The Truth About You & Me

by Amanda Grace

  “Cows!” I said at the same time my dad answered, “Sports.”

  We looked at each other. “Okay, fine, cows,” he said, taking the narrow sheet of paper from her hand and giving it to me.

  I don’t even know why I chose the cow one, because it isn’t like I know anything about cows, but I probably know less about sports, and we were on a farm, so it seemed like the thing to do.

  My dad followed me across the wide gravel drive and down the little slope leading to the entrance to the maze. Just inside the six-foot corn stalks, a placard greeted us: “A cow gives how many gallons of milk a day? ” Dad read aloud.

  I looked at my paper. “A is four gallons, B is eight. Holy crap, there’s no way it’s eight,” I said, walking left for A.

  He followed me and we rounded the corner, and then the maze closed up around me. I stopped abruptly, and Dad knocked into my back before stepping away and giving me some space. He laughed, an easy, carefree laugh I don’t hear that often. “Eight gallons did seem like a lot,” he said.

  “Seriously. Poor cows,” I lead him back the way we’d come, now following the arrow for B. We stepped farther down the path, the air growing cooler in the shadows of the cornstalks.

  “Okay, next question,” I announced. “Name one of the stomachs of the cow. It’s either ‘reticulum’ or ‘burnum.’”

  “Isn’t a reticulum like a ladies’ purse or something?” my dad asked.

  “Uh, no. I think that’s a reticule? ‘Burnum’ doesn’t sound like a real word. Let’s go with ‘reticulum,’” I walked to the left once again, this time slower, in hopes I wouldn’t walk straight into a dead-end again. Instead, the path curved around to the left, then snaked to the right, and when I saw the next sign post, I grinned, triumphant.

  “Woohoo,” I said, feeling silly but not caring. It was strange to get out of the house with Dad. To get out of the pressure cooker and try to guess what the names of a cow’s stomach were. But I had to admit … it felt good.

  It reminded me of when I was younger, before I hit junior high, before everything was just another item for the college application, before the word “college” even entered my head. Before my parents started asking me where I wanted to go, who I wanted to be.

  Back when we used to go to the mall or the park or sledding, a day of outdoors. And yes, maybe Mom was rarely there, but Dad was. He let us just be kids back then, before the expectations kicked in.

  Before he started talking about how, in an instant, all of his plans fell through, how we’d have to be more meticulous, plan things better than he did.

  We were supposed to be a success story, like Mom. Never a failure, like Dad.

  I’d never thought he was a failure.

  “See, told you this would be fun. We totally gotta do things like this more often,” he said.

  “Yeah. I agree. Next time I’m studying cow trivia beforehand.” I was laughing.

  “You’re good at that,” he said.

  “Good at what?”

  “Studying. I wish I’d had your skills when I was your age. You’re going to go so far … ”

  That familiar vise tightened around my heart. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “One bad tackle and BAM, it was all over for me. Don’t make that mistake. What do you think you’ll go for? Engineering like Mom, or something else? Hell, you could be a doctor if you want, the way you absorb things like a sponge.”

  “I don’t know,” I found myself saying.

  “Yeah, we’ve got about a year to figure it out. Although I guess it would be good to do it sooner. If we study the prerequisites for your degree, we could select your college courses to meet those needs.”

  “Mhmm,” I said, feeling suddenly mute, like my insides had turned to mush and were just rattling around in there.

  “I’ll look it up this week, figure out some choices.”

  We finished the rest of the corn maze in silence, and when we emerged at the other end, I didn’t feel triumphant.

  There are a lot of days that stick out in our relationship, but there’s one in particular I know you must remember with a great deal of clarity, and now, looking back, with a measure of sad irony.

  We were at your house again, that place I’d been going with increased frequency. The house was so quiet, so secluded, and once I parked my car behind that dilapidated old barn, no one could even know I was there.

  We were watching a movie—Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—partly because I’d never seen it, but mostly because you’d proudly proclaimed it a product of the ’80s.

  “Not that, you know, I was old enough to see or appreciate it when it was released, but still,” you said, sliding the DVD into the player.

  “I’ll let it slide, since I did take credit for Nirvana and all.” I smiled as I slid the drapes closed, shutting out the glare splashing across the television.

  “That’s right. So we’re practically even.”

  “Except that I’ve never even heard of this movie, and everyone knows Nirvana,” I said.

  “Blasphemer!” you said as the DVD menu popped up. “Everyone knows Bueller.”

  “Okay, old man,” I joked.

  Your smile slipped the barest bit. “Hey. It’s only like what, six years?”

  My mouth went dry. Six years. You thought I was nineteen.

  It was the first time you’d asked me outright like that, and when confronted with the idea that I had to consciously, outright lie, I couldn’t form the words. Lying by omission was so much easier.

  A knock on the door behind me made me jump and I whirled to face it. You didn’t have a peep hole or windows in the door, so instinctively, I reached for the drapes, intending to peek out.

  You were beside me in an instant, grabbing my hand. “Hide,” you whispered.

  My eyes widened. “What?”

  You stepped up to the window and nudged the curtain open with just one finger, then turned to me, your face paling. “It’s my mom. Hide.”

  My jaw dropped, and for a second I wanted to say no, or why, but then it hit me all at once—who I was, who you were, where we were.

  And then I knew I had no other choice.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “In my room,” you said, gently grabbing my elbow and steering me toward it.

  I sat down on the bed, but it squeaked slightly. I shifted my weight and it squeaked again.

  “Shit. You’ll have to go in the closet.”

  Even as I knew that it made absolute sense, that it was a must, that it was the only way to protect you, I hated it.

  I nodded as you opened the closet door while another knock hammered at the front entry.

  “Just a second,” you hollered.

  I stepped into the small walk-in, plunked down on the floor, and leaned back against the folded blankets in the corner.

  “I’ll try to get her out of here as quickly as possible,” you said, your voice low. “Just … don’t make any noise, okay?”

  I nodded, and as the door clicked shut I couldn’t help but be happy there was a light in your closet, and then embarrassed I was sitting in a closet at all.

  I heard the door swing open and your voice. “Hey, Mom, what’s up?” Your voice was so bright, cheerful … and forced.

  I couldn’t quite make out her response, but she sounded quiet, down. And like she’d walked inside, because her voice grew louder. Her shoes—heels, I imagined—clicked across the floor, and then a chair screeched on the tile and I knew she was sitting at the kitchen table.

  I wondered what she looked like, this artist who made beauty with canvas and paint. I wondered if she was brunette like you, had a crooked tooth and warm blue eyes.

  A second chair screeched. You were sitting at the table with her, and where you now were, out of the great room and hall, your voices dimmed.

&nbs
p; I sighed and glanced at my watch, then crossed my arms and leaned farther into the blankets stacked on the floor behind me, wondering how long she planned to stay if you were both sitting down now.

  I would have to wait her out.

  I’m not sure when I fell asleep, only that I was startled awake when the door flung open.

  “I am so—” You paused, and the trace of a grin tugged at your lips. “Were you sleeping?”

  “Maybe,” I said, blinking, more than a little disoriented as I accepted your outstretched hand and you pulled me to my feet. “What took so long?”

  You grimaced. “I’m sorry about that. One of her friends in Auburn has been battling cancer and she needed someone to talk to. I couldn’t get rid of her without being a total asshole. She looked like she’d been crying.”

  “Oh.”

  You glanced back at the closet before flipping the light off. We walked to the couch and sat down at opposite ends. “It didn’t feel right,” you said.

  “What? Getting rid of your mom?”

  “No, shoving you into a closet.”

  I poked you with my toe, grinning. “I would hope not,” I said, “or we’re going to end up with a really strange relationship.”

  But your face remained stoic. “No, I’m serious. It was like I was freaking sixteen and living at home or something. I didn’t like it. The need to hide you.”

  My heart clenched. “It’s just until December,” I said.

  But even if that was technically true …

  I was sixteen. You’d only felt sixteen, but I was actually there. And I wondered, would you really be willing to introduce me to your mom once you weren’t my professor anymore … once you weren’t in a “position of power” like the law said?

  All this time I’d been looking forward to that day, the day we could be together and not have to hide. But even though the law couldn’t judge us, would it matter to you that everyone else still could?

  And I would have to tell you, because I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret. I’d have to come clean and just say it before we took the leap—before you went somewhere you might not want to go.

  But it wasn’t going to happen on that day.

  That day, I wanted you too much to tell you I was sixteen.

  I would tell you on December 13th.

  I had every intention of doing that, Bennett.

  But you know what they say about best-laid plans.

  Over the next few weeks, you and I spent a lot of time at your house, or down at the river, even as the air grew colder and the leaves blew in the autumn wind. I guess it wasn’t that different from hiding in your closet—it was our way of staying away from prying eyes, from questions, from people seeing things they shouldn’t see.

  We never discussed it, because acknowledging out loud that we were doing something against the rules, well, that would have made it too clear that being together was wrong. So we let it hang there in the background, always present but never in the forefront.

  One night, we were lying side by side in your backyard under two thick blankets, staring upward at the stars as the grassy lawn around us turned frosty and crunchy and our breaths came in puffs of white. Even Voldemort, with his thick coat, had lost interest in staying outdoors and retreated to his warm bed inside.

  November. We’d been creeping toward winter for weeks, and that night we weren’t quite snuggling—that would have taken it too far—but we were so close together that we were touching from shoulder to hip to ankle, and the warmth of your body spilled over to me.

  I should have left an hour ago. I knew my parents would be wondering where I’d gone but I couldn’t bring myself to say that aloud, and I’d left my phone in the house, on silent, so I had no idea if they’d started calling. We’d been talking for hours, and there was just no way to peel myself away from you.

  I blinked up at the stars, listening to the melodic tone of your voice, remembering how it had sounded on that first day of class, before we were this close, when I was nobody to you.

  “She was … beautiful.” Your tone was bitter and wistful all at once. You glanced over at me before training your eyes back on the stars. “Not beautiful like you are … ” you said, trailing your voice off. And somehow, I wasn’t insulted or hurt. Somehow, in just a few short weeks, I’d gained a measure of security with you, known you were putting everyone else on hold for me as you waited for the weeks to wind down. Besides, you were calling her beautiful like it was a fault. “She was like, a china doll, or the stars. Beautiful to see, but untouchable.”

  I pulled the blanket all the way up to my chin, to ward off the cold that steadily crept into our little eden.

  “She was the kind of girl who would walk into a room and people would stare. I knew I didn’t have a shot in hell with her, so I didn’t approach her like everyone else did. I played pool and ignored her. But then … she challenged me to a match. We played for six hours and never finished the first game because we couldn’t stop talking.”

  I didn’t know where you were going with your story, and it was getting harder to hear about her—this beautiful ex-girlfriend of yours.

  “What went wrong?” I finally asked, after realizing you’d stopped and the silence had fallen around us. I expected to hear crickets, frogs, birds … but we were too far into fall now, the promise of winter driving them all away.

  “We lived together for six months during our senior year of college. We made a lot of plans, about where we’d live, where we’d work. She was studying fashion, and we both knew that would be a hard field to get into outside of New York or LA, so I promised to move so we could be together. And then she got restless. Decided she didn’t want everything we’d been planning, and she left me.”

  “Sorry,” I said. Although I wasn’t, not really, because if you’d been with her you couldn’t have been with me. “How long ago was this?”

  “A little over a year.” You let out a long breath and a big puff of white appeared above us. “I got home and her closet was empty, and she’d left a note on the counter.” You chuckled under your breath, not a laugh with real humor, but bitterness. “Want to know what it said?”

  I sensed that you’d tell me either way, so I didn’t move, just stared up at the Big Dipper, my eyes following the contours of it.

  “Please cancel my cell phone.”

  “Huh?” I asked. Of all the things to say, that was most important? Not goodbye, or I’ll miss you, but cancel the phone?

  You chewed on you lip for a moment, lost in a memory, before you answered. “We had a joint plan. She didn’t want it anymore.”

  But … “That’s a weird goodbye.”

  “It meant more than just canceling a plan. It was her way of saying that I’d no longer have a way to contact her. She didn’t want me to.”

  “That’s cold.”

  “Yeah. I thought we’d be something forever. Took me a while to feel whole again.”

  I nodded, listening to the underlying tones in your voice, listening to the rumble of your chest as you spoke and breathed and lived, wondering how a girl could possibly walk away from a guy like you.

  “So, that’s my deal. I can be a little gun-shy at times. Sometimes it feels like I’m waiting for the rug to get yanked out from under me.” You pursed your lips and stared upward, and as the silence lingered, guilt overwhelmed me. You’d been hurt and there I was, right next to you, my big secret wedged in between us. “So, what about you? Have you ever been in love?” you asked, and in the darkness you found my hand, squeezed it.

  I forced away thoughts of the ways that I betrayed you every day, forced myself to believe in our love, in your ability to forgive me and choose me even after you found out how old I really was. The dark of the night and the blanket surrounded us, my hair splayed out on the pillow we shared, our heads tilted toward each other.
>
  So often, Bennett, you kept me at a literal arm’s length, careful not to touch me, to get too close. You were restrained. But that night, as you thought of old love, as we looked up at the blanket of stars, you let us lie so close, our palms touching.

  And all it did was make me want more, made me shove that secret deeper than ever.

  More, More, More. You made me hungry for you with each word, each touch.

  “No,” I said simply, even though I wanted to lie. Even though I wanted to say I’d had a thousand relationships, prove to you I was old enough, mature enough.

  But I didn’t think I could fake the details of love, build the kind of story you did, make you believe that there’d really been another guy, a perfect, beautiful guy who was too broken to stay with, who didn’t deserve me.

  “Yeah, kinda tough when you live at home,” you said.

  “It won’t be that much longer,” I said. Just two more years or so.

  “Nah, don’t feel like you need to make an excuse. College is expensive. I mean, I went away to a four-year school, so I lived in dorms until my senior year, but I still stayed with my parents every summer until I graduated.”

  Yeah, it’s expensive. Especially when EHS pays for everything.

  “And the first year after I moved out, I’m pretty sure I lived on ramen noodles, and I had three roommates,” you said, laughing. I remembered a photo of you at a bar and I pictured that life, you living with roommates and making your own way. “This place isn’t much, but it’s a huge upgrade. I’m hoping I can buy it someday. I like the setting. I could always add on to the house.”

  “It is a nice place,” I say. “And everyone has roommates at some point.”

  “Yeah, but it was three of us … in a two-bedroom apartment.”

  “Oh,” I said, laughing, my breath coming out in puffs of white.

  “I mean, we had big bedrooms, but sharing a room when you’re that age?”

  “Sucks,” I said.

  “Yeah. Basically sums it up. Life goes on, though, you know? It has a way of getting better with age.”

  I grinned into the darkness. It was funny how fast the time slipped by when I was with you, hidden under the stars, in a valley where the river wound around and around, where farms dotted the landscape, the monotony broken only by enormous mansions and the occasional, cozy little house. I could build an entire life for myself in that valley.