Her mom huffed. “Fine, Meg,” she snapped, yanking the keys out of the ignition and thrusting them in Meg’s direction before unbuckling her seat belt and shoving past her onto the blacktop. “Move, then, so I can get out.” She kept one hand on the car as she made her way to the passenger side—steadying herself?—before flouncing in and slamming the door with enough force that Meg could feel it in her molars. “There,” her mom said. “Are you happy?”
“Yeah, Mom.” Meg yanked the seat belt so hard it locked before she could get it all the way around herself; she tugged again, twice more, before giving up and letting go. “I’m great.”
Back at the house, her mom got out of the car and stalked inside without saying anything. Meg stared after her for a moment, tilting her head back against the seat. Upstairs, she changed into her pajamas and curled up in bed, then picked up her phone and texted Colby. Are you around?
He called her back four minutes later. “What about ceramics?” he asked when she answered. “Ceramics is a hobby, right?”
Meg laughed, but then the laugh turned into something else halfway out and suddenly she was terrified she was going to start crying and never, ever stop. She sucked in a quick breath, but it was ragged as torn denim, and Colby heard. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said automatically, but the stupidity of lying to Colby was obvious as soon as she opened her mouth. “No,” she amended, and just like that the whole story was spilling out of her like wine from a knocked-over glass. He listened without saying anything, so quiet on the other end of the line that twice Meg interrupted herself to ask if he was still there.
“That sucks,” he said, when she was finally finished. “I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah,” she said, crawling under the covers with her phone jammed between her ear and her shoulder. “It totally sucks.”
“Is she an alcoholic, you think?”
“I—no,” Meg said immediately, startled by the word in the same way she’d been surprised to hear herself say drunk earlier tonight. Alcoholics were red-faced and strawberry-nosed, weren’t they? They snuck vodka out of plastic bottles they kept hidden in their coat pockets and slumped over stools in dive bars at ten o’clock in the morning.
They show up drunk to get their kids from work, a nasty voice in Meg’s head added.
She pushed it away. “She’s just still sad about my dad, that’s all,” she insisted. “And she hates her boring job, and she and my dad never really had a ton of friends. I think she just doesn’t know what to do with herself, that’s all.” Then, in a feeble attempt to muster a joke: “Maybe she needs a hobby, too.”
Colby didn’t laugh. “Okay,” he said. “You’d know better than I would.” He didn’t sound convinced, really, but the nice thing was how she didn’t actually feel like she needed to convince him. He wasn’t going to judge her either way. “Can you talk to your dad?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Meg tucked one arm behind her head, staring up at the ceiling. “I feel so protective of her. I don’t want him to find out.”
“I mean, sure,” Colby said. “But somebody’s got to be protective of you, right?”
The way he said it made Meg’s stomach do a thing, sharp and sudden; just for a second, she let herself wonder what he looked like when he slept. “Yeah,” she said finally, gazing out at the dark nothingness of her bedroom. “I guess you’re right.” Ugh, she didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Dealing with her mom lately felt like walking down a long hallway with a door at the end, like a scene from a low-budget horror movie; somewhere in the back of her most secret mind she knew that eventually she was going to have to open it, but whatever was back there was going to be bad and scary and she didn’t want to do it just yet. “Tell me about your night,” she said instead.
“My night?” Colby yawned a little bit, just quiet; Meg wondered if he was in bed, too. “It was low-key. Hung out with some friends. Gotta work early tomorrow.”
Meg glanced at the moon outside the window. Colby’s friends were a mystery to her. Most times he talked about them, they sounded like a bunch of boneheads—and like he thought they were a bunch of boneheads—but she wasn’t entirely sure if he was describing them that way on purpose or not, and she didn’t want to say the wrong thing and accidentally sound like a snob. “I was thinking about what you said about them cutting your overtime, actually,” she said. “I was listening to this thing on NPR—”
“Something new and different for you,” Colby interrupted.
Meg frowned into the dark. She knew he was just joking around—that she was tired, and keyed up, and probably extra sensitive—but something about the way he said it, maybe a little snidely, bothered her. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” Colby said. “Easy. It’s just that most of your news-related anecdotes start that way, that’s all. I was kidding.”
“So what?” Meg sat up in bed. “What’s wrong with NPR?”
“So nothing,” Colby said. “It’s just . . .” He trailed off.
“If you say fake news, I’m going to hang up on you right now.”
“I’m not saying fake anything!” Colby laughed, though it sounded slightly strangled. “Can you let me talk? I’m just saying that NPR has an agenda, just like every other news outlet in America.”
“The agenda is reporting the actual news.”
“You say that because you agree with what they’re saying.”
“I say that because it’s verifiably true.”
“Maybe,” Colby said easily, “but when was the last time you actually verified? I’m not saying I disagree with their reporting, even. I’m just saying that if you’re accepting whatever you hear on there without checking for yourself, then I don’t see how you have more of a leg to stand on than my mom when she talks about something she saw on Fox News.”
“Your mom watches Fox News?”
Colby blew a breath out. “What if she does, Meg? Who gives a shit?”
Meg cringed—she couldn’t help it—swallowing down a dozen different equally nasty responses. God, sometimes she could go whole conversations without thinking about what ridiculously different universes she and Colby lived in, but every time she remembered, she couldn’t help but wonder where either one of them thought this was going. Meg didn’t know if that made her silly or realistic. “I mean, I give a shit,” she said finally. “And if she does, I might encourage her to verify her facts, just like you oh-so-helpfully reminded me to do tonight.”
“Don’t be mad,” Colby said, softening. “I know you had a sucky night; I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m just playing devil’s advocate; you know that.”
“Oh, come on.” Meg hated that expression. “The devil can advocate for himself, don’t you think?”
“Clever,” Colby said, in a voice like he didn’t think it was, really. He was quiet for a moment; she could hear his getting-ready-for-bed noises in the background, water running and a door clicking shut. “Can I ask you a question?” he asked finally, bedsprings creaking—he definitely was in bed, then. “Like, obviously you don’t fight like this with your friend Emily. But do you do it with anybody else besides me?”
“Nope,” Meg said, no hesitation.
“Not even Mason?”
It surprised her that he was asking—she’d only mentioned Mason in passing a couple of times—and she tugged at her lip for a moment before she answered, even though she didn’t have to think about it. She and Mason had bickered some when they’d first started dating—the kind of good-natured debates that felt natural as breathing back before everything exploded with her parents—but after that the waters had been perfectly, mercifully calm. In fact, the closest they’d ever come was at a party Adrienne had thrown over February break a few weeks before they’d broken up: Mason had been a total grouch for no discernable reason, complaining about everything from the music on Javi’s playlist to the burritos they’d picked up at Chipotle on the way over, which had been his idea
to begin with. Meg remembered how uneasy she’d been all night at the prospect of a looming fight, how she’d done her best to ignore the fact that it was happening, and her relief when it had blown over without ever coming to a head. She still had no idea what his problem had been. “No, actually,” she said at last. “You’re the only one.”
Colby laughed at that. “I’m so honored.”
“Take it as a compliment,” she teased, settling back against the pillows. “I’m totally honest with you.”
“Yeah, that’s because I’m not impressive enough for you to actually care what I think.”
“Wait, what?” She’d thought they were winding down, but just like that, Meg was sitting up again, adrenaline surging through her veins. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, Colby. It’s not.” Her voice was steady, somehow, but even as the words came out she wondered if maybe he had a point. Did she tell him everything, even the bad parts, because she trusted him? Or did she tell him everything—even the bad parts—because the stakes were so low? She didn’t want to think about it.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said, hating the feeling of being on the defensive and wanting to turn the tables as quick as she could. “Does anybody in your real life even know about me?”
“I—what?” Colby asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just asking.” Meg raised her eyebrows even though he couldn’t see her. “If we’re talking about whose opinion is or isn’t important, or whatever.”
Colby didn’t answer for so long Meg thought he might have fallen asleep right in the middle of their argument. Then he sighed. “I mean,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. “What is there to know?”
“I—” Meg broke off, her whole body getting unpleasantly hot as the utter stupidity of this whole bizarre episode caught up to her all at once: Arguing politics and TV and life philosophies with some lonely, random stranger. Caring so deeply about a relationship that didn’t even exist anywhere but in some invisible signal stretching over state lines. “That’s a good question, I guess.” She felt like she might be about to cry again, which was ridiculous: after all, it was just Colby. He wasn’t impressive enough to care about, and as soon as she had that thought she felt about two inches tall. “I should go,” she said suddenly.
“Meg,” he said—and she thought he sounded a little panicky all of a sudden, though she might have been imagining it. Her head was getting fuzzy. She wanted to go to sleep. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “It’s just late, that’s all. I’ve got school in the morning. And you said yourself you’ve got to work.”
“No, I know, but—”
“I’ll talk to you soon,” she said, then hung up before he could answer. She shoved the phone underneath her pillow before she started to cry.
Thirteen
Colby
Micah’s brother had a night game on Thursday, so they all trekked out to the municipal field to see him play. Colby had pitched in high school—he hadn’t been particularly good at it, just like he hadn’t been particularly good at much in high school—but he’d always kind of liked being out there, the lazy hum of cicadas and the smell of the grass thick in the air. The thing about being done with school was that summer wasn’t that different from any other time of the year, but Colby secretly found himself looking forward to it anyway, like Pavlov’s dogs conditioned for the sound of the bell.
A month and some change till the anniversary, he remembered suddenly, with a hot rush of shame as he realized he hadn’t even really thought about it the last couple of weeks, he’d been so distracted with . . . other stuff. Colby scrubbed a hand through his hair, yanking a little. Jesus Christ, what the fuck did he think he was looking forward to, exactly?
Still, he had to admit it was a pretty night, the spring trees finally getting greenish and the setting sun slipping underneath the clouds in a way that made it look like they were glowing inside like hot coals. He would have taken a picture and sent it to Meg—she liked stuff like that, he’d noticed; was forever sending him snaps of the expensive salads she ate for lunch or a weird-looking dog she saw on her way to get coffee—except for the fact that he was pretty sure whatever he and Meg were doing was officially—or unofficially, he guessed, since they hadn’t actually talked about it—finished after last night.
Colby sighed, leaning back on his elbows on the bleachers. It had come out wrong, what he’d said to her, which didn’t change the fact that he thought his original question was valid. He wasn’t a total idiot. He knew he was some kind of small-town novelty as far as Meg was concerned—her very own redneck whetstone, useful for keeping her ideological knives sharp until she finally got over whatever she was so fucking afraid of and disappeared back to wherever she’d come from. It was a temporary diversion, that was all. What did she want him to do, casually drop it into conversation with Jordan and Micah that he spent three nights a week arguing politics over the phone with some rich girl who’d originally called his house trying to convince his dead father to do his civic duty? What exactly would be the point of trying to explain something like that, especially when there was less than zero chance of it turning into anything real?
Not that Colby wanted it to turn into anything real.
He just meant—
Whatever.
Finally, he dug his phone out of his pocket and took the picture anyway, hitting send before he could talk himself out of it. Thinking about trying out for the minors if my illustrious career in box moving doesn’t work out, he typed, figuring if he acted like things hadn’t gone south between them at the end there, maybe she’d forget they kind of had. How’s your night?
He closed out his messages app, though not before he caught sight of the unanswered text from Joanna from that morning. He’d run into her in the CVS parking lot yesterday afternoon, and they’d wound up standing outside her car talking for the better part of half an hour—about her cousin’s bachelorette party and the new Target going in by the middle school, the chilly breeze blowing her cloud of yellow hair in every direction. This morning, his phone had chimed early, while he was getting ready for work: We should run into each other on purpose sometime, Colby Moran. He hadn’t texted back, and he didn’t know why, except for the part where he kind of did know.
A whetstone, he reminded himself, already wishing he hadn’t sent that stupid picture. It wasn’t going anywhere at all.
Dusk fell, the sky going blue and then a deep, velvety purple, a sliver of moon appearing like a thumbnail behind the trees. “We should go camping this summer,” Colby heard himself say.
“What?” Jordan snorted. “Since when do you know anything about camping?”
Colby shrugged. “I could learn.”
“Sure you could,” Micah put in, pulling a plastic Coke bottle Colby thought was probably mostly rum out of his backpack and offering it around. Then, in a deep newscaster voice: “Locals who have no fucking idea what they’re doing torn limb from limb in bear attack.”
“There are no bears around here,” Jordan said.
“Fuck yeah, there are bears around here!” Micah said. Finding no takers for his backpack cocktail, he shrugged, downing most of it himself in one long swig. “Don’t you remember they caught one lumbering around behind the China Star last summer? Deforestation, man.”
Colby tuned them out, vaguely sorry he’d said anything to begin with. He dug his phone out of his pocket in spite of himself to see if Meg had texted back, which she hadn’t. She had her carnival thing tonight, he remembered suddenly—a fund raiser for something or other, which seemed kind of ridiculous considering how much her fancy private school probably cost. Still, she’d sounded so excited about the whole thing that it was hard not to be a little bit charmed by the idea, even if whenever he tried to picture it all he could think about was the last scene of Grease, when they all sing a song and the car flies up into the clouds.<
br />
He checked his phone again at the top of the third inning, then again at the bottom of the fifth. “What are you doing?” Jordan asked from the bleacher above him, kicking him gently in the side.
“Buying Bitcoin,” Colby said automatically, shoving his phone back into his pocket and telling himself to stop being such a mopey little pissant. So much for her not remembering they’d argued, he guessed.
“They’re playing like total bitches out there,” Micah complained, turning his cap around backward and scratching his knee through the fray in his jeans. Colby winced, knowing exactly what Meg would say if she heard him talking like that. Casual sexism denotes a lack of creativity, probably, plus some statistic about Mo’ne Davis that she kept in her back pocket for occasions exactly like this.
There was no point in thinking about Meg.
He got some sketchy fluorescent nachos from the concession stand. He talked to some stoners he knew from school. He actually sat still and watched the game for a while, but Micah was right—they were playing like total bitches, or whatever the nonoffensive version of total bitches was, and the longer he sat there with his silent phone heavy in his pocket, the more it felt like some kind of gorge was opening up inside his rib cage, the kind of physical sensation he’d taught himself to stop having after his dad died and didn’t fucking appreciate now. He was lonely, he realized suddenly, as a direct result of having a stunted, long-distance non-love affair with some spoiled princess from the fucking Main Line that was probably over now before it had even started. The thought of it was so embarrassing Colby actually looked around to make sure nobody had noticed, that it wasn’t somehow being broadcast on a neon sign hovering above his head.
“Let’s go, Jakey!” Micah yelled as his brother came up to bat, cupping his hands around his mouth and hooting. Colby blew a breath out and nudged him in the arm.
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