.”

  “I’ve gone three months without telling anyone.”

  Luke laughed under his breath. “Try not to sound so proud of yourself.”

  “I’m not.” My voice caught on the last word. I opened my mouth to tell him how horrible I felt and hard it had been, but the words sounded lame, even in my head. I wasn’t proud. I was ashamed of what I’d done. The expression on Luke’s face told me I was right to be.

  My phone chirped and I reached for it, hands shaking as I checked the screen. “We have to go. It’s a ten-minute walk to the studio.”

  Luke stood. �
�I’ll see you there,” he said. He tossed his uneaten bagel and his full coffee cup into the nearest trash can and stormed out through the hotel doors and onto the street.

  I didn’t try to catch up to him.

  Luke must have given the front-desk person his name, because by the time I arrived at the studio, our escort was already there, waiting to take us to makeup.

  We sat next to each other in silence while someone named April fixed my hair and put powder on my face. I’d been holding back tears since the café, and now, as hard as I fought them back, I couldn’t keep them from streaming down my cheeks.

  April squeezed my shoulders and bent down low. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she whispered as she handed me a tissue. “You have to stop crying or I can’t do your makeup.”

  I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop.

  “You’re on in three minutes,” a voice behind me said.

  Luke didn’t skip a beat. “I’ll do it alone.”

  He got up and left the room, and I didn’t see him again until he appeared on the monitor, sitting on the couch next to an interviewer with black hair named Adam.

  The two of them took their seats: Adam on a chair and Luke on the couch, facing him. Luke didn’t even glance over at the empty spot next to him where I should have been sitting.

  Luke gestured with his hands more than he usually did, but aside from that, he told his story exactly the same way he had over the last few days. Right until Adam asked him the final question: “So, Luke,” he said, leaning in closer to him. “Tell me. Do you believe in heaven now?”

  And then he went rogue.

  Luke laughed. “Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “Who knows anything. You don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just happy to be alive. I’ve always been kind of a live-for-the-moment guy, but I’m even more so now. The world looks different. Colors are brighter and food tastes better and the air smells cleaner, even in LA.” He was talking faster now, like he’d finished that coffee, chased it with a chocolate bar, and washed it all down with a Red Bull. “I’m in love with this amazing girl named Emory, and we only have four more months together before we go off to separate colleges, so I’m going to get back home tonight and wake up tomorrow and enjoy every second I have with her. If anything, this experience has taught me to soak up every second of every day, because we never know when it will be over. I’m not afraid of what happens next. I honestly don’t care. I’m just damn glad to be here.”

  Adam held up his hand and Luke high-fived him.

  The ride home was brutal. Luke barely said a word. When he pulled up in front of Covenant, he put the car in park, but he didn’t even bother to look at me. He kept his gaze fixed on the windshield. “Tell your dad I’m not coming tonight,” he said. “I’ve done enough to help him.”

  Once I was in my costume, with my makeup on, standing at my stage mark under the lights, I felt like a whole new person. I was a whole new person. I was Emily Webb, and I was killing it.

  When the curtain came up for Act Two, the spotlight shone on Charlotte. She stood confidently in the center of the stage and delivered her lines.

  “George and Emily are going to show you the conversation they had when they first knew that—as the saying goes—they were meant for one another. But before they do, I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young. And particularly the days when you were first in love; when you were like a person sleepwalking. You’re just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please?”

  When the stage lights dimmed at the beginning of the show and I could see out into the audience, I spotted Mom in the aisle seat in the first row, waving wildly at me. D-bag was next to her, staring down at his program. Mr. and Mrs. Calletti were sitting next to him, and Addison was on their other side. And then I spotted Luke and did a double take.

  I stared at him, hardly able to believe he was sitting there. He’d come after all. He’d picked me over them.

  “Hi,” I mouthed.

  “Hi,” he mouthed back.

  The stage went dark and the spotlights came up, shining warm and bright on Tyler and me, and I went back to work.

  “Emily, why are you mad at me?” Tyler asked.

  “I’m not mad at you,” I said.

  “You’ve been treating me so funny lately.”

  The lines came easily, and my feet seemed to carry themselves to the stage marks without me even having to think about it. By the time we reached the final scene, I was pumped and ready.

  Someone handed me a tissue so I could dab the sweat from my face. Someone else handed me my water bottle, and I drained it in one gulp. I was taking slow, even breaths through my nose, when Ms. Martin grabbed my hands and knelt next to me.

  “This is it. Remember, you’re saying good-bye to the things that matter most to you in this world. You’re telling this roomful of people to think about the things that matter most to them. Close your eyes.” I did. “Picture the three things you wrote down that day. What did you want to say good-bye to?”

  I thought about Hannah and my patch of grass. And the sound of my mom’s voice. And this stage.

  “Ready?” she asked. I handed her my empty glass as I nodded. “Go.”

  She stepped away and the curtain rose.

  I stared across the stage at the mourners gathered together at the graveyard, and when I heard my cue, I stood and walked slowly to my stage mark.

  “Good-bye.” I crinkled my forehead, preparing to produce fake tears. “Good-bye, world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up.”

  As I said the words, everything came rushing over me like a wave. And I suddenly understood the whole play. Tyler had tried to tell me that day on the platform, but I didn’t get it, not really. Now I did.

  I didn’t need to know what happened when our time on earth came to an end. I just wanted to be here, soaking it in, squeezing every drop out of my life. Appreciating little things, like chocolate chip cheesecake and Christmas ornaments and patches of grass and best friends. Sleeping and waking up.

  I let my eyes fall shut, and I felt the warmth of the spotlight on my face.

  A tear slid down my cheek. I hadn’t faked it.

  I opened my eyes and looked out into the audience. “Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

  I felt another tear, and another one, but I didn’t wipe them away. And then I locked my eyes on Luke and said my final line, just for him. “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it every, every minute?”

  Inside the sanctuary, everything was the managed chaos I expected to find. Dad was up onstage, dispensing jobs in that calm way of his, and the room was full of people at work, placing printed programs on seats, draping the offering table at the front of the room, and setting up the refreshments. The crew was testing the lights and the projection system.

  Alyssa, Logan, and Jack were together onstage, mic-ing one another up with the lavaliers.

  “How’s that?” Alyssa asked as she looked up in the sound booth. Aaron must have replied in her ear, because she gave him a big smile and a thumbs-up. Then she saw me. She came barreling down the steps and threw her arms around my shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re home. Come back to the music room, we need a quick rehearsal.”

  “I have to talk to my dad first.” I threaded my arm through hers and pulled her along for protection and moral support. Dad saw me coming and met me halfway.

  “Luke isn’t going to be here tonight,” I said.

  I’m not sure how Dad would have taken the news if we’d been alone, but since there were so many people around, hanging on his every word, he took it in stride.

  “Well, that’s okay. That gives us about five minutes to fill in the program, but we can figure something out,” he said cheerfully as he scanned the room. Logan and Jack were right behind me, and Alyssa was at my
side. Seeing the four of us together like that must have given him the idea he needed.

  “Let’s do a second SonRise song. You can start us off and wrap up the night.”

  I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through one song, let alone two. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be in the front row at Foothill High School watching Our Town, rooting on Emory. I didn’t want to be anywhere else, and I certainly didn’t want to be in Dad’s sanctuary any longer than I had to be. If it wasn’t for SonRise I would have blown the whole thing off.

  Dad snapped his fingers. “How about ‘Dare You.’ That’s one of my favorites. And that last line is so perfect: ‘I dare you to be here now.’ That’s the kind of message we want to close with anyway.”

  “It’s perfect,” Jack said.

  “We’ll sing it without percussion,” Logan added. “Just straight-up harmony, like we did at Northern Lights.”

  “Fine,” I said as I walked away. I didn’t care what we sang. I didn’t care about BU or attendance at Admissions Night. I didn’t even care what Dad and Aaron had done to Luke. I just couldn’t wait for the night to be over so I could get back to my room, stand in my window, and wait for Emory to come home.

  By 7:00, every seat in the room was taken and there were people lined up along the back wall. I expected some of them to leave when Dad announced that Luke couldn’t be there in person, but no one did.

  SonRise took the stage and kicked everything off with “Brighter Than Sunshine,” like we’d planned. I was working overtime to meet eyes with people in the crowd, not only because I knew that was part of my job, but also because it kept me from having to look at Aaron. When we were finished, we took our seats to the side of the stage and watched the next performances.

  Dad talked about the school, introduced the drama and dance groups, talked about the music program, and introduced the band. We were nearing the end of the program and everything was going off without a hitch. Dad was passionate and charming and funny. He connected with the kids in the room like he always did.