Every Last Promise

by Kristin Halbrook

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Did your application packets come?”

  “I think it might be too early.”

  “Is it?”

  Under the haze of my bed skirt, her feet shift toward the stairs as her voice shifts up an octave. Her nurse’s voice. The one she must have perfected when she worked in the hospital, before two kids brought her home full-time. “Well, I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”

  It’s the tone she used the day after the crash, when I finally woke from unconsciousness. You’ll be okay, she said as I rolled into a ball, white flashes cutting through my skull. She called for pain meds to relieve my throbbing head, going so far as to suggest a specific medication and dosage to the young nurse on staff. You’ll be okay.

  My fists are clenched around dust bunnies and rubber bands when I emerge from under the bed. My hair hangs in my face, messy, a curtain that softens the reality of my mom’s expectations, which are going to be dashed, I know, when I tell her and Dad that I’ve decided not to apply to college at all. At least, nothing beyond the community college the next town over, despite my parents’ hopes, despite Jen’s once-upon-a-time certainty. After being away this summer, I just don’t want to leave again.

  “Yeah, they’ll be here soon,” I mumble. Mom smiles and disappears down the hall.

  I reach beneath my headboard for a sparkly notebook caught between my mattress and box spring, only a hard corner poking out, gouging a tiny hole in the paint in the wall. Unicorns and fairies and hearts drawn with glitter pens embellish the cover. My eyebrows rise with recognition. I thought this notebook was long gone, dashed away once mythological creatures began to pale in comparison to a real world of best friends and cute boys and long, lazy summer days.

  The notebook is the girl I was, and so maybe that’s why I cling to it. Maybe that’s why I move my hand over my trash can, the notebook hovering, but pull it back quickly before dropping it in. Open to a page in the middle.

  Selena kissed Lance today. She said it was like kissing a frog. Jen wanted to know how Selena knew what it was like to kiss a frog.

  My notebook is a place where secrets live. If I had a pen right now, I could add one more. Instead, I stuff the notebook back under the mattress, hiding it. Hiding every secret. The way I’ve had to so that I can slip back into my old life.

  I move across the room, light-footed with hope that I can mend the damage I’ve done here, and reach into my closet blindly. A paper sack crinkles, and inside, the sequins on a tank top scratch my palm. I freeze. When did my bag of stuff from that night get put in here?

  Heat covers the back of my neck. I reach farther into the bag, lying to myself about what I’m certain I’ll find. And what I won’t find. But my fingers brush against the hard edge of truth. A cell phone. With a sharp breath, I shove the bag back into my closet and stand.

  Hangers catch my ponytail and click together in a dull, thudding wood-song. I draw my hand across the back of a scratchy wool blazer. It’s too small, from two years ago, but I pull it to me, pressing it against my chest. It smells like sawdust and mane oil. I hear the clock of hooves. My ankle aches and I flex my toes, as though I can work out the pain with a little foot stretch. As though I can forget the night my ankle was shattered.

  I don’t ride anymore, but that doesn’t mean I can unlearn the sound of the ring. The taste of competition air. How the wind whipped through my hair as I raced across the jumping course and the way my back curved and my legs flexed taut muscles as my horse, Caramel Star, took flight over gates and walls. I always felt determined, in control, gloriously powerful in that saddle. Like I could accomplish anything.

  I wonder if it’s the same for Jay. If he feels like the hero people think he is, if every breath he takes tastes like sweet glory and a town’s adoration.

  And if, on the back of his tongue, there’s a faint, bitter aftertaste of knowing someone could destroy it all.

  Like me.

  I wince at each rotation of the creaky bike chain in the otherwise silent night. Shop owners are home, having closed their doors hours before. Farmers are closer to their dawn waking than they are to their bedtimes. At the place where the small businesses on Third Street give way to the gas stations before the interstate, I drop my bike on the sidewalk.

  In most towns, Third Street would be called Main Street or First Avenue. It’s the center of town, the pumping artery that gives life to the farms around it. But now, at this time of night, it’s empty.

  I walk to the middle of the street and stare up at the banner. The white lettering for the homecoming event listings glows. The high school mascot is in one corner, his Roman warrior costume frozen in mid-dance except for when the wind blows and the fabric sways to the strains of a silent marching band. Jay’s body, in the middle of throwing a pass, takes up a third of the banner. His face is frozen in the throes of concentration. Beneath the helmet with the red Mohawk painted down the center, his mouth is set in a hard line, a muscle in his jaw clenched. His gaze focuses on something in the distance. It’s an expression that makes this town believe in something big. In the idea that determination can open doors to success. That people from little nowhere places can become great. I always did. Believed.

  I stare long enough that my eyes begin to water, washing out the blinking red of the stoplight.

  I cup my hands over my mouth and breathe. A sharp wind brushes my hood back from my face. Dust creates pinprick stings across my cheeks.

  A bulb slowly warms to life in the back of Mackleby’s Diner. Abeline Mackleby will be in the kitchen, her sleeves pushed up and her strong, round shoulders working the rolling pin on the dough for her famous sticky buns. In an hour, Third Street will smell like yeast and cinnamon and sugar. My favorite.

  Since seventh grade, I’ve met up with my best friends on the morning of the first day of school to indulge in those huge, gooey rolls. This time, in our senior year, I won’t be at that table gossiping about who will pull what pranks this year, who will hook up and who will break up, what everyone’s going to wear, how we’re going to crush our football opponents and how good Selena will look on the sidelines, cheering our team to victory. I don’t think I’ll be welcome after what happened.

  I get back on my bike and go home. I sit on the porch because the house is too warm, and I think about Jen across town, her blankets kicked off her bed like she always does when she sleeps. I think about my aunt, alone in her house in Kansas City. Probably the way she likes it. Her text remains unanswered: How’s your first day back?

  I don’t know how to answer her. There are too many words for a text message. There aren’t enough words to fill the empty space behind the blinking bar, waiting for my response. I thought about staying in Kansas City for good. Forgetting my friends, my home, that I was popular here. Turning my back on a summer of changes as this town moved along without me. Staying far away from the guilt that eats away at my muscles. Away from what happened that night in the inky darkness behind the Brewster barn. Away from what I did, and away from what I haven’t done about it.

  SPRING

  THE MEASURING TAPE SNAPPED closed in my palm and I called out the measurement to my dad, who wrote the number in his pocket-sized notebook. On the back steps, Caleb watched us work, his jeans and T-shirt still dusty from his morning chores.

  “You could come help,” I told him, “instead of just sitting there uselessly. Hold the end of the measuring tape for me.”

  His backward baseball cap slipped a little as he shook his head. “Who am I to take away any part of the satisfaction you’ll someday feel knowing you restored that boat all by yourself?”

  I climbed inside the boat frame and made a face at Caleb through the openings where some old boards had rotted away and needed to be replaced. “Dad’s helping me,” I point out.

  “Yeah, but it was his idea to have a little daddy-daughter project.”

  The look of pride Dad shot me brought a smile to my face. It was only partly for me, though. The re
st of it was because the boat we were working on reminded him of the sea. A place I knew he missed from his Navy days. He always wanted to get a boat but said he never had the time for one. Three months ago, at a horse show across the state, I saw this one sitting at the edge of someone’s property with a Free sign propped on the side. Lucky for me, Jen’s car has a trailer hitch. My dad wasn’t sure whether to grin or yell when we pulled into the yard with something that looked more like a scrap pile than a boat. All he said was that since I’d brought it home, I’d have to help make it sailable.

  “And?” I said, pulling a bit of flaking paint off a board. “Are you going to tell me that once I have this thing up and running you aren’t going to be begging for rides every weekend? Kayla”—I set the board on top of the to-keep pile and mimicked Caleb’s voice—“let’s go to the lake and fish. Can I borrow the boat so me and my friends can get drunk and drown ourselves in the river? Come ooonnnn.” I stretched the tape out and wedged one end in the seam of two more boards, then pulled the tape even longer and shouted out that measurement, too.

  “If it were that easy for drunk people to drown themselves in that river, half this town would be dead.” Caleb took a long drink of the can of Coke next to him and gave me a wicked smile.

  “Hey. Be nice.”

  “What time are you going to Jen’s?” Dad cut in.

  “As soon as I get one more measurement. Then I think we’re ready to order the new boards.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Dad said.

  “You should have just taken the thing in to a boat shop.” Caleb crushed his can under the bottom of his shoe.

  “Right. Because there are so many of those around here, and we have all the money in the world,” I said. “Besides, I like working on it.”

  I stood and crossed the yard to Dad, trading the measuring tape for the notebook, and jotted down the last of the numbers we needed.

  “Almost done with our boat.” My words were louder than they needed to be, with Dad standing right next to me. But I wanted to make my point.

  Caleb laughed. “I’ll help next time. Want a ride over to Jen’s?”

  “Sure.”

  I ran into the house to pull my hair into a ponytail, then back out to hop into Caleb’s truck. At the Brewsters’ house, I sprinted around to the rear yard, where Jen met me with an exasperated grin.

  “Where have you been all day?”

  I rolled up the sleeves on my shirt to avoid a farmer’s tan. “Boat stuff.”

  “Why did I ever let you bring that rotten thing home?”

  “Because you love me.”

  We listened to Caleb’s truck roar away before I ducked into the stables to greet Caramel Star. I saddled the bay Thoroughbred my parents had gotten me for my fourteenth birthday and drew her outside to warm up. When she was ready, I planted a kiss between her eyes and climbed on her back. Jen sat tall on her striking black Trakehner waiting for me. Together, we spent the next three hours exploring the Brewster back fields, at times pushing the horses into a sprint or over a wooden cross-fence, while at other times letting them walk slowly while Jen and I gossiped.

  “Did you hear Maria and Eve got into it after cheer practice Friday?” I said. “Rumor is Eve snuck into the boys’ locker room to take a shower with Jared.” I needed a shower. My hair stuck to the back of my neck.

  “Wow.” Jen wrapped the reins around her hand slowly. “Maria’s liked him for weeks. And they just announced she’s cheer captain next year. She’s going to make life hell for Eve.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t do that to your friends. And you definitely don’t do that to someone who can demote you to the bottom of the cheer pyramid.”

  “Speaking of Eve and not doing crappy things to friends, did you hear Jay and Hailey finally broke up?” Jen said as we approached Nickerson Road.

  “It’s been coming. How’s he taking it?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Fine, probably. I’m just glad all that drama’s done with. He’s been a total asshole the past few weeks.”

  “He was weird at the river party during spring break. Like, pissed off but . . .” I squinted at my best friend, waiting for her to finish my thought. Which she did, like she always could.

  “But trying to play it off? Yeah, I noticed that. The river dunking? What was that all about?”

  “Who knows? I bet Hailey’s relieved, though. The way Bean talked about how she was caught between Jay and leaving . . . I felt sorry for her.”

  “I felt sorry for her for ever being with Jay in the first place.”

  I laughed. “She was really good for him, though.”

  “She did make him a little more human.” Jen sighed. “He’ll probably go back to being the whore he was before they were together. Eve can help with that.” Jen hardly had to make a motion to get her horse to stop, they were that attuned to each other. Dressage was her specialty, after all. I started to turn Caramel Star around to head back to Jen’s. “Hey,” she said, and I paused. “Looks like Nickerson’s just been oiled.” Her exasperation with Jay blew away on the breeze as her eyes lit up. A dimple dug into her cheek and she faced me. “You know what that means.”

  I grinned and pushed Caramel Star into a trot back to the stables.

  FALL

  THIS IS A MOVIE-SET kind of place.

  The two bed-and-breakfasts proudly display their mentions in national travel magazines in glass frames next to their front doors. The grassy park hosts Fourth of July picnics and Easter egg hunts for boys in linen shorts suits and girls in pastel organza. Third Street shops are trimmed with tidy white wood fences and bells on their door handles. It’s a dream town to raise a family in. That’s what they’ll tell you, at least. That’s what you’ll believe. The way I always have. Because it’s the part of this town you can see.

  Even in a dream town like this, a pain presses on my chest like the drop in pressure before a tornado.

  I walk into Toffey’s Coffees alone and set my bag on a small table, staring out the window at the streets coming to life. Aunt Bea texts again. Did you sleep okay?

  I quickly text back yes. I don’t want her to worry the way she did all those nights immediately following the accident when I kept my eyes open as long as I could at night, because closing them revealed horrors I didn’t want to see. Those nights when exhaustion finally took over and I slept, only to wake tangled in damp sheets and mewling cries that brought Aunt Bea to my bedside.

  I text back yes because yes is what I want to be the truth.

  Erica Brewster, respected wife, mother, and county prosecutor, strides to her office building down the street. The last time I saw her, she told me she trusted me to keep an eye on everyone at Jen’s party. Make sure everyone stayed safe, didn’t do anything stupid. Used to be, I could be counted on for that kind of thing.

  My eyelids fall in a long blink.

  That relentless pressure tightens. Slowly releases with my breath.

  I grab my wallet, leaving everything else at the little table, knowing that I’m drawing stares from the few customers here this early—mostly old, retired farmers who can’t shake a lifetime of waking up before dawn—as I walk to the counter to place my order. Are they watching because they recognize me? Whispering to each other, That’s the girl, the one who killed that boy last spring? The air becomes thick, like breathing underwater.

  I swallow acid and scan the titles on the specialty drinks board. The Mayan Revenge isn’t on the menu, and I know it. It’s one of those secret-handshake types of things I know about because two years ago Caleb dated the barista who invented it. Ground cinnamon, cocoa powder, and cayenne blended with three shots of espresso, plus vanilla and almond syrups topped with milk foam. Ordering one will help me feel like I’m home. I know about something that an outsider wouldn’t. A town secret.

  Caleb’s ex doesn’t work here anymore and I wonder if the guy in front of me now knows how to make one. Noah Michaelson, a senior like me. His golden skin is darke
ned after a summer of working outdoors and his sandy hair hangs in his face. I know him. Have known him my whole life. His family’s farm is about a mile from my place. We played together when we were little kids, but I can’t remember much more than plastic wading pools and him yanking on my pigtails. He was never really part of my world after that. Especially when we got to high school. I talked to him occasionally, in passing. Once, right before Jen’s party last spring. He’s a quiet, odd kind of guy who is into . . . folk music. Or something. But I can’t imagine that playing the banjo is the reason his biceps are gently pushing at the sleeves of his T-shirt.

  When I ask if he knows how to make a Mayan Revenge, he nods while looking down at the register, examining the tip jar, checking over his shoulder at the stacks of to-go cups. Anywhere but at me.

  “One of those, then. Sixteen ounces.”

  Noah writes my name carefully on the cup, finishing the “a” with a sharp, downward movement. The bell on the door tinkles, and I turn to see Selena walking in. She heads for a table on the opposite side of the coffee shop without even glancing in my direction. Unless I turn around and leave now, without the coffee and without my things, she will see me.

  I can’t hide forever. I don’t want to. But I also can’t brush away the fear that gnaws at the lining of my belly. The need to flee from what I did. The anxiety that I’ve burned my bridges and can’t rebuild them. My whole life I’ve been like a fish in a school, surrounded by friends and family and home, until that May night, when suddenly I was caught in a fisherman’s hook, dangling and gasping for air.

  I want back in the water.

  The sound of the milk steamer wand isn’t enough to drive away the knowledge that Selena is right behind me. My ankles cross, then uncross. I lean against the counter, digging my hip into the black laminate, the seam at my jeans pocket cutting my skin.

  Noah slides the finished drink to me and tucks his hair behind his ears. I pass him a five and then drop the change in the tip jar.