Something Like Gravity Page 13

  The entire collection, stack upon stack of thousands of plastic sleeves, cascaded to the floor. If they had been in any order, I would never be able to put them back the way they’d been.

  “Goddammit,” I muttered.

  Roxie ambled to the edge of the mess and stood over the sleeve that was farthest away, almost reaching the wall. She sniffed at it and then looked at me. Defeated, I walked over to where she was standing and sat down on the cold, hard floor. She leaned in and touched her nose to mine, and then lay down.

  I curled up into a ball around her, and she snuggled into me. My cheek was resting against one of those zillion plastic sleeves. I picked it up, preparing to toss it toward the larger pile, but, almost as a reflex, I held it above my head instead.

  My eyes were tired and unfocused, but there it was. The negative I had been searching for. This was the one. I was sure of it. I stumbled to my feet and brought it over to the picture on the wall to compare.

  It wasn’t a window; I could see that now. Or it wasn’t just a window. It was a door, a window inside a door.

  “We actually found it.” I wasn’t sure whether the “we” I was referring to was Roxie and me or Mallory and me, but either way, we had done it. I was feeling closer to Mallory with every passing second.

  Except now there was the next step, figuring out where the door was.

  Instead of daunting, it felt exciting. Like I was finally onto something. Like this whole night meant something. Like I was supposed to leave the picnic, supposed to drive away with Chris, supposed to find the cemetery gate and the soda shop with the jukebox, and even the new age store with the incense.

  I wanted to tell Chris, but then I’d have to tell him everything. Like one of those fireworks exploding on the side of the road, the realization jolted me: For the first time in my life I was doing something that had a purpose. I wished I knew how to share it with him.

  CHRIS

  I TOOK MY SNEAKERS OFF at the door and laid my keys down in the little dish on the kitchen counter. The volume on the TV was turned up in the other room.

  “Hey you,” Isobel said as I entered the living room.

  “Hey.” I plopped down onto the sofa next to her. “I was trying to be quiet in case you were sleeping.”

  Subtext: I wasn’t trying to sneak in. But she was already side-eyeing me.

  I tried to focus on the commercial that was playing; some late-night fast-food chain that made my stomach growl. Isobel pointed the remote at the TV, and I watched the volume bar lower until it was almost down to zero.

  “So, how was your evening?” she asked.

  “Okay. How about you? Busy night at the hospital?”

  “Usually the Fourth is a lot worse. Only about a half dozen idiots with some second- and third-degree burns this year. And a middle-aged man fell off his roof—broke a couple things. A guy with a bullet hole in his thigh . . . I’ll never understand why people think it’s a good idea to celebrate by shooting guns into the air. What goes up must come down. But all in all, not too bad.” She paused, watching me nod along. “So, your night was just okay, huh?”

  This was a game we played. I’d pretend I didn’t want to tell her what was going on, and she’d pretend to drag it out of me, when really we both wanted the same thing.

  “Yeah, it was okay,” I repeated. “Just hung out.”

  Isobel clicked her tongue three times, and breathed in deeply. I finally met her eyes. She was all grins, and then she shook her head and said, “Uhn, uhn, uhn.” As she exhaled, she sighed through the word “Kid . . .”

  “What?”

  She said only one word: “Trouble.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” she mimicked. “Trouble,” she repeated, more firmly, pointing her finger at me.

  I shook my head and laughed, and so did she. Then I stood up and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Aunt Isobel.”

  “Good night, Trouble.”

  I’d started to walk away, when she called behind me, “Hey, Chris?” I turned to look at her again. “You know a little trouble is good for the soul, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, taking the first step up the stairs.

  “Oh, sure,” she sang, and I heard the volume on the TV going back up. “Love you!”

  “Love you,” I called back.

  When I lay down in bed, it was almost as if I could still feel my body moving. A phantom car ride. The scent of firework gunpowder lingered in the air. I felt light-headed and dizzy and perfectly warm and perfectly cool. Part of me wanted to ignore the sparkly feeling lighting up my chest, because I damn well knew what those sparkly feelings were all about.

  They were trouble.

  They were terrifying. But they felt so good too.

  MAIA

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT day, and my head felt like a giant brass bell someone had been gonging at all night. I wondered if it was possible to have a coffee hangover.

  I opened my eyes slowly, reaching for my phone that was still in my pocket because I hadn’t even changed out of yesterday’s clothes before I fell into bed. I hadn’t bothered to brush my teeth or take off my shoes. I had no idea what time it was, as I waited for my phone to power on. I looked out the window. It was bright and sunny; birds were chirping, insects humming.

  My phone turned on, telling me it was almost two o’clock in the afternoon.

  As I looked at the screen, a whole series of messages from both Hayden and Gabby lit up. The headline was: They were pissed that I’d bailed on them.

  There was a knock at the door downstairs.

  I stumbled out of bed, and as I passed my mirror I saw that my hair was mushed up on one side of my head.

  Roxie was barking as the knocking persisted. I hoped it was Chris; Roxie didn’t usually bark at people she knew. My heart felt light and wispy, like that drunken-butterfly feeling. I quickly ducked into the bathroom and tried to smooth my hair down.

  KnockKnockKnockKnockKnock.

  I ran my fingers through, breaking strands of hair as I twisted it into an only slightly more tidy disaster. As I rounded the corner, I finally saw that it was not Chris who was standing on my porch.

  It was Hayden.

  Those butterflies that had been holding on to my heart dropped it like a cannonball, its weight slowing me down as I took those last few steps to the door, dreading whatever was about to follow.

  Hayden had her hand on one hip and her phone in the other. As I approached, she raised her sunglasses to her forehead and looked at me, pressing her lips together as she pocketed her phone. “Good,” she said, her voice tight. “Now that I know you’re alive, I can kill you.”

  I pushed open the screen door, and she walked in, like she had countless other times throughout our lifetime of friendship.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I followed her into my kitchen.

  “No.” She shook her head. “You’re not.” She immediately made a beeline to the cupboard where we kept our glasses, pulled two down, and set them next to each other on the counter.

  “Yes, I am.”

  I tried to put myself in her line of vision, but she wouldn’t look at me.

  She moved across the floor like she was dancing choreographed steps, opening the refrigerator door and pulling out the pitcher of Daddy’s Famous Sweet Tea (as we grew up calling it), which was eternally stocked in this house. She reached into the freezer, pulled out a handful of ice, and dropped four cubes into each glass.

  I remembered that Hayden and I used to watch my dad, mouths watering, while he boiled the water in a big metal pot on the stove, the giant red box of Luzianne tea bags sitting out on the counter. He’d stand there throwing in a handful of tea bags, stirring it with a wooden spoon, letting it all come to a rolling boil before adding in heaping scoops of white sugar, letting them disintegrate into the tea. He always said if your sugar fell to the bottom of the glass when you poured it, that was just plain lazy. While the tea cooled,
he sliced up one lemon. It was always the same: He’d cut the ends off, stand the lemon on one end, and slice it vertically into quarters. Next, he took each quarter and cut it on an angle to get rid of the seeds. Then he would cut that wedge in half lengthwise so he ended up with eight equal lemon wedges. Last, he’d add a slit in the center of each, so they would sit perfectly on the edge of a glass.

  Then he’d pour the tea off into two plastic pitchers, and stow them in the fridge, tossing the lemon wedges into a plastic container that lived there next to the pitchers.

  Hayden knew this ritual well.

  She brought the half-full pitcher to the counter, poured it over the ice cubes in each glass until it was nearly overflowing, popped the lid off the lemon container, and finally secured one wedge to the rim of each glass. Still steering clear of eye contact with me, she held one glass in each hand as she walked out of the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, following her as she made her way through the living room and up the stairs and down the hall to my bedroom. I watched her set the glasses down on my nightstand; then she walked back to my door and waited while Roxie made her way down the hall and into my room, before closing it behind her.

  She sat on my bed, crossed her legs, and stared at me, still wordless.

  I sat down on the other end, opposite her.

  “You’re not acting like yourself,” she finally said.

  I laughed.

  “Something funny?” she asked, not nicely.

  “You’d have to be there to get it,” I said, turning Hayden’s new catchphrase around on her. “In my head.”

  She nodded, then reached for one of the glasses of tea and handed it to me. She took the other for herself and held it out, clinking hers against mine, nearly making them both spill all over my bed.

  “Cheers,” she said, taking a sip. “While we’re on the subject, just what the hell is going on inside that head of yours lately?” she asked. The shape of her mouth softened, and I knew she’d stop being mad at me any minute.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Bzzz!” She made a sound like a game show buzzer. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

  “Fine.” I took a deep breath and let it out, deflating my lungs until I had no choice but to breathe again. “Where to begin?” I said, more to myself than to her.

  “You tell me.”

  “You know how they say time heals all wounds, or something like that?”

  “Uh-huh,” she answered.

  “Well, I don’t think that’s right. Or at least not with me, anyway. Because it just seems like the more time that passes, the harder things get.”

  “You mean with Mallory?” she asked.

  “Mallory, yeah. But my parents, too. And me,” I added, hoping she wouldn’t ask for clarity on that last part. “I mean, shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I wish I did. I’ve never lost anyone. I wish I knew how you were feeling.”

  “I don’t,” I told her. “I don’t wish for anyone to feel like this.”

  “You know I love you, right?” she said.

  I nodded. I knew. I really did.

  “Gabby too,” she added.

  “I know,” I said out loud.

  “Maybe we don’t always have the right thing to say, but we’re here. You don’t need to keep everything inside all the time and deal with it all by yourself.”

  “Don’t I, though? I mean, that’s what it feels like to me.” I sniffed back the tears that were playing on my vocal chords, warbling my voice. “It’s like you guys are suddenly best friends and I’m just by myself.”

  “Are you kidding?” But there was something in her voice, the way she was being so emphatic about it. “Maia, don’t be crazy—you will always be my best friend forever, okay? That’s never gonna change.”

  But I knew I wasn’t wrong. And suddenly I knew it wasn’t anything she had done. Or anything I had done, or even anything Gabby had done. It wasn’t only that we were changing; we were changing in different ways, heading in different directions. We were on opposite sides of this life-altering experience now, and there was no way either of us could cross back over.

  I think she knew it too. Because she smiled, but it was a frowning smile, one of those smiles that is really just covering up sadness. I smiled back, I’m sure in the same exact way. I dabbed at my eyes with the bottom of my shirt. She pressed the corners of her eyes with her fingers and blinked hard against the tears that were getting caught in her eyelashes.

  “Ugh,” she moaned, fanning her face with her hands. “All right. We good? Can we move on to something more important now?”

  “Yes, please,” I agreed.

  She took another sip of her tea, and I did too. The sweetness washed away that bitter taste that had been in my mouth for months.

  “Inquiring minds, and all,” she began, this mischievous smirk twisting her lips as she raised one eyebrow.

  “Yeah?” I prompted, taking another big sip of the tea.

  “What’s up with you and the new kid?”

  I gasped, and the sugar got caught in my throat, which launched me into a coughing fit. Hayden’s eyes widened for just a moment before she crossed her arms and lowered her chin, looking up at me from under her raised eyebrows.

  “Nothing!” I finally managed.

  “Oh yeah, clearly. Nothing at all,” she said, grinning as she waved her hand over me. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “We saw you leaving with him yesterday.” It was framed like a statement, but I knew it was a question in disguise.

  “Come on, really,” I insisted. “Nothing. I swear.”

  She shook her head, saying, “Nah-uh. Spill.”

  “He gave me a ride,” I said, realizing only after it was out of my mouth that it was a poor choice of words in this particular context.

  Hayden erupted with laughter and then howled, “That’s what she said!”

  “Shut up!” I reached for my pillow and whacked her with it.

  “Hey, he’s pretty cute,” she said.

  “Stop,” I told her, even though I definitely agreed.

  Then she started in with that song from Grease: “Summah lovin,” she screeched. “Had me a bla-hast . . .”

  “My ears!” I yelled, although, in my mind I was recounting the million times we had watched that movie over the years, dancing and singing along to the entire soundtrack.

  “Hey! I’m just sayin’ go for it.” She held her hands facing the ceiling, her arms and torso in the shape of a W, and added, “I mean, why not?”

  “I’m not going for anything, Hayden.” But even as the words hit the air, I knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth. “We’re barely friends,” I added. And maybe before yesterday that part would’ve been true, but in my bones I knew that wasn’t quite right either.

  We hugged it out on the front porch, and as I watched her drive away in her mom’s loud little car, a wave of relief washed over me, as if something had been repaired in our friendship. Or maybe it was that whatever had been coming undone was now a clean break, not jagged and messy anymore, but clear and crisp, and maybe healable.

  I put away the pitcher of tea and the lemon wedges, and rinsed out our glasses. If my mom got home from work and saw the kitchen dirty and me all disheveled with my hair a mess, it would make it harder for her to pretend things were all right. As much as I sometimes wished we could rip away this veil of make-believe like a bandage, let the fresh air get at all the wounds underneath, I wasn’t sure she could handle it.

  I thought about how just last night she called me Mallory. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to let the air in. No, I’d play my part today.

  I got into the shower, and had to try hard to not think about Chris as I ran the sponge across my skin. Damn you, Hayden, I thought. But she hadn’t planted the idea in my head; I knew the seed of it was already there, waiting. A sharp knock on the bathroom door startled me right out of tha
t little fantasy.

  “Yeah?” I yelled, sticking my head out from behind the shower curtain.

  The door opened and Mom stepped inside, saying, “Hurry up, because that boy is downstairs and your father’s out there talking to him.”

  “He’s what?” I said, turning the water off.

  “I don’t know. I got home and they were outside talking.”

  I murmured, “Oh god.”

  “Yep.” Mom picked up the towel I had set out on the sink and handed it to me. “I’m sure that’s a riveting conversation.”

  She left before I could decipher whom she was insulting, my dad or Chris. I got dressed in record time. I dragged a comb through my hair, detangling it by force and letting it fall across my shoulders, rather than the usual ponytail. I rummaged through the drawers under the sink until I found my strawberry lip balm, the one that made my lips shimmery and red and sweet-tasting.

  I picked it up with two fingers and centered myself in front of the mirror again. After removing the cap, I pressed the waxy tip against my upper lip and glided it along the right side, then the left. I kneaded my lips together and stood back, examining the way they looked, all polished and shining, like they were separate from my face. I flashed myself a smile.

  I leaned in closer, paused, considering for a moment.

  Then I dragged the back of my hand across my mouth, rubbing back and forth until my lips went dry and matte once again.

  “Idiot,” I muttered, pulling my hair back into a sloppy bun.

  CHRIS

  I WAITED UNTIL MAIA’S FRIEND left before I went over. My timing was impeccable because just as I finished walking across the field, carrying the bag full of bike supplies that Maia had left in my backseat, a truck pulled up the driveway.

  He was waiting at the front porch by the time I got there, wearing a hat that looked like he’d been wearing it every day for the last decade. His boots and jeans and button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows were all covered in paint stains or plaster. I thought he must work in construction. He examined my appearance too. I could see that he was trying to figure me out, but if he made any conclusions, I wasn’t sure what they were.