The Way Back to You

by Michelle Andreani

  Will counts to three, and we both let go.

  It hovers for a moment before leisurely lifting up and above us, higher and higher, to present my wishes to the universe. I find myself hoping with everything I have that it’s strong enough to carry them all the way.

  I KEEP WATCH of the lantern, tracking it among all the others, until someone drops down beside me on the sparse grass. I’m the only one left by the faux volcano. Kyle was, once again, steered away by Hannah, and everyone else has scattered. Everyone except Will, it turns out.

  “Kind of protective of that lantern,” he says. It’s too dim to see very much of him, but there’s lightness in his voice. “You must really want your wish.”

  “I do,” I say. “Don’t you want yours?”

  “Do I want a contained fire to take out my mom’s doll room? Of course.”

  Laughing, I pull my knees up to my chest. “Is this how you celebrate your birthdays, too, William?” I’m joking, but even after only a day of knowing him, using Will’s full name is strangely stiff and pretentious. How does Hannah stand it?

  “To be honest, Claudia,” he jokes back, “I prefer more solemn affairs.”

  “Then lots of chanting? Ceremonial robes?”

  “It varies year to year. I bet you’re a birthday bash person, though.”

  “No question. I am all about the bash. A solid gold dance floor. Maybe shooting someone out of a cannon.”

  “Please don’t share any of that with Hannah,” he chuckles. “So you and Kyle are still leaving for Oatman tomorrow?”

  “Uh-huh.” It’s one more way to put off going to Vegas, and a slightly better plan than slashing Kyle’s tires in the middle of the night.

  Will swipes at his thigh once, then again. “When he mentioned it at Sugarloaf, I’d thought about saying something, but I didn’t want to mess with his first day back. Especially not after bringing up Ashlyn.” His voice is low, and the softness of it jangles me. “But if you guys really are going . . .”

  I sit up taller. “What is it?”

  “Kyle’s mom is there. In Oatman. She works at some souvenir shop that has ‘ass’ or ‘jackass’ in the name. Nice, right? My mom saw her there a couple months ago when she brought some relatives to visit.”

  Will’s strained reaction when Oatman came up yesterday is suddenly fresh. “You’re kidding.”

  “Shannon’s let him down so many times. And obviously, he and his dad are better off without her.” He scratches his chin. “But I keep thinking about it, and if she was my mom, and she’d been gone for years . . . I’d want to know. Then at least it would be up to me whether I find her or not.”

  An image of Kyle standing in his old backyard flashes through my mind. It tore me up when he’d talked about his own mother that way—so unsure of her and where she was. She’d abandoned him, and he still missed her. Maybe even needed her.

  If he knew she was this close, he might decide to go to her. If anything, Shannon should see him, see what a strong and good-hearted person he is now.

  “So you’re telling him?” I ask Will.

  He clears his throat, nervous, and with all the worry for Kyle clogging the air, I could just as easily be sitting next to Matty.

  I wonder if Kyle realizes how lucky he is to have both of them, Will and Matty; two people in two very different places who care for him in the same big way.

  “Actually,” Will says, “I thought he’d want to hear it from you.”

  “Me?”

  “He trusts you, Cloudy. I know by the way you guys are together.” When I start to protest, he adds, “I’m serious. Look at my face. I have an undeniably serious face.”

  Now that the lanterns are elsewhere in the stratosphere, the only light near us is coming from the spotlights and the tiki torches set up near the gas station. “Your face is a little hard to make out.”

  He pitches forward, grabbing my phone where it’s perched on my knee. Holding it up to his jaw, he presses the on button. The backlight brightens his face, barely, and even the lit-up spots make him appear ghostly. “Check it out. I exude serious.”

  “Serious and undead.”

  He clicks another button and the area goes nearly dark again. “It’s okay if you feel awkward about it. I can tell him instead. But I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t think it’s what Kyle would want.”

  A lazy warmth goes through me like syrup. Believing Will—believing that Kyle would want me, of all people, to be there for him—is a comfort. More encouragement that Kyle’s and my relationship is becoming something better.

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  “You will?” He sounds relieved.

  “I think he should know where his mom is.”

  Will’s head bobs once in agreement, and we sit together until one of his friends calls him away. “You want something from the cooler?” he asks. As he stands, my phone begins a rapid-fire chiming, and he tosses it back to me.

  “No, thanks,” I mutter, waving good-bye without taking my eyes off the screen. The sound of multiple texts coming in is insistent and scary, but before I can visualize all kinds of nightmare scenarios happening back home, I notice they’re from Kyle.

  Meet me at the bronto slide in 5 seconds or your cookie bites it.

  I mean I’LL bite IT.

  You get what I’m saying.

  Okay. Countdown. 5 . . .

  4 . . .

  3 . . .

  I scramble to my feet and squint across the field. The brontosaurus slide is straight ahead, and in front of it, a tall figure brandishes his cell phone in the air. I don’t care about the cookie, weirdo, I write to him. Have it.

  Kyle brings the phone down and pauses for longer than it should take to read my text. Then, as I look on, he writes back: You’d be the worst hostage negotiator. Please meet me anyway.

  My heart squeezes.

  I break into a jog, my feet crunching into the gravelly dirt as I bound over the trolley tracks—still no sign of a trolley, by the way—and past an oversized yellow cement snake with its mouth opened wide enough to crawl into. And from the echoing shouts coming from inside it, it sounds like someone has. By the time I reach Kyle, both cookies are already gone, and he’s shoving the balled-up plastic wrap into his pocket.

  His face is as easy and unguarded as I’ve ever seen it. And I decide I’ll tell him about his mother tomorrow, not now. Tonight he should stay like this.

  Kyle’s arms fling out at his sides. “I want to show you Bedrock.”

  There’s a couple trying to climb the volcano, but everyone else is gathered by the coolers near the general store. There are thick, round tables set into the ground there, and Hannah has hooked up her phone to some portable speakers—some song about a white-winged dove has played about fourteen times. Beyond the lights placed there, it’s hard to spot much else. “It’s probably too dark to see anything, though.”

  His sigh is exaggerated. “Cloudy, it’s nighttime in the Stone Age. It’s supposed to be dark. Where’s your sense of authenticity?”

  I examine his gleeful face one more time. “I think the desert air is making you goofy.”

  We start with the brontosaurus slide. It’s exactly what it sounds like, except sliding down the back of an actual brontosaurus might involve fewer safety violations.

  After we clang up the metal staircase lodged inside the green dinosaur’s belly, Kyle motions for me to go first. So I sit at the top of the tail, and he squats behind me as his hands come down on my shoulders. “Do you want to practice?”

  “Hell no,” I say. As it turns out, some attractions at Bedrock City come with instructions. And this one is the most important—and geekiest—of them all.

  “Scream it,” he reminds me, patting my back. “It’s tradition. You have to.”

  I give him a quick glare. Then, gulping some air, I push off and yell, “YABBA DABBA DOOOOO!” The cool metal stings through my jeans, and my arms go vertical, and I feel like an ass the whole way down. But I’m
also cracking up too much to care. When I reach the bottom, Kyle laughs and claps for me. A second later, he follows, and meets me on the grass.

  We pick through the grounds and tour the buildings. There’s a post office and grocery store, even a beauty parlor, and they’re all tricked out with Bedrock amenities. Using the light from our cell phones, we find huge dinosaur eggs and watermelon slices on the store shelves, and stone benches and animal-print bedspreads at Fred and Wilma’s house. When we pass a squat statue of Barney Rubble, Kyle snaps a photo of me kissing Barney’s nose. It’s only fair when I get one of him with his arm around Barney’s wife, Betty. By the time we’re done, we’re both blinking hard from the too-bright camera flashes.

  We’re about to head into the barbershop when we spot it—some kind of prehistoric vehicle, the kind Fred Flintstone has to pedal with his feet. We take off for it.

  “What do you think? New wheels for Vegas?” Kyle says, sliding behind the cement steering wheel. “Probably not as smooth a ride as the Xterra.”

  I point to the backseat. “But there’s room for Arm.”

  “Nowhere for us to play our music, though.”

  I flatten my palm to my chest. “No more songs about people who hate fun.”

  “And no more songs that repeat the same three words over and over. And over.”

  We smile at each other, and this could be it. I could ask him now.

  “I’m really glad we decided to come to Sedona,” I tell him. “Aren’t you?”

  He looks mellow, but his eyebrows come together in a question. So I keep talking. “I’ve never been anywhere like it before. And I loved going to your old house, and meeting your friends—most of them.” I run a finger along the stone dashboard. “I was wondering if we could stay.”

  “Forever?” He’s still smiling, and I thwack him.

  “For a few more days. Until we go back to Bend. You can spend more time with Will and Vivian, and I can learn to harness my chi. We can spray paint Lava Bears Rule on your old baseball field.”

  Kyle presses his lips together. “What about Sonia’s wedding? We’d miss it.”

  I shrug even though my heart is beating hard enough to hurt. “We don’t have to go. We saw Ethan and Freddie, right? And that was worth the trip. Maybe that’s why we came to Sedona, because we’re supposed to end it here. Maybe we’ve done enough.”

  Rubbing his neck, he says, “Vegas was always where we were headed, though. Plus, Matty already set up the time-share for us, and I’ve never been to a wedding. I don’t think we can stop now. Unless you want to?”

  He sounds disappointed that I might. It’s really all the answer I need.

  “I didn’t want to rush the visit if you’re not ready to go. But I am if you are.” And I drop the subject or else he’ll know something’s up.

  “Oh, hey,” he says a moment later, our previous conversation forgotten. “There’s something else I want to show you.”

  The building where he leads me has a pretend pay phone mounted to the facade. Bedrock City Jail is what the sign out front says. Inside, the right half is set up as a common space with rough cement tables and chairs. Along the left wall, there are two jail cells. Kyle directs me farther into the rectangular room until I step up to the second cell.

  “What exactly am I seeing here?”

  Kyle tips his head forward. “His name’s Wally.”

  The grizzled mannequin is life-sized, and crumpled on a bench inside the cell. He looks about as old as the Stone Age. His hair and beard are a dull white and matted, and inexplicably, someone’s dressed him in a fisherman’s slicker. “Wally?”

  “I named him when I was a kid,” Kyle says, slipping inside. “He didn’t have the Hulk gloves back then. That would have changed everything.”

  There’s a small window near the ceiling, and some ambient light from the parking lot trickles in. It lets me take in Wally’s large green superhero fists. “What’s he in for?”

  “Illegal fishing, obviously.” Kyle gestures at the ratty fishnet hanging above the poor guy; the decor in here is punishment enough, never mind the solitary confinement. “Possibly Hulk-smashing.”

  “So much for parole.”

  Kyle takes a seat beside Wally on the bench. He angles toward the mannequin as if straining to hear something, glancing at me slyly before nodding. I watch through the cell bars as Kyle takes the Hulk hand, pats Wally’s chest with it, then extends the same floppy arm toward me. Bending it back, Kyle pats at the soft chest again.

  A surprised laugh shakes my shoulders as my head falls back. “Oh, no.”

  Kyle smiles playfully. “Bet you didn’t know that move’s been around for three million years.”

  I move into the small cell, my arms crossed. “Just so we’re clear, Wally, I am not going to any future school dances with you.”

  “Sorry, dude,” Kyle says to him, frowning. “I thought she’d be into the bad boy thing.”

  This pulls me up short. “What?”

  “Sure. I can see it.” He scoots over, leaving a space for me between him and Wally, and waves his phone at me; it’s our newly invented sign for requesting a photo together, more evidence that this friendship is getting solid. Friends use secret signs.

  After we squish together and Kyle takes the picture, I say, “I must put off twisted signals. Boys don’t really get me.”

  “We don’t?”

  I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “The boys that I do like think I only want to be friends, and the boys who I only like as friends think I want more than that.”

  Kyle fiddles with the strings on his hoodie. He loops one tightly around his finger. “So what does it mean when boys think you can’t stand them?”

  “Depends.” I smile. “If you mean Jacob Tamsin, I’d say my signals are working perfectly.”

  He lets the string fall loose. “And if I mean me? For the past year?”

  One time at practice, Violet Porter accidentally elbowed me in the diaphragm after I lost my footing doing a Scorpion. That’s what this feels like. When Kyle brought this up our first hour into the trip, I wriggled out of it like I always do. I can’t do that again.

  “I never hated you,” I tell him, leaning back against the wall and staring through the cell bars. “You know that, right?”

  “I do now,” he says, his voice deep and quiet.

  “I was just—”

  What?

  I was just trying to keep a secret. That I was just a little in love with you when I wasn’t supposed to be. When any good thought I had about you was also a betrayal. So I hated myself and punished you for it, too. But I’m better now, you see? I wished on a paper lantern.

  I don’t say that.

  I do say, “I’m just . . .”

  Kyle’s glance is razor sharp, curious. “You’re just a vampire? And the smell of my blood consumes you with bloodlust, but you made a vow to your coven that you wouldn’t drink from humans anymore?”

  My groan is guttural and pathetic.

  He keeps going. “You’re just a time traveler sent from the future to assassinate me, but I was such a good lab partner, you haven’t been able to make yourself do it?”

  I jiggle my legs up and down before looking at him. “I humiliated myself at WinterFest, and then I made it worse by being a dick when you came over. It was stupid, but avoiding you was simpler.”

  “No, I get it.” He moves back so our shoulders touch. “It sucked, though. I missed talking to you.”

  “Come on,” I laugh, but his face is serious.

  “I know our conversations weren’t, like, deeply philosophical or anything. But they were fun. I liked being with you.”

  Everything about the way he says it and the kindness in his eyes makes me believe it.

  Then he swivels, knocking his knees into mine. “And I am happy we came here, by the way,” he says. “I was worried it would be too different, or that I’d be too different. But it’s like nothing’s changed. In a good way, I mean.”
/>   “Except,” I tell him, channeling Hannah from earlier today, “you’ve gotten so tall. And buff. And cute.”

  His eyes spark. I’m paying for that.

  I sense the movement a half second before he lunges, and I slide away, but I’m too late. My elbow bumps into Wally so hard his decrepit head rolls off his body and into my lap. I yelp and punch it to the ground.

  Kyle’s laughter tickles my ear, and he’s shaking from it—I only know that because his fingers are curled into the sides of my coat. His laugh fills up the tiny cell like warm water, the opposite of the frigid, paralyzing stream at Slide Rock. His laugh is something I want to spend time in.

  He’s so close, I can see the spaces between his eyelashes. We’re passing the same breath back and forth between us, and I’m smiling so big, my lips might crack apart. And then, somehow, impossibly, his lips are there against mine, and every other part of me might crack apart instead.

  Our mouths press together gently; we’re almost not kissing at all. But we are, and I can tell we are because this isn’t our first. Our first was a mistake—my biggest mistake, muddled with alcohol and resentment. Even in the moment, it wasn’t like this. Pure and certain and what real first kisses should be like.

  Kyle pulls back slightly, and my stomach roils as I wait for him to politely shrug me off. Instead he watches me, his eyes dark, his hands still making fists in my coat. My wish lantern is floating somewhere above us now, and didn’t I pack my feelings with it, sending them far from here? Some must have jumped overboard before the universe got to them. Or maybe the truth is I was kidding myself. You can’t wish away what you want to keep. I reach up and put my fingertips to Kyle’s brow like I’ve always wanted to, smoothing out the questions.

  Our next kiss is not gentle. My lips part as he angles his mouth over mine. I hook my arms around him because it’s all I can think to do: bring him nearer. My brain sizzles with the need to have more of him against more of me. Without breaking the kiss, Kyle pulls me up so his chest is against mine, and I crawl into his lap, facing him.