The Map from Here to There

by Emery Lord

  True enough. But look where my abundance of caution got me: sick with worry around the clock, exhausted from living in my own skin. Hit by a distracted driver when I’d done nothing wrong. “It was a few beers, with friends I trust. I don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

  “It wouldn’t be for some people.” He turned, his brows scrunched down like I was a particularly vexing algorithm. Which piece was he missing? There was an edge in his voice—a tell that he was losing patience. “But it is for you. That’s what I’m saying.”

  My stupid eyes flooded, beer loosening my hold on composure. “I don’t know what is me and what isn’t, Max. I was really sad and messed up when we met, okay? I emotionally unenrolled in high school. But I’m back now, and I don’t think I should feel bad about doing normal stuff like going to a party or Homecoming or whatever else!”

  Oh, okay, so the Homecoming part just snuck out. I sank back in my seat, desperate for a way to walk it back.

  “I made you feel bad about Homecoming?” Max stared, genuinely surprised. “I thought you were going mostly because Morgan wanted to. Because it was on the List.”

  “Well, partially. But it would have been nice to be danced with.”

  Max blinked, absorbing this. “Well, it also would have been nice if you had, I dunno, told me that it mattered to you?”

  At his tone, I returned to glowering. That night ended in a panic attack for me, the memory marred anyway. “And it would have been nice if you had, I dunno, told me about Columbia and Caltech.”

  He shook his head, smiling in his forced, gritted-teeth way. “I knew you were upset about that. Why did you tell me it was fine if it wasn’t?”

  “Because I wanted it to be, Max! I don’t know!”

  “Well, glad I wasted the application fees. If I get in, I won’t go.” He dusted his hands off. “That’s that.”

  “I don’t want you to turn down an Ivy League school.”

  “Well, then, what do you want, Paige?” he asked, exasperated. “I feel like I’m torturing you in some way, but I have no clue what I’m doing wrong.”

  “I don’t want to be responsible for your future at all. I don’t even know what I want for myself!”

  “Okay … I mean, you’re not responsible for my future, so problem solved?”

  “How did this become a fight about that?” I whispered, more to myself than to him.

  “It’s late.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his glasses shifted upward. “I have to get home.”

  I didn’t want to leave it like this. I was still mad about feeling judged, but I also knew Max. Smart as he was, he short-circuited when he couldn’t understand something. And I was ever changing, a dynamic human and not a fact, not a trig problem with a clear result.

  “I still feel off balance after the car accident,” I said, calm now. “And waiting to hear from colleges feels like being buttoned into a too tight coat at all times. Maybe I am off. Teetering a little. I’m not always going to be the exact same person, though. I don’t expect you to be, either. So, can we just try for better tomorrow?”

  Some people have visual cues to show they’re deeply considering something: a thoughtful nod, a bitten lip. Max fiddled with his watch sometimes, twisted it on his wrist. But he also, I had noticed in the past year, went still—blank and unreadable—when he was truly taking something in. Like a retreat so far into his mind that he stopped moving. And I knew that, from watching his face in class and across the table at the coffee shop. But in this moment? Damn if I didn’t second-guess myself, wondering if he was stonily furious.

  “Yes,” he said finally, coming back to me. Something about his eyes softened. “We can.”

  “Thank you.” My hand went to the door. We’d landed in a good, safe place, and I had zero interest in continuing to argue. “And thanks again for coming to get us.”

  As he backed down the driveway, I held up one hand to wave as if things felt resolved, fine. If they were, why did I feel like we’d peeked into a stuffed-full storage room and, seeing the mess, slammed it shut? Hugging my arms to my chest, I turned back toward my friends.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I submitted my college applications the first day of December. All that work down to a few clicks. I thought I’d panic, wishing I could grab my portfolios back from the digital ether. But I felt lighter, reams of paper sloughed off.

  I answered Maeve’s video call from my desk, where I was watching pilot episodes of new TV shows instead of doing homework.

  “Did you do it?” she asked, instead of saying hello. Her bedroom was filled with light, California sunshine pouring in. Even through a computer screen, I felt warmer.

  “Yep!” I held out both arms, a free woman.

  “Good. So, the scene you sent me for our time-travel teen drama.” She ducked off-screen, reaching for something. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, why? Were my pages that bad?” Without the restraint of our applications, we were free to blue-sky, free to cowrite. We’d been playing around with some pretty out-there ideas.

  “No! They were good. I mean, heavy-handed at moments.” She leaned forward, circling creamy foundation onto her bare skin. “I just assumed, based on the heatedness of the dialogue, that you’d been arguing with someone.”

  I trained my face still, trying not to look caught. Everything was fine with Max now, so it didn’t seem worth revisiting. “Nah. Just reliving old feelings.”

  “Mm-kay. Just wanted to check. Everything else good? The parents?”

  “Yeah, actually.” My dad’s move into the house had been uneventful, even for me. “So far, so good. Where are you off to?”

  “Just lunch with parentals. But, you know. Always gotta be ready. Never know when I could meet a film agent or a lover.”

  She said it like lov-ah, in a throaty voice of an old Hollywood starlet.

  “Can I ask you a weird question?” I asked, and Maeve nodded. She was on to mascara, pulling the wand quickly. “How would you react if someone called you his ‘dream girl’?”

  “Ooh.” She tapped her chin. “Is this for real life or a script?”

  “In real life, say.”

  “Depends on who, obviously. The creepy freshman who stares at me a lot? Gross. But River Lee?” Maeve’s number one celebrity crush lived in LA, enough to make their relationship an eventuality in her mind. They’d bump into each other at a coffee place, discuss acting methodology. “If it was River Lee, then book your plane ticket out West, baby, because I am to be wed.”

  She raised her hands in triumph, and I laughed, though my body refused to unclench.

  “Wait,” Maeve said, lowering her arms. “Why are you asking this? Did someone say this to you? Max?”

  I angled my head, an exaggerated duh look. “Who else would say that to me?”

  “Was this like …” She trailed off, raising her eyebrows. “During a private moment?”

  “No!” I walloped the laptop screen with a nearby pillow, hoping she felt the effect. “God!”

  “Well, just asking! Context is key!” We both settled down, letting the revelation of these words sink in. “Paige. That’s, like, very sweet. You are such a dream girl.”

  “Shut up.” The pillow was still in my hands, convenient for immediately covering my face.

  “I’m serious!” Maeve said. “But why are you asking? You don’t know how you feel?”

  My hand went to my chest, pressing down like my rib cage was a dam, holding emotions in. “It’s so sweet. But then, I start to wonder if that was a very serious thing to tell someone? I don’t know.”

  “Did he say it in a super-serious tone? Like …” She leaned forward, gripping her screen, and dropped the pitch of her voice. “Paige Hancock, you are my dream girl.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “No, it was way sillier than that.”

  “Paige?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t want to downplay this if it’s anxiety related,” she said, “but you’re a kno
wn overthinker. Which I love about you! Parsing out feelings is a great skill.”

  “But?” I guessed.

  “But …” Her cheeks pulled up, just barely. “I think it’s okay to simply enjoy the fact that the guy you love is in love with you back.”

  “Yeah,” I said. It was so obvious, when she said it like that. “You’re right.”

  Maeve made a knowing face—lips pursed in a way that accentuated her cheekbones. “He freaked you out with the college stuff. I knew it. He totally freaked you out.”

  “No,” I scoffed, staring at the pillow. “Why would you think that?”

  “First of all, it is really good that you’re not pursuing an acting career,” Maeve said. “Secondly, there’s a vein of hopeful cynicism in everything you write. You’re trying to believe, but helplessly waiting for the anvil.”

  I pulled the collar of my shirt up, covering my chin and mouth. Truly, this pronouncement felt like being completely naked and having someone explain my body parts to me. Only my inner self, exposed.

  “It seems rude,” I said, from beneath the cotton of my shirt, “to verbally character-sketch someone to their face.”

  Maeve opened her mouth to respond, but her dad’s voice cut in from the background—something about five minutes and attending brunch, not the Oscars. “Okay, Baba.”

  “Thanks for checking in,” I said. “Tell River I said hey.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was a drippy December, halfhearted rain falling from marbled skies. In my room, I skittered like a caged mouse without a wheel—decluttering, list making, list crumpling. I picked up extra hours at Cin 12 and rallied my friends toward activities, into the outside world. We checked ice-skating off the List, and, next to Max, I thought of Rockefeller Center next year, the tall tree and the lights. The cinematic magic of winter in the city. Max and I likewise skated around the college topic—we simply clasped hands, holding steady in our precarious balance.

  On the last day of school before Christmas break, I practically sprinted to the exit by the parking lot. Tessa was waiting at our usual spot, wrapped in a tweedy gray coat that I’d never seen before this week. It was somehow both well tailored and stylishly oversized. And it also, simply by existing, made me self-conscious about the toggle-buttoned red peacoat I’d worn since I got it for Christmas freshman year.

  “Freedom!” I said when I was close enough to be heard. “Two solid weeks.”

  She was smiling, close-lipped like she had a secret, and she held up her phone. The screen displayed an online confirmation from Tate College, the place that had enamored her in Chicago. “I got in.”

  “Ah, Tessa!” I said, squeezing her. “Congratulations! I can’t believe you found out so soon!”

  When she stepped back, her eyes were alight; she was as happy as I’d seen her in a while. “I know! God bless early admission. And right before break! A Christmas gift from the universe.”

  “Wait.” My head snapped back. “You did early admission? Doesn’t that mean you’re, like, definitely going?”

  “Yeah! It was my first choice.” She was still smiling, but hesitantly now—confused by my reaction. “You knew that.”

  Did I, though? My expression drooped; I could feel it, and my mouth was refusing to spring back up. Tessa decided on Chicago, on being near Laurel. And she was … delighted. No second thoughts; no hesitation.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing!” I said. “Nothing. I just didn’t realize that it was, like, settled.”

  “Oh. Yeah!”

  We’d lived side-by-side lives all these years, and this, right now, was the moment we knew it was over? That didn’t warrant even a tang of bittersweetness? I imagined Tessa bustling through the Chicago winters, past the lit-up department store windows. Tucked into cafes with exposed brick, dancing at underground venues on the weekends with Laurel. I wanted that for her, but my protective instinct reared like a wild horse.

  “But,” I said, trying to puzzle out the plan here, “what will you do if you and Laurel break up?”

  She settled back on her heels—only a centimeter farther from me, but I could feel a divide opening between us. “Uh, I dunno. Be sad? What are you talking about?”

  “Just, like … could you transfer?”

  “I wouldn’t want to,” she said, crossing her arms. “I didn’t choose Tate based on Laurel. Did you not hear anything I said when I came home from my visit? And if it’s not a good fit, I’m not stuck. Of course I could transfer.”

  Of course she could. Tessa had space to mess up—big and expensively. College wasn’t a single shot on the pool table, one she had to line up and sink with precision. “Yeah. I guess you could.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She squinted, trying to figure out if I was conceding or further criticizing her. And, God help me, I chose the latter.

  I raised my chin and said evenly, “It means you can afford to change your mind. So, that’s great. Good for you.”

  Tessa recoiled, eyes springing wide. “You’re making this about money? Why are you turning this all around?”

  Her eyes went watery, and I floundered. Why was I doing this? Before I could stammer an apology, she touched her pointer finger to the corner of her eye, clearing the tear pooling there. “Excuse me for being capable of committing to something when it feels right. And not because I’ve wrung a pro and con list dry.”

  Tessa, normally a slouchy house cat, had flicked out her claws and swiped. I blinked at her, processing the sharp heat of scratches.

  “Oh yeah,” I spat. “I’m such a loser for having to consider my options. So uncool for not having rich parents who can pay for any college scenario.”

  “How is that my fault?” Tessa demanded. Two guys walked past, craning their necks at the sound of raised voices. Tessa gave them a vicious glare, then turned it on me. “What am I supposed to do? Not go to the one college I like because … why? Some judgmental friend might act like I’m codependent with my girlfriend?”

  “I’m just saying you could postpone the decision a little, so you don’t wind up hurt!” God. This was honestly the least controversial feedback imaginable.

  “Oh, please. This isn’t about me at all. This is about you and Max,” she said, and I blanched. Then anger poured back in quickly, a red lens filter dropping behind my eyes. Tessa waved her hand. “This is about you sabotaging a good thing with hesitation and hypotheticals. But that’s not my problem, Paige. It’s yours.”

  The thick skin I’d developed in summer workshops gave way, my cheeks blooming with heat. Why would she throw that in my face? “Yeah. I wonder why I’d play it safe. I wonder why I’d be scared of impermanence or losing someone.”

  I regretted it immediately, using Aaron to make a point. Using my parents’ divorce, my grandmother’s death.

  “You’re seventeen years old, Paige,” Tessa said, unmoved. “At a certain point, that’s not a reason; it’s an excuse.”

  My mouth fell open. Tessa had had a front-row seat to my life these past years, closer than my own mother. She’d witnessed every low moment, and all that time, she’d made me believe I was strong, that I was a good person trying my best. But here she’d been saving my faults like stones in her pocket, waiting to pelt me.

  I turned away, and bolted so fast I almost tripped. I couldn’t stand the sight of Tessa’s face for another second—let alone get a ride from her. Max or Kayleigh would take me or, hell, I’d walk home.

  “Paige!” she yelled. Then quieter, “Jesus.”

  I’d heard the phrase “burst into tears” plenty of times but rarely had my tears truly burst. I was just worried, like any good best friend. Which path was more loving, in the end: To be blandly supportive no matter what? Or to help anticipate problems and save her from pain? I’d reacted with caution, like I usually did, and was that really so wrong?

  I found Max walking away from his locker, and he stopped at the sight of me.

  “Whoa, girl.”
Like I was an agitated filly. “Hey, hey, hey. Come here.”

  “Can you take me home?” I asked, pressing my face into his chest. “I know you have tutoring, but—”

  “I’ll reschedule,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Tessa and I …” I shook my head because how could I recap what just happened? Imagine us flinging balls of flame at each other, only words instead of fire. Imagine the cruelest thing I could hear about myself, then imagine Tessa saying it without a single whiff of remorse.

  Max kissed the top of my head. “C’mon. Let’s get hot chocolate on the way home.”

  I clutched his hand on the way out of the building. At the beginning of the year, I’d walked out of school musing about the last first, the start of the end. But this, really, was the moment. Tessa had a plan far away from me, and my friend group would never be the same. We’d scatter, meet new people, our texts and visits thinning so gradually that we’d hardly notice. It was enough to make me wipe a tear with mittened hands, and Tessa, on her way home without me, was—as always—too cool to even care.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  My mom served Christmas brunch in her two-tone kitchen, bottom cabinets now white as brushed teeth. Last week, she’d struggled back tears, drill in hand, as she reattached the hinges. The project was taking longer than she expected, work deadlines jutting into her free time. My dad had shuttled Cameron and me out the door to pick up Thai food, giving her a moment. She’d turned a corner, though, over halfway done.

  “The white paint makes the countertops look nicer, no?” She handed me the pie server to cut a slice of quiche. “We’ll replace them someday, but until then!”

  Was it the royal we—our family? Or did she mean herself and my dad, planning into someday with him? I found myself glancing under the tree for any small, square packages.

  For the first time in years, all four of us sat around the tree Christmas morning. Christmas Eve used to be at my dad’s, with stockings and matching pajamas. He’d drop us off here late, so we could wake up at home to cinnamon rolls. My mom and grandma, sipping morning tea as they watched us open gifts.