by Jen Brooks
If she were my girlfriend Kylie, I’d make a God crack, but I’ve never had the religion talk with this girl. Plus, I’m a little in awe that she actually did have a dream about me. “So was the cemetery poem because of your guilt?”
She folds her arms like I’m doing, as if she has suddenly realized it’s cold. “I don’t know. I was thinking about how you were before the accident, and how you put Hunter LeRoy in his place to defend me. Back then all I wanted was to be your friend.” She pauses and takes a big, shoulder-moving breath. “Then last night I got this idea about running with you in the woods. It came out in the piece I wrote today.”
We both know the hand-holding run was romantic, not third-grade friendly. She’s just admitted that, for at least the time it took to write that piece, she had romantic feelings about me. It doesn’t seem, however, that she understands them. But who does? Who can explain what causes you all of a sudden to feel something for another person?
Except I know it’s not spontaneous love. I made a world where I made Kylie love me, and somehow that’s affecting this Kylie. It’s not natural and it’s not sweet. I can’t tell if this Kylie is trying to tell me she’d like to start something, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. For years I’ve been, as she says, nothing but a statue, devoid of personhood to an entire population of my peers.
It’s an identity I’ve come to accept. It’s an identity that’s been safe for a really long time, and I don’t want to give it up. I have what I need in Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend even if that world isn’t real.
But this isn’t real either. This Kylie wouldn’t be having romantic running thoughts if it weren’t for the other Kylie. Take that world away, and would this Kylie still write me a poem? I don’t know, but I wish she would.
What I really want is to dive into her and soak up her thoughts, the excitement of getting to know her all over again for real. She’s different from girlfriend Kylie. Less perfect? More substantial? Harder to decipher than my ever-compliant girlfriend. She’s talking to me with the same frankness my girlfriend does, but that frankness feels less warm, more analytical. She’s not being unfriendly, but I’m surprised by how much she can talk about feelings without expressing many.
Her demeanor is more distant than my girlfriend’s, but maybe “guarded” is the better word, because she’s choosing how to word her frankness, not just pouring out uncensored thoughts. Not knowing what she’s holding back is unfamiliar territory because my girlfriend holds back nothing.
“I loved what you wrote today,” I say. “It means a lot that someone can think of me like I’m alive.”
For the first time since we sat down, she actually looks at me. I wish it were love in her eyes, but it’s sympathy. Sympathy, at this point, sucks.
“I wish I had come back for another indoor recess,” she says, and I imagine she’s picturing how transformed my life would have been if only we had shared crayon sessions in elementary school. I don’t know if she’s envisioning herself as my savior or my friend. There’s a huge difference.
I also don’t know if she means she’s sad it took this long to finally notice me again, or if she can’t be my friend now that I’ve grown up to be such a freak.
She reaches inside her jacket pocket and pulls out a folded manila envelope. Then she stands. I stand too.
“I don’t want to makes things difficult,” she says. “I might have led you to think something about my feelings for you. The truth is, I thought of you when I wrote a couple of things. I don’t know why.” She puts the envelope into my hand and closes my fingers over the edge. She turns to go, but hesitates, still clasping my hand under hers.
It’s a magical heartbeat of contact. Not at all what I expected after the farewell words she just delivered. We both stare at her hand folded over mine and the envelope, and I don’t bat an eyelash for fear of scaring her off.
It’s probably only a few seconds that pass, but since I don’t know how many seconds there’ll be, the time expands. I abandon focus on everything but her hand. She has long fingers like my girlfriend’s, warmer than I expected in the April chill. I can see only her thumbnail since the other fingers are curled under, and it’s polished a pale pink. My girlfriend never wears colors on her nails.
Kylie gives the side of my hand the tiniest caress with that thumb, so small I could pretend it didn’t happen, except for the sparks that shoot through me.
She pulls her hand away like she’s the one who got shocked. “Um . . . yeah . . . Good night, Jonathan.”
What could this mean?
She heads down the bleachers, but this whole moment is ending too soon for me. My hand wants hers back. “Kylie.” She turns around. “I don’t assume anything at all. Thanks for coming tonight.”
She gives me a good-bye wave as she works her way to the bottom seats, then glides down the few stairs to the ground. I’m still not ready to let her go.
“Kylie.” She looks up and puts her hands on the rail, a gesture that says she’s okay lingering. My confidence soars. “Will you go running with me? Maybe this weekend? Just a couple of miles.”
She sighs, considering my request. “I’ll have to think about it. Maybe Sunday. Give me your number, and I’ll call you.” She pulls out her phone, and I tell her what numbers to punch in. Today is Friday. I wish tomorrow were a school day so I didn’t have to wait two days to see her again.
“I’ll call tomorrow night,” she says.
“Okay. Thanks.”
I watch her disappear into the parking lot, wishing I felt invited to escort her, but stoked that she put my digits into her phone and promised to call.
Her car groans to life, navigates the parking lot, and putters off down the driveway. The envelope in my hand commands me to sit back down and open it.
Inside is a piece of yellow construction paper folded in half. A Crayola rainbow spans the sky over a building with the word “hospitel” printed above it. The inside of the card has a drawing that looks like a tree with flowers. Get well soon your frend Kylie.
CHAPTER 7
BY THE TIME I WALK home, it’s a little after six. Uncle Joey’s been here and gone. There are dishes in the sink and a note that he left me pizza in the fridge. It’s pepperoni, which is my favorite, but I’m just not in the mood to eat right now.
Any other day I’d be done with dinner and on my way back to Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend. For the first time since I can remember, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to taint the conversation in the bleachers by going to a made-up world. I feel guilty in a tired sort of way.
I grab my backpack and haul it up toward my room, but stop short at the top of the stairs. There is light spilling through my doorway into the hall. I never leave the lamp on. A shadow crosses the light, and my bed creaks as if someone just sat on it. I freeze with both fear and the absurd worry that I didn’t make my bed.
This time I don’t run downstairs for a knife, but I put my bag down so I’m ready to hightail it out of here, just in case.
I inch along the hall until another step would put me in the doorway. I stop breathing as I slowly peek beyond the frame, expecting to see that girl sitting on the bed. No one is there. I step into the room to find it empty, as neat as a room with an unmade bed can look. No drawers lie open and rummaged through. No papers have been flung across the floor. I bend to check under the bed, and find it clear. I open the closet door, and there’s no one inside, though I do note that my silver shoebox is still there. I check my bathroom—empty.
Only the lit bedside lamp gives away the fact that someone was here.
This whole thing unnerves me and isn’t what I want to be thinking about after talking with real Kylie. Someone was in this room less than one minute ago. My gut says it was that girl. She couldn’t have gone out a window, could she? I would have heard that, but I check the bedroom and bathroom windows, all of which are locked from
the inside. The only option is one that seems more and more likely the more I think about it. . . .
Another world-maker?
Could it be I’m not the only one?
The first time I saw her wasn’t in this world. It was in Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend, a world I made. Someone is popping through my worlds, and I’m so exponentially creeped-out by this thought that I do what I always do—run to girlfriend Kylie.
I squeeze my eyes shut and open them standing in the same exact room, except the light isn’t on. I take out my cell phone, feeling guilty because I blew Kylie off earlier and wouldn’t be here now if not for all the breaking and entering. She doesn’t know why I blew her off, so I swallow my guilt and dial. She picks up on the third ring.
“Hi, Jonathan.” She sounds so normal, when the universe right now is anything but.
“You busy?”
“Just helping my mom. You wanna come over?”
I don’t. I want to be with Kylie but not while she’s helping her mom. “Wanna go to the mall with me? Nothing to eat here.”
“You can have some leftover chicken and potatoes we had for supper.”
“I would, but I’m in taco mode.”
She hesitates. Whatever she and her mom are doing must be kind of important. The right thing to do here would be to say, Forget it. I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s hard when I want to see her so badly, but I fake some nonchalance.
“Never mind. It’s okay. I’ll swing through the drive-through on Route One.”
“No, wait!” she hollers before I can hang up. She covers the receiver so all I can hear is her muffled voice presumably talking to her mom. She’s making excuses so we can see each other, and I should be pleased, but I feel only sad for some reason. She returns shortly. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
* * *
We find a decent parking spot near the food court, and I order two tacos and a large nachos, which Kylie likes to share. We get fruit smoothies from the counter next to the taco place and sit at a round table in the middle of the food court.
Kylie’s hair is tied back again, low at her neck instead of up high like she does for track practice. The low ponytail looks nice with the earrings I gave her—studs of red crystal I wish were rubies but still cost a lot for a kid in high school living on last summer’s pizza delivery money. She’s also wearing the ring I gave her that matches. Kylie isn’t fancy, but she likes jewelry that sparkles without being all in-your-face. I wonder, insanely, if there will come a time when I’m comfortable buying real Kylie a piece of jewelry.
I nurse my smoothie along with my guilt as I consider that in my heart I’m cheating on my girlfriend with my girlfriend.
I’ve been kind of quiet since I picked Kylie up at her house. She knows me well enough to know that quiet happens sometimes with me, but I don’t want her thinking anything’s wrong, so I hand her the cheese dip with a smile, and we each shovel a chip into the yellow smoothness.
“So, what were you helping your mom with?” I ask.
She crunches on her chip before answering. “She’s putting together a scrapbook for my great aunt’s retirement party.”
“When’s the party?”
“Memorial Day weekend. My mom doesn’t believe in waiting till the last minute.”
“That’s a safe policy.”
“I wish I could apply it to writing papers.”
“Procrastination only makes your papers better.”
She smiles and dips another chip.
Around us the mall is filled with Friday night shoppers, families out for a cheap dinner, and preteens who can’t get permission to do anything better. This is not where I would take Kylie on an official date, but we’ve been together so long, official dates don’t happen that often. Our time usually passes in moments like this—easy togetherness, the security of being with a best friend I don’t have to work to impress. Again I think of real Kylie and how if I meet her to run on Sunday, it will not be comfortable. It will be work, as relationships are when they start out.
As Kylie munches more chips and I unwrap my first taco, my gaze slips over the people around us, searching for couples. There’s a pair at the doughnut counter, both holding shopping bags. Another couple sits a few tables back, feeding each other cannolis. Another couple strolls by, perusing each eatery’s menu as they pass. I guess that the cannoli sharers are fairly new to each other, the menu studiers are a couple years in, and the shopping baggers probably have kids all grown up. I wonder if I’ll still be sitting here with one Kylie or the other twenty-five years from now.
That’s when I see her. The girl I think was in my room. She’s way over by the restrooms and is staring right at me. When our eyes lock, she looks away, pretending she hasn’t been watching. She starts moving across the far end of the food court, and I watch, unsure what to do. Kylie notices and turns around. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing. I have to go to the bathroom,” I say. Lame, I know, and I think Kylie has seen the girl, but I can’t let her get away. Not after she was just in my room in the real world, and now she’s shown up in Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend again.
“Jonathan—”
“I’ll be right back.”
I don’t wait to hear her response. I’m halfway across the food court, eyes on the girl as she rounds the corner into the mall proper. I don’t blink, in case she suddenly pops out of this world, but since I never pop in and out where others can see me, I’m hoping she maintains a similar policy.
Her hot-pink sweater is easy to track in the crowd. She’s not window-shopping. Her long strides say she’s trying to look casual while covering distance quickly. I don’t know if she knows for sure I’m following her.
I’m half jogging while I dodge women with baby-strollers and groups of preteens walking side by side. I bump one girl standing with her friends at the window of a sexy underwear store. She swears at me, but I’ve already moved on.
Pink-sweater girl has only a two-mall-cart lead. I’m passing a smokeless-cigarette stand and a bonsai-tree stand, gaining ground, when she suddenly stops, eyes riveted just to the left ahead of her. I pause too, and see a woman, not old so much as grandmotherly, leaning against the window of a candle store, but she’s not looking inside at the candles. Everything about her screams cosmic weirdness, except that she’s simply standing there, pleasant-seeming, an ordinary woman at the mall.
Pink-sweater girl digs in her heels at the sight of the woman and glances back at me, undeniably aware I’ve been following. The old woman’s eyes turn to me as well, and I’m struck by how blue they seem from such a distance, as if they are made of pure sky. The girl gives the woman a small shake of her head, turns to the north wing of the mall, and bolts, her black hair swaying side to side over her hot-pink back.
The old woman sighs and turns toward the candle store. I break into a run after the girl.
Suddenly it’s like shoppers are throwing themselves between us. I have to dodge a family with little kids, a grandmother with a cane, and some high schoolers sucking smoothies. I collide with a woman coming out of a clothing store, and pause to pick up her bag and thrust it at her. Pink-sweater girl gains a little ground, but I still have a chance. We pass the quarter-drop kiddie cars and round a corner into a department store. People point at our chase scene, and I think the hollering behind us might be a security guard. The girl doesn’t slow at all, just rockets down an aisle and weaves in and out of the clothes racks, brushing blouse sleeves and pant legs and knocking over a pile of T-shirts.
I can almost reach her if I dive, and I’m going to have to, because she’s headed for a women’s dressing room. With a heave I leap forward and catch her sweater. She jerks backward and tumbles into me, kicking and rolling to free herself, but I will not let go.
Other people are upon us. Hands try to pull me away. She fights me hard with fists and kicks, the
n ducks her head, throws up her arms, and wriggles free of the sweater I’m left clutching. She scampers into the dressing room, in a pink bra with her black jeans. I kick whoever is holding me and get free long enough to plunge into the dressing room and catch the stall door before she can close it. We push in opposite directions, but I get enough of an opening to force my shoulder through. She smashes herself against the door, and I smash back, throwing the door wide. I slam into her, and we hit the mirror on the back wall. The glass cracks. We fall through it and thud together to the ground.
The ground is beach sand.
She is beneath me. We both breathe heavily from the chase, and our chests press back and forth against each other. Her shoulder, covered only with a satiny bra strap, is all I can see from this position. She shoves me off, and I throw her the pink sweater before flipping onto my back to see the undersides of coconut trees. When I stand up to look at her, she’s not wearing the sweater or her jeans but a string bikini.
The coconut branches sway in a light breeze. The turquoise sea scents the air with salt. Waves roll casually into the sand. The sun is far hotter than the one we left behind in Pennington. For miles in either direction the beach stretches, completely devoid of people but big on seashells you could sell to tourists.
“Who are you?” I ask.
She stops brushing sand off herself and gestures to the landscape. “Now, this is a world to be lived in, huh, Jonathan?” She smiles, a bit know-it-all-like, and I’m seized again with the feeling that I might actually know her.
She pulls her hair back and frowns. Like when she was walking in the mall, I get the sense she’s trying to be casual, but something is urgent. “Go back to Kylie. She’s probably pissed by now.”