“We just kissed,” I say. “It was fun. That’s it.”
Serena is silent for a minute. I feel judgment seeping out of her, wafting over me.
“He and Lindsay broke up,” I say, like I’m defending myself. I’m not sure how it’s turned into this. I thought she wanted me to move on.
“They’ll probably get back together,” she says. “They always do.”
“Okaaay,” I say, drawing out the word. I don’t even know what to say. She can’t be so close with Lindsay that she’d be offended on her behalf. Or is she? She does spend a lot of time with the cheerleaders. Maybe they are that close.
“I’m just saying,” she says. “If you’re thinking he’s your soul mate or whatever, he’s probably not the one.”
“Um, I wasn’t thinking that,” I say.
Serena has always known about Mom and the lightning, and how badly I wanted to find a soul mate like Mom did. We used to lie in bed at night and talk about who our ideal soul mate would be, if we could choose. When we were fourteen, we imagined finding perfect brothers—one for each of us—and we’d marry them and become sisters-in-law and spend the rest of our lives together. When we were sixteen, we were a bit less idealistic and romantic. Serena would point out a cute new guy at school and say something like “I’d like to mate with his soul, if you know what I mean,” and I’d say, “Oh, I know what you mean, that’s one smokin’ soul he’s got right there.”
But when I met Reed, I couldn’t joke around anymore. Because I thought maybe I had actually found my soul mate.
Serena turns right into my driveway.
“So you had fun?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I had a lot of fun.”
“That’s good. I’m glad someone has the ability to help you remember how to have fun.”
There’s an edge in her voice that I don’t recognize. And I don’t get it. Serena has been trying to get me out of my Reed funk for weeks, but now that some of it’s starting to lift, she seems angry.
She doesn’t turn off the car.
“Aren’t you sleeping over?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I’m just gonna sleep at home tonight.”
“Oh,” I say. I’m afraid if I ask why, she’ll get even more edgy. “Talk tomorrow then.”
I get out of the car and she drives off.
ELEVEN
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
—Robert Frost (poet)
For a few days after my first kiss with Reed on the pier—which Serena had labeled “the candy kiss” because of the “aphrodisiacal powers” of the candy we’d shared—seeing him was torture. He’d come over to the house for a meeting, and we’d say hi to each other, but we didn’t talk much. I felt our connection just hanging there in the air, and if something didn’t happen soon, I was going to combust. I wondered whether this was what Mom had felt for my father. She said she’d known there was something special between them from the start—they’d helped rescue a seal who’d gotten stranded on the beach—and then the lightning only confirmed what she’d already known in her heart. That Carson was her soul mate.
Finally, on one of those rare nights that it was just Mom and me, I decided I had to do something about the Reed situation. We’d just finished eating dinner and were doing the dishes.
“Mom?” I said.
“Mmhm?”
“I really like Reed, and I’m pretty sure he likes me, too. And you told him we can’t see each other, and you had no right to do that and it’s not fair.”
It had all come tumbling out and not at all like I’d planned. Instead of mature, I sounded like a whining child, which would not help my case.
Mom sighed and put a plate in the dishwasher.
Then she turned toward me, leaning her hip on the counter. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly.
“He’s too old for you,” she said.
“I’m seventeen, he’s eighteen,” I said.
“You just turned seventeen, he’s almost nineteen.”
“Mom.” I rolled my eyes.
“He’s in a different place. In so many ways. He’s graduated from high school, he’s living on his own, with no one supporting him. He’s more of a man than a boy.”
“He seems like a boy to me. He’s sweet and I like him.”
“He is sweet,” she said. “And very broken, Rachel. He’s estranged from his family, he’s working through PTSD, and he needs to fix himself before being with someone else.”
“Jesus, Mom. Are you looking out for me or for him?” I couldn’t believe this.
“You. Both of you, really. But you. I don’t want you to get hurt. And this is just a stopping place for him—he won’t be here forever.”
“So? I won’t be here forever either, Mom!”
Mom flinched visibly and then I felt bad.
“I may go away to college, who knows?” I said, softening my voice. “Anyway, I just want to hang out with him. I’m not even talking about forever. I wouldn’t have said anything to you, I would have just done it, but I know he won’t unless you say it’s okay.”
Mom nodded. She closed the dishwasher.
“Okay?” I asked.
“With some conditions,” she said. “You can be together here or go out places within a twenty-minute drive. You may not, under any circumstances, go to his house.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I couldn’t contain my smile. “Why can’t I go to his house?”
I regretted saying it instantly. Mom’s face got hard.
“He lives with adults, Rachel. Young adults in their twenties who are on their own, working and paying rent, and legal to drink. I think Reed is too young to be living there, quite honestly, but I couldn’t have him staying here anymore. And you’re a junior in high school. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry, I was just curious.”
The next day, while I was in World History, Reed texted me.
REED: So, I guess you really like me? ;)
ME: ?
REED: Your mom said she’s lifting her sanction on seeing you.
ME: She told you!?
REED: Well, I asked, too.. She said you got to her 1st. Pick you up after school?
ME: Yes!
And that was how it started. When I wasn’t at school or studying and he wasn’t doing odd jobs or delivering pizzas, we were together. I craved Reed. There wasn’t any other way to describe it. After only a few weeks, it felt like we’d already been together for much longer. I knew spending so much time with him was at the expense of time with Serena and Jay, so I invited them to do stuff with us a few times. But Jay didn’t know what to say to Reed, and I could tell by the way Serena’s voice changed when she spoke to him that she was still very unsure about him.
“He could be a serial killer on the run or something,” she said after I’d spent nearly every minute with him for two weeks.
“Oh, come on,” I said.
“I’m serious. What do you know about him?” she asked.
“I know enough.”
“Enough?”
“I know enough to know that we have something special.”
“So you think he could be the one.” And then under her breath, she said, “Of course.”
I didn’t answer her. Instead, I said, “Maybe if you tried to get to know him, you’d see that he’s really great.”
Serena stared at me. Her eyes were cold.
“Or not,” I said. “Whatever.”
It was our first real fight, and after that, even though we continued quizzing each other on our Spanish vocab, the air hung heavy with it.
One night, Reed and I decided to go to the new Wes Craven movie.
We’d just left my house when Reed said, “Oh shit.”
“What?”
“I have to go put the extra key back in its hiding place for Biraj or he’ll be locked out.”
He turned left toward town.
“We might still make
the movie if I hurry,” he said.
But I didn’t care about the movie. I just wanted to be with him.
We drove through town and then past the library. After a few blocks, he pulled into a small gravel driveway. The house was a pretty shade of yellow, but it was beginning to peel. Underneath patches of melting snow, the grass was more brown than green. Whoever owned the house had tried to make it look nicer by adding two large barrels for flowers, but all that was there now were crumbling, brown bits of old geranium-looking things. They must have forgotten to ask the renters to water them.
He turned off the ignition and started unwinding a key from his key ring.
“I’ll just go leave it in the hiding place and then we can get going.”
He hopped out of the van and jogged to the side of the house.
I stayed where I was for a minute, and then I opened the door and followed him.
He was already on his way back, having left the key.
“Hi,” I said.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, smiling.
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
He put his arms around my waist and kissed me. Then he walked me backward until my back was against the wall of the house. We kissed, and even though it had been a few weeks, I still couldn’t believe I was with him. I was definitely falling in love with him. It was the real deal.
“I want to see your room,” I whispered.
He hesitated, so I kissed him again.
Then he nodded and took my hand.
Inside it was not what I’d expected. It was darker than I thought it would be—dark floors, dark paint on the walls. He flipped on the lights in the living room where there were two small couches, a coffee table, and a TV on a stand. Everything looked kind of drab and used, but it seemed clean.
He gave me the short tour, pointing at each room—living room, dining room, kitchen.
He led me to the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s this?” I asked when I looked up.
A large sculpture-type thing hung on the wall at the top of the stairs. Its base was a large copper circle that looked like it had been part of a log holder by a fireplace. Two bottoms of broken beer bottles—one green, one brown—hung from invisible wire and glistened when light fell on them. The rest of the thing, which I thought was supposed to be a face, had pieces of rope, gnarled wood, and plastic on it, but I couldn’t tell where exactly the eyes and mouth were.
“My housemate Clarissa,” Reed said, as if that explained it.
As we walked up the stairs holding hands, our movement caused the glass pieces to move slightly, making the stairs seem to shimmer and glow.
“That’s cool,” I said. “So this is the art she makes?”
“Yeah, she makes sculptures from all recycled materials, so she collects junk. Whenever people come over to the house, they bring things to add to her collection.”
On the landing was a basket that held bottles, rusted metal, rope, and wire.
“Does she sell it?” I asked.
“I think the gallery she works at in Provincetown shows some of it,” he said. “I don’t think she sells much, though. Her stuff is kind of—”
“An acquired taste?”
He laughed and then opened a door at the top of the stairs. His room. I stood inside the doorway and looked, but there wasn’t much to see—a bed with a rumpled light blue comforter, an oak dresser, and a closet door. Before I could say anything, Reed closed the door.
I sat on the edge of the bed, bounced a little. He sat next to me and grinned.
We never made it to the movie.
TWELVE
Friendship has its illusions no less than love.
—Stendhal (writer)
The morning after my hookup with Sawyer Baskin, I text Serena to see if she wants to hang out later. She was right—I had fun at the bonfire, and I feel better. At least better enough to want to do something more than hang around the house all day, or maybe even go out again tonight. I can’t remember her schedule, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have practice or a game today. After two more texts and three more hours, I still don’t hear back. I look up the cheerleading practice and game schedule. Nothing. I figure her phone is dead, which isn’t completely impossible.
I try her one more time.
ME: Hey, heading to town to grab lunch.
I ride to town and eat chicken parm at Town Pizza, alone, staring at the wall, feeling dread.
Back at home, I wait to hear from Serena. Nothing. I sensed something was up last night, but now I know for sure.
ME: Are you going out tonight?
As people were leaving the bonfire last night, I’d heard people talking about a party at Tim Erickson’s the next night. His parents were always going out of town.
Serena doesn’t write back.
I’m still willing to believe that she’s lost her phone or there’s been some emergency, but I know I’m clinging. If she lost her phone, she’d call from home. If something happened to her, her mom would contact me.
At ten, Mom walks in the door, typing on her phone as she walks. She does a double-take when she sees me sitting on the couch watching TV.
“Oh,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”
“Why not?”
“I just saw Serena’s car parked at the Ericksons’, so I figured you’d be with her. I’m texting you to tell you I want you home by midnight.”
She smiles.
“No need,” I say. “I’m here.”
My eyes sting at the realization that Serena ignored all my texts, then went out without me. It isn’t an innocent mistake, an oversight. She’s shunning me. Kissing Sawyer can’t be enough. I scroll through my feed looking to see if she’s posted anything. Nothing since the selfie she took of us last night before we left for the party. But Lindsay tagged Sawyer in a photo of the two of them, his arms around her waist, kissing her cheek. Lindsay has written, There’s no place like home. The photo is dated today.
It isn’t surprising that they got back together, though I would’ve expected the breakup to last a few more days. Would Serena choose Lindsay over me if Lindsay’s pissed I hooked up with Sawyer? While they were broken up? It doesn’t make sense.
I send Serena one more text.
ME: What did I do?
Nothing.
I refuse to humiliate myself any further. I don’t text her, and I don’t call her. I just get in bed and wait for sleep.
I wake with a start and look at the clock: 1:17. Someone’s pounding at the door. I go to the front hall as quickly as I can. I want to get there before Mom in case it’s Serena or Sawyer or someone coming by drunk after the party at Erickson’s.
I see through the glass door that it’s Sawyer’s mom. I’m still half-asleep, and all I can think is that something has happened to Sawyer. Or that she’s angry at me for kissing her son.
I open the door, and she storms in, demanding to see my mother. She’s clearly been drinking.
Mom rushes out of her bedroom, pulling her robe tightly around her.
And now I realize this visit has nothing to do with Sawyer. Or me. Mom is already composed. She has that ability to go from deep sleep to awake, alert, and beautiful within seconds.
“Come with me, Trish,” Mom says to Mrs. Baskin, pointing her toward the back room.
As I’ve been taught when someone shows up in this state, demanding a soul mate reading, I check outside to be sure no one’s watching, and then I close and bolt the door.
Mom gives me a stern look, which means “bring us a drink” and “not a word of this to anyone.”
“She goes to school with Sawyer,” his mom whispers, staring at me.
“Don’t worry,” Mom says. “Rachel is very discreet.”
And I am. I’ve never even told Serena or Jay who comes to the house to talk to my mom.
THIRTEEN
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
<
br /> —Bruce Lee (martial artist)
One Thursday, after Reed and I had been together for about two months, he picked me up at school. It had been a good day—I’d aced a history test, and Serena, Jay, and I had sat together at lunch and laughed so hard, we couldn’t even eat. Being with them had felt normal for the first time in a long time and I thought maybe we were finding our way back. Or it could have just been the snow. It was dumping outside and everyone was excited about the possibility of a snow day.
Reed and I went back to his house. Since that night we’d skipped the movies, we went there most days. I didn’t like breaking Mom’s rule—she didn’t have that many of them to begin with—but it was really the only place we could be alone.
I skipped homework—I was that sure school would be cancelled the next day. We drank tea and ate microwave popcorn and snuggled up on the couch under a blanket while we watched a movie. His housemates were all working, so we had the place to ourselves.
When Biraj and Greg came home, we went up to Reed’s room—his housemates were always friendly, but he preferred it when we were alone.
We stayed in his bed for hours, lazily kissing and messing around. We ended up with all of our clothes off.
And I was so ready. Even though we’d been together only a couple of months, it felt like a couple of years. Or forever. What we had together felt so real, so big.
I told Reed I was ready, but he said no.
I turned my back to him so he wouldn’t see how much it hurt.
“I can’t be your first,” he said. “I don’t deserve to be with you at all, but I definitely can’t be your first.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked through sniffles.
I could hear him turn onto his back, put his arms behind his head.
“I’m a mess,” he said.
“But you’re not. I know you think that, but you’re not.”
“I am. I’m homeless, my parents hate me. Before I left, they couldn’t even look at me. That’s how messed up I am.”
“Why? Because of the lightning?” I asked. Reed hardly ever talked about it or about his life before he came here. I knew that he was from an upper-class suburb of Cleveland. He’d graduated from high school, had played baseball, had planned to go to Union College. And I knew that after he’d gotten struck by lightning, everything had changed. What I didn’t know was what he told me next.
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