by Sarah Watson
“Yes, it will be fun to see them,” he said. “It will also be fraught.”
“Fraught?”
“Complicated.”
“I know what it means. I actually have a pretty good vocabulary. Don’t let my mediocre SAT score fool you.”
“Clarke,” he said in a bright way. “You made a joke about your own inadequacies. This feels like progress for you.”
“Thanks.” She watched her niece do pirouette after pirouette. “But don’t change the subject. Why is it fraught?”
Wyatt sighed again. This time it wasn’t dramatic. It was real. “Most of my high school friends are from cross-country and track. A lot of them are running at college. It’s hard to hear about it.” There was a long pause. Her niece spun around faster and faster. “I miss running,” he said. “God, do I miss it.”
“I’m sorry.” She thought about her own running shoes packed carefully in her suitcase. She was going to run the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot with her dad. It was one of her favorite traditions.
“Thanks. It’ll be good to see them, though. We’re going to celebrate my birthday.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“Not until next Saturday.” CJ made a mental note. “But since everyone is in town, we’re going to rage. And by rage, I mean they’re going to come over and my dad will make his famous baked ziti.”
“That’s adorable,” said CJ.
“I know you’re making fun, but it actually is. It’s my grandma’s recipe. It’s one of my favorite foods ever. And speaking of favorite foods ever. Top three Thanksgiving side dishes. Go.”
CJ’s niece spun herself into dizziness and collapsed in her lap. CJ smoothed her hair back and kissed her head. “Stuffing. Green bean casserole. And corn bread. You?”
“Pumpkin pie. Pecan pie. And any third variety of pie.”
“A pie isn’t a side dish. It’s a dessert.”
“It’s a dessert and a side dish.”
They stayed up until midnight debating it.
The next day, he called her. “My friends are out doing a big trail run together. Distract me. What are you doing?”
CJ was on the floor with her laptop in front of the fireplace. “I’m trying to write about a time I’ve had a transformational experience.”
“That sounds horrific. Why?”
She told him about the Stanford application essay topic and read it for him. “‘Describe a transformational experience and how it has shaped you into the person you are today.’”
“That’s a terrible topic, Clarke.” Wyatt breezed on to the next thing without elaborating. “Now, tell me why you want to go to Stanford. I’ve never asked.”
The logs in the fireplace shifted and a cascade of sparks fluttered and settled. “You’ll laugh.”
“I would never laugh.”
CJ grabbed the fireplace poker and jabbed at the logs. “I want to go to Stanford because I want to make the world a better place.” She stopped poking. “Are you laughing?”
“Not at all. But I do have a sub-question. Why does making the world a better place require a Stanford diploma?”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t. It just gives me some validity, you know what I mean?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
“I don’t think it was.”
“I want people to take me seriously, Wyatt.”
The confession was vulnerable. His response was forceful. “Then make them.”
CJ stopped poking at the logs. What he’d said hit her hard. So hard that she had the sudden urge to make a joke. “Oh, and also the weather. I’m sick of Cleveland winters. Stanford is sunny.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “That I can support.”
“Why did you want to go to Ohio State?” she asked.
“I had a track scholarship.”
“Wow,” CJ said.
“Yeah. It was pretty ‘wow.’ I was excited.”
CJ watched as the fire dimmed. “When do you think you’ll go back to school?”
He didn’t say anything for so long that she looked at her phone to make sure she hadn’t lost him. “You still there?” she asked.
“I’m still here.” There was another stretch of silence. “I don’t know. It’s going to be so… different. I had this vision of college… I don’t know what it’ll be like now.”
She thought about what he’d said to her at the mini-golf course. Dreams change.
His demeanor shifted. “Anyway, my mom just got home. I’ve gotta jet. Bye, Clarke.”
“Bye,” she said.
It was while eating a rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods on Thanksgiving Day that Ava decided she wanted to fly to California to see her birth mother. Ava and her mom were sitting across from each other in the dining room. Even though it was just the two of them, her mom always put together a centerpiece and Ava made place cards. It was tradition.
Ava moved her food around on her plate. She hadn’t had much of an appetite the last few days.
“How’s your RISD portfolio coming?” her mom asked.
Ava stopped pushing her food. They hadn’t talked about RISD since that awful day in the college counselor’s office. “It’s… it’s okay.”
“I’m trying to keep an open mind,” her mom said.
“Thanks.” Ava dragged her fork through the stuffing and wondered why Whole Foods put raisins in it. It seemed criminal.
“I just want you to be happy.”
Ava looked up. Her mom was trying. It wasn’t her fault that no amount of trying could ever make up for the fact that there were certain things that she would never understand. Her mom would never know the ache of desire to put paint onto a blank canvas. She would never know what it was like to be the only brown face in a sea of white ones. She would never know what it felt like to be leveled by depression. “Actually,” Ava said, “I’m trying to keep an open mind too. I’m thinking of maybe applying to Stanford.”
Her mom looked up. “Really? That’s fantastic.”
The exuberance in her mom’s voice almost broke Ava’s heart. “There’s a prospective-students’ weekend. To see the campus. Do you think maybe I could go?”
“Yes. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Of course.” She was beaming. “We can book our flights tonight if you want.”
“Oh,” Ava said. “You don’t have to… I know how busy you are with work and…”
“Ava. I’m not too busy for this.” Ava looked down at the table. She hadn’t even touched her chicken. “And the idea of you flying all that way on your own. I’ll be honest, it worries me a little.”
Ava looked back up. She could fly on her own. She could do all sorts of things that her mom didn’t think she was capable of doing. “Mom. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s the other side of the country.”
“Please, Mom,” Ava said. “I…” Her voice cracked slightly. “I need to do this.”
Her mom still looked nervous.
“What if I’m not the only one going? If a friend goes with me… then can I go?”
Her mom considered. “I suppose that would be okay.”
Ava almost called Logan Diffenderfer that night. Almost. She called CJ instead.
“So…” CJ said, after Ava laid out the plan. “You want me to go visit Stanford for the weekend with you so we can stalk your birth mom.”
Ava was curled onto her bed, the postcard from her birth mom in her hand. “You’ve never actually seen the campus. So I’m thinking you could convince your parents.”
There was an inordinately long pause.
“CJ?”
“Processing.” Another pause. “Okay, I’ve processed. No, I haven’t. Still processing. But, yes. I would walk through fire for you. So I will figure out a way to get the money.”
Ava set the postcard down and sat up. She hadn’t even thought about how much money this would cost and how hard that would be for CJ. “Shit. CJ, I didn’t even think. Just forget the whole thin
g. It’s a terrible idea.”
“Wait,” CJ said. “I just remembered something.” She laughed slightly. “The SAT course I took this summer has a money-back guarantee. Either your scores improve, or you get a full refund.”
“Don’t waste the money on me,” Ava said. “Spend it on yourself. Spend it on something important.”
“This is something important,” CJ said.
“I hate to be the one to point out the obvious,” Martha said that following Monday. “But I’m going to point out the obvious.” She stared incredulously at Ava from across the cafeteria table. “You can’t go to Stanford that weekend.”
Ava picked at the plastic label of her water bottle. “I have to.” It was chicken nugget day, and a pile of them sat untouched on her plate.
“I don’t know,” said Jordan. “If she doesn’t go, she’s always going to wonder.”
“Exactly what I said.” CJ picked one of the nuggets off Ava’s plate and held it up. “Are you not eating?”
Ava shook her head. “You can have it.”
“No. I mean…” She lowered her voice. “Are you not eating?” The question didn’t require the loaded tone. They all knew what it meant. Ava stopped eating when she was depressed.
“It’s just a hard week,” Ava said. “I’m overwhelmed. But I’m okay.”
“You promise?” CJ asked.
Ava shrugged.
Jordan pulled out her phone. “That settles it. I’m going too. You need all the emotional support you can get. What weekend is it?” She opened her calendar.
“The one after next,” Ava said.
Martha was getting impatient. “That’s my point,” she said. “And what else is that weekend?”
Ava kept picking at her water bottle. It made a frustratingly repetitive sound. “I don’t know.”
Martha reached over and took the water bottle away from her. “Ava. Your art show.”
Ava looked up. “Oh my god. I can’t believe I forgot.”
They were planning on going together. All four of them. Martha had already asked to get the night off from work.
“Shit,” Ava said. She looked at each of her friends. “Someone tell me what to do. I need someone else to make the decision for me.”
“No, you don’t,” said CJ. “What do you want? We’re with you no matter what.”
Ava stared at her nuggets. The coating was starting to turn white and rubbery where the fat was congealing. “I have to do it,” Ava finally said. “Jordan’s right. I’m always going to wonder.”
Martha couldn’t help but feel like this was a terrible idea. There was a good chance that it would make everything worse, not better. She knew she couldn’t say that, though, so she reached across the table and took Ava’s hand instead. She squeezed once. Ava squeezed back twice. Her grip was strong and it made Martha feel less worried. Only slightly, though.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WYATT WATCHED out the window of CJ’s car as the trees became thicker and the scenery grew more and more unfamiliar. “You’re taking me into the woods to murder me. That’s the surprise, right?”
“Happy birthday,” she said.
“Well, even that would be better than the celebration with my friends last week. So I say cool. Let’s do it.”
“Why?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Oh, nothing terrible,” he said lightly, as if to brush it aside.
CJ turned the car down another densely wooded road, and he glanced back at her.
“Seriously. Where are you taking me?”
“I told you,” CJ said. “It’s a surprise. What happened with your friends?”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “It was fine. They all tried very hard to say all the right things. It was very polite.”
“Oof.” CJ had spent enough time around him now to know that the politeness was the worst. No matter how people intended it, Wyatt always read it as an expression of pity. She looked over at him and he smiled warmly, distracting her so much that she almost missed her next turn. “Sorry,” she said as she took the corner a little too quickly.
They were so far outside the city that some of the streets didn’t even have signs. CJ eventually turned onto a long gravel road. She looked over and found Wyatt staring at her. “Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For this. Even if you are taking me into the woods to murder me. Thank you.”
CJ was positively giddy about the present she’d found for him. She’d originally bought him a book about Franklin Roosevelt, The President in the Wheelchair. But she was thankful that she’d skimmed it before giving it to him. She thought it would be empowering, but it turned out that her history class had gotten the legend of Roosevelt wrong in a lot of ways. He was a man who was very much not at peace with his limitations, going to great lengths to hide what he saw as a weakness. The prologue went so far as to say that in today’s world, a man in a wheelchair would likely never be elected. CJ wanted to burn that book.
Loose gravel crunched underneath the tires until they reached the end of the road. She turned into a dirt driveway. At the end of it was a rustic red barn. “We’re here,” she said.
Wyatt read the white letters that were painted across the barn. “Cross Creek Ranch Stables?”
“It’s an adaptive horseback riding facility. Surprise!”
He seemed confused. “For the kids?”
“No,” CJ said. “For you. Happy birthday.” She turned off the car and faced him. “I heard you when you said that you missed running. I get it. I get it on such an insanely deep level. Anyway, I was doing some random googling and I stumbled onto this.”
Outside, a handler was leading a chocolate-brown horse into the ring. The horse was outfitted with a saddle, but not like any CJ had ever seen.
“I read online that a horse’s hips mimic the motion of running for humans. A lot of people in wheelchairs say that riding horses gives them the sensation of being able to run. So that’s your gift. The gift of going running again.”
Wyatt didn’t say anything. He was staring at the horse with an intensity CJ wasn’t used to seeing from him.
“You ready?” she asked, somewhat cautiously.
Wyatt turned to her. Or more accurately, he turned away from the horse. “The gift of running again? Clarke. I’m never going running again.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t.”
His brusqueness flustered her. “Maybe I should have told you first. But I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Outside, the handler waved to CJ and Wyatt. CJ waved back. Wyatt did not. CJ put her finger up in a “give us a sec” gesture.
“The testimonials were really incredible. And the lady I talked to was so nice. Maybe if you just talk to her for a minute. Get some more details. She said there are lots of trails up here, and once you get comfortable in the saddle, you can go wherever you want. I was thinking I could bring my running shoes and we could go running together.”
Wyatt scoffed. It was a terrible sound. “Don’t you get it? We’re not going to go running together, because I’m never running again!”
CJ looked down. She felt awful. “Wyatt. I’m sorry. Everything I’m saying is coming out wrong. Please. Just try it.”
“I don’t want this, CJ!” He’d never called her CJ before. “God,” he said. “How could you ever think I would ever want this?”
“I… I’m sorry.”
“Get me out of here,” he said. “Please. Get me out of here.”
CJ started the car and pulled away, leaving a spray of dust and a very confused horse handler in their wake.
Neither one of them said anything until they were back on the highway. CJ was relieved when he broke the silence. “Can I ask you a question?” He didn’t look at her when he asked.
She nodded. “Anything.”
“Was this for you or for me?”
She looked over at him. Her eyes showed that she didn’t understand the questi
on.
“Clarke, I’m never going to be able to do everything that you can. And I guess I’m just wondering, will that ever be enough for you?”
She took her eyes off the road. “Of course,” she said. “Wyatt, I don’t care that—”
“Then why didn’t you kiss me?”
His question shocked her back into silence.
“The day with the water balloons. You wanted to. I wanted you to. But you didn’t. And the day with the puzzle and all those questions. Why did you ask?”
She looked at him and decided to answer honestly. “I did want to kiss you. I didn’t because… because I was scared.”
“Of what?”
CJ looked back at the road. “You know what. It does make everything complicated. We can pretend like it doesn’t, but it does.”
“Thank you for your honesty.” There was an edge to his voice.
CJ made a decision in that moment. She was tired of being scared. She put her turn signal on. She turned onto a small road, slowed to a stop, and put the car in park. She unbuckled her seat belt. Then she leaned over and kissed him. As their lips touched, she felt his hand tighten around her arm. His grip was so strong and sure that it took her a minute to notice that he wasn’t pulling her closer. He was pushing her away.
“I’m not here so you can prove something to yourself, Clarke.”
The butterflies in her stomach turned into caterpillars. Dense and writhing. “That’s not why—”
“You want to be able to tell everyone about the time you kissed a guy in a wheelchair. How you learned a valuable lesson about yourself. How it was a transformational experience.” He shook his head. “No way. I’m not that guy.”
They barely spoke on the car ride home. She dropped him off and helped him into his wheelchair. Then she stood there hoping that he’d speak first. He didn’t.
“Wyatt…”
“Don’t worry, Clarke. This won’t change things at the rec center. At least I don’t want it to. You’re too good with the kids.”
“Thanks,” she said. Because what else was there to say? “I’ll see you on Monday.”
She walked around to the driver’s side door, then paused when she remembered. “Wyatt. This is terrible timing, but I meant to tell you earlier that I won’t be there on Friday.”