I Will Save You

by Matt De La Peña

  But you couldn’t open it. All you could do was stare at her handwriting. And the lady said through the door: “Everything okay in there, sweetie?” And you sat there, staring at the envelope, thinking how Mom would never say sweetie. The woman rattled the door and said your name again, your old one. She said it over and over. But you just sat there. You didn’t go out until you heard one of the police people talking to the lady.

  In the backseat of the van, as the lady drove you to the county intake home, you pulled out the letter and looked at it again, but you still couldn’t open it. And in the waiting room outside the woman’s office. And the next day when she was driving you to Horizons, and talking about the kids there and the counselors and therapists, and explaining how it could be a fresh start … that whole time you fingered the letter in your pocket but never opened it. And even in your new room, after Maria gave you her talk about how nobody could hurt your mom anymore, and she showed you where everything went. After she left you sat on your new bed, up by your new pillow, and pulled the letter from your pocket and just looked at it, felt it in your hands, thinking how less than a day ago it was in her hands.

  But you couldn’t open it.

  Even back then, when you were still in complete shock about what happened, when you hadn’t cried or said a word. Still. You knew. Whatever was inside that envelope would change the whole world, even more than it was already changed. And once you read those words there’d be nothing left from her.

  It made you think about before the first day of fourth grade, when Mom took you to get new sneakers at the mall. You picked out the whitest pair and Mom paid and you took them home and set them on the bed and stared at them. But you didn’t wear them to school the next day. Or the day after. You didn’t wear them for over three months. Mom asked if you picked ones you didn’t like, but it was actually the exact opposite. You liked them so much you didn’t wanna mess them up. Every day you’d come home from school and pull them out of the box and set them on the bed and look at them. Or you’d try them on in the mirror. But you couldn’t wear them outside. ’Cause the second you walked out the apartment door they wouldn’t be new anymore.

  Right when you were thinking about that, the box with your new shoes, and the letter, and Mom, another kid walked in the room and said: “They got you rooming with Jimmy, eh?”

  You shrugged and quickly slipped Mom’s letter back in your bag.

  “Sleeps in that bed.” He pointed at the bed across from yours. “Dude masturbates like sixteen times a day. Just so you know.”

  You looked at him. He was dark-skinned, and his hair was short and messy and he kept smiling this devious smile, like he was about to play a trick on you.

  He reached out his hand and told you: “By the way, I’m Devon.…”

  I spent two straight days in my tent, trying to figure out what really happened after Devon let me go in the current. I didn’t unzip the door no matter who came by, not Mr. Red or Olivia or Devon or even Peanut. I think I was depressed again ’cause all I did was lay on my back and stare up at the hole in my tent roof, thinking about how I could have died.

  I wrote stuff in my philosophy of life book but most of it wasn’t what I meant so I tore it out and crumpled it and threw it away. I left the last few paragraphs I wrote but that was only ’cause I was too depressed to rip out any more pages.

  On Monday I went to work, but after listening to Mr. Red go on and on about me almost drowning, asking a hundred different questions, I told him if I could please not say anything about it for now.

  “Got it, big guy,” he said, passing me a shovel. “You won’t hear another peep out of me, either. We’ll just sweep it right under the rug, all right?”

  We started digging a big hole where he’d chalked it off near the restroom. We had to put in new pipes because one of the old ones had a leak, and all the water in the campsites was shut off. Mr. Red said we had to do the job as fast as possible so we wouldn’t inconvenience people.

  We dug across from each other for a few minutes and then he said: “So, you just didn’t see the signs about the riptide?”

  I stopped shoveling and looked at him.

  He nodded and kept digging and it was quiet for a few more minutes, except the sound of our shovels going in the dirt, and then Mr. Red cleared his throat and told me: “It’s just, you know, you’re not the strongest swimmer.” He tossed a shovelful on the pile to his left. “And there were signs posted all over the beach. I just wondered if somebody talked you into it or something.”

  I kept digging and didn’t look up.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll shut up.”

  He dug for a while longer and then held a hand up for me to stop. He stepped into the hole and reached into the dirt and dug his fingers around a big rock. “Hand me the pick,” he said. I gave it to him and he broke up the ground around the rock and said from inside the hole: “Look, I’m just glad you’re okay. You scared me, big guy. I thought I lost you.”

  I was surprised Mr. Red cared so much. I was about to tell him thank you, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

  When I got off work I’d go right back to my tent and lay down and stare at the dust particles spinning in the tiny line of light coming through the hole in my tent roof.

  On Friday I finally let Peanut back in, and I pet him some, realizing how petting an animal can make you think less about being depressed. It’s probably why they have pets at old people’s homes.

  On Saturday Devon knocked for the third time since what happened, but I didn’t say anything.

  “Come on, Special,” he said through my tent.

  I stared at his shadow moving on my wall.

  “Why you so pissed?” his voice said. “You know I was just trying to help you.”

  Peanut made a low growl and looked at me.

  “Poor people gotta stay together, man. How else do you think our revolution is gonna work?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Devon stood out there for the longest time, talking about poor people versus rich people and how nobody was gonna come along and change things for us, we had to do it ourselves. I stared at his shadow and listened to him talk.

  When he went quiet I listened to his breathing.

  Then he left.

  On Sunday Olivia came to my tent again. But this time she didn’t say she wanted to talk. She said she wanted to take me somewhere.

  I told her through the tent wall that I was sleeping.

  “Um, if that was true,” she said, “you probably wouldn’t be talking to me right now.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What do you call that?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Kidd, you have to come out,” she said.

  I felt so bad acting depressed in front of Olivia, but I was honestly stuck. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I just can’t.”

  It was quiet for a minute and then I heard her walk around the tent, and I saw my zipper moving up the door. She peeked her head in and said: “What do you mean you can’t?”

  Peanut looked up at her.

  “I can’t move,” I told her. “I think something’s wrong with me.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  I shook my head and looked at my hands.

  She crawled the rest of the way into my tent and looked at Peanut. “Hey, dog.”

  Peanut inched his way closer to her and she pet his head.

  “You know what I think?” Olivia said.

  I shook my head.

  “I think you could use a nice sunset walk with the most interesting girl you’ve ever met.”

  I didn’t say anything, just looked at her.

  She was wearing her ski cap like usual and a white collared shirt and a short brown corduroy skirt and she looked so pretty it hurt my stomach. I thought how Devon said she’d forget all about me soon as the summer ended.

  “If you come with,” Olivia said, “I’ll make you a deal.”

  “Like
what?”

  “I’ll take you to the most secret place I know. I haven’t been there with another person since I was ten years old.”

  I peeked at Peanut, who was arching his back and closing his eyes as Olivia pet him. My stomach still ached when I looked at her, and I realized why.

  I liked her too much.

  I could feel it through my whole body.

  And even though it seemed like she liked me back, I knew it’d never be as much. And probably not in the same way.

  And I didn’t know what I should think about that.

  “So are you coming or what?” she said.

  I looked at my hands again. “I can’t.”

  “Oh, really? And that’s because … ?”

  “I don’t know.” I tried to lift my arm to test it, but it felt like lifting a car. Then I remembered how Devon said everything I did was an act. I wondered if I was acting right then, with the heaviness of my arm, in front of Olivia.

  “You don’t know?” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t know what?”

  “Something’s wrong with me.”

  Olivia crawled closer to me and sat on the edge of my sleeping bag. “I think what’s wrong with you might be in here”—she pointed at my head—“not here.” She pointed at my body.

  I lowered my eyes.

  She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “You might not know this about me,” she said. “But I’ve felt exactly the way you’re feeling right now.”

  “You have?”

  She nodded. “But you wanna hear my new theory about it?”

  I nodded.

  “I think there’s something wrong with each and every one of us. Even famous people. And the president. Because when you break it all down we’re all just human beings and human beings are flawed.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you,” I said.

  She acted like she was choking. “Are you kidding me? I’m a mess.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She laughed and slapped my knee. “Oh, my God, Kidd. You’re like a comedian.”

  Peanut licked her hand so she’d keep petting him and she did. “I think the only time any of us are flawless is the day we’re born. When we come out of the womb. After that we keep getting scarred by every little thing you can think of: ear infections, the chicken pox, overhearing our parents argue, friends spreading rumors behind our backs, being the last one picked for soccer in PE.”

  She pulled my shoelace undone, said: “The worst scars aren’t even physical. They’re emotional or psychological. But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “We keep going.”

  I reached down and redid my shoelace.

  “And some people are so smart they don’t even think of their scars as flaws. They think of them as character.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I’m not saying I’m one of them.” She pointed to her flap-covered cheek and said: “Did you know I almost didn’t come to the campsites this summer?”

  “Why not?”

  “I was too embarrassed. My friends had to talk me into it.” She reached out and untied my shoelace again.

  I watched her pet Peanut for a while and then decided to ask it. “What happened?”

  “Under my camouflage here?”

  “Yeah.”

  She smiled, said: “Let’s make a pact. Neither one of us is allowed to ask about each other’s scars. Not tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tonight’s not a scar night. Tonight we just go for a nice sunset walk.”

  I looked at her and then looked at Peanut. His head was laying back on his paws now, and his eyes were drooping. I thought how Devon said Olivia would forget about me after the summer. I knew that would leave one of the emotional scars Olivia just talked about.

  But then I thought, maybe a scar from Olivia could at least make me remember how I once knew her, and how she was once sitting inside my tent like this, petting Peanut and talking about subjects like human flaws.

  “What do you think?” Olivia said.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Good,” she said, and she turned to Peanut. “All right, dog. Keep an eye on Kidd’s tent while he’s gone, okay?”

  “His name’s Peanut,” I said, getting up.

  “Peanut,” she said, reaching down to pet him one last time. Then she looked at me and said: “I’d tie my shoe if I was you.”

  The 100% Perfect Girl

  Olivia did all the talking as we walked out of the campsites and down the 101, into Encinitas. She told me about this book of short stories she was reading called The Elephant Vanishes, and how she was obsessed with one called “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning.”

  “Really it’s a story within a story,” she said as we passed this self-realization place with big white walls. Mr. Red once told me people go there to do regular work like planting trees and mowing lawns and it’s supposed to make them feel better about their lives, which he said is an example of how stupid people are.

  I looked at the sign and then looked forward again, realizing how me and Olivia were walking so close sometimes the backs of our hands were accidentally touching, but it didn’t even seem that weird. It seemed like it happened all the time.

  “Are you even listening?” Olivia said.

  I looked up from our hands and told her: “I’m listening.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Then smiled.

  “So basically,” she said, “two people around our age meet and fall in love. They’re each other’s one-hundred-percent perfect match. Like a miracle. For months and months they do everything together and they’re unbelievably happy. Then one day the smallest hint of doubt comes into the boy’s head. How do they really know they’re meant to be, right? So they agree to test it one time. Then they’ll know for sure whether or not they’re each other’s one-hundred-percent perfect match.”

  Olivia was so excited telling her story her eyes got wider than usual and she kept making all these gestures with her hands. Sometimes she’d even grab my arm. Every time she looked at me I’d nod so she knew I was paying attention.

  “So they decide to split up, go their separate ways. If their paths cross again in the future then they’ll know it was meant to be. But a few months later both of them come down with this horrible case of influenza, which is another word for the flu. They’re bedridden. It’s so bad they almost die. Both of them. And even when they recover, much of their memories have been erased. They basically have to start their lives over, relearn basic things like math and history. And neither of them remembers the pact they made with their one-hundred-percent perfect other. Years later, when they’re much older, I think thirty or something, and they’re both still single, they pass each other on a street in Japan, and they both get a weird feeling in their stomachs. They turn around and stare at each other. There’s a twinkle of something familiar for both of them, something important, but they’re not sure what it is. Not wanting to seem rude they both turn back around and keep going. They return to their busy and empty lives and never cross paths again.”

  She shoved me and said: “Is that, like, the craziest story you’ve ever heard or what?”

  “It’s sad,” I said.

  We crossed the 101 and passed some clothing stores, and Olivia pointed to the sky over the ocean. “You’re missing a pretty awesome sunset, by the way.”

  I looked at the sky and it was so colorful it didn’t even look real. It looked like what some painter would do. Or a postcard. And then I thought, How could I let Devon pull me out in a riptide? If I had drowned I never would’ve seen the sunset sky again or heard about one of Olivia’s books.

  “Anyway,” she said, stopping in front of a store sign that said MOONLIGHT MUSIC, “this is where I’m taking you.”

  I looked in the store window and saw a big row of guitars.


  “Before we go in, though, I have to finish what I was saying.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “The first time I read the story I thought the two young people were total idiots. They had true love, right? They were each other’s one-hundred-percent perfect match. Why the hell would anybody test something like that? I was so mad at the author I threw the book against the wall and swore I’d never read anything by him again. But later that night I kept thinking about it. And I picked it up and looked at it again. Then I reread the entire story and saw it a different way.”

  She grabbed my arm again, said: “What if the couple was right to test their love like that? And even though they got really sick and lost their memory of each other and never came together again, maybe it was still a happier story than if they’d gotten married and moved to the suburbs and had two point five kids. It’s kind of like Romeo and Juliet in a way.”

  I looked at the ground thinking about which ending would be happier, them staying together or them splitting up. I put me and Olivia as the characters.

  Olivia pushed up my chin so our eyes looked at each other. “What do you think?” she said.

  “But they could’ve just stayed together.”

  “I know,” she said. “But maybe that would’ve been the truly sad part. You know what I mean?”

  I shook my head and told her the sad part was how they were meant to be. And they didn’t believe it.

  “Here’s what I mean,” she said. “Say Romeo and Juliet had stayed together, right? Their love would’ve eventually faded like all love fades and they’d have had kids and jobs and errands just like everybody else. Eventually their lives would become amazingly ordinary. The only reason Romeo and Juliet is such a famous love story is because their relationship was cut off at its most intense moment.”

  I thought about me and Olivia having an ordinary life. Sitting on the couch, eating pizza.

  It sounded like the best life ever.

  “Same thing with the young Japanese couple in the story. Sure, technically it’s a sad ending because they don’t recognize each other later on, when they’re both single. But I think the author is saying that even though they don’t end up together they also never have to see their perfect love fade and become ordinary like everybody’s parents. You see what I mean?”