by Tracey Ward
“But you’re not going to, are you?” Dad asks seriously.
I smile, feeling suddenly soft inside. “No. Never.”
“Never say never, honey. Especially not at seventeen.”
“Why? Do you want us to break up?”
“No. I like Kyle. If you’re happy, I’m happy. I’m just saying life is long and you’ve got a lot of it left ahead of you. Forever and never are big words for a kid your age. Use them sparingly.”
My eyes find the crack in the table. I feel like I’m falling into it as I whisper, “I love him.”
Dad is quiet for a long time. It feels like forever. Nate types away on his phone, oblivious to what we’re talking about. He gets a message—a birdcall of some kind chimes on his phone loudly in the quiet room. He chuckles to himself like an idiot.
Finally, Dad sighs. “Yeah, I thought you might.”
“You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad, Grace,” he promises gently.
“You’re disappointed, and that’s worse.”
“I’m not disappointed. Look, I think it’s great. I just think it’s too fast. You haven’t even been dating Kyle for as long as you dated Mark and things are moving much quicker.”
“It’s because Kyle is way better than Mark,” I chuckle, still unable to meet his eyes.
It’s a big confession, what I’ve told him. It’s something most girls talk to their moms about but my mom and I have never been that close. She’s tight with Ashley. They have a bond that’s unbreakable. Uncrackable. You can’t even see inside it, it’s so solidly formed. They live in another world together that Dad and I aren’t always allowed inside of, so we’ve created our own world. He’s my rock. He’s my confessional and my hero, and I’m petrified of disappointing him. I always have been.
“I agree,” Dad relents evenly. “Mark sucked.”
“So much.”
“He always smelled weird. What was that? It’s not pot. I know what pot smells like.”
“Because you smoked it in high school, I know,” I drone, smiling up at him. Finally looking at him. “You were very cool when you were my age. A real rebel.”
“He was a legend,” Nate confirms, toasting my dad.
Dad beams. “I stole a car once.”
“It was Aunt Louise’s and you had it back in her driveway the next morning with a full tank of gas,” I remind him. “Not super edgy, Dad.”
“Edgier than anything you’ve ever done.”
“Probably.”
“Try me. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? I bet I can top it.”
I laugh at him hard. “Nice try! There’s no way I’m falling for that.”
He grins. “I thought I had you.”
“I’m not as dumb as I look.”
“I guess not. It’s my fault. You got my brains.”
Nate toasts me this time. “And your mom’s looks.”
“Thanks for nothing,” I tell Dad, ignoring Nate. “Your brains are terrible at math.”
“Yeah, I know. Why do you think I was an athlete? No way I was going to college on my SAT scores.”
I groan, slouching sadly. “Don’t bring up college. Mom will get out the applications again.”
“It’s good practice,” he reminds me lightly. He’s not committing to it. It’s an obligatory statement that he has to make in solidarity with Mom, but he doesn’t mean it.
Mom has me filling out college applications as prep for the real thing next year. She made me take the PSATs, at which I bombed, but she says ‘it’s good practice’. Everything I do lately is like a practice run to her. High school is practice for college. Dating Kyle is practice for when I’m an adult. She doesn’t like me saying ‘forever’ and ‘never’ any more than Dad does. Not unless I’m talking about watching over Ashley when they’re gone.
She’ll need you forever, Grace.
You can never abandon her.
She’ll never have the opportunities that you will. You have to help her. Promise me.
Of course I’ll always take care of Ashley. She’s my sister and I love her, but where’s that level of concern for me and my life? I swear, it feels like they only look out for my future to make sure I’m stable enough to take care of Ashley. She is always everyone’s first worry in this house. What are we having for dinner? Will Ashley eat it? She’s picky. What movie are we going to go see? Will Ashley like it? She’ll get restless in the theater and we’ll leave halfway through if she doesn’t. What song are we listening to on the radio? Does Ashley like it? If she doesn’t we’ll have to change it. Some songs upset her.
What my parents don’t understand is that being with Kyle is finally being me. We listen to the songs we both like. We see movies we’re both into. We eat the food we’re both happy with. It’s not him or me. It’s us and it’s balanced. It’s like someone cares how I feel about things for the first time ever and it’s amazing. I want to live like this forever.
chapter fourteen
June 7th marks the end of our Junior year. After that, we’re Seniors. Kings of the mountain, until next year when we’re nothing again. But for now, gods. A small group of us celebrates by ditching the last half of the day to drive out to the lake. We’re going to spend the night at the campground by the boat ramp. The one where we had the bonfire back in November and got six outsiders arrested.
It’s finally warming up enough to be outside without a jacket on. The lake is still cold as ice, but the ground is clear of snow. The grass is green. Flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing, and the birds have started singing to the sun, thanking it for giving us these precious few degrees of warmth that make life bearable again. I feel like singing right along with them.
It’s in the mid-seventies as we drive the winding mountain roads. Kyle has the windows down and the music loud. His truck took over a month to repair, but it’s back and good as new. He’s wearing these ugly reflective sunglasses that literally every guy on the team has. They bought them together when they won State, as if their trophies weren’t enough.
In addition to the sunglasses and trophy, Kyle brought home a stack of cards from college scouts. They were watching him as a Sophomore in Florida, but they’re practically stalking him now that he’s a Junior. This time next year, he’ll have made his commitment to one of them. He’ll leave Utah far behind.
I try very hard not to think too much about that day.
When we get to the campsite, it’s perfect. The sky is blue, the water is lapping gently against the shore. We get to work unpacking the back of Kyle’s truck so we can set up our tents before it gets too late. And before anybody digs too deeply into the beers Marcy scored from her older brother.
“First big test of a relationship,” Scott says laughingly as he hands Makena a faded blue bag. “Can we put up a tent together without killing each other?”
She beams at him. “Only one way to find out.”
“You know how you get around that?” Marcy asks. She’s sitting on top of the picnic table, her feet on the seat and her phone in her hands.
Makena smiles at her knowingly. “You don’t help set it up at all?”
“Exactly.”
“I think I’d rather have the help and go through the fight,” Rogan, Marcy’s latest boyfriend, tells her. His case is made stronger by his arms laden with sleeping bags.
Marcy tsks at him. “You think that, babe, but you’re wrong. We’re better off this way.”
“I think you’re better off this way.”
“Like I said.”
Kyle hands me our tent. He doesn’t let go right away, pulling me up onto my toes where he can lean down and kiss me quickly. “I’m not worried about us.”
I shake my head, smiling up at him. “Me either. We never fight.”
“Famous last words!” Marcy predicts.
The strangest thing about dating Kyle—putting aside the fact that it’s insane that I’m even dating Kyle Rixton, Roosevelt High basketball legend and god among men—is that
it’s somehow made me friends with Marcy. I shouldn’t be. Makena definitely shouldn’t be. Marcy made out with Makena’s boyfriend and made some seriously aggressive plays for Kyle when we first started dating, but I’m weirdly grateful to her for that. It showed me how much Kyle cares about me because no matter how hard Marcy came at him, he never blinked. He never hesitated to choose me. It gives me a confidence in our relationship that I doubt I’d have if Marcy hadn’t done what she did.
And as far as her and Makena, they had a talk about Evan at Rogan’s birthday party just after he and Marcy started dating. Marcy said she was sorry. She was drunk when it happened. She did a bad thing. In the end, they both agreed that the real piece of crap in that whole situation was Evan. He was the one with the girlfriend. He should have been a better man, but he saw a chance to get some strange and he jumped at it.
Marcy keeps her promise—she doesn’t help Rogan set up their tent at all. She shouts support to him every now and then when he starts to look frustrated. I expect him to shout back at her, telling her to get her lazy butt off the table and help, but he never does. It’s what I would have done.
“You’re doing great, babe!” she roots for him from her perch.
Kyle scowls in Rogan’s direction. He mutters to me, “How is he farther along with his tent doing it alone?”
“Because we have no friggin’ idea what we’re doing,” I snap, my hands full of lightweight poles that keep unsnapping and hanging limp by the bungee inside. “How many of these are there?”
“Eight, I think.”
“You think or you know?”
“I said think, so that’s what I meant.”
“Well, that doesn’t help me.” I snatch up the instructions from the ground, shaking off the dirt that’s collected on the paper.
Kyle stands up straight. “Maybe we’d be doing better if I didn’t help at all.”
“Probably.”
He chuckles darkly. “Whatever.”
“Don’t say ‘whatever’. It’s rude.”
“It’s not rude. It’s what you say when you don’t want to fight anymore.”
“No. It’s what you say when what you really want to say is ‘fuck you’.”
Kyle laughs hard in surprise. “Whoa.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ve just never heard you say that before.”
I drop my hands impatiently. “You say it all the time!”
“Hey, I’m not judging! I liked it. It was cute.”
“It wasn’t cute. It was tough.”
He grins affectionately. “Yes, Grace. You’re very tough.”
“Thank you. Now stop mocking me and help me figure out where these damn poles go.”
“You’re like a sailor tonight. It’s awesome.”
“Shut up!”
When the tents are set up, Makena and Scott are the only ones who didn’t argue. It’s impressive. They’re in the honeymoon stage, though. They just started dating. They try really hard not to make each other mad. No one has an annoying habit yet, like cracking their knuckles. I absolutely hate it when Kyle cracks his knuckles. It makes my skin crawl. He hates it when I hum to myself when I’m thinking. It’s never a song or a tune that I’ll repeat again later. He says it’s just random songs that I make up as I go along. Pieces of them get stuck in his head. It makes him nuts.
That’s the worst of us, though. Joint popping and humming. Otherwise, we agree on just about everything. We both want out of Jackson. We want to see the world. We love nature, hiking, and camping, and we hate seeing movies in the theater. It’s all recycled air, people’s farts, and the cloying scent of artificial butter. We like to wait for movies to come out on video and watch them curled up together on his parents’ couch. Once we tried to watch one in his bedroom, but his mom busted in and broke it up immediately.
The proximity of my reproductive organs to Kyle’s are of great concern to Mrs. Rixton.
Mrs. Rixton didn’t want Kyle to go on this trip at all. They’re spending the summer in Florida and the original plan was that they would leave a few days before the school year ended. Something about flights being cheaper, but the truth is she wants him away from me as soon as possible. Kyle fought her for two days straight before she caved and agreed to schedule a flight out in a few weeks instead. She gave us this one taste of summer and it’s already ending.
I feel him slipping away even as he wraps his arms around me at the edge of the lake.
***
“Who knows a ghost story?” Marcy asks the group before taking a sip off her second beer.
Me and Makena are the only ones not drinking them, which feels lame, but I’m not choking that bitter mess down just to fit in. I’m surprised Kyle took one. He’s usually so careful about what he puts in his body. He sticks to a very strict diet. Never smokes. No drugs. We’ve been to a few parties but this is the first time I’ve ever seen him drink.
The group is settled around a fire that the guys built. They tried to do it from scratch with just wood they found in the forest, but the world is still too wet for that. Every stick they found was so soggy, it wouldn’t even smoke under the blaze of Rogan’s butane lighter. Finally, reluctantly, they busted out the bought firewood so we could stay warm as the temperature sinks with the sun.
“You want to tell ghost stories?” Makena asks in amazement.
Marcy shrugs, wrapping her pink North Face around her body tighter. “We’re sitting around a campfire. What else are we going to do?”
Scott jumps up, immediately taking the stage. “I’ve got one!”
“Let’s hear it,” Kyle encourages him. He’s sitting in a folding chair next to me. We’re so close our armrests have merged into one where our hands are held loosely together.
“Alright, this isn’t really a ghost story—”
“Boo!” Marcy jeers.
Scott ignores her. “But it’s creepy as hell and it’s all true.”
“People always say that about ghost stories,” I point out.
“Not a ghost story, remember?”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Let him tell it,” Makena scolds laughingly. She casts me a look that pleads with me to be nice, as though I’m acting awful. She’s protective of Scott. Like he’s an outsider to the group when really it’s me and her who are the outsiders. Scott, Marcy, and Rogan have always hung out together. Ever since middle school. It wasn’t until Kyle came to town that we got pulled into their orbit.
Scott clears his throat quietly. He’s taking this seriously. The sun is setting over the water, casting long shadows behind him, painting his face with an eerie, orange glow. “I heard it from my cousin who lives in a tiny town on the Oregon Coast. It’s a legend, like the killer with a hook hand and the babysitter getting a call from inside the house. And that’s what it starts with. A house.”
I smile up at him. “Nice segue.”
“Thank you. So, this house came from up around Portland. It was this huge, old place on a hill out in the country on the outskirts of town. It was hidden back in the woods and no one was taking care of it. It was falling apart. So this woman goes out there to check out a sale they’re doing. They’re basically taking the thing apart and selling it for parts, like a stolen car in a chop shop. The woman gets really emotional when she sees it. She’s instantly obsessed with the thing, so she tells her husband about it. And they’re rich. Like, crazy rich. They just bought a piece of property in this sleepy little coastal town, and instead of building a house there like they planned, she wants to move this house there. It’s insane and nearly impossible, but they do it. They move this two-story mansion to the new town, move in with their two little kids, and everything is great. For a while.”
“Here we go,” Rogan mutters excitedly. He’s smiling in the firelight, his elbows on his knees as he listens to Scott’s story.
Marcy casts him an amused look. The kind Scott gives his dog when she’s eating the end of her own tail.
“They
have trouble with the house from the start. Windows break constantly. They can’t keep it heated. The floorboards creak in the middle of the night. Contractors tell them it’s the house settling on its new foundation. No big deal. They ignore it. They spend a small fortune on windows and roll with the cost of owning this old as hell house. The wife is still totally hooked on it and its history. She researches it day and night but no one can tell her anything about who built it or what happened to them. Anyway, years pass and everything is great. Then, one night, the daughter has her friend over to spend the night. They’re six or something. I don’t remember how old. But they decide to play Bloody Mary in the mirror in one of the bathrooms.”
I shiver violently. “I hate that game.”
Makena smiles at me through the smoke over the fire. “You never let me play it.”
“You can play it. I just won’t play it with you.”
“It’s no fun that way.”
“It’s no fun any way you play it. It’s freaky.”
“Especially for these two little girls,” Scott interrupts ominously.
“Seriously, Scott. Your segue game is on point.”
He grins before continuing. “So these girls were playing the game when suddenly something went horribly wrong. There’s a blood curdling scream. The parents rush to the room, break down the locked door, and find darkness inside. When they turn on the light, the white room is covered in blood.”
“Jesus,” Makena whispers.
“And only one of the girls is there.”
“Which one?”
“The friend. The rich couple’s daughter, Britain, is missing.”
“Was it her blood?” I ask curiously. “Or was the friend bleeding too?”
“Not a scratch on the friend. They did tests. It was all Britain’s blood.”
“Were there finger prints?”
“Calm down, CSI,” Marcy laughs at me. “Let him tell the story.”
I smile, settling back in my seat. “Sorry, Scott.”
“She’s addicted to crime shows,” Makena explains, like she’s apologizing for me.