“But the transcript.”
“Yeah, getting Ashton to surface from her hangover and open the school for me was trickier. That’s why I’m so late.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know what you had to do for that?”
He shook his head, his mouth grim. “Things I’m not proud of.”
I dropped the packet. One of the letters slipped out onto the floor and I scrambled to get it while Ezra laughed.
“I’m kidding.”
“I knew that.”
“I did threaten to leave an anonymous tip with the RCMP that she kept the confiscated weed from locker checks in her desk, but that was just to wake her up. I think she knew I was kidding.”
“Does she?”
“Keep the weed? Don’t know, but it seemed likely enough to try it out.”
I brushed the dirt off the back of the paper and slid it back into the envelope. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. I don’t think dirt is going to matter. I was up all night writing those essays so they’re probably full of mistakes anyway, but nobody in the math or physics department knows how to write a sentence.”
“You’re probably right.” I watched as the foothills leveled into white prairie and the sky blackened. It felt like riding on the moon. But then I saw Calgary lights glittering in the distance like fireflies, and suddenly I was sitting in the black walnut tree with Charly, legs dangling, fingers stained with strawberry juice.
I turned to Ezra, and before I could think and stop myself, I leaned across and kissed his cheek.
He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. We drove on. We didn’t slide off the road. Nor did we hit a deer, though we saw several bounding erratically alongside the highway. By the time we pulled into the faculty parking lot outside the Physics and Astronomy Building it was 6:16.
“Only two cars,” I said, “and three lights on in the whole building. That’s not good.”
Ezra was too stressed to notice the annoying commentary. “He said he had to leave right at six to catch his flight. I probably missed him.”
“Run. I’ll stay here.”
Ezra threw it into park and bolted.
My heart pounded in my chest as I watched him disappear into the squat brick building. Why was I so nervous? It wasn’t like missing this guy really meant that Ezra wasn’t getting in for fall semester, did it? But I’d never heard of professors making their own admissions rules at all, so maybe the strings being pulled could only be pulled so hard.
I watched the clock. 6:17. I listened to the car heater rattle, fiddled with the door locks, turned on the radio. Celine Dion again? Turned off the radio. Snooped through the glove box—Smarties and a can of bear spray. 6:18. Why was my heart still racing? I turned on the radio again. Bieber? Seriously? Turned the radio off again. Finally, I just stared at the clock. 6:19. 6:20. 6:21.
When had he changed his mind? And when had leaving Naomi gone from a never to a yes? I’d been so overwhelmed by Charly’s revelation that everything else—even that fight with Ezra—had faded.
The front door of the building swung open. Ezra walked out. Smiling. He turned and held the door open for a man, a man so nerdy I could see it through the layers of wool and fur and Gore-Tex and whatever else he was bundled in. He was smiling too. Ezra walked him to his car. They stood talking in the freezing cold, while Ezra swept the thin layer of snow that had fallen on the man’s windshield. The man got into his car, started it, and just when I was sure they were done, he got back out and resumed the conversation. It ended finally with a handshake and a backslap, then the man got back into his car and Ezra jogged to the Pathfinder.
“So?” I asked.
“So.” He was shivering through his grin. “That was him.”
“I guessed. And?”
“And we should go celebrate.”
Chapter 20
What are these called again?” I asked, midmouthful. The box sat open between us, the air heavy with the smell of sugary glaze and vanilla.
“Timbits. I can’t believe you’ve been here this long and this is your first trip to Tim Hortons. Bree’s dropped the ball.”
“My dad would love these.” I picked a chocolate hole from the box and put it in my mouth to melt. “How can you drive and eat these at the same time? These things probably cause more accidents than texting.”
“Years of practice.”
“You’re still smiling,” I said.
“No, I’m not.”
“It’s not a bad thing.”
He gave me a quick glance, then looked back to the road. “I just can’t believe it’s going to happen, you know?”
Sort of. My life had become a jumble of the things I couldn’t believe were going to happen. Not good things, though.
“What changed?” I asked. It wasn’t a question I could’ve asked last week, but things were different now. The wall behind his eyes had dissolved.
“Nothing. My mom has always insisted that I should go away to school, but I don’t really know if she’s any stronger than she was last year when things got bad. I mean, she seems better.” He chewed his wind-chapped lips and I waited, praying he wasn’t about to retreat again. “But I’ve seen too many ups and downs to believe much. And my brother still reappears to make her life hell every few months. So, no. Nothing’s different. I guess I just realized I couldn’t stop it or fix it.”
I looked away from him, out my window, but really just at my reflection. My skin was only a shade darker than the snow.
I wanted to believe him, and I wanted to believe that he believed it too. I just didn’t. Turning it off wasn’t that easy. Charly had spent her whole life needing me and I couldn’t for a single second forget it.
“Do you remember that night at the library when Taylor barged in on us?” he said.
“Yes.” Like I could ever forget.
“That sucked. I’m sorry. The worst part about it was watching you while she was going off. You were just soaking in everything she was saying, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I couldn’t explain it to you with her standing right there, and I couldn’t make her stop.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would’ve really hurt her. She’s a jealous nut job, but I can’t just not care about her. We were together for too long. It’s complicated. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. Caring about her feelings didn’t make him a bad person.
“No. And after it was over you should’ve been mad at me. Or you should’ve wanted to pull her hair, claw her eyes out—I don’t know, do whatever girls do to each other—but it was like you were too busy hating yourself. It was messed up.”
“You don’t know,” I started, then stopped. So much of this story wasn’t mine to tell. “I deserved it.”
“What are you ta—”
“No, I really did,” I said. “I said terrible things to Charly. Things so mean that I feel sick to my stomach when I think about them. And not just that. I spent months treating her like garbage. I’m so ashamed, I . . . ” I swallowed, trying to force the lump in my throat down so I could push the words out. “When Taylor called me a cheap slut, or whatever it was she called me, I finally got it. I was the bad sister.”
Ezra was mercifully silent. He kept his eyes on the road.
I turned back to my reflection and started counting stars so I wouldn’t cry. There had to be thousands visible from my window alone. I hadn’t reached one hundred when I felt his hand on the back of mine, his fingers circling my wrist. “You aren’t,” he said.
I rolled my palm to his and we rode toward the mountains, our fingers laced together, me counting stars for both of us.
• • •
The red glow of brake lights ahead brought me back to earth.
“What’s going on?” Ezra muttered. We slowed, then came to a complete stop behind a long line of cars.
I craned my neck to see up a mile ahead where the cars snaked around a curve. “Nothing�
��s moving.”
“That’s bad.” He fiddled with the radio for a minute, then unbuckled his seat belt and put on his toque. “I’m going to go ask those guys.” He pointed to a couple of men huddled together on the shoulder.
I watched him walk away in the snow and remembered what kissing him felt like. It’d only happened that one time, but the replay count was nearing a million in my head. Why hadn’t he tried again? There’d been plenty of moments I’d seen it in his eyes, that he wanted to. That he was thinking about it.
He jogged back to the car and got in. “There’s a semi on its side up there. They think it’s some kind of spill. The TransCanada is closed.”
“For how long?”
“They’re guessing a few hours, but they don’t really know.”
“So what do we do?”
“What that car is doing.” He pointed to a minivan turning around up ahead. I could see several more doing U-turns and starting back toward us. “We can stay with my friends in Calgary tonight. If that works for you. I’m supposed to work tomorrow morning at nine, so we’ll have to leave early.”
He took out his cell phone and made a call while I pictured the filthy frat-house couch I was about to crash on. I’d be lucky to survive the night without catching something.
He finished his call and held the phone out to me. “Do you need to call Bree?”
I shook my head. “She and Richard went to Jasper for the weekend. She won’t be back until late tomorrow, but I should try Charly. She might be asleep though.”
“Seriously? It’s nine thirty.”
“Yeah. Either the baby is sucking all her energy, or she’s turning into an infant herself. Including naps, she must sleep at least fourteen hours a day.”
He laughed and I felt a twinge of guilt. I wasn’t supposed to be making fun of her anymore.
“Maybe I will call her,” I said, and dialed the apartment. It rang five times, then went to voicemail. I left Charly a message and gave Ezra his phone back. “So are these guys ski friends or math club friends?” I asked.
“Um, both. Why?” he asked.
“I’m just trying to picture whether we’re going to be interrupting their Saturday-night kegger or their Star Trek marathon.”
“Probably both.” He took off his toque and put it in his pocket.
I laughed. “Your hair looks insane. It looks like it did the first night I met you. I thought you were homeless or something.” I reached out and smoothed it down.
“Toque head is an occupational badge of honor. I wear it proudly.” He messed it back up again. “I didn’t have the best opinion of you that night either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I thought you were one of those pretty, mean girls.”
A compliment and an insult rolled into one. I let my hand linger on his neck for a second, then pulled it away. “I was really sad. And mad.”
“I figured that out,” he said.
“Sorry. Lame excuses.”
“I know what that combination feels like.”
I let my head lean against the headrest. He thought I was pretty. Nobody had thought I was pretty since Will, and to him I’d been pretty, but not quite pretty enough.
We pulled into a quiet neighborhood street. “This is not the frat house I was picturing.”
“Leo’s a clean freak,” Ezra warned as we pulled into the driveway. “Totally OCD about germs, just so you know.”
“So I shouldn’t lick every fork in the utensil drawer?”
“No, you should not.”
The house was a smallish bungalow, old, but freshly painted. “How many guys live here?” I asked as we walked up the sidewalk. It’d been freshly shoveled.
“Three. Leo, Nathan, and Mike. I know them from this summer mathletics camp I went to a few years ago.”
I snorted. “Did you just use the word ‘mathletics’?”
Ezra rang the bell and a tall blond guy with a reddish goatee answered. All he needed was a horned helmet and he’d be a Viking.
“What’s up, man?” he said, greeting Ezra with a grin and me with a nod.
“Amelia, this is Nathan.”
“Hey, nice to meet you,” he said to me.
“Hi.” I stared up at him.
“Nathan’s on the U of C basketball team,” Ezra explained. “It’s where freakishly tall people go to feel less freakish.”
“It’s true,” Nathan joked. “The basketball’s a front. We’re really a support group for the six-foot-five-and-over club.”
“Seriously, thanks for letting us crash,” Ezra said.
“No problem. I just checked the traffic report, and the TransCanada is still closed. They’re not even sure they’ll be able to clean it all up by morning. I guess it was a lumber spill.”
“I’m glad we turned around,” Ezra said, taking off his boots.
I did the same, then Nathan gave me a tour of the house that involved pointing instead of actually walking: three bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom.
“This is nice,” I said, looking around and trying not to sound too surprised. It was a pile of contradictions, was what it was—a spotless college pad full of athletes and mathletes.
“We’re kind of lucky,” Nathan admitted. “Leo’s dad owns it, so he gives us a good deal on rent. Plus we get Leo’s OCD cleaning skills for free. Just don’t go leaving an eyelash or anything on the couch.”
“Where is he?” Ezra asked.
“Leo? In his room studying for his O-chem midterm. I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, though. He was talking to himself last time I poked my head in there, on the verge of a freak-out.”
“That’s my boy,” Ezra said, stretching his arms over his head, then collapsing into a chair. He looked exhausted, like the all-nighter writing those essays had caught up with him. “And Mike?” Ezra asked, midyawn.
“At Ashley’s. I’d offer you his bed, but he’ll probably be back later.”
“That’s okay,” Ezra said. “I’ll take the floor.”
“I think there’s an air mattress somewhere out in the garage,” he said. “Amelia, are you okay on the couch?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Nathan went to go hunt for the air mattress while Ezra and I brushed our teeth with our fingers.
“What would happen if I used Leo’s toothbrush?” I whispered.
“You’d be held responsible for his next mental breakdown.”
“And this guy’s your friend?”
Ezra shrugged. “He’s cool. As long as he’s taking his meds.”
Back in the main room, Nathan had piled blankets on the couch for me, and was blowing up an air mattress for Ezra.
I waited until he was done, then asked, “I don’t suppose I could borrow some sweats or something.” It’d be a long night in jeans but there was no way I was sleeping beside Ezra in my underwear.
“Sure,” he said, then to Ezra, “And for her sake I’ll get you something too. Unless you’re still doing the nude sleepwalking thing.”
“Funny,” Ezra said.
“Should I ask?” I wondered aloud.
“Better not,” Ezra muttered. “What happens at math camp, stays at math camp.”
The pajama pants were about a foot too long and about as sexy as one of Grandma’s muumuus, but otherwise comfortable. I lay down on the couch while Ezra and Nathan talked about basketball and some argument between Mike and his girlfriend’s brother. I closed my eyes, suddenly tired.
“Well, I should let you guys sleep,” Nathan said, after a few more minutes of talking. Ezra climbed into the sleeping bag and Nathan flipped off the light. “Oh, and I was kidding about the eyelash, Amelia. I would much rather our couch smell like you than Febreze.”
“Um, thank you?”
“Go to bed already,” Ezra called from the floor.
Nathan laughed and closed the door, leaving us in pitch-black. The house was perfectly silent.
I waited for what felt like a
few minutes, then whispered, “Are you still awake?”
“Yeah.”
He was tired. I should let him sleep. “Nathan seems nice. If you get into U of C, is this where you’ll live next year?”
“Hopefully. Mike might move in with his girlfriend and then there’ll be an empty room.”
“Hmm.” I pictured Ezra living here, going to classes in the physics building, brewing his noxious bitter coffee in the spotless kitchen. “You’d make sense here.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean when I see you driving down Banff Ave or at the library, you don’t make sense. Like you’re living somebody else’s life. You make more sense here.”
The pause was long. Long enough to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. “I know,” he said finally.
I listened to his breathing, steady and deep, and tried not to think about the ache in my stomach as it spread into my chest, down my limbs, throbbing in my fingers and toes. Ezra belonged here. I belonged nowhere—not in Banff or Tremonton, not in the present or next year, not even with anybody. Except Charly of course. I belonged with her, but that was like being stuck to a plastic bag in a windstorm.
“Thank you for saying that,” he said quietly, and suddenly I wanted him to touch me so badly I could almost cry.
I swallowed, grateful he couldn’t see my face in the dark. “That day in the library,” I said.
“Yeah.”
I clenched my fists beneath the blanket. “Why haven’t you kissed me since then?”
This time the silence was absolute. No breathing, no shh-shh of sleeping bag against air mattress. “I thought you didn’t want me to.”
That didn’t make any sense. Except I’d pulled back. The horror of being caught so vulnerable had made me curl inward, and I’d kept him at a safe distance ever since. “But you kept coming by,” I said, thinking aloud now. “If you thought I wasn’t interested, why did you keep coming by?”
“I thought we could still be friends,” he said.
Friends. That sucked. Not only that, but it contradicted pretty much everything I’d been told about guys and their ability to be just friends with members of the opposite sex.
The Space Between Us Page 25