The Day That Saved Us

by Mindy Hayes

  After a few minutes, she calms down, rubs the back of her hands against her face, and slides off my lap to sit next to me. When she looks up at me, black streaks stain her freckled cheeks. I take the sleeve of my hoodie and wipe it across her face.

  “I’ve missed you,” she says softly, batting her wet, clumpy eyelashes and sniffling. She wipes her hand under her nose.

  “Is that why you’re crying? Because you missed me?” I try not to laugh. Because that I can handle. Heartbroken crying? Bad news crying? Death of a loved one crying? No thank you. But tears because she missed me as much as I missed her, I’ll take it.

  She nods.

  “Oh, Pete.” I take her face in my hands and try to kiss her, but she turns away, pulling out of my grasp.

  Her head shakes. “That hasn’t changed.”

  Her rejection hurts, but I accept it. I knew it was a possibility. She’d made it clear on her porch that we were over. If I wait, if I have patience, our time will come. I don’t want to fight. I just want to be here. With her.

  “Okay,” I say. “That’s fine. When you decide I’m the one, I’ll be waiting. But for now, can I at least hold you until you stop crying?”

  She nods again and leans into my shoulder, allowing me to wrap her in my arms again. If this is all I can get, I’ll take it until she can give me more. Or until she takes it away altogether.

  Harper comes back about twenty minutes later, and they’ve been decorating ever since, pretending Peyton doesn’t have the remnants of black makeup dotting her face and eyes so puffy she can hardly open them.

  “Do you think we need curtains?”

  Peyton looks confused. “We have blinds. Why would we need curtains?”

  “I don’t know,” Harper says. “To add character. Our dorm is so bare and dull.”

  Skylar should be meeting us soon to go see a movie, but he’s late, so I’m stuck listening to things a man should never have to worry about.

  I was hoping Peyton would be alone when I came to her dorm room, but since Harper answered the door, that squashed my envisioned reunion. I wanted to come the first weekend after school started, but I knew I needed to give her space. I was hoping the month apart would have given her enough time to get over the notion that we can’t make this work.

  “Brodee, what do you think?”

  “Huh?”

  “Robert or Chris?” Harper asks.

  I’d stopped listening to them ten minutes ago.

  “Huh?” I repeat, even more confused.

  “Robert,” she holds up a poster of Iron Man. “Or Chris,” she holds up a poster of Captain America. “Peyton will only let me hang one.”

  “Because you don’t even like The Avengers,” Peyton argues with a sigh that tells me they’ve had this disagreement many times before.

  “But they’re hot. What does it matter if I like the movies or not? I like looking at them.”

  Peyton face-palms. Literally. Palm to forehead. I laugh.

  “Andrew,” I answer.

  “Who?”

  “Andrew Garfield. Spider-Man.”

  Peyton giggles and continues hanging pictures on a string across the wall above her bed. Scanning the pictures, I notice not one is of our summer together. However, I made the wall in a couple other pictures from high school, so at least she doesn’t want to erase our entire history.

  Harper groans. “You’re no help. Of course you’d pick Peter Parker. Prejudice,” she grumbles.

  There’s a knock at the door. “Skylar!” Harper drops the posters, jumps off her bed, and lunges for the door, flinging it open as she leaps into his arms.

  Yeah, that was the reunion I’d hoped for with Peyton. Too bad it didn’t happen quite like that.

  When Harper lets Skylar go, he comes in and hugs me. “It’s about time you got your butt in town.”

  “Ha. Yeah. Just needed to get all settled in first.”

  “Took you long enough. I thought I was going to have to drag you here for a weekend. So, are we going to a movie or what?”

  I look to Peyton whose eyes are still a little puffy and red as she sits cross-legged on her yellow bedspread. “Let me just fix my mascara, and then we can go,” she says. Awkwardness settles in the room as she moves toward her desk.

  “Aww…P Parker, you miss me that much?” Skylar teases to lift the tension. He must know.

  “So much, Sky. I don’t know how I survive with you all the way across the parking lot,” she says dryly, lifting her makeup bag out of her desk.

  “I’m here now. Big Sky is here. No need to fret.”

  She cracks a smile and shakes her head at him. Our eyes meet briefly. There’s something in them that tells me we’re going to be okay.

  We’re going to be okay.

  We have to be.

  I MAKE IT into Charleston just in time for the Christmas party, because I promised my mom I would. The Christmas party used to be a Fisher/Parker tradition, but now only my dad and Olivia put it together. My mom hates going, but she’s too classy of a woman to decline an invite after all these years. They might not be best friends anymore, but she refuses to be anything but gracious and civil. She’s a better person than I am. I don’t even want to be here, but I am for her. Well not her her, but her too.

  I pull into the driveway I’ve parked in hundreds of times, behind all of the other parked cars, and slowly make my way up the pathway to the front door of the Parkers’ house—or I guess I should say the Fisher’s house since it’s my dad and Olivia’s now—and let myself in.

  It doesn’t matter that there are a hundred other people here—when I walk in I can feel her. It doesn’t require sight of her to take my breath away. Just knowing we’re only feet from each other makes my heart race and all the air leave my body.

  As my eyes roam around the house for her face, I see Peyton talking to Harper in the back corner of the living room. She’s already looking at me. I was hoping I’d see her first, so I could watch her uninhibited for a moment, but she’ll just have to be aware that I’m checking her out. The first thing I notice is her hair is gone. Her long, beautiful blonde hair is chopped up to her chin. And it’s lighter, almost white. I blink, taking it in. It’s such a shock I don’t know what to think at first, but Peyton could be bald and still be gorgeous.

  She’s wearing a little red dress that hits her above the knee. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in red, because she never liked herself in red, which I’ve never understood. It looks incredible on her.

  I know I’m supposed to act unaffected—that what we had is gone and can never be again—but she’s so beautiful, every wound that was once scabbed over is now raw. It takes a few seconds before I make a move.

  A timid smile spreads across her face as I approach, and my smile is automatic. I’ve gone twelve months without her smile, and I don’t know how I lasted that long. Seeing it now makes me realize I had a gaping hole in my life, but as soon as she smiles at me, the hole refills.

  Peyton hands Harper her champagne glass without breaking our gaze and walks with purpose toward me. I nearly forgot how good it feels to touch her. When we hug, it’s a silent exchange. It seems it always is now. I’m filled with so many emotions it’s hard to identify them all. The love. The regret. The comfort. But most of all, the longing. And by the feel of her arms wrapped firmly around my neck, I know she has to feel it all, too.

  “Hi,” she says when we break apart.

  “Hey.” I take my bottom lip between my teeth to keep from grinning.

  “What’s it been? A year since I’ve seen you?”

  Almost to the date. “Something like that.” I notice her freckles are gone. She completely covered them with makeup.

  “You went to Brooke’s house for Thanksgiving, right?”

  “Yeah.” I nod and shove my hands in my front jean pockets. They’re having a hard time keeping to themselves. She’s not yours to touch, I tell them.

  “Tyler and I decided to do Thanksgiving here with my mom.�
��

  I heard. It was why I went to Brooke’s. Seeing her with Tyler isn’t any easier now than it used to be. It’s worse, in fact. I notice Peyton doesn’t say Nick, though I know my dad was there, too.

  “How is Brooke?”

  “She’s good. She’ll be coming to the wedding, so…”

  “Oh good. I’ll get to meet her finally.” Peyton smiles. It’s hard to tell if it’s genuine or forced. She’s mastered hiding emotions over the years. Better than I have. I wish it were as easy for me as it is for her. Somehow it feels like a competition, and, if it is, I’ve already lost. “Tyler will be here a little bit later tonight.”

  Though I haven’t seen Peyton in the last year, the occasional text or email has been exchanged. And, of course, there’s social media, where Brooke plasters pictures of us all over. I do what I can to avoid seeing Peyton and Tyler in pictures on her profile, so I rarely go online. All I know is that I want to be long gone by the time Tyler gets here.

  “Don’t tell me my son decided to seek out his friends before his own mother.”

  I turn and see my mom maneuvering around people, acknowledging them as she goes. She’s all smiles, and I hug her when she gets to me. “Hi, Mom.” I kiss her cheek as I pull away.

  She touches her fingers to my face, and I know exactly what she’s going to say. “You haven’t shaved.”

  “Finals have kept me a little preoccupied.” I rub my palm back and forth against my stubble.

  Her face softens. “Well, you look very handsome with a little scruff. Makes you look so grown up. You haven’t called in a week, though. Just because you’re a grown man doesn’t mean you don’t have to call your mother. Don’t you turn into Carter on me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I chuckle. “Studying for finals was seriously a nightmare. Where is the punk anyway?”

  “Oh, he should be here soon. He had a date with…what’s her name?” she asks and wags her finger at me like I’m supposed to know.

  “Veronica?” I offer.

  She shakes her head. “No, the redhead.”

  “Leah? Nichole?” I honestly have no idea who she’s talking about. I’m just spouting out names. “Alexis?”

  “No…The curly redhead. Short. Wears too much makeup.”

  “Oh,” I say with a laugh. “You’re talking about umm…” I actually do remember that one. I snap my fingers, trying to recall her name. It was different. “Aniessa? The one he met at rush last year.”

  “Yes! Goodness, I can’t keep track of them. I don’t know why I try.”

  Me either.

  “I knew he’d grow up to be a heartbreaker,” Peyton says, laughing to herself.

  Mom puts her arm around Peyton’s waist and tugs her to her side. “I don’t get to see you enough.” She kisses her temple. “Will Tyler be here soon?”

  Peyton flashes the light on the screen of her cell and looks at the time. “Should be here in about an hour.”

  “Oh. Well then. I’ll let you two get back to chatting. Just wanted to see my son before he leaves me for good.”

  “Mom.” I sigh. “I’ll be here for another month, and then I’ll only be a flight away.”

  “I know, I know.” She smirks. “I’m just giving you a hard time. Massachusetts is so much farther than North Carolina. But I’m so proud of you. You deserve the position.”

  When she walks away, Peyton questions, “Massachusetts?”

  “Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck. It’s weird we don’t know these kinds of details about each other anymore. Before, she would have known about the application I sent in. I would have called her as soon as the interview was over. She’d have been the first call after I heard I got the job. Now, I have Brooke. “I got a job at John Hancock in Boston as a financial analyst.”

  “Oh.” Again, I can’t read her expression. I think there’s sadness there, but she blinks it away and replaces it with excitement. “Congratulations! That sounds like the perfect place for you!”

  “Dude!” Skylar claps me on the back as he comes up and tugs me around for a hug, briefly patting my back before letting go. “You’re home! Finally! Where’s Brooke?” He looks over my shoulder like she might be hiding behind me.

  “She’ll be here in a couple days. She wasn’t able to get off work to come earlier.” I leave out the part where it’s my fault. Had I not procrastinated and asked her to come to the wedding earlier, she would’ve been able to ask for more time off.

  Harper squeezes between Peyton and Skylar and hugs me. “She’s coming to the wedding?” I pat the top of her head because I know how much she loves it. She ducks away, smoothing her hair. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen her hair without some bright color. It’s light gray. Is that a thing now? Or did she just want to see what she’d look like when she’s eighty years old?

  My hand instantly finds the back of my neck again. I don’t want Peyton to know I asked Brooke so late in the game. This is such a stupid, one-sided competition. “Yeah, Skylar didn’t tell you?”

  Harper looks over at him, and I beg him with my eyes to play along. I still hadn’t mentioned to him that I was for sure bringing Brooke.

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry, babe. I just figured you would assume she was coming.”

  “Perfect!” she says too brightly. The last time Brooke and Harper were in the same room, I thought I was going to suffocate from the awkwardness. It was clear Harper didn’t like her, and Brooke was oblivious—still is—and I’d like to keep it that way. Though I still don’t know why Harper doesn’t like her. Everyone likes Brooke.

  “Is she going to Boston with you?” Peyton asks.

  I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting that question. If the rolls were reversed, I’d have asked her if Tyler was going with her, though my reasoning would be different. “Uh, we haven’t really talked about it, but it’s a possibility.”

  Skylar interjects, “I thought you weren’t sure you were going to ask her to go with you?” Realizing too late it was info I wanted him to keep between us, the last few words come out slow and awkward.

  I shoot him a look. He’s killing me. He’s supposed to make it look like Brooke and I are happy and in love. Which, of course, we are. But Peyton needs to know that. It needs to be plastered across the walls in bold, vibrant letters.

  “I haven’t outright asked her, which is why it’s only a possibility right now.”

  Skylar realizes his mistake and shuts up.

  “Are you nervous to ask her?” Peyton prods. “Worried she’ll say no?”

  I smile tightly. “Just haven’t gotten a chance yet.”

  Harper saves me. “Will she be here in time for the rehearsal dinner on Friday?”

  “Yeah, she’ll be here Friday afternoon.”

  “Skylar has your shirt, bowtie, and suspenders for the wedding, so don’t let him forget to give them to you.”

  “Babe, I won’t forget. You gave me one job. I think I can handle my groomsmen.”

  “He says that,” Harper leans into Peyton and me, “but someone is going to go without something the day of. I’ll put money on it.”

  “Well, it won’t be me,” I say to appease her. “I’ll get my stuff from him tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. Robby and Mike already have theirs,” she says, “but Jackson isn’t back from Utah until Thursday night. And no matter how many times I remind Skylar to give Isaac his stuff when he sees him, he never does.”

  “Cut me some slack. We still have three days. I think we’ll be okay.”

  “Whatever you say, babe.”

  “She will be the death of me,” Skylar mutters in my ear, and I snort.

  “I heard that.”

  “Have you seen our parents yet?” Peyton whispers to me. I love the way she says it conspiratorially, like we’re still in this together—against them.

  “No, where are they?”

  She nods her head toward the archway that connects the entryway to the living room. They’re kissing. Mistletoe dangles above them. When
they pull back, my dad smiles down at Olivia. Even though it been four years, it’s still unnatural to see them do that. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to it.

  “You’d think they would have more respect for Tate. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed, they don’t have to parade their marriage in front of her.”

  “Respect?” I scoff. “They lost that a long time ago.”

  Peyton laughs without humor. Olivia notices us, says something to my dad, and they make their way over.

  “Incoming,” she mumbles.

  “We’re going to get something to eat,” Harper excuses her and Skylar, timely enough.

  “Hey, son!” My dad claps his hand on my shoulder and pulls me in for a hug I don’t go into willingly. “We didn’t see you come in. How long have you been here?”

  I offer a stiff smile. “Like twenty minutes.”

  “Have you seen your mom yet?” His eyes dart around the room, looking for her.

  “Yeah. She came and said hi to me a few minutes ago.”

  “What about your brother? Is he here yet?”

  I’m not the host. Shouldn’t you know these things? “Not that I know of.”

  Olivia stands beside him, almost like she’s waiting her turn. “Hey, Liv,” I say. We’ve been trying to figure out our dynamic ever since they began. It’s strange, considering she’s my stepmom now, but she acts less like a mother than she used to. While she’s not blameless in any of this, I’ve always held more resentment toward my dad.

  Every time we’re together Olivia walks on eggshells. I can tell she wants to hug me, but doesn’t want to make things more awkward, so I make the first move.

  “It’s good to see you, Brodee.” Her genuine personality hasn’t changed. She squeezes me once before letting go. “We really missed you at Thanksgiving, but I hear Brooke’s family took good care of you.”

  “Yeah, they did.”

  “When are we going to meet her?”

  “She’ll be here for the wedding.”