The Way Back to You

by Michelle Andreani

  Because I was born to a “not a Christian but still deeply, deeply spiritual” mother and an “agnostic with hope” father, this is only my second time inside a church. (The first was almost six months ago for Ashlyn’s memorial.) If my parents had been different, maybe I’d be different, but I don’t think so. I just don’t connect with anything religious or mystical. Before, it never bothered me that I didn’t inherit my mother’s ability to believe in an afterlife or my dad’s ability to hope for one. Since Ashlyn’s death, it’s been bothering me a lot.

  In this church, there’s no organ music playing or lit candles or statues. The heat doesn’t seem to be turned on. It’s also dingy, with pea-green fuzzy seats and yellowish beige carpeting.

  I sit perfectly still, perfectly quiet. There’s rustling up front. Church mice, maybe? (Are those a thing in real life, or just in kids’ books?) It’s probably good that I’m back here, after all.

  Digging into the pocket of my hoodie, I grab my phone and earbuds so I can cover up the potential-rodent sounds. I consider making this experience more authentic by putting on some gospel channel, but decide instead to leave it on my usual music (which isn’t emo, no matter what my cousin Matty thinks). I turn it up and wait for answers to end my crisis. I’m more than ready to become the Back to Normal Kyle everyone wants me to be.

  I wait.

  I stare ahead.

  I focus on the light-colored cross on the dark-wood podium.

  I get lost in the stained glass’s kaleidoscope-type circle design.

  I glance left, right, down, up.

  I wait some more.

  At the last church I was in, the minister spoke Words of Encouragement to the hundreds of people who showed up for Ashlyn’s memorial. Later in the service, Matty read aloud friends’ and family members’ memories he’d collected. I was surprised when Claudia (Ashlyn’s best friend, who mostly answers to “Cloudy”) didn’t go up front with him, and even more surprised when I realized afterward that none of the stories had been from her.

  The cheer coach’s note was all about the inspiring drive, perfectionism, and positive outlook Ashlyn brought to the squad. My aunt Robin’s was about eight-year-old Ashlyn showing up at their house next door after having “run away” with only a suitcase of stuffed animals. Ashlyn’s mother had Matty share the letter she was sending to Ashlyn’s organ recipients. There were happy stories, thoughtful stories, silly stories. So many, I couldn’t recall all of them now even if I wanted to.

  The audience chuckled while Matty read what I’d written about Ashlyn’s laugh and how it had taken me completely off guard at first. They could relate because no one ever expected such a strange sound to come out of such a cute girl.

  When she really got going, she sometimes sounded like a farm animal, and I teased her once, asking if she’d been a donkey in her past life. (Not that I believe in the past-lives thing, obviously. Even though I kind of want to.) My stomach twists up now at how douchey that was for me to say, but Ashlyn wasn’t even bothered. She just pushed me all playful and laughed her unique, endearing, and contagious laugh.

  The laugh no one will hear again. Not in the flesh, at least.

  I pause my music. And even though I know it’s going to be a mistake, I check my phone for the last video I got of her.

  There was a time when it would have taken a lot of searching to find something from half a year ago, but since there hasn’t been a single moment I’ve wanted to record since she died, I’m able to go straight to it and press play. A wiggly shot sweeps toward the darkening sky and settles on two girls in the stadium parking lot with their arms around each other. The sides of their faces are smushed together and Ashlyn’s glossy black ponytail is flipped over both their heads, covering most of Cloudy’s reddish-blond hair.

  On that Friday night, they’d already changed out of their uniforms after having cheered for the first football game of the year, and were waiting with me for Matty to come out of the locker room. School had started that week, and it was one of those rare occasions when Cloudy and I were in the same place at the same time and I wasn’t getting the feeling she wished we weren’t.

  In my earbuds, my disembodied voice says, “Okay, ready? One. Two. Three.”

  The seconds tick by and the girls’ smiles on my screen get bigger, fade a little, and then get big again. Ashlyn’s eyes look extra bright, bright green. (She once said her eyes were the color of a 7Up can, while Cloudy’s were dark blue like a Pepsi can.) On the screen, Ashlyn raises her eyebrows and Cloudy scrunches her nose and they both giggle. While still holding a stiff grin, Ashlyn asks, “Did you take the picture, Kyle?”

  Me: “I don’t think so. You didn’t see my flash, right?”

  Cloudy whispers something to her (I’ll never know what, but I assume it had to do with “flashing”), and they both burst out laughing.

  Me again: “Oh, wait. I accidentally set it on video mode.”

  The view gets all wavy again and the only sound is the girls as they laugh and laugh and laugh. It’s all accidental by this point since I was changing the settings, but the camera goes back to them and follows as they slide their backs down my Xterra and land on the cement, where they laugh some more.

  Then the clip ends. My eyes tear up at the blurred, frozen image of Ashlyn and Cloudy sprawled on the ground, looking both silly and pretty at the same time.

  People say stuff about how Ashlyn’s in a better place and gazing down from heaven, but I can’t stand to think of her as some stalker in the sky who has nothing better to do than use her telescopic, 7Up can–green eyes to watch me all day while I shower and eat and go to school and do homework and (sometimes) hit the weight room and play video games and sleep.

  I can’t stand to think of her watching me now.

  Secretly, I do want to have hope that reincarnation is real and she’s a baby. Or a donkey, cat, raccoon, seagull, zebra, tropical fish. Or something else. Anything. I don’t care what she is; I just wish some part of her could be living somewhere on this planet. Because if she isn’t, what’s the point of any of this?

  My chest tightens and my jaw does its thing to try to prevent me from crying. Most of the time these days, it works, but I hate the soreness afterward, like someone wadded my face up in their fist like a candy wrapper. I pull my earbuds out, drop my phone on the seat beside me, and cover both hands over my eyes.

  It was two days after that first football game when Ashlyn went for a bike ride with her parents and her little brother. She lost control going downhill and took the landing so hard, her helmet was knocked loose and she hit her head. At first, the doctors thought there was a chance she’d come out of her coma—that she’d be okay. But after only a few days, they determined she was brain dead.

  If Ashlyn hadn’t been in that accident, I don’t know what today would have been like. It was important to her that we do something special for our “monthiversaries” (which meant we always did—except for the time last June when I forgot), so obviously, she would have wanted our one-year anniversary to be a much bigger deal. A twelve-times-bigger deal, probably.

  The entire past month has been filled with gut-punching reminders about how my relationship with Ashlyn first began last year. And each week there’s been something to trigger more “what if?” thoughts: If Ashlyn were here, what would she have given me on my birthday? What would we have done on Valentine’s Day? What would she have picked out for me to wear to Winter Formal?

  And on and on and on.

  The rustling up front kicks in again and someone whispers, “Did you hear something?”

  Wiping my eyes, I lift my gaze in time for a girl’s head to pop up from the front row. My vision has adjusted to the dim lighting and I recognize her as Danielle, one of the cheerleaders. I also recognize she’s wearing nothing on top except a black bra.

  She sits up a bit higher, squinting at me, and then disappears again. “Oh my gosh! Kyle’s here!”

  Another head appears. This one belongs to my c
ousin Matty, who isn’t wearing a shirt, either. “Kyle?” he asks.

  I raise my hand in greeting, even as the rest of me threatens to collapse in sudden exhaustion. Matty waves back and a goofy grin spreads across his face.

  “What is he doing?” Danielle loud-whispers.

  Matty ducks out of view. “Not sure.”

  The conversation continues, but they’re speaking too quietly for me to make out words.

  I’m not sure what my next move should be. What is the proper etiquette when you wander into a random church in search of enlightenment and your cousin and his ex-girlfriend’s teammate happen to be hooking up ten rows in front of you?

  Just as I’ve made the decision to leave, Danielle beats me to it. She rushes down the aisle (with her shirt and coat on now), staring very fixedly at something that isn’t my face.

  Up front, there’s a loud zip! Matty gets up, ambling toward me with his Lava Bears baseball T-shirt on inside out. (He plays both football and baseball, but he’s better at baseball.) His smile is bigger than any he’s directed my way since I got overwhelmed and left before the pep rally yesterday.

  “So, Kyle.” He plops down beside me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for peace and quiet. Which, obviously, is not the same as what you’re doing.” I sweep my hand to encompass the room. “Who knew this would be where it all happens?”

  “I know, right?” Matty says. “Pastor’s daughters. Watch out when they’re driving you home and say they need to stop at church to pick something up real quick.”

  “Thanks for the tip.” The odds of me having to get a ride are minuscule compared with his; Uncle Matthew and Aunt Robin’s favorite method of punishment is taking Matty’s car away. Whether he gets a bad grade, misses curfew, gets caught stealing a beer from the fridge, or says “shit” in front of them, it’s a guarantee his car will then spend a week or more in “purgatory,” as he calls it. (It’s also a guarantee that the rest of us will be suffering the consequences along with him, since we’ll have to drive him everywhere.) “I thought you were getting your car back today.”

  “No. Sunday.”

  “It’s impossible to keep track. So, am I the last to know about”—I gesture in the direction Danielle headed—“all this?”

  “This just happened. I mean, just happened. So you’re the first.” He picks up my phone and I brace myself. Is he going to notice the Ashlyn video and figure out what’s going on with me? Instead, he hands it over, still smiling. “Take my picture. Then when I start to wonder if this was a dream, I’ll have a way to remember.”

  Exactly what I want, to be part of my cousin’s kinky memories. I drop the phone back into my pocket. “Or, we can forget I was here.”

  “That works, too.” He sinks back against the bench’s stiff cushioning. “But seriously. Now that you’ve found me, what were you needing?”

  “Nothing. I mean, I wasn’t looking for you. Or for anyone. I’m just . . . here. For the quiet, like I said.”

  Matty studies me for a long moment, wearing his Kyle-you’re-freaking-me-out face. Pep-rally-skipping aside, I do what I can to avoid causing him to make this face, so it’s especially frustrating that, of all the places in the world either of us could be right now, we both ended up in Random Church Number Four.

  “I should leave.” I stand and step around his legs to get to the aisle.

  “And I should find Danielle.”

  Matty goes back up front for the rest of his clothes while I head for the carved doors.

  When I step into the lobby, Danielle is waiting at the entrance. “I figured out how you got in.” She jangles a set of keys and aims a shy smile at me. “Is everything . . . okay with you now?”

  I put on a smile for her. Like Matty, she seems to think I came here for him. “I’m fine. And I’m sorry for startling you. Just so you know, I had no idea you guys were in there. In movies, it seems like people go into churches whenever they feel like it.”

  “It isn’t like that here. My dad keeps set office hours.”

  “Which don’t happen to be Thursday afternoons?”

  She giggles. “Definitely not.”

  I push the door to leave, and cold air hits my face like I’ve opened a freezer.

  Danielle follows me out. “Oh, no. The Dirty-Pawed Avenger strikes again!”

  At first, I can’t figure out what she’s pointing at, but then I spot a brown, smudgy trail across the hood of my vehicle, leading to a black cat that almost blends into the paint job. “Whose cat is that?” I ask.

  “She’s a stray. Always on the hunt for a warm engine. When she first turned up here, she was such a tiny thing. Every Sunday she goes from car to car. It’s kind of funny.”

  The temperature outside has been in the twenties and thirties for weeks; no wonder the poor cat is curled up so tightly.

  Matty barrels out to join Danielle and me, and the vibe gets weird as they smirk at each other in embarrassed, secretive ways. I guess it’s all good for Matty, though. He’s been telling me for months he likes Cloudy “only as a friend,” but I didn’t believe it until now.

  “Well, it seems I have no choice except to become the villain who sends this stray cat back to the mean streets of Bend, Oregon.” I give Danielle and Matty a quick nod and start down the stairs. “See you guys at school.”

  “Kyle, wait!” Matty calls out. “You want to do something tonight?”

  I turn. “Nah. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Well, obviously tomorrow.”

  I lift the corners of my mouth into the approximation of a pleasant expression to hide my irritation. “Right.”

  Official baseball tryouts aren’t happening until after we get back from midwinter break, but Matty decided everyone who played varsity last year (aside from the guys who graduated, obviously) should hang out Friday night for some preseason bonding or whatever. I told him this morning I’d go (after he guilt-tripped me for leaving him to make the announcement yesterday), but the truth is, the closer it gets to the start of the season, the less I want anything to do with the team.

  Without waiting for Matty to say more, I skip down the stairs. Before I even reach the bottom, my false smile dies and depression slams into me all over again. I came here for answers, for a sign, for something. But there were no statues, no nuns, no priests, and no helpful strangers. All I got out of this was Matty on my case again and muddy little paw prints all over my vehicle.

  “Sorry, Dirty-Pawed Avenger.” I’m at my driver’s-side door now. “It’s time to find another heater.”

  It turns out the cat is actually a kitten. She keeps lying there with her eyes squeezed shut, so I step forward and give her a light poke in the side. “I mean it. I’m going home now.”

  She curves herself into an even tighter ball. Her stomach rises and falls as she breathes. What was Danielle talking about, saying she was tiny back whenever she first came around? She’s still super little now.

  Aside from a carnival-won goldfish, Dad and I have never had a pet, and Matty’s cat, Hercules, is the only one I’ve spent much time with. He likes to show his “affection” by hooking his claws into my legs and biting my wrists, so I haven’t always been his biggest fan.

  I rub the kitten between her ears. Her glossy black fur is softer than it looks. She responds by butting her head against my hand, flicking her tail, and opening her eyes.

  Her eyes, which happen to be green. Bright, bright green. The color of a 7Up can, to be exact. My heart stops for a second.

  She blinks at me and I blink right back.

  I don’t know what this means, if it means anything. I really, really don’t. But I can’t help hoping maybe, just maybe, I’ve found the answer I was seeking after all.

  Cloudy

  We finally pull into a parking spot.

  “Thank God,” I groan, reaching forward to click off the radio. The sounds of overlapping guitars and the la-la-la-ing singer cut off abruptly, the speakers now mercifully silent. I shudder
all over like the power button was covered in raw meatloaf. “No more music by sad boys.”

  Zoë, in the passenger seat, crosses her arms over her chest. “You said I could choose.”

  “My mistake.” I put my Honda in park and turn off the engine.

  “Anyway, they’re not sad. They’re—”

  “Crybabies.”

  “Passionate,” she says, decisively and dreamy-eyed.

  “Oh, gag.” I snap off my seat belt and twist to grab my puffy coat from the backseat. Slipping it on, I say, “Just so you know, on the way home we’re listening to someone who wears glitter.”

  Zoë’s eyes scrunch up behind her glasses. “Glitter? Really?”

  “Glitter”—I count it off on one finger, then more—“with a fondness for drum machines. And clapping.”

  “I’d rather crawl home.” She grins and slides out of the car.

  As soon as I open my own door, icy February air ribbons in. It has to be the coldest day of the year so far. The sun is about to set, and the sky is a mix of purples and pinks against the pine trees that border the Target parking lot—possibly the only parking lot in Bend without a mountain view.

  We make our way toward the big red bull’s-eye, Zoë bobbing beside me in her green Converse sneakers and orange knit cap. The lot is mostly empty for a Friday evening; everyone’s probably skipped out for midwinter break vacations already.

  Zoë and I are not so lucky, however. We’re homebound while Mom and Dad are away on a cruise to Mexico. They haven’t taken a trip by themselves since Zoë was born and now they’re going for it. Which is all very nice until you get to the part where they ditch their dependents for ten days. I’d be on board with fending for myself if it wasn’t the reason why Ashlyn’s parents asked Zoë and me over tonight. Accepting their invitation felt more like a sentencing. I dread being back in that house, but I couldn’t refuse. Although there’s always the chance I’ll break an ankle and have to cancel before dinnertime.

  “Candy first,” I announce once we’re inside. The Montiels aren’t expecting us for another hour, so I’ll fill up every minute of it with distraction.