by Jo Knowles
I turn away and take another deep breath.
“A few months later, I heard she was pregnant. I told Caleb to tell her best friend that I would pay for an abortion, but she didn’t want any help from me. And then she changed her mind, anyway. Last June, she had the baby. I went to the hospital when I heard she’d gone into labor to see if I could see the baby, you know? I just had to see for myself. Because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I heard a rumor that she planned to give the baby up for adoption, but I didn’t want to ask her myself. I felt like I’d hurt her enough already. And I was too scared. So I went there and tried to see him. I think I did, but I’m not even sure, because I didn’t want her to know I was there. I didn’t want to hurt her. But I don’t know if the baby I saw was mine. He was the only one people weren’t ogling at through the glass. And he didn’t have a name on his plastic bassinet. So I imagined it was him. But I have no idea if it really was. Then I left. And it was over. Except it wasn’t. Because I can’t stop thinking about him. And I can’t stop thinking about Ellie and what I did to her. I thought if I came here, I could escape it all. I could focus on school and then just leave for college and never come back. But I was wrong. I’ll never escape.”
As the final words leave me, I feel this huge surge in my chest. Like some big, I don’t know, thing was clogging my lungs, and now I can breathe normally again. I wait for Stella to say something, but she keeps playing with her ring.
“That’s it,” I finally say, hoping to nudge her to respond. “That’s everything.”
She slides her chair closer to me and puts her hand on mine. The way she looks at me, like she really cares, makes my chest hurt.
“I don’t know what to do,” I tell her. It feels like the truest thing I’ve said in a long time.
“I think you do,” she says.
“I do?” I ask. Because really, I don’t.
“You have to talk to her.”
What? That’s not the answer I was expecting. But as soon as I hear it, I know she’s right.
“But I don’t know what to say to her.”
“The truth would be a good place to start. Maybe you should tell her what you just told me.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You can. I’ll go with you, if you want.” She squeezes my hand tighter. “I owe you. You stood by me. Now I’ll stand by you. You have to do this, Josh.”
I know she’s right. I can feel the truth in her fingers curled around mine.
I nod.
“Come here,” she says. We both stand, and she holds her arms out. So I go to her, and she wraps her arms around me and holds tight. “You’re not a bad person, Josh,” she says into my chest. My heart. “I know you think you are, but you’re not. You did one bad thing. Now you need to make it right. For you, and for her. And even for the baby. I know you can do this.”
“I can’t believe you don’t hate me,” I say.
She squeezes harder. “Well, I don’t. So believe it.”
Slowly, I let my own arms do what I realize they’ve been wanting to do since the minute I saw her. I let them wrap around her and hold her. I feel her warmth against my chest. Her hair against my face. And I breathe and breathe and fill the new space inside me with this. With Stella. With hope.
The morning of my last day, I wake up at eight o’clock. Way too early. I quietly wander around the apartment, picking up and straightening and fluffing pillows, for God’s sake. But when everything’s all tidied up, I realize it looks like I’ve never been here. Like this whole year was just a dream. So I try to mess things up again. Just a little.
I go back to my room and take it in one last time. Clover jumps up on what used to be my bed, but which I’ve folded back into a couch. She picks at the cushion with her claws and looks up at me, as if she disapproves. I hold out my fingers to her and she comes and rubs her head against them.
“I’m gonna miss you,” I say.
I turn to look at Larry’s Karate Kid poster and feel a familiar pain in the back of my throat. “Take care of him,” I tell Clover.
But I know she doesn’t need to. He has Arielle now. He’s happy.
I turn out the light and go to the kitchen to make my last breakfast. I sit at the table and remember all the ways Larry greeted me every morning. I remember the taste of his disgusting breakfast drinks. The rank smell of his deodorant. But mostly, I just remember sitting here with him, feeling like I belonged. Loved. Feeling almost normal.
“This is it, huh?” Larry asks. I jump. Normally I can hear or smell Larry approaching.
“Hey!” I say, standing up to greet him. “Welcome home! You guys got in late last night.” I heard them arrive at around one, trying their hardest not to wake me up. “How was the honeymoon?”
I can actually see the joy seep back into him as he pictures the trip.
“It was incredible,” he says. He wiggles his eyebrows in a suggestive way.
“Please. No details,” I tell him.
He winks.
“So, well, I guess this is good-bye,” I say. I bend down and give Clover, who followed me into the kitchen, one last pat. When I turn back around, Larry has tears in his eyes. He steps forward and hugs me. I realize he feels smaller than the day I arrived. But it’s not because he shrank. It’s because I’ve grown.
“You’re the best, Sam,” Larry tells me when he finally lets go. “A true karate man.”
I fake-punch him in the arm. “And you’re a true Jackie Chan,” I tell him.
“C’mon, before I start crying,” he says. I follow him to the living room, where I’ve piled all my stuff to go home. Arielle comes out to say good-bye, too. After a few minutes, I decide to go find Stella, since she obviously didn’t get my text about meeting me here.
I knock on the door and wait and wait, until finally Calvin answers the door in his boxers. He scratches his beard and squints at me through his sleep. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah. I’m leaving today. Is Stella up?”
He turns away and looks back inside the apartment. “Hang on.”
He shuts the door in my face.
It’s quiet on the other side, and I’m starting to wonder if he just went back to sleep. But after a few minutes, Stella opens the door. Her hair is still wet.
“Sorry. I was in the shower. You ready?”
I nod, and we go back to the second floor to get my stuff.
Arielle gives me a big hug and makes me promise to visit during winter break. Larry’s face is wet with tears. He doesn’t bother to try to hide them.
“Thanks for letting us borrow the car,” I say. “And for everything else. You’re the best, man.”
He pulls me in for one last Larry hug. “I’m really gonna miss you, kid,” he says in my ear.
“You, too. Jackie.”
I pull away from him. He grins at me and ruffles my hair.
“I’ll bring the car back tonight,” Stella tells him.
“Drive carefully,” Arielle says, putting her arm around Larry.
“We will,” Stella promises.
And then we leave.
Larry’s car smells like cinnamon air freshener, and not in a good way. We roll down the windows. I pause before I put the gear in drive. I look up at the building, then at Stella.
“I don’t want to leave,” I say.
“I know.” She reaches over and squeezes my thigh. “But it’s going to be OK.”
“Yeah.”
We start down the street, going extra slowly.
“Don’t look back,” she tells me. “I know I won’t.”
I nod, but I look in the rearview mirror anyway.
Bye, Larry, I say in my head. Thanks for everything.
When we get on the highway and roll the windows back up, Stella cranks the AC and we find some music on the radio. After about an hour, Stella falls asleep. As I drive, I can’t help feeling the distance between me and Larry and my life with him grow wider. I imagine him getting smalle
r and smaller as our year turns into a memory. Living with Larry was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I hope he knows that. I hope he knows that maybe he did turn me into a true karate man. At least, as true as I can be.
I think about this past week with Stella, too, and how much I’m going to miss her. About the pact we made last night, to see each other at least once a month, and how much I hope we keep it. We looked at the train schedules from New York to Philadelphia, and they seem pretty easy. So we have hope. We know we belong together. Whether as just friends, or maybe more. But together, either way. I look down at the lump in my pocket where Stella’s rock is, then over at her. Sleeping. Peaceful.
When the exit nears, my stomach starts to twist and I feel sick. I reach over and touch Stella’s hand to wake her up.
She winks at me. “Hey,” she says. “What time is it?”
“Time,” I say. I pull off the highway at my exit and feel my stomach tighten even more.
“You all right?” Stella asks. “You look a little pale.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I tell her.
“You can,” she says. She reaches over and squeezes my thigh again. I’m going to miss that.
We drive into my old neighborhood, and I slow down as we travel the streets of my childhood, past Dave’s house, then Caleb’s. And then, up ahead, toward the park. I pull the car up to the curb and the chain-link fence that surrounds the park. My chest feels tight, and I have to work to breathe.
“Nice park,” Stella says. “It’s bigger than I imagined.”
I notice that the grass is freshly mown, and I picture Dave and Caleb arguing over who got to ride the mower first. Knowing those two, they squished together on the seat and shared the first ride. Past the baseball diamond, there’s the playground. And in the far corner of that, the swings.
“Just breathe,” Stella says. “I’ll be right here.
I grip the steering wheel and take one more deep breath before I get out of the car. Stella follows me to the opening in the fence.
“Is that her?” she asks, as we both look out across the grass to the lone figure sitting on one of the swings.
I nod.
Stella reaches for my hand and holds tight.
“I’ll be right here,” she tells me. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
I don’t move.
“I promise,” she says. When she smiles at me, I know she’s right. No matter what happens, everything’s going to be fine. Because when I get back, she’ll still be here.
I finally let go of her hand and walk through the fence opening. Halfway across the field, I reach in my pocket and squeeze Stella’s rock. I don’t look back, but I swear she’s doing the same thing. I take another step forward, and another. Across the baseball field and onto the mulch-covered playground. All the way to the girl, sitting alone on a swing. She’s looking down at her feet, which barely touch the ground. Her cropped hair has fallen across her face, and it blows in the wind as she swings, just a bit, back and forth.
I look over my shoulder across the field and see Stella’s tiny figure, her hands clasping the fence.
You can do this.
When Ellie looks up, her hair falls away from her face and her familiar eyes stare right into my soul. But they’re different than I remember. They’re not pleading with me. They’re just looking at me. Waiting for me to say something. So I do.
“Hi,” I say quietly.
“Hi,” she says back. “I’m glad you came.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Since Jumping Off Swings was published, the most common question I’ve received from readers is “What happens to Josh?” I would like to thank those readers for making me ask the same thing. I also want to thank dear friends and readers Cindy Faughnan, Debbi Michiko Florence, and Robin Wasserman for their guidance and encouragement throughout Josh’s journey. Thanks to my agent, Barry Goldblatt, my editor, Joan Powers, and everyone at Team Candlewick. I love you all! Finally, a very special thank-you to Peter and Eli Carini, my husband and son, for providing their karate expertise and all-around support. You both inspire me every day.
www.candlewick.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2013 by Jo Knowles
Cover photographs: copyright © 2013 by Image Source
Photography/Veer (guy); copyright © 2013 by karandaev/Veer (cat); copyright © 2013 by Viacheslav Kudryashov/Veer (poster)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2013
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012955157
ISBN 978-0-7636-6280-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6716-0 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
