How I Fly

by Anne Eliot

  I blink, because instead of what should have popped into my mind when Laura asked that—an image of me and Harrison holding hands and being friends—my mind just betrayed me with this fast-frozen image of me and Cam snuggled up back home watching the bonfire the day we shared our second kiss. I’m turning her question over in my head like I’ve found an old penny, but I can’t seem to focus on the actual date on the coin. Instead of answering her directly, I challenge her: “You and Patrick are amazing, close, and wonderful friends. What about that? I know I’ve asked you before, but you never answer me. Why won’t you just—you know—love him back?”

  She bites her lower lip. “You’re the only person who won’t think I’m crazy for saying this, because you of all people will probably be the only one who truly can understand. If I love him back how he wants me to love him back—it’s going to eventually hurt so much that I won’t be able to take it. So…he and I…he means so much to me. I want to keep Patrick forever. That’s why we’ve got to just stay friends and only friends. Do you understand me? The boyfriend-girlfriend thing never works out. You know it doesn’t.”

  Her whispered last line is almost lost in the giggles and subsequent laughter coming from the back seat of the bus. When the laughter escalates, I try not to look, but I find myself staring at my two best friends and one boyfriend at the back of the bus.

  Patrick smiles at me and shrugs as if to say this was not his seating plan, but his eyes go quickly from mine to the back of Laura’s head, as if he wishes she would turn and see the same expression.

  When I catch Cam’s gaze it’s as if he’s been aware I was staring. His eyes meet mine and we share a little smile. His gaze has that half-trapped look. I know how he hates to be crowded in by people, but right now he’s more than trapped, he’s annoyed. But at whom?

  I move my attention to Harrison, who has no clue that I’m looking at him—this is mostly because Charisse appears to be doing some sort of sexy-palm-reading thing for him. She’s got his hand splayed out flat so she can trace her fingers all over the lines on Harrison’s hand, while whispering so close to his face I could almost imagine them kissing.

  I put my hand to my heart, wondering why it doesn’t clench, twist, or ache how it should.

  Harrison’s so caught up in all that Charisse is doing and saying (and not wearing), and I can hear his flirty-voice saying, “Really, wow! Cool! Go on. What else?” Then: “No way. You’re so cool, Charisse. Really!” Finally he notices me watching and pulls his hand away, a small guilty flush creeping up his cheeks as he realizes not only that I’m watching, but that Patrick and Cam have also been watching me watch my boyfriend. My friends are suddenly sporting cage-fighter glowers that tell me they’d have to flip a coin to decide who would get to pound Harrison should any of this somehow make me cry.

  *Mind spins: Friends. Boyfriends. Best friends. Ugh.*

  This whole situation is so annoying, funny and frustrating that I almost laugh. I also suddenly do understand Laura’s speech about Patrick. I also understand more about me and Harrison. Cam, Laura and Patrick are such true, deeply connected friends that it does hurt how much I do love them. It also kills me to imagine losing that friendship. Only, so far…Harrison’s not the kind of boyfriend I’ve let get that close to me—not to the point where I feel vulnerable, and not to the point where he could hurt me too much.

  I wonder why? Why isn’t he at that level if he and I have been going out and kissing how we’ve been kissing? Shouldn’t I feel something more? Maybe I’m holding myself back because of all that’s happened to me. I decide for the week ahead, I need to explore that. I need to try a lot harder, especially where Harrison’s concerned.

  Suddenly, all my insecurities and comparisons I’d been clinging to about the French girls fades away. If I’m trying to get to the next level, I need to be open to getting hurt again, don’t I? Only, he won’t hurt me. Harrison adores me, because just yesterday he said those exact words to me.

  Quickly, so Patrick and Cam won’t worry anymore and so Harrison’s off the hook, I call out, “Charisse! Come do our palms next? I love palm reading!”

  “Oui, Ellen. Of course! I shall do you after I do Camdeeen and Patriiiick. I shall do zeee entire bus, maybe.”

  “What if she already did do-zeee entire bus? Literally,” Laura mutters under her breath, while pretending to snuggle-sleep against my shoulder.

  “Oh, you did not just say that,” I mutter back. “Charisse is so nice, and even if she did do zee-entire bus, then I say good for her. That means she’s simply in tune with her sexuality and what she wants, which is more than I can say for us.”

  “What?” Laura blinks.

  “You and I could take a lesson from her. It’s like you and I are trying to be nuns.”

  “Hmph. I like nuns.” Laura crosses her arms and scrunches her face.

  “Well, so do I, but I aim to be more like our French girls here. Starting with this week. You’ll see. I’m about to get in tune. You know? Evolve and grow up some.”

  Laura pops open her eyes. “You’re going to wear extra-small clothes and drop your V-card?”

  I crack up, and then blush bright red. “No!” I blush again. “I mean. I’m going to do what feels right a lot more and stop worrying about what other people think. I’m old enough now to do anything I want, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Laura wrinkles her brow and leans in to whisper, “But please remember, you only get one first time so…don’t just…” She wrinkles her brow more. “Well, I’m sure you know their bits are really odd and shocking compared to our bits? And make sure you are ready for that, because you could freak out. And just really trust the person—like, don’t have any questions in your head at all, because if you do it’s going to be just terrible, terrible regrets after. Or.” She wiggles her brows up and down. “If ya-wind-up with zero regrets, you could become like really crazy, because I’ve heard once you start…well…and…like…be…ready for that. And have protection and…yeah, really think it all through.” She nods, making her eyes go all round. “I’m just saying, because I have way more experience than you. It’s not like the movies, that’s all.” She turns all pink.

  “Okay, Mom. Thanks for that amazing lecture. As if you think you’ve got more experience than I do, think again.” I roll my eyes, laughing.

  “I’m from the civilized part of the planet, your people are babies compared to my people.” Laura laughs also, and knocks into me. “You know what I mean! I’m trying to protect you as a friend, that’s all.”

  “Yes. I know, and the same goes for you right back. I’m going to focus on being happy, whatever it is I decide to do. Happy and confident. As for the odd bits?” We both giggle again. “I’m not in a hurry for anything like that. It’s going to be one moment at a time. I promise.”

  Laura sighs and squeezes my hand. “Okay. Right. Me too.”

  I giggle again while she turns back to survey the rear seat for herself. “If you’re serious, you better up your game, though. It’s possible Charisse is making conquests of Cam, Harrison, and Patrick.” Laura flips back and gives me a wide blink. “I think she’s going for a record.”

  “You are a nut. She knows Harrison’s with me.”

  “Yeah, well, she knows Chloe likes Patrick, but your idol doesn’t seem to care.”

  “But you sound…jealous. Does it really matter which girl Patrick ends up with?”

  “No.” She shrugs and snuggles back in to drop her head on my shoulder again. “It’s just…that Charisse…she’s mesmerizing them. I could swear Patrick and Harrison and even Cam look so…stunned. It’s like they’re…high…or she gave them some sort of magic stare-at-me potion. How does she do that? Oh, how I wish I could be French for just one week to figure out their secret. Is it possible the guys are so simple the expensive perfume just goes into their brains? Because if that’s all it is, we can buy some. What do you think?”

  “No clue.” I pull out my sweater and cover Laura with it
. “And who cares? It’s all up to the universe and fate what happens—right?”

  “You asking me or yourself?” Laura bumps her shoulder into mine, this time hard. “You sound like me!” She sighs out a long breath and adds, “And you’re right. Even if we could get some of that perfume, none of this is up to us, it’s up to fate! So I don’t know why we’re fretting about stuff.”

  “Who’s fretting?”

  “Not me,” she says.

  “Not me.” I cross my arms and smile out of my window, suddenly looking forward to this week and all of my new confidence.

  She lets out another sigh, because I know she’s thinking about Patrick as much as I’m thinking about Harrison and fate, and whatever is going to happen this week…will happen. We can only hope for the best.

  “I do love you, wee-bestie,” Laura mutters, finally meeting my eyes with a soulful, shuttered smile. “I can’t imagine how empty my life would be if I’d never knocked you flat the day we met.”

  I scrunch down so I can’t see over the bus seats anymore, and lay my head against hers so we’re snuggled in temple to temple and watching the landscape speed by our window together.

  My heart is almost bursting with that perfect and amazing best-friend kind of love.

  “Love you back.”

  Cam

  Patrick and I have been doing shifts so we can keep on eye on Harrison Shaw. Right now, he’s the one watching the jerk, and I’m on a run. I’ve run twice as far as I’ve ever gone, because I’m trying to erase images of Ellen Foster from my head, but it’s not working.

  I haven’t slept this whole week because of her damn beautiful face.

  Worse, Patrick and I have been working on tracking Harrison’s every move like we’ve turned into FBI agents…or maybe just stalkers. We formulated this half-hatched plan last week when Patrick revealed to me that he also doesn’t trust Harrison. Neither one of us is sure what we’re even tracking—beyond the fact that both of us are trying to figure out why the guy makes us so uneasy.

  Only, uneasy is a really stupid and nearly impossible thing to track.

  Plus, I’m not into stalking dudes—or anyone, for that matter. Only, it’s all twisted up now, because while I’m stalking Harrison, I am following Ellen around. Only it’s not her and it’s not him that I’m always focused on. I’m always staring at her, while Harrison and Ellen are being the couple that is them.

  “God help me.” I start running faster, pushing more images of them out of my head.

  Of course this sucks, because ever since the bus ride here Harrison seems like he’s on to me and Patrick. He’s been on his best behavior all week. A fact that has Patrick more restless than ever because as the days go on, we know Harrison’s being as fake as hell.

  Like whenever the French girls come around—usually wearing only bikini tops made out of tiny bits of fabric—Harrison, who used to drool all over those girls, now acts like he’s turned into some sort of blind Tibetan monk. Which is a joke, because monks, priests, and even the Pope himself would be tempted to stare at what we’ve been seeing on the beach every day.

  Adding to the torture, Ellen’s always so happy and shining extra bright when she’s with Harrison Shaw. She seems even happier that her Harrison hasn’t noticed the French swimsuits at all. To throw salt in my wounds, Ellen’s been acting like her relationship with Harrison is reaching new heights because of Harrison’s freak-fake devotion to her.

  Why?

  My foot hits the pavement.

  Why?

  My other foot hits the pavement.

  Why can’t she see through him?

  Of course, as the week wears on and Harrison’s devotion seems unchanging, and there’s nothing at all suspicious about what comes out of his mouth or his behavior, I’ve been doing longer and longer runs like this. Away from them, away from myself and all the garbage and doubt floating around in my head. I wonder daily, just like I wondered before this trip, if I’m being crazy and jealous. I think, because I’ve admitted to myself that I’m still in love with Ellen Foster, that I have no right to be participating in this obviously empty and unfounded conspiracy against Harrison.

  She chose him.

  He seems to like her.

  She and I have agreed to be friends.

  That should be something I can accept.

  Even from what Patrick reports when he’s been creeping on them, Harrison and Ellen have been simply being a normal ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ couple, as well as being model students. Students that seem to be making Professor Perry proud with their dedicated hours spent snapping photos of anything and everything in sight. Unlike Patrick and I, who have been so wrapped up in our conspiracy theories that we’ve fallen behind on what we’re supposed to be doing. I don’t know why Patrick’s stopped doing his work, but I’m going to just admit that I’m not working because I’ve been too busy taking stalker photos of Ellen, then sulking and being jealous.

  I started losing motivation to take photos that first day. Next to the hotel and facing the beach (and in complete view of my hotel room) there’s this cool, slightly wooded nature area. It’s like a beach and a park, only with no playground. It’s a few paths and this awesome little creek that winds all the way to the beach by an empty stretch of lake that’s lined with trees. The best and worst part about it is that it’s got a very accessible concrete pathway and resting areas for disabled people made up of large rocks and natural looking benches. All of which I knew would be perfect for Ellen. I know I’m not supposed to track what’s perfect for Ellen anymore, but old habits die hard with me. The motivation loss on my part started when I realized Ellen, because she couldn’t spend time sunbathing or swimming at the beach because of the deep sand, would be spending all of her free time in this perfect little park—with Harrison.

  The first night we arrived, I got to watch Harrison and Ellen set up a romantic picnic by that little stream. For hours they snapped pictures of what I found out later were these cool little frogs. Later that night, well after dinner, they returned to the same spot with blankets the hotel manager had lent them, and they photographed those frogs and bushes and trees from every single angle as the sun went down. The next day they did it again, but this time to capture the sunset, then—the next night—it was the moonrise, Then they’d sat out there snapping shots of the thousands of cool fireflies that also lived in and around the bushes that protected the frogs.

  When finally I couldn’t resist checking out the fireflies myself, Ellen’s shining face in the moonlight had almost done me in, because she was so darn happy to show me her shots, to try to make me and Harrison be friendly toward each other, when it’s pretty obvious he and I aren’t interested in being friends at all. That was the night I found out she’d been using Harrison’s camera each and every night—because they were sharing and wasn’t that so great?

  When I asked Ellen if her Nikon was broken—because I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason Ellen would leave behind the gorgeous camera Miss Brown had lent to her for this summer program—Ellen told me that even though she wanted to bring her own stuff out here, Harrison-sweetie-pie-puke insisted that he didn’t want Ellen getting a sore neck.

  Ellen gushed how Harrison was so sweet to worry about her. How he liked to be all manly and share his newer camera—a camera with more diverse lenses, including a new telephoto lens like mine—with her. And how they’d been having so-much-fun-this-week, and wasn’t-that-so-nice, and didn’t-I-just-love-this-place?

  To Harrison’s credit, he did seem really uncomfortable that Ellen had revealed how sappy and dumb her Camera Hero Guy description sounded when she’d said it out loud. Then he tried to act like it was no a big deal which was hard to do with Ellen acting like he’d flown her to the moon or something. To put icing on the barf-cake we’d all made, I’d told him that it was so nice, and so romantic of him. But in reality all I could think was: Bleh. Loser. Tool. Is that all the moves you’ve got? Camera lenses? I’ve got camera lenses, too!<
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  Followed with my usual internal, immature and selfish rant of: I HATE YOU SO MUCH.

  Even worse (if this crap could get any worse), Ellen and Harrison suddenly seem to be kissing way more than normal. Yesterday and today especially.

  Again. Yuck. Barf. Bleh. Loser. Tool and so much HATE! HATE! HATE!

  They don’t lock lips when I’m standing there or anything like that, but because I’m tracking Harrison I just happen to see more than I want to see. If I didn’t know better, I could swear Harrison is actually waiting to spot me for the sole reason of acting like he’s just made out with Ellen Foster in order to break me down. And it’s working.

  They’ve snuggled together on the boardwalk benches near the pier. In front of the charming and historical Colonial Hotel Professor Perry made us tour. They kissed while leaning against the famous Grand Bend Welcome Arch, and once while on the swings at the playground in the town center. Then there’s that bench in front of the quaint ice cream and coffee shop.

  And if that’s not enough, they’re nonstop sitting on the deck that was built off the side of our sprawling 1960s lodge motel, as if my view from the window isn’t bad enough. I also can’t forget the hell times I’ve ‘accidentally’ run into Ellen and Harrison whispering and probably kissing in front of our room, because, of course, me and my awesome roomie can’t be separated for even one week. Oh no. At least Patrick was stuck in here with us as well. Honestly, if it weren’t for him and his quiet, calm support with all of this, I’d have died by now.

  Of course, it makes Ellen so happy that we’re all in the same hotel room, because she thinks we are all getting to be such best friends. But it’s really hard to be friends with a guy who only likes to talk about himself.

  Himself and how hot and sexy his girlfriend is, of course.

  This week is even ruining my desire for food. On the first day, I was pumped to find out this place has this awesome pour-your-own waffle machine, because I love those things. But that was before Harrison made Ellen one in the shape of a heart by cutting it before serving it to her. At this point, I’ve actually grown to hate this adorable beach town. I’m not even sure if I like the Lake Huron anymore, and hell, I think I even hate waffles now.