This Is the Wonder
Page 12
He took my hand in his and ran his thumb back and forth over my skin. “But then we would have missed our flight to Russia, too. And I’m looking forward to seeing the world with you.”
I close my eyes, but I’m not sure if I’m hiding from the memory or trying to get a better grip on it. It’s only been twelve hours but the moment is already six thousand miles away. The weather is already warming in Germany. I keep checking it on my phone and every degree that it goes up makes my insides feel raw and nervous.
“I’m worried about Hank.”
The cars were moving. We were next in line at the drop-off.
Jax grinned. “He’ll be fine. He’s tough.”
“He wasn’t finished yet.”
“We gave him everything he needs to survive.”
“How long do you think he’ll last?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Jax looked at me seriously. “Forever.”
“You look tired, kiddo,” Dad says, looking at me sideways.
I wish he’d keep his eyes on the road.
“I am. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Too excited to come home?”
“Yeah.”
“You should have slept on the plane. Long flight like that, I bet it was torture being awake the whole time.”
I shrug. “I don’t remember.”
“I don’t feel right about this,” Jax complained, scowling at me standing on the curb with my suitcases surrounding me. “I should walk you in. Help you get checked in for your flight. We could sit down and have a cup of coffee before you go.”
I shook my head firmly. “No. You need to go, and please don’t say anything great when you do because I’m not going to remember you being here. The last time I saw you was last night eating cold schnitzel with your bare hands.”
“That’s how you want to remember me? A caveman in my underwear on the floor?”
“It’s a better memory than me crying and watching you walk away.”
A horn honked at us impatiently.
I turned to leave but Jax stepped forward. He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him and then he kissed me deeply, stealing my breath. When he pulled away his chest was heaving and I could smell his toothpaste, minty and sharp, on his exhale.
“You don’t have to remember that,” he told me, stepping back and smiling, “but I will.”
“Home sweet home,” Dad sings as we pull into the driveway.
Mom is there standing in the doorway of the heavily decorated house, Christmas having thrown up brilliant colors over every corner. She’s waving wildly, and while she looks cold, she’s also so happy to see me. I smile back, happy to feel the expression tug down into me and reach my center, lightening the murky corners I’m wallowing in. When I get out of the car I hurry to her.
“Welcome home!” she cries, stepping onto the slick front stoop in bare feet to give me a hug. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Mom.” I step back and frown at her bare feet in the slush. “Go inside. I’ll get my bags with Dad and be right in.”
“I got ’em!” Dad shouts from the back of the truck. He’s already unloading. “Both of you go inside. Your mom needs your help in the kitchen. Robin and Chris are coming for dinner.”
Mom pulls me inside and leaves the door open for Dad as we head for the kitchen. “I hope you’re not too tired. Robin wanted to come over right after work to see you. I told her you might be sleeping.”
“No, I’m good. I’m wide awake.”
“What time is it back in Germany?”
“Eight hours ahead. So… almost seven at night?” I frown. “Oh that’s weird. I left Germany at eleven in the morning their time and now I’m home at eleven our time.”
“It’s like a do-over,” Mom chuckles.
I’d rather replay yesterday, I think wistfully. My mind wanders to the snow outside, to our snowman who I hope is still standing, to the hotel room. To the bathroom. To… okay, I need to lock that down while standing in my parents’ kitchen.
Mom starts digging around in the fridge and talking to me, her voice muffled from inside the cold space. “You have some mail over there. Looks like something from the school.”
I pick up the envelope on the island without interest, turning it over and feeling the thickness. “It’s a bill.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s thin. Probably one page. Always a bill.”
“Well, then give it to me and I’ll pay it.” She comes out of the fridge and holds out her hand to me. “Is it for the Winter Semester?”
“Must be.”
“Almost the last one.”
“Yep.”
“Have you applied for graduation?”
I groan inside but I keep it quiet. “Not yet.”
She frowns and my internal groan grows.
“I’ll do it,” I promise.
“I would hope you would.”
“I have plenty of time.”
“You should start applying for jobs soon.”
“I’m not even graduated!”
“The sooner you start—”
“The better off I’ll be, I know,” I mumble, finishing her mantra for her. I drive my hands into the pockets of my hoodie and dart my eyes to hers, then quickly away—still frowning. And staring. “I’ll get it done. All of it.”
She doesn’t reply and I don’t know what to say. Eventually she starts working on a salad, cutting and shredding, and the jerkiness to her movements tells me she’s angry more than the frown does. She’s working herself up, and if I don’t get out of here soon she’ll be all over me and I’ll be in here for hours.
I can hear my dad bumping into the entryway and dropping down suitcases. Silently thanking him for saving me, I head for the door to help him. “I’m going to take my stuff upstairs and unpack. I’ll be down to help you afterward, okay?”
She nods stiffly, not looking at me, and I know I need to take my time. She’s still building her head full of steam, and that kitchen is the last place I want to be.
“Welcome home, Wren,” I whisper to myself sarcastically.
***
“Ahhh!” Robin screams, running around the kitchen island and throwing her arms around me. She knocks me off balance and I fall back against the counter, nearly tumbling to the ground. “You’re home!”
“Whoa,” I breathe, shocked. “What’s happening right now?”
“I missed you!”
“Why?”
She pulls back to frown at me and it feels like I’m talking to Mom again. I instantly feel drained. “What?” she snaps.
“Why did you miss me this much?”
“Because we’re sisters.” Robin’s face falls, her eyes immediately going glassy. “What is your problem, Wren?!”
“Oh, Jesus,” Chris mutters. He comes up behind Robin and puts his hands lightly on her shoulders to pull her back from me. “Calm down, babe.”
“No, she’s being a bitch!” Robin shouts, shooting daggers at me.
My dad suddenly appears in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “One second she’s hugging me and the next she’s yelling.”
“It’s the hormones,” Chris tells Dad.
He nods knowingly and leaves the room, uninterested in the drama.
“What hormones?” I ask.
Robin smiles, and the change in her face is so fast and so fucking scary that I try to take a step back. I find only kitchen counter digging into my spine.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispers.
“Robin! Congratulations!” I reach for her, beaming. “I want another hug. One I’m ready for this time.”
She slips into my arms more gently this time and I feel her cold, dark hair against my face as she squeezes me tightly. “Are you really happy for me?”
“Of course I am. That’s amazing.” I step back, still holding her arms. “How far along are you? When did you find out?”
“I’m so happy for you. Congratulations to both of you.”
“Thanks, Wren,” Chris says from behind Robin. He looks relieved that she’s calmed down but he hasn’t made a move to step away yet. I’m kind of happy he’s still there: a layer of protection in case I somehow piss her off again.
“It’s making me absolutely crazy,” Robin explains, rolling her eyes and grinning with a wide smile that reminds me of the Cheshire Cat. “I’m vomiting, my emotions are everywhere. I can’t control them anymore.”
“You controlled them before?”
“Har har,” she replies sarcastically. “You have no idea. If you thought I was emotional before, just wait and see.”
I did think that. You know why? Because she was! She’s been an emotional landmine since forever, so the idea that she is worse is horrifying. As she goes to sit down on a stool at the island and begins to munch on the snacks laid out, I glance at Chris. He has ‘help me!’ eyes, the likes of which I have never seen.
“Are you completely jet-lagged?” Robin asks around a mouthful of cheese cubes.
I step up to where I had been cutting apples before I was ambushed. “Not really. I’m good.”
“Did your boyfriend drop you off at the airport?”
I flinch slightly, focusing on the blade in my hand as it slices through the white center of the fruit. “Not my boyfriend,” I reply, wondering why I feel the need to clarify that to everyone, “and yeah, Jax dropped me at the curb.”
“At the curb? What a dick.”
“I told him to. I didn’t want it to be a big deal.”
“Did that work?”
“No,” I admit grudgingly. “Not really.”
“Yep.”
I drop my shoulders impatiently, the knife coming down on the counter with a rattle. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says nonchalantly.
“Just say what you’re going to say and get it over with.”
Chris looks at me from over her head. He might be trying to kill me with his eyes.
“I’m just saying you never listen,” Robin tells me.
“About what?”
“I told you to give it a try with him.”
“I did!”
“And?”
“And what? It’s not like I’ll never speak to him again, and I had to come home! What did you want me to do? Stay there with him? Get married?”
“You can’t be afraid of every guy because of Eric.”
“I don’t want to talk about Eric,” I growl low in warning.
“You brought him up!”
“No, I did not.”
Not directly.
Robin sighs in annoyance. “I don’t want to see you toss this guy aside because of one indecisive son of a bitch who was really just a kid. And so were you.”
“I’m gonna go see what your dad is up to,” Chris says, backing out of the room slowly.
We both ignore his exit.
“I know Jax isn’t Eric,” I tell Robin clearly. “I know that.”
“But you’re still scared.”
“Of course I’m scared. Jax is… he’s too good. That’s it, he’s just too good. He’s perfect.”
“No one is perfect.”
“But he’s perfect for me. I even like his fucking flaws! It’s stupid.”
Robin smiles, her eyes lighting up with victory like the Fourth of July. “You’re in love with him.”
I nod reluctantly. “I’m definitely getting there.”
“Did you tell him that before you left?”
“No. It’s too soon.”
“Too soon to be honest?”
“Too soon to put that on a guy. The timing of my leaving was shit. We’ve only known each other two months. It’s too soon to say ‘I love you,’ but it’s been long enough that I know there’s something there—something I’m not ready to be done with yet, and I don’t think he is either, but what are we supposed to do about it? We live in two different countries and he may as well be on the moon for as close as he is.”
“People do long distance all the time.”
“It seems like a lot to ask of a guy after two months—especially a guy who’s only twenty-one. I’m sure he’d rather be out partying and hooking up with randoms than sitting around waiting for time zones to line up and his sterile video chat session with his ball and chain to start.”
“He said he didn’t want to do that?”
I lower my head, letting my hair fall around my face slightly. “I didn’t ask him.”
“What the hell, Wren?!”
“He didn’t ask me either!”
“Did you not define anything with him before you left?”
“No.”
“Did you have sex with him?”
I brace my hands on the counter and lean forward, dropping my head down to hide my face behind my hair. To hide the heat flooding to my cheeks at the memory. My body instantly takes over and it’s so vivid and powerful that I feel breathless. Lost. Like I’m reaching for something that’s just out of my reach but I’m desperate for it. For the sound of his voice, the feel of his hands. The blue of his eyes.
“That’s a yes,” Robin says softly. Knowingly.
“He’s the one, Robin,” I whisper, looking up to meet her eyes pleadingly. “I know it. I don’t know how, but from the moment I met him I knew he was going to be big. And I… I’m still falling in love with him, still getting to know him, but I’m not worried because I already know he’s it. It’s like I’m watching a movie I’ve never seen but I know the ending. I know it’s all going to work out and I can sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s all just so fucking effortless, it’s unnatural.”
“Or maybe it’s effortless because it is natural. Because it’s real.” She stands up and hugs me gently. “Don’t borrow troubles, Wren. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be and don’t you dare run away from him because things are too easy. They won’t always be. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
Chapter Seventeen
Robin and Chris stay late, but then she starts to fade and she throws up and the party comes to an abrupt end. It was nice, though. It’s good to be home.
I say goodnight to my parents, and by the time I make it to my bedroom I’m dragging ass. The endless hours I’ve been awake and traveling come crashing down on me and I grab my laptop just before I flop down on the bed. I’ll fall asleep just like this with my clothes still on and the comforter underneath me, but first I have to check. I have to see if I have anything from Jax.
It takes forever for my computer to find the internet at the house and I worry it’s disconnected again. Dad has this weird thing about it being turned on all the time, convinced people will hack into all our information and steal our identities. He does all of his banking online from his phone for this very reason and I don’t know how to explain to him that it’s exactly the same thing.
Finally my computer finds a signal and I’m online, logging into my messaging account. I don’t have a lot of hope of catching him online considering it’s nine o’clock at night here and five in the morning in Germany. He gets up early for work, but not that early.
I smile into the cold white glow of my computer screen when a message pops up from him. Doing the math on the time stamp, it looks like he sent it just hours after dropping me off at the airport. He must have done it right when he got home.
Let me know when you get home so I know you’re safe. I miss you already.
I quickly type out a reply so he’ll see it when he wakes up.
I’m home, but I don’t know if I’m safe. My sister is pregnant and it’s making her bipolar. We live in fear.
I hit Send because I’m a loser.
Then I add, I miss you too, because I’m a loser who’s trying.
I doze off after that but I leave my computer on the nightstand next to me. And I le
ave it logged in.
Bing!
The sound of an incoming message pulls me from sleep and I look around, feeling confused. It takes a second to understand that I’m in my bedroom in Idaho. That it’s still dark outside and the middle of the night, but I’m surprisingly quick to do the math on what time it is in a foreign country.
My blurry eyes try to focus on the message from Jax.
Congrats to your sister. Stay strong. Be vigilant. My brother’s wife had a baby last year and she cried every day. That’s not an exaggeration, I mean that. It was scary.
Thanks. I need all the help I can get. She hugged me, yelled at me, and laughed at me all in the span of five minutes. I think I have whiplash.
I’ll send you a neck brace.
I grin, tapping my fingers over the keys absently, just lightly enough that I’m not engaging them. I don’t know what to say to him. I know all of the things I want to say, but I don’t know if they’re things I should say. I’m just about to tell him to have a good day at work when another message pops up.
Can I call you?
Do you have time?
Enough, yeah. I hope.
Yeah. You have my cell number, right? It’s turned back on now that I’m in the States again.
Dialing now.
I sit up in bed and grab my phone from the nightstand. I forget it’s on the charger and the second I pull it toward me it snaps back on the cord, disconnects, and falls into the wild no-man’s-land between my bed and nightstand. That special place small enough for a phone to fall but not big enough for a hand to fit.
It starts ringing from down there in Narnia.
I literally growl like an animal as I stumble over my laptop and onto the floor. I’m on all fours, reaching with fingers that are falling just too short to get the phone.
Four rings. Voicemail will kick in soon.
“Motherfrickin’ horseshit ball suck,” I rant in a low murmur, my fingers finally finding purchase on the screen and pulling it out toward me. “Got you, you little cock whore!”
It’s not ringing. I look down at the screen to see that I’ve answered the call already while I was pulling on it. Jax just heard me being insane.