Letting Go of Gravity

by Meg Leder

  He looks at it in my hands but doesn’t move to take it. “Parker, are you okay? Did something happen?”

  “This is for you,” I say. “For the art store on Route 42—Vinchesi’s? I thought you could use it to get some more paint. For your messages.”

  He’s still standing there, so I move a step closer, but he doesn’t take it.

  Everything around me feels hot and dizzy, my vision too sharp.

  “I wanted to thank you for the ride and for the job lead. I quit my internship after all, and I’m working at Carla’s now.” My words are rushed, and I just want him to take the gift card already. “So I picked this up for you, to pay you back.”

  “Parker, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

  “I know I didn’t. But I figured you could use it. And now we’re even.”

  His face hardens and he steps back, changing in front of me. “I don’t need your charity.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Sure it isn’t.”

  I look at him, trying to find the boy who helped me at the bridge, who helped me at the hospital, but the person in front of me is furious. I don’t know what just happened. I try to review my words, but I’m so flustered from my encounter with his brother that everything around me feels too electric and nervous to make sense. And then, like I conjured him Bloody Mary–style at a slumber party, Johnny comes around the corner.

  “Finny. There you are. I was looking for you.” He chuckles when he sees me. “Girlfriend trouble?”

  “No. Parker’s not my friend,” Finn says, his voice far away. “She’s just paying back a debt.”

  “Will you please take it?” I ask, shoving the gift card against his chest, trying not to look surprised at the strength there, how he doesn’t waver even with my push. His gaze is like ice.

  I let go of the card and it drops to the ground. I sling my purse over my shoulder, leaving Finn Casper and his brother behind me.

  I keep my gaze forward, my walk purposeful, speeding up as I get closer, until I can shut myself in Mom’s car, my hands still shaking as I lock the doors.

  They don’t stop until I’m halfway home.

  Twenty-Four

  WHEN I WAS IN first grade, Finn’s brother, Johnny, broke my wrist.

  It was a chilly January day, and Finn had entrusted me with his Walkman while he ran back inside to get his hat. I was listening to the heroes song when an older kid, one with dirty-blond hair, came over and stood in front of me. I had seen him once or twice—I was pretty sure he was a seventh grader.

  I tried to focus on the music, hoping if I didn’t look up, he’d just go away.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Then again even louder. “Hey.”

  I hit stop and took out the earbuds.

  He pointed at the Walkman. “Where’d you get that?”

  “It’s my friend’s,” I said. My shoulders were scrunched up by my ears, my body trying to shrink into itself.

  “Is your friend Finn Casper?”

  I didn’t know whether to nod or not, but the boy sneered.

  “I knew he stole it. Give it to me. Now.”

  I didn’t like this person. I didn’t like what he’d said about Finn and how he was trying to scare me. I shook my head, my voice small. “Finn said not to give it to anyone.”

  The boy laughed then, and it made me want to hide.

  But I held on to Finn’s Walkman, my fingers pressing harder against the plastic.

  “Tell Finn he’s going to be sorry,” the boy said, turning to leave. I started to slump back in relief, my fingers loosening, right as the boy spun around and triumphantly snatched the Walkman out of my hands.

  “No!” I cried. “It’s not yours!”

  He started walking away. “Whatever. Tell Finn to come get it from me if he wants it back.”

  I looked at my empty hands. I couldn’t believe he took it. I didn’t know what I’d tell Finn. I was pretty sure that Walkman was what he loved most in the world. So I stood up and started running toward the boy’s back.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Come back!”

  Johnny turned and started laughing at me.

  “Give it to me!” I yelled, catching up with him. He dangled the Walkman right above my grasp, and I jumped, trying to snatch it back.

  Johnny kept laughing. “Guys, look at the puppy!” he said, turning to some of his friends.

  The moment of distraction was the window I needed, and finally, my fingers touched the Walkman. Unfortunately, my grip wasn’t secure, and instead of taking it back, I pulled it out of Johnny’s hands and it fell out of mine, onto the blacktop, cracking.

  I will never forget the look on Johnny’s face then, how for a second he looked soft and sad. And then he turned toward me, his whole body twisting into a snarl, and he shoved me so hard, I fell backward, my hands flailing out uselessly behind me.

  I heard the crack as my body slammed against the pavement, my right wrist folding under me.

  The pain was like my scream—white-hot and sharp—and I curled to the side, around my arm, sobbing.

  Kids started gathering around, trying to figure out what had happened, and someone called for a playground monitor, but I was having a hard time focusing. Johnny had picked up the Walkman and was wiping his eyes with his arm, trying to press different buttons.

  In the distance, I saw Finn coming out of the school, tugging his hat on. My vision honed in on him, the only clear thing amid the stinging of my knees and elbows, the dizzying pain coming from my arm. He registered me on the ground and started walking faster, then slowed as he took in his brother at the edge of the crowd. Finn’s eyes went back to mine, and the storm in them broke, the sky opening.

  I can only describe what happened next as the type of transformation I’d seen in Charlie’s superhero movies, when Wolverine slid out his claws or that guy turned into the Hulk.

  Finn’s whole face hardened and he started running for Johnny. He hunched forward as he ran and aimed straight for the back of his brother’s knees, screaming as he made contact, knocking his brother off his feet so hard that both Johnny and the Walkman smacked against the blacktop at the same time, the Walkman shattering into multiple pieces this time.

  “You can’t hurt her. I hate you!” Finn howled, his fists pummeling Johnny’s back. His brother struggled to turn over, to push Finn off him. But Finn didn’t stop, landing a blow in his brother’s stomach and then right on his nose, continuing to yell. “You can’t hurt her, too!”

  At this point, the third-grade teacher, Ms. Felleman, was helping me up, leading me gently by the arm that wasn’t hurt, while the fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Dufault, and Principal Fitzgerald were pulling Finn off Johnny.

  Finn was furious, his face red, his arms struggling against the men lifting him, his legs still spinning in the air, while he yelled over and over at Johnny, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you! ”

  Johnny, meanwhile, pulled a hand away from his face, dazed, seemingly surprised by the bright red blood there.

  “I hate you! ” Finn continued to scream, and right then, even though he was my friend, all that hate scared me so much, my teeth started chattering.

  I turned to Ms. Felleman. “I need to find my brother,” I said. “I need Charlie.”

  She led me away, and I left Finn behind, his screams echoing inside me for hours after.

  That night, when I came back from the doctor’s office, Charlie decorated my cast for me, filling every inch of white space with color and words—pictures of superheroes and cats and knock-knock jokes—making sure to leave space for my parents to sign their names. Matty added to it the next day after school. In fact, the cast was so full that by the time I went back to class two days later, my classmates were disappointed there wasn’t more room for their autographs.

  I was surprised they cared.

  Turns out, everyone wanted to see my cast. The boys asked if it was true that I had heard my wrist crack when I fell (yes) and if my
bone had poked out through my skin (no). The girls, the same ones who had called Finn smelly and said all those mean things about the lost-and-found box, invited me to join them at lunch, offering to carry my tray for me and splitting their favorite desserts. I never had to sit by myself during gym class either—a few kids routinely took turns joining me on the bleachers, while everyone else ran around wild, played basketball, or ran relay races.

  A week later, when Finn finally came back after his suspension, he sat by himself at lunch, scowling. I waved from my new spot with the girls, but he ignored me. After lunch, I approached him carefully.

  “Finn?”

  He looked up, squinting, furious.

  “I missed you,” I said.

  His face broke into a sneer just like his brother’s. “Why?”

  I stepped back, my hand half circling my cast. I didn’t recognize him, and it felt like my heart was on the outside.

  Finn’s eyes took it all in, how I backed up, my hand on my wrist, how I was scared of him. “You’re not my friend,” he said.

  It was like breaking my wrist all over again, only worse. This time the insides of me were breaking.

  My parents had talked with me the night before, telling me Finn needed a lot of help, gently suggesting maybe I should find some other friends. I didn’t want to listen to them.

  But right then, all I could see in front of me was Johnny’s brother, not my superhero friend.

  “Go away,” he said, his voice a growl.

  I took another step back, trying not to cry.

  “I said go away!”

  I flinched and ran, not looking back.

  Finn and Johnny transferred out of our school a few weeks later.

  I never got to ask Finn if he was mad at me for not protecting his Walkman and his cassette tape.

  I never got to ask him if he found Major Tom.

  I never got to ask him if he ever learned to fly.

  Twenty-Five

  THAT NIGHT WHEN I get home from the Float, I hear Dad upstairs in the home office, his voice raised and irritable, which means he’s on a work call.

  There are quieter voices out back, so I follow them to the deck, only to find Mom and Charlie in the dusky light.

  I falter for a second. I don’t know if it’s seeing Johnny tonight, or thinking about Johnny and Finn back then, but right now, even though things with Charlie suck, I need my family.

  I slide open the screen door and poke out my head. “Do you guys want me to turn on the light?”

  “No. We’re looking for lightning bugs,” says Mom.

  “And we don’t want more of those guys,” says Charlie, pointing up to the moths batting themselves to death against the screen of Dad’s office window.

  Mom points at an empty seat. “Come join us.”

  I slide the door shut behind me, pretty sure I just let in a moth or two. “Dad sounds pretty crabby.”

  “He’s on the phone for work,” Mom says. “There’s some problem with a client presentation.”

  “Avoid him at all costs,” Charlie mutters, and I feel my shoulders ease. A muttered warning is better than silence.

  “So how was your internship today?” Mom asks.

  “Good.” I pause. “I met my supervisor. Carla. I mean Dr. . . .” I scramble for a second. “Dr. Smith.” Em’s words replay in my mind, but there’s no way I can tell my parents the truth. “I think she’s pretty cool. She’s going to be a good boss for the summer.”

  “That’s wonderful, Parker,” Mom says, but she’s stopped by the sound of Dad’s raised voice coming from upstairs.

  “But it happens every single damn time!” he yells.

  I feel rather than see Charlie tense, hear his exasperated sigh.

  “You know, I was thinking maybe for Dad’s birthday this fall, we could do something that would encourage him to get back into writing about music again,” I say.

  “That’s a really cool idea, Parker,” Mom says, sounding surprised. “What made you think of that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I was just remembering how much he loved doing that when we were kids. Do you remember that, Charlie?”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “What did you have in mind?” Mom asks.

  “Maybe we can find him a writing retreat weekend or something? There’s that new Writer’s Space place in Hyde Park. Or we could set up a blog for him? I don’t know. I’ll have to keep thinking on it.”

  “It’s a good idea. I’ll think on it too,” Mom says, right as Dad yells, “Are you kidding me? That’s a terrible idea!”

  She sighs and stretches. “I’d better go see if your dad’s okay.”

  “Good luck with that,” Charlie says.

  She leaves, and I remember the day Johnny broke my wrist, how Charlie got to the nurse’s office before Mom arrived. I couldn’t stop crying, but he waited with me, his arm sure around my shoulder, his low voice whispering, “I got you, Parker. I got you.”

  I turn to him now. “How was tutoring?”

  “Fine.”

  “And therapy?”

  “We’re really going to do this?” he asks.

  I sigh, worrying the fabric of my sundress between my fingers, and try again. “Have you talked with Matty since he left?”

  I’m obviously a glutton for punishment.

  “No.”

  This conversation clearly isn’t going anywhere, and I’m just about ready to leave when Charlie says, “But I texted him an apology for some of the stuff I said on Saturday.”

  “You did?” I don’t know if I’m more surprised that he apologized or that he’s telling me about it.

  “Yeah. I don’t know if he got the text, though.”

  I choose my words carefully. “What were you apologizing for?”

  “Because I gave him shit for going to Europe without me.”

  I let out a small surprised breath. As far as I’m concerned, he has a lot to apologize for regarding that night, but this would never have crossed my mind.

  “I should never have done that. I’m glad he went to Europe without me. He’s the only one doing what he wants even though I had cancer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He turns to me, and I can see his face in the light filtering out from inside. “Do you know Erin turned down a full scholarship to USC so she could go to school at Xavier? Ever since I’ve known her, Erin wanted to move to California. But I get sick again, and all of a sudden, she couldn’t be more excited to stay in boring old Ohio.”

  He rubs his scalp.

  “Why’d she do that?”

  “I don’t know. I think so she could be close by, since I was sick,” he says.

  “Oh,” I say, remembering a similar conversation with Dad last December, how I was prepared to defer Harvard a year if Charlie’s last round of chemo didn’t work. “That’s really thoughtful,” I add.

  Charlie lets out an exasperated sigh. “This past year, I wasn’t her boyfriend,” he says. “I was her boyfriend with cancer. She dropped out of cheerleading because she was missing so many games. She skipped Homecoming and the Winter Formal because I was in the hospital, even though I would have been cool if she went with someone else. I even told her to go with Matty.”

  “You were better by prom, though. Didn’t she want to go?”

  “I didn’t want to go, so I didn’t bring it up. She didn’t ask. Instead we watched Die Hard. She doesn’t even like action movies.”

  “So you’re mad at her for being nice and not pushing you to go to prom and watching a movie you wanted to watch instead?” I ask.

  “I didn’t ask her to do any of that stuff, but she did,” Charlie says, his voice breaking in frustration. “It’s effing exhausting.”

  I can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. “Charlie, she loves you. That’s why she did all that stuff.”

  “I didn’t ask to be the person everyone sacrifices crap for. It’s too much. I owe everyone too much already.”

&nbs
p; “You don’t owe anyone anything—it’s not an exchange. That’s just what people do for the people they love.”

  Right then a door slams hard upstairs.

  Charlie laughs. “I never asked for any of this, Parker. Erin giving up her dream school, Dad taking a shit job, you becoming a doctor.”

  “But I want to be a doctor.”

  He snorts. “Sure you do. Matty’s the only one I can stand being around right now, to be honest.”

  “That’s a really mean thing to say, Charlie.”

  Charlie scoffs, but his voice isn’t angry. It’s sad. “God, it must be nice to live in your perfect world.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “Valedictorian? Full scholarship to Harvard? An internship you beat out . . . how many other candidates for?”

  I don’t answer.

  “What is it Dad would say, ‘The world’s your oyster’? It is, Parker. But it’s not mine.”

  He stands, stretches, heads inside.

  I want to call him back.

  I want to tell him the truth about everything, how for the first time in my life, I dread things: the internship, our parents finding out the truth. How I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with me, the terrible way my heart jumps too hard and fast. How my world is far from perfect.

  And then I think about him being held back senior year.

  About the cost of me telling our parents about his cancer coming back last summer.

  About cancer, twice.

  The knot of guilt tangles itself further in my chest, so instead I just sit there in the dark by myself, holding all the words in, letting them fade with the last of the light.

  Twenty-Six

  LAST JUNE, EM DECIDED to throw a surprise birthday party for Matty at Erin’s house so we could use the pool. “He’s always punking me—it’s my turn to catch him off guard.”

  “Wow. That’s a pretty sinister revenge plot,” Charlie said to Em. “A secret pool party with his best friends? You’ll show him.”

  “Shut up,” Em said, swatting him on the arm. “You’re not helping.”