WE ARE US

by Leigh, Tara

  “No,” he answers, a frown tugging at a corner of his lips, an edge to his voice that I immediately want to soothe.

  By necessity, I am sensitive to the moods of others. My mother can go from happy and engaged to violent and enraged in the blink of an eye, depending on whether she is drunk or high or both. I learned tricks to pacify, or at least distract her, at an early age. And I developed a sixth sense for whether the people she hung out with—the dealers and addicts she considered her friends—would treat Sadie and I like pets, welcomed with a smile and a pat on the head, or like pests, quick with a slap and a shove.

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I shuffle the cards and say, “That’s okay, I can teach you.”

  Once I start to deal, he sits down across from me. “What’s your name?”

  “Poppy.”

  “I’m Gavin,” he says, watching my movements. “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  He regards me skeptically. “You don’t look thirteen.”

  I’ve always been on the shorter side of average, and while other girls my age have started filling out, I barely have even a suggestion of curves. “How old are you?”

  “I’m fourteen.”

  “Well, you don’t look your age either,” I shoot back. He looks older, actually.

  Gavin is tall, and while I don’t see any scruff on his jaw, there is a quiet maturity in the thick ridge of his brow line and the calm sweep of his stare.

  My gaze lingers too long on Gavin’s face, the first stirrings of attraction taking me by surprise. I’ve never felt this way before, jittery and tingly. A little bit breathless. Because of a boy.

  My tongue is unwieldy inside my mouth as I force myself to explain the rules of the game, my fingers fumbling over the cards. Once there are seven in front of each of us, I quickly position the remaining deck down in the middle.

  Removing an unwanted card from my own hand, I place it face up beside what remains of the deck, and take a new card from the top. Then I motion for Gavin to do the same. Talk, Poppy. Say something. Something besides the rules of a stupid card game. “I’ve never seen you at school before.”

  “I started at West Sackett last week.”

  “Oh. I’m at East. I started last month.”

  This nature preserve acts as a dividing line between the two school districts within our town. Gavin must live on the other side. I haven’t been here long enough to know if there’s much of a difference between the two.

  For a while, we focus on the game. But as I deal out another hand, I ask, “How are you liking it?”

  He studies his cards. “School’s all right, I guess.”

  There’s a reluctance to Gavin’s tone. A defensiveness, too. As if he’s used to telling people things are fine when they’re really not.

  It’s a habit I recognize, because I do it too.

  He looks up and our eyes catch, a tenuous line of connection forming between us. Warmth blooms inside my chest. I bite my lip as a grin pulls at the corners of my mouth, not sure I’m ready to share even this tiny flare of happiness with him. It feels too fragile, too new. And in my experience, if something can be broken, you’d better hide it from anyone with the power to break it.

  Because they will.

  Gavin wins our next game, gathering the cards before I do. His shuffle is awkward at first, but after a few tries, they make a waterfall noise as the bridge collapses within his hands. “How long are you allowed to stay out here?” I notice his shoulders rising up toward his ears with each word, like he’s guarding himself against disappointment if I give the wrong answer.

  I glance away from him reluctantly, squinting up at the patches of sky visible through the trees. My mom works at a dentist’s office, but spends most afternoons on the couch, sipping wine and watching reality TV that’s as far from our reality as we are from the moon. As long as I’m back before dark, which is about when Sadie wanders out of her room to poke around the kitchen, they won’t even notice I’m gone. “Not for another hour or so. You?”

  Gavin’s shoulders drop back down, the crease that had gathered between his brows easing. “I have time,” he says.

  The relief in his tone is as comforting as a warm flame, though it also gives the impression that Gavin has even less supervision than I do. “Where did you move from?” I ask, arranging my cards. I have two pairs.

  “Vermont. But before that we lived in Oklahoma and Texas. Maine for a couple of years. Then here last month.”

  Connecticut is small, and Sackett is right in the middle of it. I glance up at him. “That’s a lot of places. Your dad in the army or something?” With each of Gavin’s answers it gets easier to ask the next question, like we’re playing catch and all I have to do is toss the ball back in his direction.

  He scratches at his neck with fingernails bitten to the quick, the tips of his ears turning pink. “No. My parents just liked to move a lot.”

  There is tension between us that didn’t exist a moment ago and I hurry to erase it, offering up details I don’t usually share. “I was born in Massachusetts. Me and my sister. But my mom said she wanted a fresh start, so she moved us here two months ago.”

  He makes a noncommittal grunt. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  My hand stills as I discard a Jack. “What do you mean?”

  He picks it up. “My mom used to say that, too. But then we’d move to a new place and the only thing that changed was our address. After a while, it felt pretty pointless.” He glares at the cards in his hands before reluctantly meeting my eyes. “None of my parents’ fresh starts worked. They finally gave up. I don’t live with them anymore.”

  My stomach twists in empathy. Years ago, a neighbor who was all too aware of just how frequently Sadie and I were left alone had called the police. A social worker showed up and took us away. For too long, before my mom got clean and moved us here, Sadie and I were shuffled back and forth between a group home and relatives we barely knew.

  My mom still drinks. And our house now isn’t in great shape—the roof leaks, the water never gets above lukewarm, and the front steps look like they’re about to collapse into a pile of splintered wood. But anything is better than living with strangers, wondering if we’d ever see our mom again.

  “Sometimes they come back,” I say. At least… physically. There is a part of my mom that never returned. A part I haven’t seen in so many years I’m beginning to think it never actually existed. That I only imagined the joy of her spontaneous laugh, the pulse of genuine love in her embrace.

  My voice is soft, gentle. But Gavin’s blue eyes cloud over anyway, his mouth pressing into a horizontal line as he shakes his head. “I’m not holding my breath.”

  Chapter 2

  Sackett, Connecticut

  Spring, Eighth Grade

  “You’re late,” Gavin says, glancing up from the cards in his hands. He can shuffle like a blackjack dealer now.

  “You’re early,” I shoot back, grinning. In this forest, time feels irrelevant. Whoever gets here first is early and whoever gets here last is late. It’s simple. Easy.

  Just like the friendship that has sprung up between us.

  I sit down on the ground across from Gavin, crisscrossing my legs as he begins dealing the cards. There are plenty of days when I arrive in what has become our spot, only to spend an hour playing Solitaire before heading home to my mom and sister, not knowing what kept Gavin away.

  Sometimes I wonder whether he ever does the same.

  I wonder… because I haven’t asked. The question has occasionally hovered on the tip of my tongue, heavy and awkward. But I’ve never allowed it to escape.

  Because I like to think of Gavin waiting for me, in our place. When I can’t get away, I can at least retreat inside my mind and imagine him here. Picture his nimble fingers touching each card, dappled light falling over his shoulders as he listens for the telltale crunch of my footsteps on the overgrown dirt trail leading to this clearing.

&nbs
p; During much of the winter, walking through the woods was impossible. After we’d spent a dozen autumn afternoons together, a series of snowstorms turned Sackett Preserve into a beautiful, but inaccessible, winter wonderland. By March I was beginning to wonder if Gavin was just a boy I’d made up, if our wooded haven was merely a fantasy that existed inside my mind.

  But the snow finally started melting and, except for the deepest drifts, it’s mostly gone. We returned to the woods a few weeks ago, although the afternoon temperatures are still pretty brutal. Today it’s barely above freezing and Gavin isn’t wearing a coat. He’s trying not to show it, but every so often, a tremble shakes his spine.

  Once there are seven cards in front of me, I arrange them in a fan and organize them by suit. I have a decent hand, but I throw the game to end it quickly. Before Gavin can deal another, I shove the deck into the Ziplock bag and put it inside the metal box.

  Gavin frowns at me, his disappointment obvious. “You have to leave already?”

  “No. Not yet.” I stand up, extending my ungloved hand in his direction. Gavin takes it, sending a little shiver of energy clanging against my nerve endings. “But I’m not in the mood for cards. Let’s go exploring.”

  Truthfully, I’ve been looking forward to playing cards with Gavin all day. Each class felt like a lifetime, the bus ride home a trip across the country. I couldn’t wait to be right where I am now, in our little clearing, stealing glances at Gavin’s inky black eyelashes and crazy untamed hair, at the sharp slashes of his cheekbones and the bright glint of his smile.

  I don’t think Gavin has a clue how attractive he is. But I do.

  Gavin’s bold, dramatic features remind me of a charcoal drawing, the kind I saw on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year. But someone took a paintbrush to his black and white portrait, giving him honey hued skin, piercing blue eyes, and endless shades of gold that spring from his head like a lion’s mane.

  And right now, Gavin’s lips are turning violet. We need to move.

  It’s only as he stands up that I notice his wince. “Are you—”

  He drops my hand and averts his face, shaking his head until his eyes are hidden beneath that unruly mop of hair. “I’m fine.” Ignoring my hesitation, Gavin sets off for the nearest trail. “I saw a couple of deer on my way in. If we’re quiet, maybe we can find them.”

  I follow after him, my gaze sweeping through the dense woods as I keep a few steps behind.

  We don’t find the deer.

  But we do find an enormous rock ledge that looks over half the preserve, maybe more. Not all of the trees have regained their leaves yet, and our vantage point allows us to see more of the forest than we will months or even weeks from now. Naked gray and brown tree trunks stand desolately beside their lush, evergreen brothers, hiking paths twisting between them like an enchanted maze.

  Gavin points at a spot just beyond the nearest ridge. “What do you think that is?”

  I squint into the shadowed basin. “I don’t know. Could it be the graveyard?”

  “Graveyard?” He sounds skeptical.

  “Yeah. There’s a cemetery over in that direction, just beyond the northeast corner of the preserve. I noticed it on a map a while ago but I haven’t worked up the nerve to go looking for it yet.”

  He grins and jumps down, turning back to me with his hands extended. “Let’s find out.”

  Grabbing hold of Gavin’s shoulders, I ease forward until he’s caught me by my waist, swinging me to the ground. When he lets go, my sides tingle from his touch.

  We follow a trail that wanders through the wetland valley and across rolling open woodlands. Around us, peeking out from behind trees and beneath exposed roots, the forest floor is covered in thickets of mountain laurel and skunk cabbage, maple-leafed viburnum and swamp azalea. Nothing has bloomed yet, but in another month or two the preserve will be a riot of green leaves and colorful flowers.

  But right now, it’s a flash of silver that catches my eye from above. I come to a complete standstill, throwing my head back for a better glimpse. As if the bird knows he has an audience, he lands on a branch over our heads, flapping his wings and showing off a dappled white and pale blue belly, opening his beak to give a warbled cry. “It’s a mockingbird,” I say, pointing. “Look at him, he’s preening.”

  Gavin follows the trajectory of my finger and quirks a smile. “Does that mean there’s a she around here somewhere he’s trying to impress?”

  I scan the trees around us as the mockingbird’s mating call echoes off the deciduous hardwoods rising sixty, eighty, one hundred feet above us. “I don’t know, but he’s sure giving it his best shot.”

  The exertion of our afternoon hike has worked, and I can feel the warmth of Gavin’s body beside me. I have to fight the urge to move closer, to drape his arm around my shoulders and curve into his side like I see the girls at school do with their boyfriends.

  Yearning scrapes my skin, as abrasive as a thorny vine. What would it be like to call Gavin my boyfriend?

  But it’s another thought that steals my breath, sending pain twisting through my stomach. What if he already has a girlfriend?

  Gavin and I don’t go to the same school. We don’t even know any of the same people. What if I’m just someone he meets in the woods when he has nothing better to do?

  I almost don’t notice the second bird that lands beside the first in a wild flapping of feathers.

  “I guess he’s met his match,” Gavin says, watching as they dance on the tree limb, flashing their white wing patches, chittering and warbling like long-lost lovers.

  “They make a cute couple, don’t you think?” My voice is strained as I ask about the birds. Because what I really want to ask is: Don’t we make a cute couple?

  But do I dare risk what we have now—an easy, relaxed friendship that doesn’t need a label—for a chance at something else? The couples at school change every other week. Gavin and I have only known each other a few months. And yet, I feel like I know him, and he knows me in a way that can’t be measured by arbitrary standards.

  Isn’t he— No. Aren’t we worth the risk?

  Before I can find the words or gather my courage, Gavin waves me forward. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

  With a last look at the flirting mockingbirds, feeling both confused and deflated, despite the fact that nothing has actually happened between us, I follow Gavin’s footsteps.

  There’s no one else in the woods with us today. At least no one we see or hear. Sometimes we run into locals taking their dogs for a hike, but this preserve isn’t big enough to attract tourists. There’s no parking lot or visitor’s station. Most of the time, like today, it’s all ours.

  A few minutes later, we come to a creek cutting straight through the trail. There’s no footbridge or downed tree in sight, just a series of uneven, slippery stones jutting out of the water at odd intervals.

  Gavin’s brows furrow in concentration as he evaluates their placement. Finally, he reaches for my hand, his fingers interlocking with mine, his thumb rhythmically sweeping along the underside of my palm. “Don’t let go, okay?”

  Sparks shoot up my arm, igniting tiny fires throughout my body. “I won’t.”

  Together, we scramble across the makeshift path, and when my foot does slip a bit, Gavin tightens his grip and pulls me against him. “I’ve got you.”

  The heavy thrum of my heartbeat pulses in response. Yes, you do.

  Back on land, we walk the rest of the way in silence, our hands still clasped.

  “It’s a cave,” Gavin says, when we get closer to what he’d pointed at from the ridge.

  “Can you see inside?” I ask in a whisper, squinting my eyes and trying to make out anything in the thick darkness.

  “No.” He picks up a rock from the ground and tosses it inside, then pulls me back behind a tree.

  “What are you—”

  He presses a finger to my mouth, silencing me. I freeze, my lips tingling from h
is touch, my heartbeat stuttering and then taking off at a gallop.

  Gavin appears unaffected. His attention is on the mouth of the cave, watching it intently. Only after we hear the rock clatter against the ground does he pull his hand away. “Just checking.”

  My lips purse with disappointment. “For what?”

  “Bears.”

  A soft laugh slips from my throat. “And what would you have done if a bear came charging out at us?”

  “Same as you,” Gavin says, the dark sweep of his lashes fanning his cheeks. And then he’s cracking up, too. “Run.”

  The mingled sound of our shared humor bounces off the trees surrounding us, reverberating inside my ears as we cling to each other, our shoulders shaking, sides heaving.

  Just as suddenly as the moment came, it’s gone. Exhilaration evaporates inside our throats, the energy between us turning turbulent.

  Gavin’s eyes swirl with confusion and surprise, just as mine must have when he pressed his finger to my lips.

  So, not unaffected after all.

  After an awkward, expectant moment, we step away from each other and walk back to the cave. It’s narrow, forcing us to sit side by side, our arms and legged pressed up against each other, our feet stretched out in front of us.

  We’ve only ever sat across from each other, our card games like a wall we’d build and rearrange and tear down, only to build again.

  The two of us look out at the forest, as if an explanation for the sudden change in atmosphere might be hidden in the shape of the leaves, the sway of the branches. My sneakers are muddy and wet, and my feet are so cold I can’t feel them anymore. The boots I had last winter don’t fit me anymore, and I had to give them to my little sister.

  Gavin isn’t wearing boots either. His sneakers are just as wet and muddy as mine, and he has a tear on the right one, the tip of his sock peeking out.

  “I guess we can try to find the cemetery another day,” I say, breaking the strained silence. “I think they have gravestones from the civil war.”