The Space Between Us

by Jessica Martinez

  “I’ll open it later.”

  “But I need to know who scraped off my car so I can love them for the rest of my life. Isn’t the curiosity killing you?”

  “I know who it’s from.” I willed my mouth not to smile, but Charly laughed and the smile won.

  Bree lifted her eyebrows. “You and Ezra are still happening?”

  “They never were happening,” Charly said. “Then they were never not happening. And now they’re never happening all over again.”

  “Are you even speaking English?” I muttered. “And what makes either of you two think you know anything about me and Ezra? We’re just friends. Again.”

  “Works every time,” Charly explained to Bree. “I just have to start spewing nonsense, then she gets mad and tells all.” She turned back to me. “Since when do you make out with your friends?”

  I didn’t take the bait. She had no way of knowing about that.

  Charly shrugged and said to Bree, “Okay, so maybe not every time.”

  Bree dropped us off at school and I made my way to the photo lab, the green envelope burning a hole in my backpack. I was early enough for class to take my time, so I pulled it out and turned it over, memorizing the softness of the envelope beneath my fingertips. Amelia. Charly was right. The writing was masculine: all caps, hurried but not messy, no slant.

  If there hadn’t been people all around me, I might’ve smelled it too.

  It wasn’t sealed, so I slid my finger easily inside and pulled out a folded piece of lined paper. I opened it. Something fell out and fluttered to the ground before I could catch it. It was a sun. A sticker. I bent over and picked it up. No, not a sticker, a temporary tattoo, a gold disc surrounded by triangles, wavy like they’d been bent by heat. A tight gold swirl began at the center of the circle and coiled its way outward.

  I read the note:

  Not exactly Florida sunshine, but the best I could do.

  Ezra

  I reread it. And then again. I would’ve kept on doing it, but Mr. Klein finally wandered in and told us to take out our cameras.

  “What’s up?”

  I turned to the goth guy wearing black nail polish on my left. Why was he talking to me? Nobody ever talked to me in this class. “Nothing.”

  “What’s with the smile?”

  “Nothing.”

  He gave me a look, then went back to defacing his textbook. “Freakin’ crazy Americans,” he muttered.

  I let it go.

  • • •

  It was colder again. I’d wrapped my scarf tight around my head, but the water droplets from my breath kept freezing in the wool around my mouth. I’d already rewrapped twice, moving the icy circle to the back of my head both times, but I only had so much usable scarf.

  Snow squeaked beneath my boots. Who’d have thought snow could squeak? It did, though, if it was cold enough and if it was the dry kind. I made a mental note to tell Savannah. Emailing her was easier when I found little details to talk about, things I didn’t have to lie about, but things that didn’t totally suck. Like squeaky snow.

  It had to be below minus twenty degrees. Maybe closer to minus twenty-five. There was a big electronic sign that displayed the temperature in red lights, just past the halfway point between school and Bree’s. I’d gotten surprisingly good at gauging degrees Celsius based on the amount of pain I was in. I didn’t know exactly what minus twenty-five converted to in Fahrenheit, but I’d come to the realization that it didn’t matter. At all. Only the feeling mattered, and that wasn’t something anybody back home would understand.

  Today I wasn’t going to pass the sign anyway.

  The deer-dented Pathfinder pulled in front of me just as I was about to step into a crosswalk.

  “Where are you going? I almost couldn’t find you.”

  Ezra. I tried to smile normally, like I wasn’t melting inside.

  “Errands,” I said. “Hey, you know you’re officially Bree’s favorite person in the whole world?”

  “Bree’s? Shoot. Get in so I can roll up my window.”

  I hurried around front. It was way too cold to play hard to get.

  “If you had your own car I could’ve scraped that off.”

  “You’re saying Bree’s car was an afterthought?” I pulled off my gloves and covered the vents with my palms. “Don’t tell her. She’s probably baking you brownies as we speak.”

  “Not an afterthought. Just a second thought.”

  I thought I could feel him looking at me, but when I glanced over his eyes were on the road. “If I had my own car,” I said, “you wouldn’t have an excuse to keep kidnapping me like this.”

  “It’s not kidnapping if I let you pick the destination. Where are we going?”

  “Shopping.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  I watched pedestrians scurry along both sides of the sidewalk. Nobody was sauntering anywhere today. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  “As in zit cream, or as in bras? Because I would be willing to help you shop for either. I mean, I’d prefer the latter, but whatever.”

  “Neither, idiot.” I looked away so he couldn’t see me blush.

  “You’ve never called me idiot before.”

  “Not out loud.”

  He laughed again. That was twice now. “I kind of like it.”

  I leaned forward, putting my frozen cheek in front of the vent.

  “So not zit cream or bras.”

  “I need to buy a cactus.”

  He did something funny with his eyebrows—one up, one down. “Now that is embarrassing.”

  “Well . . . ” Was I seriously telling him about the cactus incident? “You know Ms. Lee?”

  “Yeah. Guidance.”

  “Right. So you know those cactuses she has along the front of her desk?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well. I, uh, kinda broke one.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  I gave him a sheepish look, then turned my face away to give my other cheek vent time.

  “Seriously?” He laughed. Again. Was that three? “So what, you picked it up and threw it?”

  “It was more intentionally dropping than throwing. And I was having a really bad day,” I added, like that was a justifiable excuse for violent vandalism.

  “I should thank you. That woman drove me crazy.”

  “Ms. Lee?” Even mid–temper tantrum, I wouldn’t have taken her for anyone’s nemesis. “Why?”

  But the minute the question was out of my mouth I knew exactly why. Of course Ezra would’ve been forced in there to talk about Naomi’s suicide attempt, his scholarship, his brother. He would’ve been Ms. Lee’s project of the year.

  Thankfully, he just shrugged and lied. “She had a problem with me skipping school to ski. So cactus shopping, eh?”

  “Cactus shopping.”

  Ezra took me to Cascade Plaza, the closest thing to a real mall, and we trolled the stores until we came up with something close enough.

  “The terra-cotta will totally wreck the feng shui thing she has happening,” I said to Ezra as the gift store woman wrapped the box with a red ribbon.

  “Nah,” Ezra said. “It’s the thought that counts.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Thank you for my sun,” I said, pulling up the sleeve of my coat to show him the skin on the inside of my wrist where I’d put the tattoo.

  “Nice.” He took one hand and held my wrist, tracing a wavy sun ray with his thumb. “Do you feel warmer?”

  I blushed, remembering the last time he’d touched my wrist like that. In the library.

  “Yeah.” I looked at the tattoo. “It’s perfect.”

  • • •

  By the time Ezra dropped me off in front of Bree’s it was already dark, but the art gallery lights were still glowing and the dinner crowd at the sushi restaurant was just starting to trickle in.

  “So am I forgiven?” he asked.

  I held my breath. Was he asking because he wanted to ki
ss me? Was all this effort just to get me back on the couch? “No.”

  “But I helped you find a cactus. In Canada.”

  “I’m impressed. I am. And your request for forgiveness is officially under consideration.”

  He nodded and tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel, a satisfied look on his face. “Good enough.”

  • • •

  I delivered the cactus to Ms. Lee during lunch the next day. The plan was to drop it by her empty office, but apparently I wasn’t the only antisocial one. She was eating a salad and reading a novel at her desk.

  She took it out of the box, examined the succulent, terra-cotta pot and all, then put it where the old one had been. It looked ridiculous next to the others.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hoping she wasn’t one of those people who required groveling and explanations too.

  “I accept your apology,” she said, her tone warm. She smiled.

  I looked away. Acting like a child was embarrassing. Apologizing for acting like a child was brutal. Being smiled at like I was a child? Time to leave.

  Her voice stopped me on my way out. “At the risk of losing another cactus, I’m going to repeat my previous offer. My door is open anytime.”

  “Thank you.”

  She went back to her book and I left.

  • • •

  “Hello?”

  “Did she like it?”

  “Who is this?” I asked into the phone.

  “Very funny. Did she like the cactus?” Ezra repeated.

  “Hard to tell. She’s kind of distant like that. Why don’t you say hello or good-bye when you’re talking on the phone? I thought you Canadians were supposed to be polite.”

  “Only to each other. Americans get the special treatment.”

  “But I’m Canadian, too.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. My mom was Canadian. I have both passports.”

  “Sing the national anthem.”

  I sang the first two words of O Canada.

  “Is that all you know?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you one of those people that already knows that they’re tone deaf, or do you need to be told?”

  “Already know. So where are you? Is this your cell?” The number on the caller ID wasn’t the library number.

  “Where are you?”

  “At Bree’s. Where you called me. The only place I can receive calls in my cell phone–less existence. So back to my question: Where are you?”

  “Are you really going to make me ruin the surprise?”

  “What surprise?”

  Knock, knock.

  I stared at the door, hung up the phone, and said the first four-letter word to come to mind.

  “Totally wish Grandma had heard that,” Charly called from the kitchen, where she was eating ice cream out of a bucket on the counter.

  “How do I look?” I whispered.

  “Like you’re not wearing a bra.”

  I swore again and jumped off the couch. “Answer the door!”

  “But I’m eating.”

  I was halfway up the spiral stairs, doing two at a time and trying not to trip. “Answer the door or I’ll delete every single episode of The Bachelor on the DVR.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she said, but she’d already abandoned the bucket on the counter and was making her way over to the door.

  Up in our room, I examined my Saturday afternoon self in the mirror: plaid pajama pants, glasses, bush-girl hair. What is the matter with that boy? Who just stops by? I rifled through my clothes, pulling out skinny jeans and the only clean long-sleeved shirt I could find. Saturday was supposed to be laundry day. Thank goodness Bree wasn’t around. She’d never stop pumping me for girl talk. My heart was beating like an apoplectic hummingbird, but I couldn’t slow it down.

  “Strawberry ripple?” I heard Charly ask from below.

  “I’d say yes, but I’m freezing.” The sound of Ezra’s voice made my stomach flip.

  Charly’s response was muffled, then he said something else I couldn’t hear and she laughed.

  That laugh.

  I froze. How had I forgotten? It turned guys into slobbering idiots. I’d seen its mind-melting effects too many times. I’d seen it with Will.

  We had to get out of here.

  I twisted my hair into something I hoped looked messy-chic, rubbed lip gloss onto my lips, and took a deep breath. Calm. Down. Amelia.

  I repeated the words in my mind, then walked quietly to the top of the stairs and willed myself to stop. Fingers curled around the railing, gripping for dear life, I waited. Everything inside me was screaming to hurry down and take him away from here and from her, but I couldn’t.

  I had to watch Ezra and Charly. Just in case.

  Charly was still anchored to the island by her spoon, but Ezra was leaning back against the counter, arms folded. She was the one doing the talking—in between bites, waving the spoon around, oblivious as it dripped a trail of pink dots onto the countertop.

  No denying it: She was adorable. The yoga pants and long, tight T-shirt clung to the curve of her belly, but it wasn’t repulsive like I’d imagined it’d be. No bloated whale, no shapelessness, no swollen cankles. TV and movies were full of crap. She looked like herself with a cantaloupe under her shirt and that was it, like one of those girls, no women, on pregnancy magazine covers.

  I forced my eyes to Ezra. He was listening politely, his body pulled back and his face down—not so much away from her, as into himself.

  He looked bored. I wanted to kiss him. Hard. Now.

  Like he’d heard me, he turned his head, looked up, and smiled. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

  Crap, the glasses. I started down the stairs. “I don’t. This is an optical illusion. Give me a minute to put my contacts in.”

  “No, don’t. They look good on you.”

  I reached the bottom of the stairs and wallowed in awkwardness while Ezra stared at my face. Now was I supposed to go put my contacts in or not? I settled on not.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Charly, just behind Ezra, with one eyebrow cocked, grinning like an idiot. I forced myself not to look at her so he wouldn’t turn around.

  “I brought you something,” Ezra said, and reached for a Starbucks cup on the counter beside him.

  I took it and our fingers touched. His were like ice, despite being wrapped around the piping-hot cup.

  “What is it?”

  “Taste it.”

  Charly batted her eyelashes and made pouty lips at me. Mentally, I gave her the finger.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “It’s hot.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me what it is?”

  “You really can’t handle surprises, can you?”

  “No,” Charly said, “she really can’t.”

  I glared at her and took a sip. It was the most divine hot chocolate I’d ever tasted—creamy and sweet and cinnamony. “This is good. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and turned to Charly. “I’m sorry. I should’ve got you one too. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She took the spoon out of her mouth and shook her head. “No worries. I’m all about the ice cream lately.”

  “Do you want a sip?” I asked him.

  “No, I drank mine on the way here. I was going to wait, but I spent all morning outside and just needed to warm up.”

  “All morning? Are you kidding me?” Bree had read us the weekend forecast last night—below minus thirty and with a windchill factor of minus sixty—so Charly and I had determined not to leave the apartment unless it was on fire. Bree had gone to a band rehearsal, but she was clearly lacking in judgment.

  “Yeah, conditions are kind of a mess up there right now with the warm-up last week and now it being so cold. We had to clear a lot of snow off this morning before the runs could even open.”

  “I can’t believe you spent hours outside in this,” I said. “That sounds horr
ific.”

  “It kind of was,” he admitted.

  “Can I take your coat?”

  “Thanks.” He unzipped the coat and handed it to me. He was wearing a wool sweater, the neckline showing at least two shirts layered beneath.

  I laid his coat over the edge of the couch and made my way back to the kitchen and my hot chocolate. “Well, at least you survived.”

  “Yeah, but I have to head back out there for night skiing. I’m working three till close.”

  “Three? So you have to leave soon.”

  “In an hour.”

  I hid my disappointment in another sip. I’d just assumed he had the rest of the day free. Although, he had come here. He’d come all the way back here.

  “That’s a long drive for just an hour in town.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I had something I had to do in town. Maybe I really wanted some hot chocolate.”

  “Because hot chocolate at a ski resort—that would be impossible to find.”

  Ezra looked at Charly. “Help me out here. Is she always this mean?”

  “Pretty much.” Charly put the lid on the ice cream and put it back in the freezer. “Half the time it’s because she really is mean, and half the time it’s because she’s clueless. I think right now she’s just clueless.”

  Another sip, this time to hide the smile on my face.

  “And as much as I’d like to help you out,” Charly continued, “I have a date with Bree’s bed and The Bachelor. Wait, not like that. Not the actual bachelor. You know what I mean.”

  I waited for the wink-wink, nudge-nudge, I’m-leaving-you-two-alone glance, but in what may have been Charly’s most self-controlled moment ever, she walked to Bree’s bedroom without saying or doing anything embarrassing. Not even a grin. She just closed the door behind her. I’d never loved her so much.

  Bree’s TV blared behind the closed door, and Ezra looked up at me, arms still folded.

  “So.”

  “So.”

  “I changed my mind,” he said. “Can I have a sip of your hot chocolate?”

  I held out the half-empty cup and he took it from me. But this time his hand was warm and he held it around mine.

  “I have a question for you,” he said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Your dad’s a preacher.”

  Not the direction I thought we’d be going. Not even close. “A pastor, and that’s not a question.”