I’ve just left the room when my mom comes after me.
“Hey, I almost forgot. How was it being trapped all that time with Luke the Jock? I know you two were besties as kids, but…awkward, or what?”
I shrug. “Or what.” Then I head upstairs.
♦ ♦ ♦
I can’t call my friends on my phone, and I’m not about to ask my mom for hers, not when she and Jared have both the lights and the TV’s volume turned down low in the family room. The irony of it: family room. Whatever.
I shower for what is officially the third time in less than twenty-four hours, unpack, raid the pantry, and carry a small feast up to my room, where I start flipping through books—schoolbooks, then notebooks, then fiction books. Realizing I’m too tired and even more uninterested, I listen to CDs and pull out some more books—this time, old photo albums. I haven’t touched them in years, not since I realized I was living more in the past than in the present. It was also about that time I ended up jumping straight over the present and started trying to drum up some kind of future. As it turns out, the future’s still a work in progress.
I’ve paged my way into my nine-year-old summer, when there’s a knock at the window, and I nearly leap to the ceiling, claws out. I pull up the shade and there’s Luke: crouching, backlit by a sunset.
“I swear climbing up here used to be easier,” he tells me as I slide open the glass. When he crawls inside, he brings the cold in with him and gives me a peck on the lips that turns into a fuller kiss. “Already missing you.” He smooshes his mouth against mine once more and says, “Including this: I miss squishing our lips together.”
I nod. “You give good squish.” Then I unzip his sweatshirt and slip inside it with him. Memories of my childhood whisper past; he smells like himself again—a grown version—but the scent of wood smoke is gone.
“Unknown Pleasures? Good album,” Luke says, referring to the Joy Division CD that’s playing. He glances at the photo albums spread over my bed. “Watcha up to?”
“Reliving simpler times.”
“They weren’t so simple, though.” He catches my eye, then his gaze drops to my neck and he leans down to kiss me in the well between my collar bones. “Plus, back then I couldn’t do this.”
“…Times change, hormones happen…”
He smiles. “Good thing about those hormones.”
I step back, tug on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Sit down, stay awhile.”
He drops onto my bed. “Damn right. That was a cold walk.”
“Luke, you live seven houses away from me.”
“Seven houses and seven yards.”
I sit next to him and drag the open album across our laps, turning back to the beginning. The first photo we see is of a nine-year-old Lucas, sitting at my old picnic table, with more ice cream on his face than is left in the cone he’s holding. His grin is priceless.
“No blackmail material here or anything,” Luke says.
I shake my head. “These photos are never to be used for evil. They’re pure and perfect, which is why I haven’t pulled them out in ages: I was too angry at you for joining the assholes.”
Luke’s mouth shifts to the side, and I apologize.
“You’re right, though. Some of them are assholes,” he says. “Not all. And I never joined any of them. Can’t help it if they choose to orbit around me.”
He grins and I elbow him lightly in the ribs. If I didn’t know better, it would be tempting to think life is pretty easy for Luke Owens.
“Speaking of pure and perfect,” he says, turning to me, tucking some hair behind my ear like they do in romance movies, “I miss those days when we’d roam around, taking pictures together.”
Instead of gazing deeply into his eyes like my movie counterpart might do, I fidget in my seat.
“You remember,” he says, nudging me with his tone. His arm comes to rest on my shoulder, his fingers twisting sections of my hair. “You were behind the camera and I was your sidekick.”
Sidekick. The word’s wrong, but it still triggers recall.
The day after my eighth birthday, the day after we’d met, I’d shown up at Lucas’s house with my brand-new camera, a gift from my parents, dangling around my neck. “I’m going to be a photographer like my dad,” I told him, “because he’s one of the best people in the whole world. That’s what you should know about me, and my dad.”
I was so blissful in my ignorance.
I’d asked Lucas to come with me into the woods, and he’d appointed himself “scout,” intent on helping me hunt down things to photograph.
“You called yourself my scout,” I tell Luke. “Not sidekick. I never thought of myself as a superhero, even if I was delusional about my photography skills.”
“Scout, right. But you’re wrong about the delusions. You had so much talent.”
“Talent? Do you remember the picture I took that first day?” His gaze goes fuzzy, so I help him along. “The salamander, remember? We were walking in the woods, along the stream, and you told me to stop. ‘I think I found it,’ you said. ‘Your first picture in the wild.’”
He’d helped me climb with him onto the next rock, and as the water gurgled past, licking at our sneakers, he pointed to a collection of mossy stones. “It’s a super-giant salamander,” he whispered. “In there.”
I squinted at a dark crevice along the stream bank and raised my camera.
“Don’t move,” we said to one another.
That salamander became a blurred brownish blob tucked among the blurred, green-gray blobs of mossy stones in my photograph, because I hadn’t yet learned how to work the manual focus on my new camera. I made a popsicle-stick frame for it and hung it by my bed, not for the image, but for the memories it invoked.
Luke looks over at the wall where the picture used to hang. “You took it down,” he says. Glancing around, he adds, “You took all of them down.”
“Guess I outgrew them.” The words come out easily enough, but they echo inside me, down through chambers I thought I’d erased.
“Don’t you ever take pictures anymore?”
“Not really.” Not at all would be more accurate, but close enough.
“Why not?”
I shake my head, turn from him, and his hand, no longer touching my hair, falls away from me. “Lost its appeal.” I hope he doesn’t keep pursuing the topic, because I don’t want to continue lying by omission.
He doesn’t. He’s quiet at first, and after I drop my gaze to the album, he reaches out to poke at a picture of us in our pajamas. “Look: a sleepover. I’ve been missing those, too.”
“Since when?”
“Since we turned fourteen or fifteen…and again since last night, when you were in a different hotel room.”
I smile, kiss him on the mouth and once more in a spot he especially likes, just below where his jaw meets his neck. He sighs and I kiss him a few more times, until he pulls me closer, pulls my mouth up to his, and kisses me back. “Luke,” I say, when he leans me down toward the bed, his hand bracing me in my descent, “my mom and Jared are right downstairs.”
He takes a deep breath and stops, easing me into a fully upright position, before turning back to the album. After a couple shots of me doing wonky handstands, there’s Lucas again, this time holding one of my dolls, wearing a smile that’s so forced, it appears to be causing him physical suffering. He must’ve been almost ten at the time.
Luke offers up an agonized grunt in response, and I tap a finger lightly on the photo. “I guess this means we have a history of playing house.”
Luke’s feigned grimace descends into a genuine frown. “I’m sorry my dad said that. I’m sorry about ninety-five percent of the stuff he said.”
“Well, I’m sorry you have to deal with that at home and on the football field. Too bad you didn’t stick with soccer or baseball instead of football, eh?”
“Like I would’ve had the choice.” His voice dips into mockery. “I have a legacy to claim, reme
mber?”
I hadn’t remembered. “Oh, yeah, wasn’t your dad all-state or something? You, too, right?”
He nods, distracted. “Grandad, too. But, speaking of my dad, I can’t stay long. I told him I was going for a run, but he’ll start wondering, and then he’ll start in on me, and I don’t really feel like hearing it.”
“A run? As in wantonly burning calories even though you’ve been half-starved recently? And he believed you?”
“He doesn’t question, if it sounds like training. Anyway, I know your phone’s broken, but I still want your number. It bothers me that I don’t have it.”
I enter my phone number into his contacts, and he writes his down for me.
“So, you came all this way—across all seven yards—just to exchange numbers?”
“Yes and no,” Luke says, looking down at my name on his phone’s screen. “I had another reason for stopping by.” A shadow passes over his face and my stomach constricts into a tight little lump.
“It’s just that this…us”—his eyes lift to mine—“I think we should keep it quiet for now. Sort of carry on like before, skipping the part where you hate me.” His gaze is intent on my face, but I wish it wasn’t. It means he gets to see every emotion that surfaces as I digest his words.
He’s right. This is the best way to handle things; in fact, I’ve already considered suggesting it myself. If anyone sees even a hint of physicality between us, the spread of rumors might break the sound barrier. People will imagine all kinds of scenarios for our two weeks together. Granted, some might be accurate, but they won’t take our history into account. No one will understand how our closeness resurrected itself so easily—like we were right back in our tree house again, except with post-puberty bodies and yearnings.
Regardless, none of this logic seems relevant while I’m reeling from Luke’s request. What he’s asking hurts. Shouldn’t he be ready—aching—to make his feelings known, possibly belting them from rooftops? Instead, he’s asking me to hide our relationship—if it is a relationship—which will make everything we’ve shared seem less real.
Luke’s still watching me; he’s waiting for my answer.
“Okay,” I say. “It’s for the best.” Forced words, forced numbness.
He looks relieved, and my pain expands. “I wouldn’t ask,” he tells me, “except that after I charged my phone, I found half a million messages from Marissa. She’s still holding on, like there’s something between us. There isn’t.” He leans in, stressing his words for my sake. “I haven’t called her. I don’t want to, and besides, it wouldn’t help. I’ll have to tell her in person and…well, I’d rather do that before anything happens between you and me.”
I raise an eyebrow. A little late for that one.
“Publicly, I mean.”
I have the strange sensation that Luke has edged away from me, that he’s no longer sitting beside me on the bed. He hasn’t moved, of course; the change is only in my perception.
I hold his gaze, letting this additional knowledge sink into my skin: he’s protecting Marissa, putting me on hold.
Color spreads through his face. He knows what he’s asking is wrong, but he’s doing it anyway, which only makes the whole thing worse.
“Please don’t be mad,” he says, quietly. “I really, really want this with you. It’s just…things happened fast between us. We both know that, right? And…”
“And, Luke, enough said. We went there with no relationship. And now? What, I’ve come back as your girlfriend or something? No thanks. I get enough negative attention already.”
He frowns, starts to say something, but I stand.
“No. Really, it’s fine, Luke. I get it. Anyway, it’s late and I’m tired.” I don’t offer anything more. I don’t feel like I should have to.
“Okay. I’ll go,” he says, also standing. “But I don’t like leaving things this way. It’s been so great, being close to you, and I want more of that. It’s just a few problems need to be cleared away, first, to make room for us.”
Again, he’s not wrong. I’ve imagined trying to make sense of it to my friends, how in the span of just over two weeks, I’ve gone from Virgin Queen of Darkness to football-player consort, and the scene almost always edges toward bloodshed.
“Even with time,” I say, “people aren’t going to understand us.”
“But I do.” He steps forward, reaching out to touch my hands, lacing his fingers through mine. “And as long as you do, too, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I want this to work, and I guess part of that means slowing down and figuring things out.”
“So, no more playing house.” I try to smile, to pass my words off as a joke, but I can’t.
Luke pulls me close, wraps both arms around me, kisses the top of my head. “You know, I’m really going to miss sleeping beside you.”
“And the not-sleeping?” I raise my face to his.
“That goes without saying.”
♦ ♦ ♦
My mom comes up to check on me before bed, which she hasn’t done since about the time my double-digit birthdays began. She peers around the room after she knocks.
“I could’ve sworn I heard a male voice up here earlier. Jared said it was probably your radio or something…”
I shrug. Noncommittal. I could tell her the truth, but I don’t feel like trying to explain everything, not when I don’t understand it, myself.
“Thank God you’re home again and safe,” she tells me, giving me a hug. “I was so worried.”
“We were okay. The actual experience wasn’t all that scary, overall. I mean, there were moments, but…” I don’t continue.
“But you’ll tell me more about it all soon, maybe after you’ve had some time to process?” She turns to go, but turns back around again. “So, you and Luke, huh? You two helped each other through it?”
“Yeah, we really did.”
“Does this mean you’re friends again?”
“I think so,” I say, but there’s a feeling somewhere deep inside me, telling me all I can do is hope.
Twenty-One
Changed, Woman
When I wake Sunday morning, I don’t know where I am. I feel for Luke and find nothing. Emptiness opens like a cavern inside me, and I realize the truth of Luke’s distance. He’s far away—in more than one sense—and I miss him even deeper than I’d expected. Somehow, I don’t think seeing him across a crowded hallway tomorrow is going to be much help.
The day passes slowly. Over the last two weeks, I’ve grown accustomed to slowness, to stillness, to quiet, but this is something different. I’m restless inside, like it’s time for movement, progress. I’ve changed, even if most of my life hasn’t, and I have no intention of going back to the way things were.
When I drag myself from bed, my mom makes me breakfast for the first time in a long time. She offers to drop my cell phone off for repairs, too, giving me the chance to catch up on laundry and schoolwork. Even without hearing it from my teachers, I can think of at least three tests, a paper and a project I’ve missed. It’s going to take forever to get caught up, but I do my best to make inroads, scooping out assignments which seem doable and grating away at their edges.
Monday morning comes before I’m anywhere close to prepared, and I wake feeling just as disoriented.
Even the shower can’t make it up to me: already the miracle of hot, running water has begun to lose its mystique, but it’s easy to take things for granted once they become a given.
My appearance presents trouble, too, which seems—and is—so ridiculously trivial, particularly after what Luke and I have faced. It’s an issue for me, nonetheless. I pull on items from my closet’s “frequent flyer” section: Dead Milkmen t-shirt, bulky cardigan, fitted skirt, tights, and chunky-soled Mary-Jane shoes, opting to leave my Doc Martens boots where they lie. After our two harrowing weeks together, they’re the worse for wear, and I need a break. Clothes aren’t the real problem, though; that role falls to my makeup. Post-shower, s
tanding in front of the mirror with eyeliner brush in hand, I freeze.
It isn’t important in any of the grander schemes of life, whether or not I go back to my recent style: dark, smoky eyes with thick, pointed liner; black lipstick; macabre-pale powder. Everyone at school will expect this look and if it bothers Luke, he’ll recover. Except, even the thought of putting it all on feels uncomfortable, like stepping into a uniform that no longer fits. The makeup isn’t the problem; why I wore it is.
So, I go in with a lighter hand, closer to the style I donned before my dad tore our family apart for the last time: thinner wings of eyeliner, deep blood-red lipstick, natural skin tones everywhere else. The person in the mirror looks like me again. She even smiles like I used to.
This thing with Luke may have given me a secret to keep, but after the last two weeks, I no longer feel like hiding who I am.
I drive to school as usual, but—far from the norm—spend at least a quarter of my ride trying to decide whether I want to see Luke or not. Sure, I miss him, but how much harder will it be to see him and keep my distance?
I do see him, almost right away. He doesn’t see me, though.
I’ve walked from the parking lot to my locker, receiving far more than my customary share of stares and whispers. Already, the extra-attention is wearing on me. Getting lost in the wilderness is one thing, but being found and having to return to regular life is facing a beast of another kind.
Luke comes in, flanked by a handful of guys. With his truck still upside down on a mountainside, he must’ve had to join the jock carpool. The group enters the hallway with a blast of cold air and some raucous laughter, and a few girls squeal in the bat-frequency range, rushing forward to fuss over him.
They’re the same girls who glared at me when I passed them not five minutes ago. One of them shoots me another look to be sure I haven’t forgotten how things are.
And so it begins.
Luckily, two of the dearest, most loyal people in the world swoop in to rescue me.
“Told you. She only has eyes for Mr. Football now,” Nina says low, but not quite under her breath. She snakes her arms around me in a tight hug and deposits a big, smacking kiss on my cheek—no doubt leaving behind a black-tinted lip silhouette.
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