Before Goodbye

by Mimi Cross

  Sensing something—movement?—I open my eyes just in time to see David jerk to a stop in front of Bryn’s doorway. Childishly, I scrunch my eyes shut. If I can’t see him . . .

  But a few seconds later, when I peek through my lashes, I see that instead of continuing down the hall as I’d assumed he would, David is now standing directly in front of me.

  The translucent scarf hangs between us, a swath of sheer-blue evening that does very little to hide me. Still, I don’t lower it.

  We stare at each other through the gauzy material as the music pulses against us.

  David pulls his gaze from mine, looks down. “What—are you wearing?”

  Inexplicably, the music stops.

  Still holding the veil high, I follow his eyes down to my hips, and it suddenly seems like there’s so much going on . . . I can’t answer him. Tongue-tied mental case.

  David’s eyes flicker back and forth between my face and hips. The movement is hummingbird quick, but his hand, as he reaches out and touches the orange sash slung low on my hips, is moving incredibly slowly. Lightly, he grasps one of the discs between a thumb and index finger.

  Finally I say, “It’s a coin belt.”

  David looks amused and—something else. He doesn’t let go of the coin; in fact, is he giving it just the tiniest tug?

  “And you’re wearing this because?”

  “It’s for belly dancing.”

  “I didn’t know you were a belly dancer.”

  “I’m not.”

  His brows lift. “That is your belly showing, though, isn’t it?” My arms burn from holding up the scarf, but ridiculously, it feels like my only defense against . . . against . . .

  He’s standing so close. Now he moves again in that slow-motion way, the tip of his finger brushing the skin just below the knot in my shirt. Goosebumps spring up along my arms and then rise everywhere as he continues to touch me, a little lower, just below my belly button.

  He seems almost entranced as he watches his hand move slowly back down to the coin belt, and his thumb comes to rest lightly on my right hip bone, his fingers spreading out along the side of my hip. When I feel an increase in pressure, his fingers tightening just a little, my breath catches— but there it is, the difference between leaning his fingers against me and holding me.

  “It’s Bryn’s,” I say, as if this somehow explains everything. My voice is breathy, barely there.

  “My sister Bryn?”

  I laugh, and my laughter breaks some kind of spell we’ve both been under. I’m finally able to lower the scarf. David drops his hand. But he doesn’t move away.

  “She’s taking belly dancing from Ms. Liu.”

  “Ms. Liu—the gym teacher?”

  “Right. It’s part of the junior curriculum. If you choose dance.”

  “And did you choose dance, too?” He looks perplexed, still amused, and very . . . beautiful. I like this new David, lost and laughing. He is . . . approachable. Finally, feeling as if I’ve waited half my life—and in truth, I realize, it’s been a quarter—I step closer to him.

  “I’m a sophomore,” I say quietly. “I don’t get to choose.”

  And just like that, he doesn’t seem confused anymore. “That doesn’t seem fair. You should be allowed to choose. If there’s any opportunity for choice, they should give it to us. The school should. Our parents should.”

  Color has risen in his cheeks. This must be some kind of issue for him. But it’s hard to think about that right now.

  “You’re right,” I say. I’d intended to match his tone, but it seems that, again, I’ve lost control of my voice. The way it’s wavering now, I might as well be shouting “Smitten!” And “Nervous!” Still, I’m determined. So I steady my traitorous voice, try again. “If I could have a choice about anything, it would be—”

  You. I’d choose you.

  But I don’t even get to say the word you, because at that very moment Kimmy’s voice layers itself over mine, getting louder as she comes down the hall, talking on the phone.

  My face goes hot. Hastily, I untie the coin belt, toss it onto Bryn’s bed.

  “No encore?”

  I shake my head.

  David gives me an appraising look. “Seemed like you were pretty into it. Maybe dance is your thing.”

  Shrugging, I say, “You know I love music.”

  “I know—hey, you’ve got to hear this CD I picked up today, new indie release. Come on.” He heads out of Bryn’s room.

  I follow, stomach swooping. Imaginary chorus, on loop.

  Idiot, idiot, idiot.

  IMAGINATION

  DAVID

  Kimmy cuts her call short when she sees us. “Where are you guys going?”

  I nod toward the far end of the hall, to the short flight of steps that leads up to the door of my room.

  “No fair! Cate’s here to hang out with me!”

  “Cate’s here to babysit you and, I believe, you’ve been babysat—it’s past your bedtime.”

  “Cate,” Kimmy mewls.

  “Actually—” Cate gives Kimmy her best sorry-I-know-it’s-a-drag look. “Sorry.”

  “Aw . . .” Kimmy pouts but apparently puts on her pajamas, because when I stop by her room forty-five minutes later to see how close Cate is to getting her settled, Kimmy’s nested among the covers and Cate’s got a book in her hands. Now she closes it, and says, “Shampoo?”

  Kimmy’s eyes grow heavy-lidded as Cate massages her scalp. A “rinse” and a “blowout” are next. The sound effects are impressive. Laughing, I head to my room.

  By the time Cate appears in the doorway, I’m lying on my back on the bed, scrolling through an iPod.

  I hadn’t given any thought to the state of the bed—the comforter’s pulled down, sheets rumpled, pillows tossed—but now, as if Cate’s presence makes it so, it seems suddenly intimate, and I notice the way the light of the bedside lamp casts everything in an amber glow.

  For a moment, Cate just stands there, biting her lip a little, like she’s undecided about something. But when I push up onto my elbows and smile—

  She spills into the room.

  “I thought you fell asleep in there,” I say. She looks sexy, hair still ruffled from dancing, sleepy-eyed from Kimmy’s bedtime routine. And suddenly I can’t help it. Her hips are level with my eyes. I let my gaze wander over them— then immediately want to kick myself. I’m not going to do this.

  “Almost,” she says. “Must have been the dancing.” She blushes.

  She’s one step behind me, but now she realizes how I’ve just looked at her.

  “About that.” I frown. “The dancing. We should talk. You were wearing Bryn’s belt, using her scarf—what’s the scarf for, anyway?”

  “To add mystery to the dance, I guess.”

  She’s flustered. It makes her look a lot less than sixteen. I am definitely not doing this.

  I asked Cate to my room to listen to music, but during the hour I waited for her, while pretending not to wait, I thought about her. An hour is a long time to think about someone.

  “Ah, what did you say the scarf was for?” I ask again.

  “M y s t e r y.” Cate drags the word out. I think next she may ask if I want her to spell it.

  “Okay, well, there’s no mystery about how the Ice Queen will react if she finds out Kimmy and the babysitter were in her room, listening to her music, wearing her clothes.”

  Cate’s tone turns curt. “They’re not her clothes; they’re from school.” She scowls at me, not sure what I’m up to. But she knows I’m right. If Bryn finds out they’ve been in her room, there’ll be hell to pay.

  “Look,” she says. “Don’t tell, okay? It’s not like we were wearing her real clothes.”

  “I don’t know; they looked pretty real to me.”

  The light from the lamp is shining in Cate’s gray eyes, turning them silvery. Magical. But her tone is crisp. “What do you suggest?”

  “Well, I might be able to forget what I sa
w here tonight.” I pause dramatically. “No, actually, I don’t think I can forget. But I might be able to pretend I’ve forgotten.”

  I let my eyes drift back down to her hips. She crosses her arms.

  “Although that’s going to be tough, too,” I continue, heaving a sigh. I can’t seem to stop. “But, maybe, as long as you’re not actually dancing, I can be persuaded to look the other way.”

  “Ha-ha. Look the other way—as in not tell Bryn?”

  “The crossing of the Bryn Boundaries.” I shake my head. “She’s killed for less. But possibly, for a price, I can keep this from her.”

  Cate bites her lower lip a little, like she’d been doing before. She’s so cute—I just want to grab her.

  “Okay. Fine. So what do you suggest?” she repeats. “Pricewise, I mean.”

  I run a hand through my hair, think of touching hers. It’s so shiny. Real darkness, not like Bryn’s night shade from a bottle. But other than her hair, there’s nothing dark about Cate, and it’s her light, I realize, that’s what I like so much about her. She’s got this thing going on, this hard-to-describe, ephemeral light. I must be an idiot, not to have noticed it before.

  But I have noticed it.

  Or maybe . . . I just want what I always want.

  The thought makes me hate myself.

  But I don’t tell her to go.

  SCAR TISSUE

  CATE

  “I might be able to keep your secret safe,” David says. “In exchange for . . .”

  He does that maddening pause thing again. It’s infuriating. Also, I realize that as I wait for his next words, I’m holding my breath.

  This is the old David, but the old David never talked to me like this, never flirted with me at all, and definitely never turned his golden eyes on me with this look of . . . of?

  Frustrated, I let my eyes run over his body, look at him the way he just looked at me. I do it out of anger. But I also look at him that way because I want to. Want to look and want to stop trying not to look. So I stare and let him see me staring. Let him see all the things I can’t say, won’t say, shouldn’t say. In a way, it’s a relief. But it also makes me want to close my eyes and vanish. And the opposite: I want to lie down next to him.

  He’s looking at me intently. When he finally speaks, he says, “In exchange for my silence, you’ll have to go to dinner with me.”

  Dinner?

  Dinner. Talking. Words. And I won’t be there as Kimmy’s babysitter, I’ll be there as Cate of the tied tongue. Still, dinner means that David Bennet has just asked me out on a date. But which David?

  “Hey, if you don’t want to . . .” His voice is soft.

  “No, I mean, I want to, but—”

  He looks at me quizzically. Why aren’t you saying yes?

  I look at him the same way. Why do you want me to have dinner with you?

  Finally, I say, “Okay.” Because I want to go out with David, and lately, I’ve said plenty to him. There’s also a ton I haven’t said, and twice as much that I want to, if I possibly can.

  “Next Saturday?” he asks.

  “Next Saturday.”

  “Unless my folks need a babysitter.”

  Ah. There it is. The out. I nod.

  He smiles. “So, sit down.” He gestures vaguely toward the foot of his bed.

  Suddenly, I hate him. But I also . . . there’s plenty of room for me on the bed. And there is a chair at the foot of the bed. It’s sitting in front of his desk, which, I’m kind of surprised I hadn’t noticed, is extremely organized and neat. I continue to stand.

  He reaches across the bed to a low bookshelf beneath his window and grabs a white paper bag with orange stripes. Without even reading the black lettering on the bag, I know it’s from Listen Up! Normally, the contents of anyone’s Listen Up! bag would interest me, especially David Bennet’s. But instead I’m totally distracted.

  David’s shirt rose up as he reached for the bag, and now a line of skin shows just above the waist of his jeans. Staring at the smooth strip of golden skin, all I can think is, I want to touch it, touch him—

  Then I suck in a breath.

  There’s a scar near his hip—it’s red, new. The scar disappears under his jeans.

  Our eyes catch. He tugs his shirt down. And in that self-conscious moment, he transforms again, becomes the David Bennet who locked himself in his room for a month this summer, the David Bennet I checked on every day for nearly two weeks. The boy I played backgammon with, watched movies with. The sometimes shadow boy that I’m—that Laurel thinks I’m in love with.

  “David, what happened?”

  He simply ignores the question. “Are you going to sit? I want you to hear this band—”

  “Please. Tell me.” The words just come out. I don’t think. Just ask. Then wish I hadn’t.

  He sits up, folds his arms. “What time’s your dad coming to get you?”

  As if on cue, a car honks down in the driveway.

  “Now, I guess.” Does he hear the dismay in my voice, or just my words?

  Words tell everything. Words hide everything.

  And now unspoken words crowd the room. Why won’t you tell me what happened to you? Have you told anyone? And what am I really doing in your room?

  “Here,” he says, pushing the bag into my hands. “Take a listen. Tell me what you think.”

  Tell me what you think.

  Dad’s headlights hit the window. He’s turning around. Now the light runs along the wall.

  Light through the air, a line of light on the wall . . . and just like that, I get it: Words are three-dimensional. But we pretend they’re flat. Why? Why don’t we say what lies beneath our words? Why is everything such a secret?

  Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just verbally challenged. Expressively . . . crippled.

  The sound of the horn comes again.

  “See you around, Babysitter.” David’s eyes are amber jewels in the light of the bedside lamp.

  I’m already halfway down the stairs when he calls, “Good night!”

  Great. I didn’t even say good night. Two words. Two perfectly appropriate words.

  If I were normal, they would have come out without a thought.

  STONE

  CATE

  Inspired by the possibilities of last night, I finally decide Laurel’s idea is a good one. Go to the cemetery. See the headstone. Try to let go.

  I’m still upset that L doesn’t believe me—I’ve turned that night over and over in my mind, and I know what I saw. Cal was there. Although the ketamine . . . I can’t be sure what effect it’s having. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I feel high. Maybe I’m losing it.

  As far as the concert, I told Laurel that I choked, that was all. Same thing I told everyone. I don’t want anyone to know I was thinking about Cal. About his playing. About him—dying.

  I don’t want anyone to know that I was seeing Rod Whitaker’s sickening smile.

  And that I’m not sure how to live in a world where someone like Rod gets to live, while a boy like Cal . . .

  I take Dad’s Subaru, a step that’s clearly not on the path to reestablishing my sanity, since I still don’t have my license. But riding my bike in the dark through the icy rain doesn’t seem so smart, either, and, contrary to what my parents think, I do know how to drive. Sort of. Laurel taught me right after she got her license. We hadn’t left the Ridgeways’, but their driveway is as long as some of the streets around here. As for the test . . . I decide it’s a technicality at this point.

  My parents are both in the city tonight, and I can’t possibly get in an accident—I feel strangely invincible here. I’ve already been in the accident. Lightning doesn’t strike twice.

  But as I pull up to the stop sign at the foot of our street, the fact that one of the two roads I need to take is Chapel Hill momentarily paralyzes me. For a second, I even forget which cemetery I’m going to. Chapel has one at either end, something that, for the first time ever, strikes me as incred
ibly bizarre.

  Driving like a little old lady down Chapel, I reach Olive Slope, the right cemetery, only to find the gate’s closed. Of course it is. It’s night. My headlights shine on the curling wrought iron. Parking in general was something I hadn’t thought of. For a second, I forget how to back up.

  Finally, I manage it, then drive to a nearby dead end to park. After walking back to the cemetery, I climb over a low wall, and I’m in. It makes me wonder why there’s a gate at all.

  I wish Laurel was with me, but she’s got a makeup slash make-out session with Dee. She’d been so happy about it, so I’d tried to be happy, too. The same way I tried to convince myself that I hadn’t hung up on her a little while ago. I’d just . . . hung up.

  It takes me an hour to find the marker, and by the time I do, I’m soaked. It’s unseasonably cold, and now the rain is changing over. A few big wet flakes of snow cling to my purple wool coat. The hood is already drenched, so I flip it down.

  It’s hard to look directly at the stone, so instead I close my eyes and lay a hand on it. When I do, I have the strangest sensation that the coldness of the granite, of the night, is somehow entering me. I welcome it, wishing the chill would turn my heart to ice, so I can’t feel.

  Stealing the car, thinking about Laurel, contemplating the cemetery gate—all these things were just distractions. Now that I’m here, the reason I’ve come hits me like a fist.

  This is a graveyard. I’ve come to get it through my thick skull that Cal’s body is here, in the ground. This means, of course, that I couldn’t possibly have seen his reflection in my mirror.

  But he’d seemed so real, looked so alive—

  No. Cal is dead.

  I try to imagine Laurel telling me that in the matter-of-fact voice she’d used earlier on the phone. She’d softened her tone a little, for me, but she’d been firm: “Cal’s gone, Cate. He’s gone.” There’d been no room for questions. Still, I’d hung up on her.

  But she hadn’t believed me, because he wasn’t there. He’s here.

  Cal Woods—You Live in Our Hearts.