By Any Means Necessary
Page 20
Jesus. “No way?”
“Deadass. And I mean, there’s a spare room. I’ve been boxing up the rest of the things in your room and getting them all in storage until they decide to start shipping our belongings.”
It’s starting to rain. Sky’s been at it all week.
Not the angry kind from this morning, the sad and tired type of rain that traces down the panes of tea shops and bookstores, half-assed and silly. Why is it that even silly rain transports me to nights I’d rather forget?
It rained the night we all rushed to Cedars to find out if Uncle Miles was okay, and it rained still when they told us he wasn’t.
It rained the morning we came up to get Moms settled in her care center and stopped, then started again, a little fickle, as we made our drive back home.
It rained the day Gabriel left, all those years ago.
This rain—it does feel different though.
Or maybe I’m just different. Who knows.
To Aunt Lisa, I say, “You’re all I have.”
“I’m not. You know that. I’ve seen that. You’ve got a whole family unit up there. And when the semesters end and the holidays come, you come up to Seattle. You come home, to me.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Yes. Okay.”
Maybe this won’t be one of those times I have to remember rain for, the day Aunt Lisa left, promised to keep a spot in her heart for me, while fog and faith and raindrops all mixed with my tears.
Maybe Moms and Uncle Miles didn’t leave us to Theo. Maybe they left us to each other.
36.
That morning I walk into Coco’s office and ask her for a favor.
The next morning, Coco and I sit down at our usual coffee table. Soon, Dr. Palafox, the agrisci department chair, joins us.
He has, I don’t know, maybe a minute of silence before I open my mouth and say exactly the attack Coco and I planned. “I want to declare my major, Dr. Palafox.”
He looks up from the little dribble of coffee that he’s just stained his Lacoste polo with. “Oh? And as of now, your major is?”
“Undecided,” both Coco and I say simultaneously.
And I continue, “I’d like to change my major and for you to be my mentor.”
“Mm,” he says. “I see.”
Coco rolls her neck when she says, “Cut the shit, Foxy. Sé lo que quieres.”
We don’t actually know he’d want me as his mentee. But Coco says he’s always looking for some student to jump into eco projects with and junk.
He doesn’t call our bluff. “Well. Alright then,” he says.
Coco and I glance at each other, nod soberly, and continue to drink our coffee while trading sections of the newspaper.
Change.
The apiary, the bees, and the way it existed in a neighborhood made entirely of broken-up gravel—that’s the reason I’m declaring my major. That’s the reason I want to give myself to a cause I can institute some change in. In the grand scheme of things, I may be just a blip, a baby. But I’ve been on this road now for a while, feeling a thousand years older than what I’ve been told by every part of my past. Up until now, I’d been water coasting in at low tide. Now, I know I want to be—I know I can be—a tidal wave.
EPILOGUE
(THEY SAY THESE ARE NEVER, EVER NECESSARY.
BUT THIS IS MY STORY, AND I THINK IT DESERVES ONE. SO!)
This is the end.
Here’s what I’ve got for you.
I thought I could keep Uncle Miles alive forever. I thought I could keep the neighborhood the same forever, thought I could still exist as part of it forever even though the relationship was parasitic as hell.
Sometimes we make decisions that we think are best for us, when it’s clear they aren’t. We do things that will make us feel better. Most of the time, they don’t. You got any moments in life like that?
Afraid of a future with choices in it, I acted on feelings that had no right to be there. Guilt, eating me alive because Miles is gone. And I’m here. Living. In love. Changing things.
I tried to hang on to him forever, c/o a farm with some bees in it.
But forever doesn’t exist as a solid, measurable thing, y’know?
I’ll paint you a picture—in the abstract, it lives in the backseat of orange buses and in the denim lining of Uncle Miles’s shirt that smells like Indica.
When the movie ends, there is nothing left but credits and darkness, right? Forever is impossible, like those Barbie dolls I used to get my ass kicked for playing with, the Mattel-brand flavor of imperfection still on my taste buds.
I guess one day I’ll learn to wake up and embrace each moment. It’d be great if they didn’t pass by so quickly though. That’s what I got from the farm, from the Hill. Moments. Change. The traffic of it leaves skid marks of longing across my highway heart. That’s all it’ll ever offer me, and you know what, that’s fine.
Today, forever will exist in the span of a second, right when Gabriel’s soft lips meet mine and his smile breaks right up against my mouth, triggering my own need to smile with every part of me. When that moment becomes forever, and I’ll know that is what eternity looks like when it’s not wearing any masks, not cursing my name or sexuality, not pressuring me to fight a thing I am helpless to win.
Gabe’s pretty much been my perpetual happiness. With him, this forever in me is naked for public viewing, and when it’s like this, the world doesn’t mind that for once I choose not to wear a frown.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Hooboy. Round 2.
Bit of a doozy.
I can’t believe I get to do this again, lol, who let me do this again??
Oh. Right.
People To Blame:
First, my editor, Ashley Hearn. Hi. This is your fault. I love you, thank you for being my friend, enabler, creative sounding board and coffee/beer educator. Twice.
My agent, Jim McCarthy aka Jimyoncé aka the Artemis to my Sailor Venus. Guys, if you ask Jim, he’ll say he just sorta came in and tied some things up. But really he kind of saved me, The Author Me. Jim, your support has been … immense and stunning and just too perfect to comprehend. The greatest gift an author can receive and I’m so ready to hit the ground running (or, like, briskly walking—no more falls, pls!) with you. You are a sunflower in a field of dandelions, and they ain’t ready for us.
Here’s where you raise a glass and do shots in the name of Emery (tysm for the name!)/Zig, Dahlia/Fig, Cheyamma, Lily Mamas, Xtina & Lolo, Jay Elliot and Ryan. Without you guys, I’d have fallen long before this draft ever saw the light of day. Would’ve been out here pasty and pale and incomplete as heck at like 13k words.
Tehlór, you’re always coming in clutch! Thanks, kid. And thank you for teaching me what “clutch” means. ilyok?
My Page Street/Macmillan editorial fambam, OMFG, GUYS. Lookit us! Out here! My publicists, Lizzy Mason and Lauren Cepero and my copyeditor, Rebecca Behrens, I’m still just a baby author when it comes to all this. You guys have provided me with the equivalent of juice boxes and Uncrustable sandwiches after school. My cover designer Laura Gallant, production editor Hayley Gundlach, Page Street’s kick ass editorial assistants, Madeline Greenhalgh and Tamara Grasty, and interns Max Baker and Sabrina Kleckner—thank you so much for having ya girl’s back. Lauren Knowles, to you I say, PINK DRINK!!!!! And to the Macmillan sales team—you lot are a fresh box of Krispy Kreme donuts wrapped in Christmas lights. Thank you for helping me tell stories that breakdown and interrogate the spaces where people like me have never been permitted.
My mamma Lynette (thank you for birthing me, sorry about those first 18 years), my dad “Brother Wesley” (for that Malcolm X poster in the garage) and siblings, Donnis (one artist to another, thanks for always reading my words), Pepper (thank you always for opening my doors, carrying my heavy luggage to the car and making me breakfast), and Jew (for keeping me humble and making sure I always know where to go if ro
ck bottom drops lower than rock bottom). But especially, Trishalish. Hi, Sissy. I FUCKIN’ LOVE YOU! You already know. Mashallah, you’re my everything.
Shouts out to Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and Xanax, the realest mothafuckin MVPs!
My KS (name giver!!! <3), Robert Montano, Ellie, Heather, Weston, Xen, Rikki Leigh, Regan, Darren, Cullen, Shay and Julie—you guys kept me laughing through the completion of this dumb heart-job. Thanks, bigly.
My teens (by now, newly minted college freshmen!!) at the volunteer rec center, thank you for early morning Cheerios and bagels with too many inside jokes but not much cream cheese. Thank you for letting me in and for letting me steal scenes from our early morning laugh riots for this book. And to Israel, who started as “the kid who just drinks orange juice,” became my mentee, moved into being my friend, and ended up my little brother. Love you, buggy.
To my dance family—no words, just fucked up drunken fouettés.
To the city of Los Angeles. LOL oh man, I freakin’ hate you.
But also? You’re a little bit irresistible.
On that note—shout out to Nipsey Hussle and all of Slauson. Rest in power, sunflower.
And to all those who read and loved Home and Away. Or those who read it and felt it was “ehh, ok, not worth 5 stars but still pretty good, 3.5 I guess”—random Goodreads reviewer.
Because every one of you counts. You’re the reason I get to do this again. You’re also to blame. *hard wink*
Who’s up for round 3?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CANDICE MONTGOMERY is an LA transplant now residing in Seattle. By day, she writes YA lit about Black teens across all their intersections. By night, she teaches dance and works in The Tender Bar. Her debut Home and Away (Page Street, 2018) was named a Kirkus Reviews best YA novel of 2018.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Candice Montgomery
First published in 2019 by
Page Street Publishing Co.
27 Congress Street, Suite 105
Salem, MA 01970
www.pagestreetpublishing.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
eISBN 978-1-62414-800-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933280
Cover design by Laura Gallant for Page Street Publishing Co.
Author photo by McKaylyn Barth Photography
Photograph of boy © iStock / m-imagephotography; painting of cityscape
© Shutterstock / anna42f; emojis © Shutterstock