by Emery Lord
“No, no. He was out of town when we were there anyway. But my mom thinks I need to be more open to it.”
That surprised me. The way Max had briefly spoken about his dad last year, I hadn’t imagined Dr. Watson wanted him around. “They’re on good terms, then?”
“Yeah. Have been since I was pretty small.” With one finger, he mashed at the game controller, making his player swing a sword around idly on the TV. “The more my mom and I talked, it was like … Have you ever been really sure about something from when you were little? And then an adult tells you more of the story?”
I smiled at him, like that was an understatement. “Have I? Perhaps you recall Dan and Kate Hancock reuniting after I was positive—like, stake-my-life-on-it sure—that there was nothing between them worth saving. Yeah. Blew my mind.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I’d kinda cast my dad as the clear villain. I knew little bits, and I filled in the rest. Now I’m wondering if I’ve been unfair about the whole thing.”
“Hey.” I looked at him severely. I had this mental image of gawky, middle-school Max, before he transferred to private school for a few years. “You were a kid. You are a kid. How could you have been the unfair one? You were protecting yourself.”
“Maybe.” He smiled sadly. “I prefer that over me being a self-centered jerk.”
I turned to him and held unblinking eye contact. “You are many things, but never that. If you were, I’d tell you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mm-hmm.” I leaned over to kiss him, and I meant for it to be quick. But the press of his lips was more comforting than I’d expected, the warmth and presence and nowness. The controller thudded to the carpet, freeing up his hands. My thoughts could slow, right here with Max, here, here, and not in a smashed-up car and not states apart next year. I crawled onto his lap, some vague impulse to prove all that to myself. To keep all this, his hands warm on my waist. Here.
In the past, my instincts had thrown a wall up pretty quickly, shyness and inexperience kicking up inside me. It had so much potential for embarrassment—someone else’s hands on skin that only I ever saw, ever touched. But it wasn’t someone else, was it? It was Max. And if one distracted driver could exeunt me and anyone else from the planet, what was so nerve-racking about anything else?
Max pulled back, and our noses still nearly touched. “What’s going on, Janie?”
“Nothing.” I tilted my head to look at him curiously. “Why?”
His eyes flicked back and forth, looking for something in mine. I was breathing hard, mouth warm from his, and the embarrassment started to creep up my neck.
“I’m extremely not complaining,” he added, maybe sensing my self-consciousness. Which, of course, made me want to melt in a hot, mortified heat.
He brushed my bangs to the side, and I closed my eyes. It always felt like a shocking thing for him to do in front of others—so blatant, a smoke trail that hinted toward fire. He kissed me again, gentler this time.
We sprang apart only when we heard the garage door open, to which Max muttered a swear word and hurriedly reached to unpause the video game. We collected ourselves before his mom made it to the top of the basement stairs and called hello in a pointedly loud voice.
“Hi!” we called back, too eager. Oh God, Max’s hair, even by its usual standard, was rumpled. My mouth felt warm and, I suspected with horror, pink from friction. I pressed my lips together.
She appeared on the stairs. “Hey, Paige, sweetie. I saw your car in the driveway.”
Her tone was friendly enough, but her smile wasn’t really a smile—she was prying up both sides of her mouth by sheer force of will. I wanted to sink through the rug and into the earth below the Watson home. I’d tunnel my way out so I’d never have to face his mom again. “Max told me about your accident. I’m glad to see you’re driving again—you must have been so shaken up.”
“I was. Still kind of am. Max is helping me get out my feelings by attacking zombies.” I glanced at the video game screen.
“They’re hellbeasts,” Max said. “But.”
“Great,” she said, tentative. “Well. Are you done with homework, Max Oliver?”
“Yes, Mother.” How was he remaining so casual?
“Well, I’ll be right upstairs.” It was a clear warning, as she smiled thinly. “If you need anything. Nice to see you, Paige.”
“You too!” I squeaked out.
Oh God, I needed to leave. This house and also my corporeal form. I would poof into a mist of awkwardness, become one with the atmosphere.
Once she was gone, Max said, “Sorry about that! I thought she wouldn’t be home for at least another hour.”
I pressed my hands to my face, which I also planned to do on my way out of this home, now and forevermore. “She hates me. This is a nightmare.”
“What? No way! I mean, I’m about to get a painfully uncomfortable talking-to,” Max said cheerfully. “But that’s it.”
I crushed myself into the couch, peeking at him through my fingers. “How are you not mortified?”
“Rest assured that I will be later,” he said, “when she launches into the ‘correct condom use’ part of the doctor-mom lecture.”
I rocketed up. “Wait. Do you think she thinks that we’re—I mean—” I stopped talking only because I ran out of air and briefly forgot how to inhale. A merciful God would strike me down now, just end it here.
“Janie, she really isn’t judging you.” He slid beside me, one hand on my knee. “But I’ll tell her that point-blank, if it would make you feel better.”
“No,” I decided. “Well, maybe. I don’t know. If she asks, I guess.”
I pressed my face into my palms again, but this time I laughed helplessly. This situation—though I’d gone light-headed from embarrassment—strangely made Max feel more like my boyfriend than ever. It wasn’t something I’d ever experienced with anyone else, and certainly not with Max when we were just friends. In this, he was a co-conspirator and, now, the only other person who shared the secret of us being awkwardly busted by his mom. Other than, well, his mom.
I let my hands fall and smiled at him, shaking my head.
Max leaned over to kiss me again, which I expected to be a quick See? We’re fine smooch. But instead, it felt like a kick drum and a deep sigh, even after the panic of getting caught by Max’s mom. When I put my hand on his jaw, pushing him away, he laughed. “What? I’m already busted!”
“Kill your zombies.” I pointed at the screen.
He pressed a kiss on the back of my hand. “Hellbeasts.”
Two weeks after the accident, my parents announced that my dad would be moving back in. They’d clearly rehearsed the speech, given jointly at the dinner table. Cameron clapped her hands, not in applause, exactly, but in childlike delight.
I made a show of supportive daughterhood, but it was mediocre improv. Sure, I’d wanted this for them, but was this reactionary? They’d both been reminded that everything can end in the flash of a stoplight, one bad decision later.
When I tiptoed downstairs after hours, I gasped at the sight of someone in the dark kitchen. My mom, leaning against the counter and holding one of Cameron’s cookie containers.
“What are you doing up?” she asked.
“Hungry.” Not true, exactly. The nighttime anxiety screeched like static, so I couldn’t hear my body asking for food or water. But sometimes I made myself get up and eat, hoping to feel sated and calmer.
She frowned at me. “Are you feeling bad again?”
“No,” I lied. She already hated my far-flung college plans; she didn’t need more tally marks in the “Con” column.
My mom looked like she was considering sending me back up to bed, parenting a five-year-old instead of an almost adult. Instead, she held out the cookies to me, and I took one.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. I’m afraid you get your occasional insomnia from me.”
In the daylight hours, the kitc
hen functioned as our hub—where my mom issued reminders, where we hurried through meals, where we exchanged practical queries: Who ate the last yogurt? Where are my black flats? Did someone move my phone charger? The whir of the dishwasher, the ding of the microwave, running water from the faucet. At night, the kitchen itself seemed to be slumbering, a workhorse asleep in her stall.
My mom, too, seemed different late at night, in her robe and headband—off-duty in a way she never was during the day.
The darkness made me bolder, like this extra pocket of time made room for straightforwardness. “Is Dad moving back in because of the accident?”
“No, honey.” My mom studied me, perhaps realizing that her response was too quick, too simple. It sounded like a mother’s instinct to soothe. “These things are clarifying, though.”
“Clarifying,” I repeated. That word was written in pretty script on one of Cameron’s shampoo bottles, purporting to rid hair of product buildup. Could an accident do that with your life choices—strip away the gunk? Make things clearer, cleaner?
Is that what it was doing for me?
I looked at my mother, now sweeping her hand over the counter in case of stray crumbs.
“Okay,” I said, trying to believe that it was.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Since the car accident, I’d been eating my turkey sandwich in the Cin 12 break room. Fall was over like a good kiss, and the walk to Alcott’s would be shivery. Even if it weren’t, I’d have to go through that damn intersection and relive the lurch and ambulance lights, my dad showing up bewildered in pajamas. The musty break room offered no respite, but no flashbacks either.
When I returned from my half, a pretty girl lingered at the snack counter where I’d been stationed with Hunter all evening. He flipped a rag onto his shoulder like a sitcom barkeep.
“So, text me about this weekend?” she was saying.
I looked away, eyebrows raised, and went about my business restocking display-case Skittles. Hunter would be driving me home later, which was very generous and also wouldn’t stop me from teasing him about this.
“Oh, I will,” he called. In the silence that followed, I could almost hear Hunter watching her walk away—the shift of her hips and the bounce of her hair. After a moment, his voice was clearly directed at me. “I know her outside of work, Hancock. I’m not hitting on random customers.”
I held my hands up, an innocent woman. “I said nothing! I have no opinion!”
“You have judginess, is what you have.” He swatted the rag at me, and I dodged it. “Not everyone gets as lucky as you and The Boyfriend, you know.”
“Oh, I think you’re getting luckier than I am …,” I said, joking.
“Is it lucky to be embarrassingly hung up on an ex?” he asked. “Because that’s where I’m at.”
I startled at the admission, the earnestness of his face. “Anyone I know?”
The dimples emerged, bracketing his mouth. He’d meant to pitch me a curveball, and he sank it—perfect. “Nah. Her name’s Julia. She graduated last spring and didn’t want to be ‘tied down’ at college. So. Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” I said truthfully. “I had no idea.”
“Eh.” He waved a hand.
A couple strolled up, an older gentleman in a striped scarf. His wife had her arm looped through his, a hat over coiffed white hair.
Hunter’s extrovert charm sprang up without a beat. “What can we get for ya?”
When I took the man’s credit card, I noticed he wasn’t wearing a ring—nor was the woman. Maybe they were married and didn’t like jewelry, but maybe not. Why did I always assume that older couples were married? The strangeness of my parents’ relationship disproved that expectation in a very personal way, but I still seemed to forget that most love stories are more complicated than meets the eye.
They headed off to their theater, and Hunter surprised me by bouncing right back to our heart-to-heart. “So, yeah. She’s at school, and I’m here, and it is what it is.”
“You were ready to do long distance?”
“Ha. Well. She’s at Ball State, so, really close. It was less about distance and more about her wanting freedom.” Hunter shook his head regretfully. “The thing is—I get it. She’s meeting new people at school, having fun. That’s the time you should be trying things out. Sucks for me, though.”
I finished lining up the Mike & Ikes, and checked expiration dates before shutting the case, satisfied. “So these cute girls who come by to flirt with you …”
“Are great. Fun to hang with, smart. That’s it.” He stood up straighter, eyeing me. “And they know the deal. I’m not a dick.”
No, he certainly wasn’t. A bit of a player, sure, but a more complicated one than I ever would have guessed months ago. I shook my head, marveling a little.
“What?” he asked, self-conscious.
Hunter Chen thrived on chatting up strangers. He never needed an excuse to dance around or to sing. He liked telling stories from the “dumb shit my friends did last weekend” genre and had very little patience for angst. I didn’t relate to a single bit of it, and yet. “I like you more than I thought I would.”
“Is it my effervescence? The fact that I just used an ACT word? Or is it … the bod?”
“I’m not dignifying that, obviously.”
He tossed a piece of popcorn at me. “Yeah, I like you, too, Hancock. You gonna come see me play ball in the spring?”
After Christmas break, baseball would start up for real, and Hunter would scale back his hours at Cin 12 almost completely till summer. I could barely stand to think about working shifts in silence. “You gonna come to my play?”
“Depends. Can I bring a foam finger?” He held up his pointer, demonstrating. “Front row? Here we go, Hancock, here we go!”
I rolled my eyes, but only for show. His revelation about Julia and what would have been a short-distance relationship? It kicked up my worries about next year like dead November leaves, scuttling and scraping. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
A fresh crop of customers swarmed in, and we snapped to attention. But when cards had been swiped and butter-flavored oil pumped, Hunter turned and said, “Okay. Shoot.”
“When you committed to IU for baseball last year …” I let my words fall off, hoping he’d see where I was going. But he cocked his head. “Did you decide on a place in-state because you knew Julia would be here?”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Not … really? I tried not to. But it’s kinda tough to separate out all the way.”
“Yes! Exactly. Okay,” I said, vindicated. My accident had happened so soon after Homecoming that Max and I never went back to the Columbia topic. Still, I wrestled with it. If he got in, he could decide to go based on the prestige, the quality. But could he ever really separate me from the decision? And wouldn’t I feel responsible if he hated Manhattan? He made this life-altering choice for me—wouldn’t I feel beholden to spend four years together, come what may?
When I turned these questions over in my mind each night, sleepless, I could hear Max’s voice countering me: Or, Janie, what if it’s really great? And truly, meeting Max in Central Park after a brutal critique in workshop? A coffee somewhere in Midtown to recalibrate? Spotting his familiar face in the oncoming crowd? What if it was really great?
“What’s goin’ on, Hancock?” Hunter’s expression went stern. “Because I know you’re not thinking about following The Boyfriend to school.”
“No. No, no.”
“Good. Because I need to be cast in one of your shows someday. It’s my long-term plan, after my MLB years.”
“But … Max is applying to a school in New York. And one in LA.”
“And you are …” He watched my face, ever the pitcher waiting for the sign. “Not into this idea.”
“That’s weird, right?” I blurted out. “Why am I not thrilled?”
“Uh, because you’re seventeen? That’s a lot of pressure.” Hunter wiped the counters, probably in
case Donna emerged to see me leaning a hip against the register. If you have time to lean, you have time to clean. “But who cares about the reason? I mean, you feel how you feel, right?”
“You would think.” I sighed, knowing my next sentence would step over a line I couldn’t return from. “But, um, my feelings aren’t always reliable? Sometimes my brain devolves into, like, obsessive worry?”
“Ah. Hard to know if your concerns are legit or if that’s the anxiety talking?” Hunter asked, as casually as when he’d brought up his depression. “Gotcha. What do your friends say?”
I picked at an old sticker on the register base. “Haven’t told them.”
“Because …”
“Because they treat Max and me like we’re a sure thing. Because they’re already in our business. Because they love me, but they’re not impartial when it comes to him. Take your pick.”
“Fair enough. Whew. This is kind of a doozy, huh?”
Everyone expected one thing or another—my friends expected Max and me together, Maeve expected I would get into film school, my mom expected that I’d stay in-state. “Yep.”
“Here’s a question. If you got into all your schools, and Max was going to school in Indy … would you be tempted to go with IU? Try not to factor in that I’d be there, too.”
I snorted. Would it be tempting to stay an hour from my parents, my sister, my bedroom? Tempting to be on campus with Morgan, Kayleigh, and Ryan? And probably near Max? To take out significantly fewer loans for a more broadly applicable degree? “Yes. But not just because of him.”
“Well, hey. An application isn’t a decision. It’s not even an acceptance. Right?”
“Right.” I’d told myself that a hundred times the past week, but hearing it from Hunter, who had no stake in the situation, made it feel truer.
“The anxiety stuff,” he said quietly. “You see a doc?”
“I did. All of sophomore year.”
“Okay.” He said it mildly, like that was that. Like it wasn’t an extremely loaded question. I glared at him, annoyed at his reticence. “You wanna come out with us tonight?”
