This Is How It Happened

by Paula Stokes

  After my arms give out, I drop to the ground. “Show me how it’s done,” I say.

  “If you insist.” Elliott grins. He gets a great jump off the mini-trampoline and goes straight up the Salmon Ladder in five easy pull-ups. The total elapsed time is less than twenty seconds.

  “Holy shit,” I say. “You rocked that even harder than your dad.”

  Elliott’s eyes widen. “Do not ever say that in front of him or I’ll never hear the end of it.” He checks the time. “It’s ten-thirty,” he says. “You want to go hang out on the roof?”

  “Sounds good.” I follow Elliott up the ladder and we grab the sleeping bag we sat on last time we were here. I tug the ponytail holder out of my hair and undo my braid with my fingers. The breeze is cool against the dampness at the nape of my neck.

  Elliott sits across from me, his broad shoulders backlit by the starry sky. Being face to face with him feels strangely intimate.

  “Another gorgeous night,” I say, my mouth going dry. I lie back on the blanket and look up at the stars.

  Elliott reclines next to me. “Do you know what would make this moment perfect?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, a little afraid of the answer.

  “Cactus Cooler.”

  I snicker. “We can go get something to drink somewhere if you want.”

  “Nah. I can live.” Elliott looks over at me. “I don’t really want to move right now.”

  “Me neither.” It’s a perfectly clear night and if I had to count the stars, it would take me hours. “Do you know anything about the constellations?”

  “A little bit,” Elliott replies. “Garrett is kind of a star nerd.” He points up almost straight above us. “So there’s the Big Dipper, which you can probably find.”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure I’ve ever found the Little Dipper.”

  “Straight across from the far top star in the cup part of the Big Dipper is the cup part of the Little Dipper.”

  “Cup part? Is that a technical term?”

  “Bowl? Ladle?” Elliott offers. He scoots closer to me on the blanket and then holds up my hand toward the sky. “Right there,” he says. “Do you see?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, even though I can’t focus on the sky when he’s touching my arm. I can’t focus on anything when he’s so close to me that I can smell his wintergreen deodorant and the faint scent of his sweat beneath it.

  “And there’s Cassiopeia.” Elliott moves my hand slightly. “Those five stars right there. If you connect them they make an M-shape.”

  “Holy crap. I can actually see it.” I grin. “That’s awesome.”

  “This whole night has been awesome,” Elliott says, his hand still on my arm. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  I swallow hard. “So tell me about your dads,” I say, trying to get my mind off the warmth of Elliott’s hand, off the solidness of his form now pressed up against me.

  “My dads. Let’s see.” Elliott takes his hand back and threads his fingers together behind his head as a pillow. “Garrett grew up in Fort Collins, so he’s been climbing and mountain biking and snowboarding since he was a kid. He’s got a degree in engineering, but he never really used it, unless you count designing and building all the ninja obstacles.”

  “He built all that by himself?”

  “Well, Ezra and I helped some.” Elliott grins. “You’ve seen how handy I am with tools. Ezra is a couple years older than Garrett. He’s from Long Island. He worked as an ad exec for about ten years and now he’s the creative guy for the store—designing window displays, coming up with advertising, overseeing the buyers.”

  “It sounds like they complement each other perfectly.”

  “Pretty much. One is analytical but free-spirited, the other is cautious and creative.”

  “How did they meet?”

  “Garrett moved to Denver after college and ended up working part-time as a rock-climbing instructor and part-time as a bartender. Ezra used to go to Denver on business, and I guess he struck up a conversation about how hard it was to find a good guy with the right bartender at the right time.”

  “Aww. That’s a great story.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Everyone always says you can’t meet anyone quality in a bar. I’m glad it worked out so well for them.” He pauses. “And me.”

  “So . . . you have Ezra’s last name?”

  “They adopted me as a baby and gave me Garrett’s last name—Redmond—as my middle name and Ezra’s for my surname. I don’t know how or why they decided that. Maybe they didn’t want me to be the only kid in kindergarten with two last names.” He smiles. “They’ve always been overprotective of me. I’ve been a total spoiled brat my entire life.” Before I can ask Elliott if he has any siblings, he says, “Your turn. Tell me about your parents.”

  I make a face. “My parents are not as awesome as yours.”

  “Said pretty much every kid, everywhere, throughout all of time.”

  “No, seriously,” I protest. “So they’re both cardiac surgeons, but—”

  “Yeah, they sound all kinds of lame.” Elliott elbows me in the ribs.

  “I wasn’t finished.” I elbow him right back. “I guess you could say they’ve had really high standards for me my whole life. I was expected to be exceptional at everything.”

  “And if you weren’t?”

  “Then I either got private lessons or I quit doing it.”

  “I see.”

  “I mean, they’re nice people. Well, my dad is, anyway. My mom is kind of . . . intense. I know they love me, but they never showed it much growing up. Just watching you with your dads tonight—I feel like you probably grew up with a lot of affection.”

  Elliott coughs. “Are you saying you’re starved for affection? Because I could probably help with that.”

  I roll onto my side to see if he’s kidding. “Oh yeah?” I say wryly. “That’s awfully kind of you.”

  He blinks innocently. “Public service—it’s just who I am.”

  “Right.” I smirk. “Remember the day we met and you threatened to give me a ticket?”

  “Oh yeah. Little Miss Sneak In Without Paying.” Elliott laughs lightly. “You’re a bad influence.”

  The last word catches in his throat and we stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds. My eyes are drawn to his long eyelashes, to a tiny constellation of freckles under his left eye. For a second I imagine reaching out and touching him.

  “Anyway,” he says. “We can both agree you have an awesome stepmom.”

  “True. I was kind of a bitch to her from the moment I found out she existed. But she’s never been anything but nice to me.”

  “I’ve never seen Rachael be mean to anyone,” Elliott says.

  Well, she did steal my dad away from my mom, I think. But I don’t say it. Because maybe you can’t steal someone away if they’re where they want to be. Who knows how long my dad had been unhappy? Plus, maybe there’s someone better out there for my mom—someone who can match her intensity and challenge her instead of just letting her win until they get tired of losing.

  I lie flat so once again we’re both looking up at the stars. The night breeze cools my skin. A bit of white fluff floats past me—cotton from one of Springdale’s many cottonwood trees. “This is not how I imagined the desert.”

  Elliott laughs lightly. “Not enough camels?”

  “Not enough cacti,” I say.

  “We’ve got prickly pear everywhere.”

  “True, but there are so many other plants. There are pine trees here!”

  “It’s unique geography, to be sure.” Elliott swallows back a yawn.

  A comfortable silence falls over us. I realize I haven’t thought about Dallas or Brad Freeman or the internet for hours. For once I don’t feel guilty about that. Maybe I’m finally starting to heal. Or maybe I’m just getting better at denial.

  “I wish I could stay here,” I blurt out.

  “You can.”

  “No, seriously. I wish I cou
ld capture this moment,” I say. “Like a firefly in a jar.”

  “Fireflies kept in jars die eventually,” Elliott says. And then he adjusts his body and his hand brushes against mine. At first I think it’s an accident, but he leaves it there. And then when I don’t pull away, he twines our fingers together.

  A current of warmth moves through me, followed by a rush of guilt. I do the math in my head. It’s been exactly forty-eight days since Dallas died. What kind of girlfriend develops feelings for some other guy in forty-eight days?

  I didn’t even know I had feelings until right this second.

  Elliott lifts up on one shoulder and looks down at me. “That day by the Visitor Center when you were upset. What was that about?”

  “I was thinking about my ex-boyfriend,” I say. The half-truth doesn’t feel any better than an outright lie.

  Elliott reaches out and traces the scar on my cheekbone with one finger. A tremor races through me. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No, no.” I shake my head. “Not like that, anyway.” Not as bad as I hurt him. “He cheated on me once, but we got past it.”

  “You’re a better person than me. I don’t know if I could get past that.”

  “No I’m not,” I say, almost violently. “I mean, I don’t know if I did the best job either. He confessed the whole thing and I could see he felt awful about it. And I appreciated that honesty, so I forgave him. But forgetting is harder than forgiving, you know?”

  Elliott strokes my face again. He hooks one arm under my waist and pulls me close to him. “Come here.”

  I tense up as I feel his body against mine. His heat radiates through his clothes and my own. His forearms are still damp with sweat. I trace one finger along his ropelike veins and a yearning starts to build inside me. My hand finds the curve of his biceps. His skin goes taut beneath my touch. My fingertip falls into a groove between two muscles.

  “Can you feel that?” Elliott asks.

  “What? Your big biceps? Yeah, I feel them.” I roll my eyes.

  “No, I meant the way you’re giving me goose bumps,” he says.

  Sure enough, the hair on Elliott’s arms is raised and his skin is covered with tiny goose bumps. “Wow,” I say.

  “How about a taste of your own medicine,” Elliott murmurs. He drags his fingertips along my inner arm. I close my eyes and focus purely on the sensation, the gentle stroking. He cups his hand around my biceps. “Flex,” he says.

  I bend my arm and flex, but I’m quite sure it’s nothing close to his definition.

  “Not bad,” he says. “You know, for a girl.”

  My eyes flick open and I look up at him to protest, but his lips are quirked into a smile.

  “I thought that might get you.” And then he leans in and brushes his lips against the scar on my cheekbone.

  I take in a sharp breath, surprised by the warmth of his mouth and the current of heat inside me.

  Elliott rests his forehead on mine. “Is this okay?” he asks. Gently, he traces the line of my jawbone with his lips, slowly making his way toward my mouth.

  I don’t answer.

  I can’t answer.

  I should pull away.

  I need to pull away.

  But I also need to feel like this. Accepted. Wanted.

  I blink back tears as I reach up and run my fingers through his short dark hair, feeling the contours of his skull beneath it. Elliott rests one hand on my waist and cradles my face with the other as he brushes his lips against mine.

  His kiss is gentle, tentative, as if he’s expecting me to push him away at any second. I feel the tears coming on again but I tamp them down. They’re not allowed to wreck this moment.

  I kiss him harder, my lips parting. My shirt rides up slightly and I guide Elliott’s hand onto my bare skin. His fingers tentatively explore my rib cage and the small of my back. His tongue tastes my lips, but then my headband slips off and I flinch.

  Disentangling myself, I quickly try to put the circle of cloth back in place, but one of Elliott’s strong arms wraps around my wrist. “No,” he says.

  He tugs my body up on the blanket and turns my head so he can see my craniotomy scar and the new hair growing in around it. Gingerly, he traces the pink line with one finger. “Your roots are showing,” he teases. “I think you’re the only blonde I know who dyes her hair brown.” Before I can even reply he leans in to kiss me again.

  “Hold up,” I say, scooting back away from him. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” Shame weighs down on me. Maybe it’s all right if a day goes by where I don’t think about the accident, but kissing another guy feels like cheating on Dallas. It’s bad enough that I killed him. I don’t want to add to my list of crimes.

  “Do you still love him?” Elliott asks.

  My gut instinct is to say yes. How can I say I don’t love Dallas given what’s happened? But every day I don’t come clean about the accident makes it a bigger and bigger lie. I don’t want to lie to Elliott about this too. “No, not the way that you mean, anyway.”

  Elliott brushes my hair back from my face. “I’m sorry he hurt you, but not all guys are cheaters.”

  “I know.”

  “Look. It would probably be stupid to start something,” he says. “Since you’re only going to be here until the end of the summer. But I can’t help it. I want to. I want to be dumb for once.” I can see the questions in his eyes.

  “As someone who has done a lot of dumb things recently, I don’t really recommend it,” I say, a hint of bitterness leaching into my voice.

  “So is that a no?”

  I sigh. “I like you, but . . . I don’t think I’m ready.” I turn away from Elliott because it hits me that’s just one more lie. I’m ready, I just don’t deserve him. I don’t deserve anyone. But I’m afraid to tell him any of that, because he’ll ask why. And then I’ll have to tell him the truth, about what I did. About what I’m still doing. And then I’ll lose him from my life.

  And that’s what I’m really not ready for.

  CHAPTER 27

  Elliott drives me home and walks me to the door. We pause on the porch and I’m expecting this big awkward moment where he tries to kiss me again, but all he does is give me a hug.

  He’s not that tall—maybe five foot ten—but since I’m kind of short we still fit together perfectly, my head right beneath his chin. My face ends up pressed against his T-shirt, which smells like a mix of sweat and sand and desert air. “Thank you,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “For being so nice to me. At least I didn’t cry on you tonight.”

  “I don’t know where you got the idea that crying is this horrible thing, but you need to get over that. Stop apologizing for your body’s involuntary responses to your feelings. It’s almost like me apologizing for how sweaty I am right now.”

  I pull back so I can look him in the eye. “I never thought of it that way. Growing up, I never saw either of my parents cry. Even after my dad left, if Mom did any crying it was in her bedroom late at night after I was asleep. I grew up kind of programmed to hide my tears.”

  “Well, don’t be like that, okay? At least not around me.”

  “Okay.” We stand, looking at each other for a few seconds. I struggle to fill the silence. “Also, thanks for showing me the stars and making me feel like a Ninja Warrior Girl.”

  He laughs. “I love watching newbies try the obstacles. Almost everyone does better than they expect on at least one of them, and it’s like watching a flower bloom, you know? Seeing people awaken to their true possibilities.”

  “I needed that today.”

  “Just remember. It’s never as bad as you think it is,” Elliott says.

  “Thanks.” I hope he’s right.

  He leaps off the porch and lopes across our front yard. I check my phone and when I see that it’s not quite midnight, I sit on the steps for a few minutes and gather my thoughts. It’s a nice night and I’m not ready to go inside.

  My dad ducks out o
nto the porch. “I heard your friend’s truck leave,” he says, slight emphasis on the word “friend.” “Did you have a good night?”

  “Yeah. It was a lot of fun.”

  Dad sits next to me, his feet crossed at the ankles. We both stare out into the yard for a few seconds. “If you like him, no one is going to judge you for that.”

  Ha. I’m quite sure a whole lot of people would judge me for that if they knew who I was. But all I say is “He’s cool, but what’s the point? In two months I’ll be back in St. Louis and he’ll still be here.”

  “You know you don’t have to leave, right?” Dad says. “You’ll be eighteen next month. You can do whatever you want.”

  “Dad.” I turn to him, somewhat shocked. “I know you’re not telling me to change my plans because of some guy.”

  “Of course not. But honey, life already changed your plans. You didn’t plan for your boyfriend to die. You didn’t plan to come here. You didn’t plan to make friends. I’m just saying, it’s okay to change your mind about what you want. Not because of Elliott, but for all I know you were just staying in St. Louis to go to college because you wanted to be close to Dallas.” Dad pauses. “Plans are great, but they should never make you feel trapped. And if we’re being honest, Rachael and I love having you around, and I’m already getting sad at the thought of you leaving. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I say.

  He clears his throat. “Listen, Genevieve. I talked to your mom tonight. The Kades paid her a visit earlier today.”

  “Oh?” The single word almost gets caught in my throat.

  “Glen and Nora are leaning toward going ahead with the wrongful death suit against Brad Freeman. They’ve been getting a lot of pressure, not just from Dallas’s fans, but also from drunk driving nonprofit groups who want to use this tragedy to lobby for a one-and-done law. They haven’t made any definite decisions yet, but they feel like they’ll appease the public if they at least take Freeman to court.”