He raises his hand in surrender. “Nothing. I’m sure she’s a very nice…person?”
“Right. Sure you’re not following me?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him, and then my cheeks instantly warm with how flirtatious it comes out. For once, I am thankful for how quickly blood rushes to the tips of my ears when I’m embarrassed. They are currently unaffected by the cold.
Bus Boy laughs, but before he can answer, Caleb’s car revs into the driveway, almost taking Bus Boy—who is standing closer to the center of the driveway than I am—down in the process. Bus Boy jumps out of the way, shaken. Before I have time to form words, my brother calls out his window, “Why are you standing outside, Addison?”
“Oh my God, do you have to drive like a psychopath? And I’m talking to someone,” I say, waiting for him to apologize for nearly mowing a person down.
“I was changing songs. I wasn’t even that close!” Caleb never stops his car, though, continuing to roll into the garage so that he’s yelling back at me when he says, “Can’t you talk on the phone inside?”
Caleb doesn’t bother waiting for my response, and the garage door gurgles shut behind him.
What? Is he so determined to not see me that he didn’t even glance up to make sure I was all right and just assumed I was on my phone?
“Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”
“I’m fine,” Bus Boy says with a laugh, already back to looking unruffled.
“That was just my asshat brother,” I explain.
Bus Boy nods in understanding. I know a lot of siblings aren’t best friends and that my distant relationship with Caleb is probably normal. But there are so many days I wish things were different between us. That it wasn’t just the two of us, or that we had some kind of middle ground. Right now, though, I sort of want to kick him.
“Hey, aren’t you ever cold?” I ask, noticing then that Bus Boy is not wearing winter clothes. Again. His shirt is long-sleeved but far from warm enough to be walking around in.
“I’m not very cold,” he says.
“It’s, like, twenty degrees,” I say, still stunned that he’s not shivering or morphing into an icicle right in front of me. Can he not afford winter clothes? He doesn’t look malnourished or homeless or anything. I don’t see holes in his shoes or jeans. “You can’t walk back home in that. You’ll get hypothermia.”
“It’s really okay,” he says.
I don’t know if I sound more like Katy or my mom.
“You’ll get hypothermia and die,” I say, deciding to invoke a stronger version of their voices.
Bus Boy laughs. A full, rich sound that makes me feel a little less cold. “Then I can go to Jimi Hendrix concerts.”
“Or not. I bet you still need an invite,” I retort. Okay, I’m definitely flirting. It’s like channeling Katy a second ago has made her invade my body.
“You know, I have a coat I can lend you,” I say, suddenly thinking of something. “Well, my brother does.”
Caleb won’t like the idea of me lending his coat to a stranger, but it’s the least of my concerns.
“It’s really okay,” Bus Boy is saying, his smile gone. “I’m not even that cold. And I bet it’s not my size.”
“It’s a jacket, not a leotard,” I say, and then we both burst out laughing at the mental imagery of either my brother or him in a leotard. Ew. Why did I say that?
“Hold on, I’ll be right back,” I say.
“No, look—” I miss the last of his protests as I race inside the house and set down my music binder. I find an ivy-green winter jacket hanging in the coat closet, still warm. Must be what Caleb just took off. He’s nowhere in sight, so I rush back out the front door.
“Okay, you can probably return this tom—” My voice breaks off as I stare out at the empty driveway. I look right, then left, then right again, as if I’m getting ready to cross the road.
Where did he go?
I walk to the edge of the driveway and look to both ends of the street, but there’s no sign of him.
I had so many questions for him.
Who are you?
Why do we suddenly keep running into each other?
Once again, I didn’t even manage to get his name.
I stand there, clutching my brother’s coat as my hands tingle with cold, and I can’t believe Bus Boy just left. All I can think is, It felt like we were at the start of something.
BEFORE
Early July
Every visit to At Home Movies feels like a continuation of the world’s longest-running discussion of horror parodies. I start by telling Zach my thoughts, and he counters, defends, concedes before we move on to the next movie. But on the fourth straight day I go into At Home Movies, return the latest DVD (plus its verdict), and await Zach’s newest recommendation, he leans across the counter on his elbows and looks at me instead.
“What?” I ask, surprised. “No more Ciano movies? I thought there were way more than four.”
“There are,” Zach says. “I just have a question for you.”
My mouth goes dry as I wait for him to speak. What could he possibly want to ask me? Why does his complete and focused gaze, as if he’s scrutinizing something under a microscope, make me a little warm all over? I fold my arms against my chest to steady myself.
“Feel free to say that I’ve made a hard-core horrody convert out of you, if it’s true,” Zach says, standing up to his full height again. “I’d love it if that’s true. But it just seems like you could be doing a million other things instead of indulging some random guy’s movie recommendations. If I didn’t have to work this summer, I’d be outside hiking and hanging out with my friends and…” He trails off, looking out through the glass doors of the store, and his lips twitch up before a warm laugh escapes him. I love the wide-open, carefree sound of it. Like it would never occur to him to contain it. I wish I laughed that way more often. “All right, watching movies. That’s what I’d be doing. But you seem cooler than me.”
“Excellent,” I say. “Then I have you fooled.”
Unfortunately, he’s still watching me, waiting for a real answer. So I sigh and sheepishly say, “My best friend kind of ditched me this summer. For a trip to New York via everywhere else that I was supposed to be on with her. She keeps texting and posting pictures online of how much fun they’re having. Like, she just sent me a picture of the amazing food they’re having for lunch.”
One of Zach’s eyebrows skitters up; he does not look impressed. “What they’re having for lunch,” he repeats pointedly.
“Yeah, but they’re, like, in the West Village.”
He shakes his head and moves to type something on the computer behind the counter. “Have you ever noticed how rare it is that the thing people are doing that you’re jealous of is actually enviable, in and of itself? She’s eating lunch.”
“Somewhere I’m supposed to be,” I add stubbornly. “Somewhere I would rather be.”
“Okay,” Zach accepts. “Sometimes what they’re doing is cool. You get to ride in the president’s motorcade—fine, you win. But most of the time, people are doing completely mundane things and just making them seem better with their enthusiasm. It’s all in how you sell the story.”
I laugh and shrug. “Maybe I want to do those mundane things.”
“You should get together with the rest of your friends and send her messages about all the great things she’s missing.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll totally do that,” I mumble noncommittally, since the alternative involves admitting that, apart from Katy, I don’t have that many friends. Acquaintances, casual orchestra friends, and people I could sit with at lunch if I needed to, but not the kinds of friends who think of you when you aren’t around. “So, do I get the next DVD or what?”
Zach leads me to the Foreign section of the store, picks up two DVDs, and gives me an eager rundown of both plots. In the end, I go with the one about a town of people who are emitting spiders out of all orifices—ears, mouths, e
yes. I’ll save the one about possessed machinery for tomorrow.
I’m quiet and awkward around Zach. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything, just mentions that he’s expecting the full report again as soon as I’ve finished watching. He waves as I walk out.
The truth about me is that I’m not someone who goes out and has all these great experiences, and I don’t know what to think about him calling me on it, four days after meeting me.
I’m not like Katy, with all the boys she falls for and the way she courts attention and drama and diagnoses herself and everyone within a three-mile radius with illnesses. I’m not bright and loud and certain, though I love that about her.
In a way, it feels like I’m waiting for my life to start. Waiting for my life to feel as full and as vibrant outside of a melody as it does in it.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve sleepwalked through my life so far, with nothing significant or extraordinary happening to me. It’s time for that to change.
Even if I was good enough, this is why I’ve never wanted to go to Juilliard, why I don’t want to major in music no matter where I go to college. Music has always been my cover, the thing I hide inside of, and if I let it define me, I know I’ll just hide behind it again. And I need my life to get a little bit bigger than that.
AFTER
January
Katy is determined to track down the boy from the bus.
We arrive the next day—Thursday—at the movie theater entrance of the mall.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me he worked here.” Katy has been strangely agitated ever since lunchtime, when I told her about seeing Bus Boy outside my house yesterday. I know she’s anxious about hearing back from Juilliard in a few weeks and has been working nonstop on four monologues in the hope that she’ll get an audition, but Katy’s impatience now seems unrelated.
“Didn’t I mention that he worked here before our movie the other day?”
“No, you just said he was here. It’s different if he works here,” she insists.
“Why?” I ask, exasperated.
Before she can answer, Katy is, unsurprisingly, tackled by a tiny, rambunctious human walking in the opposite direction.
“Ashley!” Katy says, pushing the raven-haired girl off her, slightly irritated.
“Oh my God, I thought that was you! I haven’t seen you in forever, lover,” the girl squeals, bouncing on her toes in front of us. Just watching her tires me. “Your hair is so cute. You’re so lucky it’s not frizzy like mine. Some people get all the luck.”
Katy introduces the two of us. “Nice to meet you,” I say at the same time Ashley says, “Didn’t we meet at that pool party? You’re the one who was dating—”
“No, that’s someone else. You’re thinking of Elise,” Katy snaps. “We have to go, okay, Ash? But I’ll see you around, okay?”
“Oh, all right,” Ashley says, disappointed. “Text me later, okay? I’ve missed you! Bye, lover!” she chirps before crossing the road and disappearing into the parking lot.
“Who was that, lover?” I whisper once she’s gone, and Katy groans.
“She’s a junior from Meridian. Total drama queen. But speaking of lovers, let’s focus on the task at hand,” Katy says as we walk through the automatic doors. “We’re getting this boy’s name, age, blood type, Social Security number, and mother’s maiden name.”
“Are we planning to hack his bank account or ask him out?”
Katy laughs, but it sounds oddly strangled. “I do like to multitask.”
Her agitation is contagious. “Is this even a good idea? I mean, he blew me off last night. He hasn’t asked me for my name. Maybe this isn’t worth it.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Katy says. “I just want to see who he is.”
With a decidedly smaller crowd of moviegoers than on Monday, when we were last here, I spot him almost as soon as we enter, facing away from us. He’s wearing the black CINEXPERIENCE T-shirt again, his red hair short in the back.
“That’s him,” I whisper.
Katy, a full head shorter than me, stands on her tiptoes and whips her head from left to right. “Where, where?”
I pinch her arm. “Don’t be so obvious!”
“Ouch!” she yelps. She’s impatient when she asks, “Where?”
I point at the concession area. He still has his back to us.
Katy’s immediate reaction looks, strangely, like relief. Then her face crumples with disapproval. “I thought you said he was cute.”
I’m taken aback by her response. “He is. I mean, you can’t see his face right now, but—”
“I can,” she says. “And he’s, like, fifty. This is really gross, Addie.”
“No, no, no,” I say, realizing that she’s looking to the left of the boy, at a moviegoer whose head is peppered with gray. I take her chin with my hand and force it a few inches to the right. “Him.”
Katy is very still for a second. Then she says, “I feel like this is an elaborate joke.”
“Why?”
“Who are you seeing?” she asks again.
“The tall guy. Red hair.”
“Red?” Katy repeats almost too quietly for me to hear.
“Yeah.”
I feel Katy’s reaction more than see it. She shudders, seems to breathe in but not out. And without my even understanding why, something plummets from my throat to my stomach, a pebble of fear.
Her voice wobbles when she speaks next. “There’s no guy with red hair here, Addie. He’s not here.”
When I look at her, she is trembling and her eyes are starting to cloud. Is she joking? Practicing some bizarre new drama technique on me? I shift my eyes from her to him to her to the boy with the red hair—who I’ve talked to several times now, who makes my stomach flip, who I can see so clearly fiddling with something behind the counter—and I don’t know why she’s doing this. I don’t know how she can say that when he’s right there.
“Katy, he’s right there,” I say, grabbing her wrist. “Come on, we’ll go talk to him.”
But with a kind of bull-like strength not befitting someone of her stature, Katy digs her heels into the floor and refuses to move.
I leave her there and walk to the counter where he is.
“Hi!” I say too enthusiastically. My heart is pounding and it’s not because of a crush. He turns—Bus Boy, all six feet of him—and grins at me. “My friend wants to meet you. Will you come and say hi?”
“Hey,” he says, his face lighting up. “You’re back.”
I nod. “Can you come and talk to my friend for a second?” I point out Katy, whose eyes are bugging out of her head, staring at us. At me? “I want to introduce you.”
There’s a pause before Bus Boy speaks, a trace of something I can’t define in his voice. Apology? Sadness? “I can’t.” Then he turns from me, moves away from the counter, and goes back to sorting through a pile of papers.
When I head back to Katy, I feel dizzy.
“He can’t come because he’s working,” I say. Lie? I don’t understand what’s happening.
“Addie.” Katy swipes at a tear on her cheek. “You have to let me call my mom.” She’s looking at me with a desperation I can’t remember ever seeing in her eyes. “Please. She’ll know what to do.”
I shake my head, and then a burst of laughter that is as short as it is fake escapes me. “Why do you think I’m the crazy one? You’re the one who can’t see him.”
“It’s not just me!” Katy is saying now. “You said the nurse didn’t find him after the accident.”
“Because he left! He didn’t need to be admitted.”
“You’ve been acting like the walking dead. Not sleeping. Not being able to concentrate. Forgetting stuff.”
I look at her, incredulous. “Hello? I hit my head in a bus crash.”
“Exactly!” Katy says.
“You think I’m making him up?” I shake my head again and blink a dozen times. He’s still there. Still leaning over a pil
e of papers behind the counter. Still wearing the black CINEXPERIENCE shirt. Still existing. “Katy, this is insane.”
I can’t, he said when I asked him to come with me.
“I know. I know,” she says, pushing her bangs out of her face. She looks more panicked every time I look at her. “Okay, look, come here.”
She takes my hand and leads me to the concession counter on the far side of the lobby from where Bus Boy is. There’s no one in line, so a woman with light brown hair and glasses—the same one who caught me talking with Bus Boy on Monday—says she’ll be with us in a second. I remember now the odd look that she gave me. I thought it was for chatting up one of the other workers.
I was sure it was for chatting up one of the other workers.
“See her badge?” Katy whispers to me, and I nod. It says KARI TOEWS, ASSISTANT MANAGER.
“Hi,” Katy says when Kari Toews is standing in front of us. “Is there a guy who works here that’s about our-age-ish?”
The woman, Kari, narrows her eyes at us, like we want her help to boyfriend-hunt while she’s working. I can’t tell if she recognizes me. “Yes. There are several guys who fit that description.”
“Right,” Katy says, turning to me. “So describe him. He’s…”
“Tall,” I say, and it is the oddest thing, standing across the room from him and describing him. “Red hair that’s kind of messy-looking.”
“Smile bright enough to power a city,” Katy fills in, looking down at the counter. I shoot her a surprised look. Is she being sarcastic? Did I go on about his smile that much the last couple of days?
“Um, yeah,” I say, looking back over at Bus Boy, who still has his back to me. “Skinny.”
Kari is shaking her head now. “No. Not unless you mean Vic?” She nods to a tall, muscly guy with long blond hair who’s tearing tickets. It’s like she missed my entire description.
“Then sorry,” Kari says completely unapologetically when I tell her no. “I’ve been here a year and that doesn’t sound like anyone who works here.”
Everyone We've Been Page 5