Happily Ever Afters

by Elise Bryant

“So, are you dating Weiner?” he asks. “I noticed you always drive together.”

  My breath catches in my throat. He noticed me.

  And not just that. He’s looked at me enough to notice patterns.

  “No, we’re neighbors,” I say quickly. “He lives across the street. That’s why he drives me.”

  “Ah, okay,” he says, and then he just stares at me. It’s silent. But it’s not, like, an awkward kind of silence that I know well. It’s heavy. And meaningful.

  “Nicoooooo, are you in here?” A chirpy singsong voice calls from the front of the house, and I jump, startled. That would be embarrassing enough, but even worse, I trip over the rug in front of the sink and fall forward.

  “Oooop!”

  I fully expect to land flat on my face, but strong arms catch me, and suddenly I’m looking up into Nico’s brown eyes.

  “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I’m so . . . clumsy.” The words make me freeze. Clumsy. CLUMSINESS IS KEY. Number two on our list! I didn’t even do it on purpose, but it worked. It really worked! I am being held in Nico’s warm embrace. Only a few inches from his soft lips. If I wanted to, I could probably . . .

  “Tessa?”

  “What is wrong with her?”

  Poppy’s face falls into my sight, and I jerk up quickly, detaching myself from Nico. Her gray hair is half up in a topknot, and she’s wearing a white crop top, showing a slice of her porcelain skin.

  “I’m fine. Sorry . . . I’m fine. Just tripped. Didn’t see that rug, is all.”

  “Uh, okay. That was weird,” she says, looking me up and down. Then she turns back to Nico. “Let’s goooo, baby. I thought we were going to meet outside five minutes ago.”

  So maybe that’s why he came to look for me.

  “Yeah, I was just talking to Tessa here.” Her turns to me again, eyes full of concern. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I can feel my cheeks turning pink.

  “Well, come on.” Poppy grabs his arm. “I only have so much time before Ms. Vaughn notices I’m gone.”

  She puts her tongue between her teeth as she speaks, one of those mannerisms some girls have mysteriously mastered that are a mixture of both sexy and cute. I wonder if it’s genuine or affected. And it makes me both hate her and want to practice it later in the mirror.

  It seems to do something to Nico, anyway, and he snaps to her side like a magnet, nuzzling the top of her hair. I look away, not wanting to seem like a creeper.

  “See you later,” he says, giving me a half wave. And then they walk out, arms wrapped around each other, probably going to their special spot to make out.

  When I finally go back downstairs after the bell, Ms. McKinney is deep in conversation with Fedora (who’s actually not wearing a fedora today, but I never figured out his real name). I grab my bag and sprint back up the stairs before she notices I’m there.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’m staring out Sam’s passenger-side window at the cotton candy skies, waiting for Caroline’s responses to my ecstatic texts about the successful first move with Nico.

  That’s when I see him.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Hey, isn’t that your brother?”

  I want to tell him no. I want to tell him to keep driving, to take us away from this street, somewhere else. Anywhere Miles isn’t sitting on the corner, screaming at passing cars, and crying so hard snot drips down his face.

  I close my eyes, my chest getting tight as the panic sets in. “Yes.”

  Miles’s scream is unique to Miles, just like his laugh. It shakes my bones. And it’s so loud now that we can hear it through the car doors, over the music.

  How is this happening? Where is Mom? Did I forget I was supposed to watch Miles?

  I notice Mom’s car in the driveway, though, and then our front door hanging wide open. Did something happen to Mom? Is she hurt? All the worst-case scenarios play like a horror movie in my head.

  But then I see her, standing on Mrs. Hutchinson’s front steps, face frozen in disbelief. And then, like a switch flips, she jumps into action, sprinting over to Miles.

  We pull into Sam’s driveway, and I start gathering my stuff, frantic.

  “I—I’m so sorry. This is so—”

  “Don’t be sorry.” He cuts me off, putting his hand on my arm and giving it a light squeeze. His green eyes are soft. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Your brother has nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can I . . . I don’t know, help in any way?” he asks.

  I’m getting out of the car now, my heart beating fast. Mom’s already made it to him, and I can see her talking in his ear, rubbing his back. But his shrieks still echo across the street.

  “No, we’ve got it. But thank you.”

  This happened all the time at our old house. Miles always runs when he’s most upset, like he can escape whatever is causing him trouble. Usually it wasn’t a problem. The neighbors knew him, and they’d just let us handle our family business. They wouldn’t even come outside unless we asked for their help.

  But one time, the Wachowskis’ cousin was house-sitting for them, and I guess it scared her, Miles out there screaming and crying. I was supposed to be watching him, but I went to Caroline’s house down the street real quick to grab a book she was letting me borrow. Miles didn’t want to come. Dream Zone was doing, like, a Where Are They Now? special on some cable channel, and I knew I would be gone for just a second.

  Then the stupid cousin called the cops. And there’s no tragic ending here. I want to make that clear, because that’s where my mind goes first too. But the officers didn’t lay a finger on Miles. They were nice and patient with him, even. I mean, we lived in a pretty tight-knit neighborhood and all of the neighbors came out to vouch for our family (except for the stupid cousin). Though I know even that doesn’t make a difference most of the time.

  But none of our new neighbors in Long Beach really know us yet, except for Mrs. Hutchison, who’s standing on her porch looking irritated. And Sam—he’s at least going inside. The Hwangs, the old couple that lives next to him, though, are standing at their door now, staring at Miles. And I can see the curtains moving on the Agrawals’ window too. They may be hesitant to come outside and gawk, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be too hesitant to call the police.

  We need to get him inside.

  “She wanted to talk about the tree again. I was just next door,” Mom says quickly when I get there, like she owes me an explanation.

  “Fuck you!” Miles screams, his anger directed at a BMW turning the corner. The windows are tinted, but I can imagine the wide eyes of the person driving it. “Fuck you! Fuck everything!”

  “Miles, honey, what happened?” Mom asks. Her arms are wrapped tightly around him, and she’s speaking softly in his ear.

  “My DVD . . . ,” he moans. His body rocks back and forth, and his hearing aids ring. His glasses are gone, probably discarded on our lawn. “It broke! It broke! Fuck everything! EVERYTHING!”

  We don’t need him to explain which DVD it is. And it’s easy to think it’s a little thing—inconsequential, stupid. A DVD broke, whatever. But to him, it’s a big deal. You can see it in his eyes. He looks as if he’s in physical pain.

  It actually pains me too, to see him like this, to know that there’s nothing I, or anyone, can do to make him feel better. It’s like the earthquakes that appear out of nowhere and make the floor roll and rock a few times per year. Everyone outside California thinks they’re a huge deal, terrifying, but when you’ve grown up here, they’re just something that happens, a normal part of life. Miles’s tantrums are our family’s earthquakes. We just need to get him somewhere safe and ride it through.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Mom says, rubbing his back. “Maybe we can fix it.” He must know that’s a lie, because he screams even louder. “Or we can find another one.”

  “NO!” Miles yells, throwing her off him. “NO, NO, NO! I want that one
! THAT ONE! FUCK EVERYTHING!”

  “Okay, Miles, now I want you to take a deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out.” Mom stands up to do it with him, modeling the breathing with exaggerated movement, but it’s doing nothing. Miles shrieks again. A blond lady walking with her daughter a few houses down grabs her little girl tightly by the shoulder and turns her around.

  “Mom, maybe we should just—”

  “Miles, would it help to meditate?” she says, ignoring me. “We need you to be calm, so we can talk about this. I have the meditation app on my phone.”

  “FUCK EVERYTHING!”

  She scrolls to the meditation app, like she doesn’t hear him, and starts playing this guided meditation, as loud as her phone speakers will go.

  “Let’s calm your body, Miles. It’s okay, honey.”

  I look around again, and another neighbor whose name I don’t know—a red-haired woman wearing an apron—is standing on her porch staring. We are officially a scene.

  “Mom, I have headphones,” I whisper to her. “Can he put in headphones?”

  Mom turns to me, and her blue eyes are cold.

  “Are we embarrassing you, Tessa?” she asks. It sounds like a challenge.

  “I’m not! It’s just . . . I don’t want . . .” I can’t finish a sentence. I’m not embarrassed by my brother. It’s not like this is his default setting—he’s upset. But I don’t want to be the center of any kind of attention at all, and this situation is bringing on all of it. Is that so wrong? Who likes to have their new neighbors standing outside and shaking their heads? Who likes to have all eyes on them in this way?

  “The neighbors . . . ,” I finally say, feebly.

  “He is your brother, and he is sad. That’s what you should be worried about right now. Not what the neighbors think.” She sighs heavily, like I’m some nuisance. “God, Tessa, I can’t believe you. I really wish—”

  But she doesn’t finish the sentence, interrupted by another one of Miles’s wails.

  I really wish you weren’t such a disappointment? I really wish I only had Miles to deal with and not you too?

  I don’t want to know the end of that sentence.

  Miles continues to cry and Mom continues to instruct his breathing. And I stare at the street, trying not to cry, because that will only make Miles more upset. It will only make a bigger scene.

  A dark gray truck slows, and I’m ready for someone else to stare at us, to shake their head. But the truck stops at the corner and throws its hazards on, and I realize with relief that I know this truck. It’s Dad. He’s dressed nicely for work—a baby-blue button-up, dress shoes, and slacks—but he strides over to us and gets down on the ground next to Miles.

  “It’s okay, my boy,” he murmurs. “Let’s go home.”

  He scoops Miles up with his strong arms, carrying his nineteen-year-old body like a baby’s. My tears come now.

  I keep my head down—avoiding the neighbors’ eyes, avoiding Mom’s—as we walk home together, all four Johnsons.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I stay inside all weekend. And when I say inside, I mean inside my room. I want to avoid the windows, just in case the neighbors are out there, staring at our house and having whispered conversations about what to do about the new, disruptive family.

  And I want to avoid Mom. I’m still pissed at her for somehow turning Miles’s tantrum on the corner into something I was doing wrong. And there’s also a little part of me that’s afraid she’s right.

  Usually on Sunday mornings, I watch Miles when Dad plays golf and Mom goes on a Costco run, but everyone stays home this Sunday. We don’t talk about it.

  Caroline and I also haven’t talked since Friday. When I looked at my phone again, it was full of I told you so’s about Nico and strategizing about the next steps—and also hints at something else big with a string of mysterious smirking and confetti emojis. But when I tell her what happened with Miles, she switches to hearts instead and then gives me my space. She’s been witness to enough Johnson-family lawn meltdowns to get that I need a couple days to lie in my bed and read my favorite Sarah Dessen book for the millionth time and wallow.

  By Sunday night, though, I’m sufficiently wallowed and ready to get back to business. She answers after the first ring.

  “Okay, okay,” she says quickly, as if we’re midconversation. “Friday’s action was really promising. I should have known that clumsiness would do it. Classic! But we can’t get complacent. We need to follow that up strong. I really think it’s going to be the elevator. . . .”

  It feels so good to laugh again. “Oh yeah?”

  “Wait, but first, how’s Miles?”

  “He’s good. He was good about an hour later, but it’s taking the rest of us a little bit longer. You know . . .”

  “I do. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. It’s life.” I don’t want to talk about my family right now. “But girl, I don’t know how I’m going to, like, lure him to an elevator. . . .”

  “You’re still not trusting my genius?” she scoffs. “Anyway, I found Nico on Instagram—”

  “What? I didn’t even tell you his last name.”

  “Well, that wasn’t hard to find. And then I just typed Nico Lucchese in, and, boom, I got it . . . nicothesedays.” But then her tone shifts. “Except listen, you didn’t tell me that he had a girlfriend. . . .”

  I know she’s waiting for me to explain, but I stay silent, holding on to this plan for one more moment. Before she tells me that she’s over it, it’s too impossible, and gets mad at me for wasting her precious time that she could be spending with Brandon and her new friends.

  “Tess?”

  “Okay, I know, I know. But I just found out Friday. After we talked. And I’m not really sure how serious they are even. . . .” She’s definitely done now.

  “It’s kind of important information for me to have if I’m going to be setting you up with your soulmate. How can I make an effective plan if I don’t know all of the possible obstacles?”

  “Wait, what? You’re not out?”

  “No, of course not!” she says, as if I just suggested something crazy. “I mean, at first it felt a little skeevy, you know, trying to take away some other girl’s boyfriend. But then I looked at her page.”

  “You did?”

  “First of all, her name: Poppyyyy. With four Ys. Ew.”

  “Uh, is that really so bad?”

  “Alone, no. But then she has one of those pictures. You know the ones: his hand is outstretched, holding hers, and she’s looking back at him with this cool smile, like aren’t we just having the best day together and I’m so happy you’re taking this spontaneous photo. Even though you know she made him do it and probably did, like, fifty-five takes. There are a million other pictures just like it on IG, with other girls and their Instagram boyfriends. It’s clear he’s just a prop to her.”

  “Okay, I don’t know if I’d say—”

  “And he’s only posted one photo with her in the past two months. Did you see it?”

  I put her on speaker, so I can open the app and find his account. I surprisingly hadn’t looked him up yet—terrified that a rogue finger would like something on accident and cement me as a psycho stalker . . . which I guess I might be now.

  “Do you see the caption?” she asks again.

  “‘Love you?’” I ask, confused. “Why do you want me to see this?”

  “Not love you. L-U-V and the letter U.”

  “Maybe it’s just faster to write?”

  “He’s in the creative writing conservatory with you, right? And it’s literally three more characters! No. No, no, no . . . there are cracks forming in their relationship. It’s built on shaky ground—basically falling apart. This is a perfect moment for you to ease on in there.” I can’t see Caroline, but I can picture her crazy eyes. Usually they’re reserved for when she’s been grounded too long or when I make one of her characters do something she doesn’t approve of, like die off or choose the wrong guy
.

  “Hey, what’s your big news that you were hinting at?” I ask, hoping she’ll slow her roll.

  “Yes, that! Well, I’ve been wanting to tell you since Friday because of course there’s no one else I want to talk to about this. . . .”

  She draws out the last word, waiting for me to attack her with questions.

  “Do you want a drum roll or something. Spit it out already!”

  “BRANDON ASKED ME OUT!”

  I simultaneously feel like fireworks are exploding around me and also like someone punched me in the stomach. It’s confusing. “What?”

  “Yeah, on Friday, during AP Lit,” she says, talking a mile a minute. “We were paired up again, and we were reading this poem. It was called ‘To Caroline,’ can you believe that? I don’t really get what it was about, but Brandon was reading it to me, and I got what he meant by it. You know what I mean? And after he was done, he took my hand under the table and asked me out. But he did it in rhyme, like the poem. ‘Please, Caroline, know that I’m true. I want to go on a date with you.’”

  “Wow.”

  “Isn’t that, like, perfect? It’s like something out of one of your books!”

  I shake my head, snapping myself out of it. “That’s amazing, Caroline! I’m so happy for you.”

  “Anyway, we went out last night, and it was just everything, Tessa. Really.”

  My mind races to catch up with what she’s telling me. Caroline is smart, beautiful, and funny. Any guy would be lucky to have her. But somehow this isn’t making sense. For years we’ve dreamed of exactly this—whispering about our ideal boyfriends during sleepovers, countless games of MASH—and now it’s finally happening . . . when we are hundreds of miles away from each other. I was supposed to be involved, to be there.

  Finally I mumble, “But . . . how did you get your parents to agree?” Caroline’s dad is super protective. Like, he watched her walk down the street to my house kinda protective. I’m pretty sure he’s told her she can’t date until she’s forty.

  “Him and Mom were out themselves—to see that new Tom Hanks movie. I encouraged it, told them they needed a little date night to, like, reignite the spark or whatever.”