by Emily Henry
He rolls his eyes. “You asking my fee, Junior? Don’t drop creative writing. I heard we’re going to start doing critique groups, and I do not want to get stuck reading any more scoring the winning goal personal narratives than absolutely necessary.”
“Okay, done.”
He sways on his feet, then sets off for the parking lot, leaving me to wallow. I shouldn’t have made such an effort on the second assignment.
But when Saul dropped me off after the movie, one of Dad’s stories had come to me—even without the help of another hallucination—and I’d needed to write it down: the story of the time Dad found the place the coywolves take the shoes. Whenever he told it, the purse of Mom’s lips said she didn’t believe him, but she couldn’t see Feathers either.
I knew the story was true, that once, when he was small, my father ran outside and saw the farmhouse disappear before his eyes, leaving behind a towering pile of shoes surrounded by coywolves.
It was another story he’d never get to write down and another one I’d apparently butchered.
“Ready?” Hannah’s voice drifts across the sunlit courtyard from the school’s side doors. “What’s that?”
“Another bad grade.”
“In what?”
“Creative writing, forever and always.”
“Girl, you know who can help you with that?”
“I already asked Toddy to buy me a better grade. Mom vetoed.”
“Okay, second idea?” Hannah says. “Saul.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Hannah cries, looping her arm through mine and steering me toward the Subaru. “He’s a prodigy! And Nate says he’s doing, like, nothing with his time. No one knows why he’s back.”
“Huh,” I say. Hannah’s barely mentioned Nate since their trip to the falls. If something’s going on between them, she’s being tight-lipped about it. “I still don’t think using my poor academics is the best way to design a third meet-cute for you and Saul,” I say, watching her for a reaction.
She rolls her eyes. “Junie, you care about doing well in this class. Let yourself care. Let yourself succeed.”
“I’ll look into a tutor,” I promise.
“Not a tutor. The best tutor. Nate says Saul’s stuff is amazing.”
“And we’re trusting Nate’s opinions on literature?”
Hannah buckles her seatbelt, cranking the windows down and radio up. “He’s smarter than he seems. I think he’s just shy, and it translates into . . . well, you know. Anyway, we actually had a good time last weekend.”
“How good?” I ask. Totally-over-Saul-and-into-Nate good?
Looking over her shoulder, Hannah shrugs and backs out of the parking space. “Good,” she says simply. “Which—segue—the weekend after next, camping at the dunes?”
“With Nate and Saul?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Think about it.”
“Okay. No.”
“Whyyyy?” Hannah says. “The weather will be perfect—chilly and cozy, probably foggy. Your fave. My fave. Everyone’s fave.”
“I find hanging out with Saul and Nate stressful.”
“Seriously, I’m telling you, Nate’s not that bad. Give him another chance.”
“If you’re so over Saul,” I press, “why are you pushing this, Han?”
Blushing badly, she takes a deep breath. “Please know that I am deeply, thoroughly humiliated by what I’m about to admit to you.”
“Hannah, what’s going on?”
“Ooooooh my God,” she groans, then, “ahhhhhhhhh,” as if the car is plummeting over a cliff but she’s on too much anesthesia to properly scream. “I might, maybe, possibly have a small—nay, tiny—crush, which is probably nothing, on Nate Baars.”
“Oh my god!” I yelp. “Nate Baars. I knew it.”
“You did not,” Hannah cries, ocean-blue eyes flicking from the road to me.
“I wondered!”
“It’s probably nothing,” she insists, face rapidly reddening. “Like, a total fluke. I’m ninety percent sure it was a full moon at the falls that night.”
“Right.” I erupt into laughter, and Hannah smacks my arm, fighting a smile herself.
“It’s probably nothing,” she repeats. “But going camping might be a good way to confirm it either way. At least consider it, June.”
I consider telling her then, blurting out that I’m into Saul Angert, and if any part of her is still hung up on him, I can’t be around him. But admitting it aloud seems like an uncrossable line: dangerous, traitorous.
The truth is, no matter how Hannah feels, I can’t be around him, because he’s Saul Angert.
• • •
“Junior?” Mom calls from the door. “Someone’s here for you.”
I heard the bell from the sunroom, where I’m writing, a process that can be described as staring at a blank page for fifteen minutes, typing a few choice swear words, backspacing, and repeating, while Feathers undulates in the corner.
I pass through the kitchen and living room, where the boys are annihilating zombies on the TV screen. It’s seven thirty on a school night, and I have no idea who could be waiting at the door for me.
Halfway down the hall, I spot the boyish man, or mannish boy, on our porch, and my stomach flips.
“Hi.” Saul stretches a hand out. He’s wearing a long-sleeved button-down, but I think I can spot the outline of the camera tattoo through it. “I’m Mike, the tutor. Sorry I’m late.”
I look, probably suspiciously, toward Mom, whose hand’s still resting on the doorknob. “You didn’t tell me you were expecting anyone, Junie.”
“Sorry,” I manage. “Totally forgot that was tonight.”
“Huh.” Mom doesn’t seem totally convinced. Her turquoise eyes narrow on Saul, probably trying to place his familiar dark eyes, his lean build and sharp angles.
In a rush of panic, I step aside, blocking her view, to let him past. “Come in, Mike.”
He regards the swarm of moths around the porch light uneasily, then ducks inside, hands wringing his backpack straps.
“You guys can work in the sunroom,” Mom offers. “Down the hall and to the right, through the dining room, Mike. Junior will be right with you.”
He nods and moves off, leaving Mom to appraise me. “You hired a tutor?”
I try to keep my face from broadcasting the truth. “I mean, yes, but the school funds it,” I say. I have no idea if that’s a thing schools do. “For seniors. For college prep.”
Mom’s smile practically explodes into a fireworks display. “College, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe.” I turn down the hall. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“My baby’s going to college,” Mom sings after me. Her pride makes my heart trill. And then freeze over. Because college is for Hannahs and Sauls and Toddys, not for Jacks, and she should know that.
“So, Mike.” I step into the sunroom and close the door. Saul’s already set up on the floral-padded wicker chaise, pulling books from his backpack. “How long have you been named Mike?”
He grins up at me. “Since my boring parents realized they gave birth to a boring baby who definitely would never be a part of an ongoing family feud that would bar him from tutoring a friend who happens to be both younger and a girl.”
“You can trust your daughters with a Mike,” I agree.
“Mikes have no sex drive,” Saul says. “They don’t even have genitalia. They’re basically L.L. Bean mannequins.”
“Ooh, sorry for your loss.”
“It’s okay. I’m Mike now, so I don’t miss having a dick.”
“That’s good. But, hey—why are you here? I thought we agreed it wasn’t a good idea for you to tutor me.”
His smile falters, and he runs a han
d over his mouth, clearing his throat. “Um. I was under the impression you’d changed your mind.”
“Based on . . . ?”
“The forwarded text in which you asked Nate to schedule tutoring with me, which I’m realizing based on your facial expression wasn’t from you.”
I perch on the rattan chair, pulling my knees into my chest. “I’m guessing Hannah.”
“You want me to leave?”
“No,” I say, heart hammering. “I want you to help me.”
“You have something I can read?”
“Do you want the D+ or the C-?”
“D+,” Saul says.
I stand and slide the story off the garden table, handing it to him. I take a seat beside him and tuck my legs underneath me. “Now what?”
“Shh.” His eyes roam back and forth across the first page. We sit in silence for probably twenty minutes, and the whole time, I’m as bored as I am embarrassed. I can’t stop tapping on the back of the lounge until Saul reaches out and presses my hand flat on the cushion without interrupting his reading.
I expect him to take his hand away, but he doesn’t, and I’m acutely aware of every spasm in my hand, the way my fingers involuntarily arch up between his as if to pull his fingers down through mine. His thumb starts moving gently back and forth on the back of my hand, which makes my whole body feel like I’m standing outside in a lightning storm. His fingers skim up mine and back down between them, and I don’t totally remember how to breathe.
I watch him swallow. His hand leaves to turn the page and doesn’t come back when he’s finished, which is the worst kind of relief. Finally, his eyes drop off the last page, and he stacks the papers. I cover my face with my hands, and he grabs my wrists to pull them back down.
“Are you ready for the bad news?” he says.
“Fine,” I groan.
“First, you didn’t follow the assignment.” He taps one of Ms. deGeest’s notes: FLASH fiction = SHORT. “That probably lost you a letter grade, at least.”
“Because I wrote too much?”
He nods. “That’s not the biggest problem though.”
“And what would the ‘biggest problem’ be?”
“This isn’t a story.”
“Okay. Have you considered becoming an ER doctor? Your bedside manner is killer.”
“I have a great bedside manner,” he says, and I pretend not to notice the innuendo. “If I were your teacher, I’d dance around it like these comments do, but I’m not your teacher. I’m your friend, and your writing—June, it’s beautiful. It sounds like you, or like how you would sound if you had all the time in the world. You, but better. It’s weird and good and—honestly, I’m relieved how good it is.”
“Relieved.”
“Yeah. I mean, I was a teaching assistant for a freshman writing class, and it was fine, because I wasn’t friends with any of the students, but when friends and relatives ask me to read their stuff, it terrifies me. I’ve had relationships end because I didn’t like someone’s writing.”
“That kind of makes you sound like an asshole, Mike.”
“I know,” he says. “It does. I am. It’s not intentional. It’s just, if I’m friends with—or drawn to—a person, and then I hate the thing they make, or think it’s bad or bland or unoriginal, my interest just shuts down.”
“You should stop explaining. You’re making this sound worse.”
He laughs, rubbing at his eyebrows. “June, you have a strong voice. Strong and singular. I wish I could write like that. All I do is imitate. Your language still has its own strangeness. If you can learn the rules but keep your idiosyncrasies, you’ll be unstoppable. It’s great. Except there’s no story here.”
“Stop saying that,” I say. “There is a story. A man travels the entire country and finds a thin place to build his home on.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Saul says. “A man travels the country, making friends, tightrope walking across the Grand Canyon, picking the winning horse at the first Kentucky Derby, saving children from drowning in the street after a molasses-plant explosion, pulling babies from burning buildings—”
“That last part doesn’t happen. When does that happen?”
“He wins his way across the nation,” Saul continues, “and at the end he scores the jackpot of a homestead, and . . . nothing . . . happens. No conflict, no struggle, no sadness or pain of any kind. No opposition.”
“I don’t want to write something sad,” I say.
“Junior, you’re too smart to think this is the truth. You know life’s not like this. Even when it’s good, it’s hard and terrible and you lose things you can’t ever replace.”
“Fine,” I snap, “I know that. Why do I have to write that? Why can’t I write the parts of life that are perfect?”
Saul sets my story on the couch between us: a moat, a wall, a ravine. “Okay, so the best story I ever wrote—the only one I really believe in—was about a perfect day. My parents and Bekah and I went on a picnic at the dunes. No one talked about Bekah being sick. Mom didn’t look at her and start crying, Dad didn’t refuse to look at her, period, and she ruthlessly mocked me after a bird shit on my head. We pretended she hadn’t gone off chemo, that she wasn’t sick. She fell asleep in the sun, and I watched her breathe. I saw my sister smile in her sleep.”
“That’s your happiest memory?”
“Not my happiest,” he says. “The one I’ll never let go of. If Bekah had never gotten sick, that day wouldn’t exist. There’d be hundreds like it, and none of them would feel like that. I never would’ve appreciated a moment like that.”
“So you’re saying it was worth it.”
“God, Junior, of course not,” he says, looking hurt. “I’m saying that’s the way it is. I’m saying a narrative arc should do more than capture an ordinary day, even if the main events take place on an ordinary day. Your story captures extraordinary adventures, but they’re coming out bland because Jonathan Alroy O’Donnell never fails, never hurts. He doesn’t have something to lose or want something he can’t have.”
We fall into silence, the chirp of crickets hanging in the air between us. Saul’s teeth skate over his bottom lip, and his chin drops toward his chest. “There’s a lot of stuff happening, but no tension. Does that make sense?”
“Take off your shoes,” I say.
“What?”
I slide off the couch and start pulling at Saul’s boots. “What are you doing?” He tries to move his feet out of my reach, but it’s too late. I grab his boots and walk toward the back door of the sunroom, throwing it open. A few Whites who’d been batting against the door dodge the shoes as I toss them and then reconvene against the frame.
“What are you doing?” Saul asks again, scrambling off the couch.
“I’m throwing your shoes to the coywolves.”
“What—why?”
Because I was thinking about kissing you, because I don’t want you to leave, because talking about the things you can never have makes my heart ache for the things I’ve already lost and I’d rather stop thinking about it. “Because you insulted my story!” I squeal as I dodge his reach. “Because you’re rude and elitist for a Mike.”
He laughs, reaches for me again. “June.”
“Better get your shoes before it’s too late.”
“Did I really hurt your feelings?” he asks, leaning against the doorframe. “I didn’t mean to. I just think you can dig deeper. Your brain can’t be entirely rainbows and candy.”
“I see glinting eyes.” I nod toward the flashes of white prowling at the forest’s edge. “Better hurry if you like those boots.”
“What?” he says. “I can’t go out there now.”
“They won’t mess with you.”
“Then you go get them.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “Back to Mike, I see. No fun at all.”
“Wait, I’ll—”
Right then—right as we both step through the door into the starlit backyard—I see the floating White get caught between us. I watch it sink into my arm or his or both. And when our feet touch the grass beyond the door, the night sky vanishes, a blindfold ripped off.
The yard isn’t starlit anymore. We’re facing the setting sun, golden light so intense that when we turn to each other we have to squint.
The biggest difference, aside from the change from night to day, is a four-foot-high pile of shoes in the middle of the yard. As we stand there, a coywolf picks across the grass, Saul’s boots dangling from its jowls. It drops the shoes at the edge of the pile and turns aside, pausing to meet our eyes before trotting off.
Saul points at the shoes and says something. I can’t hear him.
“What the hell?” he mouths, but makes no sound. He scans the sky like he’s expecting to find a UFO hovering overhead. Instead, wispy cirrus clouds hang low across the yellowing expanse, and birds blot out bits of the sunlight as they sweep overhead to perch in the treetops. The gentle cluck of our hens draws my eyes to the coop.
Dad.
He’s crouched low, holding one suntanned hand out toward a yellow beak. A little girl with dark braids stands beside him—me again. Like the other night.
Saul is still spinning beside me, searching for a way out of whatever this is. I take a few steps forward, heart burning from Dad’s closeness, from his sweat-dirt-cut-grass smell and the particular hunch of his shoulders, which I’d nearly forgotten.
Saul notices then that we aren’t alone. He jogs past me, trying to call for Dad’s attention, waving his arms over his head.
Dad doesn’t see or hear him; he doesn’t see or hear me either.
“C’mere,” Dad murmurs to the smaller version of myself. She moves closer, careful not to startle the hen bobbing toward Dad’s outstretched hands. Dad swiftly catches the bird, subduing its flapping with sure fingers. He draws it in so she—I—can stroke its feathers. He lifts the now calm chicken to his ear, as though listening for the tick of a clock. “Wanna hear?” he asks.
Saul taps on Dad’s shoulder fruitlessly then steps back, bewildered, searching my face for answers. His eyes bounce from me to the little girl, examining the similarities in our bone structure and coloring. As his eyes lock back onto her, his mouth quivers open.