Cross Country Hearts

by Suzanne August

I groan. “Can’t we be nice to each other for once?”

  “I could agree with that,” Jasper begins, wiping his mouth with his napkin, “but I don’t really have anything nice to say.” He digs for another spoonful of ice cream. “I know nothing about you, anyway. There’s nothing we could discuss.”

  At least he sounds earnest when he says that and not mean. I fall silent because he’s right. Sure, I know Jasper is on the swim team, that he draws, and that his cousin is marrying my sister. But I don’t swim, I hate his paintings, and I’d rather not think about how, in a couple of days, our families are going to be forever linked.

  Jasper is right. We know nothing about each other, which is another reason this road trip is likely to fail. But I don’t want it to.

  I’ve never been the person to take the first leap. On that account, I suppose Jasper is right. I’ve always been Melanie’s follower, indifferent to what I want because Melanie has always provided a safe path. Yet, I feel that if I’m going to survive days on the road with Jasper, we’re going to have to start getting along, and I mean really start getting along.

  Enough of this shaky truce we have going on. I take a deep breath, hiding my shaking hands under the table. “So… tell me about this life you claim to have.”

  Ten

  “You were going to pass out, King.”

  I wince. I could have worded that better.

  “This life you claim to have?” Jasper mouths my words back at me, but he only looks bemused. Instead of answering, he continues to eat.

  “Right,” I say. Because I need to keep my hands busy to hide the shaking, I pick up one of the s’mores and take a bite. I swallow, then add, “Just… tell me something. I don’t care what.”

  Jasper grins and turns his head from one side to the other. Like I’ve come to expect, he doesn’t immediately answer. He’s wearing his thinking expression, so although he continues to shovel down fries and ice cream, I wait for him to answer because I know by now that he eventually will.

  It’s an odd trait, I decide, to take your time to think out and put together every word you’re going to say aloud. It would make me wonder if what he says when he does speak is honest and straightforward. Somehow though, I get the feeling that he only ever strives to tell the truth. And I don’t mind, anyway. It’s interesting.

  Jasper wipes his hand with his napkin and throws it over his empty plate. “Well,” he starts. “I used to live in Maryland.”

  I wait for him to go on. To turn this one statement into a long speech like I know he’s capable of, but he doesn’t. I raise my chin, positioning my hand under it and resting my elbow on the table. “Yeah?

  Jasper moves on to finish his ice cream, looking down at the cup. “I lived down there when my parents were alive. After, I lived with my grandma. But when I was fourteen, she fell and couldn’t walk as much anymore. It was hard for her to take care of me, so she sent me to my uncle in Boston.”

  “Carlisle’s dad?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “That explains why you’re close to him,” I say. Finally, one mystery solved.

  Jasper shrugs and continues. “Anyway, my closest friends live in Maryland. I go down every July to spend a month with my grandmother. It’s the best part of the whole year. My friends are lunatics. Creative lunatics. They come up with these crazy schemes that you’ll be able to tell stories about for the rest of your life.”

  Interesting. “What are their names?”

  “Lila, Thomas, and Ren,” he answers immediately. He grins, but since the smile is directed at the ice cream, I assume he’s smiling about memories he has of them.

  “Okay,” I prompt, “go on.”

  Jasper laughs. “One time last year, Thomas found out where his principal lives, but instead of egging his house or forking the lawn, he decided to paint his driveway in the middle of the night. We all tagged along to do it.”

  “You painted a driveway? Not to be negative, but that doesn’t sound too creative.”

  “You can’t get rid of yellow and black paint as easily as egging the place or throwing toilet paper in a tree,” he points out. “Besides, we got creative with it.”

  With the way he’s smiling at me, I get the picture of what they painted.

  “My friends can’t go a week without the police getting involved during the summer, whether the police know it’s them or not,” Jasper goes on. “Lila works at a donut shop. Once, to play a prank on the police, she took a whole bunch of leftover donuts and super glued them to police cars. Ren once made huge foot impressions in the sand at the beach, and the whole town, whether or not skeptical if an animal made them, buzzed about it for the entire summer—until Thomas let it slip that Ren did it.”

  I watch Jasper as he talks about his Maryland friends. He scrapes at the bottom of his ice cream cup, and when that’s done, he starts reaching for the s’mores. Not once does he look my way while he’s talking about them. The smile he wears isn’t for me, but for the memories of the friends he sees only every once in a while.

  At some point in the past few hours—hell, maybe even yesterday—I’ve started to realize that I’ve judged this person sitting in front of me. I’ve made fun of him. I’ve harassed him. I’ve called him a loner and weirdo and a maniac. Arguably, he’s not any of those. He’s just a normal person who was unlucky enough to have Melanie single him out and bully him.

  It doesn’t change the fact that he’s judged me too. I don’t think he’s innocent, but since last night I’ve come to understand where I’ve been wrong, and a seed of guilt has started to grow in my chest. How could I have ever bullied a person I never once spoke to?

  What does that make me? Am I the horrible bully and the obedient soldier on the inside that he portrayed me as? I can’t even begin to understand myself at this moment, even though I feel who I am is justified.

  “June?”

  I blink and refocus on Jasper. He’s looking at me with that one eyebrow arched.

  “Are you even listening anymore?” he asks dryly.

  “Yeah,” I reply. I answer too fast because the corners of his mouth dip down. I sigh. “No, I wasn’t. I was thinking.”

  “You’re the one who asked me to tell you about this ‘life I claim to have.’”

  “I know.” I glance down at my hands. At least they’re not shaking anymore, though they curl tightly around my cup of unfinished ice cream. “Jasper, you talk about your friends in Maryland, but what about the ones in Boston?”

  Jasper stands, collecting the empty paper plates and boxes into one pile. “I have friends in Boston, but the only reason they’re my friends is because… well, we all have one thing in common.”

  I start to stand too. “What’s that?”

  He waits until I lift my gaze so that we’re looking directly at each other. “Melanie hates us.”

  I stare at him, and his dark brown eyes stare right back. His book is open. He’s chosen to let me see how much I’ve affected his life for all the years he’s lived in Boston. It’s not something I want to see when I’ve already been having feelings of guilt for the past twenty minutes.

  Jasper’s gaze isn’t quite judgmental, though. That’s not exactly what he’s trying to get across to me. I think he’s trying to say that he blames Melanie more than me or anyone else, but he still wants me to know how much I’m at fault too.

  I’m the first to look away, grabbing for my bag sitting on the table. “Jasper—”

  “Look,” He interrupts. He waits until I raise my eyes, then lifts my discarded cup of ice cream. “They’ve all melted, and the s’mores are gone. Let’s go back to the rides.”

  It takes me a moment to adjust to the sudden change in topic, though I recognize this bridge he’s building for me. Shrugging on my sweater and the bag’s strap over a shoulder, I say, “I thought you weren’t going to go on any more rides.”

  “Talking about my friends has made me realize that they would never stop harassing me if I stopped short of riding a rol
ler coaster because I had to throw up.” Jasper picks up the trash and takes it to the trash can. “Lila would drag me all the way back here and make me ride one. Let’s go.”

  “You’re going to ride a roller coaster?” I clarify, and all I do is stare at him skeptically.

  He glances at me. “We’ll have to work up to it. The starship ride was scary enough.”

  I’m doubtful. It was an hour ago that he was puking after only looking at a roller coaster. “You were going to pass out, King.”

  “No, I was just throwing up,” he corrects, but I see him swallow before he goes on. “You’ve got to be patient with me, Pierce. We’re going to work up to it, and by the time we leave, we’ll have gone on at least one.”

  When I don’t respond, he adds, “You’ve been trying to get me to go on rides all day. You can’t say no.”

  “No, it’s just…” And despite myself, I laugh. “I should’ve asked you about your friends from the very beginning.”

  He wears the same lopsided grin he had when he was talking about his friends. “You’ve got to be patient, all right? Can you do that, Judith Pierce?”

  “It’s June,” I correct. “And yeah, I think I can do that.”

  And probably to prove to me that he isn’t scared of heights, Jasper chooses to go on the Ferris wheel first. It provides a spectacular view of the park, and I make sure to take as many pictures as possible to show Georgia later.

  Like the Ferris wheel, the rides we go on after are more for sightseeing and leisure than anything closely related to a thrill ride. I want to make quips that it’s going to take days to work up to a roller coaster at the rate we’re going, but I force myself to stay quiet. I try to be patient. But surprisingly, Jasper doesn’t disappoint. He may start with rides I’ve been going on since I was five years old, and he may look like a ghost for the better part of the day, but each time, after each ride, he says, “Give me a minute.”

  I don’t respond, though I do make sure he drinks water. And when he finishes with his water bottle, I hand over my own.

  He grasps my water bottle like it’s a life-saving liquid, but when he looks up, I think we both realize that this is the first gift, per se, that I’ve ever given him. He raises the bottle in a small salute—to what, I’m not sure—and gulps half the bottle’s contents right there.

  Before I know it, the hours are flying by. I’ve forgotten that I’m supposed to be Jasper’s bully, and he’s my victim. I’ve forgotten that we’re supposed to hate each other, and I’ve forgotten that I wished Georgia were here instead of Jasper King. This feeling creeps up on me. I’m actually having fun.

  I’m laughing with Jasper. I’m joking with him. We’re making conversations that don’t include insults or throwing words at each other. I learn things about Carlisle I never learned from my sister. I hear even more about the crazy schemes his friends from Maryland have pulled. I tell him about Georgia and how she’s my ride or die. I tell him I’m more friends with April than a sister.

  The hours melt away. As the noon sun dips into the horizon to create dusk, Jasper finally declares he’s ready for a roller coaster.

  I’m still skeptical. “Really?”

  He bobs his head sharply. “Really.”

  “You’re not going to throw up, are you?”

  He shrugs. “I’m going to try not to.”

  Well, all right. I let him pick the roller coaster.

  It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for since we arrived. It’s dusk by the time we get on it, but it’s the most magnificent time of day. We strap in, Jasper by my side. His hands grip the iron bar in front of his seat, and his head is down while we ascend to the top of the roller coaster’s first dip. It’s the ride’s highest point that comes before the thrill.

  “Look, Jasper,” I say. “Look up.”

  The sun is setting in the trees, and it’s my favorite time of the day. The blue sky has transformed into its own unique painting, and I have a seat high up to watch it. For a moment, anyway.

  Jasper shakes his head. He doesn’t see it, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because suddenly, we’re no longer climbing, and instead, we’re declining at a speed that makes me scream. Adrenaline pounds through my veins.

  After, I have enough time to rush Jasper over to a trashcan before he lets go. I stand awkwardly to the side until he finishes.

  I hand him another water bottle. “You okay?”

  He nods slowly. “Yeah.”

  “I’m guessing you’re never going to go on another roller coaster again in your lifetime?”

  To my surprise, he laughs. He shakes his head. “No, I think this is the first and last time.”

  I can’t help but grin. “Regret it?”

  “Hell no,” he says. “You can tell my friends yourself that I overcame my fear and rode a roller coaster.”

  He hands me back my water bottle. I take it, capping it off. “Really. And when am I ever going to meet your friends?”

  “Well,” Jasper begins, “we need somewhere to stay the night, right?”

  I pause, my hand still on the bottle’s cap. “Right…”

  “Instead of wasting your mother’s money or my cousin’s money on another motel, let’s go stay with my friends for free in Maryland.”

  “You want me to meet your friends?” I ask.

  “Why not?”

  “For all that I’ve bullied you over the years, haven’t they heard you rant ugly things about me?”

  He shrugs. “They don’t know much about my life in Boston. Besides, you’re not important enough to rant about, Pierce.

  I have to think about it for a moment, and Jasper lets me. He makes a good point about not having to spend money on yet another motel. Having a free place to stay would help a lot, but I still hesitate. Do I want to meet his friends? Even though I’ve enjoyed the past few hours with him, I’m still acutely aware of how fragile this truce between Jasper and me is.

  Still, if what Jasper has told me about them is true, they might scheme up an entire day of spontaneousness. That sounds like a tempting adventure.

  “All right,” I relent. “Let’s go. As long as you promise it’s not a five-hour drive.”

  Jasper’s smile tugs into an excited grin. “They live right outside Baltimore. It’ll only be a couple of hours.”

  Eleven

  “Bring your grandma’s cookies!”

  I drive into a small town outside of Baltimore just after midnight. The GPS on my phone no longer says twelve miles before making a turn but is now “take a left” in five hundred feet, followed by subsequent turns immediately after. Jasper is asleep in shotgun. After he told me the address and had me plug it into my phone, he curled up against the car door and left me alone with my thoughts.

  I shake Jasper’s shoulder once I make another turn. The GPS says we’ll be at the destination in ten minutes.

  “Haven’t managed to crash yet?” Jasper’s mumbling voice is heavy with sleep. He straightens in shotgun, raising his hands to rub at his eyes.

  “Hardy har har,” I say. “I think we’re almost there.”

  Jasper takes in a long, slow breath and opens his eyes fully. He leans closer to my side of the dashboard, where my phone is attached to a stick so I can see it better. After squinting at the screen, he turns his attention to the window. I hear the smile in his voice when he says, “Yeah, this is it.”

  “Glad to be back?”

  “You have no idea.”

  I probably don’t. I grew up in Boston. I’ve lived in the same home since I was a newborn. Unlike Jasper, I’ve never known another home.

  “Whose house are we going to?” I ask.

  “Lila’s,” he says. “Or Ren’s. They live in the same apartment complex.”

  “Tell me more about them.”

  I ask because for every moment he slept, I became more and more paranoid, wondering about these three people I’ve never met. Would they like me? Was this detour a good decision? I need the information to make me feel
better. I need to know that his friends won’t think the same things Jasper feels about me.

  But all he says is, “You’ll meet them soon enough.”

  “Have you told them I’m with you?”

  “Uh…” His sleepy grin turns sheepish. “I haven’t told them anything.”

  I take a moment to process this. To understand what he means. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you saying they have no idea that we’re coming?”

  “They take surprises well.”

  “What about their parents?”

  He snorts. “They love me. They would never turn me away.”

  “You’re showing up on their doorstep in the middle of the night!” Even though I’m driving, I throw a hand up from the steering wheel, waving it above my head. “And you have a random girl with you.”

  “No, you’re my cousin’s wife’s sister. You’re hardly random,” he mumbles. When I glance in his direction, though, the reason he slurs his words is more likely because of the bags under his eyes and how his head bobs, and not because he’s embarrassed.

  “Jasper, call Lila or Ren right now,” I demand.

  His eyes draw away from the window and settle on me. “You called me by my first name.”

  “What?” I glance at him again. “I’ve called you Jasper before.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “I have, and don’t change the subject. Call someone.”

  He lets out a long, drawn-out breath. “I’m not calling anyone. Stop freaking out. You’re going to get us into a car crash.”

  “I will not!” I stare at him when I say this, which I suppose, in retrospect, is a bad idea. In the next moment, I stomp on my breaks so I don’t get dangerously close to the car in front of me.

  Jasper swears. “I’m having Thomas teach me to drive!”

  “You’re not driving this car!”

  “Then stop trying to kill us!”

  My hands grip the steering while I try to take deep, even breaths. Near car accident aside, I’m not letting the subject change. “We can’t just show up on someone’s doorstep uninvited.”