All the Little Lights

by Jamie McGuire

  “Pretty much.”

  “How?” I said, leaning in. I was genuinely curious, hoping he would unveil some magical secret that would end the misery Presley and her friends loved invoking in me.

  “Oh, I get angry. It gets old when people feel the need to tell me their great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess, or that stupid joke about if I got my name from the first thing my parents saw after they walked out of a teepee. I can get heated when someone calls me chief, when I see people in headdresses outside of our ceremonies. But my uncle says we should either be compassionate and educate or leave them alone in their ignorance. Besides, there’s too much ignorance in the world to let it all get to me. If I did, all I’d ever feel is anger, and I don’t want to be like my mom.”

  “Is that why you were punching our tree?”

  He looked down, either unwilling or unable to answer the question.

  “A lot bothers me,” I grumbled, sitting back. I glanced at the clones, dressed in cutoff denim shorts and floral blouses, just variations of the same shirt from the same store.

  Dad tried to make sure I had the right clothes and the right backpack, but year after year Mama watched as more of my childhood friends faded away. She began to wonder what we’d done wrong, and then I began to wonder, too.

  The truth was, I hated Presley for hating me. I didn’t have the heart to tell Mama that I would never fit in. I wasn’t vile enough for those small-town, small-minded girls. It took me a long time to figure out that I didn’t really want to, but at fifteen, I sometimes wondered if it was better than being alone. Dad couldn’t be my best friend forever.

  I took a bite of my sherbet.

  “Stop,” Elliott said.

  “Stop what?” I asked, the cool orangey-goodness melting on my tongue.

  “Looking at them like you wish you were sitting over there. You’re better than that.”

  I smirked, amused. “You think I don’t know that?”

  He swallowed whatever he was about to say next.

  “So what’s your story?” I asked.

  “My parents are going on a couples’ retreat for six weeks. Some kind of intense counseling. One last stab at it, I guess.”

  “What happens if they stab and miss?”

  He picked at his napkin. “I’m not sure. Mom talked about just the two of us moving back here as a last resort. That was a year or two ago, though.”

  “What do they fight about?”

  He sighed. “My dad’s drinking. Dad not taking out the trash. Mom nagging. Mom spending too much time on Facebook. Dad says he drinks because she ignores him; Mom says she’s on Facebook all the time because he never talks to her. Basically, the stupidest stuff you could imagine, and it escalates like they’ve been walking around all day waiting for the other to set them off. Now that he’s lost his job—again—it’s worse. Apparently the therapist said Dad needs to be a victim, and Mom enjoys emasculating him, whatever that means.”

  “They told you that?”

  “They’re not the fight-behind-closed-doors type of parents.”

  “That blows. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, looking at me from under his glasses. “This isn’t so bad.”

  I squirmed in my seat. “We should probably, um . . . we should go.”

  Elliott stood, waiting for me to slide out of the booth. He followed me out, so I wasn’t sure if he noticed Presley and the clones covering their insults and giggles with their hands.

  When he stopped next to the trash can behind their booth, I knew he had. “What are you laughing at?” he asked.

  I tugged on his T-shirt, begging him with my eyes to keep walking.

  Presley rolled her shoulders and lifted her chin, thrilled to be acknowledged. “Just how cute is Kit-Cat with her new boyfriend? It’s precious how you don’t want to hurt her feelings. I mean . . . I have to assume that’s what”—she gestured to us—“this is.”

  Elliott walked over to their table, and the girls’ giggles quieted. He knocked on the wood and sighed. “You know why you’ll never outgrow the need to make others feel like shit so you can feel better, Presley?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, watching him like a snake ready to strike.

  Elliott continued, “Because it’s a temporary high. It never lasts, and you’ll never stop because it’s the only happiness you’ll ever have in your sad, pathetic life that revolves around manicures and highlighting your hair. Your friends? They don’t like you. No one ever will because you don’t like yourself. So every time you give Catherine a hard time, she’ll know. She’ll know why you’re doing it, just like your friends will know. Just like you’ll know that you’re overcompensating. Every time you throw insults Catherine’s way, it’s that much less of a secret.” He made eye contact with each clone and then Presley. “Have the day you deserve.”

  He returned to the door and held it open, gesturing for me to walk through. We navigated the parked cars until we were on the other side of the lot, and headed back toward our neighborhood. The streetlamps were on, the gnats and mosquitoes buzzing beneath the bright bulbs. The quiet made the sounds of our shoes against the pavement more prominent.

  “That was,” I began, searching for the right word, “legendary. I could never tell someone off like that.”

  “Well, I don’t live here, so that makes it easier. And that wasn’t entirely mine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s from a scene in Detention Club Musical. Don’t tell me you didn’t watch it when you were little.”

  I stared at him in disbelief, and then laughter erupted from my throat. “The movie that came out when we were eight?”

  “I watched it every day for like a year and a half.”

  I giggled. “Wow. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it.”

  “I’m just glad Presley didn’t. That would have made my monologue much less intimidating.”

  I laughed again, and this time Elliott did, too. As the laughter died down, he nudged me with his elbow. “Do you really have a boyfriend from out of town?”

  I was glad it was dark. My entire face felt like it had caught fire. “No.”

  “Good to know,” he said with a grin.

  “I told them that once in middle school, hoping they would leave me alone.”

  He stopped, looking down at me with an amused smile. “I’m guessing it didn’t work?”

  I shook my head, every instance of their badgering coming to mind like a barely healed wound breaking open.

  Elliott sniffed and touched the tip of his nose with a scraped knuckle.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” I asked.

  The laughter and grins faded. A dog barked, low and lonely, from a few blocks away, an air-conditioning unit clicked and shuddered, an engine revved—probably the older high schoolers dragging Main Street. As the quiet surrounded us, the light in Elliott’s eyes disappeared.

  “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  I shrugged, continuing our trek. “I don’t know. It just seems personal.”

  “I’ve been telling you about my parents and all their problems, and you think my bloody knuckles are personal?”

  I shrugged.

  “I lost my temper. Took it out on your oak tree. See? No magic trick. I still get angry.”

  I slowed. “Frustrated about your parents?”

  He shook his head. I could tell he didn’t want to say more, so I didn’t push. On our quiet side of town, walking along the last road within city limits, the world as Elliott and I knew it was ending, even if we hadn’t quite realized it yet.

  Houses lined each side of the street like little islands of life and activity. The lit windows broke up the darkness between streetlamps. Occasionally a shadow would skirt across one of them, and I wondered what living on their islands was like, if they were enjoying their Friday night watching a made-for-television movie, snuggled on the couch. The worry of paying bills was probab
ly far, far away.

  When we arrived at my gate, my island was dark and quiet. I wished for that warm yellow glow from the windows in the surrounding homes, the flicker from a television screen.

  Elliott reached into his pockets, making the change inside jingle. “Are they home?”

  I looked to the garage, seeing Dad’s Buick in the garage and Mama’s Lexus behind it. “Looks that way.”

  “I hope I didn’t make things a lot worse for you with Presley.”

  I waved him away. “Presley and I go way back. That’s the first time anyone has stood up for me. I’m not sure she knew what to do with it.”

  “Hopefully she keeps it safe next to the stick in her ass.”

  A loud laugh burst from my throat, and Elliott couldn’t hide his satisfaction at my response. “Do you have a cell number?”

  “No.”

  “No? Really? Or do you just not want to give me your number?”

  I shook my head and breathed out a laugh. “Really. Who’s going to call me?”

  He shrugged. “I was gonna, actually.”

  “Oh.”

  I lifted the gate latch, pushing my way through, hearing the high-pitched sound of metal rubbing on metal. It closed behind me with a click, and I turned to face Elliott, resting my hands on the top of the elegantly bent iron. He glanced up at the house like it was just another house, unafraid. His bravery warmed something deep inside of me.

  “We’re practically neighbors, so . . . I’m sure I’ll see you around,” he said.

  “Yeah, definitely. I mean, probably . . . it’s likely,” I said, nodding.

  “What are you doing tomorrow? Do you have a summer job?”

  I shook my head. “Mama wants me to help around the house in the summers.”

  “Is it okay if I swing by? I’ll pretend not to take pictures of you.”

  “Sure, barring anything weird with my parents.”

  “Okay then,” he said, standing a bit taller, his chest puffing out a bit. He took a few steps backward. “See you tomorrow.”

  He turned for home, and I did the same, walking slowly up the steps. The noise the warped, wooden slats that made up our porch made under the pressure of my 110 pounds seemed loud enough to alert my parents, but the house stayed dark. I pushed through the extra-wide door, silently cursing the creaking hinges. Once inside, I waited. No muffled conversation or footsteps. No hushed anger from upstairs. No whispering in the walls.

  Each step seemed to scream my arrival as I climbed the stairs to the upper level. I kept to the middle, not wanting to brush up against the wallpaper. Mama wanted us to be careful about the house, as if it were another member of our family. I stepped softly down the hall, pausing when a board in front of my parents’ room creaked. After no signs of movement, I made my way to my room.

  My bedroom’s wallpaper had horizontal stripes, and even the pink and cream colors didn’t keep it from feeling like a cage. I kicked off my shoes and padded through the darkness to the single-paned window. The white paint on the frame was chipping, creating a small cluster on the floor.

  Outside, two stories down, Elliott came in and out of view as he passed under the streetlights. He was walking toward his aunt Leigh’s house, looking down at his phone while he passed the Fentons’ dirt plot. I wondered if he’d come home to a quiet house, or if Miss Leigh would have every light burning; if she would be fighting with her husband, or making up, or waiting up for Elliott.

  I turned to my dresser, seeing the jewelry box Dad had bought me for my fourth birthday. I lifted the lid, and a ballerina began to twirl in front of a small, oval mirror set against baby-pink felt fabric. The few details painted on her face had worn away, leaving only two black spots for eyes. Her tutu was mashed. The spring she was perched on was bent, forcing her to lean a little too far over to the side as she pirouetted, but the slow, haunting chimes still pinged perfectly.

  The wallpaper was peeling like the paint, drooping from the top in some places, peeled up from the baseboard in others. The ceiling was stained in one corner with a brown splotch that seemed to grow every year. My white iron-framed bed squeaked with the slightest movement, and my closet doors didn’t slide the way they use to, but my room was my own space, a place where the darkness couldn’t reach. My family’s status as the town pariahs and Mama’s anger all seemed so far away when I was within those walls, and I hadn’t felt that way anywhere else until I sat at a sticky table across from a bronzed boy and his big, brown eyes, watching me with no sign of sympathy or disdain.

  I stood at the window, already knowing Elliott would be out of sight. He was different—more than just odd—but he had found me. And for the moment, I liked not feeling lost.

  Chapter Two

  Catherine

  Catherine,” Dad called from downstairs.

  I trotted down each step.

  He was at the bottom, smiling. “You’re awfully chipper today. What’s up with that?”

  I paused on the second to last stair. “It’s summer?”

  “Nope. I’ve seen your ‘it’s summer’ smile before. This is different.”

  I shrugged, taking a crispy slice of bacon from the napkin in his open palm. My only response was a series of crunching, to which Dad scoffed.

  “I have an interview at two today, but I thought maybe we could go ride around the lake.”

  I stole another piece of bacon, crunching.

  Dad made a face.

  “I kind of might have plans.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow.

  “With Elliott.”

  The two lines between his brows deepened. “Elliott.” He spoke the name as if it would jog his memory.

  I smiled. “Leigh’s nephew. The weird boy in our backyard.”

  “The one who was punching the tree?”

  I stumbled over my response until Dad finally interjected.

  “That’s right. I saw him,” Dad said.

  “But . . . you asked me if he was tearing up the yard.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you, Princess. I’m not sure I’m okay with you spending time with a boy who assaults trees.”

  “We don’t know what’s going on with him at home, Dad.”

  Dad touched my shoulder. “I don’t want my daughter getting mixed up with whatever that is, either.”

  I shook my head. “After last night, maybe his aunt and uncle are saying the same about our family. Pretty sure the whole neighborhood heard.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

  “It was mostly her,” I grumbled.

  “It was both of us.”

  “He told Presley off last night.”

  “The tree boy? Wait. What do you mean, last night?”

  I swallowed. “We walked to Braum’s . . . after Mama got home.”

  “Oh,” Dad said. “I see. And he was okay? I mean, he didn’t try to punch Presley or anything, did he?”

  I giggled. “No, Dad.”

  “Sorry I didn’t come in to say good night. We were up late.”

  Someone knocked on the door. Three times, and then two.

  “Is that him?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t know. We didn’t really have a set time . . . ,” I said, watching Dad make his way to the door. He puffed out his chest before he pulled on the knob, revealing Elliott looking freshly showered, his damp hair wavy and glistening. He held his camera with both hands, even though the strap was around his neck.

  “Mister, uh . . .”

  “Calhoun,” Dad said, gripping Elliott’s hand to give it a firm shake. He turned to me. “I thought you said you met him last night?” He looked to Elliott. “You didn’t even get her last name?”

  Elliott smiled, looking sheepish. “I might be a little nervous to meet you.”

  Dad’s eyes softened, and his shoulders relaxed. “Did you know her first name is Princess?”

  “Dad!” I hissed.

  Dad winked at me. “Be home by dinner.”

  “Yes, sir,” Elliott said
, stepping to the side.

  I passed Dad, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before leading Elliott down the porch steps and out the gate.

  “It’s already hot,” Elliott said, wiping his forehead. “This summer’s gonna be brutal.”

  “You’re here early. What are you up to?” I asked.

  He nudged me with his elbow. “Hanging out with you.”

  “What’s with the camera?”

  “I thought we could go to the creek today.”

  “To . . . ?”

  He held up his camera. “To take pictures.”

  “Of the creek?”

  He smiled. “You’ll see.”

  We walked north toward Braum’s and turned a street before. The road turned to red dirt and gravel, and we walked one more mile up to Deep Creek. It was narrow, and apart from a few ten-foot sections, I could jump over it with a running start. Elliott led me along the bank until he found a section running over stones.

  He stopped talking to me and started tinkering with his camera. Elliott snapped one picture quickly, checked the settings, and then took several more. After watching him for an hour, I walked around on my own, waiting until he was satisfied.

  “Beautiful,” he said simply. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “The park.”

  We headed back toward Juniper, stopping at Braum’s on the way for ice water. I pressed my thumb to my shoulder, leaving a temporary white spot before it turned red.

  “Sunburn?” Elliott asked.

  “I always do in June. Burn once, and I’m good for the summer.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” he teased.

  I scanned his bronze skin with envy. Something about it looked soft and touchable, and those thoughts made me feel uncomfortable because I’d never had them before.

  “We should keep sunscreen on you. That’s gonna hurt.”

  “Nah. I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  “I’ll see what?”

  “I just meant that I’ll be okay,” I said, pushing him off the curb.

  He fought a smile and then pushed me back. I lost my balance too close to the fence, and my blouse somehow ended up hooking and twisting on a protruding wire. I yelped, and Elliott held out his hands as the wire sliced through the thin fabric.