Bright Before Sunrise

by Schmidt, Tiffany

  “Brighton …” Jonah shifts to mirror my position. When I turn, his face is only inches from mine.

  “I acted nice and lied and said I was fine. I chose kindness as—how’d you put it? Because you were so right—‘my social weapon of choice.’ And I did what I thought he’d want me to do. Signed up for all the clubs he did. Not the sports, though. I’m horrible at golf and basketball. And, for a while, I slept with a copy of his book under my pillow—tried to convince myself that those words on those pages were him speaking to me.

  “That was the book I was looking at in your living room, Jonah. It’s one he wrote. I wasn’t snooping, I promise. I just didn’t expect to see it there and was feeling a little lost. I wanted him to give me some answers. But—” I choke on the words “but he can’t” and spit out an automatic—“but I’m fine.”

  His forehead is wrinkled. I’m hit by an urge to reach out and trace the creases, so I fold my fingers more tightly into my palm. The pain is a welcome distraction, brings some clarity.

  This is insane. I barely know him. My family doesn’t discuss these things. We don’t talk about my dad in public. And if we do, it’s with big smiles, a polite “I miss him very much,” and a quick change of topic. The tears and mourning—Evy and Mom save those for dramatic scenes within the privacy of our house. Usually taking a positive event—Christmas, graduation, prom—and tainting it with tears and “I wish Dad were here. Don’t you wish Dad were here?”

  “You’re not fine,” he says, giving me a long, searching look. He turns his face to the stars. “But you will be.”

  His fingers flex on the step beside mine. They’re so close I feel their heat in the air around my fist. Lying there, beneath the weight of the whole sky, I feel lighter.

  “So will you,” I answer.

  33

  Jonah

  12:43 A.M.

  TOO LATE TO GO BACK

  She’s trembling slightly, causing her curls to quiver against my shoulder and making me feel even more useless. God, I want to touch her—bury my fingers in her hair, feel the skin of her neck, learn how her hand fits in mine. But I won’t. She clearly didn’t want to be held on the driveway, and instead of accepting the hand I’m holding open, she balls up her fist and moves it farther away.

  If I sit next to her any longer thinking of all the ways I can’t touch her, I’ll go insane.

  “You’re cold.”

  “No, I’m okay—” she protests.

  “And we’re pretty much dry. We might as well go.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. I can tell as soon as I pull away and push myself off the low step. Her face goes straight to a neutral smile, and she resorts to her old standby of agreement.

  “Sure.”

  It’s not until we’re back on the sidewalk that I actually pause to look at the house. It’s so small compared to Paul and Mom’s McMansion. It doesn’t have vaulted ceilings or chandeliers. There isn’t even a second floor. It’s a simple two-bedroom ranch, but until Mom and Dad started fighting every night, it had always seemed big enough.

  “It’s a nice house,” she says.

  I study her face—she means it.

  “The shutters used to be green. And Mom had tons of flowerpots everywhere. I was constantly tripping over them when I walked home after Jeff’s parties. I swear she used to place them across the path as a sobriety test.” I turn my back on the house. “It’s hard to imagine someone else living there. It still feels like mine.”

  “But you have a new house now. In Cross Pointe.”

  I snort. “That is not my house. Cross Pointe will never be my home.”

  I freeze for a second as a new thought shivers down my spine: it will be Sophia’s. She’ll feel about that house the way I feel about this one. But with a couple of important differences—and I’m not thinking about her allowance this time. No matter what I hate about Paul, I can’t accuse the guy of not being borderline-obsessively crazy about his daughter. He’d never curse her out and pull a Houdini like my dad.

  “You know, Jonah.” Brighton’s voice cracks the fuzz that’s forming around my thoughts. “If you focused even half the energy you spend hating Cross Pointe on not hating it, you might wake up one day and realize what a great town it is.”

  I don’t bother pointing out how lame she sounds. She knows—there’s embarrassment in the way she’s suddenly fascinated with her curls and won’t look at me.

  I’m better at awkward silence; I’ve had more practice. She doesn’t last thirty seconds before continuing, “I get that you’re doing a whole angry-loner thing, but why didn’t you join the baseball team? Jeff said you were really good.”

  I can’t answer this question while standing still. Talking about baseball makes my stomach twist. It makes my palm itch for the feel of dust and leather and stitches. I start across the park to my car. “I could’ve. I could’ve walked on to the team and made the current pitcher look like a water boy.”

  “You’re too good for them?”

  “I am.” I grab a handful of leaves off a tree and shred them as we continue across the park. Each rip makes me want to destroy more. “But it was more about my damn ankle.”

  “It didn’t heal right?”

  “It’s fine. But if I hadn’t gotten hurt playing baseball, Mom would never have met Paul and I’d still be living back here. And my teammates—my friends—were already upset I was leaving and ruining what should have been our best season yet. How could I make that worse by playing against them?”

  She reaches out like she might touch me. Her hand trembles in the air around my arm, but then she pulls it away and tucks it behind her back.

  “Imagine how well the Cross Pointe team reacted when they found out my stats. Or when the coach tried to recruit me and I said no.”

  “What’d they do to you?” Brighton’s voice is protective. Of me. My lips twist into a smile at the idea of her facing off with the players.

  “It’s fine. They got over it. Their season went well. They didn’t need me. But I miss playing every damn day. I miss everything about my old life.”

  “I get that you’re angry, but you never gave us a chance.”

  “Did the town give me a chance? From the second I walked into school people were eyeing me like I was a science experiment … or dinner.” We’re out of the park, back on Jeff’s street. I open my hand, and the contents spill and dot the sidewalk with leaf carnage.

  “We’re not used to new students! The last one before you was Maggie back in freshman year, and you—” She’s tilting her head, peering up at me from the corner of her eyes. “You’re different.”

  “Yeah, I know. Hamilton kid.” I gesture toward the cracked sidewalks, the patched and potholed pavement, the crooked post that’s missing its street sign, a streetlight with a flickering bulb, a beer can and Doritos bag lying against a blocked sewer drain. Things I never would’ve noticed before Cross Pointe.

  “Give it up, Jonah. It’s not about where you’re from. Nobody cares where you’re from.” She crosses her arms and picks up the pace, marching past me.

  We’re walking by shrapnel that used to be Jeff’s mailbox. I kick a piece out of the way and look at his house. Most of the lights are off. It’s almost one, so some kids probably had to leave to make curfew. Or, more likely, people cleared out when they saw Digg being a tool.

  We reach the car while I’m trying to piece together an explanation. I lean against the bumper and try to come up with something that will make Brighton see why I couldn’t link arms and sing “Kumbaya” with her and the rest of CPHS.

  Her voice is quiet when she says, “You didn’t even try to fit in. You alienate anyone who talks to you.” She puts a hand on my arm—her fingers are so cold. I want to cup them in mine and warm them up. I want to cling to them.

  “My whole life was here.”

  And now it’s gone. My family. My dad. My house. Carly. My team. It’s gone. And most of my friends will scatter to colleges soon. There isn’
t anything tying me to this town anymore. I lace my fingers behind my neck and drop my chin.

  When I look up, she’s still standing next to me. Touching my skin with impossibly soft fingers.

  “You don’t have to love Cross Pointe, but can’t you think of anything good about it?”

  She’s staring at me with a look so earnest it aches to maintain eye contact. My chest is heaving like I’ve just finished sprinting, and my insides feel like they’ve been scoured with sand. Honesty shouldn’t be this painful. I swallow.

  I watch her blink and suck on her bottom lip—I want to suck on her bottom lip. I wish she was closer. Against me. Or farther away. Home in her room. No longer a temptation.

  “Never mind,” she mutters, retracting her hand and retracing her steps. Climbing inside my car and yanking the door shut behind her.

  It’s not until she’s out of earshot that I have the courage to be truthful. I mouth my answer to the space she’d just occupied: You.

  I spend another thirty seconds standing there—rolling my neck in a circle like I used to do before winding up, trying to push the tension out of my muscles and find that calm and centered mental place I lived in on the pitching mound.

  We’re both tired. It’s been a long night. The last thing either of us needs is a confession or more talk about emotions. I’ll just—

  Her car door opens.

  “Jonah?” Her voice is so small, so soft. It sounds almost frightened; the thought that she still might be scared of me makes me sick.

  Screw it.

  “You, Brighton. That’s what—” I say, turning around. She looks terrified. Or hurt. “Are you okay?”

  She presses a fist to her mouth and says, “I’m sorry,” around her fingers. With her other hand she points to the front of the car.

  “Did some idiot hit me?” I exhale my disgust and palm my phone, ready to start texting to ask who saw what. Except, no. The front of my car is intact. No more beat-up than it had been before.

  It’s the windshield she was pointing to. It’s not busted or cracked. Instead there’s a message scrawled on it in letters that shine in the streetlight: PENCIL DICK LOSER.

  I punch the doorframe without thinking and then have two reasons to be swearing.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says again.

  “It’s not your fault,” I spit out between swears.

  “You don’t have any Windex in your car, do you?” she asks, coming to stand next to me.

  “Sure. It’s right between my vacuum cleaner and my toilet brush. Why the hell would I keep Windex in my car?” As soon as the words are out, I curse myself.

  Pencil dick. Does she think it’s true? I just finished telling her what a loser I am, but does she think the rest of it’s true too?

  She’s leaning over the windshield, wiping at the letters with a napkin she must have gotten from my glove compartment.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s lip gloss,” she says over her shoulder, leaning further in a way that pulls her dress up. I want to slide her off the hood and prove it isn’t true. She stretches, going up on the toes of her noninjured foot and revealing just a hint of white. I groan.

  “Are you okay?” Brighton straightens, and her dress falls back to midthigh. I look away from her legs before I develop any more antigraffiti proof. But she’s not helping the situation when she reaches out and takes my hand in hers, studying my knuckles. They’re red but not split. “You’re going to have a bruise. I’m sorry.”

  She covers the injury with the cool palm of her other hand. The gesture is so comforting, I want to close my eyes and forget everything but her touch. But her voice contains all the pity I don’t want to see on her face. Pity for the loser with undersized man-parts.

  So, instead, I yank my hand back and say, “Oh, I forgot you were the one who slammed my hand into the door and wrote on my windshield. Wait. You weren’t? Then why the hell do you keep apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?”

  She flinches.

  I glare at the car, where Carly’s handiwork has been turned into a smudge that covers half the windshield. “You made it worse.” I know I’m being an ass, but I can’t take back the words or look at her hurt eyes. Or calm down. I. Can’t. Calm. Down.

  “I’m sorry,” I manage, but it sounds like a growl.

  “Saying ‘I’m sorry’ afterward doesn’t give you permission to act like a jerk.” There’s pain in her voice and also anger.

  “I know.”

  “You’re not mad at me.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. Now give me your keys and let’s see if the windshield wipers are more effective than I was.”

  She trades a stack of napkins for my keys, and I feel like a scolded child as she starts my car. Blue fluid squirts onto the glass, dissolving and wiping away the pieces of napkin but only beading on and further smearing the glossy graffiti.

  “Let me try again with the napkins,” I say as she says, “Maybe more fluid?” I’m leaning over the windshield when she hits the wiper stick. The spray catches me full in the face and I jump back to prevent my hands from getting caught in the blades. I use one of the napkins to blot windshield fluid from my cheeks.

  I glare at her around the napkin, and she’s covering her mouth with both hands. Laughing. Or trying not to. But her eyes are shining with amusement and her cheeks are pink with the effort.

  It cracks something in me. I want to pull her hands away from her face and see that smile. I grin at her. “You did that on purpose—but I guess I deserved it.”

  She’s openly giggling now, adding spaces between words to catch her breath. “I swear. I didn’t. Promise.”

  “I’m keeping my eye on you,” I say. “Napkins aren’t going to cut it. Check the backseat. Is there anything back there?” I look away as she scampers over the console and probably flashes some serious thigh. The idea makes my blood pound. I shift and try to think of anything but the fact that she’s in my backseat.

  She picks up my glove and a Frisbee. “Looks like you’re out of luck.”

  “Figures.” Marcos had begged to help me wash my car last weekend. He’d manned the hose, Carly had been in charge of music and snacks, and Ana had shoved all the junk and clothing in the backseat into plastic grocery bags. Those bags are still sitting in the garage in Cross Pointe, pissing Paul off.

  I swallow down the memory. The fact that I won’t have to worry about Marcos dropping his sponge in the dirt, then using it—gravel and all—to wash my car doors. And that I won’t get to play “expert” for Ana’s boy questions: So, if a guy gets this funny look on his face every time you catch him looking at you, what does that mean? There’s got to be a way I can keep them in my life, even if Carly and I are broken up.

  “Um, you could take off your shirt?”

  Her voice cuts right through the knot in my stomach. “What?”

  I love that she’s blushing and studying her absurd green nails when she clarifies. “You’ve got a shirt on under your polo. What if you used that?”

  “Brighton I-don’t-know-your-middle-name Waterford, are you asking me to strip?” It’s so good to laugh that I do for longer than I should. And when she stops blushing and joins in, I have to plant my feet to keep myself from going to her.

  And I fail at it. I’m opening the back door before my brain’s caught on to what my fingers are doing. “I’m scandalized,” I tease, offering her a hand and helping her out. Then, while she’s still standing that close, I pull off both shirts. When I feel her eyes on me, I’m grateful I haven’t stopped working out just because I quit baseball.

  “Here, hold this,” I say, handing her my polo. Then, with a little bit of swagger, I take the two steps to reach the windshield and attack the lip gloss. I hope she’s admiring me the way I admired her. I flex a bit as I lean farther.

  “Jonah?”

  It might be wishful thinking, but I think she sounds a little breathless. I grin. “Yes?”

  “Your phone’s about to f
all out of your pocket.”

  “Oh. Right. Here, keep it safe for me.” I toss it to her, and she barely catches it. I resume my show. The shirt is working. This should only be another minute and then—

  “Um, you have a missed call. And a voice mail …” She sighs. “From Carly.”

  I freeze, and something in my face or posture, or something in her, deflates so that the moment is flattened, all humor gone.

  “I think that’s almost good enough to get us home, don’t you?” She hands me my shirt and the phone. “I’m just going to wait in the car.”

  I pull on my clean shirt and curse. I attack the windshield with one hand while thumbing my phone to voice mail with the other. I don’t want to listen to Carly yell right now. Or whine. Or whatever she’s going to say in the voice mail—though judging by the nice message she left on my car, it’s not going to be fun.

  I don’t want to play it. But I don’t want Brighton to think I’m scared of listening. And I don’t want either of us to be thinking about it the rest of the night. I press the button, grit my teeth, and hold the phone to my ear.

  “Hi … So, if you haven’t seen your car yet, I’m sorry. And if you have, I’m still sorry. I didn’t do it, Sasha and Maya did. But I didn’t stop them either. I probably should have.

  She’s using her I’m-cute voice, but I’m not amused. Then she sighs, low and long.

  “Also, can you tell Brighton I’m sorry? I didn’t know that Digg was spiking her drink, but I should’ve known he was doing something. I should’ve warned her. Not that she needed me to—she handled Daniel just fine on her own.

  Her voice trembles a bit and I can picture her shutting her eyes, trying to pull herself together.

  “That didn’t stop you from flying to her rescue … But whatever. I’m sorry about the car. I know we should probably talk at some point, but can you wait till I’m ready to call you? This is … it’s just hard, Jonah.”