“HEY, I’M GOING TO HOPE’S. I’M JUST CHANGING CLOTHES. I’LL SEE Y’ALL LATER,” I yell.
This was necessary as both Pam and Mimi are sitting in the living room pretending not to wait for me.
“You are not off the hook!” yells Mimi as I dash past them a second time (now, with clothes!).
“Okay!” Everything is exclamation points today.
I slam the door. Hope is waiting on her front porch.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
Oh, wow, this is really happening. She pulls out her house key, and I realize her dad’s car is absent from the driveway. She unlocks the door. We go into her house and stand in her living room, which is something I’ve done about a billion times before. Everything is the same, and everything is totally upside down.
“So, that was an interesting voicemail you left me.”
Right. That. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I know what she wrote on the paper. I know she held my hand in front of Ashley’s house just as tight as I held hers. But I still feel like I’m walking into a minefield and one wrong word and BOOM. Everything we might get to be will disappear in a cloud of smoke.
“I—”
She crosses her arms.
“You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“If you recall, I was the one that did this last time. And I got shot down.”
I wince. “I recall. Sorry about that.”
“No, hey, I’m just messing with you. Do your spiel.” She drops her voice to a stage whisper. “If it makes you feel any better, my answer is going to be yes.”
It does. “Okay, here goes. I want you.”
Her eyes go wide. Oh, crap.
“I mean, to be my girlfriend. But other things, too.” I don’t not want her that way. “I want to see you every day, and kiss you every day, and I want us to know each other forever and build whatever life we dream up.”
Hope’s smirk has disappeared, and she looks like she might cry. “I want all those things, too,” she whispers.
There’s this moment when we’re staring at each other, and it feels like the moment after a hurricane when everything has subsided and you know you’re going to be okay.
She takes a step closer. “I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to kiss you.”
“Me, too.” Wait. “We have kissed.”
“Not like this.”
She wraps one hand around my neck and pulls my face toward hers. She kisses me and the trees explode with flowers, tulips shooting up out of the ground like one of those time-lapse videos. Everything is more alive and turning/growing/reaching for her like she’s the sun. It is all so much bigger than labels and categories and convenient little boxes, and it almost sweeps me away. When we finally pull apart, she looks as dazed as I feel.
“Nope. Definitely not like that,” I say. “Not like this, either.”
This time I’m kissing her, and it doesn’t feel like flowers or magic. It feels like a storm. Bodies crushing against each other. Hands tangled in hair. Feelings so big they feel like explosions. We aren’t dazed this time. We are gasping for air.
And now the floodgates have been broken on kissing, the moratorium has been lifted, and we give each other every kiss we’ve been dreaming about for the past five years. Kissing. Laughing. Laughing. Kissing. We roll around in the blissful newness of it all. Sometimes I tic, but we’re both way too busy to notice.
Hope takes a break from the kissing and lays her head in my lap so she’s looking up at me. “Why couldn’t we have done this before?”
“Right? We have lost out on years of kissing. Years.”
Hope snorts. “Thanks a lot, past Spencer and Hope.”
We’re laughing, and then her face goes kind of serious. “I wasn’t ready before.”
I put my arm around her as my way of saying, Anything you want to tell me right now will be okay.
“There were times when I thought I was, but I don’t know. I think we would have ruined it.”
I think about what it would have been like to get together with Hope when I still practically worshipped her. “I think you’re right.”
“I needed a lot of time after Janie. I’m sorry if I hurt you, but that was what I needed. I just, I had to grieve on my own time line.”
“You never have to apologize for that. I’m sorry for trying too hard and pushing you.”
“You don’t have to apologize, either. I know what you were trying to do, and I kind of love you for it.”
Love. She definitely just said “love.” We both turn red and find the wallpaper to be fascinating.
“Hey, want to see something in my room?”
“Okay.” I turn even redder, which I didn’t think was possible.
I follow her upstairs.
“Check it out,” she says.
Her room looks the same—the empty walls, the overflowing bookshelf, the desk with the . . . Oh. There is a map over her desk. A small one, but that’s how the best things start. I walk closer and touch it with hesitant fingers.
“Brazil, huh?”
She shrugs shyly. “I’ve been planning trips again. Ugh, but it would be a whole lot easier if I hadn’t thrown away all that stuff after, um, you know.”
Ohmygosh, it’s finally the right time!
“Wait here!”
I can only imagine the series of expressions she’s making as I sprint out of her room, but I don’t even care. This is so going to be worth it.
I run inside my house. “HEY, I’M JUST GETTING SOMETHING OUT OF THE ATTIC. CAN’T TALK.”
The attic is dark and spiderweb-y. It’s been a long time since anyone’s been up here. The plastic container is sitting right where I left it, though. I try to brush some of the dust off, but it’s kind of a lost cause. Oh, well.
I pick it up and run back downstairs. “GOING BACK TO HOPE’S. SEE Y’ALL LATER.”
“You are still not off the hook!” yells Mimi.
“Noted!”
And then I’m tearing across the yard and through Hope’s front door, clattering up the stairs to her bedroom, setting the box on her desk.
“Open it.” I can hardly contain my excitement. This must be what it feels like to be Santa or that guy who gives out gold medals for wrestling at the Olympics.
Hope appears . . . skeptical. She carefully lifts the plastic lid and then wipes her hands on her jeans before reaching inside. The maps and drawings are still there, perfect, protected, though I had to piece together some of them with tape.
She unfolds a map, slowly, silently. It’s Haiti, and her eyebrows draw together in the middle. “But—” She pulls out another piece of paper, long and winding, with pieces of Scotch tape holding together all the places she wanted to visit. She claps a hand over her mouth. There are tears streaming down her cheeks, and her face is going all splotchy, and her nose is running, and she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.
“So, when you were—”
“Yes.”
“But why didn’t you—”
I shrug. “I didn’t want to make things worse.”
She’s crying and she shakes her head, and then she’s laughing.
“What?”
“I was throwing away my dreams, and you were literally picking them up.”
I smile. “I guess I was.”
She doesn’t so much hug me as fall into me. I catch her. Hold her. Wrapped up in the magic of second chances and being together.
A TAXONOMY OF HOPE’S SMILES
Epilogue
19 years old
THE TAXONOMY OF US
“SNEAK-ATTACK SELFIE!” Hope kisses me on the cheek and snaps a picture with her phone at the same time. I am 87 percent sure my eyes were closed.
Hope checks the picture. “Perfect!” She sends it to Paul.
“I am not so sure he appreciates those.”
“Please. He lives for my Spencer-Hope selfies. And soon we’ll be out of the countr
y, and I won’t be able to send him any. How will he cope?”
The suited-up guy behind us narrows his eyes at Hope’s perkiness and goes back to shouting into his phone about idiots and supply chain issues. The lady beside me runs over my foot with her suitcase for the second time. The line is moving in slow motion or backward or not at all. Hope squeezes my hand, and the line doesn’t matter. (Side note: When you find someone who makes even the TSA line tolerable, you keep them.)
We make our way through the line in centimeters and millimeters and nanometers. I trace my thumb over her hand, pausing at the black streak by her finger. She got it this morning putting the last big permanent X on our Countdown to Caribbean calendar.
When we finally get to the front, she loads her photography equipment onto the conveyor belt like it’s a newborn baby. She bounces on the balls of her feet while we wait to go through the scanner thingy that probably shrinks your balls and makes your nose hairs radioactive. The equipment comes out the other side post-x-ray. Hope checks it obsessively.
“It’s okay.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “Your camera has not been replaced by a changeling.”
She shoots me a pretend glare.
Three escalators, a tunnel, and a fifteen-minute train ride later, and we have successfully navigated the belly of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. We are at our gate, scanning our boarding passes, stowing our carry-on bags in the overhead compartment, and sitting with our seatbacks and tray tables in an upright position.
I tic-sniff a couple times and wipe my nose. “Are you starving? Because I am starving. I wonder what they’re gonna feed us. I hope they’ve made great strides in airplane food since the last time I flew.”
Hope stares at the seat in front of her. I don’t think she’s heard a word I’ve said. I put my hand on her knee.
“Are you okay?”
“She died on a plane,” she whispers.
“I know.” Hope puts her hand on top of mine, and I flip it over so she can lace our fingers together. “Are you scared?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I’m sad, mostly. But it also feels like I can’t catch my breath.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
I bend over and pull my iPad out of my bag. Her dad told me this might happen. I grab my earbuds and hand one to her and keep the other.
“What are you doing?” Her voice has un-cried tears in it.
“We’re not on a plane,” I whisper. “We’re in a magic portal movie theater that transports people from Atlanta to Belize City without ever leaving the ground.”
Hope sniffs and gives me a skeptical look. “What’s playing at this magic portal movie theater?”
I smile. “A musical.”
Her skepticism grows. “Which one?”
“It has to be a surprise or the magic goes faulty.”
She frowns. “This magic portal movie theater sounds very temperamental.”
“Oh, it is.”
We slip in our earbuds, and I hit play. The Columbia lady appears onscreen.
“What happens when the movie’s over?” she asks.
I pat my iPad. “I’ve loaded this baby with enough musicals to get us all the way to Belize. And back.”
She snuggles into my shoulder. The music begins. People start singing about five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes, and tears stream down Hope’s cheeks.
Her eyes flick over to me, and she mouths, I love you.
I mouth back, I love you, too.
Jul 26
Dear Janie,
It’s been kind of a while now, huh? Sorry about that. Maybe you weren’t worried though. Did you know all along that I’d write you again?
Things are a lot better now. Well, I’m a lot better. Mom and Dad could still really use some help. Can you work on that?
I graduated from high school last month. Every time I hit a milestone without you there, it feels so weird. Like there are two parallel worlds in my head: the reality one and the one where you’re still here, pinning my cap so it doesn’t mess up my hair, teasing Dad when he cries through almost the whole ceremony, composing an elaborate toast for me at dinner.
I’m organizing an art show for the end of August. You would like it. It’s to benefit sustainable energy in developing countries. And I know you’re probably laughing right now and thinking who in their right mind is going to pay to see my stick-figure masterpieces, but it’s not my art. It’s yours. Remember when I threw a fit and ripped down all your drawings and the maps, too? Spencer saved them. (More on him later.) He actually dug through our trash and flattened them out and pieced them back together and kept them in his attic until I was ready for them. Which, okay, that created a HUGE misunderstanding, but we worked it out (more on that later, too).
So, I had all these beautiful, soul-opening drawings of yours, and I was trying to figure out what to do with them, and I thought about hanging them up in my room again, but I didn’t want them to be just for me anymore. I wanted everyone to see how special you are. To look at the faces you drew and feel like they’d been poured inside another person. Mimi’s the one who thought to do an art show. She’s still pretty enraptured with the idea. “We’re going to bring this town some culture!” she said. She arranged to pair the show with a wine tasting at a local farm. Miss Pam helped me plan the menu while Spencer was away being a counselor at his camp, and then when he got back, they both helped me make installations with all the pieces. Mom and Dad had some more of your drawings stashed away, and Nolan sent me some, too. He’s coming in August, for the show. I think it’ll be a good thing for him. For all of us.
And maybe, maybe, maybe if I take some photos I’m really proud of before then (because FYI, I do photography now! It’s a thing!), I might think of adding a few of them to the show.
And speaking of Spencer . . .
Okay, fine, I wasn’t speaking of Spencer, I was speaking of Nolan, and then I was speaking of photography, but you know you’re desperate to hear about me and Spencer.
. . .
. . .
. . .
We’re together now.
You’re probably smiling smugly and thinking finally, and maybe if you were in my shoes, you would have figured all this stuff out sooner, but I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like things have to happen at just the right time.
Anyway, we planned the best-ever backpacking trip through the Caribbean, starting with Belize, and I’m on an airplane RIGHT NOW writing you this letter on my tray table, and Spencer is sitting next to me holding my hand, and the guy in front of us is snoring like a chain saw, and everything is so perfect and amazing and magical, I feel like I could burst.
I still miss you. I’ll always miss you. But I know you’re out there, sprinkled throughout the world like the pieces of some great puzzle. Lives you changed, things you did, adventures you had, in Samoa, Haiti, South Africa, Belize.
You’re everywhere, Janie. So, that’s where I’m going.
Everywhere.
Acknowledgments
I’m so grateful to all of the wonderful people in my life who helped make this book possible:
My ridiculously talented and hilarious beta readers: Michelle Ampong, Dana Alison Levy, Kate Boorman, Kate Goodwin (basically, if you don’t currently have a Kate, GET ONE NOW), Jamie Blair, Erin Brambilla, Janine Clayson, Christa Desir Debra Driza, Marie Marquardt, Nic Stone, and Jenn Walkup. This book is so much better because of you, and I’m so lucky to call you my friends.
To Ellen Rozek, I can’t thank you enough for reading, and I was blown away by your insightful feedback. Robert Worthington, thank you so much for reading and answering all my questions. And to Jess Thom for incredibly helpful e-mail convos, for pointing me in the direction of all sorts of amazing resources, and for your life-changing Tourette’s syndrome awareness work.
To this amazing writing community that I get to be a part of, especially these little pockets: OneFour KidLit, the incomparable LBs, the Not-So-YA Book Club, Yay
YA!, and my Atlanta writer crew and retreat girls (especially my coplanners Gilly and Maryann!). To Little Shop of Stories, which is like my very own Hogwarts, and to all the librarians, bloggers, teachers, and book people who make Kidlit awesome. Special thanks to the woman I spoke with at a YALSA mixer in 2014 for sparking the idea for this book, and to Natalie Parker and Madcap Retreats, without which, I never would have finished on time.
To all the neurodiverse kids. I think you’re the coolest.
To my agent, Susan Hawk. Thank you for making my dreams come true again and again. For being supportive and inspiring and for tirelessly believing in me and in this book—I couldn’t have written it without you, plain and simple. Also, thank you for the best ever phone conversations (Side Banana forever!).
To my editor, Erica Finkel, for taking this book to places I never imagined, for figuring out the piece about spanning the love story across time (and for suggesting I watch One Day, even if it did make me ugly cry), and for being so fun to work with.
To Samantha Hoback, Alyssa Nassner, Kyle Moore, Melanie Chang, Nicole Schaefer, Trish McNamara, Mary Wowk, Elisa Gonzalez, Rebecca Schmidt, Susan Van Metre, Andrew Smith, Michael Jacobs, and anyone else at Abrams who worked on this book in any way. You guys are my heroes. Also, Libby Vander-Ploeg, thank you for designing a cover so beautiful and perfect, I still can’t stop looking at it.
To my family, who is so wonderfully supportive and caring, and especially Mom, Mica, Bekah, Dennis, and Maxie for taking care of my kiddos so I have time to write books. I love you guys.
To Ansley and Xander, for being the best things in my world.
And to Zack Allen. Thank you for knowing all the things about wrestling, for Wednesday writing days, and for more things than I can put into words.
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