You Have a Match

by Emma Lord

  They consider this, my dad more actively than my mom, whose gaze is on the table between us. “So you want to just—full stop, on the tutoring?” he asks.

  I press my lips together. “I mean, yeah?” I glance at them. “Is that a … trick question?”

  “I’m not saying we’re going to stop caring about your grades.” My dad’s voice is wry. “We do need you to graduate.”

  My ears burn. “Yeah, well. That I can do.”

  “And you know,” he adds, taking care to take some of the defensiveness out of it, “you could have talked to us about this before.”

  And there it is. That deeper root I thought I was pulling on, finally brought up to the surface. It isn’t one I would have touched a few weeks ago, but I’m a long way from the Abby I was then.

  “It just seemed like it mattered to you guys a lot,” I say carefully. “And honestly … things were so nuts after Poppy died, I didn’t want to make it any worse. I didn’t want to be a problem.”

  “Honey, you’ve never been a problem—”

  I don’t mean to cut my mom off with the look I give her, but it stops her in her tracks.

  “I feel like I have,” I say, trying to soften it. “I mean, you guys have to drive me all over for tutoring. And before that I was getting in the way of you working full-time, and before that I was getting in the way of school…”

  “Abby, those were our problems. Not yours. You understand?”

  My mom doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and I can’t tell if it’s because she’s not sure how to say it or if she should say it at all. But it’s almost like we’re shaking something loose, something we’ve all been walking around with for a long time, and it doesn’t make sense to leave the weight of any of it on us now.

  “We knew it would be hard, having you during law school, but that was our decision,” says my mom. “And a huge part of why we were able to do that was knowing that your grandpa wanted to help. I don’t know if you ever realized how much that meant to him, having you—he’d been so quiet after we lost my mom, but after you were born everything changed. He couldn’t wait to take you places and teach you things. It was like watching him come back to life.”

  I nod, only because my throat feels too thick to say much else.

  My mom smiles sadly. “And I know you and Poppy were always close because of that. And we were there whenever we could be, but it seemed like we … missed out on some stuff. It felt like sometimes we weren’t giving you your best shot.”

  “Like maybe we’d been selfish, having you when we did. Instead of waiting until we could have given you more,” says my dad.

  The idea of this is so ridiculous to me that I’m not even sure how to react. I’m so used to being the one they’ve had to soothe or reassure—now that the script has flipped it turns out I’m total crap at it.

  “I’ve never wanted more,” I say. “I mean, sheesh. I got ten years of you all to myself.”

  My mom smiles. “Well, things got calmer after the first few years of work, and we were around more,” she says. “And the feeling went away. The fear that we were letting you down.”

  I bunch my fingers into my shorts, wishing I could find the words to tell them that they didn’t. That to me it’s always felt the other way around.

  “Then, when your brothers were born … obviously things got hectic,” my mom continues. “And it was like the pattern repeated. You were older, and more independent, and we still had your Poppy to keep an eye on you.”

  I nod, and they pause. I wonder why, until I feel a tear burn down my cheek, falling onto my bare knee. My mom’s already crossed the distance to me before I fully realize what’s happening, wrapping me up in her arms and letting me snot into her shoulder.

  Usually I’m not sad when people bring up Poppy, because I’m already thinking about him most of the time. He’s in the weight of his old camera strapped to my shoulder, in the periphery of every photo I take, squinting at the same views and humming his approval. He’s the person I talk to in my head, when I need an imaginary person to help me think things through.

  I was lucky to have him to myself as a kid, and luckier still to go on the adventures we took after my brothers were born. But those adventures are over, and I’ve been too busy to really think about how scary it is that I’ll have to choose the next adventures on my own.

  “I miss him,” I say.

  It’s something we’ve all said a hundred times to each other, but this time it’s different. It’s like I opened up part of myself to make room for so much—a first love. A sister. A past that half belongs to me and half doesn’t. And it cracked me open just wide enough that I can feel all the parts of me still aching for Poppy, which are still adjusting to a world where he doesn’t exist.

  “I know,” says my mom, squeezing me one more time before she lets go. “Me too.”

  “I miss the things we used to do together. I miss … I miss having time to shoot. I feel like I can still kind of be with him when I do, and with all this tutoring, there’s just … no time.”

  “I think maybe we thought the tutoring would be a cushion,” says my dad. “Something we could help you with even when we couldn’t be there ourselves.”

  “What we’re trying to say is that sometimes—there’s just this sense—” My mom looks at my dad, who nods. “This sense that we still want to give you everything we can. Set you up for success. Like we can be there when we can’t always be there.”

  “Guys,” I blurt, “you’re always there. I mean like—in the stuff that counts. Aggressively there.”

  My mom is mirroring me, bunching her fingers in her cotton skirt. “We try to be.”

  “You are.” Even when they shouldn’t have the time, they make it—whether it’s nights spent awake helping me with essay drafts, or the sleepovers they hosted for me and Connie and Leo when we were little, or the long car ride talks about whatever’s been on my mind, ones where sometimes we just circled the block so I could keep on talking. “I’m … I just think maybe you could be a little, uh, less there with the tutoring and stuff.”

  “We can try that,” says my dad. “Well, right after summer school.”

  Woof. I’d almost forgotten. “Yeah,” I say, the cringe every bit as much in my voice as my face. “After that whole thing.”

  He peers at me, and I wonder what flavor this lecture is going to take, knowing full well there is one overdue. “Why didn’t you tell us about that?”

  “I wanted—well, part of it was Savvy. I really did want to get to know her.”

  Or at least, back then, understand her. It seems unthinkable that only a month ago she was worse than a stranger to me and I could barely find any common ground with her at all. It’s hard to apologize for the lie that got me here, when my friendship with Savvy is what happened because of it.

  “But the other part was … I knew if summer school happened it was going to snowball into more tutoring, and I’d never have time for photography. I guess this was a way to steal the time back before anyone found out.” My voice is sheepish when I add, only half meaning it, “But I am sorry for lying.”

  “I’m not even sure how you did it,” says my dad. “All the different things you hacked into—I’m honestly a little impressed—”

  “Uh, maybe we don’t encourage her,” my mom cuts in.

  My dad smirks. “I have a feeling it wouldn’t stop her either way.” He leans in and says the thing I’ve been waiting to hear most. “Abby, we’ve always known you’re a talented photographer. Your grandpa was showing your photos to us even when you weren’t, and they speak for themselves. I guess we just thought it was something the two of you did for fun. You were always so shy about your work—I don’t think either of us realized how serious you are about pursuing it.”

  My face flushes, but I’m not as embarrassed as I thought I’d be. So I’m not surprised by my answer, so much as how firmly I deliver it. “I really am.”

  “Well—I’m glad,” he s
ays. “If there’s anything we can help with on our end, we want to. Keep us in the loop, kiddo. Tell us what’s going on before you duck out the door every once in a while.”

  “Yeah. I will.”

  It sinks in, then, that this lack of communication is every bit as much my fault as it is theirs. Maybe more. They’ve been busy, but I’ve been—well. Lazy is the wrong word, maybe. But less than proactive, for sure.

  “Maybe if there’s some shots you guys looked at from the past few months—I mean, if you like them, and think it wouldn’t look too weird—maybe we could put some up at Bean Well, like you guys planned? Before it sells and all.”

  Their faces fall, but even then, with every context clue in the damn galaxy, I have no idea what they’re going to say before my dad says it.

  “Abby, the thing is—the realtor called. We had a buyer last night. Offered a lot more than what we were asking.”

  I forgot to anticipate this. I’ve been so worried about everything else that the possibility slipped my radar, too quiet under the noise of the past few weeks for me to even think about it. It comes at me sideways, makes me feel uneven though I’m fully seated in the chair.

  “We’re sorry, hon,” says my mom.

  “No—of course. This is—that’s a good thing, right?” I manage. I ball my fingers into fists and flex them back out, letting them go loose. “That means someone cares about the space a lot. They’re gonna turn it into something good.”

  My mom’s eyes are watering. She’s thinking of Poppy, and not the shop. But to me they were always kind of the same thing.

  “I sure hope so.”

  My dad gets up to join us, and they both wordlessly squeeze me, turning me into an Abby sandwich. The hug goes on so long that it feels like it could make me invincible, as if all the things outside it can’t do anything to me while we’re here. It makes me feel small, and everything around us even smaller. I wonder if there will ever come a day that I’m old enough not to feel like the center of my universe is this.

  “For the record,” I say, “I’m really glad I’m your kid.”

  “For the record, we wouldn’t change one thing about you,” says my mom.

  My dad waits three full seconds before adding, “Except we might have gotten accident insurance on all your screens a little sooner.”

  We laugh, my dad’s warm and low, my mom cackling the same cackle she did with Pietra, me barely managing not to snort. Nothing changes when we break apart, the way nothing really did before we came together—not anything important, anyway. Maybe just the view.

  thirty-four

  My parents end up going to bed early enough that it’s still light out. I hook my phone up to the charger and use it to call Leo, unsurprised when it goes straight to voicemail. I try the camp’s front office phone next. My name must come up on caller ID, because Mickey picks up and says, “Oh, good. Can I put you on speakerphone before half the camp riots? Phoenix Cabin is freaking out that you’re gone. This whole night has been s’mores with a side of anarchy.”

  I laugh into my sleeve so I don’t wake my parents. “Actually … is Leo there? I really need to talk to him.”

  “Hold up.”

  I hear the tap of her putting the phone down on the front desk, my heart fluttering in this way that feels more in my throat than in my chest. I don’t know exactly what I plan on saying, but for once, I’m not worried about it. The kinds of things I want to say right now can’t be planned.

  “Hey, Abby. Leo’s busy.”

  It’s a hard stop, with no quip to soften it. Not a Try calling back later, or even a Sorry.

  “Is he?”

  Mickey blows out a breath. “Do I even want to know?”

  I rest my head in my hands, smushing the phone farther into my cheek. “My life is basically a CW drama right now, is all.”

  “You’re telling me.” She drums her fingers on the desk, the faint noise echoing on the other side of the line. “Don’t worry. I’ll knock some sense into him. I know it’s none of my business, but I’m emotionally invested in the two of you getting your heads out of your asses and confessing your love for each other already.”

  I don’t bother muffling this laugh because it sounds too much like I’m being strangled.

  “Sorry,” says Mickey, not sounding it one bit.

  “Don’t be.” I hesitate, but not nearly as long as I should. “Also—while we’re, uh, inserting ourselves into each other’s business—Savvy and Jo are extremely done.”

  There’s a pause. “Huh.”

  “Do with that information … what you will.”

  I can almost feel the heat of Mickey’s cheeks burning through the phone. “It’s tough out here for a Ravenclaw.”

  “Didn’t you say you were a—”

  “Humans are in constant evolution, Abby. Ever-changing, constant growth, et cetera,” says Mickey, a smile in her voice.

  “Let’s hope.”

  After we hang up I sit there against the wall of the hotel room, my phone still juicing up. I’m connected to legitimate Wi-Fi for the first time in weeks, so I find myself poking through it—looking at Connie’s Facebook pictures of gelato and pizza and what appears to be her very smug-looking cousin drenched and posing by an Italian fountain. Scrolling through all the photography Tumblr accounts I follow. Doing anything I can to distract myself from the fact that the one person I need to talk to most is the one I have no way to reach.

  My finger hovers over the Instagram app. I don’t even know if I’m logged in. I press it anyway, waiting for it to load, and—

  Oh.

  Oh my god.

  At first I think I’m logged into someone else’s account by mistake, because there are so many notifications that the app looks like it’s going to crash trying to account for them all. That, and the follower count—it’s over twenty-six thousand. Pushing twenty-seven.

  I scroll down. My jaw about unhinges from my face.

  It’s my account, all right. @savingtheabbyday, just how Leo set it up. But it’s not only pictures from the time Leo and I met up before camp. It’s pictures from the last few weeks—specifically, the ones I dumped from my memory card into the Dropbox we were all sharing to work on our Anthro projects.

  I tap the most recent one, posted two days ago. No caption, but underneath a bunch of periods are at least a dozen photography hashtags, none that I’ve ever heard of. It’s an image of the fog rolling in on the Sound, a photo I took one sleepy morning so early that even Savvy wasn’t around yet. One sleepy morning when I was, unsurprisingly, thinking of Leo.

  It has thousands of likes. Dozens of comments. I sit up straighter, accidentally squeaking my shoes against the hotel’s linoleum floor, sure I’m hallucinating this whole thing.

  I pan out to the grid and see dozens of them—a photo from on top of the Wishing Tree. Another of the sunset gleaming through the crack in a rickety old bench nobody uses anymore. Another I took when Mickey, Leo, Finn, and I were wandering around after dinner, of the embers of one of the campfires blowing in the wind.

  There are none of the goofier, spontaneous ones I took of Rufus, or the other girls in my cabin, or the staged ones we took for their Instagrams. Leo went through with a careful eye, picking the exact ones I would have chosen myself—maybe even chose better than I would have. A photo of the mismatched kayaks all lined up at the shore in their yellows, blues, and reds that I dismissed as soon as I took it has more likes than anything in the last three weeks.

  If that’s staggering, the amount of DMs flagged in my inbox is enough to knock me off my feet. I tap on them, hit by a wall of everything from why no people in your feed, girly? bet ur a stunner to omg!! how can i BE you to one that I click on too fast to process, so fast that I have to read it three times before I can even begin to let it sink in.

  Hello Abby,

  I hope this DM finds you well—we couldn’t find an email for you. We work with a scholarship program through Adventure Lens, and we’re sponsoring teen tr
avel photographers to go on short trips and take photos as wildlife ambassadors. It’s for graduating seniors. I wasn’t sure if you qualified this summer or the upcoming summer, but either way we’d love for you to consider the opportunity. The travel dates are flexible, and all expenses are paid, with the expectation that your photos are used as a part of our campaigns that subsequent year and featured on your personal Instagram. Please let me know if you’d like to hear more details!

  I click out of it, breathing hard, pressing the phone between my hand and the floor as if something is going to leap out of it. I had no idea. I had no idea. All this time Leo hasn’t been keeping my photos safe—he’s been building them a home.

  My eyes squeeze shut, but it’s like the grid of photos is tattooed to the inside of my eyelids. Every single one of them carefully plucked, posted, and hashtagged. A little ritual Leo must have committed himself to, one he kept up even when we weren’t keeping up with ourselves. Like these posts aren’t just posts, but messages that mean something—I’m sorry, or I’m still here, or maybe even the hope for something more that swallows all of them, even now.

  I can’t reach him tonight. He won’t pick up the phone, and it’s too dark to sneak back to camp. Tomorrow I may get a chance before I leave, but if I don’t—he has to know the truth. And I know exactly how I can make him.

  My dad’s computer is still out on the table. I upload the memory card on Poppy’s camera, pulling up all the photos. It only takes a moment to find the one I need. It’s the first time I’ve seen it at full resolution, the first time I’ve really been able to look at it, but even in that split second I know it’s more precious to me than any photo that’s come before.

  I hit “Share” and close it before I can see reactions come in. I fall asleep with the phone in my good hand, willing him to see it and hoping he sees the same things I do when he does.

  thirty-five

  I wake up the next morning to my wrist throbbing and three missed calls from Connie. I rub my eyes, aware my parents have long been up and gone in search of breakfast from the way the light is hitting the window. It’s probably the latest I’ve slept in years.