Something Like Gravity

by Amber Smith

  “Yes you do,” she said quietly, standing on the ground looking up at me, which for some reason only made me want to yell. I opened my mouth again, but I had no words left to say. They were all lodged in my throat, hard and stinging and threatening to suffocate me. So I did the only thing left to do. I turned around to go inside. She kept calling my name and trying to grab on to me, but as she tried to follow me in, I pushed her away.

  I slammed the door closed and locked it, with her on the other side, saying words I could barely hear over all the noise in my mind. My head pounded, my eyes stung, my ears ached, the bones in my legs felt like they’d shattered, but I ran up the stairs anyway, and finally I sank onto the floor, those stupid burning pinpricks stabbing behind my eyes.

  No, I was not going to cry. No fucking way. But I brushed my face and found it already wet; without meaning to, I had shown her tears. I hated her for that, too.

  I stood up, and without thinking or planning or weighing out the pros and cons, I started packing a bag. I opened the closet and grabbed handfuls of my clothes, tearing them off the hangers and shoving them into a duffel bag. I had my laptop, my journal, my phone. I looked at my telescope. It would have to stay for now; it would take too long to disassemble. And I needed to move.

  I ran down the hall and into the bathroom and scooped all of my things into the bag, not bothering to make sure the cap was closed on my hair gel or that the lid on my toothpaste was snapped shut.

  Then I barreled down the stairs. I should write a note for Isobel, at least. But there was no time. I had to leave, and it had to be right then. She’d understand.

  I burst through the screen door, and there was Maia, waiting for me on the porch, crying, trying to stop me. I brushed past her like I was a ghost. Or maybe she was the ghost. I threw my bags into the back of the station wagon and slammed the doors, Maia behind me the whole time, telling me to stop.

  I started the car, put it in reverse, pressed on the gas too hard, and flew backward. I shifted into drive and turned the wheel hard, the tires kicking up gravel. When I looked up, Maia was standing in front of me in the middle of the driveway. I laid on the horn, and she jumped. I tapped the accelerator, and the car inched forward. She stood there and looked at me through the windshield, just like she had the first time I ever saw her.

  And because I needed this moment to end, because I needed all of the moments with her to end, right now, forever, I slammed the horn again. It echoed through my skull and down my spine, sending a chill through my whole body. I’m sure somewhere out in the cosmos the sound waves of this moment will be rippling away for eternity.

  She stepped out of the way.

  • • •

  I put ten hours, seven hundred miles, and four states between me and Maia, but I was sure my heart never stopped racing the whole time.

  Both of my parents’ cars were in the driveway. The outside light was on, which meant they were expecting me. I parked the station wagon on the street. I swung my backpack over one shoulder and decided to leave the rest of my stuff in the car. As I walked up to the house, I shoved my keys in my pocket, only to find that I still had that damn necklace sitting there in the tiny plastic bag.

  The light from the TV was flashing through the darkened living room when I walked in, but otherwise, the room was empty. I locked the front door behind me, and was prepared to run directly for the stairs, when I heard my dad.

  “Chris?” I turned to look. He was entering the living room from the kitchen. “Isobel called us.”

  “Oh.” It was all I had.

  “Are you—” he began to ask, but I cut him off immediately because I was not okay or all right or any other fill-in-the-blank word he might have used.

  “I’m exhausted.” I heard my own voice, all frayed and raspy, and I knew it was the truth. He started walking toward me; I needed a shield, an out, so I said quickly, “I’m just gonna go to bed, if that’s okay?”

  “Okay,” he said, standing still halfway through the living room. As I started up the stairs, he added, “Chris, we’re happy you’re home.”

  When I got to my bedroom, the light was on. I walked in to find my mom bent over my bed, tucking in the sheets. I stood there and watched her being so careful, smoothing out the wrinkles, pulling the comforter tight.

  She gasped when she turned around and saw me standing there. “You scared me,” she said, bringing her hand to her chest. “I was just putting clean sheets on your bed.”

  I nodded, mumbled “Thanks” as I walked past her, and dropped my bag next to my desk.

  “Well, I’ll leave you alone.” But she was still standing there looking at me. “Unless . . .” She hesitated, then took a step closer. “Unless you want to talk?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, reaching out to touch my shoulder as she left my room.

  I closed the door behind her, fished the necklace out of my pocket, opened my desk drawer, and tossed it in—I needed that thing, and all that it meant, out of sight.

  MAIA

  THE THING ABOUT AN AVALANCHE is that there’s no outrunning it once it starts; there is only surrender. So I sat down on the steps and waited.

  I waited until it got dark. Until his aunt came home. She parked the car, pulled two plastic Bargain Mart bags out of her backseat, and as she approached me, she turned her head and frowned.

  She sat down next to me, and I was so thankful she didn’t say anything.

  We stayed like that for what seemed like forever. Both of us waiting.

  “He’s not coming back,” I finally said, “is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No,” she said, holding up her phone. “Voice mail.”

  Then she put her hand on my shoulder, and said, in such a gentle way, “Are you gonna be okay?”

  I shook my head. And then I stood up and said, “If you talk to him, tell him . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Never mind.”

  Mom was standing in the kitchen pouring herself a drink. Tonight it was brown and in a short glass with ice cubes. I slipped my sneakers off in the hallway and mumbled “Good night” as I passed her.

  “You’re in for the night?” she asked, surprised.

  I backed up a step so that I was in the doorway of the kitchen, facing her. “I’m in for the night.”

  She looked at me—she had to have noticed my puffy red eyes—and I thought when she opened her mouth, she would ask what was wrong, but she only said, “Okay,” and then flipped the switch to the light above the sink.

  Roxie fought me when I scooped her up off the living room couch into my arms and carried her up the stairs with me. She never liked being picked up, even when she was young, but especially now, with her aches and pains and arthritis, she couldn’t stand being held. She wriggled and tossed her head and clawed at my arms, but I didn’t put her down until we were in my bedroom with the door closed.

  “Sorry,” I told her as I set her on the bed. I lay down too, and curled up into a ball around her. She was prepared to give me the cold shoulder until I pressed my face into my pillow and started crying. Roxie’s warm tongue licked the arm that was covering my face, so I reached out and hugged her tight to my body. She gave in and let me hold her there, never moving the whole night.

  I woke up at six thirty in the morning and reached for my phone.

  Nothing. At least, nothing from Chris. I had messages from both Hayden and Gabby, though. “Shit,” I hissed.

  The latest were simple and to the point:

  Gabby: ???

  Hayden: Not cool, M :(

  I swiped the messages away—I’d deal with that mess later.

  I called him for the hundredth time. His voice mail was full now from all the messages I’d left. I lay back down, and though I tried to stave it off, uncertain if my body could handle any more tears, I started sobbing all over again.

  CHRIS

  THE RATTLING OF
MY PHONE vibrating on my nightstand jolted me awake. I reached for it, and for a second I forgot everything that had happened, and almost answered. Then the memories came crashing over me as my bedroom came more sharply into focus.

  I turned my phone off altogether and lay back down. But I was already wide awake. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was that early-morning glow coming through the windows. I thought about going for a run—clear my head before I had to deal with my parents and their inevitable list of questions.

  My brain told my body to get up, dust itself off, carry on, keep going, now. But the only movement my body would agree to was rolling over and falling back to sleep.

  When I woke the next time, the light was coming in, bright and strong.

  I heard Mom’s voice, muffled from behind her bedroom door down the hall.

  “I know—” she said sharply, then, “Don’t you dare tell me what’s good for Chris!”

  I was sure it was my parents arguing. I untangled myself from the sheets and jumped out of bed, swung my door open, and marched down the hall. I was prepared to barge in and tell them to just stop it once and for all, but there was quiet, a pause, followed by, “No, you’re wrong. Yes, I knew this would hap—” followed by another silence.

  It wasn’t my dad she was yelling at. She was on the phone.

  “All I know is, I sent my kid to you for two months and he comes back to me heartbroken and—”

  I didn’t even hear the rest of her sentence because she’d said “he.”

  “Yeah, fine, Isobel. Bye.”

  I heard her footsteps approaching the door, so I turned around to try to make it back to my room before she saw me, but it was too late.

  “Chris, wait,” she called after me.

  I turned around slowly. “Yeah?”

  “How are you feeling today?” she asked, as if it was just some kind of stomach bug that had me down.

  “Fine,” I lied, shrugging for effect. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, which made her look younger than she had in a long time. “You’re not working today?” I asked.

  “No, I took the day off. Well, I’m showing a house at six—third time, so fingers crossed—but I thought maybe we could spend some time together today?”

  I opened my mouth. I was going to tell her I didn’t feel like it. Tell her that referring to me as “he” once didn’t make up for this whole summer of her treating me like a pariah. Remind her that she never did apologize about our fight. But she kept talking.

  “I thought we’d head over to the waterfront, go to that place you like with the really good fish and chips?” She stood there in front of me, smiling.

  I crossed my arms. I could see what she was doing. She wanted to act like it was old times between us. Every once in a while, when I’d be going through a particularly rough patch, she’d let me stay home from school and we’d spend the day together, at the waterfront, or she’d take me to the latest superhero movie even though she hated them. Or this one time when we went to Niagara Falls and pretended we were tourists—bought the T-shirts and the sunglasses and hats and a souvenir snow globe for Dad, and even took the Maid of the Mist boat tour—despite the fact that we’d both been to Niagara Falls a million times before, all to get me out of my head for a day.

  Well, I couldn’t pretend. Not this time. Not anymore.

  “Mom,” I said, looking her in the eye for what felt like the first time ever. “You do know that you and I, we’re not okay. Right?”

  She looked down and let her shoulder lean against the wall. “I know, Chris. And I know it’s my fault too. I’m just trying to—”

  “What, make me feel better?” I interrupted. “You’re a little late.”

  I turned away from her and walked back down the hall to my bedroom. Closed the door. Put on my headphones and fell into bed.

  MAIA

  Maia’s Greatest Hits of the Year (So Far)

  1. Alienated friends. Check.

  2. Got drunk and made a fool of myself at a party. Check.

  3. Got not-drunk and made an even bigger fool of myself at yet another party. Check.

  4. Got my tires slashed out of revenge. Check.

  5. Fell in love. Check.

  6. Felt like an actual person for a little while. Check.

  7. Lied my ass off about everything in my life and subsequently destroyed the best thing to ever happen to me. Check. And check.

  8. Perfected the art of staying in bed for fourteen hours at a time. Check.

  9. Failed at life. Check.

  I was staring at my ceiling, trying to think of one last item to add to the list to round it out to an even ten, when I heard Roxie barking downstairs.

  My parents were at work, because it was no doubt afternoon already, so I had no choice but to get out of bed. Roxie barked again, and I yelled to her, “I’m coming.” As I started down the stairs I realized how weak my body felt, how achy my muscles and joints were from lying around in bed for the last three days. I shuffled into the kitchen. There was a puddle of pee in the middle of the floor, but no sign of Roxie.

  I’d made her wait too long.

  She was scratching at the door. I tried to reach down and pet her—a peace offering for leaving her alone down here all morning, but she was not interested; she just wanted out.

  I opened the door, and she hobbled down the steps faster than I’d seen her move in a while. I went back into the kitchen to clean up the pee with a bunch of paper towels and the spray cleaner we keep under the kitchen sink. I washed my hands and watched out the window as Roxie disappeared around the side of the house, on the scent of something.

  I walked out onto the porch and stood there, letting the afternoon breeze move through my hair and my slept-in clothes. My eyes set, as they inevitably do, on the gray house across the field. The house that used to just be the view from my window, but was now the place where I felt like my entire life began and only a short while later ended. The place I could never go back to. I walked down the steps, the wood warm against my bare feet, something pulling me out onto the grass and into the sunlight.

  It was hard to tell how long I’d been standing here. I looked around for Roxie, but I didn’t see her. I whistled and clapped my hands and called her name, but she didn’t come. My legs jumped into action. I rounded the corner where I’d last seen her. No Roxie. I circled the entire perimeter of the house. Nothing.

  “Roxie!” I called again. Just as I was preparing to panic, worried that she got confused and wandered off into the woods or out toward the street, I saw something flicker out of the corner of my eye by the barn.

  She was there, lying in the sun, right in front of the barn door. She lifted her head to look at me as I walked over to her, probably wary of me trying to pick her up again. I sat down in the grass beside her, and she fell asleep as I pet her, snoring softly.

  Just then I watched as a car turned off the road and into our driveway. It was Hayden in her mom’s little sedan, and as she pulled up closer to the house, I could see that Gabby was there in the passenger seat.

  With all my sleeping and crying these past three days, I hadn’t found the time to apologize to them or explain my reasons for bailing on our outing the other night. Roxie grumbled as I stood to go meet them—she lifted her head to see who was there but then laid it back down immediately when she saw it was only Hayden and Gabby.

  “If you’re coming to yell at me—I know I deserve it, but—can you please not? Not right now anyway,” I pleaded as they got out of the car.

  They didn’t say anything as they advanced toward me, and I couldn’t make sense of their solemn expressions.

  “Please?” I added.

  When they reached me, they both opened their arms and smothered me inside a giant group hug. We rocked back and forth as I lost and regained my balance. When they finally released their hold on me, Hayden said, “We heard Chris left.”

  “Yeah,” Gabby said. “We’re sorry.”

&
nbsp; There was something inside me that pulsed at the sound of his name, like another heartbeat. “How’d you hear that?” I asked, but I knew—if the population of Carson fluctuates by even one person, it becomes common knowledge.

  “Never mind that,” Hayden said. “We’re here on a mission.”

  I let out a laugh, a dusty choked sound, from not having so much as cracked a smile in days. “A mission?”

  Gabby looped her arm with mine and began steering me toward the house. “More like an intervention.”

  “We’re getting you into the shower and out of those clothes, which it looks like you haven’t changed in weeks, and then we have a surprise for you,” Hayden explained as they led me up the stairs to my bedroom.

  “Thanks, but I really just want to crawl back into bed.”

  “We know.” Gabby was opening and closing my dresser drawers as she spoke, looking for something in particular. “That’s why we’ve gotta get you out of here.” She held up my bathing suit from last summer and stuffed it into my hands. “Hurry up and shower—make sure you brush your hair, please—and then put this on. Meet us in the car in ten minutes. Got it?”

  Clearly, there would be only one acceptable answer.

  “All right,” I finally relented, and was then ushered into the bathroom.

  • • •

  Hayden was speeding, going seventy in a fifty-five. I had been spending so much time in the car with Chris, who always obeyed the posted speed limits, that I forgot how fast people drive around here. The rapid movement sent tingles to my fingers and toes, like they had been asleep. I knew exactly where we were going, and they knew I knew, but we all acted like it was a surprise.

  Every summer we had three major excursions. Each of us chose one, and every year they were the same.

  Hayden chose the beach.

  Gabby chose the amusement park.

  And I chose river tubing—I always thought it was the perfect way to end each summer: just two miles of nothing to do but be taken slowly downriver by a gentle current, no choices to make, no mistakes, no worries.