PRAISE FOR REBEKAH CRANE
The Upside of Falling Down
“[An] appealing love story that provides romantics with many swoon-worthy moments.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Written with [an] unstoppable mix of sharp humor, detailed characters, and all-around charm, this story delivers a fresh and enticing take on first love—and one that will leave readers swooning.”
—Jessica Park, author of 180 Seconds and Flat-Out Love
“The Upside of Falling Down is a romantic new-adult celebration of all of the wild and amazing possibilities that open up when perfect plans go awry.”
—Foreword Magazine
“Using the device of Clementine’s amnesia, Crane explores themes of freedom and self-determination . . . readers will respond to [Clementine’s] testing of new waters. A light exploration of existential themes.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Crane’s contemporary YA offers a light take on heavy issues . . . readers who enjoy a charming Irish setting with a sweet romance and brooding hero may want to pick this one up.”
—RT Book Reviews
“[R]eaders glimpse a new side of Ireland. Clementine is a resilient heroine . . . the book ultimately rewards . . .”
—Booklist Online
“This quickly paced work will be enjoyed by teens interested in independence, love, self-discovery, and drama.”
—School Library Journal
“First love, starting over, finding herself—the story is hopeful and romantic.”
—Denver Life
The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland
“Now that the title has captured our attention, I have even better news: No, this book isn’t a history lesson about a president. Much more wonderfully, it centers on teenager Zander Osborne, who meets a boy named Grover Cleveland at a camp for at-risk youth. Together, the two and other kids who face bipolar disorder, anorexia, pathological lying, schizophrenia, and other obstacles use their group therapy sessions to break down and build themselves back up. And as Zander gets closer to Grover, she wonders if happiness is actually a possibility for her after all.”
—Bustle
“The true beauty of Crane’s book lies in the way she handles the ugly, painful details of real life, showing the glimmering humanity beneath the façades of even her most troubled characters. Crane shows, with enormous heart and wisdom, how even the unlikeliest of friendships can give us the strength we need to keep on fighting.”
—RT Book Reviews
ALSO BY REBEKAH CRANE
The Upside of Falling Down
The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland
Aspen
Playing Nice
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Rebekah Crane
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Skyscape, New York
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503903951 (hardcover
ISBN-10: 1503903958 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781503903968 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 1503903966 (paperback)
Cover design by Liz Casal
First Edition
For my dad—who never tires of the numinous.
And for Renee—who never tired of this book. It exists because of you.
CONTENTS
IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS . . .
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
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24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
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35
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37
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40
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44
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS . . .
A pool. It’s an empty pool. I guess all things are nothing at the start. Mom, Tom, Hannah, and I stand on the edge of the pool at our new house, looking down into the nothingness.
“I promised you a pool,” Tom says enthusiastically.
“But it’s empty,” Hannah says.
The sun is setting and a few stars twinkle in the twilight. I didn’t know the sky could be this big. “And my lips are chapped,” she adds.
“You need to drink more water,” Mom says.
I look at the chipped paint at the bottom of the pool. The pool is chapped. It needs water, too.
“Look on the bright side,” Tom says. “We have a pool, and one day we might fill it.”
Is that what this is? Is this the bright side?
“I’m going to unpack.” Hannah walks away.
“Me, too.” Mom follows.
Tom looks at me. “Don’t fall in.” He walks away, too.
I climb down the ladder into the empty pool and lie on the cracked, dry floor. I put my hands behind my head and tell myself, I won’t drown.
There isn’t enough water in the desert to drown.
After a while, I hear Mom yelling from inside the house. “Esther, where’d you go?”
Esther, where’d you go? I ask the stars.
They don’t answer me. I don’t expect them to. Answers don’t come that easily.
1
Our house smells like warm, lifeless air. The walls are made of sand. The people who lived here before us painted the entire house beige. Like sand. It’s like they’re covering the sand with something that looks like sand.
Tom likes the neutral color because it matches everything. I think Tom wants to pretend that he’s neutral and boring, when we all know he’s covering a snake tattoo on his forearm that he got when he wasn’t neutral and boring. But he was also on a lot of drugs at that time in his life, so Mom says we’re not allowed to bring it up. Ever.
It’s a cobra with fangs. I’ve only seen it a few times when I’ve caught him wearing an undershirt in the bathroom. The snake coils around his forearm all the way down to his wrist. He wears long sleeves every day, even when it’s over one hundred degrees, to cover it up. But every now and then, I’ll catch a glimpse of the tail. It’s weird to see it. Almost like I’m catching him naked.
Mom likes to remind Hannah and me that Tom didn’t get to grow up like we will—with two loving parents. I thought we were doing just fine with one. I understand that one plus one equals two, and two is more than one. My math skills far outreach addition. But more doesn’t always equal love.
Which brings me back to our house that is unwelcoming, so much so that it feels heartless, like it didn’t care who moved in and never will. It’s also full of the crap we moved from Ohio to New Mexico, but it feels empty. And yet, this house is twice the size of our old house.
Complex Math Problem: If all things are matter, and matter takes up space, and space weighs something, why does Esther’s new house feel so empty even though it’s filled with crap?
There’s a cactus outside my bedroom window that’s drinking up all the water in the desert. The cactus thrives while I have chapped lips. It’s a selfish cactus, which I guess is the nature of a cactus. It’s built to suck up water. I can’t blame it for doing what nature intended it to do.
In truth, though, I wish I could chop it down.
But since it’s so prickly, no one can touch it. I suddenly feel bad for the cactus, because it didn’t choose to be this way. It just is this way. And then I think I shouldn’t be so hard on my sister, Hannah.
Mom comes into my room with a new water bottle and a dress. I’m supposed to be unpacking, but I don’t know where to start.
Mom holds out the dress. “I found it at the store today.”
The dress is clearly a medium, and the water bottle has my name written down the side. “Thanks,” I say.
Mom looks at all the boxes and draws out a long exhale. “It should fit by Christmas.”
She’s talking about the dress, but really I think she means this house.
“It’s strange to live in a place where people wear cowboy boots for real,” Mom says.
I look at the water bottle. “Why not just use a glass?”
Mom moans a little at my question. “You can keep track of how much you’re drinking. People get dehydrated all the time out here.”
That’s because this place is a raisin. It doesn’t get dehydrated—it is dehydrated.
She gets up and walks out of my bedroom, adding, “Why don’t you go ride your bike or something? That’s what people do in this town. It’ll help, and we’ll fit in.”
I hang my new dress in my spacious and empty closet. Mom said it will fit by Christmas, but it’s a summer dress with flowers on it and too much white for its own good.
I look at the cactus right outside my window and take a drink from my water bottle.
“Are you jealous?” I ask it.
But even the cactus knows better than to be jealous of me.
At dinner, over a plate of baked chicken and steamed peas, Mom makes a suggestion.
“Let’s get a dog,” she says, poking at her peas. “Everyone has dogs here.”
“No,” Tom says.
“Why not?”
“They’re too messy.”
Tom has a thing about messes. He can’t stand them.
“I’m with Tom,” Hannah says.
“But they keep the coyotes away,” Mom says, sticking the peas so hard that a few fall on the ground. Tom groans and bends over to pick them up. “See, if we had a dog, the dog would just eat the mess.”
“Let’s try not to make the mess in the first place.” Tom places the peas next to his plate.
“Wait. Are there coyotes here?” Hannah says.
“There are coyotes in Ohio, too,” I say. Hannah visually assaults me.
“This meal is bland. I need ketchup.” Hannah gets an armful of condiments from the fridge and sets them on the table. I reach for the mayonnaise, and Mom shakes her head.
“Is God real?” I ask. I know I shouldn’t, but they know I ask questions I shouldn’t ask.
Mom, Tom, and Hannah stare at me. Hannah shakes the ketchup bottle forcefully and squeezes a glob onto her plate. No one answers. It’s a dinnertime standoff—who can ignore what Esther just said the longest.
Mom breaks first. “Well, if we can’t get a dog, we need some friends.”
“We’ve only been here a week,” Tom says.
“No better time to get started.” Mom fills up everyone’s water bottles. “Now, drink up . . .” And then she looks at me, which makes Tom look at me, which makes Hannah do the same. “So we can avoid having any more problems around here.”
2
Tom hires Happy Houses Cleaning Company to come every Tuesday because “a clean house is a happy home.” That’s the company’s motto, and Tom is desperate for our house to become a home. We’ve been here two weeks now. So far the house still feels heartless, even though Mom bought a light fixture with antlers and a sign for our front door that says HOWDY! NOW, WIPE YOUR BOOTS! She’s trying to fit in.
Complex Math Problem: How do you solve the messes you can’t see? In other words—Is fitting in just covering up who you really are in hopes that people don’t notice?
Mom, Hannah, and I are going through boxes of winter clothes in the living room to donate to charity and unclutter the house. The hats, gloves, snow pants, and jackets are piled up high. I feel like I could jump into the center of the pile and smell snow.
But it’s almost one hundred degrees today.
I put on one of the hats with a big furry ball on the top. “Does it ever get cold enough to snow in southern New Mexico?”
“Who cares,” Hannah says. She takes the hat off my head. The static generated from the cotton and dry air rubbing against my head makes my short brown hair stand on end. “You look like a boy when you wear hats.”
Hannah takes the box of winter gear marked for Goodwill and sets it by the front door for later. Mom tells us to finish unpacking our rooms for the cleaning company, to which I promptly reply, “But isn’t it their job to clean?”
“Don’t be a snob, Esther,” Mom says.
But I didn’t mean to be a snob. It was a genuine question. Hannah rolls her eyes. She doesn’t need to clean her room because she already put everything away the first day we moved in. Hannah’s just that way. She doesn’t like a mess any more than Tom does, which is probably why Tom lets Hannah get away with stuff. He assumes she’ll always clean up after herself, so we won’t have to. But really good murderers clean up after themselves, too, so they don’t get caught.
I could never be a murderer. My room is a mess. Clothes are everywhere. Mom keeps telling me to go through them and find what fits and what doesn’t, but that would mean trying things on. Stepping back into old clothes will lead to the road Mom doesn’t want me to go down again, a road she’s trying to cover with cowboy boots and antlers and Mexican blankets that don’t match our couches, which still smell like Ohio—like rain and mud and lake water.
And I’m trying to be better this time.
I am no longer a whole number. I carry a decimal now. Each box in my room is just a reminder of my remainder. The problem is, I can’t figure out if I’m less than or more than I was before. I know I’m not the same.
I sit down on my bed and work on math homework instead. When it seems like there are too many questions that will remain unanswered, math is my solve-ation. Tom would prefer me to find salvation in Jesus, but that seems really hard. With math, a question doesn’t exist without an answer. It’s a guarantee. If I work on a problem long enough, I will solve it.
Complex Math Problem: What happens when I find a math problem that I can’t solve?
When a vacuum cleaner pushes my bedroom door open, I wake up startled. Happy Houses Cleaning Company. Right.
I yawn, rubbing my eyes, then stand up quickly, ready to clean my room yet paralyzed as to where to start. I fumble around, moving this and that out of the way but not really doing anything. I’m just shifting things into new places.
“I’m sorry for the mess.”
The person pushing the vacuum pulls earbuds from her ears. “What?” she yells.
“It’s a mess!” I yell back.
“That’s why I’m here!” she hollers with a smile. She puts the earbuds back in her ears and bobs her head as she vacuums. Curly red hair circles her head in what looks like a halo. It contrasts with her brown skin—she’s fair and dark, combined into one.
She hums as she cleans, like maybe this isn’t the worst job on the planet, even though I’m pretty sure it’s close. Other people’s bathrooms. Gross. Then I feel bad for the mess I’ve left. She has to work around all of it.
I tap her on the shoulder, and she pulls her earbuds ou
t again, looking at me with inquisitive gray eyes. She’s younger than I thought.
“Any suggestions on how to deal with this mess?” I ask, since she’s the professional.
She shakes her head. “I just vacuum.”
“Any chance you have the world’s largest vacuum in your car?” I ask.
She laughs. “You’re funny.”
I can’t help myself. “Want to hear a joke?”
“Sure.”
“What do you get when you cross an algebra class with the prom?” I ask.
“What?” she says.
“The quadratic formal.”
I know I shouldn’t say it. The joke echoes of the past, linking me to a time Tom wishes never existed. But when she laughs, the air in the room starts to smell like warm, clear sunshine.
Maybe her vacuum works better than she thinks.
I’m lying in the empty pool again after trying to clean my room. The box I opened contained my lucky rabbit’s foot.
“It will bring you luck,” he said. “And I know you need a miracle, but maybe luck is a miracle wrapped in different letters.”
The memory of his voice stopped me from breathing, so I came out here. I think I’ll sleep out here tonight. I can’t sleep in my room anyway.
As I lie here with my eyes closed, our old, rusty trampoline from back in Ohio comes to mind. I see Mom, Hannah, and me sleeping out there all night. When one person shifted, all three of us would shift. We woke up in the morning, huddled into a ball of warm bodies, legs and arms intertwined.
“I wish we could bring it with us,” Mom said when we left.
I wasn’t sure if she meant the trampoline or the memory.
Why was the student afraid of the y-intercept? I ask myself.
“Why?” Amit said. I can actually hear his voice humming through the bare trees. It wants to get tangled in leaves, but in the desert, even the trees have to let go of whatever can’t survive.
“She thought she’d be stung by the B.” I whisper the answer to the wind.
I think it laughs.
“One more question,” I say out loud. Or I think I say it out loud. But the truth is, it’s as much inside of me as it is outside of me, all around me.
“Will this ever go away?” I ask the wind, hoping it will carry my question all the way back to Ohio. But I don’t wait for a response. I know the wind doesn’t blow backward, and Mom says I need to start moving forward.
The Infinite Pieces of Us Page 1
