Put It Out There

by D. R. Graham

  After I typed an essay for English, I checked my email, fingers crossed, hoping Trevor had sent a reply to my message. So much for avoiding distractions.

  My inbox was empty, which should have cemented my resolve to focus only on academics, but it actually made me think about Trevor more. What the hell was wrong with me?

  Corrine Andrews leaned over from the computer station next to mine. “Sounds like your brother is having a wicked time.”

  “What?”

  “I would have been scared shitless if I was with Murphy when he ran into that polar bear.”

  Polar bear? Brother? Corrine Andrews speaking to me? “Trevor’s been emailing you? I didn’t know you guys were friends.”

  She chuckled in a stuck-up way. “I guess we’re not the kind of friends brothers tell their sisters about.”

  “Trevor and I aren’t related.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. Excuse me.” I rushed out of the computer room, got my stuff out of my locker, and kept going right out of the school. Steve was out front, throwing a football around with some of his friends.

  “Hey, Deri,” he hollered.

  I didn’t feel like talking, so I turned in the opposite direction, wrapped my arms around my body, and walked with my head down.

  “Derian. Wait up.” I could hear him running after me, and I seriously considered breaking into a sprint to avoid him. He was going to chat my ear off as usual, and all I really wanted was to be left alone in peace and quiet. “Hey.” He pulled at my elbow to make me turn around. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m having a bad day.”

  He draped his arm over my shoulder and walked with me.

  “You don’t have a coat on. You’re going to freeze,” I pointed out.

  “Nah, I’m a warm guy. So, are we ditching our afternoon classes?”

  “I am.”

  “Then I am too. I have an idea, if you’re interested.”

  I really wanted to be alone, but it wasn’t fair to take my bad mood out on him when he was just trying to be friendly. He had enough to worry about without having to deal with me blowing him off too. “What is it?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We walked for twenty minutes to a strip mall. He was freezing, I could tell. He didn’t complain, though. He led me down a wide set of stairs towards the bowling alley under the strip mall. It bustled with seniors, who looked pretty serious about their bowling. The noise of balls hitting the hardwood and the tumbling pins filled the air as we rented shoes and chose balls. I hadn’t been bowling since I was about twelve. It felt a little weird to be in the same alley that my dad used to take me to. It looked and smelled exactly the same.

  “Do you come here a lot?” I asked.

  “Only when the girl I like is walking away from school in the middle of the day, looking sad. Do you come here a lot?”

  “Only when I’m walking away from school in the middle of the day, feeling sad, and the guy who likes me follows me.”

  His jaw tensed for a second, then he covered it up with a forced smile. It took a second to occur to me that his reaction was because I said he was the guy who liked me and not the guy who I liked.

  “You’re up first,” he said as he handed me my ball.

  We bowled for two hours. It was really fun. Afterwards, we sat at the diner counter to share an order of fries. I picked the stool my dad sat on. It made me sad to think about how those memories would slip farther and farther into the past, with no new memories to replace them.

  Steve must have noticed how I was feeling. He asked, “Did you used to come here with your dad?”

  I nodded and held back the emotion that built in my throat.

  “I was trying to cheer you up. We can leave if it makes you sad.”

  “It’s okay. I like remembering. I just wish I had more things to remember.” I dipped a fry in the ketchup, but didn’t eat it.

  “The Inn must be exactly the way it was then.”

  “For the most part, but my granddad is trying to sell it. If a developer buys it, all those memories will be lost forever.”

  Steve nodded and ate a fry. “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

  “I doubt it. He’s getting older. Plus, once I leave for university, he’ll have the extra expense of hiring someone to replace me. It would be better for him if he retired to go play golf somewhere. But it breaks my heart to think the memories of my childhood and my dad will be gone forever.”

  “My grandpa retired for two months, then went back to work part-time because he missed the routine and the people. Your family has lived in Britannia Beach for three generations. If there is a way financially for your grandpa to keep the place I’m sure he would rather do that. I doubt he wants to move to Florida or Palm Springs by himself.”

  I looked at him and smiled because that did sound somewhat reassuring. He stole a sip of my lemonade. Then we talked about his sister and the complications she was still dealing with until a bunch of young kids came in and it got noisy. As we were leaving, I said, “Thanks. I feel way better.”

  He stopped on the stairs and eased me against the wall to kiss me. His body felt warm against mine. I was kind of into it until he unzipped my coat and slid his hands up from my waist and under my sweater towards my chest. I pulled back abruptly and zipped my coat back up.

  He smiled with only half his mouth. It looked like he was both disappointed and a little bit irritated at the same time. He didn’t say anything about it, though. He held out his hand, wrapped his fingers around mine, and we walked back to the school. I waited in his truck as he went to his locker to get his stuff. It was hard to tell if I was really not into Steve in a physical way, or if I was just really, really bad at the whole dating thing, or if I was hung up on the hope of dating Trevor when he got back. I still hadn’t decided which one it was when Steve climbed into the truck and drove me home.

  He parked in front of the Inn and I said, “I’m sorry I’m an emotional roller coaster. I don’t mean to lead you on or be a tease. I’m just a total newbie with all this, and I keep doing everything wrong. You must think I’m so difficult.”

  He chuckled. “You’re a little complicated, but that’s one of the things I like about you.”

  “Would it be okay if I asked you to take it slow with the physical side of our relationship and be patient while I sort things out personally?”

  “Sure, I can wait as long as you want to. Would you like to go out for dinner on Saturday night?”

  “Yes.” I leaned over and kissed him. “Thanks for understanding, and thanks for the bowling, and thanks for the talk, and thanks for the ride home.”

  “You’re welcome. If you want to ditch again tomorrow, I know of a cheap movie theatre that plays horrors in the afternoon.”

  I tapped his shoulder with the back of my hand. “I think you’ve missed enough school this year, young man. I’ll try to be a better influence on you.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you were a little naughty some of the time.” He angled his eyebrows in a sassy way.

  “I bet.” I smiled and shook my head. “Bye.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After Steve dropped me off, I went to my bedroom and turned on my laptop. I finally had an email from Trevor in my inbox.

  Hey Deri, sorry I haven’t written you back since I got here. I wish you were here so badly right now. I had a really shitty day today. It was the worst call I’ve ever been on. We were asked to join a search after a local SAR had already looked for a day. We helped for another two days, but we had to call it off because of bad weather. She probably won’t make it another night. I’ve never failed in a search before. It’s such a helpless feeling. The part that kills me the most is she’s only five years old. Remember when Giselle got hurt, you said you didn’t like emergencies because you felt like you couldn’t help? Now I know what you meant. It sucks. If you were here, I would say thanks for listening and I would need a hug. I miss you so much. Trev

 
I read his message three times, then wrote back:

  Did the little girl have blonde hair? Was she wearing a red jacket? Was she with a chocolate-brown lab? I had a vision like that. I would have told you if I knew it was linked to you. Maybe she’ll make it through another night. It will be so sad if she doesn’t, but it’s not your fault. I know you did your best. You always do. Even though we’re far apart I will always be here for you to talk to. I’m sending you a hug with my mind. I hope you can feel it. I miss you more than words could ever describe. Tell Murphy it’s not his fault either. I know you both did everything possible. D.

  My feelings were mixed—ecstatic that he chose to reach out to me when it was something important, but horrible that it was because they couldn’t find the little girl and that she was probably going to die.

  Before I went to bed, I wrote in the journal Steve gave me. I hoped that putting everything out on paper would maybe produce some clues or trigger the vision again. Forty-five minutes of writing later, I was frustrated. And exhausted. So, I went to sleep.

  My phone rang and woke me up when it was pitch black in my room. Groggy, I had to blink a couple of times to make the numbers on the display less fuzzy. It was three in the morning. “Hello,” I croaked.

  “Hey, Deri,” Trevor whispered. “Sorry to wake you. I need you to think for a second. The girl you saw in your vision is the girl we’re looking for. She has blonde hair, she was wearing a red jacket, and her dog is with her. Did you see anything else in the environment that might help us figure out where she is?”

  I rubbed my eyes and tried to wake myself up. “Um, it was snowing, and she was huddled in the well of a tree with the dog.” As I said it, an image of a waterfall flashed in my mind. “Are there twin falls near the search area?”

  “Yes.” He sounded stoked.

  “She’s near there.”

  “Thanks, Deri.” It sounded as if he stood abruptly, followed by rushed shuffling in the background as if people were on the move. “You’re awesome. You can go back to sleep now.”

  “Okay. I love you.” I hung up and when I realized what had come out of my mouth, I sat up in my bed—fully awake.

  I texted Sophie in the morning to tell her I needed an emergency consultation as soon as she got to school. Mornings were not her thing, but she dragged her ass in early because I typed 911 at the end of my text. “This better be good, or really bad,” she moaned and leaned against my locker.

  “I don’t even know where to start. Okay, so after lunch yesterday, I found my little grade-eight buddy getting beat up by a bunch of boys and guess who was saving him?” I waited for her to guess, but it was too early. She just shook her head to refuse the effort. “Mason. Mason was saving him. It turns out he also tutors my little buddy in science, and did I tell you that he volunteered for the food drive before Christmas? Anyway, I think he might be a better guy than Doug thinks he is. Not the point, though.” I told her everything that happened after that, Corrine, bowling, and making out on the stairs with Steve.

  “Wow. Stevie Rawlings with the moves. Was it clumsy?”

  “No. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Mmm. Tell me more.”

  “There is no more. I basically jumped away and told him I wanted to take things slow. Do you think my problem is me, Steve, or Trevor?”

  “If Trevor tried to get up in your business would you let him?”

  “I would let him do way more than that.”

  “Easy there.” She laughed. “The problem is you.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess I already knew that. So anyway, Trevor wrote to me because he had a really bad call, and he was upset. I wrote back and told him I had a vision with a little girl, wondering if it was the same girl they’d been looking for.”

  Sophie opened her mouth as if she were going to ask a question. I held up my hand to stop her.

  “So then, Trevor called from Iceland wanting to know what else I saw in the vision. He was excited by the lead and thanked me. Then I said…” I paused dramatically and smiled because I knew Sophie was going to go berserk when I told her.

  “Oh my God, what did you say?”

  “I said I love you without even thinking. It just slipped out right before I hung up.”

  “Awesome.” She clapped as she hopped up and down on the spot. “This was totally worth getting up early for. You’re the best best-friend ever.”

  “What’s got her all excited this early in the morning?” Doug asked as he joined us.

  “Oh, so you think I’m talking to you now?” I joked.

  “You better be. I just signed up to send you a flower for Valentine’s Day.”

  “Oh, so sweet. Okay, I forgive you. Sophie’s excited because I have a pathetic love life and it amuses her.”

  Doug leaned over and kissed her neck. “I like when she’s amused. Thanks Deri.”

  “Our sweet little Derian finally said the L word to a boy,” Sophie crooned as she pinched my cheek. “The next step is to get her to make the L word to a boy.”

  “Okay, that’s enough mocking for one day. Bu-bye.”

  “Wait.” Sophie pouted over Doug’s shoulder. “We have more gossiping to do.”

  “School first. Drama second. I need to graduate with a stellar GPA.”

  Sophie laughed. “You could drop out now and still end up with a better GPA than mine.”

  “Regardless, all of our feminist ancestors are currently rolling their eyes at me for letting my attempts to acquire a love life take priority over academics.”

  Sophie shrugged as if she didn’t agree. “Those goals aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be a strong, independent, educated woman and engage in intimate relationships at the same. Kiss a boy and cure cancer. Kiss a girl and fly on a mission to Neptune. Get a vibrator and design the next Taj Mahal. Or, pine over Trevor in Iceland and ace high school. You can do it all.”

  “See.” I pointed at Doug. “You can’t tell me what to do. I can date whomever I want and be whomever I want to be; however, who I want to be right now is an eleventh-grade graduate. I’ll see you guys later. Bye.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  On February 14th, I sent Trevor an animated e-card and asked for an update on the search. At school, I got single roses from Doug, Steve, Nikolai, and a Secret Admirer. I’d made cupcakes at the Inn the night before and iced them with thick pink icing. I gave one to Kailyn, one to Jim, and one to my granddad before I left for school. Sophie, Doug, Steve, and Nikolai each got one. And I ate one myself. That left one, and I wanted to give it to Mason. But I hadn’t seen him all day.

  After school, I finally spotted him at his locker. I was literally two feet away and about to hand him the cupcake when he closed his locker, turned in the opposite direction, and disappeared into the crowd of students.

  “Hey, is that an extra cupcake?” Steve asked as he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. I held it up so he could take a bite. A clump of icing stuck to his lip. He looked really cute, so I licked the icing off, which he definitely liked. “I’ve got something for you.” He placed a small pink-and-red-striped box on my palm. His eyebrows rose in an encouraging way, so I opened it and found a pair of gold heart earrings.

  “Thanks.” I tilted my face up and kissed him. “They’re cute.”

  “There’s more.” He handed me a scrapbook with a black-and-white photo of the Inn on the front. He grinned, excited to give it to me. “Open it.”

  I lifted the cover and flipped through the pages slowly, examining each of the photographs in detail. He’d taken art-style photos of historical details of the Inn. The first was a close-up of the light-blue paint chipping off the wood window frame. He captured the mountain in the reflection of the window. It was amazing. There were also shots of the chrome that edged the kitchen counter; the original hardwood planks in the library; the tiles around the fireplace; the glass door knob of one of the guest rooms; the hand-painted, wood Britannia Beach sign; the old rowboat we used as kids; and a wide shot
of my parents’ room.

  My mom had donated my dad’s clothes about two months after he died, but we didn’t change anything else in their room. It was exactly the same as the day he died. The maids cleaned it, and sometimes I sat in the window seat to read, but other than that, nobody ever went into it. I flipped back to the beginning of the scrapbook and looked at each photo again.

  “Do you like it?” he asked softly.

  I nodded, fighting back tears, and hugged him.

  When I released his neck, he stepped back and looked directly into my eyes. “Derian, would you like to be my girlfriend?”

  Whoa. Wow. I probably blinked ten times before I could even start to form thoughts. Sophie’s comment about having the freedom to pursue personal goals and romantic goals at the same time had actually convinced me I wasn’t completely wasting my life just because I was interested in the opposite sex. Trevor was going to be away until the summer, Mason barely knew I existed, and Steve was really thoughtful. Every single cell in my body wished Steve was Trevor, but he wasn’t. He was a great guy who, unlike Trevor, actually made an effort to make me his girlfriend. I smiled once I realized what my answer was. “Yes. I would like to be your girlfriend.”

  “Cool.”

  “Thank you for the album. You’re very talented.”

  “Your grandpa helped me pick the shots. I thought you might want to take the memories of the Inn and your dad with you, no matter where you are. This way they will last forever.”

  “I love it.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” He tugged my hand to lead me out of the school.

  When we got to the Inn, he leaned over the truck console to kiss me. I had caught up on all my school assignments, and there were no guests booked at the Inn, so spurred by a random impulse to take a risk, I invited Steve to my room. He’d never seen it, and I was actually feeling brave enough to make out with him. I decided to go in with an open mind and evaluate it based entirely on my feelings for Steve without my feelings for Trevor interfering—if I could. It must have taken Steve a little off guard because he seemed really nervous when we crossed the threshold. He looked around a bit and sat on my desk chair. I went into my bathroom for a minute to put in the earrings he gave me.