Together, Apart

by Erin A. Craig

  That night, I video chatted with Neal for another hour. In the dark.

  Completely alone. But for the first time in a long time, not real y alone at al .

  —

  The next morning, my parents left early for the weekly grocery run. It was a whole event now. The careful y calculated and long list that had accumulated over the past seven days, the drive, the masks and hand sanitizer and wipes, the waiting in line outside the store, the social distancing protocol within the store, and of course the long checkout process, al the while praying they could find everything in one place. Not to mention having to wipe everything down once we unloaded groceries inside.

  “Can you come outside?” Neal asked over the phone.

  “For my shoe?”

  “Yes.”

  I frowned. “Does that mean you’re wil ing to give up the one thing that ensures we keep talking?”

  “I hope we keep talking afterward, with or without a hostage. Meet you in front of the buildings in ten minutes? I just have to finish this sauce.”

  “You cook?”

  “Yep. I don’t have much else to do. Been watching YouTube cooking videos. But now my mom complains that she doesn’t have anything to do,” he said.

  “What are you making?”

  “Fettucine alfredo with veggies. Just missing bread, though. Store has been out. Thought of trying to make my own bread, but it looks hard. Plus the store is always out of flour, anyway. Guess everyone is baking,” he muttered in this sad, disappointed voice.

  “We hoarded that stuff early, before quarantine was official.”

  “Smart.”

  I chewed on my lower lip and final y said, “See you in ten.”

  “Awesome.”

  I hurried to change into something cute and decided on a red tank top and navy blue shorts. I checked my reflection in the dresser mirror. Ew. Was that a pimple on my jaw and what was going on with this frizzy hair?

  Agh! I couldn’t meet a boy for the first time looking like this! I whipped my hair into a top bun.

  In the kitchen, I grabbed a Ziploc bag prepacked with Clorox wipes and stuffed it into my back pocket. In the corner of my eye, I noticed the loaf of bread that we’d made the other day. We hadn’t even cut into it, and it was the prettiest one by far. The X cut on top was pure pro-level, the crust crispy and golden brown, and the inside sure to be as chewy as its misshapen counterparts.

  I careful y wrapped it in foil and then placed it in a bag when Lil y came out of the bathroom.

  “Are you going outside?” she asked, her brown eyes wide and accusatory.

  “Don’t tel .” I held a finger to my lips.

  But Lil y wasn’t having it. She was one of those little formidable girls who was going to grow into a formidable woman. She didn’t have to say anything, just gave me a look that said, You’re not going without me or I’m tel ing.

  I sighed and dropped my head back. “Fine. Be quick.”

  She ran to our room and then skipped back to the foyer with a face mask on and a loaded water gun in hand. We slipped into flip-flops as I adjusted my own face mask. We headed out, through the long hal way and down the stairs.

  The sun hit my legs as soon as we reached the sidewalk. With no one around, I heaved out a breath, closed my eyes, and just enjoyed the sun, the space, the outdoors.

  A few moments later, Neal walked out of his apartment building and headed toward us, stopping several feet in front of me. He wore the heck out of knee-length cargo shorts and black T-shirt with a matching mask. Ugh!

  Boys fol owing quarantine precautions and wearing face masks were so snackable.

  His hair looked absolutely touchable in person. Too bad the mask hid his dimples. But he smiled, because his eyes crinkled, and OMG, who on this planet looked so adorable in a quarantine mask?

  “You got my shoe?” I asked.

  He tossed my sneaker a few times into the air before gingerly tossing it to me. I stepped aside and let it hit the ground.

  “You missed,” he said.

  “Um, no.” With the bag looped around my wrist, I whipped out a Clorox wipe and sanitized the shoe. Then left it on the sidewalk to air-dry for the recommended four minutes. Then cleaned my hands with sanitizer.

  Neal rol ed his eyes. But then he pul ed out a smal bottle of hand sanitizer and cleaned his hands, too. How was that not like the sexiest thing right now? A guy who took this whole thing as seriously as we did?

  He took a few steps and Lil y immediately jumped beside me and aimed her water gun at Neal, pumping it a few times.

  “Six feet apart!” she demanded.

  He stopped, holding his hands up. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “My little sister, Lil y,” I said off his look.

  “She’s cute.”

  Lil y frowned. “There’s nothing cute about social distancing.”

  Neal’s shoulders shook, as if he were trying not to laugh. “You’re right,”

  he said. “This is very serious. Awesome job keeping the family safe.”

  “You’re tal er than I thought,” I said.

  “You’re exactly what I thought,” he replied.

  “Thanks for returning my shoe. I mean, for doing the right thing, which you could’ve done days ago.”

  He shook his head. “But then you would’ve never given me your number.”

  “Extortion.” I glanced at my sneaker and noticed a new scribble.

  Neal had doodled a guitar with notes beside it in blue Sharpie and had signed his name at the bottom. Beneath the E and A of his name, he added an upward curve so that the letters looked like eyes with a smile beneath and yes, even dimples to make sure I didn’t forget who Neal was. I found myself grinning hard.

  “You signed it?”

  “Hope you don’t mind,” he said, his brows furrowed, maybe worried.

  “It’s…” Amazing. Charming. Sweet. “Nice.”

  “Let’s go play!” Lil y said in a high-pitched whine cutting through our moment. She hadn’t been al owed outside without the parents in a while, and she was probably frothing at the mouth to run wild.

  I groaned. “We have to get back inside before our parents get home from grocery shopping. Have to help wipe everything down.”

  Neal nodded. “Yeah. I better get home, too. Have to finish cooking.”

  “Here. This is for you.” I dangled the bag in front of him so he could grab it from the bottom.

  He took it cautiously. “What’s this?”

  “Bread.”

  He regarded me for a few seconds.

  “We make a lot of bread,” I explained. “It’s our family time thing. It’s sourdough. Took lots of tries to get it right, but my dad mastered sourdough starter.”

  He looked at the bag in the most unexpected, perplexed, but appreciative way. “Are your parents going to be mad that you gave away food?”

  “No. We stil have bread left. Besides. You don’t have flour to make your own bread because people like us hoarded it. Now you can have bread with your pasta.”

  He smiled big by the way his eyes squished up above his mask. I’d do anything to see those dimples. “I’d hug you if I could.”

  My bel y did flips until Lil y reminded us, “Six feet apart!”

  “Right. Which is why I won’t. But maybe one day,” he said, hopeful.

  I bit my lip. “Yeah. One day.”

  One day, quarantine would be lifted.

  One day, we’d be able to get within six feet and not need face masks and I’d be able to see his dimples in person.

  One day, we’d stand right beside each other, his skin brushing mine, sparks coming to life, our fingers twitching as we slowly touched pinkies.

  One day, we’d hold hands and not worry about sending anyone to the hospital.

  One day, we’d hug and I would feel his heartbeat with my cheek against his chest.

  One day, his arms would wrap around me and I’d smel him and feel safe.

  One day, we would get to hang ou
t, go to the movies, meet friends.

  One day, he’d invite me over and play the guitar.

  One day, I’d tel him that his music had soothed my anxiety and our balcony romance made me feel normal, special, human again.

  One day, we might even kiss and it would be beyond amazing.

  “One day” couldn’t come soon enough, but it would come.

  I couldn’t wait for our “one day.”

  The mil ennials have taken over TikTok.

  I don’t know who invited them, or why they came, or why they think making jokes about the phrase per my last email is so damn funny, but here they are, al over my main feed, ruining my favorite app. Can’t they al go back to Instagram or wherever else they came from?

  I drop my phone onto the couch and meander to the kitchen, where I pour myself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for my third lunch. Eve reaches across the kitchen island to snatch some out of my bowl before I pour in the milk, and I toss her the (now mostly empty) box.

  “Hands off my snacks, please.”

  She grins at me, swal owing. “Respect the older sister privileges, Harper, please.”

  I snatch my bowl off the counter before she can reach for it again. Since she came home from NYU when they closed because of the pandemic, we’ve been running seriously low on al the good snacks. I grab a bag of pretzels out of the pantry on my way back to the living room to squirrel it away for later.

  Eve fol ows me, the box of cereal propped up in her arms like a newborn baby. Smush, our family’s squashy pug, tips his head up when he hears the

  bag crinkle. I toss him a cereal from my bowl, and he almost catches it. It lands on the floor instead, and he does an accidental backflip as he tumbles off the couch in his eagerness to go after it.

  Eve runs to fix his inside-out ear. I watch her go, biting back a laugh at Smush’s confused expression.

  This is exactly the kind of thing I’d use to start a conversation with Alyssa Sanderson during group work in bio. We’re the only ninth-graders in the class, so Mr. Ray always lets us be in the same lab group. I used the time wisely. I’d tel her about the way Smush flopped onto the floor, tipping myself sideways in my desk chair to try and make her laugh, to let her nose to wrinkle up as her eyes brighten.

  Her laugh is real y cute. Plus, she’s the second-funniest person I know, after Eve, and every time I can get her to laugh feels like a win.

  But we never real y got from in-the-same-class friends to texting-after-school friends, so I haven’t talked to her since school closed.

  Eve looks down at me, Smush flopped in her arms, his tongue lol ing upside-down at me. I boop him on the nose, and he nips at my thumb.

  “You okay?” Eve asks.

  I tilt my head back, groaning. “No.”

  She shifts Smush’s weight against her hip so she can free one hand to tug the end of my braid. “What’s wrong?”

  I shrug. “I miss my friends.”

  Especial y my not-quite-close-enough-to-text-just-’cause friend. My overanalyze-her-wardrobe-in-a-desperate-attempt-to-see-if-she’s-gay friend.

  My wish-we-weren’t-“friends” friend.

  Eve narrows her eyes at me. “You FaceTimed Anna for three hours this morning.”

  “Are you suggesting I only have one friend?” I cross my arms over my chest.

  She raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Okay, fine, I only have one friend—starting a new high school with social anxiety is hard, okay?”

  But what Eve didn’t realize is I did have a few friends who were just not in the close-enough-to-FaceTime variety. Anna and I have been best friends since elementary school. We’re so comfortable with each other that we can spend hours hanging out on video cal s, even if we run out of things to say.

  Yesterday, I watched her make banana bread while I tried unsuccessful y to curl my hair for the first time, al in companionable silence.

  A teasing smile flashes across Eve’s face. “So who are you real y missing?”

  Heat creeps across my cheeks, and I get up to wash my bowl—and hide the fact that my face is turning red to match. Eve fol ows me, doing a little dance with Smush.

  “No one.”

  Eve gives a disbelieving laugh.

  “Harper’s in love, Harper’s in looove,” she sings as she swings Smush around in a waltz.

  I drop my bowl into the drying rack on the counter. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

  “I’m procrastinating.”

  “They don’t work you hard enough in comedy school.”

  She purses her lips at me. “Now you sound like Mom. I do not go to comedy school, I’m majoring in film so I can write comedy for—”

  She puts Smush down so she can talk with her hands, launching into her favorite rant. It’s an al -too-familiar one since she declared a major in film and TV, especial y now that she’s about to finish her junior year and Mom has spent the entire month since NYU sent students home hounding her about career prospects. Once she’s in ful rant mode, she’l tire herself out before she can remember to pester me about my crush.

  —

  I’m supposed to be doing math homework, but my textbook lies facedown on the fluffy white carpet next to me. I’m instead sprawled out on the floor, staring at Alyssa’s latest Snapchat story, my head propped up on the couch

  leg. I have no idea how to do the work, nor do I have any desire to figure it out. Especial y because Alyssa just posted a snap story makeup tutorial that’s both hilarious and cute, which is extremely unfair. How am I supposed to focus on anything else?

  But then I hear my mom’s footsteps coming down the hal . I snatch open my bio textbook at random and flip it onto my stomach just as she emerges into the living room.

  “Studying?” she asks.

  My eyes sweep over my homework. I truly have no idea how any of this works, but I nod anyway, and she gives me an approving smile.

  Breathing out a sigh of relief, I wait until she’s disappeared into the kitchen before I pick up my phone again. I tap right to Alyssa’s name in my contacts. I have her number from when we had to work on a lab together outside of class, and our chat history is depressingly limited to schoolwork.

  Hey! Do you get any of this bio hw?

  I hit send before I can think about it, but that doesn’t stop my brain from thinking anyway when the delivered notification pops up under my blue bubble of text. Oh god oh god oh god why? Did I seriously just ask her about homework? I cringe. So transparent, yet so not flirty.

  Stil , I spend more time over the next hour checking my phone instead of doing the math homework, until she final y responds with a picture of her notes from class. I knew my text was cringey, but I stil shrivel up inside when she doesn’t say anything more. I shoot back a quick thanks!! (two exclamation points, Harp? Seriously?) and settle back down to finish my homework.

  Half an hour later, after I’ve tried feeding bits of my textbook to an uninterested Smush, I’m back on TikTok. The app has a way of swal owing time whole. My muscles are starting to atrophy when I scrol to the next video in my bottomless feed, and freeze.

  The video’s already looped back to the beginning before I have a chance to process what I’m seeing. Because it’s Alyssa. On my FYP.

  Coming out.

  To an audience of over a hundred thousand likes, and piles of comments.

  The video loops around for a third time, and I recover from my shock enough to feel a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. She announces that

  she’s gay via a snappy choreographed dance that il uminates text in each corner of her video frame as she moves. Her parents are in the background, and while they’re confused and trying to fol ow the steps at first, they al end up tripping and laughing over each other.

  The song she’s dancing to is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day, I think as I let the video loop for a fourth time. I can’t help grinning like a total idiot at it, though.

  And, if I’m honest, there’s a p
art of me—a smal , teeny tiny, very loud part of me—that’s singing. Alyssa is gay.

  Does this mean I have a chance with her? She’s known I’m gay ever since I came out last year, after al .

  Not if al we text about is homework, I tel myself, shoulders shrinking. I swal ow past the anxious bubble that immediately hardens in my throat as I open our text chain. I just texted her about homework. Wil this make me look desperate?

  I take a deep breath, and type out a message anyway.

  Omg you’re tiktok famous!! Congrats on coming out

  Her response comes almost immediately.

  Thanks!! It was so fun lol. Went real y wel !

  It makes my heartbeat thunder so hard I feel it reverberate in my fingertips.

  I’m so glad! Here for you if you need anything

  Thanks, Harp!

  Of course!

  I stare at the screen, wil ing my fingers to keep typing, to say something

  —anything—that would keep the conversation going, but I draw a blank.

  Before I can think of anything, she gives my text a heart reaction, and just like that, the conversation is dead.

  I drop my phone back onto the floor and sit up straighter. I can’t text her about homework again. I’ve already initiated two conversations with her today.

  I switch back to TikTok, trying to get my mind off Alyssa and her vibrant laugh when I remember how many likes she got. How funny her video

  is, how effortlessly she brings smiles to other people’s faces. Even strangers scrol ing past her video have laughed, liked, commented on how much her humor got to them. How am I supposed to get her attention now?

  I stare at my phone for ages, my chin resting in my palm. I’m desperately reaching for an idea. I try staring off into space, pacing in tight circles around my math textbook, even scrol ing through TikTok for inspiration. Instead, I spend hours thinking Why didn’t I think of that? every time a video makes me laugh.

  Eventual y, I make a video about my math homework murdering me. My gut sinks as I watch it loop after I post it to my account. It doesn’t even make me laugh.