To Be Yours

by Elana Johnson

  * * *

  Dear Eden,

  I never imagined I’d be writing a letter like this one. No one does, you know? What does a father say to their only daughter? What could I possibly leave you with that will help you?

  I’ve thought a lot about it, and I’ve always wanted to leave the best parts of me behind. Always wanted my life to mean something, to impose some brand on those I leave behind. It’s why I became a teacher.

  And I think the best thing I’ve done didn’t happen in the classroom. It happened with you, every time we went out back to kick the soccer ball around. Every time I took you kids skiing. Every time—

  “We’re here,” Grayson said, yanking me from the words I had engrained on the backs of my eyelids.

  Found on the refrigerator at Young Manor:

  Dad – taking everyone up to the cabin for the weekend. Mom won’t come out of her room. See you later.

  —G

  2

  Grayson

  Eden was as talkative as I’d ever seen her, but she fell silent after about twenty minutes. I let her retreat, mostly because Josh had warned me approximately sixty-four thousand times not to push Eden into places she didn’t want to go.

  Josh had put in his headphones immediately, leaving me high and dry. Some wingman he was. I shook my head even though I smiled. My own thoughts drifted away from the songs on the radio and landed on what I was escaping this weekend—my parents.

  Luke and Darren deserved better, but I didn’t think they’d get it. Lucas had already given up. I’d caught him sneaking out more than once, meeting up with girls, smoking weed. He didn’t care what Mom thought, and Dad worked so much he didn’t know which day of the week it was most of the time.

  I sighed softly. Pure exhaustion made my head sag back against the seat. It was so exhausting making excuses for why my parents never came to any of Darren’s school performances, excusing Luke from classes he’d missed like I had the authority to do so, and putting on the perfect face for everyone who looked.

  And everybody was looking. I needed this weekend away from Collinworth, from the baseball team, from walking the halls at Ivy Hall High.

  The miles passed quickly since the roads had been cleared, so we arrived in record time. “We’re here,” I said, startling Eden. I wondered what she’d been thinking about, but I didn’t ask. “So Sun Valley Ski Resort is on this side of the road.” I gestured to my left. “Our cabin is on the right. We just ski across the street, and we’re there.”

  “What about tickets?” she asked.

  “I have season passes,” I said. “Melissa will have them in the cabin for us.”

  “Oh, Melissa,” she teased, which may have sent my pulse into a little bit of a whirl. Only a little bit. I’d grown up with Eden Scotson. Been best friends with her brother for more than a decade. I’d teased her relentlessly in fifth grade because I thought she was pretty. She’d matured, and she was beautiful now.

  “I need to get me a Melissa,” she continued. “Does she do homework?”

  I laughed so loud, Josh lifted his head and stared at us. He pulled his headphones out and smiled. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Eden said, though she wore a grin too.

  “Melissa doesn’t do homework.” I leaned closer to her and said, “Trust me, I’ve tried.” I straightened and pointed to the right. “There’s the cabin.” The driveway shone wetly in the sunlight. I didn’t tell anyone about the heaters in the ground that made shoveling a non-issue. Everyone already knew we had a lot of money; no need to rub it in their faces. While I didn’t complain about not having to work and having a credit card at my disposal, it had gotten to the point of embarrassing how much we had.

  Our ski cabin’s look was upscale yet classic, with a bright brown face and a shocking blue door, which boasted a silver pinecone wreath. That was Melissa’s touch, and a sense of peace infused me. Four days. Four days without worrying if my dad would come home or when my mother would drink herself to sleep.

  I reached toward the dashboard and pressed the button for the garage. I parked in the single bay though it was a tight squeeze for the huge truck my father had given me for Christmas. I twisted in my seat and banged my hand on the seat back to get my brothers’ attention. “Hey, guys. We’re here.”

  Though we’d only been in the truck for an hour, everyone seemed eager to get out. Luke and Darren started talking as we spilled into the garage and headed for the entrance. Granite, and hardwood, and stainless steel met my eyes—and then Melissa. A platter of sandwiches, three bags of chips, and ice-cold cans of soda waited on the counter. I grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich and took a bite before putting another one on a paper plate.

  “Melissa, you’re the best.” I beamed at her, beyond glad she’d been available this weekend.

  She accepted my compliment with a little shrug. “I have you and Josh in the black diamond room, Grayson. Luke and Darren are in the blue square.” She switched her gaze to Eden, and I did too. They locked eyes and several seconds stretched while Darren ripped open his favorite chips: Maui sweet onion.

  “I put you, Eden, in the pink bunny room.” Melissa smiled at Eden like they were old friends.

  “Pink bunny?” Eden looked at Josh with humiliation skating through her expression. “I’ve skied before.”

  I slung my arm over Eden’s shoulders. “It’s just the name of the room, Eden. Let me show you where it is.” I moved away before Josh could give me the older brother glare. Before Eden could shrink away from my touch. Before I could decide if I wanted to keep my arm on her shoulders for a lot longer than a few seconds.

  She followed me upstairs and I said, “The best bedrooms are on the second floor. That’s the easiest way to get onto the slopes.” Behind me, she popped open a can of soda, which released a hiss! and the fruity smell of lemon-lime.

  “From the second floor?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” I stopped in a junction of the hallway and nodded toward the door at the end of it. “That’s the ready room.”

  “Like the CIA or something?” She laughed as she checked out the room. Skis leaned against the longest wall, ornate pegs between the pairs. Low shelves across from the skis held ski boots. Jackets and coats hung on the short wall near the door. She walked through the ready room—which was as big as any bedroom—to the door. Outside, a single-file path led to a bridge that went over the road we’d just been driving on. On the other side of the street, the ski resort sign winked in the nearly-noonday sun.

  “Wow.” Eden whistled. “So we suit up here, ski right out, and then leave everything here when we get back.”

  I moved up behind her, lingering long enough and close enough to inhale the soft, clean scent of her hair, long enough for her body heat to mingle with mine, long enough for me to wonder if Josh would kill me if I asked his sister to the prom in a couple of months.

  She’d say no anyway. Several guys had asked her out, but she said no every time. Rumors had circulated through the locker rooms about why she didn’t date. She wasn’t into guys. She didn’t have time with her job and soccer and ice skating. Her mom wouldn’t let her. I never participated in the speculation, but I never set the record straight either. I figured I knew more than most, but it wasn’t my place—nor my story—to tell.

  Eden reached up and trailed two fingers down the glass, then jerked like she’d been electrocuted. She bumped into me because I stood so close, so close. Too close.

  I stepped back. “Bedrooms this way.” I turned away before I could see her face. Heat filled mine. I had entertained romantic thoughts about Eden before. I’d never done anything about them, and something told me that now was the worst possible time to consider it.

  After all, I’d be graduating in three and a half months, and Eden wouldn’t be. I wasn’t planning on staying in Collinworth any longer than necessary, and I’d gotten into UNLV with an academic scholarship. Baseball did nothing for me but provide social status in the halls. Status I bare
ly deserved. Most people barely knew what a designated hitter did, and I hardly played. I pushed away the bitterness and the humiliation and nudged open the next door.

  “This is the black diamond room.” I stood to the side so Eden could peek in. I already knew what the room contained. I stayed here every time we came to the cabin. Modern furnishings, with charcoal bedcovers and chevron curtains, a TV mounted on the wall and a desk between the two queen beds. Melissa would’ve made sure it smelled clean and fresh.

  “Nice.” Eden glanced at me. I held her gaze longer than I meant to, a sense of delicious heat crawling toward the top of my head.

  I moved before she could say anything more. “Bathroom here. Blue square room here. Luke and Darren always stay in this room.”

  An xBox sat on the dresser under the TV, the room broadcasting every color of blue on the spectrum. Blue canvas squares in various sizes decorated one wall.

  “Did your mom do the decorating?” Eden asked as she took in the space, her eyes scanning, scanning, scanning.

  I chuckled, the sound low and on the outer edge of a growl. “No. My mom doesn’t—” I cleared my throat. “She hired someone.” I got going again, unwilling to say anything more though the words surged up my throat. I wanted to tell someone about my mom, and Eden wouldn’t judge me, I knew. Still, I wasn’t ready for anyone to see through the smoky façade at the Young household.

  “Your bathroom is here. I’m assuming you won’t want to share with four guys.” I shot her a smile.

  “Uh, no.” She glanced in the bathroom she’d use, her dark copper hair falling over her shoulder. “Thanks.”

  I opened the door across the hall from the bathroom. “This is the pink bunny room. It has nothing to do with your skiing ability, I swear.”

  Eden entered the room, so I stayed in the hall. After only a few seconds, I started to feel stupid, so I ducked my head around the doorframe. “Hey, I’m gonna head downstairs. Come down whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready.” Eden joined me in the hall and we walked side-by-side down to the kitchen. No words spoken. Just a sense of friendship.

  Don’t ruin that, I told myself sternly as I slid onto the barstool next to Josh. “Wanna ski this afternoon?” I asked him. If he didn’t say yes, I’d go myself. Eden sat on the other side of me, a plate of plain potato chips in front of her.

  Too close, too close. I couldn’t be in this house with her all afternoon, be this close to her, and not reach for her hand. Meet her eye and determine if maybe three months was long enough to start a relationship. Inviting her on this trip had been a bad idea, though I suspected she needed to get out of her house as much as I did.

  “Sure,” Josh said, easing all the pent-up tension in my back.

  An excerpt from Eden’s letter:

  Eden, you and Josh are a gift. A gift to me and your mom, and a gift for each other. Take care of each other. Be forgiving. Sometimes he’ll annoy you, and sometimes he’ll be overprotective. Remember, guys grieve too.

  Stay close, and help each other after I’m gone.

  3

  Eden

  I stood at the door in the ready room and watched Grayson and Josh push themselves across the bridge that led to the ski resort. Neither of them looked back, not that I expected them to. I’d told them to go on without me.

  Josh had given me a long look. I’d conveyed to him that I was fine. He still made me go up to my room with him while he carried my bag. “You sure you don’t want to come?” he’d asked.

  “I’ll save the embarrassment for tomorrow.” When he’d kept looking at me, I’d added, “I think I’ll take a nap.” For some reason, that appeased him.

  I did retreat to the bunny room, but I didn’t lie down. I wasn’t that tired, at least not physically. In the room down the hall, the faint sounds of video games met my ears, but it was nothing like the noise at my house.

  A sigh passed through my body. With Grayson out of the cabin, I could finally relax. I wasn’t sure why he put me so on-edge, just that he did. My mind had started to play all kinds of tricks on me when it came to Grayson. Things like, Wow, he’s so great with his brothers. And, He makes ski boots look sexy.

  That last one had really startled me—and it was all Josh’s fault. His words—he really likes you, you know—wouldn’t leave my head. Didn’t matter. I wasn’t dating, especially seniors who had scholarships to a university two states away.

  A longing to pack myself into Grayson’s suitcase pulled through me sharply. Josh didn’t have quite the grades—nor quite the daddy with unlimited connections—to get a scholarship, but he was going to Las Vegas too.

  June first would simultaneously free him and frustrate me. I’d been trying not to think about it, but now the reality of it crushed me, pressed on my chest, cut off my oxygen.

  “Hey.” I sucked at the air and turned toward the voice. Darren stood in the doorway, a worried look on his face. “Are you okay?”

  Lucas, who had just turned fifteen, tugged Darren back into the hall. “Eden, do you want to come play?” He lifted the video game controller.

  I nodded, because it made breathing easier, because it would fill my mind with white noise, because it would make thinking impossible.

  * * *

  The next morning, I woke to the sound of moaning. I sat straight up, my heart battling against my breastbone. One, two, three seconds passed while I drank in the alabaster-painted walls, the dark pink curtains barely keeping the sunlight at bay, the framed artwork of children skiing on the walls.

  Grayson’s cabin. Four-day weekend. Torturous day of skiing ahead. After all, I hadn’t been in years, and I knew skiing required little-used muscles.

  The moaning started again, and I threw the comforter off my legs. Across the hall, in my bathroom, Josh bent over the toilet, gripping the sides of the bowl, sounding more miserable than I’d ever heard him.

  “Josh?” I put my hand on his back, his skin radiating an enormous amount of heat through his T-shirt.

  He turned and looked at me, pure agony in his eyes.

  “I’ll get you something to drink.” I flipped on the sink and filled a paper cup with water. I rummaged through the cabinet under the sink and came up with a bottle of ibuprofen. Mom gave me four pills every time I complained about something, no matter what it was. “What hurts?”

  “Everything,” he moaned.

  I tapped four pills into my palm and passed them to him. “Little sips,” I said. “Don’t drink too much. Don’t want to throw up again.”

  He drank far too much in my opinion, but I didn’t say anything. I handed him a towel and he wiped his mouth. I helped him stand up, emitting my own moan under his weight. He kept one hand on the wall and his arm around my shoulders as we limped down the hall.

  The door to the black diamond room stood ajar, and I kicked it a little too hard in my haste to get Josh’s weight off my body. He’d never seemed that big to me, but six-feet-tall and skinny still equaled heavy.

  Grayson slept in the bed closest to the window, one leg flung out from under the covers. I tried not to look at him—and failed. He was stunning in the morning light, his face slack and without worry, his bare chest rising and falling with the softness of life.

  Josh moaned as he collapsed onto the bed, not bothering to be quiet. “I feel like something’s inside, trying to claw its way out.” He curled into a ball while I watched, helpless.

  “What should I do?” I asked but he didn’t respond.

  “What’s going on?” Grayson asked behind me, and I spun toward him.

  “Josh is sick.” I fell back step after step until I made it into the hall.

  Grayson got out of bed and nudged Josh’s shoulder, spoke to him. When he got the same response, he looked at me. “I’ll get Melissa.”

  An hour later, Josh sat up in bed, half a slice of toast in front of him and the words, “You guys go. I’ll be fine here.” He stared at Grayson and then switched those dark eyes to me. “Seriously,
Eden. We didn’t come up here so you could play nurse.”

  I wrung my hands. I didn’t particularly want to stay here and watch Josh sleep. But strapping a pair of slippery sticks to my feet when I hadn’t done so in years didn’t appeal to me either. My dad had advised me to stay close to Josh, help him. Intellectually, I knew that wasn’t literal, but still, a part of me felt like if I went skiing, I’d be abandoning my brother.

  Glancing at Grayson, I knew I’d get no help. He wanted to ski.

  “Go,” Josh said.

  Grayson sidled a little closer to me. “Luke isn’t here. He snuck out somewhere. He can keep Josh company when he gets back. And Melissa’s here.” He shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll take Darren and go.”

  “All right,” my voice said. My head nodded. “Let’s go.” I leaned over my brother. “I’ll have my phone. Call if you need me.” I left the black diamond room before I could change my mind.

  The sky outside felt so close. So gray. So endless. I took a deep breath of the mountain air and gripped the ski poles Grayson had handed me.

  “It snowed a lot last night,” I said as I looked down at the driveway. The snow there didn’t stick and I wondered why.

  “Fresh powder,” Grayson said with a smile. “My favorite. You want me to go first?”

  I nodded, because the only thing worse than falling down was falling down in front of him. At least if I was behind him, I’d already be on the ground by the time he looked. Because falling was inevitable.

  He pushed off and glided down the path and across the bridge, Darren only a breath behind him. I put my phone in my coat pocket and made to follow them. They made it look so easy, but it so wasn’t. I ended up baby-stepping—barely gliding at all—across the bridge and came down the slope onto the ski resort property with both Grayson and Darren watching me.