by Liara Tamani
She can’t put down the turtle fast enough. “Why would your dad want to give your mom’s stuff away? It’s all so cool.”
“I don’t know. When we moved, it seemed like he wanted to leave everything behind, including my mom.” The words feel so right coming out. Like they needed to be said. They’ve been floating around in my head since we moved out here last summer.
“Your dad doesn’t care that you kept it all and have it up here?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t know?”
“Well, he’s never been up here. So—”
“Wait. Your dad has never been in your room?”
“I told you I had a lot to tell you.”
Carli’s standing beside my bed with her hands clasped in front of her—hush-mouthed. She clearly doesn’t know what to say about my father. And she hasn’t picked up anything else. Don’t know if she thinks I would care or Mom would care, but either way, it’s starting to feel way too heavy in here. “I have something I want to show you,” I say, get up, and grab my backpack from the corner beside the sliding door. “Come on.”
CARLI
Rex is leading me across his backyard by the hand. When the lawn ends and the forest begins, he doesn’t pause. But it’s dark. And who knows what’s in there.
I stop. “Umm, where are we going?” I ask, and fold my arms across my chest like it’s cold, even though it’s pretty warm.
“Come on. You’ll see. Trust me.”
I don’t move. I feel like I’m the star of a scary movie and the audience is screaming, Girl, don’t do it.
“I come back here all the time. You’ll love it,” he promises.
The audience is still screaming, Don’t listen to him, girl. Not unless you want to die! And to their point, what good can come out of walking into a dark forest at night?
Rex reaches into his backpack, takes out a big flashlight, and shines it into the woods. “See, just trees.” He lights the ground. “And dead leaves and shrubs and fungus. No boogeyman.”
“What about snakes and raccoons and whatever else lives in there.”
“We’ll be fine,” Rex says, and shines the light at our feet.
In protest, I take a deep breath and let it out slow and loud. But when he grabs my hand, I start walking again.
After a few minutes, we reach a clearing with a wooden picnic table. “You brought this out here?” I ask.
“Yeah, it used to be in the backyard at my old house,” he says, and takes out a long, red lighter, like Daddy uses to light the barbeque pit. He hands me the flashlight and lights two tin citronella candles sitting on the benches, one on each side of the table. Then he takes a blanket out of his backpack and arranges it on top of the picnic table.
“This is actually pretty cool,” I say, admiring the setup.
“You better listen to your boy,” Rex says, smiling, and climbs up on the table.
I climb up, too.
And now we’re lying on top of the table with our pinky fingers linked, looking up at the crowns of tall pines reaching for a patch of star-sprinkled sky.
REX
This has always been my secret spot. Even at my old house, when there was just a tiny backyard with two cedar elm trees. This table, the trees, the stars, this stillness—they’ve always been there for me. And now Carli is here, and it’s like I’ve introduced her to my best friends and they’re vibin’. And it’s making me feel closer to her than I’ve ever felt. Like even if we were butt-naked having sex, I doubt I’d feel closer.
“Crazy that there are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way, isn’t it?” Carli says, her voice soft beside me.
I was already looking up at the stars, but I look closer. At all the bright spots peeking out from the darkness. At the giant pines stretching toward them. “Are there really?” I ask, wondering why I’ve never come across that fact.
“Yeah, there’s something like three trillion trees on the planet. But scientists estimate there are somewhere between one hundred and four hundred billion stars in the galaxy.”
“Word? I never would’ve guessed that. Especially since fifteen billion trees are chopped down every year. Did you know that almost fifty percent of the trees on the planet have either been cut down or died some kind of way since humans have been around?” I ask, offering up my own facts.
“Really? I knew all the Amazon boxes had to come from somewhere, but fifteen billion? Dang, at this rate, our stars are going to start catching up to our trees.”
“I know, right?” I say, feeling my insides grin because I’m sitting in my favorite place talking to my favorite person about one of my favorite things. I didn’t even think Carli was into trees like that. She acted like she barely cared about the magnolia dying outside of her dad’s house. “Who knew you were into trees?”
“I’m not,” she says, bursting my little bubble.
“So, you’re into stars then?”
“Well, kinda. But I’m more into random facts. I like collecting ones I find interesting and putting them up on my walls.”
“Yeah, I saw all the stuff in your room. It’s dope. You must not let Cole take pictures in there because I’ve never seen your walls on his feed.”
“Cole and his Instagram,” she says, like she’s rolling her eyes. “Yeah, no pictures of my walls allowed.”
“Why not?”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, I’ve always found magic in small, random things . . . in thinking about them . . . in piecing them together . . . in seeing what they may have to say about big, important things.”
“What do they say?”
“A lot. But nothing, really. I don’t know. I mean, my walls still have a lot to tell me. And I can’t have them out there speaking to everyone else before they even let me know what’s up,” she says, and laughs a little.
I love talking to Carli like this. It’s like I’m inside her mind, hearing how it works. “So what are you waiting on them to tell you?” I ask.
“Everything,” she says.
“Everything like what?” I ask, remembering her necklace. It looked magical. I sit up on my elbow and reach for it. Rub my thumb along the curved left edge, where the raised crescent moon sits cradling a sun in the form of a cut-out circle. From the circle I slide my thumb along the engraved rays that reach toward tiny raised stars on the other side. It’s like she has the whole universe dangling from her neck.
“I don’t know. Just everything.”
“Everything is a lot.”
“I know.”
It feels like she’s kicked me out of her mind. I want back in, but I don’t know which words will get me there. So I lie back down. Don’t say anything.
And neither does she.
For a long minute.
Then she shifts around on the table. “I can’t see you,” she whispers. Her words—after our long, dark silence—feel like a spark.
I roll on my side to face her like she’s facing me. “I can’t see you, either,” I say into the blackness. There’s only a sliver of a moon tonight. And I’m not sure when, but our candles went out.
“But I’m here,” she responds.
It’s weird. In the darkness, it’s almost like we don’t have bodies. Like we’re spirits in the night. “You know I come out here to feel closer to my mom,” I say, imagining Mom’s spirit floating around us through the trees.
“I can see that. Out here, it’s like we’re closer to God or the Universe or whatever you want to call the mystery of all there is. And I guess your mom is a part of all that now.”
“Yeah, I guess she is,” I say, thinking about Mom’s soul leaving the Earth, traveling out of our solar system, out of our galaxy, and on and on through the stars forever.
Carli puts the palm of her hand against my chest.
“My father blames me for her death, you know,” I say, surprised at how easy the words glide out of my mouth. “I mean, he’s never said it, but he’s pretty
much ignored me my whole life. And I always knew why. Then he went off and sold our old house. The house my mom lived in, my biggest connection to her, without even telling me first.”
“Oh my gosh. That’s awful. I’m so sorry,” she says.
“It’s okay. We’re cool, now,” I try to reassure her. “Actually, you know that video your dad made?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I sent it to my father, and afterward he came to my game. Like, for the first time in my life. And we’ve been talking more. And he’s been out of his room more. He used to stay in there all the time when he was home. I rarely saw him. But now we’ve even chilled on the sofa a few times. Oh, I forgot to tell you. We want to hire your mom to help us make the house more of a home.”
“Wait . . . wait,” Carli says. “You mean your father basically ignored you your whole life and sold your mom’s old house, but now, just like that, everything is cool?”
In the darkness, her words almost feel like my own. The ones I’ve been shoving back down inside myself every time they try to rise up. But out here, I can’t push them around. “No. I mean, it’s surface cool, but that’s it. We haven’t really talked or gotten deep about anything, yet. And to be honest, I’m kind of afraid to. Afraid of everything that might come up. You don’t even want to know. Let’s just say I’ve felt a lot of bad things over the years.”
“I’m sure you have.” Her hand leaves my chest, and I feel its warm softness on my cheek.
We lie in silence for a minute, and I imagine her feeling everything I’ve felt—the confusion, the loneliness, the disappointment, the sadness, the hurt, the rage.
“Thanks for sharing all this with me,” she says. “This place. All the stuff about your dad. I know it can’t be easy to talk about.”
“But it kinda is with you,” I say. “Especially out here. I don’t know. I wasn’t lying when I said I’m trying to share everything with you. You saw what happened when we were keeping things to ourselves. I was trying to act all hard and not answer your calls, but that shit sucked ass!”
She laughs. “That’s what you get for ignoring me.”
“What about you ignoring me? What was that about?”
Carli removes her hand from my cheek and goes quiet.
“No more secrets,” I say.
“No more secrets,” she repeats.
“Nah, don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“No, I do . . . I promise. On everything.”
CARLI
“I hate basketball,” I say, feeling a huge swell of relief.
“I know it’s gotta be hard,” Rex says, and his hand—cool—finds my waist underneath his T-shirt.
Okay, I’m 200 percent sure that he’s not taking me seriously. “I’m not speaking in hyperbole, here. I, Carli Alexander, can’t stand basketball. Like, if you put one in front of me right now, I’d find something to stab it with. And as it deflated, I’d have a huge smile on my face. I’m grinning just thinking about it.”
Crickets. The calls of two birds.
Rex laughs that awkward I-don’t-get-the-joke laugh and gently squeezes my waist. “Sorry, what? I’m confused. I thought you loved basketball. You’re a beast.”
“Well, you thought wrong. There’s a difference between being good at something and actually liking it. I’m only good because my dad has been coaching me since birth. I haven’t been able to stand basketball since middle school.”
“Middle school? Damn, so you’re telling me that you’ve hated basketball the whole time you’ve been in high school?”
“Yep.”
“Even the times you made the All-American team?”
“Yep.”
“Even when y’all won the championship?”
“Yep.”
“Even with—”
“Yes. The answer is gonna be yes,” I say, getting a little annoyed.
“Sorry,” he says, his voice going soft. “It’s just hard to believe. If you’ve hated it for so long, why haven’t you just quit?”
“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” I say, feeling myself sulk like a six-year-old who just got put in time-out.
“What do mean? You’re interested in plenty of things.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have anything big to focus on.”
“Big?”
“Yeah, like a . . . a,” I say, the last word out of reach. It’s always felt so much greater than me, so far away. And lately it’s been worse, like it’s running from me as fast as it can. Like maybe I’ll never catch it.
Rex gently squeezes my waist, bringing me back into my body. And the shadowy trees behind him, the soft stream of light falling on their crowns, their limbs, the calls of invisible birds and insects, all seem to be telling me I’m wrong.
“A dream,” I say, feeling some of my panic around the word soften.
“So. At least if you’re doing something you like, you’d be getting closer to it. Don’t get me wrong, it blows my mind that you don’t want to ball. You’re so damn good. But if you don’t love it, you don’t love it. Life is too short not to do what you love. Or at least what you like until you find what you love.”
“You say that like it’s easy. Like it would be cake to stop playing basketball and disappoint everyone I know. Well, besides my mom. She knows I hate basketball. But nobody else does. Not even Jordan, my best friend. She’s our point guard. If we both win our games this week, you’ll meet her at the championship next weekend.”
“Wait. So, you’re gonna play?”
“Yeah, started back playing this week. Figure the playoffs is not the best time to spring the news on my team. I’m going to tell them this summer.”
More crickets and birds. Guess he’s processing. And rubbing my ribs with his thumb. He can process all he wants as long as he keeps doing that.
“Wanna know another secret?” I ask, done with talking about basketball.
“You know I do.”
“The very first kisses were blown in Mesopotamia as a way to get in good with the gods.”
“Huh?”
“Remember that secret I didn’t tell you when we were sitting up in the stands after my surgery and you started getting mad?”
“I wasn’t getting mad.”
“Yes, you were. But anyway, when you blew a kiss that day on the court, the fact popped in my head.”
“Wait, what is it again?”
“The very first kisses were blown in Mesopotamia as a way to get in good with the gods.”
His thumb goes still on my ribs. “Where’d that come from?”
“I put it up on my wall after this boy blew me a kiss in, like, the fifth grade. The next day he tried to front like he blew it to somebody else, but I left the fact up there anyway. Didn’t really think about it again until you blew me that kiss on the court. Well, at least blew it in my direction.
“Then the fact about kisses came rushing back to me, which I took as a sign that we were totally meant to be. So much so that while I was in the hospital that night, I rewrote the fact on the back of my dinner menu—even though I had no idea how you felt about me—and I saved it to give to you. Carried it around in my back pocket for almost a week. But then . . . well, it’s a long story. But the bottom line is: it got lost. I was waiting to tell you about it until I could give it to you in person, so it would be special. But it looks like that’s not gonna happen, so there you go.”
“No. I mean, what’s the story behind the fact? How exactly did blowing kisses allow people to get in good with the gods?” Rex asks, totally ignoring my whole romantic story.
“I don’t know. That’s all I wrote down,” I say, disappointed.
He repeats the fact four times, like he wants to remember it forever.
“Yep, that’s it,” I finally say.
“Crazy I’ve never heard of that. You know I blow a kiss every time I go to the free-throw line, right?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I blow them to my mom,” he
says.
And here I am worried about my stupid romantic story. “Really?” I say.
“Yeah, every time I blow a kiss, I ask her for forgiveness.”
A heavy weight drops down on my chest, “Oh Rex,” I say, and reach for his cheek again.
His hand leaves my waist and lands on my hand. Then he interlaces his fingers with mine and brings our hands down to rest in the space between us.
“No, no, it’s cool. This is actually really good,” he says cheerfully. “You see, your fact means that my kisses have probably been working. It’s like all that stuff we were talking about earlier with my mom being a part of Everything. If she’s a part of Everything, that means I’ve been getting in good with her every time I blow a kiss. I don’t know if she’s forgiven me yet, but if I keep blowing kisses, she’ll definitely have to forgive me one day.”
His happiness is so sad, I don’t know where to begin.
I want to tell him that he doesn’t need to be forgiven, that it’s not his fault. But I’ve already told him that, and I’m starting to think that even if I tell him again, and again and again, we’d only go around and around in the same circle.
I want to cry for him. But what good would that really do?
I want to ask him where the bottom of his pain is. Like how many kisses will he have to blow to know he’s forgiven? But it’s clear he doesn’t know that.
I want to shake him, maybe slap him, tell him that he needs to move on. But I’m afraid of how he’d turn on me.
I don’t know what to do. How can I be his everything when so much of it has nothing to do with me?
It feels terrible, but I decide there’s not much I can do about his pain and try to get out from under it by changing the subject. “Oh, and another secret: Cole and I have to decide which parent we want to live with. In what? Like, a week and a half.”
“What! That’s nuts! You told me your parents were getting divorced, but you didn’t tell me y’all had to decide who to live with.”
“Yeah, it’s complicated.”
“So how’s that even going to work? Like, where would y’all go to school?” he asks, a hint of hope in his eyes.
I wish my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark so I wouldn’t have had to see that. Maybe I could’ve told him the truth. I swear on a stack of a thousand notebooks I don’t want to lie to him. But what am I supposed to say? I have the option to spend senior year with you, but I’m probably gonna pass? I glance away from him and say, “Staying put. Cole and I have already agreed that switching schools on top of everything else would be too much.”