by Amber Smith
This was the first glimmer I’d seen in months—years, really—of Dad trying to be a dad. He was thinking about reclaiming his title. It was a sign of life. A sign that underneath that sad exterior there was still a part of him that was someone other than the guy who screwed up so bad, he would be willing to serve penance for it for the rest of his existence.
• • •
I was pedaling faster than I think I’d ever gone before. My legs felt strong and solid, powerful. Maybe it was the twilight falling around me—the urgency of the day ending—that was propelling me, pushing me forward.
As I breathed, my lungs felt light and loose. From laughing with Chris. Or maybe it was a result of all that debris that got washed away between me and Hayden. Or whatever had just been cleared out with my dad.
Maybe Chris was right, and things didn’t have to seem so terrible.
I thought about that car ride, the way it felt to have the windows rolled down, the wind blowing against my skin and through my hair—that was as free as I’d felt in a while. A long while. Maybe ever. I let go of the handlebar with one hand and reached up to pull the elastic band out of my hair. My hair fell down and whipped all around me in the wind, just like the other night.
I passed Bowman’s and the school and Bargain Mart and the gas station. I wished I could ride all the way out to New Pines. I wished there were more light left in the day. I made my way back along the exact route I’d come by.
Riding past the PRIVATE PROPERTY sign that designated Bowman’s, my thoughts drifted once again to Chris. Maybe it was Hayden’s words still on my mind, or my dad’s. Whatever it was, instead of turning off the road into my driveway, I turned onto the gravel path that led up to the gray, wooden house I’d lived across from my entire life.
Up close, it was more disheveled than I thought—chipped paint and weeds, and the roof over the porch looked like it could cave in at any moment. I stopped my bike in front of the house and was debating about what exactly I was even doing there, when I heard a voice above me.
“Test driving the new wheels?”
When I looked up, Chris was leaning over the railing of the balcony on the side of the house, the one I could see from my bedroom window. Walking over to where Chris was, I backed up so I could see him better. Behind him there was a telescope.
“Are you looking for your bipolar stars up there?” I called up to him.
“Binary stars,” he corrected.
“I know,” I told him.
He laughed a little—he got it.
“The tires are good,” I offered.
I liked the way he was looking at me, with this easy smile. I liked the way he was leaning, with his elbows propped on the edge of the railing. There was something inviting about his face, his stance, his everything.
“I was not looking for bipolar stars,” he told me, lifting his head to gaze out somewhere above the tree line. “I was looking at Saturn.” He raised his arm and pointed.
I turned around and tried to follow his gesture. The stars were multiplying by the minute as the sky grew darker. I had absolutely no clue which bright spot was Saturn.
When I turned back toward him, he was no longer looking at the sky; he was looking at me. “What?” I asked.
“Do you want to come up and look with me?”
It’s always strange entering someone’s house for the first time. The kitchen was clean and minimal—not a bunch of gadgets and things lying around. It was dated, for sure, but nice. He led me into the living room, where Isobel was sitting in an old armchair sleeping.
It was strange to see her—this woman I’d seen around town forever—in her own home. “Aunt Isobel works these insane hours at the hospital,” he whispered as we headed up the stairs. “So she sleeps at weird times.”
“Oh,” I replied, suddenly feeling shy and awkward. Because in that instant, not only had Isobel become more real to me, Chris had as well.
“Be careful in here,” he said as we walked down a narrow hallway and entered another room. “I have the lights off so we can see better—I mean, see the stars better.”
My eyes adjusted quickly. I could make out a bed, a mirror, a dresser, two nightstands, a lamp, and a closed closet door. The only light was coming in through the open door that led outside.
“Can you see okay?” he asked, holding out his hand. “Do you need me to turn a light on?”
“No, I think I’m okay.” But I reached for his hand anyway. Only our fingertips touched, just for a moment, with this weird electric thrill.
Out on the balcony, the breeze was stronger than it had been on the ground. I looked across the field at my house. Dim light was coming from the kitchen window; it was the light above the sink. My house looked so small from here. Like a toy house. Not something real people could live in.
“So, what are we looking at?” I asked, trying hard to push aside the thoughts of my house and its inhabitants—I wanted to be here, fully here, in this moment with Chris.
“Well, it’s really clear tonight, so you have your pick.” He raised his arm and pointed out at the sky, starting at the far left of our field of vision. “We have Jupiter.” He moved his arm to the right. “Saturn.” Right again, “Venus, and Mercury.”
“Jupiter,” I answered.
He leaned over to look through the eyepiece, adjusting the position of the telescope. As I watched him, I wanted to reach out and touch his hand again. He reminded me of Mallory, the way she would get quiet as she concentrated on twisting the lens and getting her shot just right, like the whole rest of the world had disappeared and it was just her and the camera and the thing they were looking at.
“Okay,” he said, stepping aside, “take a look.”
As I leaned over and peered through the eyepiece, just as he had, I was fully unprepared for it. “Oh my god,” I whispered. I opened my mouth again, but my speech was impaired by what my eyes were seeing. When the words finally came, they were halted and stiff. “I. Can’t. Believe. What. I’m. Seeing. Right. Now.”
“You’ve never looked through a telescope before,” he said. Not a question but an observation.
“No,” I whispered, looking at him.
“It’s pretty amazing, right?” His face lit up. His reaction to my reaction was almost better than the actual experience.
I looked up at the sky and then back through the telescope.
“Look again. Do you see those two dots on either side? One is kind of to the right, and the other is lower, to the left?” I saw exactly what he described. “Those are two of Jupiter’s moons.”
I looked up at him again. “I—I just—this really is amazing.”
“Okay, if you think that’s cool, let me show you something else.” He adjusted the telescope again. “Jupiter gets all the attention because it’s the biggest, but this has always been my favorite.”
He moved aside so I could look again.
“No,” I breathed. “This can’t be real.”
“You see it?”
“It’s Saturn.” I laughed. “I can see its rings. Like actually see them, right there.”
“I know,” he said.
“All right,” I admitted. “Now I can see where your whole theory comes from. Not the depressing one, but what you said the other night. About how things just work out. Now you almost have me believing it.”
We were standing so close and there wasn’t much room to move around, with the telescope taking up most of the space, and I swore, for a moment, when our eyes met, I felt us moving even closer.
I should look away, I thought. But I couldn’t. He was watching my mouth. I felt my lips wanting to part slightly. He leaned in. I so badly wanted him to kiss me. But right before that point of no return, that one instant before it was going to happen, something caught my eye. I looked over his shoulder, breaking the spell.
Chris cleared his throat and looked down quickly, raking his hand through his hair as he backed away from me. He glanced behind him to where I was looking
. It was almost like the door had moved slightly, pushed open a mere fraction of an inch by the breeze. The light caught the glass and reflected like a tiny spark.
Once again, I could not believe what I was seeing.
This was the door.
It was nearly impossible to drag my gaze away from the stained glass window that I’d barely even had a chance to search for, yet here it was, delivering itself to me.
When he turned back around and met my eyes again, I was the one to look away.
The moment passed—this perfect, magical moment—and it was my fault. I had dropped it, let it slip through my hands, and it shattered, lying there in pieces on the floor.
“So,” he said, putting an end to this excruciating silence. “You should know”—he paused, and my heart thumped hard as I waited for him to finish—“you might be a bit of an astronomy geek.”
I laughed nervously. So he was going to ignore what had just happened, or didn’t happen, between us. I was equally disappointed and relieved.
I followed suit: “You might be right about that.”
Things seemed to settle back into place around us. The door moved again, ever so slightly, accompanied by a tiny creak I’m not sure Chris even heard.
I looked out across the field in the direction of my house again.
“So, I should probably get back,” I said. “Um, thanks again. That was—”
“Yeah, it was,” he said, finishing the sentence I couldn’t.
CHRIS
TODAY I WAS RUNNING TO forget.
Sure, maybe it was fun to have a crush. But her hair, and the standing close, and god, we almost kissed. This was real. Not a crush. I knew if things went much further, I’d have to tell her I’m trans—not even for her sake, really, but for mine. It hurts too much to be in relationships where you can only show one part of yourself—I have seventeen years’ worth of proof stockpiled on that. But it would also hurt too much if she decided she didn’t like me if she knew the rest of me.
I picked up my pace, focused on my breathing. In breath. Out breath. In breath. Out breath. Left. Right. Left. Right. My footfalls, light on the pavement, tapping out the beat like a bass line.
I was running to forget about the scent of oranges on her hair and the way our fingers touching sent a jolt through my whole body. I needed to forget because where I was in my life, who I was, I did not have the luxury to be entertaining those thoughts. All that stuff—girls and sex and relationships—could wait. It had to wait. Between Mom and Dad not being able to reach an agreement about me going back to school this year, and Mom still not being able to forgive Dad and me for steamrolling her into signing the stupid paperwork so I could start on hormones, and not to mention the fact that I could barely manage a long-distance friendship with Coleton at the moment, romance—or whatever these feelings were—was the last thing I needed to be thinking about.
Things were too hard right now, too complicated. Judging from my phone call with Dad this morning, I didn’t see things becoming less complicated anytime soon.
Dad: “Are you having a good time there?”
Me: “Yeah. I’ve been driving around a lot. Yesterday I helped Isobel’s neighbor change her bike tires.” (I was careful not to call her by name, or to even call her a friend.)
Dad: “You knew how to do that?”
Me: “Yeah. Besides, her father helped.”
Dad: “Oh.” (Awkward silence.) “How’s that station wagon holding up?”
Me: “Good, I guess.”
Dad: “Good. Do you have enough money left?”
Me: “Yeah. Thanks.”
Dad: “Well, do you want to say hello to your mother? She’s right here.”
Me: “Um.”
Background: (Mom whispers “No,” repeats “I said no,” then silence.)
Dad: “Chris? You know what, you just missed her.”
Me: “Oh.”
Dad: “Listen, why don’t we give you a call later?”
Me: “All right.”
Dad: “Wait, Chris? Are you there?”
Me:
I was running to forget not only this crush on Maia, but a whole array of other things: like me being in Carson, me being the thing that was driving my parents apart—me being stuck in between who I was and who I wanted to be.
I didn’t want temporary anything; I didn’t want something in between. I didn’t want casual. I didn’t want any more lies or hiding.
The toe of my sneaker caught on a loose chunk of pavement. I tripped and stumbled forward but caught myself. I tried to keep moving, but it was too late, I’d lost my balance.
I was going down.
In slow motion.
Falling.
I put my hands out just in time and came down hard on my wrists.
I saw the blood on the pavement before I felt the searing pain igniting different parts of my body at once. The palm of my left hand, my right elbow. Both of my knees.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
I limped home. I wasn’t hurt too bad, I knew that. It was all superficial. I’d be fine in a couple of days, but damn it stung.
MAIA
I WAITED UNTIL THE NEXT morning. Mom and Dad had already left. I watched out my bedroom window, fully dressed, sneakers tied, Mallory’s camera strapped securely across my body. I saw Chris come out of the house and take off running down the long driveway. Fifteen minutes later, Isobel stepped out, dressed in her scrubs, balancing a purse and car keys and travel mug as she made her way to her car. As soon as she pulled out of the driveway, I was racing down the stairs.
I let the screen door slam behind me and jumped from the second step of the porch, walking as fast as I could without actually breaking into a jog. The long wet grass in the field between our houses grazed my calves, and the morning dew soaked through the canvas of my sneakers.
I made it to the ladder that led up to the wooden balcony. I tested one of the rungs to be sure it was sturdy enough.
This is so stupid.
But I pulled myself up, rung by rung.
I felt Mallory standing at the top of the balcony daring me, egging me on, challenging me to be more adventurous, braver, more like her. I made it to the top and scrambled to the platform on my hands and knees. If anyone was watching, they’d think I was, well, a lot of things:
1. graceless
2. clumsy
3. sloppy
4. psychotic
5. a solid reason to call the police
But I was done caring about what anyone thought. Because there was the door. It’s not as if I was there to spy or lurk or sneak around. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
I’d committed the uncropped photograph to memory. I looked down at my feet planted firmly on the wooden planks. Mallory had been up here. I raised the camera and peered through the viewfinder. It wasn’t right. I backed up a step. Still not right. I backed myself up until I could take no more steps backward.
Carefully I leaned back against the railing—it was digging into my spine. I checked again. I still needed to be farther back, at a higher angle.
I placed my hands on the railing. I looked down. I shouldn’t have looked down—but I knew the second I did, that Mallory must’ve been sitting up on the railing of the balcony when she took that picture.
My hands were shaking. I took a breath and stepped up onto the lower railing. But when I pushed myself up, I found that my wrists were stronger than I’d thought they were, more capable, and I leaned over the edge, maneuvering myself in that graceless, clumsy, sloppy way.
Don’t look down.
I managed to twist around so that I was sitting on the top railing, facing the house. My heart was pounding, but I had done it. I hooked my right foot underneath the bottom railing to give myself a little more leverage. Suddenly, up high above the ground without a safety net, I felt more stable and balanced than I usually did with both feet firmly planted on solid ground. The wind blew against me and the air whistl
ed past my ears. Careful not to move my lower body, I brought the camera to my face once more.
Yes.
This.
This was really it.
I could imagine Mallory hoisting herself up there without a second thought, as easily as she used to hop onto the countertops in the kitchen. Just a simple jump, not worrying about the very real possibility of falling over the edge.
The sun was catching the colors of the glass and reflecting them back out onto the wooden planks like beautiful little stains. But it was outside the frame. I wondered if Mallory had seen them too. I let the camera rest in my lap and looked out across the untilled field at my house. The barn. My bedroom window, and Mallory’s room next to mine. I wondered if that was originally why she’d come up here, to get this view of our house. I hadn’t found a picture of it, but that’s not to say she didn’t take one.
I turned back toward the door.
I steadied my hands and pressed down on the shutter release. It snapped. But there was another sound underneath the click and clap of the shutter, below me. A door closing. Carefully, I unhooked my feet from the lower bar and jumped down from the railing. I leaned over the edge, trying to see, but I couldn’t tell what or who was responsible.
There was movement from inside the house, a shadow behind the glass window. I darted to the side of the door and plastered my body against the wall. I clutched the straps that hung on either side of my neck, the camera like some kind of magical armor I was trying to use to make me invisible.
I heard noises from behind the door. Shuffling, like things were being moved around, drawers being opened and slammed. Chris was usually gone longer. Or maybe I had lost track of time. I closed my eyes, breathing deep, tried to calm myself.
I peeked into the window. If he’d left the room, then I might have a chance to escape. That’s the only thing I was thinking when I decided to look.
Through a thin perimeter of clear cut glass I saw Chris standing in front of the mirror. His back was to the door, but I could clearly see his face in the reflection. He leaned in and examined his arm in the mirror. His elbow and the back of his forearm were scraped and bloody. He bent down and pulled one leg of his running pants up above his knee, which was scraped up as well. He did the same to the other leg. He brought his hand in front of his face, and as he touched his palm gingerly, his face twisted in pain.
