by Mia Garcia
“How old is she?” I switch out one card. Miles, three.
“No idea, but she’s a physics professor—and I guess she doesn’t dress like one.”
I win this hand and continue my line of questioning.
“Why do your grandparents live with your aunt?”
“Can’t really afford a ‘daycare’ as my Gram-gram calls it, plus they’re family.” Miles pauses, clearing his throat. “And since we’ve had so much to rebuild, our house—his house—isn’t good for them. My mom says as the youngest it’s my aunt’s duty to have no life and take care of them . . . but that’s a point of contention.” He reaches over and plucks the deck of cards from my hands and starts shuffling. “In front of me, they talk about it all joking with exaggerated gestures. But I think there’s a kernel of truth to it, you know? Like when you say ‘just kidding’ at the end of some screwed-up statement like you didn’t mean it, but you did?”
I nod. Taking care of the shuffling will not help him, but I’ll keep that to myself. “Your grandfather built your house?” I motion over to the gummy candies. Miles reaches for them, and his shirt rides up, another flash of skin before a bag of gummies is flying toward my face. I just narrowly catch it.
“Not all by himself, but yeah.” He deals the cards, gathering his own. His shoulders sag a bit and he grimaces. “He built things all his life—natural talent, my mom says—kind of still does, according to my aunt.”
“Probably leaves his tools around the house too.”
Miles laughs—this time it’s a single shout followed by a small burst. I’m addicted. His laugh makes me smile, and I wonder what else I can say to make him laugh like that again.
“He does, he totally does. His stuff is pretty cool; he’ll just gather all these random objects and weave them together to form a birdhouse without even thinking about it. Aunt Olivia says he’s slowing down, though, his hands aren’t as quick as they used to be. Pisses him off a lot.”
“But he still does it?” I keep my cards, Miles changes one.
“Yeah, takes him longer and sometimes they look like shit, but he keeps going. He made this bracelet actually.” Miles runs his fingers over the delicate chain. I reach forward without realizing it, and he lets me pull his hand toward me. Now that I’m getting a closer look, I can see where different bits of chain were joined together along with a narrow rectangular gold plate. I rub my fingers over it, feeling the engraving that reads “10.28.” Miles pulls away before I can turn it to read what’s written on the other side.
“Birthday?”
Miles nods.
“I can’t believe he made that.”
“He took broken pieces from family jewelry and welded it together. My dad helped him out too—it’s a bit of a miracle those two managed to work together at the time. My parents were divorced by then, and my dad wanted to make me something before he headed out to Chi-town, so he asked my grandfather for help.”
“Have you always worn it?”
He readjusts the bracelet in his hands. “Nah, a little when I was a kid, but then I got embarrassed by it; not many guys wear bracelets, you know? But then, I guess I stopped caring what other people thought.”
“I like it.”
He continues to fiddle with the bracelet, and the smile he gives me is warm and kind. “I’ll let them know.”
I rub my arms; the wet clothes do not help with the chill. Miles hops up, leaving the room and coming back with a blanket and two towels. “Can’t believe it took me this long to get these.”
We use the towels to dry our hair and as much of our clothes as possible, which isn’t much. I move the bottle away from us as Miles spreads the blanket over me. “You aren’t cold?” I ask.
“I am but—”
I open the blanket, inviting Miles to sit by me.
“You sure?”
Nope—yes—every cell in my body is screaming, What do you think you’re doing? Don’t do this to us, we are not cool enough for this.
“Yes,” I say. “You just have to promise not to try and look at my cards.”
“You’re whooping my ass, I cannot promise you that.”
Em and Kara would be cheering me on, yelling lewd things if they saw any of this. Miles and I curl up under the blanket where it is appetizingly warm and fantastic. My mind scrambles, What if I accidentally touch him? Followed by, What if I want to touch him? I actually want to touch him, reach for his hand, do it, do it, do it. I concentrate on the cards. Two queens.
Images of Miles and I tumbling on top of each other on the couch invade my mind, multiplying one after the other. I smile without knowing, and Miles bumps me on the shoulder. I hide my cards. “What’s that for?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on.” Miles stretches out his leg and starts tapping me on the knee. The image of him shirtless (he was shirtless in my imagining) on top of me is not fading fast enough so I blurt the first thing that pops into my brain.
“Was Angie your only girlfriend?”
“Uh.” Miles chuckles and tucks the leg back under himself. “Not exactly . . . yeah, she’s the only girl I’ve ever dated. Officially that is. There was Josephine Maguire, Joe, in sixth grade. We kissed every day for a month and then it was over.”
“What happened?”
“She moved away. New York, I think. Then there was Angie, and who cared about anyone else? How about you?”
“Me?”
“No, the other person in this room.” He tugs at a strand of my hair.
“I’ve had two boyfriends actually.”
“Whoa.”
I shove him hard. “Shut up, only one of them was . . .”
“Was?” Miles is reaching for my hand again; he holds it in his lap.
“Serious?” I think of my hand in his, on his lap. The warmth, the butterflies. “Worth it, I guess. No, not what I mean, I only really connected with one of them.”
“What was his name?” Miles picks out two new cards. He has nothing. I keep mine.
“Luke. Lucas.”
“He sounds horrible.”
“No, that was Andrew actually.”
His thumb traces down my hand and stops at my wrist. “I knew it—what did Andrew do?”
It’s not my turn. I haven’t lost—in fact I’m pretty sure he’s about to—but I want to keep going. It feels good to talk to Miles, it’s felt good all day, and though I’m annoyed at myself for waiting this long it feels right that I’m here with him and talking about it now.
“He was a jerk.” I shift toward Miles, a movement that feels as natural now as holding my hand in his. “A real asshole to other people, nice to me and my friends but he would say the meanest things to others when I wasn’t around. We dated for three months before I blew up at him, which was pretty big for me. I’m not much of a—I have trouble speaking up, but I did somehow and told him what a jerk he was.”
“Did that make him see the light?”
“God no, he’s still an asshole, even spread some lovely rumors about me and him, said we had sex and other stuff. . . . If it hadn’t been for Emma . . .” Kick-ass amazing Emma who tackled Andrew in the hallway after school, calling him a total prick and threatening to “cut it off” if he didn’t fess up to the lies. I think I pulled her off him eventually, but Kara and I definitely watched for a minute or two, impressed by how well Emma held her own.
Andrew did not apologize and remains a prick to this day. “He plays lacrosse now, so it’s even worse because he’s more popular.”
Miles’s brow furrows, his eyes narrowing. He places the cards between us. Nothing. He has nothing. I reveal mine with a flourish, and he places his hand over his heart, wounded. In a flash he reaches for my arm, running his hands up and down them. God—shivers, shivers everywhere. “I know you have an extra deck here somewhere.”
“Sore loser.” I tug my arm, and he tugs it back.
He keeps his hand around my wrist, his thumb doing slow circular movements. “Tell me Luke was nice, p
lease. I don’t want to believe you only go for jerks, because that does not bode well for me.”
“I do not go for jerks—Andrew burned that out of me a hundred percent. Emma always brings it up, though, won’t ever let me forget it. She’ll point him out and go, ‘I can’t believe you let that catch get away.’”
“Emma is . . . ?”
“One of my best friends. Em and Kara.”
You mean were best friends, don’t you, Jules?
“They sound cool.”
“Yeah—they are.”
There’s a pit settling into my stomach, which happens when I think of Emma and Kara and how I pushed them away. I think back to the texts on my phone from Em. Had my parents called her? Would she understand why I ran away? Twice. Even though we haven’t spoken in a month . . . or was it two? When did I stop answering their messages? It all feels like a blur now.
I plaster on a smile even I know it looks sad and continue. “We’ve been friends since preschool. Emma is insanely smart and wants to be a teacher when she grows up because she hates all the teachers at our school and thinks she can do better.”
My genuine pride for my friends must be masking my fake enthusiasm because Miles leans his head closer to mine, eager for more.
In the distance, I hear the beat of the wind against the walls.
“Kara is basically the only reason I passed Chem. Though I confess I delete most of the information from my brain at the end of the week, so she kinda has to start fresh every time. I just can’t wrap my head around the equations—it all looks like one elaborate, impenetrable code. And I’m pretty sure I know the world’s most randomest facts because of both of them.”
“Like? Give me one.”
“A hippo’s milk is pink.”
“I know this,” Miles says. “Because it’s strawberry flavored?”
I roll my eyes. “That and the two types of acids the hippo secretes.”
It does turn out I’m really good at remembering random facts that have nothing to do with anything I will be tested on—it is apparently my superpower.
“Secrete is such a sexy word, don’t you think?” He draws out the word “Seeecreeete.”
I can’t help it and start laughing. Miles has a smug little smile on his face.
“So acids aren’t as cool as strawberry milk but still pretty cool.”
“Hate to disappoint.” It’s my turn to rub my thumb along Miles’s hand and concentrate on the feel of his in mine.
“Yeah, Em and Kara, they’re both—” I think of my friends, of Kara’s ridiculous smile and Emma rolling her eyes at whatever we are talking about. About Kara making a short person joke—she’s a least five inches taller than both of us—and Em attempting to untangle my hair after a failed french braid attempt. I miss them so much, my breath catches. “Amazing, yeah, amazing. We joke that I’ll become a librarian in whatever school Emma ends up teaching at so we can continue to hang out and solve crimes together.”
“There’ll be crime?”
“Petty mostly. And the occasional murder, of course.”
“Of course.”
Miles tucks an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “Is that what you want to be, a librarian?”
Miles traces my chin with his fingers, and I flash back to the pool, the kiss—then he lets his hand drop. I think of asking him to do that again, but instead I settle in closer. “That’s more of a story. I—I haven’t thought about what I want to be in a long time. I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was little, I think that’s one of the three standards, right? Archaeologist, vet, and then that person in movies that just somehow knows everything for no particular reason.”
Miles is shaking his head. “Not sure what you’re basing your three standard dreams on, but I wanted to be an astronaut, a supercool guitar player, and a professional praline eater.”
I pick up the cards again, shuffle and start dealing. My cards are horrible, and I switch out two. Meh. Just a bit better.
“Why archaeologist?”
“Archaeology is about finding people’s stories and preserving them. Sounded pretty cool. Still does actually.”
The wobbling tower of books in my room is a testament to that. I have so many books on myths, legends, history, folktales, anything I could find. Notebooks filled with stories I pried from Abuela Julia before bed, my friends at school, and, when I annoyed her enough, Em’s mom. Miles touches my cheek, bringing me back to the present.
“Was Luke nice?”
“Yes. Luke was very nice. Is still very nice, actually.”
“He’s the serious one, right?”
“We dated for a year and a half.”
Miles whistles. “That’s long. Why did you break up?”
Unlike my relationship with Emma and Kara, the dissolution of Luke and I had nothing to do with Adam. We’d broken up before he’d gotten back.
“He liked someone else.”
“He cheated on you?”
“No, no. He met a girl at a party and they just kept talking and he started getting these feelings for her and didn’t want to hurt me so we broke up.”
Miles nods, thinking it over. “Were you heartbroken?”
“Devastated. Emma, Kara, and I spent days just talking shit about him and all that, then slowly he mattered less. We’re sort of friends now. Sort of.”
“Sort of?” His brow arches, a look I immediately like.
“His new girlfriend doesn’t really like that we talk.”
“Why not? He’s with her now.”
“Reasons.”
“Come on, Sunshine.” He tugs at the bottom of my shirt. “Give me one secret. One.”
One secret coming up—but you aren’t going to like it. Time to use my mood-destroying talents.
“We were each other’s firsts.”
“Oh . . . yeah. I get that.” He scratches the back of his neck, looking very amused at my answer. “I don’t know if I’d want my boyfriend hanging around the first person who actually meant something to him.”
“How do you know I actually meant something to him?”
“Because he seems like a smart guy.”
My cheeks feel warm, and I think of reaching for the cider again despite that I don’t really like the taste, so instead I crack open the water and take a drink.
Miles leans back on his elbows, the blanket falls behind us, his eyes still watching me. “You still have feelings for him?”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I loved him.” It feels cruel to say, because I did care about Luke very much, but I don’t think I ever loved him, nor him me. “But I really trusted him, and he trusted me. So I remember the good stuff and what made me like him and want him to be happy.”
“That is incredibly mature of you.”
“That is Kara talking actually—I think she should be a therapist or a psychologist, but she’s determined to save the world as a doctor, which she will, obvs.”
Miles nods and looks down at our stash. “What should we dive into next? I’m feeling a bit low on the sugar, how about you?”
I can still feel the sugar from the cider coursing through me, but I nod anyway.
“A bit.”
He reaches over for the Twinkie. “Let’s break this little one open.”
The treat is equal parts stale and sweet, and we drink it down with more water. We tuck ourselves back under the blanket, the space between us disappearing once again. It feels so natural to curl into him. My body shivers when he rubs my arm to warm me up. He drops his cards, and we give up the pretense of playing another round.
“Tired of getting your ass kicked?” With my leg I hit Miles. He catches it before I tuck it back under me and his hand stays on my calf for a moment before we both shoot up at the sound of broken glass. It’s followed by more glass breaking and something hitting the ground; Miles bolts off the couch.
“Stay here,” he says as he rushes out. I can hear the wind, far better than I could before; it feels like it’s all around us
now. Above me, something hits the roof before it’s dragged away. The lights flicker on and then off once more.
When Miles comes back I am sufficiently startled.
“What happened?”
“Something got caught up in the wind and flew right through a bedroom window, made a mess.” His eyes flit around the room until he finds something in the back, tucked into a corner. He picks up a Santa Barbara candle and moves to the back, illuminating another section of the room, which is much bigger than I thought. I hear Miles moving boxes around, and when he comes back he’s carrying a large sheet of wood in one hand, like the kind the shop owner had. He passes me the candle. “I need to close up that window before anything else comes through.”
“Right.” I nod, my mind already listing all the things that can travel through an open window from branches to animals to vampires to snakes. ANYTHING really.
“Lila?”
I’m still racing through all the ridiculousness as now is the time for such things when I look up at Miles.
“Yeah?”
He motions to the hall. “Will you help me?”
Pump Up the Volume
I CAN HEAR THE WIND SCREECHING THROUGH THE HALL. THE door is right at the end of our hallway, and the closer we get to the bedroom the louder it gets. Once we push open the door, we feel the wind flow in through the broken window like water in a sinking ship. As we’re about to enter, I look down and put a hand out to stop Miles—pieces of broken glass lay scattered across the floor, probably aided by the wind. Miles and I quickly go back for our shoes before entering again. Though I avoid stepping on the larger bits, it feels quite defiant to hear the crunch of glass below my feet, knowing that it can’t hurt me.
We settle the sheet of wood against the window, using the weight of our bodies to keep it in place, but the wind refuses to be held back. Miles holds the sheet in place as I move around the edges with my hammer and nail it down, securing it for God knows how long. This feels like just the tip of what this hurricane can do, and it’s only a matter of time before these nails will no longer hold—or another window breaks.
