Whatever Happens

by Smeltzer, Micalea

  I can’t stop my grin as I take a slow sip and nod. “You remembered?”

  He shrugs and scoots over, silently offering me a place to sit beside him. I perch my butt on the wooden stairs, our bodies so close that our clothes brush against each other with every movement.

  “I would’ve brought you something,” I tell him, knocking my knee against his playfully. He doesn’t retreat and it feels like some sort of small win. “I wasn’t sure what you were up to today.”

  “It’s okay,” he murmurs, staring ahead.

  “Have any plans?”

  He shakes his head, his dark hair tumbling into his eyes. “My mom’s working so…”

  “So, you’re home alone?” I raise a brow.

  He nods, looking down at his sneakers.

  “Do you … want to come to my house?”

  I wouldn’t normally invite a boy over to my house without my parents being there, but this is Finn and the chances of something happening are slim to none.

  Even if I want to kiss him more than anything.

  The thought hits me like a ton of bricks collapsing on top of me, but it’s true. More and more I’m imagining how his lips would feel against mine. Would they be pillow soft? Or firm? Would he hold my cheeks, or just stand there? Would he even want to kiss me or is it nothing but a far off hope for me?

  “Do you want me to come to your house?” I’m surprised by his counter, but from the look of disbelief on his face I know he’s probably never been invited to a friend’s house.

  “Sure. My parents won’t mind.”

  “Now?”

  “Now’s fine.”

  He stands up and Jack instantly rises with him. Despite the fact Jack isn’t wearing his service vest today he’s clearly in tune with everything Finn does.

  He follows me over to my house where I enter the garage code and wheel my bike inside. He watches the garage door go down after I push the button.

  “You coming?” I ask, my hand on the door to the inside.

  His head swivels back to me. “Can I see your ferret?”

  I grin, my cheeks coloring. I don’t know why it makes me so ridiculously happy that he remembered my ferret.

  “Come on, this way.”

  Once inside, I head for the stairs to my room, but when I don’t hear the echo of his steps behind me I turn around to look.

  Finn stands at the bottom of the staircase, both hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, with Jack at his side tongue lolling out.

  “What’s wrong?” My hand hovers over the bannister.

  “Will Jack scare Will? Maybe this is a bad idea.” His eyes dart around the unfamiliar space, his shoulders tight with unease.

  I turn back around and descend the steps, stopping on the second to last one. His eyes meet mine for the briefest of seconds before he stares at my nose and then looks at his shoes.

  “Jack won’t bother Will, I promise. Will’s used to other animals.”

  “But Jack is big and ferrets are small.”

  I smile, itching to brush his tousled hair away from his forehead. “We had a dog a couple of years ago. Jack is nothing Will can’t handle, and much better behaved than the wild dog we had.” I can tell Finn is still unsure, but I stick out my pinky finger. “Come on,” I urge, wiggling my finger.

  He presses his lips together and then smiles, and that smile alone makes my entire stomach flip and turn, exploding with butterflies.

  His finger hooks in mine and he follows behind me up the steps. Jack sprints past us and stops at the landing, tail wagging.

  Our fingers don’t drop as I lead him down the hall to my bedroom. I ease the door open and pause as he gets his first look at my bedroom.

  “This is … my room.” It’s an unnecessary statement, but one I make anyway.

  His eyes roam over every bit. From the walls, to my bed, dresser, desk, and even the floor. I don’t think he misses a single detail. He finally let’s go and walks over to the wall where I stuck up my photos. He hones in on one and points.

  “Your sister.” It’s a statement, not a question.

  I walk up beside him and look at the photo he’s pointing to. It’s Luna and I, Christmas morning when I was twelve and she was nine. We’re in matching red and green plaid flannel pajamas. I stand behind her with my arms wrapped around her. Horrendous blunt bangs cover my forehead and my hair sticks up with static. Braces cover my teeth and baby fat still rounds my cheeks. Luna’s hair is long and curly. Her head is tilted back, smiling up at me like I’m her whole world. It’s one of my favorite pictures of us.

  “This is a more recent one.” I point to another of me dressed up for spirit day at school. Luna and I pose outside our old house—my old house, considering it’s the only home she ever knew—our backs are to each other and we’re making finger guns like Charlie’s Angels.

  “You look different,” Finn muses. He continues to study all my photos.

  “How?” I prompt. “How do I look different?”

  “Your eyes.” His fingers touch the edge of a photo of me laughing on a swing set with one of my old friends. “They’re different now.”

  He turns away from the photo and faces me. He’s probably pushing six feet tall, so he’s plenty taller than me. I have to tilt my head back to face him, but I don’t mind. His eyes scan my face, but never meet my own icy blue hues.

  “Tell me how they look.” My voice is soft, shaky. He steps closer to me and my breath catches with an embarrassing gasp.

  He reaches out and I hold the air in my lungs as he grabs a piece of my hair between his fingers. He rubs it between his thumb and forefinger, puzzlement on his face as if he’s trying to decide whether he likes the feel of it or not.

  “They look…” His eyes zero in on my lips and I involuntarily lick them. “They look like a raging arctic sea. Like there shouldn’t be hope for getting to the other side, but there is. What gives you hope, Violet?”

  “Laughing with my mom in the kitchen,” I whisper in answer. “Movie nights with my parents. Appreciating the simplest things as if I’m only witnessing them for the first time. But I find the most hope in a meadow beneath the stars with the boy next door.” His lips quirk and tears sting my eyes. “With you, Finn. I find hope with you. It’s not the wishes we need, right?” I choke. “It’s the hope.” I reach out unwillingly, grasping the fabric of his shirt in my hands. He straightens, but doesn’t pull away.

  “Why me?” I guess it’s his turn for a question, rightfully so.

  “Why not you?” I counter, my fingers flexing against his sides.

  “You’re too good for someone like me. You deserve someone better. Someone normal. Someone who can look you in the eye.” He swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “I choose you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can.”

  Before I can give myself a second to think, because I know I’ll change my mind, I stand on my tiptoes, cupping his jaw in my hand as I angle his mouth to mine. I press my lips to his and he’s frozen against me. His hands don’t touch me. His lips don’t even move at first. But then he melts against me, his body turning from ice to fluid. Hesitant hands touch my cheeks and he kisses me back gently.

  There is no tongue, it’s not the wild passionate kissing you see in movies, but it’s perfect nonetheless.

  Letting him go, I step back and he raises shaky fingers to his lips.

  “You kissed me.”

  It’s not a question, but I answer anyway.

  “I did.”

  “Why?” He lets his fingers drop to his side. His eyes are wide behind his glasses, stunned and in complete disbelief.

  “Because I choose you,” I repeat. “Because I can.” I exhale a shaky breath and give him a small hesitant smile. “Because I want to.”

  “You shouldn’t want me.” He shakes his head.

  “But I do.”

  “I’m not good for you.”

  “Finn—” I start to argue, but he
shuts me down with a change of subject.

  “I want to see your ferret. I came to see him. To see Will. I didn’t come here to see you. The ferret. I want to see him.” He’s breathless as he blurts out each short sentence with a jerky but firm hand, his eyes glued to the wood floor beneath our feet.

  “R-Right,” I stutter, stepping further away from him. Any warmth I felt a moment before being so close to him is gone, only icy cold in its place.

  I pad across my room to Will’s cage and he runs eagerly to get let out. I scoop him into my arms and face Finn.

  “Finn, meet Will Ferret. Will Ferret, this is Finn.”

  Finn smiles, cocking his head to the side as he assesses the little creature in my arms.

  “Nice to meet you, Will.” He reaches out and gently shakes my ferret’s tiny paw. “I’m sorry Violet gave you such a horrible.”

  “It’s not horrible.” I jut my lower lip out in defense. “Do you want to hold him?”

  He looks down at Jack and back at me. “Jack might get jealous.”

  “How about this, I’ll snuggle Jack while you play with Will so he doesn’t feel left out?”

  He ponders my words and shrugs his shoulders. “Okay.”

  He holds his hands out and I hand over Will. He laughs when Will wiggles against his face.

  “He’s soft.”

  “And a wiggle worm,” I add, dropping to my knees so I can scratch Jack behind his ears. He hardly seems jealous, but I want to assuage Finn’s worries.

  “I like him,” he announces.

  “Ferrets are cool little creatures. I call him a sausage hamster,” I confess, laughter lilting my voice.

  “Why?” His brows furrow. “He’s a ferret. Not a hamster.”

  Sometimes I forget how literal Finn takes things, but it doesn’t bother me. It just gives me more of a chance to talk to him.

  “Yeah, I know, it’s just a silly thing, you know because hamsters are short but he’s long like a sausage link.”

  “Oh,” he replies, but I know he still doesn’t think it makes much sense.

  He snuggles Will for a few more minutes before he passes him back over. I tuck Will back into his cage and Finn follows me downstairs, Jack trailing behind him. He stands in the foyer with his hands in his pockets. Like in my room, his eyes drift around, landing on every surface like he wants to memorize the exact items and their placement in my home.

  I’m not ready to say goodbye. It’s silly, but it’s true, so I blurt, “It’s almost lunchtime. Would you want to stay?”

  “Stay?”

  “For lunch.” I clear my throat, fearing my cheeks are blazing pink. I can’t stop thinking about the kiss. It was simple, but perfect. However, I can’t help but be worried about his reaction. He’s acting like nothing happened, but I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten it. Finn seems to have an endless memory when it comes to everything.

  He twists his lips back and forth in thought, looks behind him at the door, and finally at me. I expect him to say he has to go, but he doesn’t.

  “Lunch would be nice.”

  A huge smile breaks across my face, my heart soaring my chest. “Come on, I’ll start making us sandwiches.”

  He follows me into the kitchen and I point for him to sit on one of the stools. He doesn’t, instead he roams through the kitchen picking up knick-knacks and studying them before returning them to the exact spot and position they were in previously. I pull out ingredients for a sandwich and look at him over my shoulder.

  “Turkey, cool? What do you want on it?”

  He pauses, toying with a pen from my dad’s job between his fingers.

  “I like turkey.”

  “What do you want on it?” I ask again.

  He puts the pen down, his tongue sliding out briefly to wet his lips. “Tomato, lettuce, onion, and mayonnaise.”

  “You got it.” I start getting everything cut up and ready to put together. “Ugh,” I complain, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt. “Why do onions make you cry? This is the worst.”

  It’s a rhetorical question, but Finn answers anyway, spinning away from one of the pantry cabinets that has the school calendar taped to it with important events and days off.

  “Onions produce a chemical irritant. It stimulates your tear ducts and that’s why you cry.” He pauses by the island and grabs an orange from the wooden bowl, spinning it around and looking for imperfections in the surface.

  “Good to know.” I finish with the onions and wash my hands before I grab a tissue and clean my eyes free of stinging tears.

  All that’s left is to build our sandwiches, so I do that and pull several bags of chips from the pantry.

  “Pick your poison, ” I joke, spreading the options on the counter.

  “Huh?” A brow peaks and he looks at me in confusion.

  “Pick which one you want,” I clarify.

  He bites his lip and seems to be weighing his options seriously. Finally he reaches out and picks the Cool Ranch Doritos snack size pack.

  “Good choice.” I put the other two away and grab another Doritos pack for myself.

  We carry our plates over to the table and he sits down across from me.

  “This is … nice, Violet.”

  “I hope it’s good.” I take a bite, and immediately have to wipe mayonnaise from the corner of my lip. We both chuckle and the easy camaraderie is nice, but I still wish I knew what he thought of the kiss.

  Did I just take him by surprise? Did he not like it? Or does he just not want to kiss me?

  But I can’t ask him any of those questions. Not because he’s autistic, but because I like him. When you like a boy, rejection is scary and sucks. He already seemed flustered about the kiss. I don’t want to have to force him to tell me he doesn’t like me in that way. I’d rather be his friend than nothing at all.

  He takes a bite of chip, crunching on it as he looks out the back window of the kitchen at the deck and the meadow beyond.

  His gaze slowly drift backs to me. “Will I see you tonight?”

  I try to suppress the butterflies assaulting my stomach, because his question means nothing. “Probably,” I answer, even though it’s most definitely.

  “Good,” he muses, looking outside again. “Would you want to look through my telescope?”

  “That sounds fun.” I grab a napkin from the holder on the table and wipe my hands.

  “Telescopes are like a portal,” he replies softly, his head downcast with his eyes on his plate. “They show you a whole other world, that down here you think surely can’t exist. But it does. It’s out there. It’s real. As real as you or me. Whatever happens to us, to Earth, that’s always going to exist in some way. Space is infinite. We don’t know how far it goes, what’s truly out there, none of it.”

  “Do you think there are aliens?” I can’t help joking with him.

  “I think it’s naïve to think we’re the only intelligent life form to exist. I believe life exists in some way out there, we just haven’t found it yet. If outer space is infinite, isn’t life, therefore, infinite too?” He tilts his head to the side. “Or at least the possibility of it? You can’t rule out other lives until you’ve explored all those galaxies, planets, on and on. The mistake we make as humans is thinking other life means exactly like us and what we know. Life can be anything. Even bacteria is alive.”

  “Wow.” I’m taken aback by his speech.

  He looks out the window, toward the sky now. “One day I’ll be up there. I’ll see it all. Experience it. The awe. The beauty.”

  I hope more than anything he does get that experience. He deserves it more than anyone I know.

  “I believe you.” My voice is barely above a whisper as I choke on emotion. I want that for him. I want it more than anything.

  “No one else does.”

  “I do.” I reach across the table, extending my pinky, and after a short hesitation he returns the gesture. “Prove them wrong, Finn.”

  His eyes meet mine.r />
  One second.

  Two.

  Three—

  They drop.

  “I will.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I watch out the window for Finn to come outside. It’s not like this is any different than usual. I wait for him lots of nights, but somehow this feels bigger than those nights.

  When I finally see him step outside, it’s my cue to leave.

  I’m already dressed warmly, my feet stuffed into a pair of fuzzy boots.

  I slip outside and into the dark, carefully making my way from our yard to his, up the deck, to stop in front of him beside his giant telescope.

  It’s huge, not like anything I’ve ever seen before. I’ve noticed it from my house, but up close it’s even bigger, almost the size of me. Holding out a hesitant hand, my palm hovers above the edge of the telescope.

  Letting my hand drop back to my side I face Finn.

  “Hi.”

  Why does this boy make me so ridiculously awkward?

  “Hi.” His voice echoes into the night, the faintest hint of his breath fogging the air. “You can … you can look.” He sweeps his hand toward the telescope.

  I want to tell him I am looking. I’m looking at him, and as long as I’m looking at him I don’t need a night full of stars. He’s brighter than them all, he just can’t see it.

  I don’t say any of that. Instead, I lower my head and peer through the lens. A gasp emits from my throat. I’ve never looked through a telescope and it’s nothing like I would’ve expected. It’s…

  “Magic,” I whisper.

  “Magic doesn’t exist. This does.”

  My body tingles, tightening when I feel the barest pressure of Finn’s fingertips against my back.

  “It’s beautiful,” I murmur, and it is. “W-What’s that I’m seeing?” I try to point with my finger in the night sky to what I see through the telescope.

  “Saturn,” he answers, his voice close to my ear. His presence is all around me. I’m consumed by it. Lost in him.

  Drowning.

  Not too long ago I wanted to drown in memories. Now I just want to drown in Finn.

  “It’s incredible.”

  I’m running out of adjectives, but the view through the lens is so astounding that adequate words fail me.