Through to You

by Lauren Barnholdt

  She grins, and then she says, “Are you going to kiss me again?”

  The words coming out of her mouth are so unexpected that at first I’m a little shocked she’s flirting with me. But then I can’t think about anything but kissing her, and how it felt to hold her close to me.

  “Maybe.”

  She shakes her head. “Then I’m not going with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you’re not going to kiss me, then what’s the point of hanging out?”

  I smile at her.

  She smiles at me.

  And then I grab her hand and take her to my truck.

  Harper

  I don’t know why I forgave him. Okay, yes, I do. I forgave him because I wanted to, because I couldn’t stand the thought of going another two weeks—no, another two minutes—without talking to him.

  It was weird. When I was standing there in the stupid McDonald’s parking lot, I was determined to stay away from him. I mean, I now had concrete proof he was bad news. He’d kissed me and then blown me off for two weeks—not a text, not a hello, nothing—and then I’d seen him with another girl. And if I knew anything about Sienna Malcolm, the two of them are definitely not just friends. I saw them making out in the hallway last year, the kind of making out that causes a teacher to come along and break it up.

  But then Penn showed me that text message from his brother, and it was like . . . I don’t know. Like I saw him as a person. A person who had more going on than I’d originally thought. And while it didn’t make it okay that he’d blown me off, now it seemed less black and white.

  So when he took my hand and brought me over to his truck, I let him.

  “Are we skipping school again?” I ask. “Because I’m not sure if I should be skipping school again.”

  “It’s not skipping,” he says. “It’s just . . . postponing.”

  “What do you mean, ‘postponing’?”

  “Well, think about it. Whatever you miss, you have to make up, right? Like, if you’re not there for a test or something, then you have to make it up later. So you don’t actually skip it. You just end up doing it later. So it’s really just postponing.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous theory I’ve ever heard,” I say. “It’s totally skipping, and you know it.”

  “Postponing.”

  “Skipping.”

  “Semantics.”

  “Ooh,” I tease. “The jock player knows more big words.”

  “I’m full of surprises.” He turns the car on, and the air conditioner starts blasting. “So?” He turns and looks at me. “Where should we go? I’m fine going back to school if that’s what you want to do. I don’t want to corrupt you.”

  “I don’t let anyone corrupt me,” I say defiantly, even though that’s pretty much exactly what I’m letting him do. I think about it. I never got caught for skipping with him two weeks ago. But that was probably because they thought I was in the nurse’s office. My first class after lunch is math, and Mr. Westwood is a stickler for attendance. If I get caught skipping class, they’re probably going to call my mom, and it’s probably going to become some big deal.

  On the other hand, if I don’t go with Penn, then I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. Yes, he seems sincere. But what if he disappears again for two weeks like he did before? It’s confusing.

  I bite my lip and think about it.

  And then I say, “Let’s go somewhere.”

  * * *

  The Southboro Field Days are going on in the center of town, and so that’s where Penn takes me. The SFDs used to have something to do with May Day, or Cinco de Mayo or something, but at some point over the years they just sort of morphed into a random event in May.

  There are carnival games and rides and cotton candy and a psychic named Madame Sashi, who’s definitely not psychic, because last year she told me I was going to move to India and work with aquatic animals. I tried to tell her that unless Ballard University decided to relocate to India, and unless working with aquatic animals was a new kind of choreography, she was wrong. But Madame Sashi didn’t listen. In fact, she was kind of insistent. So insistent that when Anna asked her to refund my five dollars, her assistant ushered us out of the tent and told us not to come back.

  Anyway, today’s the first day of the field days, and they just opened at noon. But even though the Southboro Field Days are kind of a big deal in our town, most people go at night, so there’s hardly anyone here right now. It’s mostly just moms with little kids. We walk around a bit, and then Penn buys me some fried dough.

  “So are we going to talk about this?” I ask as we weave our way through the booths. I rip off a piece of fried dough and pop it into my mouth, letting the sweetness slide over my taste buds. Technically it’s still spring, but it feels like summer, so I pull off my hoodie and tie it around my waist.

  “About what?” Penn asks.

  “About how you kissed me and then didn’t call me for two weeks?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Something inside me feels like I’m owed more explanation. But you aren’t. You guys aren’t even together. You hung out a little bit and then he kissed you. He didn’t make you any promises. He didn’t say he was going to call you. That was all true. In fact, all he said when he left that night was “See you tomorrow,” and he did see me at school the next day. He hadn’t said “Talk to you tomorrow” or “Text you later” or anything like that.

  And it was just a kiss. Well, more like a make-out session. But still.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But . . . why didn’t you call me?”

  He shrugs. “I had shit going on.” His eyes are dark, and his face takes on a blank expression. It’s the same expression he had the other day when we ran into Jackson at the batting cages. I’m starting to realize it’s the expression he gets when he shuts down and doesn’t want to talk about something.

  “Okay.” I eat another piece of fried dough, but this one somehow doesn’t taste as sweet. I know I’m being crazy. I know I should just let it go. But I can’t.

  “Let me make it up to you,” Penn says, nodding toward one of the carnival booths. It’s one of those games where you throw a baseball and try to knock over a pyramid of milk bottles. There are all different kinds of stuffed animal prizes hanging from the ceiling—pink puppies and yellow giraffes and baby-blue koala bears.

  “You wanna play?” the red-haired kid running the game asks. He’s wearing a striped porkpie hat and a neon-green shirt that says CARNY across the front. He tosses one of the baseballs up into the air and then catches it.

  “Yeah.” Penn rummages around in his pocket.

  “It’s a dollar for one ball or three dollars for five,” the kid says.

  “Just one.” Penn plunks a dollar down onto the wooden railing that goes around the perimeter of the booth. “That’s all it’s gonna take.”

  “You have to knock down all three milk jugs,” the kid says doubtfully. “And you have to do it with one throw.”

  “Yeah, I know how the game works,” Penn says.

  The kid shrugs and hands Penn a baseball.

  Penn squints at the pyramid of milk bottles, draws his throwing arm back, and lets loose. The ball hits right in the middle of the stack, and the bottle on top immediately clatters onto the wooden floor. The bottom right one falls next. And the last bottle totters for a second while we all stand there holding our breath. It balances on its edge, about to fall over, and then at the last second rights itself.

  “Oooh,” the carnie says, snapping his fingers. “So close. I told ya you should’ve gotten those other balls.”

  Penn doesn’t say anything. He smiles at the kid, but I can tell he’s not really amused.

  “That’s okay,” I say, trying to defuse the situation. “No big deal. I really don’t have any place to put a giant unicorn anyway.” It’s true. I’ve always thought stuffed animals were kind of stupid, even when I was at an age when stuffed an
imals were appropriate. I was never the kind of kid who had tons of them on her bed or anything like that. And besides, my room is a mess on its best day.

  “Give me another ball,” Penn says, pulling out a fresh dollar. He slams it down onto the wooden railing instead of handing it to the kid, almost like he’s making some kind of statement.

  The kid looks at the dollar doubtfully. “You sure you don’t want to do the five for three this time?”

  “I’m sure,” Penn says.

  The kid sighs like he’s seen this all before, and then takes the money.

  I figure Penn will take more time to set up his shot, but it’s the opposite. It’s like his body switches into autopilot, and he doesn’t even think or aim or anything. He just throws the ball. A second later all three bottles go toppling to the ground.

  I didn’t realize I was so invested in what was about to happen, until I hear myself shout out, “Yes!”

  Penn turns around and grins, then picks me up and twirls me around. His arms around my waist make me feel tiny, and the fact that he’s picking me up like it’s nothing is sexy.

  Before he sets me down, he kisses me quickly on the lips. It’s not as intense as it was when he kissed me at the park, but somehow it’s better. He’s doing it here, in public, where everyone can see. Not that anyone we know is at the field days. Everyone’s in school. But still.

  “What stuffed animal do you want?” the carny asks Penn.

  Penn turns and looks at me, and I glance up at the prizes. There’s a huge teddy bear that’s pretty cute, and a medium-size spotted dog with floppy ears. “I’ll take the dog,” I say.

  The carny reaches up with this hook thing, pulls the dog down, and then hands it to me. I know I said I didn’t want it, but suddenly I’ve never been so excited to have a stuffed animal in my life. I stroke its fur, wondering if it would be taking it too far to give my new dog a name. I always wanted a dog named Gizmo.

  “I’ve never seen anyone win on their second try,” the carny says to Penn. “Or even the third or fourth. You play ball?”

  I expect Penn to stiffen like he does whenever anyone brings up baseball, but instead he just shrugs. “Used to.”

  The carny nods, and then suddenly his eyes light up with recognition. “Hey, I know you,” he says. “You’re Penn Mattingly!” A second later his excited expression turns to one of regret. “Dude, sorry about your arm. I think it’s fucked up that Duke would just drop you like that. I’ll bet if you hadn’t gotten hurt, you would have gone pro.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Penn says, but he’s already turning and walking away.

  I run to catch up with him, trying not to drop my stuffed dog. It’s not like it has a handle or anything, so I’ve got my arms around its middle, which definitely isn’t conducive to maneuvering through a crowd.

  Where did all these people come from? I wonder as I dodge through a bunch of them, almost knocking over a toddler. Just a second ago it was completely dead around here.

  “Hey!” I yell to Penn. I’m starting to lose sight of him in the crowd.

  “Look at the girl with the stuffed animal, Mommy!” a little girl yells. “I want a stuffed animal like that for my room! Why does that big girl get it when stuffed animals are for little girls?”

  I rush by as quickly as I can, not really liking being called a big girl. I know she meant older, but still.

  To my relief Penn stops to wait for me near the snow cone machine, where there’s a break in the crowd. But once I catch up with him, he takes the dog out of my hands and then starts walking even faster toward the car.

  “Hello?” I ask him. “What are you doing?”

  “Going to the car,” he says matter-of-factly, like that was the plan all along, and we didn’t just get to the carnival, oh, I don’t know, five minutes ago.

  “Oh, okay,” I say. “That makes sense. You know, since we got here, like, five minutes ago.”

  He doesn’t reply. When we get to his car, he opens one of the back doors and sets Gizmo down gently on the seat. Which is kind of weird. Penn’s obviously in a bad mood, you can tell, so the fact that he sets my dog down so carefully is crazy.

  I get into the car, and then he gets into the car, and then we just sit there.

  After a moment I glance at him out of the corner of my eye.

  His elbow is resting against the door, his hand cupping his chin. He’s just gazing out the window, not saying anything. He doesn’t look mad, but he doesn’t look not mad, either.

  I don’t say anything, wondering how the mood changed so quickly. Again I’m reminded of when we were at the batting cages, and I bite my lip.

  “So,” I say. “Um . . . are we . . . I mean, are you going to take me home now or . . .”

  “Why, do you want to go home?”

  “Well, kind of, if you’re going to act like that.”

  He lets out a sigh, then reaches over and grabs my hand. “I’m sorry, Harper,” he says. “I just . . . I’m moody.”

  “Yeah, ya think?”

  He grins, and just like that, he’s back to his old self. “Yeah. It’s a character flaw.” He winks. “My only one, actually.”

  He goes to start the car again, but I reach out and put my hand on his. “No.”

  “No?” He frowns. “You want to go back to the carnival?”

  I shake my head. “I want you to tell me why you flipped out and got all weird. Was it because of what that kid said? About your arm?”

  I can tell it’s his instinct to shake his head, but he must change his mind because a second later he swallows hard and takes a deep breath. Finally he nods. “I don’t like when people recognize me.”

  “From baseball, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugs. “Because they feel sorry for me. And I hate that.”

  “That makes sense,” I say slowly. I twist my hands in my lap and think about it. “But, Penn, that guy at the carnival doesn’t even know you.”

  “So?”

  “So his opinion doesn’t matter.”

  He laughs like this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Really, Harper?” he asks. “You’ve never worried about what someone you didn’t know thought of you?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. You said his opinion didn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  He shakes his head. “We’re talking in circles.”

  “Okay.” I bite my lip again and don’t say anything. I don’t know why he’s getting so upset, and it’s crazy that we’re having what could kind of be considered a fight, when we’re not even together.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again.

  “It’s okay.” But I’m not sure if it is. I wonder why I’m even here, dealing with this. Penn’s angsty and secretive, and he blew me off for two weeks. I could be doing a million other more productive things right now. I think about these past weeks, all the time I wasted hoping he was going to call. Time I could have spent doing schoolwork, or hanging out with Anna, or working on my piece for my Ballard choreography audition. And suddenly I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s like my head’s been fighting my heart, and finally my head’s like, Okay, that’s enough! and pushes my heart right out of the way.

  “I think,” I say finally, “that you should bring me home.”

  Penn

  What can I do? I bring her home.

  I know I’m acting like a jerk, but how am I supposed to explain it? I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to even feel it. If I let myself, it’s only going to bring up a whole host of other things, things I’m definitely not ready to deal with.

  When I pull into Harper’s driveway, she says, “Thanks so much for a fun afternoon,” all sarcastic like, before getting out of the car and slamming the door behind her.

  I watch her walk up the sidewalk, and then I realize it’s still the midd
le of the day, so I roll down the window and say, “Hey, you do realize you’re supposed to be at school, right?”

  But she doesn’t answer me.

  And then she disappears into her house. An internal struggle starts inside me over whether or not I should go after her. I’m about to turn off my car and go to the door, but what would I say? I already apologized, and apparently that wasn’t good enough. And there’s no way I’m going to be able to get into all my fucked up shit with her in the span of a few minutes. I don’t even want to.

  Besides, we’re supposed to be at school. And her mom is obviously not a big fan of me after what happened the other night at the dance studio. So after a second I pull out of the driveway.

  There’s a stop sign at the end of her street, and I stop there for a second and turn my cell phone back on. There are three more texts from my brother, along with a voicemail from Dr. Marzetti’s office in Boston.

  I hold my breath as I listen to the message, but it’s the same thing they always say. That they’re not taking new patients, that they have an extremely long wait list but that they’ll put me on it, and if anything opens up in the next six months or so, they’ll let me know.

  I let my breath out and try not to feel disappointment. Six months from now might as well be a lifetime. Six months is too late. In six months everything will be over. Every scholarship will be given out. Everyone will already know where they’re going to school, everyone will have their futures set, and I’ll be stuck here with no one but Braden and my parents.

  I don’t know why I even bother to let Dr. Marzetti’s office call me. Back when I first got hurt, my dad gave them a call and put me on some list (this was during one of his lucid, non-drinking months), and now they call periodically to give me updates.

  Not like it matters. The only way I’d even have a chance at playing college ball is if I somehow got better by the end of the summer. Which is a complete long shot. I can’t even get an appointment with this Dr. Marzetti, much less know if she can help me. She’s supposed to be a miracle worker, but that doesn’t mean anything. Even miracle workers have their limits.