Thief of Happy Endings

by Kristen Chandler

  “I was actually going to say your sores look like they’re scabbing over. You may be on the mend. But I’m sure it’s still uncomfortable. Is that why you need to talk to your mom or dad? Did you say which one?”

  “It’s personal. I’ll start with my dad.” I want to ask Dad about Mom’s “moving on” comment first.

  “I see,” says Kaya. “Boy problems?”

  “My dad is honestly the last person on the planet I would talk to about a boy.”

  “You can’t just call because you want to. I need a reason.”

  I would stamp my feet and throw my fists in the air if it would help me get my way. I’m about three weeks past thinking straight. “He has cancer.”

  “That’s not funny, Cassidy. People’s dads really get cancer.”

  I don’t care what anybody says. Adults want you to lie to them. And this is none of her business. “A boy problem, a really big one.”

  “You poor thing, Cassidy. I get it.”

  She doesn’t. She really doesn’t.

  * * *

  The phone rings five times before it goes to voice mail. I hear Dad’s recorded greeting, and it sends me all to pieces. I don’t leave a message.

  Kaya is in the other room. I dial Mom. She answers on the second ring. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” The sound of her voice distracts me. Don’t get distracted, I tell myself. She’s half of this.

  “Are you sure?” she says.

  “What does ‘moving on’ mean?”

  Mom breathes heavily into the phone. “This isn’t the time or the place to discuss that, Cassidy. I was angry. We need to talk about this when you get home.”

  The thing about having parents who speak in code is that I have learned to speak it myself. I hang up without saying good-bye.

  * * *

  Just like I used to do, I get in my bed and stay there. That night I am visited by Coulter, Kaya, and Mrs. Sanchez. When I have nothing to say to them they eventually send me off to take a shower. My roommates give me a wide berth. Alice brings me a flower, and I thank her. But once the lights go out and Banner starts snoring, I can’t lie in my bed for another second. I walk to the river, away from the horses. Away from everyone. I hear thunder someplace far away.

  “Did you read my mind or something?” Justin asks, jumping out of the dark. He’s had a shower. I can smell the soap on him.

  “Leave me alone,” I say. “I mean it.”

  “Okay,” he says. He stands there like I didn’t just ask him to go. “Did you see the storm coming in?”

  A skiff of wind dusts up some pine needles onto my pant leg. He might be right, about the weather at least. “I told you to leave me alone.”

  He walks away for a few steps and stops. “All I want to do is apologize.”

  “You don’t want to ‘cheer me up’ again? Because that would be something.”

  He keeps his distance. “Can I come closer so I don’t have to talk so loud?”

  As mad as I am, I don’t want an audience right now. I motion to him with my hand, and then when he gets close enough I put up my hand to tell him to stop.

  “I was trying to cheer you up. I did it wrong. I’m sorry about that.” There isn’t a shred of defense in this voice. Just a flat-out apology. He rubs the front of his jeans like his hands are dirty and stares down on the ground. “I’ve got two gears with girls. Park and high. I don’t know how to be around a person I actually care about.”

  He’s doing this now? Now, so I can’t even be mad at him. Fine. Let him be honest. But my insides are still shredded about my parents. I mean, I should have figured. But I didn’t want to. I hoped for the best. I guess that never goes unpunished.

  He shifts his weight uncomfortably. “You have every reason not to, but will you walk with me?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’ll leave you alone. I just want to show you something. You don’t even have to talk to me.”

  I don’t move. “What kind of stuff? I’m not up for surprises right now.”

  “You’ll like this. At least, I think you will. It’s just pretty.”

  “Huh,” I say.

  “I swear,” he says.

  We walk out into the moonlight a few feet apart and stop. The thunder is letting loose on the other side of the valley. “We’re going to get wet if we go very far,” I say.

  “Yeah, let’s cut up here,” he says. He points to a small hill that juts out from the mountain.

  Above, the stars are being swallowed by an enormous gray cloud that is lit from the back by the moon. We walk up to a big boulder with a flat spot and sit down. We’re above the horse corrals, so the sound of the horses’ bells clink up to us in the dark. The river rushes over rocks in the distance. I watch Justin’s silhouette. He tips his head like he’s about to talk, then doesn’t. It makes the air feel charged. Finally he says, “I’m sorry about your parents. You must love them a whole lot to want them to be together so bad.”

  I ask, “Don’t most people want their parents together?”

  He leans back. “Bet they’re real smart, like you.”

  “Way smarter. About some things.”

  “Like what?”

  I sigh. “My dad’s a poet and a professor. My mom does the mom stuff, and she’s an accountant.”

  He says, “That’s cool. My dear old dad’s a drunk. My mom died when I was two.”

  I want to crawl into a hole. “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  Justin says, “No. It’s okay. I mean, it isn’t. But . . . anyway, I’ve seen pictures of her. We look a lot alike, except she has darker hair and a normal nose.”

  “What happened . . . to your nose? Is that okay to ask?”

  He flinches. Not okay to ask. Nice one, Cassidy.

  He touches his face. “A horse kicked me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “You’ve had some terrible things happen to you.”

  “It’s not that bad. Look at me tonight. I’m sitting here with you.” He laughs. “Look at that.”

  A giant rosy cloud is moving into the valley. In less than a minute it fills the horizon.

  “I’ve never seen a cloud that big in my life. How come it’s pink like that?”

  “It’s a cumulonimbus cloud,” says Justin. “It’s bringing the storm.”

  Right as he says this, the enormous cloud lights up. Explosive bright yellow flashes inside, silhouetting portions of the cloud too dark to light with a flash and a puff of smoke. “You can’t hear it because it’s too far way,” he says. “There’s enough electricity in that cloud to light up half of Wyoming, but there’s no way to catch it.”

  “How come you know so much about clouds and stars?”

  “No reason, really. I see them all the time, so I thought I’d find out how they worked.”

  The light changes color. First orange, then white, then back to yellow. It makes pockets of shapes like rooms. Suddenly, a lightning bolt escapes and shatters the sky. The thunder rattles the air so hard my teeth shake and my hair tingles.

  I move closer to Justin. Not close enough to touch him, but close enough to feel him next to me.

  The lighting inside the cloud strikes again and again. Each time, different parts of the cloud light up in brilliant color. It’s like fireworks in a see-through house. My mind scrambles for a word. “Incandescent.”

  “What’s that?” Justin asks.

  “It’s a word my dad taught me. It’s a kind of light you get when you heat things up. The heat makes the light.”

  Justin looks up. “That’s a good word.”

  We sit still on the rock while the lightning and thunder continue. Justin turns to me but doesn’t touch me, like he promised. I put my hand under his hand and feel the hot charge go through me. He slides his fingers into mine. Our skin is rough and calloused.
I pull his hand tight to mine.

  This time, Justin doesn’t smother me. He keeps his hand in mine and takes the other so that we face each other. His wide palms and long fingers radiate up through my whole body. Something winces hard inside and stops in my chest. I’m scared. I feel all the things that can go wrong. I feel all the heaviness and hurt and waste of what’s happened to my mom and dad. I know this isn’t going to work. It can’t. And maybe when it doesn’t, it will burn the last bit of life out of me. But when I look into Justin’s face, all I see is Justin, lit in the bright broken flashes of a cumulonimbus cloud as big as the Wyoming sky. He leans closer. I lean closer, too.

  When his mouth finds mine, I feel the hardness shatter. And I’m weightless. Brilliant.

  Incandescent.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  THE BEAM FROM the flashlight is blinding. “How’s Justin?” Banner asks.

  I sit down on my cot and get in the sleeping bag with my clothes on. I’m too kissed to care. “Can you put that light down, please?”

  Alice is sitting up in her bag. She doesn’t say anything.

  Banner sighs. “What have y’all been doing out there in the rain, Cassidy Carrigan?”

  “Watching the lightning.”

  “You know what Coulter says about shenanigans. He might have to send you home. And fire scar face.”

  “There weren’t any shenanigans,” I say.

  Alice says, “It’s not safe to be out in the lightning.”

  “It was far away. I’m sorry, Alice, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “What do you think, Alice? Should we help our roommate by telling Coulter about her unsafe behavior? It only seems fair.”

  Alice drops down on her sleeping bag and turns her back to both of us.

  I say, “If things were fair, I wouldn’t have lost my riding privileges.”

  I turn my back to her and close my eyes. With my lids closed I see the sky in dangerous little pieces. Everything spins. How can I have opened those letters, hated Justin, and kissed him all in the same day? How can I have so many edges loose in my skin?

  Banner puts the flashlight at the back of my head. “If things were fair, I’d be home sleeping with my boyfriend instead of weirdoes.”

  It’s funny, when Banner says this I realize something that should have been obvious to me. Things aren’t fair. Of all the lies I’ve believed without realizing it, this is maybe the worst one.

  I taste the cold rain on my mouth. I shiver under my blanket, but I’m not sure if it’s from the cold or Justin.

  Banner says, “He’s just going to break your heart. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Good night, Banner.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Okay.”

  She’s probably right, but tonight I choose not to believe it.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  THE NEXT MORNING Coulter and Justin aren’t at breakfast. I pretend to eat something before nonchalantly asking Kaya where they are. “They went to town for groceries,” she says. “Your mother called three times. I can’t keep telling her no. She would like you to call her tonight. Your dad said he’d like you to call anytime.”

  I nod noncommittally. I have no intention of calling my parents in this decade.

  “They sound like very nice people.”

  “They’re nice,” I say. “Just not to each other.”

  Kaya looks at me with all the pity her enormous brown eyes can generate. “I’m doing the Sunday Supposition. So you’d better come.”

  I don’t want to seem as hostile as I feel. “Yeah. I’m tired,” I say.

  “Sleep after. I need you there.”

  Kaya gathers us in the meadow above the tents and coaxes us into a few hokey songs. And after every song we sing I feel more miserable. My body itches and aches, and my head is throbbing from trying to not think. I love Kaya, but what I really want is a ten-hour nap and another shower.

  “I’d like you all to take a mental journey with me,” she says enthusiastically. She walks around us, trying to get our attention. “Come on, guys. Help me out. Everyone participate. I’d like you all to imagine yourself going on a long, difficult hike. What do you pack, Ethan?”

  “Food,” he says. “Lots of food.”

  “Medicine,” says Devri.

  “Clothing that wicks,” says Charlie.

  “A sleeping bag,” says Alice.

  “A map,” says Danny.

  “A gun,” says Scotty.

  “Porn,” says Granger. Everyone laughs.

  Kaya asks, “What would you pack, Banner?”

  Banner is propped up on one elbow on her blanket. She doesn’t answer. There’s an awkward pause while Kaya waits and then speaks. “Anyone else?”

  “How about a plane ticket?” asks Banner. “Can I have one of those?”

  “Not exactly,” says Kaya smiling. “But let’s talk about that. At times we all want to escape. Danny, could you come up here?” Danny hustles up to the front, and Kaya puts a backpack on him and opens the flap. “What if I offered you heavy rocks?” Then Kaya picks up a big rock off the ground and puts it in his pack. Then she does that a few more times until Danny sags a little. “What if every time somebody lets Danny down or does something deliberately to hurt him he gets a rock? And the bigger the problem it makes for him, the bigger the rock.”

  Danny looks stressed now.

  “If somebody’s jacking me up, they aren’t going to be messing with my backpack,” says Ethan. “Because that is going to stop.”

  “Exactly,” says Kaya. “But if you’re angry at someone, that’s what you do. You let them put this heavy thing in your pack, and then you carry it around for them. And if you did something wrong that you can’t get over, you carry that around, too. Pretty soon there’s no room for anything else.”

  At this point I come out of my daze to realize that Danny is not the subject of this supposition. And I am genuinely not in the mood. Sometimes people do stuff. And it’s their fault. And you know it is.

  “Yeah,” Banner says. “What if you like the rocks?”

  “Can you explain that?” says Kaya.

  “Maybe the thing that you hate is the thing that makes you strong.”

  “That’s wise, Banner. But how can carrying around anger and frustration hurt you, too? Or slow you down?”

  “You know what? Forgiveness is bullshit,” says Banner. “It’s for suckers and saints. And have you seen what happens to saints? Nobody wants to be them.”

  A handful of kids laugh, but mostly it just feels awkward.

  What’s really awkward for me is that I agree with Banner. Which is why I’m not going to apologize to her. I raise my hand. “May I be excused, please?”

  Kaya doesn’t say anything for a few seconds.

  Finally she flutters her hands in the air, like she’s waving insects away. “Okay . . . good discussion. Let’s get some rest before the week starts up again.”

  Alice and I go out to the mustang corral with some pilfered snacks. Goliath comes right up to me. I think he smells the potato chips on my hands. I’m not giving him potato chips. But I’ll scratch him all day long if he lets me.

  Alice says, “That’s amazing. How do you do it?”

  “Bribes.”

  Alice shakes her head. “That’s not true. I’ve seen you with him. I’ve seen you with all the horses.”

  “No, I totally bribe him with food.”

  “It’s only a week before the tryout. Are you really not going to compete because you’re too stubborn to apologize to Banner?”

  I stop scratching Goliath. “I’m the worst rider here. And I’m not apologizing for something I didn’t do.”

  Alice sighs. “I would love to be able to ride like you. So free. And what about Goliath? Do you want Banner to rid
e him? And what if there was some other reason that the soup got spoiled? I mean, you aren’t sure, are you?”

  “Did you see her smug face?”

  “So you’re going to let this chance to ride get away from you. Just like Kaya said.”

  “Not like Kaya said. Kaya acts like people can get over all the crap that’s happened to them by tipping it out of their backpack. Sometimes you can’t do that. Sometimes it’s part of the backpack.”

  Alice kicks a rock. She won’t look at me. If I can make Alice mad, I am a truly horrible person. “What about a friend who won’t take me with her? Should I stay mad at her?”

  “I’m so sorry, Alice. I couldn’t . . . I had to go alone.”

  “That’s a terrible apology. I want you to ride Goliath in the horse show. Ethan can’t beat Banner on Goliath, but you can.”

  My mind is a few circuits past blown. I can’t believe that Alice has this much faith in me. I can’t believe she’s even talking to me after what a jerk I’ve been.

  I start scratching Goliath again. Finally I say, “You’re a really nice person, Alice. Not just nice. You’re generous. You see the good in people.”

  “Thanks,” says Alice.

  Goliath’s gray muzzle drops in front of me. I think about the ride, the jump we made together. The feeling of flying, of being totally caught up in riding, trusting him to carry me over the edge of the cliff. It still doesn’t seem real. If we can do that, it shouldn’t be that hard to ride in circles around an arena. But I’ll never know as long as I keep being “right.”

  I hate it just the same.

  * * *

  I find Banner. She’s sitting on a rock painting her fingernails. Only Banner would go to the trouble of painting black on her nails when we’re all up to our necks in actual dirt. Behind her, Devri and her backup singers are all giving themselves skin cancer on some flat rocks.

  Banner looks up at me as I approach, and I have an overwhelming urge to turn and run. I picture Goliath. “I’m sorry I blamed you without proof,” I say.