Opposite of Always

by Justin A. Reynolds

  I finally get a good look at his eyes, and it makes immediate sense why he doesn’t want to look at me. Bloodshot would be putting it nicely. “Damn, Franny, have you been drinking?”

  “‘Gee golly, Fran, have you been drinking?’” he parrots.

  “Really, Franny? That’s how you wanna play this? You’ve worked so hard. If a teacher sees . . .”

  His eyes darken, his brow tightens. “What are you, my guidance counselor now? Next you gonna lecture me about how I’m throwing away my opportunities? Get the hell outta here, man.”

  He sidesteps me, but I grab him again, this time more forcefully. “Franny, we’ve been friends since . . . I can’t even remember not being friends. If something’s happened, or . . . you can tell me anything. The fact that I even have to—”

  But he interrupts me. “Just stop,” he yells, his voice sharp, hard. A couple of kids in the hallway halt whatever it is they’re doing to look over. But Franny gives them the eye and they keep it trucking. He turns back to me, his voice still edgy, but lower now. “What do you want from me, Jack?”

  I want you to tell me that your dad is getting out of prison. “How about the truth?”

  “And just when I think you can’t possibly be any cornier,” he says. He bites his lip, gives me a forced grin. His red eyes are moist. His pupils bottle up the overhead halogen, giving them a dirty-white shine. “You’re going to be late.”

  “What’s wrong, Franny?”

  The late bell rings.

  “See?” I point skyward. “Too late. Now you gotta talk to me. I was tardy for you. You know how I detest tardiness.”

  “Something’s seriously wrong with you.” Franny nearly laughs, but catches himself. “They’re letting The Coupon out early for good behavior, kid. The irony, right? Only time anyone’s ever put him and good in the same sentence.”

  The news of The Coupon’s release, although not new information, makes me contemplate The Big Picture.

  Namely, I’d assumed that I was back here to help keep Kate from dying.

  But maybe I’m back for Franny, too.

  Maybe I can be here for everyone.

  Dear Jack,

  Now that you mention it, yesterday afternoon I did hear a moose crying. And I kept thinking, I wish someone would cheer the poor thing up, but it just kept right on playing, ahem, crying. Soooooo—when were you going to tell me that you’re in a band? And how would you feel about playing for an audience of one? (The one would be me, if that wasn’t clear enough. )

  With regard to Jillian and Franny, I think the fact that you have friends who are willing to protect you from everything means you have the best kind of friends. Usually you have a friend who’s good at this and another friend that specializes in that, but to have friends who do everything is super rare. Of course, I’m sure you already know that.

  One thing no one else knows, huh?

  When I was a kid, I ate spiders. Not because I thought they were fascinating*, or particularly tasty**, but because I wanted to spin silk from my stomach and create beautiful webs of my own.

  But as it turns out, the only thing I got was nausea.

  I can hear you laughing your ass off.

  Okay, so I’m pretty sure that’s not at all what you had in mind, but it’s 100 percent true and you’re the only one I’ve ever told, clearly for good reason. So, your turn, Jack. Tell me something.

  Eagerly anticipating something juicy or at least thoroughly embarrassing so that I’m not so alone in my arachnid-eating humiliation,

  Kate

  *although I did

  **they weren’t

  * * *

  Dear Silk-Slinging Kate,

  I’m actually from the future. Well, if you can call four months the future. I mean technically it is the future, and honestly you’d be surprised how much can change in only four months—literally the entire world. So I guess I shouldn’t sound unappreciative, because it’s quite the opposite. It means everything to be back here. Everything.

  So there you have it, something I’ve never told anyone. I trust you’ll keep it in strictest confidence.

  [Do you wish to delete this email or save it for later?]

  Save.

  [Your email has been saved.]

  Compose new message.

  Dear Silk-Slinging Kate,

  Only I don’t get a chance to write another email because Dad calls me down for dinner, and then Franny shows up to eat with us, and I spend the rest of the evening figuring out how to bring up The Coupon’s parole to my parents, but in a way that Franny won’t want to reach across the table and stab me.

  But I can’t think of a good way, so instead I spend my time warding off Franny’s forked attempts to poach Mom’s homemade ravioli from my plate.

  I only pretend to put up a fight.

  “So, Fran, about this whole Coupon homecoming thing,” I say.

  My parents have retreated for bed, and we’re in the basement, the two of us illuminated by the glow of Metal Brigade IV, analog sticks rumbling beneath our thumbs as we narrowly avoid enemy cannon fire.

  “What about it?” Franny asks. He activates his super power-up just in time to light up the opposing squad’s best player.

  I shrug. “I just think you should be prepared . . . like, you know his track record isn’t exactly impeccable. I just want you to be okay if . . . you know . . . he’s not . . . if he doesn’t . . .”

  “Do we need to talk about this now? Like, we’re in the middle of some serious kick-ass here.”

  “Guess I’ve just been thinking.”

  “Well, you can stop wasting your time thinking about that stuff, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay, Fran. Sorry.”

  And I wonder if I’ve messed things up. If I’ve said too much. I sneak a look at Franny. Only I can’t read him. His eyes laser-focused on the screen, lips pinched tight, forehead creased in concentration. And we sit there, still and quiet except for the snap of our fingers, the wails of our enemies falling all around us.

  Drifting, Drifting

  I convince myself that the best way not to lose Kate is to not let her out of my sight.

  Or at least stay as close to her as I can.

  And so:

  We pull epic near-all-nighters together, which basically consist of her studying and me pretending to study but mainly just watching her study, and then acting super studious whenever she looks over at me, shaking her head disapprovingly at my upside-down textbooks.

  We eat lots of bad-for-you food together. There’s this taco truck that stays open late that becomes our go-to. Best guac EVER!

  We spend hours in the gorges, talking about anything and everything. One afternoon she tries her best to convince me that the new Star Wars trilogy is better than the original. I ask her if she’s even seen Empire Strikes Back.

  She tries to catch me up on all the cool indie movies that have somehow escaped my viewership. Which turns out to be almost ALL THE COOL INDIE MOVIES. Shout-out to Raising Victor Vargas and Short Term 12!

  We have random we-both-stink-at-dancing dance parties in the middle of her dorm room, much to her roommate’s dismay.

  And we kiss during our study breaks. And we kiss doing our taco truck visits. And we kiss in the gorges, and during our movie marathons.

  “Do you think you’ll ever get tired of kissing?” Kate asks me.

  “Kissing you? Never,” I assure her.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Hmm,” I say. “Maybe we should conduct an experiment?”

  Kate’s eyebrows rise. “You think?”

  I scoot closer to her. We’re in the middle of the library stacks. Alone except for a girl a few tables away.

  “It feels like the only way to really know,” I say.

  She smiles, places her hand on the back of my head in this way that makes me feel melty, and kisses my nose, and then my cheek, and then my lips.

  She pulls away, looks at me. “In the name of science, right?”

 
I slide closer still. “I love science,” I say in between kisses.

  I lose myself in Kate’s eyes, in her lips, in the irregular rhythm of her breaths.

  And it’s simple math, really: the more time I spend with her, the more time I want with her.

  I might be a Kate addict.

  And there doesn’t seem to be a cure for my addiction, and even if there were an antidote, I don’t think I’d want it.

  I know I wouldn’t want it.

  I’d refuse treatment, check myself out of the hospital against medical advice, wouldn’t even bother changing out of my gown, or those one-size-fits-all hospital skid-proof socks.

  Jack, you need to stay here. It’s for your own good, they’d plead.

  But I’d wave them all off.

  Because I’m happy, addiction be damned.

  The Flip Side to Happy

  But there’s a flip side to Jack Can’t Get Enough of Kate.

  I turn on the kitchen light and nearly have a heart attack.

  “Dad, what are you doing lurking in the kitchen?”

  “I’m not lurking. You can’t lurk in your own house. I couldn’t sleep. And I’m waiting for you, I suppose.”

  “Everything okay?” I walk over to the cabinet, pull out a glass, take the grape juice from the fridge.

  “Funny. I was going to ask you the same.”

  The grape juice tastes sweeter than usual. “I’m good. Why?”

  “Well, I just wondered what happened to you tonight.”

  “I went out.”

  “So you forgot about helping me clean out the shed so we can get the new lawn mower inside?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. It slipped my mind.”

  “Your mom was counting on getting it done today. Because if we can’t get the lawn mower inside the shed, we won’t be able to get the party chairs and tables she ordered into the garage.”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Look, I’ll move some things around and we’ll do it tomorrow after school.”

  “It’s already done, Jack.”

  My eyebrows rise. “Already done? There’s no way you moved everything by yourself.”

  “You’re right. That’s why your mom pitched in. And Franny came over and helped. Jillian, too. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

  “What’s really going on here?”

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re waiting in the dark for me to come home. You’re clearly pissed off . . .”

  “Not pissed off, Jack. Disappointed,” Dad says. He sips from his water. “And concerned.”

  “Concerned about what?”

  “This feels like a pattern. Your behavior lately.”

  “My behavior,” I say. “I forgot to come home and help you move things. You could’ve just called me.”

  “I did,” he says.

  I pull my phone out of my pants pocket and realize my phone is off. Either I accidentally turned it off or the battery died. “Crap, my fault, Dad. I didn’t even realize my phone—”

  “That’s sort of the problem, Jack. You’ve been doing a lot of forgetting, a lot of not realizing, and it’s starting to catch up to you.”

  “It was one thing, Dad.”

  “So you didn’t also forget about family dinner tonight? That your friends were coming for your mom’s chili?”

  He’s right. I had forgotten. Two things in one night was a bit much.

  “I’ll call Franny and Jillian. They’ll understand. We’ll do family dinner this weekend.”

  “We already had family dinner, Jackie.”

  “You can’t have family dinner without all the family.”

  Dad shrugs. “Your mom and I made a lot of food. We didn’t want it to go to waste.”

  I cross my arms. “Well, it sounds more like you were just trying to prove a point.”

  “And what would that point be?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Jackie, it’s one thing to be wrapped up in this girl—”

  “Kate. Her name is Kate.”

  “—but not at the expense of the people who love you, who’ve been here for you . . .”

  And I nearly say, She’s here for me, too. And we make each other happy. And that should make you happy, too. And I can’t screw this up, this chance to make things right, not again. Not when there’s so much to lose. Because almost won’t cut it. Because I’m not the guy who gets second chances, let alone at love.

  But I can’t explain any of this to him. How astronomically high the stakes are. No one, not even my dad, who would want to believe me, could actually believe me.

  “Of all people, Dad, I thought you would understand.”

  “What’d you think I’d understand, Jack?”

  “That sometimes good things happen in your life that you didn’t count on, that you can’t completely account for, but once they do, life is about embracing those things, about expanding your world, about . . . doing something bigger than yourself. I mean, look at what you and Mom have, what Franny and Jillian have. Why can’t I have that, too?”

  “You can. And you will. But right now, you and Franny and Jillian are barely out of high school. You have your whole life to live, to find what truly makes you happy. There’s no rush—”

  “Who says I’m rushing? Why can’t I have the real thing now? What if Kate’s the one? People act as though you have to wait for everything good in life. Sometimes good things happen earlier than you expected. Sometimes you don’t have to wait.”

  “If you feel that strongly about her, how come you haven’t brought her here? Introduced her to your mother and me?”

  Because I don’t want to share her. Because there’s only so much time. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Jackie, we all love you. And believe me, we’re happy you’re happy. And we all agree Kate sounds like a great young woman, but . . . maybe things are moving a bit too quickly. Maybe . . .”

  I polish off my grape juice, set my glass inside the dishwasher, and head for the stairs, not wanting to hear the rest of whatever he’s trying to say. Because it’s a refrain I’ve heard before. People always say they’re happy you’re happy until they’re afraid that maybe your happiness is affecting their happiness and then they’re not so happy about you being so happy.

  Okay, that was unnecessarily confusing. Still, I think you probably get it.

  “Like I said, I’m sorry I wasn’t here, I am. But I’m really tired. I’m gonna go upstairs and crash.”

  “Right,” Dad says, softly. “Night, Jackie.”

  TO FRANNY, JILLIAN: Hey guys, sorry about tonight. I totally got my days mixed up and I thought dinner was next week. Please forgive me?

  FRANNY: Bro, you owe us BIG time!!!

  JILLIAN: I’m sorry, who is this???

  ME: I do! And I promise to pay you back WITH interest!!

  ME: Ouch, J. That hurts!!

  JILLIAN: Well, this number used to belong to our best friend, Jack, but he’s been MIA and we assumed he’d been vaporized from the planet, so . . .

  ME: Actually, he has. And you’ve unwittingly exposed our alien plot to take over Earth. So now the two of you are number 3 and 4 on our To Vaporize List . . .

  FRANNY: WTF? Who’s numbers 1 and 2??

  JILLIAN: He’s going to say the president.

  ME: The president.

  ME: Hey! Stop acting like I’m predictable!!

  JILLIAN: Believe me, I’m not ACTING.

  FRANNY: So, who’s the other vaporizee?

  ME: That’s for me to know and you NOT to know. Ever!

  JILLIAN: It’s clearly Kate!!!

  ME: Yep. Kate stumbled onto our plot, too. But dang! Am I really that transparent?

  JILLIAN: Do you really want me to answer that??

  FRANNY: Bros over hos, man! Bros over hos!

  ME: No offense, Jillian^^^^

  JILLIAN: None taken. I’m a bro in the spiritual sense, duh!

  FRANNY
: Exactly!! J’s more of a bro than you these days, Jack.

  ME: I am sorry, guys. My dad sorta pointed out how douchey I’ve been lately and I’m sorry I’ve been THAT GUY.

  FRANNY: Well, clearly, Kate can give you things Jillian and I can’t, sooooo . . . hahahaha

  JILLIAN: You have been pretty sucky lately. Like there’s no reason you can’t be with Kate and still be good to your friends. I mean you’ve blown off band practice that we’re having for YOUR parents even. Like, really??

  ME: I know. You’re right. There’s no reason.

  ME: I’m sorry. I’ve just felt this simultaneous push and pull, I guess. Like, where I have to find a balance between my friends and my girl, and it’s harder than I thought.

  FRANNY: Oh, it’s hard all right!! LMAO that’s the prob, man! Just stop thinking with your junk and you’ll be cool.

  ME: Sage advice as usual, Franny.

  ME: I guess I wanna say, thanks for not hating me.

  FRANNY: Sometimes you’re such a mushy idiot.

  JILLIAN: Shut up, Jack! Seriously! Just stop!

  ME: I love you guys, too. <3 <3

  And I know you’d think that tonight would’ve been enough to jar me back into reality—disappointing my parents, letting down my friends.

  Only you’d be wrong.

  You’d be so gloriously wrong.

  Because less than a week later . . .

  TO FRANNY, JILLIAN: Hey guys, sooooo . . . it’s looking like I’m not going to be able to make practice today. Something has come up.

  JILLIAN: Are you serious?! The party is six weeks away and we’re nowhere near ready, Jack! Whatever SOMETHING is, SHE can wait!

  FRANNY: Bro, this is like the fifth time you’ve flaked already. Like, if this isn’t important to you anymore, just say the word. But you know, it was YOUR idea. And it is YOUR rents’ 30th.

  ME: I know, I know. You guys know I wouldn’t cancel unless I had a really good reason.

  FRANNY: Do you, bro.

  Thirty minutes later . . .

  FROM JILLIAN: Are you okay, man? Like, really, what’s going on with you these days?

  ME: I’m great, actually. Like, really happy.

  JILLIAN: Glad one of us is.

  ME: Wait, what happened??

  JILLIAN: I got a B- on my last French paper.