The Boy Next Story

by Tiffany Schmidt

  I started to cry. Not the silent tears that were already slipping down my cheeks; those didn’t count. These were messy gulping sobs that made my nose as wet as my eyes and had both of my sisters thrusting tissues my way before they gathered me in a group hug.

  “Just paint me a picture for Trent’s and my new apartment when you’re in New York and we’ll call it even,” said Lilly.

  “Actually . . .” I cut off a sniff and disentangled myself. “I can give you that right now. Hang on—” I darted up the stairs to get the watercolor drying on my easel. It was the sketch I’d started in the store last month—Lilly and Trent on a bounce house wearing smiles and wedding apparel. The soft colors of the paint gave it just the right glow, and it radiated with the happiness I wanted for her on her wedding day. I held it carefully facing my chest as I went back down to the kitchen. “I was going to save this for Christmas, but it’s done now and . . .” I trailed off and flipped it around, wanting to die in the seconds before she reacted, because my heart was on the page along with my wishes for her future.

  “Rory . . .” Lilly raised her hand to her mouth, her fingers trembling as she bit down on a knuckle.

  “You did this?” asked Merri. “I knew you were good, but Rory—that’s unbelievable.”

  Lilly’s cheeks were wet again. The soft, graceful tears I never quite managed. “I love it.”

  “It’s how I picture your wedding.”

  She snorted. “Can you imagine? Half the guest list would . . .” She sighed and traced Trent’s face with one finger. “We look so happy. This is beautiful.”

  Merri looked at the stairs. “You got another one of me and Fielding?” she asked hopefully.

  I laughed. “Not yet.” Her Christmas present was a painting of Gatsby—the dog, not the stupid book—in a holiday sweater. But maybe I could stick her and Fielding in there too. I’d give them matching sweaters like a cheesy Christmas card. Merri would adore it.

  “You’ll let us do this?” asked Lilly.

  “I’ll pay you back,” I promised. The truth of it sank in deep. “I—I’m going to New York.”

  “No.” Merri stood up on her chair. “Like this—” She threw her head back and shouted, “I’m going to New York! NYC, prepare for me!”

  Before I could copy her, which I was prepared to do, chair climbing and all, the front door opened and Eliza walked in with a quizzical expression and a binder under her arm. “You are? When? You hate the city. Also, you forgot this in my car.”

  “Not me,” Merri clarified, making no move to take the binder Eliza held out or climb down. “Who rocks the art party that rocks the art party? Rory rocks the art party that rocks the art party.”

  Eliza nodded like this made sense while Lilly and I laughed.

  “Well, I guess I should go tell Mom and Dad.” I paused in case anyone wanted to offer to do it for me or at least come with me, but all they did was say, “Good luck.”

  43

  On Monday, instead of Convocation, freshmen and sophomores had their last Knight Light meeting of the year. This was one of those things I hadn’t written down in last week’s Convocation schedule fest and it felt like the icing on a fabulous day. I’d dropped off a check to a very relieved Mrs. Mundhenk that morning. I was going to New York to study with Snipes. Every time I thought of it, my lips twisted into a ridiculous smile. One no one else understood, because as Clara informed me, “You’ve known since last week—why the sudden effervescence now?”

  I told her a simplified version of the truth. “Because now it’s real. I didn’t believe it before.”

  She opened the doors to the Knight Light Lounge. “I’m happy for you.”

  Huck added, “You’re going to teach me everything you learn, right?”

  I laughed into a nod. It was real. Mom wasn’t happy, but she relented; and Dad had muttered, “Oh, thank God,” before hugging me. They’d offered to pay for my train ticket, but that was all the money I was accepting from them. And like with Lilly and Merri, I was going to pay it back, even if it took hundreds of dog drawings.

  “Hey, Roar, ready to go?” Toby’s group merged with mine. “I already got our plans approved.”

  “Approved?” We were standing beside the blackboard wall and my fingers reached for the chalk. Just a little doodle, a sketch of this group in this moment, because some memories were worth capturing.

  “Each Knight Light had to come up with a plan that was adoptee-specific, something we thought you’d like.” Toby grinned as he watched the shapes come together beneath my fingers. “Then we had to write them up and get them approved.”

  Hannah, my sister’s Knight Light, added, “It’s our big first-half-of-the-year assessment—to prove we actually got to know our adoptees and to justify the mentorship program.”

  Lance laughed. “That’s the official explanation, but I think it’s just three days before break and Mr. Welch was too lazy to plan something.”

  Hannah shrugged. “Either way: Merri, you, me, scavenger hunt in the library.”

  My sister fist-pumped and followed her out of the room.

  I rarely heard Fielding’s sister speak, but Sera quietly said to Eliza, “Bio lab,” and the two of them peeled off too.

  “Yo, Huckleberry—let’s roll. We’ve got a trophy hall to tour. Hannah made us a scavenger hunt . . . It leads to cupcakes. I made those.”

  Huck rolled his eyes at the nickname but nodded to Curtis. “I’m down with cupcakes. What are you guys up to? Art room scavenger hunt? That seems to be the theme here.”

  “No. I’m taking Rory to the lake in the woods. I figured she might want to draw it sometime.”

  “Really? That’s way better than trophies.” It was better than anything I could think of—except maybe time to draw the Convocation Hall, but that was filled with upperclassmen.

  “It sounds awfully romantic,” added Huck, and I glowered as I waited for Toby to scoff or correct him, but he didn’t acknowledge Huck at all.

  “I’ve got my coat, let’s get yours. It’s cold.”

  I waved a few fingers, avoiding Huck’s smug expression and Clara’s hearty-eyed hope.

  It was close to freezing. Even with my coat zipped to the point where it covered my mouth and I was breathing and speaking through a layer of clammy fleece, I was still shivery.

  “This way.” Toby turned onto a path I never would’ve been able to pick out. What distinguished this patch of leaf-covered ground from any other in the forest?

  “Is your knee up to this?” I asked.

  “It’s fine. I’m supposed to be using it more. Are you cold? Was this a bad idea?”

  Toby’s eyebrows were pulled in, forming a furrow between them that looked like the exclamation point on his concern. “Maybe Huck was right, and I should’ve done an art room scavenger hunt.”

  “It’s the perfect idea.” But my honesty was undermined by my traitorous chattering teeth.

  “Come here.” Toby reached for my hand and flinched when my fingers brushed his palm before interlacing them with his own. “Cripes.”

  I sighed, because nothing had ever felt more perfect in the history of perfection than his fingers alternating with mine, folding over the back of my hand. His thumb stroking patterns on my skin in ways that made me want to draw the emotions of this moment in dizzy abstract explosions of red and violet and gold—and made me itch to know what it sounded like in his head.

  “Your hands are ice. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Oh, maybe his “Cripes” wasn’t some exclamation of blood-sizzling electric compatibility?

  I sighed. “They’re not so bad?”

  “They’re Popsicles.” Toby cupped his other hand on top of the one he was cradling and brought the whole knot of fingers up to his mouth. I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate to process what was happening. Warm hands and then warmer breath as he blew on my cupped fingers. Licorice and mint—the Tobiest of combinations. Add in a dash of the earthy smell of the woods, and this w
as my own personal brand of cologne. My fingers probably smelled of turpentine, or art room soap, or the shea butter I slathered on in the winter. But as he leaned down again and his lips brushed my skin during another exhale, I forgot to be self-conscious, or cold, or anything but radiant.

  He switched hands and repeated the process—interlaced fingers, encircling the other hand, warm breath in puffs over my too-sensitive skin. My own exhales were visible in the air, small gasping clouds betraying how breathless this made me.

  “We need to protect these priceless hands,” he said while rubbing them. “Think of all the masterpieces contained within these fingers.”

  I pulled my hands back, tucking them inside my sleeves. I didn’t want him thinking about my art—I wanted him thinking about me. Stepping around him, I continued across the forest floor in a straight line, which was as close as I could come to following the path. “What about your masterpiece-making fingers?” I asked, ducking under a skeletal tree branch. “Will we get to see them on display at the Candlelight Concert Wednesday night? Maybe playing one of your compositions?”

  He laughed. “No one wants to hear that. And there are plenty of other students who can hammer out ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘O Tannenbaum.’”

  “I want to hear it.”

  He paused with his hand on a tree branch and looked over his shoulder at me. It was a moment to frame in my memory so later I could draw it and decipher that expression: Wistful? Thoughtful? Confused? He shook his head and lifted the branch. “We’re here.”

  Though the air temperatures argued otherwise, it was a sunny day. The proof of that reflected off the surface of the lake like a diamond with a million facets. It was so bright I had to blink before my eyes adjusted and could absorb all the brilliance.

  I took a few steps out of the woods and onto the rocky shore—the pebbles were smooth and round and slid over each other beneath my feet.

  “Is this worth freezing your fingers?” Toby asked. He’d come to stand beside me, propping one foot up on a fallen log, which would’ve made a great bench if the air was warmer and it was dryer. The moss on top was the perfect cool counterpoint to the textured browns of the fallen leaves and the glistening lake, to the stark lines of the bare trees and the inky wet rocks.

  “Shhh,” I told Toby, because I was deep in my head, framing pieces and the whole, analyzing how it fit together and the angles and inclusions that would make the best composition.

  He laughed as I took out my camera and snapped a few test shots. But the lens couldn’t capture the light—not fully. And not the way it felt to stand in this place, alone with Toby and his thoughtfulness and my fingers that still tingled from his touch.

  “I thought you’d like—”

  “Shhh!”

  He laughed louder and took a step back to give me space. I continued to take pictures. My fingers ached for a sketch pad, a notebook, a napkin. Toby walked tightrope-style along the log—not his best idea when he’d just gotten out of the knee brace and the moss looked wet. I skipped a rock to capture the ripples—three hops. Toby took it as a silent challenge and his bounced four. I leveled up at five and pretty soon art and clocks and everything were forgotten as we competed—hip-checking and laughing and interfering in all ways imaginable. It was like the best memories of our shared childhood—only with touches that lingered and sparked in ways I hadn’t dreamed of when my ideas of romance started and ended with princess stories. His hand caught my wrist as I’d cocked it back for a throw, pulling me close as his other hand snaked around to pluck the stone from mine. It was practically a hug from behind and when I looked back over my shoulder to see why he hadn’t let go once he’d pilfered my rock, his face was right there. Kissing close. Eyes serious and dark. His voice gravelly when he whispered, “Roar, I—”

  My heart was a hummingbird in my chest and I’d already done this once—misread the signals and head-butted him in the stomach at the concert—so this time I chopped down those delusions before they could take root. Forcing a laugh, I stepped out of his arms. “Rock thief.”

  Toby looked down at his hand like he’d forgotten what he was holding. And I took the chance to jump piggyback-style on his back. He laughed—laughed harder when I tickled him while he lined up his throw, but he’d gotten six skips anyway. He cheered as he bounced me down the lakeshore before I caught sight of his watch on the wrist clutching my calf.

  “Is that the real time?” I gasped. “Tell me you still haven’t reset it from daylight savings.”

  “Why?” Toby tilted his wrist, then almost dropped me. “Mr. Welch is going to kill us! We needed to check in at the end of the day so he knew we didn’t skip.”

  The campus had that haunted empty feeling—the one that occurs two minutes after everyone has scrambled to buses or cars or clubs or practices. An echo of the chaos lingered in the silence. My boots were much louder on the flagstone paths than Toby’s loafers and he wasn’t breathing as heavily. I wasn’t a runner like Eliza or Merri, and weeks in a knee brace hadn’t undone Toby’s lacrosse conditioning. I prayed I didn’t end up in an asthma attack; my lungs and cold air exertion didn’t play nicely together.

  Mr. Welch was waiting outside the dining hall with his arms crossed over a clipboard. “Tobias, Aurora, it’s nice to see you back in one piece. I was about to send out a search party.”

  There were all sorts of implications in his eyebrows. Ones our appearances supported—being breathless, disheveled. I was red-cheeked and sweaty. Toby had a smear of mud on his coat where my boots linked in piggyback.

  “Sorry,” said Toby. “We lost track of time.”

  “It really was the perfect Knight Light plan,” I added, hoping it helped. “I’m dying to draw it.”

  “Good.” Mr. Welch narrowed his gaze. “Because I’d like you to turn in a sketch tomorrow to show how your time at the lake inspired you.”

  We agreed with nods and apologies and made it to his car before we burst into laughter. “I can’t believe we were an hour late,” I said. “Who would’ve ever guessed I’d voluntarily spend extra time at school.”

  “It’s easy to lose track of time around you. Roar, these past couple of months, even with lacrosse and everything going on with my dad, and . . .” His voice trailed off and I mentally filled the silence with the name of the girl who slept across the hall from me. “This has been the best fall.”

  I couldn’t reciprocate. It was my fall of failure. Fall-ure? AutumNAH? It was a fall of teasing myself with what I couldn’t have. I ducked my head and changed the subject. “If I have to do a sketch, you should write a song.”

  He laughed. “Sounds fair. Do you know what you’re going to draw?”

  You, on the log, arms out like you could fly, grinning like the world loves you most of all. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

  44

  While I wanted my birthday forgotten, Merri wanted hers to be a national holiday. It started with the streamers I’d draped outside her doorframe so she could bust through them diva-style. Which meant she woke me up early so I could witness it.

  Then Dad made chocolate chip pancakes, topped with whipped cream and ice cream. Toby came over in his pajamas to join in her sugar fest. Merri greeted him with a smile as she squirted chocolate syrup on both plates.

  “Watching this is making me queasy,” I said, and Toby gave me a chocolate-milk-mustache grin, which shouldn’t have looked as attractive as it did. I realized I was glad they worked again—that they’d found a way to still fit and be silly. That maybe part of my objection to being Merri’s replacement was that I didn’t want her out of his life or him out of hers.

  Merri responded with an exaggerated “Mmmmm, yum.” Lilly laughed and crowned her with a tiara headband, which I thought should be banned on all other days, but I wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.

  Eliza joined the seven a.m. party with a bag from Donut Hut and flowers for my parents. “Thank you for creating my favorite human.”

 
“Jelly?” Merri asked, making grabby fingers while Eliza was being crushed in a Mom hug.

  “You’re going to be sick, but that’s your birthday prerogative and we’re not driving in my car today, so go ahead.” Eliza handed over the bag and joined me by the fruit bowl.

  “Candles! Singing!” Mom insisted, so we did—watching as Merri squirmed in her seat trying to think up a wish and the candle dripped onto the cinnamon sugar of her already bitten doughnut. When she blew it out, we scattered. Toby went home to shower and dress. I left to finish my French homework and pack lunch. Dad and Mom and Lilly hopped in their cars, bound for jobs or appointments.

  Eliza and the birthday girl stayed put. Their giggles echoed through the house until Toby beeped and it was time to head to our last day of school before winter break.

  “Ho! Ho! Ho!” Curtis swooped down on the Audi as soon as doors were opened in the Hero High lot. “Merri Christmas! No one’s ever made that joke before, right?”

  She laughed and swatted at the tinsel he was sprinkling in her hair, some caught in the points of her tiara. “Never.”

  “Happy birthday! I figured I’d go the whole Merri Christmas angle since we couldn’t do Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.” He elbowed Fielding, who was leaning in to peck my sister on the cheek. The jostling meant he was almost impaled by her headband, but they laughed.

  Eliza cleared her throat. “Annnd,” continued Curtis, “if some people would let me finish, also because I refuse to participate in a conversation that perpetuates a double standard that tells women their value is based on some purity myth.”

  Eliza pressed her lips together, but the corner of her mouth twitched.

  “But I stopped at Cool Beans. I asked them to make the most sugariffic drink on the menu.” He reached behind a bench and pulled out a plastic cup.

  “It’s pink!” squealed Merri. “And it has sprinkles!”