What If

by Rebecca Donovan

  "Tally," she says. "I'm six."

  "What are we making today?" a boy with a head full of dark curls asks, leaning over the table and picking up a pink flower with a worried expression. He's not hooked up to a machine. "Not girl stuff. I'll puke."

  "We're making these." Nyelle pulls a sword out of the bag. The blade is wrapped with tinfoil, and the hilt is decorated with plastic flowers. Heart stickers run the length of the blade. "Don't worry, Jacob. You can design yours however you want. You don't have to use the flowers. Unless you want to." She smiles at him.

  "Ew!" he exclaims. He reminds me of Rae as a kid, making me laugh.

  "Do you have anything for princesses?" a girl with the biggest blue eyes I've ever seen asks. Her little bald head only makes her round eyes that much bigger.

  "Princesses can have swords," Nyelle says, sitting in a blue chair next to her.

  The girl looks confused. "But then what about the prince?" She looks up at me. My eyes widen. "Doesn't he need a sword to rescue you?"

  Nyelle laughs. "I don't need any rescuing. And neither do you. That's why you get to make your own sword, so you can fight for yourself. Maybe we'll have to rescue him." Nyelle leans in and whispers, "I think you look like you could slay a dragon all by yourself. Him... not so much."

  The girl glances at me and giggles.

  Something is pulling at my pants. I look down. There's a small boy wearing a baseball hat staring at me. A machine is beeping next to him. I kneel down.

  "My mom says I'm not supposed to play with guns or swords," he tells me in a low voice.

  I pause, looking to Nyelle to bail me out. But she's working with the blue-eyed girl. "Um... I guess we'll just have to make you a shield then, huh?"

  The boy smiles and nods.

  We spend the next several hours helping construct shields and swords. The kids are pretty funny. And they don't care that I have no idea what I'm doing.

  "That's a pretty cool flame sword," I tell Jacob, helping him wrap the handle in black electrical tape

  "I know it is," he brags, taking it from me and thrusting it into the air.

  "I didn't know you were artistic," Nyelle says, as I help a boy make his sword look like a road with trucks driving on it.

  "I'm not," I respond quietly, so the boy doesn't overhear. "But they're not that critical."

  Nyelle nods toward the girl with the big blue eyes, who's been sitting next to me the entire time. She's strategically placing heart stickers on her rainbow sword. "I think Isabel has a crush on you."

  When I look over at the girl, her face lights up with a bashful smile.

  "Yeah, I think she's got me," I lean over and whisper to Nyelle. "It's the blue eyes--they make me weak." Nyelle's cheeks flush.

  Isabel approaches me while I'm picking up the last of the stickers, getting ready to leave. I squat down so I'm closer to her size. She holds her hand up to my ear and whispers, "You don't have to be afraid. I'll rescue you."

  "Thanks," I whisper back. She places a heart sticker on my hand and rushes away. I look down at it with a smile.

  I watch Nyelle give hugs and high fives before we go. The happiness that she brought into their world is etched on their faces. Despite everything they're going through, they're still just kids. And regardless of what she went through to be here, she shouldn't be anywhere else.

  "Kids aren't so bad. Well, at least these kids aren't," I admit while we're walking to the truck.

  Nyelle laughs. "These kids are amazing."

  When we get to the truck, I turn toward her, pulling her to me with my hands on her waist.

  "So it there anything else?"

  Nyelle eyes me curiously. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, let's see... You voluntarily walk the sketchiest streets in Crenshaw to make sure a homeless man doesn't freeze to death. You help little kids fight their dragons. You tutor a stripper..." I quickly correct myself when Nyelle glares at me. "I mean, student in biology, while not collecting money and attend classes at a university you're not enrolled in. Oh yeah, and in your free time, you roll down hills, climb trees and punch assholes in the face. You make sure every day is all about having fun. Am I missing something?"

  "Um... that sounds about right," Nyelle replies with a grin.

  "So what else is on this list you haven't done?" I wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me.

  She stiffens.

  "Nyelle?" I ask when she pushes away. "What's wrong?"

  She turns from me in attempt to hide her glistening eyes.

  "Hey. What's going on?" I have no idea what just happened.

  Nyelle doesn't say anything. Just presses her lips tight and walks to the other side of the truck.

  "Did I say something wrong?" I think over everything I said, but I can't figure out what caused her to pull away from me.

  "Can we get some ice cream?" Nyelle asks before slipping into the truck.

  I get in and close the door. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

  Nyelle shakes her head. "I just need some ice cream."

  "Okay. Let's get ice cream," I concede, deciding not to push it. "It makes everything better, right?"

  She releases a broken laugh. "Exactly."

  I'm not sure what triggered the tears she refused to let fall, but Nyelle's back to being her vibrant, carefree self as soon as we pull into the ice cream place, like nothing ever bothered her.

  I haven't figured how to get her to tell me all that she doesn't want me to know. I like everything about Nyelle just as she is--despite the fact that I don't know why she became her. And I'm not really sure I want to know anymore. I'd rather just let her be exactly who she needs to be.

  *

  The rest of week is over way too fast, and now I'm supposed to be flying to Oregon in the morning to spend Christmas with my family.

  "Explain your family to me again," Nyelle requests, sitting next to me with a bowl of popcorn and a box of Goobers. "Your mom is one of... six?"

  "Seven," I correct. "She's the second oldest. The way we think of it is there's the uncles, who are two years older and younger than her. Then the next three are the aunts, who are separated by four years and there's two years between them. And then there's Zac. He's the mistake."

  "Cal, that's awful," she scolds.

  "Well, he is. He's eleven years younger than my aunt Helen. He's only a year older than my brother Sean. There was nothing expected about him."

  "And it's his house you're going to tomorrow?"

  "Yes. It was their family vacation home when they were growing up. But Zac lives there now. Half of us go there, and the other half goes to my aunt Livia's in Ohio. We switch it up every year. There's way too many people to put under one roof."

  "I'd love to be a part of a big family," she says, her eyes cast up like she can picture it.

  "You can borrow mine anytime you want."

  Nyelle stuffs a handful of popcorn in her mouth and shakes some Goobers in on top of it.

  I cringe. "That can't taste good."

  "It's the best thing next to ice cream and frosting," Nyelle claims. "Stick out your hand."

  I reluctantly obey. She places a few pieces of popcorn and a couple Goobers on my palm. Skeptical, I dump them in my mouth.

  "Hmm," I say, pleasantly surprised. "Way better than the chocolate-drizzled Fritos. That was disgusting."

  Nyelle laughs.

  "You're okay with staying at Elaine's? I'll leave you the key if you feel like coming back here."

  "No. It's totally fine. We have some things planned." She clenches her fists and her eyes light up like they do when she can barely contain her excitement. "She has this attic of antique clothes. I'm way overdue for a tea party."

  "Those words will never come out of my mouth."

  Nyelle smiles. "Yeah, you always disappeared when we picked flowers." She stuffs more popcorn in her mouth.

  I'm trying not to react. I'm trying so damn hard to let it slide. But I can't.

  "Do you
remem--"

  "Are you going to date Micha again? She's waiting for you to call her," Nyelle says, talking over me.

  "What?" There's no way I heard her correctly.

  "Micha. She said she asked you to call her," Nyelle repeats. "Didn't you break up because she thought she was going to transfer? She's not anymore. So, are you going to call her?"

  "No," I say quickly. "I'm not... What are you doing? Why would you want me to call her?" I'm staring at Nyelle in complete disbelief. "Seriously. You want me to... date her?"

  "I like her," she says with a simple shrug, avoiding the shock covering my face.

  I need to clear my head. I stand up and walk to the refrigerator to get a beer. After chugging half the can, I ask with my voice coated in anger, "You're okay if I date?"

  "I'm leaving, Cal," Nyelle replies, sounding way too calm. She's doing that thing she does when she removes all emotion from her voice. She's pulling away.

  I feel like I just got sucker punched in the gut, and I'm trying to catch my breath. I drain the rest of the beer.

  "Right," is my only response.

  "Want to watch a movie?" she asks, acting completely unaffected. "Before I eat all the popcorn?"

  "Sure," I say flatly and sit back down next to her on the couch.

  She's right. She is leaving. This, whatever this is between us, is... evidently nothing. Tell that to whatever it is that's gutting my insides right now.

  So when she lies down on the couch, resting her head on my leg, I can't handle it. But instead of saying something to her, I shift out from under her and stand up.

  "I think I'm going to pack. My flight's pretty early."

  She looks at me oddly and nods. "Okay. Should I leave tonight? I can have Elaine pick me up."

  "Leave whenever," I say, walking into my room and closing the door behind me. As soon as I do, I clench my teeth. I sounded like a dick and I know it.

  I grab my duffel bag out of the closet and start shoving clothes in it, not really paying attention to what I'm selecting. The sound of the television in the next room kills me. She has no idea how what she said affected me. None.

  "Cal?" Nyelle's head peeks into the room. "Are you okay?"

  Okay, maybe she has some idea.

  I nod, lowering my eyes.

  "I called Elaine. She's on her way." She opens the door wider to enter and picks up her backpack from the end of the bed.

  I close my eyes, trying to think clearly enough to say the right thing.

  "Don't go. I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

  "No. It's okay. She's not much of a morning person anyway."

  Nyelle takes the backpack and suitcase into the living room. I drop my bag on the floor and sit on the end of the bed, running my hands through my hair, desperate to fix this. To convince her not to leave tonight.

  Just as I stand up, Nyelle steps into my room. We look at each other for a long second. Her eyes shift to the floor with a saddened sigh. Then her brow creases. "What's that?"

  I turn toward the closet. There's a folded note and a rolled-up piece of craft paper on the floor. They must have fallen out when I grabbed my duffel bag off the shelf. Nyelle bends down to pick them up. It hits me what she has in her hands right when she unrolls the paper.

  "Nyelle, don't--" rushes out at the same time her mouth opens in a silent gasp.

  Nyelle looks from the painting to me. Her eyes flicker with confusion. She slowly lowers herself to sit on the bed, holding the paper like it might disintegrate between her fingers. It quivers in her grasp as she looks it over, a deep impression between her brow like she doesn't know what to think or how to react.

  With a small exhale, she gently strokes her fingers over our childhood. I watch as her fingertips brush over the girl with blond hair playing a guitar under the tree, and the girl with the blue ribbon in her hair and the boy wearing black glasses sitting in the treehouse, holding hands. Then her trembling hand hovers above Richelle, picking flowers in the field.

  When she raises her head, I'm taken aback by the pain reflecting in her eyes. I've never seen someone hurt like this, and I don't know how to save her from it. I'm tempted to tear the painting from her hands and shred it, to try to stop whatever it is that's making her look like she's shattering on the inside.

  "Why'd you keep this?" she asks in a broken whisper, her attention back to the picture she made for me so many years ago.

  "I don't know," I answer quietly.

  "We had our first fight over this painting," she murmurs, her voice fading, weighed with suffering. She picks up the letter Richelle wrote to me right before she moved away.

  Nyelle closes her eyes and shakes her head, her face distorted in a tortured expression, her lips trembling and her jaw tight. This is hurting her more than I ever could have anticipated. And I want to make it stop.

  "Nicole?" I say her name quietly. She keeps her eyes shut without responding.

  When she does open her eyes again, the emotions she's been fighting have disappeared. The pain and confusion possessing her a moment ago have been tucked back behind the mask. I'm too stunned by the transformation to speak. It's like Nicole was here for a second, and now she's gone.

  A buzzing comes from her pocket. She removes the small black phone. "Elaine's here."

  Nyelle sets the painting and letter on the bed, calm and devoid of emotion. She makes a move for the door, and I step in front of her. She refuses to look at me.

  "Don't go."

  "I have to," she says in a whisper, stepping around me. I follow her into the living room, my heart pounding in full panic. If she walks out that door now, I'm going to lose her.

  She grabs her jacket and shifts her backpack over a shoulder, rolling her suitcase toward the door.

  "Nicole!"

  She turns, propping the door open. Her eyes are ice, staring into mine. "I'm not her. Not anymore."

  I'm stunned, frozen in the middle of the living room, watching the door click shut. Panic pushes me forward and I reach for the door. But I stop with the door handle in my grasp, unable to turn it. I rest my forehead against the door, letting her walk away.

  RICHELLE

  May--Eighth Grade

  "So what are you going to do this summer?" I ask Nicole as she sits on the end of my bed, flipping through a magazine. She slept over last night, like she does the last weekend of every month since I moved to San Francisco. Her mom brings her here on the train. Sometimes she's able to talk her mom into coming down more than once. But that almost never happens.

  "I don't know." She shrugs, not looking up.

  "Are you still friends with those girls?" I ask, pulling the blanket up on my lap, still tired. We didn't get much sleep. We usually don't when Nicole stays over, no matter how many times we're told to go to sleep.

  "They're not really my friends," she says. "You know that."

  "Right," I say. She seems quieter than usual today. It's probably something to do with her father. "You don't have to hang out with them if you don't want to."

  "It makes my mom happy," she says quietly. "She's wanted me to be friends with them since we moved there, because my father works for one of their dads. And she likes having their mothers over. They're in the PTA together... It doesn't matter."

  No. This is about Cal and Rae.

  "Nicole," I say, making her look up at me. "You can talk to them, you know? Cal and Rae. You just can't tell them everything."

  "I can't be friends them," she says sadly.

  "He asks about you when I talk to him." This only seems to make her sadder. I hate that they stopped being friends. It's not what was supposed to happen.

  Nicole smiles to make me feel better, but I know it's fake. "It's fine. I swear. It won't be forever, right?"

  "Right," I agree. Then an idea comes to me that spreads a real smile across my face. "Want to do something crazy?"

  Nicole nods slowly, without saying anything.

  "Want to cut off my hair? You know, like Britney did when
she went all crazy? Just maybe not as short. Then we can dye it blue. Rae will be so pissed she didn't do it first."

  "You want me to cut your hair supershort?" Nicole asks like she can't believe I'm even suggesting it, forget about being serious. I know it will make her laugh, and I like it when she laughs.

  "Yeah. It's only hair. And it'll look so cool when we're done," I tell her, excited by the idea. "Get my dad's clippers from the hall closet. Just don't let my mom see you."

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Why is there a moving truck in front of the Nelsons' house?" I ask my mother, eating breakfast and watching the men load wrapped furniture into the back of the truck.

  Mom peers out the window. She doesn't answer me for a moment. "Oh, Cal. I'm sorry. Rick must have gotten that job in San Francisco. I wonder why Diane didn't call to tell me."

  "What?!" I exclaim. I'm up from the table and out the front door before my mom can yell at me for not putting my bowl in the dishwasher. I sprint to Richelle's house.

  I'm about to walk through the front door when I hear, "Can I help you, Cal?"

  I turn toward the truck to find Richelle's dad.

  "Um, hi, Mr. Nelson. Is Richelle around?" I ask, my heart racing, and not just because I ran as fast as I could over here.

  "No. Sorry, Cal," he says quietly without looking at me. "She's already in San Francisco with her mother, getting the new place ready for when the truck arrives."

  "I didn't know you were moving," I say, trying not to sound as angry as I am.

  "It happened pretty fast," he explains, walking past me toward the house with his shoulders slumped forward. "You can always e-mail her, Cal. I really am sorry about this." But he sounds flat and tired, like he doesn't mean it.

  "Thanks," I mutter, shoving my hands in my jeans pockets and walking back to my house with my head down.

  "What's going on?" Rae asks from the end of her driveway.

  "The Nelsons are moving to San Francisco." The words taste bitter in my mouth.

  "Why are they moving?" Rae demands, like the thought of it doesn't make sense.

  "I guess her dad got a new job or something," I mumble.

  "You didn't know?"

  "Did you?" I snap.

  "No," Rae grumbles.

  "That's messed up. We're supposed to be her friends. I'm supposed to be her boyfriend. You'd think she would've said something." My voice is getting louder as the anger reaches the surface.

  "It's not her fault."