To Be Yours

by Elana Johnson

  “Nothing,” I whispered, though questions of my own teemed on the back of my tongue.

  “Come on. I’m not stupid. You’re different.”

  My face burned. “I—Do you read Dad’s letter to you often?”

  Josh exhaled, the heavy kind of sound that said Not this again. “No, Eden. I threw it away a few years ago.”

  I sputtered, shock pouring through me that he could do such a thing.

  “He’s gone, Eden. I felt… Nevermind.”

  “No,” I said. “Tell me.”

  “He doesn’t know me. He knew me as a ten-year-old. Not who I am today. It was holding me back.”

  I knew his words were English, but I didn’t comprehend them. It was holding me back.

  Holding me back.

  Back, back, back.

  Was Dad’s letter holding me back? And from what?

  Josh got up and said, “I’ll talk to Mom,” before leaving my bedroom. I looked at the pink lamp, wondering if I even liked pink. My walls were a light yellow, a color I’d insisted on when we moved here, because it was sunny and bright.

  I hated them.

  Just like I didn’t like the dark brown blanket Mom had given me for Christmas last year, or the bright red bean bag in the corner. Nothing in this room felt like mine, or anything that I would even remotely pick for myself.

  The walls seemed to move closer, and I stood just as Mom appeared in the doorway. “You don’t feel well?”

  “I’m fine.” I picked up my backpack and brushed past her. “Did Josh go yet?”

  “No, he’s making toast.” She followed me toward the wall of noise coming from the kitchen. The twins seemed to have more food on their face than anywhere else, and as I walked past, the older of the two, Henry, flipped a spoonful of cereal at Benji. Thankfully, it was away from me and I was able to get by without any breakfast carnage on my clothes.

  “I’ll be in the car,” I said to Josh, who quirked his eyebrow at me and turned back to the toaster as it popped. I fully expected him to grill me about what my damage was on the way to school, but he didn’t. The silence was almost worse, but I didn’t know how to break it.

  He parked and got out, and I followed as if I was a robot and someone had programmed me to climb the front steps, enter the building, navigate the halls to my locker. I didn’t speak to anyone, and no one talked to me. Not unusual.

  Frustration flooded me. Frustration at who I’d let myself become. Frustration at who I’d been trying to please all this time—someone who wasn’t even here. Frustration that Josh hadn’t told me to let go of our father a long time ago.

  The bell rang and the crowds in the hall thinned. I stuffed my coat in my locker and shouldered my backpack. I turned and saw Grayson standing down the hall where it intersected with the language corridor.

  Our eyes met for a few brief seconds, then a giggling girl entered his personal space and his attention shifted to her. He disappeared from my line of sight and didn’t look back.

  * * *

  When I got home, I made a beeline for my bedroom, where I pulled out a piece of paper and started writing, the words flowing from my mind to the lead faster than I thought possible. My handwriting barely looked like my own, and still I scribbled.

  Dear Dad,

  I don’t know how to be the person you want me to be. I haven’t spoken to you in so long, I don’t even know what kind of person you would’ve been by now. Maybe you’d have lost it when I snuck out with Sierra and met those boys when we were fourteen. Mom sure was, and she cried all night and then chewed me out good for a couple of hours when I finally came home.

  That wouldn’t have made you proud, I’m sure. Would my soccer? I start on the varsity team. I’m the defensive sweeper, and I can run so, so fast. I thought that would make you proud, but how stupid is that? Why would someone be proud of their daughter because she can run fast?

  I don’t know, none of this makes sense. I don’t get great grades, so you wouldn’t be proud of that. Me and Josh are close, which I think you’d like. But then again, you’ve been gone so long, I’m not even sure what you’d like by now. I’ve heard that people’s taste buds change over time, and they get new hobbies, and things happen that change them.

  I’m sure you’d be different all these years later.

  I know I am.

  * * *

  “Hey.” I slid into my seat in government the following day, my gaze locked onto Ramona’s.

  She blinked, the surprise not hard to see as it flitted through her brown eyes. “Hey, Eden.”

  Ramona had other friends; two girls that spent weekends together. I’d debated with myself for half the night, my fingers cramping from the furious way I’d written for so long, and I’d decided I needed new friends.

  After all, if Josh and Grayson were going to leave me—and they were—I needed to have someone in my life. Someone over the age of seven. Someone who really knew me. And I’d realized sometime close to midnight that I didn’t have anyone who knew me besides the two guys who were leaving for Las Vegas in a few months.

  “How was your long weekend?” I asked.

  A smile slipped across her face. “Great. My family went to California to visit my grandparents.”

  I returned the grin. “That sounds fun.”

  “It was,” she said at the same time the bell rang. The teacher heaved himself from his desk and started class, but Ramona tucked her dark hair behind her ear and gave me another smile before facing the front.

  My phone buzzed in the front pocket of my backpack, which sat against my leg. I didn’t reach for it. If the teacher saw it, I’d lose it until the end of the day. The eighty-minute class became torture, and not only because of the phone call. I had health after this—and Grayson sat one desk away. I wondered if he’d ignore me again, or if he’d whisper stuff about how he’d lied about baseball, lied about thinking of me like a sister.

  Ramona and I stood when the bell rang, and I wasn’t sure which of us was more eager to leave the classroom. “Hey,” she said as we spilled into the hall. “You want to eat lunch with me and my friends today?”

  One of those friends bounded up to her. “Mona, oh my gosh, you’ll never believe who just asked me to prom.” A high-pitched giggle accompanied the statement, and I looked at Lyla Andrews.

  “You know Lyla already,” Ramona said with a laugh.

  “Of course,” I said. It wasn’t hard to know everyone in Collinsworth, and Lyla Andrews had been the most upbeat person in the county for three years running now. She dated a lot of different boys, and I’d never seen her without a smile on her face. “Who asked you to prom?”

  Her blue eyes shone with excitement. “Mikey Cross.” She hugged her chemistry book to her chest and bounced on the balls of her feet.

  “She’s been trying to get Mikey to ask her out for months.” Mona head-nodded toward Lyla and spoke like she wasn’t there. “He’s somehow avoided her charms all these years.”

  Lyla laughed. “All my flirting worked.” She hooked her elbow through Mona’s and took a step into the flow of students. “I’ve got the steps down, so now we can start working on Greg for you.”

  “See you at lunch,” Mona called over her shoulder, and I lifted my hand in a wave to let her know I’d be there.

  I felt like I’d just accomplished a week’s worth of homework, but I had even more to do today. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and made my way down the hall to health class.

  A note found on Eden’s desk in health class:

  Wanna go to lunch with me?

  ~G

  18

  Grayson

  I pretended like I didn’t know the exact second Eden entered the classroom. I saw her. Watched her. Noticed the way her legs seemed to be made of wood, barely able to bend at the knee.

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and paused as JJ Ashcroft sat on the edge of his desk in the front row and grinned at her. He talked to her before every class; he liked her. I coul
d tell just from his body language.

  Eden always talked to him too, but she didn’t wear the spark of desire in her eyes that I’d seen on the mountain. He was a junior, and if I didn’t get Eden to talk to me, I’d bet my sizeable allowance that he’d ask her to prom before I could.

  My only hope was that she’d say no. She always says no, I thought, a reminder of why I hadn’t asked her yet. That thought was the only comfort I had that I had a chance of going with her to prom.

  She lingered with JJ longer than she normally did, only heading for her seat when the bell rang. My heart rapped out an extra beat of anticipation. She saw the note at the same time she froze. Her eyes flickered to me and back to her desk.

  “Everyone in their seats,” Mr. Prentiss said, and Eden sank into her chair, simultaneously swiping the note into her pocket. She didn’t remove her hand, and I wondered if she was fisting it into a tiny little ball.

  I pulled out my notebook and attempted to focus on the lesson. When Mr. Prentiss killed the lights so we could watch a video clip, Eden’s hand pulled out of her pocket and her head bent as she read.

  One second later—it was a short note—she turned and looked at me. I raised my eyebrows and she shook her head. My hopes plummeted to the bottom of my shoes and rebounded back to the top of my head.

  Why not? I mouthed.

  She rolled her eyes and faced the front again. She twisted slightly to her left, and a few seconds later my phone vibrated in my pocket. Taking the same chance Eden just had, I slipped it out of my pocket enough to see her text.

  I’ve already been invited to lunch with someone else.

  Who? I tapped on the send button just as Mr. Prentiss said, “First and last warning. No cell phones out during the movie.”

  I tucked mine away at the same time Eden’s shoulders lifted and she focused on the screen at the front of the room.

  The rest of the class passed agonizingly slow., When the bell finally rang, I sprang from my seat so Eden couldn’t talk to JJ again, or escape without talking to me.

  “Who invited you to lunch?” I asked, stepping with her as we moved up the aisle, a row of desks between us.

  She gave me a wary glare. “Why do you care?”

  I met her at the front of the row, my fingertips brushing against hers. Anyone watching would see it. I didn’t care, but Eden sucked in a breath and yanked her hand away.

  “I want to—” I silenced the words as a girl squeezed between us and the whiteboard.

  “I’m going to be late,” Eden said.

  “It’s Spanish,” I said. “So you’ll wear a short skirt and get extra credit points next week.”

  She looked at me, a smile springing to her lips. “Señor Gustav is such a pig.”

  I chuckled, the unrest of her mystery lunch buried deep. “So…lunch?”

  “Can we do it another day?” she asked. “It’s just that I’m trying to make new friends, and this girl in my government class said I could go to lunch with her and her friends, and—” She sucked in a breath, her chest puffing out as she looked over her shoulder at the next class coming in. When her gaze landed on mine again, she said, “Tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow was better than never. Infinitely better than no.

  “Sure,” I said. “Tomorrow.” I turned and we left the classroom together. “And listen, if JJ asks you to prom, promise me you’ll say no.”

  “JJ Ashcroft?”

  “He likes you.”

  Eden hipped me, a playful, flirty gesture I took as a hopeful sign. “He does not.”

  “He totally does.” I paused in the hall, even though I was going to be late and I had no way to make up the tardy in physics. “But, Eden, you’re still saying no when guys ask you out, right?”

  She took a few steps away before twisting and walking backward in the nearly-empty hallway. “Did I just say no to you?”

  Horror stung me right in the chest. It didn’t mix well with the lightning-hot heat of desire a lunch date with Eden had conjured.

  “But you will to JJ Ashcroft!” I called.

  She just gave me a smile, turned around, and started running. The bell rang just as she skidded around the corner. I made my way to class a little slower, wondering if I could ask her to prom in a text.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I muttered to myself as I turned down the science hall. If I asked Eden to lunch with a note and had to have a debate about it, a texted invitation to prom would go completely unanswered.

  * * *

  As soon as I entered the house, I knew my mom was already drunk. The scent of wine hung in the air, and I hurried to close the door behind me. I flipped the deadbolt just to give me more time to fix whatever she’d broken.

  In the kitchen, a pan of half-eaten scrambled eggs still sat on the stove. Two empty wine bottles perched on the counter, mere millimeters from the edge. At least I didn’t have to clean up broken glass again. One time, a couple of years ago, I hadn’t gotten all the pieces before Luke got home, and he’d stepped on a shard, slicing open his heel.

  I’d taken him to the emergency room for stitches. I’d arranged with a neighbor to pick up Darren from school. I’d driven through the sandwich shop and brought dinner home. We’d been huddled on the couch in the basement when Dad finally got home. He woke me first, and I helped him get the other boys up to their rooms. An understanding had passed between me and my father then. He felt as helpless as I did, but he hadn’t changed.

  I grabbed the bottles and a garbage bag and got to work. A half-empty bag of cookies sat on the couch, with crumbs everywhere. I tossed them into the bag with the bottles. My mother’s plate of eggs followed. After vacuuming the living room, washing the frying pan, and putting six wine glasses in the dishwasher, I took the bag of trash out to the garage.

  Luke would be home in ten minutes, and I sprinted up the stairs to my parents’ room. “Mom?” I knocked on the door quietly, wanting to pound and pound and pound. Maybe then she’d wake up and realize what she was doing. What she was missing.

  She didn’t answer. I pushed my way into her room anyway, my heart rippling at what I might find. The scent in the air changed from red wine to something stronger. Sure enough, a raspberry vodka bottle sat on the nightstand. Mom was sprawled facedown across the bed, and for one, two, three terribly hopeful heartbeats, I thought she might be dead.

  Her shoulders lifted slightly and I breathed.

  Guilt gutted me, and I backed out of the room with my heart drumming against the back of my tongue. I closed the door and leaned my back against it, my chest heaving now. Desperation and fury circled one another, escalating into a terrible tornado of emotion. A hot, angry tear slid down my face.

  I wiped it away as I heard the deadbolt downstairs get twisted open. Luke couldn’t see me cry. He acted tough outside these walls, but he relied on me to be the solid one at home. I hadn’t had time to spray the air freshener, but that was a dead giveaway anyway. If he smelled lilac or mandarin, he’d automatically know I’d cleaned up.

  “Grayson?” His voice floated up the stairs as I came down.

  “Hey,” I said. “Just checking on Mom.”

  “Yeah.” Luke opened the fridge and pulled out a package of sliced turkey. “She sober?”

  “No.” I got out the bread and set it on the counter. “Dad’s going to talk to us tonight. Family meeting at eight.”

  Luke’s dark eyes found mine. “Do you think he talked to her?”

  “He said he would.”

  “He says he’ll do a lot of things.” Luke slapped mayo and mustard on two pieces of bread before layering on slices of turkey. “Do you think Mom will go to a treatment center?”

  I couldn’t believe I even dared to hope. Fools hoped. And yet I kept doing it. With my mom. With Eden.

  And so I said, “I hope so,” and started making myself a sandwich too. Because if she didn’t, I’d have to start prepping Luke to be the strong one for Darren once I left.

  * * *

  Eight o�
�clock came, but Dad did not. I kept my brothers in the living room off the kitchen, a movie on that we’d all seen a million times. With every minute Dad was late, my annoyance rose. Surely whatever he was doing at work could wait until tomorrow. Mom hadn’t moved in hours, not that I could hear. I didn’t dare go up and check on her, especially after Darren came in happy from school because of a Student of the Month feature he’d been selected for.

  Apparently parents could come to the assembly, but no one at our house had gotten the notification. Darren didn’t seem to care about that. He’d earned a pizza certificate, and I took him to get it. On the way back, we’d stopped at the gas station for sodas, and I made sure everyone had their homework done so we could be ready for the family meeting—if we were even going to have it now.

  Finally, close to nine, Dad burst into the kitchen. “I’m so sorry,” he said—the first words he usually spoke when he got home. Or to the baseball game when he finally showed up in the eighth inning. Or late at night, when he stood over one of us as we slept and apologized for missing the performance, the assembly, our lives.

  I switched off the TV and pulled Darren closer. Luke and I exchanged a glance as Dad piled his briefcase and suit coat jacket on the table. He sank into the recliner opposite us on the couch and exhaled like he’d been carrying the weight of the world for hours.

  A slight blip of sympathy stole through me. “It’s almost time for Darren to get to bed,” I said. “Just lay it out for us, Dad.” I gathered all the hope I had and bottled it up.

  “I talked to Mom while you guys were gone. She doesn’t want to go into a treatment program.” Dad wiped one hand across his face, his eyes staying closed for a few seconds after his hand lowered.

  “She has to, Dad,” I said quietly. “She can’t keep living like this.”

  “She can’t face her life.” Dad’s words carried absolute agony.

  “What’s so bad about it?” Luke asked, his tone like the edge of a knife. “Our house is the biggest one in town, filled with the nicest things. So you work a lot. Big deal. We don’t drink ourselves to sleep by noon because of it.” He looked at me, and I nodded to show my appreciation for what he’d said. I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to say everything.