“Hey,” he said. “I was just coming to say good-bye.”
The word good-bye coming out of his mouth did something to me, made me feel a little nauseated or something. My face must have changed because his mouth twitched up in a smile.
“I’m not leaving leaving. Just moving into that house in town. Remember?”
“I know, I just didn’t realize it was today,” I said. Of course I knew it was today. But I never wanted him to leave. The house or Wellfleet. He was so different from anyone I knew. Other than being ridiculously cute, he was this mix of cool, confident jock and vulnerable, sensitive boy. Even though he was only two years older than me, in so many ways it felt like so much more. He didn’t go to school. And he was on his own—he answered only to himself. And he just seemed like he’d lived more.
“You feel like walking on the beach?” he asked. “I know I’ll be over here for meetings and stuff, but I’ll miss being able to see the water anytime.”
Was he going to miss being able to see me anytime, too? Or just the water?
“Sure,” I said. Even though my voice didn’t squeak at all, my body felt kind of squeaky at the idea of being alone with Reed. So I might as well have squeaked.
He was already wearing his parka, though it was unzipped. The gray sweater he had on underneath muted the color of his eyes—like seeing the blue fire through cloudy lenses. He followed me to the front hall, where I grabbed my coat. While I put it on, he zipped his up. Then, at exactly the same time, we both pulled hats out of our pockets.
“Jinx!” I said, and even though he laughed, I wanted not to have said that. I felt so young when I was around him, and I didn’t need to give him any reason to remember that I was two years younger than him.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It would definitely be Serena saying she was leaving practice. She’d be here in less than ten minutes. I didn’t have time to take a walk with Reed.
SERENA: Practice running a little late. Be there in 20.
ME: No prob!
No problem at all.
We walked down the beach stairs quietly.
“Be careful,” I said. “Use the rope. The railing has splinters.”
Now I sounded like a schoolteacher or a mom. No happy medium for me.
“Which way should we walk?” Reed asked when we got to the sand. It was cold on the beach with the wind coming from the water.
I pointed to the right. It was high tide, so the left would have some areas where the water had come up all the way to the dune.
“So, are you excited for the house?” I asked as we started walking, the damp sand making soft, squishy sounds under our boots.
He shrugged. “Yeah. It’s good for me to settle in, start my new life, I guess.”
“This is a good place to do that,” I said.
“Yeah, I think you’re right. When did you move here?”
“Three and a half years ago.”
“And they’ve been good years?” he asked.
“Sure. It’s the longest we’ve lived in one place. We were in Detroit most of the time, but we moved apartments a lot, and usually that meant switching schools.”
“I’ve never had that,” he said. “I lived my whole life in the same house, same school, same friends. Until now. I mean, I guess if things had gone as planned, I’d be halfway through my freshman year in college now. So I would’ve left home anyway.”
I didn’t want to pry into the circumstances of him leaving home. I felt like everything with him was too precarious to push. I stayed quiet in case he wanted to talk more about that. But he didn’t say anything else.
“So,” I said, finally breaking the silence. “What do you know about your housemates?”
“Well, there’s Greg, Chuck, Biraj, and Clarissa. Greg’s a cook at the Flying Fish, Biraj works in a—realtor’s office in town, I think. Or maybe it’s insurance or something. Chuck is a computer tech, and Clarissa is an artist and works at a gallery in P-town.”
“Sounds like an interesting mix,” I said.
“Yeah. They’re all older than me, though, so it’s a little weird.”
“I’m sure it’ll be okay. You’ll be working. And you’ll be here, too.”
At least I hoped he’d still come hang out at the house.
“You’re always so positive,” he said.
“I am?”
“Yeah. I like that about you.”
I felt the flush coming to my face.
“You’re blushing,” he said, smiling.
“No, I’m not.” I totally was.
He knocked his shoulder into mine gently.
“I’m glad I met you,” he said. “It’s nice to have a friend. It’s too bad we didn’t—” He looked at the water, didn’t finish his sentence.
“Didn’t what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I just thought, if things were different, maybe things would be different.” He laughed. “Well, that made a lot of sense.”
Now I was really blushing. After he’d used the word friend, I’d figured that’s where he’d put me in his head. But if he thought things would be different under other circumstances, then maybe he actually liked me liked me. Like I liked him. And now I really felt like I was twelve.
He stopped walking.
“Turn back?” he asked.
“Sure.”
We talked a little on the way back. About his housemates, the other survivors, our favorite foods. But in my head, I kept hearing what he’d said. “If things were different, maybe things would be different.” And I started to wonder, why couldn’t they? What was stopping him? I couldn’t think of anything that would stop me. And knowing he could be interested in me made my brain shoot forward to years from then. Maybe we were soul mates. Maybe we’d be together forever, have what Mom was never able to have since her soul mate died. Maybe Mom would tell me whether he was my soul mate. She always said she never would, but what if I was in love—would she tell me then?
EIGHT
You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
—Stephen King (author)
After school on Friday, Serena comes over to hang out and get ready for the beach bonfire she’s going to. Jay’s on his way to Boston to spend the weekend at his dad’s.
Serena pulls a denim miniskirt out of my closet. She’s too tall now to fit into my pants, but she still likes to borrow my skirts and tops.
“You can’t wear that; it’s way too cold out,” I say. “You froze last night at Comma. It’s supposed to be even colder tonight.”
“I was taking it out for you,” she says. “Come with me tonight.”
I shake my head no, and I can see the disappointment in her eyes. Actually, it looks more like annoyance, but I feel like lately I’ve lost my ability to read her expressions as perfectly as I used to.
“We haven’t had any fun together in so long,” she says. “It was all Reed and now it’s all post-Reed gloom, and—I just miss having fun with you.”
“I know. I’m sorry I’m no fun,” I say.
“It’s been like a month and a half and your legs are better now. You’ve been cooped up here with nothing to do but think about him and rehash it all. We’ll have a beer and laugh. If nothing else, it’ll get your mind off everything for a few hours.”
I look up for a second, pretending I’m thinking about it.
“I’m just not up for it,” I say. “Not yet.”
She sighs dramatically and hangs the skirt back in my closet.
“I’m starving,” she says. “What do you have?”
Before everything with Reed, before she joined the cheerleading team, she would’ve called me out on trying to fake her out, and she wouldn’t have given up so easily.
“Let’s go look.”
In the kitchen, she opens and closes cupboards while I look in the refrigerator.
“Salty,” I say, as I reach into the cheese drawer. “Block of cheddar cheese
and I think we may have half a bag left of pita chips.”
“Sweet,” she says. “Graham crackers.” She pulls a box from the cupboard. “And Nutella.”
“Perfect.”
I reach for two glasses and hand them to her to fill with water as I search for the chips.
And then Serena shrieks. I don’t think I knew what a shriek really was until I hear Serena do it.
She’s standing in front of the sink jumping up and down and flapping her arms saying, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”
She runs to the table and climbs up onto a chair, standing and pointing at the sink, still flapping her arms.
“What?”
I move to the sink and see a tiny black mouse by the drain, now soaking wet from the water she was running.
“Oh my god!” I sound a little shriek-y, too. “How did it get there?”
I turn off the water, and the mouse tries to run up the side of the deep, stainless-steel tub sink.
“Oh, poor little guy, he can’t get out. You’re just a little guy, aren’t you, little mousy? But you scared poor Serena out of her mind. She’s such a wimp, isn’t she? Look at her, she went screaming and she’s standing on a chair. Scary, scary, one-inch mouse.”
I’m laughing while I say all this, and she comes down from the chair and peers over my shoulder.
“Yeah, I guess he’s sort of cute.”
“Grab a Ziploc,” I say. “Let’s get him out.”
I grab a pair of tongs.
“You’ll squash him with those!” Serena says.
I get a cooking spoon instead and while she holds the baggie over the sink, I scoop him up.
He wiggles off the spoon and we both scream as he plops back down in the sink. He runs around in circles.
“Oh my god, you dropped him,” she says. “You’re so mean. He thought you were trying to rescue him but you’re just a mean giant who likes watching him suffer. Cruel, cruel human giant.”
“You shut up,” I say, and we’re both laughing as he runs around the sink, slipping all over the place. “Let’s try again. Hold the bag down here. I’m going to push him in.”
“Okay,” she says, wiping a tear from her eye with the back of her hand.
I scoop the mouse into the bag and then she’s holding the bag and the mouse is jumping all over, and she’s screaming again, so I grab the bag from her, run to the slider and open it, and empty the little guy out off the side of the deck. I watch him as he lies still for a second in the sand, stunned, and then he runs off.
“Is he gone?” she asks.
“Yup, he went to find his mouse family.”
I go back inside and we giggle while we wash our hands.
Laughing feels good. When Serena’s laughing, I know her again, and it seems like we can get past this weirdness between us.
We sit down to eat our snack, passing the block of cheese back and forth with a knife, and the Nutella with a spoon.
“Did I tell you about the garage yet?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah, that you want to move in? When?”
“I haven’t told my mom that I want to do it yet. I found this box in there with her name on it and, I don’t know, I just have this feeling it could be something important.”
Her eyes widen, and she plants her spoon in the Nutella.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” she asks.
I feel prickly heat all over and suddenly I realize I don’t want to open the box with Serena here. And I’m not exactly sure why. Serena and I share everything. But this is something I need to do alone. She stands and I’m afraid telling her this will be one more thing putting a wedge between us.
My phone rings. Mom. I answer.
“Hi, I’m on my way home,” she says. “Just trying to figure out my plans for tonight. Are you staying in or going out?”
“I’m st—actually, I’m going to a party with Serena.”
Serena throws her head back and reaches her arms up to the ceiling.
“Yes!” she says. “Finally!”
NINE
I waited for my first kiss.
—Carly Rae Jepsen (musician)
After Reed moved to the rental in town, I missed him. I missed the excitement of coming home from school knowing that I’d see him. He’d been gone a week and I’d only seen him twice—once he came over to bring Mom a bottle of wine as a thank-you for helping him, and once for a meeting.
The next Saturday, Mom, Sue, and Ron had been in the back room since early morning planning a special trip for the group. People had been showing up, in and out, opening the refrigerator, closing it, piling their muddy boots by the front door. Weather was unpredictable on the Cape in December—the week before had been cold, and white frost had coated all the grass, but this week was pretty mild. When Ron announced he was going to pick up a few people from the bus stop, I grabbed a fleece jacket and hitched a ride with him to town. I didn’t have a plan; I just needed to get out. Serena was in Hyannis shopping with her mom, and Jay was studying for a test.
After Ron dropped me at the center of town, I went to the candy store, loaded up on all my favorites, and then headed toward the harbor. I ducked to avoid a seagull that had swooped down for something just in front of me.
It was colder in town by the water than it had been at home. A gust of cool air made me shiver and regret leaving my winter coat at home.
When I heard the van’s clanging muffler, my heart felt like it was flying along with the gull. I’d gotten to know that sound so well, and every time I heard it outside my window, telling me that Reed was there, the air became thick with possibility. I was pretty sure from what he’d said to me on the beach that day he moved out that Reed felt the connection between us, too. But my crush on him had developed so quickly and so forcefully, I had no idea whether he was where I was—dying to get things started.
The van pulled up alongside me.
“Hey,” Reed called out.
I pretended I didn’t hear him, which was ridiculous considering there was no one within fifty feet of me.
“Rachel,” he yelled.
I turned and smiled, concentrating on what I’d learned from listening to the it-girls in the locker room. ‘For the best picture, you have to tilt your head down a little, smile big, but not too wide or that will make your chin sag.’ One of the girls had done some catalog modeling, so I always listened when she’d tell the other girls her secrets.
“You need a ride somewhere?” Reed asked.
I shook my head, but I desperately wanted to get near him. I was too embarrassed to tell him that I was just walking aimlessly to the harbor, just needing a place to sit and eat my candy, a place that was not my overcrowded house.
“Come on, get in,” he said.
Reed reached over and opened the van door from the inside. I knew by now that it didn’t work from the outside. I’d seen him open it this way before. For other people, but not for me. Not until now.
After I got in and fumbled with closing the door, he smiled at me. Once he’d settled in with his new housemates, he’d slipped into this new, confident skin. But I could tell it wasn’t new at all; it was like he’d put on an old shirt he used to wear every day before and, even though it needed a bit of patching at the elbows, it still fit him perfectly. Even with that, though, I could see the holes under the patches—the pain and fear I’d seen when he’d first shown up at our door.
Now his dark hair was clean and brushed, his face smooth. He looked so good, I couldn’t stop staring.
He laughed at me like he knew the effect he had on me.
“What’s in there?” He pointed at the crumpled white paper bag in my hand.
“Candy.”
“Hand it over,” he said, so I did. He peeked in. “Ooh, caramels, Swedish fish, and what’s this? You have like ten atomic fireballs. You like fireballs that much?”
I nodded.
“No chocolate?”
“There’s plenty of chocolate at home. My mom’s vice.�
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“Are you gonna share?” he asked, and I saw his eyes light up and go warm. For me? Or did he love candy that much?
“Sure.”
He put the van in gear then. It made a sound like it was saying “I’m getting too old for this shit,” but it obliged when he stepped on the gas.
“That’s a good-looking candy-eating bench over there,” he said, gesturing to an empty wooden bench as we pulled up to the harbor.
We got out of the car, and I slammed the door closed.
“Easy on her,” he said. “Lola’s been through a lot.” He patted the back of the van like it was a butt.
“Lola. Of course,” I said. I sat on the splintering bench. An old lady was on the next bench over, rustling through one of those reusable shopping bags that looked like it had been re-used a few too many times. She looked up for a second but then returned to her search.
Reed sat next to me. Close. Closer than a friend would sit? Definitely closer than Jay would sit, but Jay had personal space issues.
I held the bag out to Reed and he took a green sour worm. I dug around for a handful of Jelly Bellies.
“So what are you doing out here buying candy and walking around by yourself?” he asked.
“Not much else to do, I guess,” I said.
“It’s Saturday. Isn’t there a basketball game or some kind of school Winter Fest, rah-rah-type thing going on?”
I couldn’t tell if he was poking fun at me for being a junior in high school. I wasn’t jailbait or anything. He was only two years older than me.
I shrugged. “Yeah. My best friend Serena’s a cheerleader, so I go sometimes to support her, but otherwise, I don’t really like that stuff.”
“So you’re one of those ‘I wouldn’t be a part of any club that would have me’ girls? I see. I know your type.”
“Do you?” I asked, and then I wondered what his type was. What was his group in high school, and what kind of girl did he like? I suspected, since I knew he’d played baseball, that he was one of the jock popular guys who ran the school, got any girl he wanted. He probably liked girls who were tall and pretty, with straight, glossy ponytails and big white smiles.
“I do,” he said. “But it confuses me. You’re cute, smart, you don’t smell.”
Soulstruck Page 4
