You Don't Live Here

by Robyn Schneider

  “It’s grand theft auto,” I told him. “You can’t steal fire.”

  “You can totally steal fire,” he said. “Like, the Olympic Torch? What do you think you’d get charged for if you ran off with that?” He raised an eyebrow. “Grand theft arson.”

  I couldn’t help it, I snorted.

  “Whatever you did,” he went on, “can’t be as bad as that.”

  “Worse,” I said. “And now things are . . . over.”

  “It’s not like you two were dating,” Adam scoffed.

  I stiffened. And then I could sense the gears turning in that freakishly smart brain of his.

  “Noooo,” he said. “How did I miss it? You were totally dating!”

  “We were not,” I protested. But I could tell he didn’t believe me.

  Screw it, I thought. What did it matter if Adam knew?

  “Okay, yes, we were dating,” I admitted. “And then I messed up.”

  “Shit,” Adam said seriously. “Am I going to have to beat you up for hurting my sister?”

  “Or you could help us get back together?”

  Adam grinned.

  “I like that so much better.”

  Now that Adam was willing to help, all I had to do was come up with a plan. Everything seemed either too grand or not enough. I wasn’t looking for a huge romantic gesture, but I was hoping for a meaningful one.

  And then I remembered the conversation we’d had about Kintsugi. About reconstructing broken pottery with gold, and how the scars from being repaired were the most beautiful part.

  Lily had said it reminded her of me, and when I’d pointed out how the objects were only beautiful after they were put back together, she’d promised to hold on to me until I was whole again.

  It was the best thing anyone had ever said to me, because it was about brokenness, but it was also about hope.

  I went down to the garage and dug through the trash until I found the pieces of the plate I’d shattered. They looked so small and jagged. Like they weren’t anything anymore. Like no matter what you did, you’d never be able to reassemble them in any meaningful way.

  “Breakage is just part of the history,” I reminded myself.

  I washed them off and mixed together a concoction of glue and gold nail polish. And then I sat there, holding the plate until I could feel the glue drying, until there was nothing left to do but let go and hope.

  And so I did. Miraculously, it held. Before, the plate had been plain. Now, with the gold cracks running through it, it was worth noticing. It was special.

  I cut out a little square of paper and wrote: PORTKEY. Leads to lifeguard stand on chopped chiles beach at 7 p.m. If Portkey doesn’t work, come anyway.

  And then I texted Adam.

  “Hey,” he said, meeting me outside. “So what’s the plan?”

  “I need you to deliver this to Lily,” I told him, handing over the plate.

  “A broken plate?” Adam said skeptically, staring down at it.

  “It’s Kintsugi,” I told him. “And it’s not broken.”

  “It’s weird,” he said.

  “Your face is weird,” I told him.

  “Acceptable,” he pronounced, and then he nodded slowly. “Okay, fine, I’ll give her this exceptionally ugly ashtray, but only because riding to school in her cloud of gloom is seriously harshing my vibe.”

  “Trust me,” I told him. “You don’t have a vibe.”

  I changed my outfit and redid my hair about a million times that night before heading down to the beach. I didn’t know what to wear that simultaneously screamed, I’m sorry, take me back, and look how cute I am, but in the end, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a striped sweater, my army jacket, and skinny jeans, which is what I went with.

  “Sasha?” my grandfather asked, poking his head out of the den. He was playing a game on his new phone with the volume all the way up. “Going somewhere?”

  “Just walking down to the water,” I said, “if that’s okay?”

  I didn’t quite know the boundaries of what it meant to be grounded here.

  “Don’t forget your jacket. Or your phone,” my grandfather said, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Got both,” I told him.

  “Damn!” He grimaced at his phone. “Missed again. I’ve been trying to get that gold coin for half an hour.”

  “Um, if you’re really stuck, maybe google it?” I suggested.

  He stared at me in surprise.

  “That’s so smart,” he said.

  “Well, see you later,” I said, and then I slipped out the front door.

  I didn’t know what I was going to say to Lily. Just that it had to be good. And honest.

  The sun was fading fast as I walked toward the white Cape Cod–style house. Whoever lived there was home, and the whole house was lit up like a beacon, or a lighthouse.

  I doubted it would help me find my way.

  Lily was waiting for me at the top of the lifeguard stand. I’d pictured it differently, imagining how I would get there first, and how I’d see her small figure coming toward me, across the beach. How her hair would whip in the wind, and how she’d wave.

  Except I was the one doing that.

  Lily didn’t wave back.

  “Hi,” she said when I got there.

  “Hi,” I said, out of breath.

  I climbed up and sat next to her, and we were both silent for a moment as we stared out at the dark churn of the ocean. This was it. The end of everything. Or the beginning of everything, depending on your perspective. The total and complete edge of Bayport, of California, of the continental United States, and hopefully, hopefully, not of us.

  “I’m glad you came,” I said, smiling.

  “I felt like I tortured you enough,” Lily said. “You’re right, we do need to talk about what happened.”

  “Okay, good,” I said.

  “But I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say,” Lily said.

  “Before you do, can I please say something?” I asked.

  “Sure. It was your Portkey,” Lily said, shrugging.

  I took a deep breath. My heart was pounding, and I felt so nervous that I could barely sit still.

  “I’ve known for a while I was attracted to girls,” I said. “But it scared me, so I set it aside. And then I met you and I didn’t want to ignore it anymore. I literally couldn’t. You’re amazing, and I screwed up. I lied because it was easy, and because I didn’t think I’d get caught. But I did, and I made a mess. I’ve been trying to fix it. I want to fix it. Just—tell me how I can fix it.”

  Lily gave me a sad smile.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I don’t want to sneak around with you again. I’m not ashamed of myself, and I’m not going to hide who I am, or who I’m dating.”

  She stared down at her lap for a moment, and just when I thought she wasn’t going to say anything else, she said, in a rush, “You need to accept yourself, Sasha. You need to live your truth, whatever that means for you. But what that means for me is that I can’t be with someone who’s willing to live a fake life.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling awful.

  I’d thought—I don’t know what I’d thought. That Lily would take me back, that an apology would be enough if it came with a handmade gift and a little bit of fanfare.

  “I deserve better than this,” she went on. “I know you didn’t mean to treat me badly, but you did. I understand why, and I get that you’re sorry, but that doesn’t make it okay.”

  It hadn’t worked. My medium romantic gesture hadn’t been enough.

  I stared out at the ocean, blinking back tears. I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice thin and nothing, barely even a whisper. “Sorry.”

  “Me too,” Lily said.

  I glanced over at her, the stubborn set of her jaw, the defeated cast of her shoulders, the way the ocean breeze was rippling through her hair. And I thought, I want to kiss you here, on this lifeguard
stand that feels like ours. I want to press my lips against yours and pretend the force of it is what controls the tides, the ocean, everything. Except I couldn’t. Lily was right there, by my side, but that was only because she was willing to hear my apology, not because she’d forgiven me. She’d made that clear. And as much as I wished I’d been able to fix everything, I also knew that she was right.

  I didn’t deserve to get her back. Not like this, in secret, with the fresh-churned wake of my lies still trailing behind us.

  If I gathered up every decent part of myself, Lily still deserved more. I wanted to give her the universe and then all the parallel universes alongside it. Except I was too late: It was the game we’d played the night of our first kiss, where we watched the last airplanes land.

  Here we were, and it was 10:01 and now I had to keep going, even though I didn’t want to. Even though I was so close that I could see the lights twinkling from the runway. There wasn’t going to be an exception for me. At least, not tonight.

  Lily wanted to keep the distance between us. She wanted me to know that it wasn’t her job to lead me out of the closet, or to fix my brokenness. That those things were up to me. She was right. Of course she was. Just like she was right about deserving better.

  So I said goodbye, and that I was sorry, and I left her there, atop the lifeguard stand in the fading twilight.

  Chapter 29

  MY GRANDPARENTS DRAGGED ME TO THE club for Sunday brunch. Apparently being grounded wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card when it came to that kind of thing. So I ate my egg white and veggie omelet with a side of fruit, and smiled dutifully, and said hello to their friends.

  Whatever fragile okayness had knitted itself back together between us was still intact, and I wasn’t going to ruin it. I hadn’t realized how hard this holiday was for them, too. How maybe the way they’d blown up at me over Mock Trial was part of a bigger anger.

  Not that that excused anything. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Lily had said to me on the beach, how she deserved better than the way I’d treated her.

  The worst part was, she was right. In all of my most awful moments, Lily had been there, offering so much of herself. And what I’d offered back wasn’t nearly enough. Dating in secret, and breaking her heart with a boy who had hurt both of us, and leaving her in the ruinous aftermath of my lies.

  I picked at my omelet, which had gone cold and unappetizing. And then I went back to the buffet, loaded up a plate with pastries, and brought them back to our table without comment. My grandmother pursed her lips in disapproval, but my grandfather took one, mumbling that they looked good.

  And I thought: I get it now. Different people expect different things from me. And you can’t please everyone all of the time.

  When we were finally about to leave, Cole came over to our table, smiling sheepishly. The golden swoop of his hair was less swoopy, and there were purple smudges under his eyes. He looked exhausted.

  My grandparents, predictably, were thrilled to see him. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what was going on, since his family was on the opposite side of the banquet hall.

  “Hey, Sasha,” he said. Not, Hey, Freshman.

  “Hi,” I replied warily.

  “Is there any chance I could take you to dinner tonight?” he asked.

  “Um,” I said, confused. Was he still doing this? Pretending for our grandparents? I’d thought we had stopped. Or maybe I had stopped. I couldn’t remember. “I can’t, because I’m grounded. But thanks for asking.”

  “Right,” Cole said, looking disappointed. “I forgot.”

  “Actually—” my grandmother said. “I suppose it would be all right if you went, just for dinner.”

  I stared at her, surprised.

  “Wait—” I said.

  “Great,” Cole said. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  And before I could protest, he was gone.

  “What happened to being grounded?” I asked.

  My grandmother shrugged and took a sip of her coffee, her lipstick stamping the rim.

  “We want you kids to work things out,” she said.

  And my heart felt heavy, because I knew she was only saying that since it was Cole.

  I didn’t know why Cole had asked me to dinner, but I’d told enough lies already, and I was done. So I decided not to pretend it was any kind of special occasion. But when I came downstairs in jeans and Lily’s Shakespeare on the Hill hoodie, my hair in a messy bun, my grandmother was like, “Absolutely not, Sasha.”

  “It’s just dinner,” I said.

  “Your grandma’s right,” my grandfather said, padding into the room with the dog tucked under his arm. “Put on some makeup and a nice dress. Boys like that.”

  So do girls, I thought.

  “It’s rude to be underdressed,” my grandmother put in.

  I could tell I wasn’t getting out of this one, so I said fine and then went upstairs, putting on my floral dress and some mascara.

  “Much better,” my grandmother said when I came back down.

  Cole even rang the bell, instead of idling at the curb and texting. He came inside, chatted with my grandparents for a couple of minutes, and petted Pearl so enthusiastically that the dog actually sobbed when he put her down.

  “Sorry, tiny dog,” he said, “but we’d better go if we don’t want to miss our dinner reservation.”

  “Reservation?” I asked as we walked down the front steps.

  “Did you think I was taking you to In-N-Out?” he asked.

  “Um, yes?” I said, like it was obvious.

  And then he held open the car door for me.

  “Can you trust me and go with it? Please?”

  So I did. Because being friends meant trusting each other. And because I could see how hard he was trying.

  He took me to one of those hipster farm-to-table restaurants on the main stretch, the kind where the servers wear denim aprons and the appetizers are all flatbreads with truffle oil and cost like fourteen dollars.

  “Seriously?” I said when we sat down.

  “What?” Cole asked, like it wasn’t weird, and like everyone in the restaurant wasn’t twice our age.

  It was the kind of place I might have expected Lily to choose, but not Cole. I took a deep breath, suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of how Lily and I might never eat together again. Lily, who’d had so many places she’d wanted to share with me. Now, it wasn’t Lily sitting across the table, but Cole. He leaned back in his chair, his button-down shirt freshly ironed, and smiled at me.

  “You down for spicy?” he asked. “Because they have this bomb chorizo flatbread we could split as an app.”

  “Sure,” I said, wondering which alternate universe Cole had come from.

  The server came over, and Cole ordered the flatbread, and two Mexican Cokes.

  “They’re different from the regular ones—” he started to explain.

  “Because they have real cane sugar instead of corn syrup,” I finished. “Yeah. I know.”

  The Cokes came out right away, and I took a sip of mine, trying not to think of Lily. Cole gulped his down. God. He was such a boy.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “Full disclosure? I needed to get the hell out of the house,” Cole admitted. “This Thanksgiving break has been brutal.”

  “Archer?” I guessed, since his brother seemed to be the constant source of Cole’s misery.

  “You have no idea,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, because you never tell me,” I said.

  Cole chewed his lip for a moment before admitting, “He was my bad spotter. All of those times when I told you I got hurt during soccer. It was—well. He’d get into these dark moods, and he’d lash out. And he’d do shit like that on purpose.”

  “Cole,” I said. “That’s serious. You have to tell someone.”

  His face clouded.

  “I thought about it,” he said. “But I didn’t. And now it’s too late.”

  “It
’s not too late,” I said, trying to be encouraging.

  “Yeah, it is.” Cole let out a short, angry laugh. “He’s in a shit ton of trouble at school. He was dating this girl. And, uh, he got really drunk after his team lost a game, and he—fuck, I can’t believe this—he sexually assaulted her.”

  “Oh my god,” I said, staring at him in surprise.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s so bad. My whole family’s losing their mind over it. He might be expelled, and he’s already been kicked off the football team. And my dad was like, ‘He doesn’t deserve to lose his spot,’ and I said that actually he does, and there was a lot of yelling.”

  And then our server came over and was like, “Have you decided yet?”

  Cole gave the guy a look like, bro, come on. But the server just stood there, his pencil poised over his pad.

  “Um, I’ll have the pork belly banh mi,” Cole said, not even glancing at the menu. “Side of charred Brussels sprouts.”

  “Same,” I said.

  “Excellent choice. Your flatbread will be right up,” the server said, disappearing.

  “Is the girl okay?” I asked, worried.

  “I think she will be,” Cole said. “She might press charges. And while all of this has been going on, it made me think. And I realized that I owe you a big apology. How I behaved at my homecoming party was messed up.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say at all.

  “Yeah,” Cole went on. “I’m really sorry, Sash. I acted just like him. And then I asked you to be quiet about it. I just—I really screwed up, and I feel like shit.”

  He stared at me across the table, through his eyelashes, and I didn’t know what to say. I’d thought we were here as a joke, or a dumb promise to his parents. I hadn’t realized he’d asked me out to dinner for real.

  He was still staring at me, waiting for me to say something, to acknowledge his apology.

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “You did screw things up. You can’t treat people like that. It isn’t okay.”

  “I know,” Cole said seriously. “Believe me, I know. My brother was this hero to me as a kid. I wanted to be just like him. And then, I didn’t. But it was too fucking late. When Lily pulled you away from me at that concert, it hurt. She acted like I was unsafe. And the worst part was, she wasn’t wrong.”