Our Song

by Fraiberg, Jordanna

  “Hey,” he finally said, his voice just above a whisper. “Are you still cold?”

  He rubbed his hand up and down my arm, which only made my skin erupt more, but this time it wasn’t because of the temperature.

  “No,” I said, my voice cracking after having been silent for so long.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked, his face inching closer.

  My heart started to pound wildly in my chest. With the moonlight pouring in through the windows, the shadows from the swaying trees dancing across the rug, it almost felt like we were waking into the same dream. Because how could happiness like this possibly be real?

  I heard a gentle tap. Was that the sound of his heart? But then I heard it again, followed by Aunt Bea’s distinctive, high-pitched voice. “Nick?”

  She slowly opened the door and turned on the lights. Nick and I both squinted, our eyes unaccustomed to the brightness.

  “Sorry to bother you, dear,” she said gently, standing by the door, like she genuinely didn’t want to disturb us. “But Sam’s here.” Nick instantly pulled his arm back so that we were no longer touching. Was it the Sam from the letters on the stairs? “She’s downstairs and would like to see you.”

  My heart sank. Sam was a she. Without a word or even a look in my direction, Nick got up and followed Aunt Bea out the door. Just like that, he was gone. The dream was over. My goose bumps disappeared, but still I felt cold all over.

  I waited until I could no longer hear footsteps then ran to the door, where I spotted the tops of their heads disappearing down the stairs. Confident that my bare feet wouldn’t make any noise, I tiptoed halfway down the hall and stopped at the head of the staircase. I still couldn’t see anything so I crept down further until I reached the landing. I crouched and peered through the banister slats, affording me a mostly unobstructed view of the foyer below where Nick and Aunt Bea were just arriving.

  And then, out from behind a column that had hidden her from sight, came Samantha. She was tall, with locks of thick, luscious red hair that cascaded down the back of her form-fitting green wrap dress. She carried herself like she was older, definitely not a teen, her body curved in a shape similar to her long, wavy hair. It was as if she had materialized out of thin air. I was too far away to make out what they were saying, but when she leaned in to hug Nick, there was no translation necessary.

  My eyes burned from the ocean of tears threatening to pour out, but I bit down on the inside of my cheek to try to stop them. The signs had been there all along, the clues that Nick’s heart really belonged to someone else, that he also had a Derek. The only difference now was that I knew her name. And that she was beautiful.

  When I got up to leave, my knee knocked into the banister. Samantha glanced up and I quickly retreated back into a shadow just as Nick was turning around. Had they seen me? I darted up the stairs and back to the library before I could find out. I went over to the grate to check my dress. It was still slightly damp, but I put it on anyway. After what I’d just witnessed, I suddenly felt all wrong wearing Nick’s clothes.

  I began pacing the room as I felt panic rising. I tried to breathe, to count to ten, but that only made it worse, because it made me think about Nick. I had to get out of here. I thought about calling Annie, but I didn’t know what I would tell her. I didn’t even know the address. I had no choice but to wait for Nick to return.

  I only had to wait a few moments longer.

  “It’s late,” Nick said, appearing by the door, his shoulders slumped, a dark expression across his face. “I should take you home now.”

  There was no sign of Samantha on our way out. I took some comfort knowing that her visit had been brief. Not much could have happened beyond that hug. But my relief was short-lived when I noticed a car in the driveway, a pearl-white BMW convertible with a studded pink border around its license plate. It wasn’t there when we arrived and it definitely wasn’t the kind of car a distinguished woman like Aunt Bea would drive. My stomach sank as my mind scrambled to find a way around the fact that the car belonged to Samantha. Which only meant one thing: that she was still there.

  CHAPTER 24

  WHEN I GOT to the darkroom, I locked the door behind me. Nobody used it aside from Annie. Even the janitor didn’t have a key. But still, it felt safer in here with the door sealed, like I was shielded from the rest of the world. It was the last period of the day and I had independent study. I should have been free to go except for the fact that I had detention after school.

  My mom had been waiting up for me when I got back from Nick’s a few nights before. I saw her peering out from behind the curtains when he dropped me off. She was all in a tizzy over the call from Principal Kingston about playing hooky, never mind the fact that I had been unreachable for the last eight hours. She gave me a lecture on how we have to take responsibility for our actions, and that actions have consequences. That was why she grounded me in addition to the week of detention I was given at school. It felt like she was reading straight from a parenting handbook, under the section entitled “How to Handle Your Truant Child.” She seemed almost relieved that there was a standard operating procedure for situations like this. But these consequences didn’t matter. Nothing mattered compared to the possibility that I might never see Nick again, that it was over before it ever really had a chance to begin.

  I clutched the finished roll of film in my hand and stood in the middle of the room. Various proofs and contact sheets, contenders for the yearbook, were tacked up all over. All the people I had known for years—classmates, playmates, and neighbors—surrounded me. If what was on these walls was my past, then I was hoping that this roll held some clue to my future. Or at least to Nick. Only now that I was here, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know what was hidden inside this plastic container. I wasn’t so sure if it was better left imagined, permitted to exist only in my head. Like the song, or what would have happened last night if Samantha had never interrupted. But then I was haunted by another, scarier thought: what if this was all I had left?

  I rolled up my sleeves and got started.

  Even though Annie could do all this blindfolded, she still kept a set of detailed step-by-step instructions tacked to the wall. Following the directions, I pulled out the metal canisters, chemicals, beakers, and timer, all the tools I would need at my fingertips. I got the paper ready and reviewed the steps one more time before switching over to the red light.

  Once it was safe, I pried the lid off the film container. It made a popping sound, like a cork coming off a bottle of champagne. I gently began to unravel the roll before loading it onto the reel. The metal spool felt icy between my fingers, the film slick. When I was done I dropped the reel into the light-tight can, poured in the contents of the first beaker, sealed it with the rubber top, gave it a shake, and hit the button on the timer. Once it buzzed a few minutes later, I got to work draining out the chemical, pouring the next one in, and resetting the timer. I repeated the process one last time for the final tray, and pretty soon I had successfully developed the negatives.

  The next thing I was supposed to do was create a contact sheet so that I could pick the best ones to print. But I already knew which one I wanted to see most, the first picture on the roll. Slipping the negative into the enlarger, I set the size of the print. My hands trembled as I dipped the eight-by-ten sheet into the first tray. Within seconds, shades of blue, purple, and silver emerged, pooling over the milky paper. As I continued the process, each tray brought more clarity to the image. Two abstract blotches gradually transformed into Nick’s eyes, another into the vague outline of a tree. I was finally beginning to understand why Annie liked doing this so much, developing her photos instead of going digital. There was something magical about the process, about uncovering the mysteries trapped beneath the white surface as they began to take shape.

  Just as I was dipping the paper into the final tray, the door suddenly opened. A blast of light from the hallway filled the room.

  “Quick, shut the door
!” I said as Annie came stumbling in, laden with bags.

  “Oh-my-god-you-gave-me-a-heart-attack-I-had-no-idea-you-were-even-in-here-wait-are-you-printing-something?” she said all in one breath, closing the door behind her.

  When I looked back down at the photo, the image was all of a sudden inverted. It was dark where it should have been light, and vice versa, like an X-ray. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me as they readjusted to the red light, until Annie came up behind me and saw it too.

  “Oh shit. I’m so sorry, Ol,” she said, peering into the tray over my shoulder. “The light from the door solarized the print. I ruined it.”

  But when I looked back at the photo and watched the rest of the image emerge—Nick lying under the burnt tree in the middle of the desert—I couldn’t help but think the opposite. That the effect made it seem as if he were illuminated from within, like his heart was glowing. It reminded me of the way I felt when I took the picture: electric. “You didn’t,” I said, using the metal tongs to transfer the dripping wet paper to the clothesline to dry. “I like it better this way.”

  “How do you even know how to use all this?” she asked, waving at the chemicals and equipment spread out across the counter.

  “I found the camera in the cabinet a few weeks ago and just kind of started,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind that I took it.”

  “Mind? I’m blown away.”

  She came to the clothesline and took a closer look at the print. “You’re a natural, solarized or not.”

  I stood and examined the photo with her. There was something about Nick’s expression that still came through with the image inverted, maybe more so because of it. Even with his eyes closed, it looked like he was somewhere else, halfway between the dream world and the real one, uncertain which to cling to, if there was even a choice. My heart ached when I realized the fleeting thing I’d uncovered in this frozen moment: his vulnerability.

  The song started over from the beginning. This time, the deep, smoky voice came at me with such force it felt like I was standing in a wind tunnel. There was an even deeper sense of longing and sadness in it than I’d heard before. It pierced right through me.

  “Ol?” Annie reached over and stroked the back of my hair. “What’s wrong? Why do you seem so sad?”

  I closed my eyes as she continued smoothing out my hair, grateful that she was still here for me even after I’d been so flaky. “I’m scared this picture might be all I have left of him.”

  “But everything’s been going so well,” she said, confused. “What changed?”

  I told her about ditching school the other day and about my night at Nick’s house. I described the maze and the wild, overgrown grounds. Then running into Aunt Bea on the stairs and falling asleep, like really asleep, for the first time in weeks. And then I told her about Samantha.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” she said, when I was through.

  “I was too embarrassed.”

  “Derek really did a number on you.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with Derek.” A flare of anger swelled in me, the kind that was usually only triggered by my mother.

  “That’s because you still can’t see it. That there’s more than just one way to interpret things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said Samantha hugged Nick. Did he hug her back?”

  I’d been so focused on Samantha, so distracted by her beauty and her body language, that I hadn’t paid attention to Nick. But now that I thought about it, I could see him in my mind’s eye: through the slats of the banister, with his arms slack by his side, his shoulders already slumped the way they’d been when he returned to the library. “No,” I said, my voice lifting. “I guess he didn’t.”

  “Exactly,” Annie said, slapping her thigh for emphasis. “And you said he was in a bad mood after he saw her, right?” It wasn’t exactly how I had put it, but I nodded anyway. She was on a roll and was starting to sound convincing. “If he actually had feelings for her, he’d barely be able to contain his excitement.”

  I thought about Derek parading down the halls with Betsy, a big smile plastered across his face, and how Nick didn’t act anything like that. I’d never thought I had a choice over the way I felt, or that looking at things from another angle could tell a different story. “Okay, maybe you have a point.”

  “All I’m trying to say is that it’s okay to trust someone again.”

  That was the thing. I thought I did trust Nick. Or was starting to. Now I didn’t know what to think anymore. I still hadn’t told Annie about the other side of Nick. The side that housed his pain. I couldn’t go there without brushing up against my own. “But she was still there when I left,” I reminded Annie.

  “Look, who knows? Maybe Samantha is his ex and she’s the one who’s not over him. She was probably threatened when she saw you and gave him a hard time. But it’s so clear he really cares about you, Ol. Don’t let insecurity get in the way. It doesn’t lead to a good place.”

  I was all too aware of the places it led, of the things that it could make me do. The problem was, how could I be sure when it was safe? I pulled my phone out of my bag just to make sure I hadn’t missed any calls or texts in the last forty-five minutes. It was the longest I’d gone all day without checking. “I haven’t heard from him in three days,” I said, as the rest of my doubts started to creep back in.

  “Then contact him. Who says you have to be a passive participant in your own life? Be bold, Olive Bell. Make your own choices.”

  I thought about all the times I’d waited by the phone for Derek to call, all those hours I’d wasted worrying when everything always turned out okay. Or almost always, up until the end. But then I also remembered what I’d told Nick, that I believed we were given a second chance for a reason. “Okay,” I finally agreed.

  And then just like that, my phone started chirping on the counter. “Oh my god. It’s him.”

  “You gave him his own ring tone?”

  I nodded, still blown away by his timing. It felt like a reward from the universe for getting better at taking control. “Wow,” Annie teased. “This is even more serious than I realized.”

  I let out a nervous laugh and handed her the phone. “I can’t look.” Annie read the message with a puzzled look on her face, while my insides felt like they were turning inside out. “What’s it say?”

  “H-I-G-Q-T. I have no idea what that means.”

  “How’s it going, cutie,” I explained, a smile spreading across my face. That’s when Annie started typing. “Wait, what are you doing?”

  “Responding.”

  I looked over her shoulder just as the sent chime sounded. She had written SETE, aka, smiling ear to ear. “Annie!” I exclaimed, uncertain whether to be excited or mortified by what she’d done.

  My phone chirped again. You around 2night?

  Yes. Annie wrote back before I could stop her.

  Your turn to pick.

  “See?” Annie said, showing me his response. “You have nothing to worry about. So, what should I say now?”

  I glanced back at the print hanging from the clothesline and that’s when the idea crystallized, when I realized where I wanted to take him. “Give me that,” I said, reaching for my phone.

  CHAPTER 25

  WHEN I GOT out of detention, I went back to the darkroom to finish developing the rest of the roll. Now that I was done, the halls were quiet, with no trace of the voices and footsteps that had filled them an hour earlier. I ran down the corridor, the sound of my squeaky sneakers reverberating off the metal lockers.

  “Hello, HELLO!” I called out, half-expecting to hear the words echo back at me. “I’m here!” I yelled, louder this time, Annie’s command to be bold running through my mind. “OLIVE BELL!!!”

  As I ran up the back stairs, something dislodged inside me. It felt like my whole body—my soul—was suddenly breathing in sync, inhaling and exhaling through every pore. It didn’t ev
en bother me when I ran past the Pioneer, or make me wonder what Derek was doing. All I could think about was Nick. That he was still in my life. And that I would see him in a matter of hours.

  I ran the whole way home. On foot I was able to see things I normally missed driving by at forty miles an hour. Like how the roses and tulips were wilted from the day’s sun. The automatic sprinklers would undoubtedly go off before they flopped over completely. Every lawn was perfectly mowed and such a vibrant green, each one could pass for a hole on the golf course. Nothing grew wild or free. There wasn’t a weed, brown patch, or dried leaf in sight.

  It wasn’t until I got to the middle of our block and saw both my parents’ cars in the driveway that I realized something was wrong. When I got to the front door I looked up at the sky. The almost full moon had risen early and was now just cresting over our roof. It was so bright I could see the craters across its surface. It seemed close enough for me to grab on, for it to whisk me away, high above my house, my street, the neighborhood, even the whole world.

  But instead I put my key in the lock, turned it twice to the right until it clicked, and went inside.

  As soon as I walked in, I noticed something perched on the credenza in the entry hall, where we kept our mail: a white envelope with the Georgetown logo printed in its corner. I had forgotten all about the fact that I would soon learn if I got in. It was too late to snatch it and hide it in my bag. It had clearly been placed there for my benefit.

  I was just about to escape to my room when my mother came hustling in through the kitchen, her gardening apron rattling as she approached. She was always so harried, like the world lay on her shoulders, like it just might fall apart if she weren’t there to prop it up.

  “We need to talk,” she said, picking up the letter. “We’re in the kitchen.”