No Place Like Here

by Christina June

  I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching. When I verified I was completely alone, I wrote, very small, on the shelf where I’d taken the book:

  I AM NOT WHAT YOU SUPPOSED,

  BUT FAR DIFFERENT.

  Walt Whitman

  It was one of those lines that stuck with me, that I repeated to myself from time to time. It was the lyrical representation of my father and me. I wasn’t what he thought I was. In some ways, yes, I was the over-achieving daughter he wanted me to be, but I was also other things too. Not just that. Or, I thought I would be if he ever gave me the space to find out.

  I tucked the book under my arm and moved on, flipping through the Pablo Neruda and the Emily Dickinson, the Li Bai and the Nissim Ezekiel. I slid a volume by Nikki Giovanni off the shelf and tucked that under my arm as well. I couldn’t wait to pour over these pages and record the lines that touched my soul in my quote journal.

  “Thought you might like this.”

  I jumped at the sound of Baxter’s voice behind me. How long had he been standing there? My face heated, and I waited for it to cool before I turned around.

  “What’s that?”

  He handed me a book. A huge book. Maroon with gold and white lettering on the torn dust jacket. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. The 1980 edition.

  “I know you like quotes. Thought this might be of interest.”

  My mouth betrayed me, popping open. “How?” I expected him to tell me he’d been following me around. That he’d seen me write on the door of the locker room, on this shelf, on the sign-in sheet at orientation, or any of the other places I’d left my mark. Those little acts of rebellion had always been my secret. Or so I thought. What if he had seen me? I suddenly felt exposed. Naked. Though I had no reason to think Baxter would judge me, his awareness of my covert habit made me feel more than a little vulnerable.

  “Hannah told me you have a quote journal.”

  The sigh of relief that whooshed out of me was probably heard at the front of the store. “Oh. Yes. I do.” I smiled at him and did my best to regain my composure. “Thank you. For the book. It’s perfect.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We looked at each other for a second longer than two people who were just coworkers probably should. My toes wanted to curl, and I was glad I had sneakers on so he couldn’t see.

  And then of course, Hannah appeared and ruined the moment I suspected we were having.

  “Come on, slowpokes, I’m ready for some ice cream. Or maybe a coffee. I’ll decide on the way.”

  I paid for my books—Bax bought me the Bartlett’s—and we left the store, bell jingling behind us.

  The ice cream store was the most impressive business on Main Street. Twenty-eight different flavors, including ones the fanciest restaurants in DC might have dreamed up. Brown butter and fig jam, cilantro and lime sorbet, chèvre and blueberry, as well as all the traditional flavors, sat in the glass case, beckoning to sugar-hungry customers. My mouth watered just browsing.

  “I’ll have a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of vanilla in a waffle cone,” Hannah told the man behind the counter.

  “I would never have pegged you for a boring ice cream kind of girl. I’m kind of disappointed, actually.” I smiled sweetly at Hannah.

  “Yeah,” Bax agreed, “I would’ve guessed Egg Nog or Pistachio.”

  I stood closer to him, conspiring, looking Hannah up and down. “Maple bacon perhaps.”

  He high-fived me and smiled; a rush of joy shimmered down my arm and through my body. There was nothing hanging over me, like my parents or school or work. I smiled back, and in a burst of spontaneity, I hugged him. I hugged Baxter Clark. And with that hug, I noticed a few things. One, he was just as strong everywhere as his legs had been on the zipline. The arms that enveloped me, the chest that pressed me close, the shoulders my cheek rested on—all rock solid. Two, he smelled like pine needles. And three, he hugged me back. A second later, I realized what I’d done and pulled away.

  “Sorry,” I said to his brown hiking boots. “I don’t know what got into me.”

  “No apology needed.” Baxter’s voice was so warm that my insides went molten.

  I took a small step back, my eyes darting away from his, and went back to the ice cream case. “Ready to change your mind, Hannah?”

  “Not a chance. I know what I like.” She already had her waffle cone in hand and immediately took a huge bite off the chocolate scoop on top.

  Even when it came to ice cream, she knew exactly who she was. I envied that. Even if I wasn’t sure about much else right now, at least I had a lock on my ice cream flavor.

  “Mint chocolate chip in a sugar cone, please.” When the man handed it to me, I was pleased to see the ice cream was white. My favorite pint, consumed over many sad and angry nights, was the same. Not the fake green from food coloring. Each bite reminded me of Tatum and home and summer nights staying up late talking, but also of tears and exhaustion and defeat.

  “Butter pecan with chocolate sprinkles.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Bax’s order. “Really?”

  He took his cup of ice cream, which had a mountain of sprinkles on top. “It’s an underrated flavor.”

  You’re underrated too, I thought as he took a bite, and instantly I blushed, probably just as pink as his spoon.

  Chapter 20

  We strolled down Main Street, eating our ice cream, slowly savoring it, peeking in the business windows. The drugstore display was especially entertaining. It had a mannequin in swimming trunks, goggles, and flippers, ready to dive into an ocean that was miles and miles away. We all laughed as we inspected the variety of different sun blocks and aloe vera creams spread around him, as well as colorful towels and a picnic basket.

  Eventually, we sat down on the courthouse steps to people watch. Turned out, that was a favorite pastime of Bax and Hannah’s. They liked making up stories about the passers-by, and I liked listening to them banter. Bax was different with Hannah than he was with anyone else. He spoke more frequently and at length, instead of the as-short-as-possible replies he gave most other people. I guess it made sense. I was kind of like that too. There were only so many people I felt comfortable showing the real me to. I also couldn’t help noticing Bax had spoken a lot to me today too, like I’d passed some kind of test and proven myself worthy.

  “What about him?” Hannah pointed to a man, in his late twenties or early thirties, walking a poodle. Not a golden doodle or a toy poodle that maybe he inherited from his grandmother, but a full-on standard-sized black poodle, complete with elaborate hairstyle and shave. I covered my mouth to keep from laughing as he passed by. The man didn’t seem to notice the three of us watching him.

  “Secret millionaire. Holds a patent for that gadget that spins water off salad greens. Breeds poodles on the side. That one is a Westminster champion.” Baxter rattled it off like it was the truth.

  “That is oddly specific,” Hannah said, sounding impressed.

  “My mom loves that salad thing. She says it gets her lettuce super dry, which I guess is one of the more important things in life,” I said.

  “Speaking of moms,” Hannah said. My stomach fluttered, but she turned to Baxter instead of me, “How is your mom doing, Bax?”

  He nodded. “She’s getting along okay. Talked to her last night actually.” He swung his gaze my way. “My mom had surgery last week. Hysterectomy. She’s off her feet for a few weeks.”

  “That must be hard for her,” I said. “Is your dad helping at least?”

  “No dad. Just Mom and me. He left when I was little. It’s always been the two of us.” Baxter didn’t sound bitter about it. Just matter-of-fact, the way he was about everything.

  “Then it must really be hard for her if she’s at home and you’re here,” I realized aloud. “Is someone else helping? A neighbor?”

  Bax laughed. “She has a boyfriend, though Mom would never call him that. He’s making her meals and keeping her supplied with books a
nd magazines. She told me she’s looking forward to binge watching all the TV she never has time to watch.”

  “Bax’s mom is a nurse. She works all the time. Like, literally all the time.” Hannah shoved the last of her waffle cone in her mouth.

  “She takes off at least one day a week,” Bax countered. And then to me he said, “She makes a lot more in overtime, so she tries to pick up extra shifts when she can. Any time someone’s kid has an appointment or a school concert or something, she raises her hand.”

  “Does that mean she missed your school stuff growing up?” I asked. My parents came to every single event, competition, concert, and tournament. Which inevitably were followed by a list of things I should’ve done differently.

  “Sometimes. But I understood. If she didn’t work, we didn’t eat. Pretty simple.”

  Is that how it would be for me and Mom? Would she need to find a job to support us? I knew my tuition at Blue Valley was already taken care of for the next year, and Uncle Ed said living expenses were covered, but for how long? What if my dad’s business sunk for good?

  “My mom and I are going to be in the house by ourselves too,” I heard myself say before I could censor my thoughts. Hannah’s eyes got bigger, just as surprised by my admission as I was. And maybe more surprising, I wasn’t embarrassed. I didn’t feel like clamming up, as I usually did. Maybe it was the afternoon spent together. Maybe it was being in the presence of family. Whatever it was, my skin wasn’t crawling and there was no desire to dive behind a tree.

  “Oh, yeah?” Bax said lightly. “That’s probably going to be an adjustment.”

  Hannah eyed me. I knew she wanted me to talk, so I nodded at her. “My mom is in rehab right now. For depression,” I clarified. “Not drugs or anything like that. She’ll probably be home in a few weeks.”

  Hannah looked at me again before blurting, “And you already know her dad is in jail.”

  There they were. Both elephants in my life. Brought out into the open. To their credit, neither Hannah nor Baxter said anything after that. We sat there letting the slowly setting sun warm our skin. I ate the last of my ice cream cone while Bax scraped his spoon along the sides of his paper cup, getting every last sprinkle. I inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again. There was no reason to keep quiet about any of this really. Talking to Tatum was my go-to when things were rough, but she wasn’t here, and these two were the next best thing. Tatum’s voice in the back of my head whispered, Trust them.

  “My dad was sentenced to prison for tax evasion. He’ll be there just over a year. That’s probably what sealed the deal for my mom and her depression, though I think she’s been struggling for a long time and tried to cope by just ignoring it.” I put my elbows on my knees and rested my face in my hands. “And because I’ve been away at school for most of the last year, I missed that all of this was happening. It’s not exactly a great day when you find out your family is falling apart via social media.”

  “Ouch,” said Baxter. “I’m so sorry, Ashlyn.”

  “Me too,” Hannah said in a very un-Hannah-like muted tone.

  “It is what it is. My mom is going to be coming home at some point soon, and I want to go home too, but I don’t think they’ll let me.”

  “Why wouldn’t your parents let you come home?” Bax asked. “I mean, where have you been?”

  I winced. I didn’t want to tell him that part. I was pretty sure Hannah already knew, but who knows what version of the story she had heard. It was embarrassing to have to admit your mistakes. Especially in front of people who had just accepted you into their circle of friendship. Then again, not talking to people about what was going on hadn’t exactly been helpful. And it definitely didn’t make me feel any better.

  I recounted the same shoplifting story I’d shared with Marcus, way back during the first campfire, tears pricking my eyes as I mentioned being sent to Blue Valley. “My dad saw it as an opportunity to teach me a lesson, to assert his power over me, but the only thing I learned from him sending me away was that he didn’t want me around.”

  A fist squeezed my heart. I had never said that out loud before. Maybe never even fully admitted it to myself. I struggled to breathe, somehow managing to get a few shallow breaths in before the sobs came. Hannah scooted over and put her arm around me and hugged me so tightly it hurt.

  “I didn’t know that part,” she whispered in my ear.

  She let me cry for a few minutes, rubbing small circles around my back. It reminded me of how my mom would put me to sleep when I was little. She always promised to check on me after I was asleep. I’d drift off, feeling safe, knowing she was coming back. Now the question was, would I come back?

  Baxter cleared his throat and looked at me before he spoke. “Speaking from experience with my own mother, I would be really surprised if she didn’t want you to come home. You know, to be there when she gets herself back together. After my dad left, at least from what I remember, my mom was kind of a mess. We both were. But we figured it out together.”

  Hannah shook her head back and forth, like she was trying to dislodge a thought. “I don’t get it. Why do you even want to go back to her? To them? Because your dad will be back eventually.”

  I took a breath in, held it, and let it out slowly. That was a really difficult question to answer. There was an ocean’s current tugging me back to the house where I grew up, where all my memories began. But now, what was there for me? Home was supposed to be a place of comfort, right? I may not have gotten it all the time, but there was something about the sanctuary of my room, my mom, the routines that made us who we were, and even the reliability of my dad’s judgments, that brought a prickly kind of comfort. “Because. They’re mine. And maybe it’s hard for you to understand that because your family is amazing, Hannah, but it’s not so black and white. A family isn’t only good or only bad.”

  Hannah crossed her arms and huffed. I thought for a moment about how to convince her, then pulled the tiny pearl necklace out from the collar of my shirt. “My dad gave me this when I turned thirteen. It’s one of the few presents he ever picked out on his own. And for whatever reason, he was insistent that I needed to have it.”

  Hannah stared at the milky white pearl between my fingers for a moment before speaking. “Our grandmother had one just like that. It’s in every photograph of her. Always around her neck.”

  “I didn’t know that. He never speaks about her.” I shivered, even though it was still warm outside.

  “Sounds like there’s a lot he didn’t talk about,” Hannah said under her breath. Baxter smacked her on the arm and she turned to him. “What did I do?”

  Baxter inhaled loudly, caught between the weight of my sadness and Hannah’s vitriol for my father. “Ash,” Bax said to me, “it sounds to me like you and your father are going to have a lot to discuss. Your mom too. When everyone is back under the same roof.”

  “If we ever are under the same roof again.”

  “Don’t even ask. Tell them you’re coming home. Demand it.” Hannah’s voice was rising with emotion. “Ashlyn, you should fight back more.”

  My mouth popped open, unsure of how to defend myself. Hannah’s frame of reference was so different from mine.

  “I don’t think it’s that easy, Han,” Bax said quietly. “Families are complicated.” He gave me a sad smile.

  “Well, thank goodness mine isn’t.” She threw up her hands and stood, clearly done with the conversation. “We should get back.”

  “To avoid the rush hour traffic?” I gestured to the completely empty street.

  “You’re being funny again,” Hannah said, pointing a finger at me.

  She took off in the direction of where we’d left the bikes, leaving Baxter and me to follow. I dusted off the back of my shorts, balled up my napkin, and stuffed it in my pocket.

  “Ash?”

  “Yeah?” We made it to the sidewalk, standing side by side, both facing forward.

  “If you ever want to talk. About your family. Or anyt
hing else. I’m a good listener.”

  But not today. I felt depleted, but it was a good emptiness. The emptiness after a good cry when you’re ready to start fresh and move on. “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  Chapter 21

  Back at the retreat center, the sun had just dipped below the horizon and the sky was an inky purple. I racked my bike, gave Hannah back the helmet, and thanked her and Baxter for including me in their outing.

  “You’re not a guest, Ashlyn,” Hannah said. The feeling of belonging to anything that even resembled family was still foreign.

  As nice and peaceful as the evening had been, my mind was spinning. It was a strange thing to have new allies after being isolated for such a long time. To be accepted, and allow myself to accept in return, threw me off. And the fact that I shared what I had, and made myself vulnerable? I knew without a doubt I’d be up all night, Bax and Hannah’s words playing around and around in my head. Dad’s phantom scolding would probably show up too, reminding me to keep my cards closer.

  I decided to go for a walk. There was a chill in the air now, so I walked quickly up the hill to stave off goose-bumps. The moon rose, half bright and half in shadow, over the lake, illuminating the ripples cast by the slight breeze. I rubbed my bare arms as I walked past.

  “Cold?”

  His voice was like honey. I turned and saw his almost-feral grin, lips curling upward.

  “Hi, Marcus.” I remembered how, earlier that day, I saw him laughing with Mallory. Somehow that seemed like weeks ago, instead of just a few hours.

  “What have you been up to?”

  “Went into town with Hannah and Baxter.”

  “Oh yeah? The boring twins?” He chuckled.

  I gritted my teeth. “You know Hannah’s my cousin, right?”

  “Sorry, sorry. But you have to admit, she’s super uptight. Am I wrong?”