by Emily Henry
“I’m sorry, Beau Wilkes. I like the way you talk. And this is probably obvious, but I’m using you equally for your mind and body.” He’s silent for a long second, and I almost think he’s hung up. “Hello?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“You’re still there?”
“I was just picturing you,” he says softly.
“Oh” is all I can manage.
“You look real pretty.”
I cover my face with my hand, smiling stupidly into my palm. “Thanks, Beau.”
“I’d love to take a look at your car.”
“You would?”
“I would.”
“When’s good for you?”
“I’m working all weekend,” he says. “I have Tuesday morning off.”
So maybe I’ll have to miss one session with Alice after all, or maybe she can push it back to later in the day. “That sounds perfect,” I say.
“What time?”
“Whenever,” I say.
“So, like, one or two?” he says.
“Is it at all possible you could do nine?”
He laughs. “Yeah, I’ll just park my truck on your street and sleep there the night before.”
“If that’s too early—”
“Nine’s fine.”
“Thanks, Beau.”
There’s a pause before he says, “Goodnight, Natalie.”
“Goodnight, Beau.”
15
Monday night brings the Promenade for Independence downtown, a parade complete with high-stepping horses in costumes, followed by the annual fireworks display at Luke Schwartz’s mini-mansion. I used to love the Fourth of July—marching with the dance team in our sequined blue and orange leotards with their little spandex skirts, going to Luke’s to see the illegal fireworks his dad’s assistant drove out to Indiana to buy for us. The irony of celebrating Independence Day as an indigenous person was lost on me only until I was about seven years old, but last year was the first time I felt grated enough by the idea to skip the parade. Mom knew how excited I used to get about the Fourth and was understandably confused, and for some inexplicable reason, I decided the best way to casually, lightly explain my growing discomfort was to compare my participation in the parade to cartwheeling down the Trail of Tears.
It landed about as successfully as you’d expect any joke about genocide to land. That is to say, I made myself feel sick and my mom sob. She and Dad had of course skipped the parade in solidarity, which is why I’m not surprised when I hear a light knock on my door frame and look up to see Mom, smiling tentatively. “Thought you, your dad, and I could have a game night tonight while Jack and Coco are out?” she says.
“Dad hates games,” I point out.
She waves the notion away with a manicured hand then crosses her arms over her stomach and glides into my room. “Your father loves games. He hates losing.”
I don’t bother pointing out that I actually do hate games, and anything with a semblance of competition for that matter, because I know the point of Mom’s offer is to pretend today is just like any other day, and not a holiday she used to love.
“I was actually thinking about going to the parade,” I lie.
She studies me. “Really?”
“No,” I admit. “But only because I don’t want to see Matt.” As soon as I say it I realize it’s true. Convictions aside, I really, really, really wish I could be at that parade tonight. I wish I could sit on a quilt surrounded by friends on Luke’s front lawn, watching explosions of glittering light fill up the sky. I wish Megan and I would get to take pictures of one another writing each other’s names in the air with sparklers, and that we’d drink bottles of Ale-8-One with sneaky quarter-shots of vodka we can’t taste or feel but enjoy just for the sake of rebelliousness and summer and friendship and all the parts of the Fourth of July I still love. I wish that change weren’t so hard, or that I didn’t feel so thoroughly that I needed it to make room in my life to live and space in my brain to think. “I would go,” I say again, “if things were different.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom releases a sigh and sits down beside me, pulling me against her chest and lightly circling her fingernails against my scalp. She squeezes me tight. “It won’t always feel like this,” she says. “Time heals all.”
And by the end of our conversation, after Mom and Dad have finally accepted that I’ll be fine staying home while they go out after all, I start to think she’s right. Last July I made Mom cry, and now she’s going to a cookout. Maybe by this time next year, when I look at or think about Matt Kincaid, my heart won’t start to break. Maybe I’ll be able to think of him as my friend again.
For tonight, though, I wander barefoot through an empty house, catching the dust of years on the bottom of my feet and memorizing the walls I’m leaving behind soon. When the sun sets, I go up to my room and watch my cul-de-sac’s private show of fireworks from my bedroom window.
When the last of our neighbors sets off the last grand finale, I fall into bed and text Megan:
Miss you so much it hurts.
Seconds later, she texts back, The feeling is mushrooms, followed by a second text reading, Yes, autocorrect, I meant to say mushrooms, not mutual. Good catch.
Life without you does feel a little bit like fungus, I reply. But definitely less tasty.
I mean, both mushrooms and my tears taste a little bit salty?
Megan says.
How do you have fluid left for tears with all the soccer sexting you’re doing? I answer, Btw I tried to type soccer sweating, but my phone simply wasn’t having it.
Your phone’s right, she replies. Soccer sexting. Fave competitive sport. Considering trying out for Olympic team.
You’re a shut-in, I say. *Shoe-in*. SHOO-IN**.
You’re a beautiful and wonderful and sensual and strong golden fawn, she says, followed by, That was supposed to say “my best friend,” but my phone . . .
The feeling is mushrooms, I tell her. I fall asleep feeling a happy kind of sad.
Beau never shows up. When I call him, his phone goes straight to voice mail. I call a handful of times and leave one message, but soon it’s noon and it’s clear he’s not coming.
Dad decided to take a half-day, so he gets home around one, drops his bag in the kitchen, and starts digging through the refrigerator for a beer. “Where’s your friend?” he calls over his shoulder.
“Something came up,” I lie. “He couldn’t come.” Dad glances back at me suspiciously. I am, after all, sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the day like I’ve been waiting, but he doesn’t call me out. I’ve never been sure if it’s more annoying when Mom tries to help me process my emotions aloud or when Dad looks at me with X-ray, horse-whisperer eyes but keeps what he sees to himself.
He looks down at the bottle in his hands and gives it an apologetic sigh before stuffing it back in the fridge and clearing his throat. “Well, your mom’s right. We probably oughta get a second opinion on it before shellin’ out a few thousand bucks on something new, and I’d feel better if we took it in to a professional anyway. Don’t want my baby girl in a car some kid duct-taped together.”
My first inclination is to defend Beau, but then, with disappointment sinking in my stomach, I remember that Beau’s supposed to be here, and he isn’t. I don’t really know who he is; maybe he is just some kid. “If you really loved me, you’d forget the car and buy me an airplane,” I say, steering the conversation away from the absence of Beau.
“Kiddo, if you really loved me, you’d get a bike.” Dad swipes his phone off the counter and shoots the refrigerator one last mournful glance. “Come on. Let’s get that sucker towed in.”
“What about this one?” Coco spritzes another purple bottle identical to the last hundred into the air beside my nose. We’ve been in Bath & Body Works for thirty minutes, and by now I�
�ve entirely lost my sense of smell.
“It’s nice,” I lie, scrambling to check my phone when I feel it buzz in my pocket. My mounting nerves skyrocket when instead of the apology from Beau I’d been hoping for, I see a mass text from Derek Dillhorn, alerting us to a party he’s throwing while his parents are out of town. I haven’t tried calling Beau since yesterday afternoon, and he hasn’t called me either. Four days have passed since we talked about him coming to look at the car, four weeks since Grandmother gave me her three months’ warning, and this shopping trip isn’t proving to be the distraction from either situation I had hoped it would be.
“That’s what you said about the last six,” Coco complains.
“They were all nice.”
“Then why are you making that face?”
“Because my brain is full of fumes, and I’m about to pass out,” I say. “It’s unrelated to all that toxic gas you keep spraying into my eyes.”
Coco groans. “Why did you even come?”
“Because I wanted to hang out with you.” And because Mom was too tired when she got home from work and asked me to. And because while the Jeep’s in the shop, my only opportunities to get out of the neighborhood are going to come in the form of running errands in Mom’s car. And because I needed to do something that required me to stop staring at my impossibly silent phone.
Coco sighs and clasps her hands together. “Can’t you, like, wait outside or something? You’re making me anxious.”
“Are you serious?”
She widens her eyes and nods sharply.
“Can’t you just get Abby a gift card? She’s turning fifteen, not getting a Nobel Prize.”
“I need to show her we’re going to stay friends after I transfer,” Coco shoots back. “Her love language is gifts! This needs to be perfect.”
“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about right now?”
“You’re only making this take longer.”
“Fine,” I say, “I’ll be in the food court with my face buried inside a pizza until my nose stops stinging.”
“Great,” Coco says, spraying the air with a pale green bottle for emphasis.
I fight a sneeze as I leave the store and make my way over to the food court. I spot Rachel sitting across the room at a table in front of Sbarro, her hair freshly dyed an unnatural shade of blond as opposed to her usual unnatural dark brown, and my stomach sinks. I still wouldn’t say I’m mad at her, but I had resolved not to see her or Matt again until our ten-year high school reunion.
The sinking sensation goes from bad to worse when I see who’s sitting across from her.
Beau. Slumped back in his chair, hands resting on his legs, and Rachel has her foot hooked around his calf under the table. At the exact moment I register all of this, his eyes shift up to me. I look away as fast as I can and turn sharply toward the bathroom hallway, picking up my speed and praying he didn’t see me. I know he did.
God, I’m so tired of avoiding everyone and everything.
Maybe I should just be grateful. It’s going to be so easy to leave here after all. Maybe I needed my hometown to turn on me so I could let it go.
“Natalie,” Beau calls after me.
I don’t turn around. I’m in the hallway now, virtually running to the women’s restroom.
“Natalie, wait,” he calls again.
I bolt through the door and pull it closed behind me, starting to pace along the sink as I wonder how long I’m going to have to stay hidden in the bathroom. Everything about this is so humiliating. I should’ve just said “hi” to them, acted normal, but instead I ran away and hid, and now there’s no pretending I’m not upset.
“Natalie,” Beau calls through the door. “Natalie, I’m coming in.”
My eyes sweep over the bathroom for any other exit as I hurry to hold the door shut, but I’m too slow. Beau’s already in, and we’re alone together, and I’m so embarrassed I want to die.
“This is the ladies’ room, Beau.”
He walks me up to the edge of the sink, grabs me around the waist, and kisses me. For a second I’m so surprised, so overwhelmed by both how frustrated and how attracted to him I am, that I kiss him back. When he lifts me up and sets me on the sink, I abruptly come to my senses and shove him back.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shout. I jump down and stalk past him to the door. “Stay away from me.”
I storm back toward Bath & Body Works, noting that Rachel is no longer in the food court when I pass. I weave through the clouds of sugary-sweet scents, march up to Coco, and drag her toward the faux-wooden checkout counter. “Whatever you’re holding in your hand right now is what Abby’s getting.”
I wake with a start in the middle of the night, and my first thought is that Grandmother’s here. I sit up and stare into the rocking chair, but it’s empty. I turn on the paper lamp next to my bed, and Gus lets out a frustrated moo. Maybe he was barking in his sleep again—that’s been known to wake me up.
Just then something clinks against the window in the walk-in closet, the wind, probably. But a second later, I hear the same sound, only a little louder. I get out of bed, creep toward the window, and pull the drapes aside.
I look down past the porch roof to the front lawn, where Beau’s standing. He drops a fistful of pebbles and holds a hand up to wave. I hesitate for a second, then shut the closet door behind me before sliding open the window.
“Hi,” Beau says. He’s swaying a little bit where he stands, his clothes rumpled and hair messy.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss.
He looks down at his feet then back up at me. “Can I come up?”
“Are you drunk?” I ask. That’s when I notice how rough his face looks, faintly bruised like he’s come straight from a brawl.
He glances away, running a hand over his mouth. His silence answers my question.
“Go home, Beau.”
“I need to tell you something,” he says.
“Then come back when you’re sober.”
He looks up the street. “I know what’s happening to you, Natalie.”
I give a frustrated laugh. “What, that I’m being jerked around by someone who’s dating one of my former best friends?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not dating her.”
I don’t care what he says. I’m not body-language illiterate—that was a date. “Beau, go home.”
“I’m sorry about the other day,” he says. “I messed up. I should’ve been here.”
“No.” I half-laugh in disbelief. “Actually, you shouldn’t have, Beau. You also shouldn’t have asked for my number or kissed me in a public restroom while you were on a date with another girl, but, I don’t know, maybe you were just drunk then too!”
He stares up at me, fingertips resting on his hips. He runs one hand over his mouth again as he turns back toward his truck. As I watch him walk away, my heart starts to pound in my chest. “Beau, wait,” I whisper-shout as I climb through the window onto the porch roof.
He looks back up at me. “You’re right, Natalie,” he says. “That’s what kind of person I am. You got me nailed.”
He opens his truck door, and I walk to the edge of the roof. “You shouldn’t drive right now,” I say, scanning the neighbors’ windows in anticipation of flicked-on lights that will lead to phone calls that will get me busted.
For a long moment, he stares up at me, and then he gets in his truck. Furious, I climb down onto the porch railing, drop into the yard, and cross toward him, jerking the passenger door open. “Get out.”
“It’s my car,” he says. “You get out.”
“Why did you come here, Beau?” I say. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Get out, Natalie,” he says again.
I don’t budge, so he clambers out of the truck and storms around it, pulling me out of t
he cab and closing the door. He starts to make his way back to the driver’s side, and I chase him, cutting between him and the door. “You can’t drive like this.”
He grabs me suddenly by the waist. I grab him back, kissing him as he lifts me against the truck. He burrows his mouth against my neck, tightens his arms around me. We move sideways and he pulls the door open, lifting me into the cab and stepping closer until our stomachs are locked together, my legs wrapped around him, his hands roaming across my neck as he kisses me over and over again.
What the hell am I doing? My anger floods back into me, and I push him away.
He staggers back into the street. “Fine. You want to know why, Natalie?” he says. “Because my whole life I’ve thought I was crazy, but now I know I’m not the only one. And that would be real nice, except the other person—the only other person in the world who sees what I see—is the love of my best friend’s life, and I’m not quite sure how the hell to handle that.”
My heart seems to stop in my chest. I stare up through the darkness into Beau’s eyes. They’re serious and stern, the inside corners of his eyebrows creased. “What are you talking about?”
“The two different versions of Union,” he says. “I know you can see them both.”
“How do you know about that?” I breathe.
“Because,” he says. “I can see them too.”
16
When I finally invite Beau up, I almost regret it. He’s far past tipsy and has a difficult time climbing on top of the porch. The whole time he’s struggling up over the railing to the roof, I’m picturing him falling, an ambulance waking my parents up to find a drunk boy they’ve never met passed out below my bedroom window.
As soon as he’s up, I reach back through the window to help pull him through. He hops down into the closet and pulls me against him, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.
His body is warm and tense around me, his heartbeat palpable all down my rib cage and stomach. He buries his face into my neck, and there’s a part of me that knows I should push him away—that every second I spend with him makes me want more time, and, even if I weren’t leaving in a few weeks, a boy who doesn’t show up when he says he will but then shows up, drunk, when you’re not expecting him probably isn’t someone I should let myself feel anything for.
