Home and Away

by Candice Montgomery

  no

  I’m coming to get you, let’s go to sprinkles

  I’m not eating sugar, but yeah let’s go

  Square. My brother is a square.

  Then, a more final realization. My half-brother is a square, but I shake that thought away like leaves in my hair.

  Traffic is horrendous. It’s that nagging relative we all deal with out of obligation. It takes me seventy-eight minutes to make a nineteen-mile drive to get Tristan. Once we’re there, I park my Jeep and text him two seconds before he slides into my passenger seat.

  We spend a few minutes idling, trying to Yelp other places we might go, where I can get sugar and Tristan can get, I don’t know, a bran muffin or a fiber waffle or something.

  “Why are you so quiet?” I say, swiping across my phone like all the secrets of the universe can be found in a Yelp review. Spoiler: they can’t.

  He only shrugs.

  To give myself something to do, I toss my phone into the center console and just drive, even though we haven’t picked a location.

  “Come on, Tristan. What’s the point of us being here if you’re just going to—”

  “I kind of hated you when you left.”

  My Jeep’s tires coast over the hot highway pavement, the only sound the soft swoosh of cars passing. It seems too soft, too calm, for what Trist just said to me.

  “You hate me?” I merge onto a new freeway and, as usual, it’s packed.

  “Yes,” he says, skipping through song after song on my iPhone. “No,” he amends. “I did. Or I thought I did. I was so angry that you thought you could just go off and leave me behind like I don’t matter.”

  “Trist, it wasn’t about you—”

  “I know that! I know, I’m just telling you how it felt. Like you thought that by leaving them, it was okay to leave me too. And you left me there without even thinking about the fact that I would have to pick up the pieces of your exit. I told you nothing needed to change and …”

  I went and changed everything. Not just for me. For him, too. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  Yes, because this has all proven to be a mistake, for the most part—V’s box and meeting this new white family that also doesn’t get me. The only part I don’t regret about leaving is getting away from Mamma and meeting Kai. Kai, my one good thing. But I don’t know how to say that out loud to Tristan.

  We end up at Urth Caffé, and that’s as L.A. as things get, pretty much.

  “You’re going to have to talk to Mamma sometime.”

  Tristan doesn’t pull punches. We’ve never gone easy on each other. I think that’s why we’re so close. “I know.”

  “When are you gonna?”

  “I don’t know that.” I don’t know why I need to talk to her, other than forgiveness heals people, which is a thing our Poppa says. Forgiveness heals people, and grudges are toxic.

  Tristan starts, “Grudges are—”

  “I know, Trist. I just don’t want to forgive her, because if I do, it’s like saying what she did was okay. That I’m okay with it. Like, with enough time and space, I’ll just make peace with the fact that she’s a liar.”

  He takes a sip of his matcha. “That’s not what forgiveness is, Teez.”

  “Okay, Tristan.” I roll my eyes and cut into my football-size vegan cinnamon roll.

  “I’m serious. Jesus.” He pulls his phone out, taps around for a second. So I pull mine out, too, and browse Instagram. The first thing to pop up in my feed is a picture posted ten minutes ago. It’s Josiah’s picture.

  The caption reads: josiahQB1: #aboutlastnight #thisgirl #mygirl

  Slim comments with the heart-eyes emoji and four of the red lip emojis, because apparently one just wasn’t enough.

  Someone else comments: #Slimsiah5Ever

  And in the picture, Slim is on his lap and their lips are locked and she’s smiling into his kiss and I am green and a nasty, bruising deep purple. I am yellowing and decaying inside, worse than any football bruise I’ve ever had.

  I hate them for two seconds before Tristan speaks again.

  “Okay. ‘Forgiveness, noun. To exonerate’—damn. No. We need to list. This definition is the exact opposite of—”

  He pulls out a small notebook from his back pocket. It’s worn and crumpled like my personality these days.

  A pen appears from, I assume, another pocket. I am only barely paying attention to him. Which is not that much different from usual.

  “Number one?” he says after scribbling WHAT FORGIVENESS IS AND ISN’T at the top. “Number one: Forgiveness isn’t a pardon or excuse for the person’s actions.”

  I nod. But I don’t think that’s true. I tell him that.

  He says forgiveness, on this list, is whatever we logically want it to be.

  “That’s not—”

  “Yes, it is,” he says.

  Chai drips over the lip of my fat mug as I lift it to take a sip, then decide Urth Caffé is cancelled because I end up doubling down on brown sugar.

  “What’s number two?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

  “Number two: Forgiveness doesn’t excuse the fact that there is future work or reparation to be done.”

  My brows raise. Okay, I kind of like that.

  Trist can tell. He uses his index finger to draw an imaginary checkmark in the air. A sort of “got you” signal.

  I give him number three. “Forgiveness doesn’t mandate that I verbalize the words ‘I forgive you.’”

  Tristan smiles big and we high-five and it feels good. My insides regenerate a little.

  “Number four,” he says.

  I finish, “Forgive and forget is bullshit. Remembering is key.”

  “Good,” he says, and writes it down as fast as he can. “Forgiveness doesn’t mean you can’t still develop more feelings regarding the person or the situation.”

  And that stops me. I don’t want more feelings added to the ones I’ve already got. I feel like I’m overloaded. Stacked like too much cotton in a glass jar.

  Right now it’s like that one’s a trigger going off inside me. Because I immediately start to get nervous, and that’s a new sensation with regard to this situation. I’m nervous about talking to Mamma, nervous that none of our rituals will be the same, nervous that we’ll never be as close as we once were. Nervous that she will expect me to forgive her in ways that are not on my list.

  Tristan knows. He says quietly, “Let’s get going.” But as we walk to my car, he stops me and hugs me and says, “Forgiveness is not something you do for the other person. Let your life be about you.”

  That night, I get a text from Dahlia. She wants me to help her choose a dress for the homecoming dance. A thing that could not be further from my mind.

  Before I agree, I wonder, Why me? And text her exactly that.

  She responds fast. I don’t know. Because I like your style. You know what looks good.

  That makes me feel ridiculously cool. Extraordinarily feminine.

  And then immediately after saying yes to Dahlia, I switch text threads and iMessage Slim about helping me find something for myself.

  She agrees after telling me I don’t love her enough to respond unless I need a favor. I tell her I am a literal shithead and she agrees—that’s right, your head is made entirely of shit—and says she’ll come by.

  I have weird feelings about spending time with Dahlia. I both want her to be my friend and I don’t. I know nothing about her. But what I do know is that her attention is nice. It makes me feel so fricking wanted, and every time she asks me about a brand of lip stain or some dress she sees me wearing, I grow a little more attached to that—her attention.

  Dahlia picks me up the next morning in her aunt’s new car. When I slide into the passenger seat, I ask her if she’s allowed to be driving it. She laughs, says I’m “so cute” for wanting to get permission for her.

  But, still, she doesn’t answer wheth
er or not her aunt knows we’re drinking vanilla milkshakes at ten in the morning in her brand-new convertible.

  We’ve spent the entire drive not speaking to each other, but instead singing along to the songs coming up via the Bluetooth. When we get to the outdoor mall about forty minutes from the Valley, Dahlia finally asks, “Where’d you stay that night? After Fat Freddy’s?”

  “At Kai’s.” I’m not ashamed or worried about that. Kai is my one good thing. I’ve been saying it like a mantra. My entire drive and reason for wanting to know this other side of my family was because of the box and now that’s empty. Kai is the most secure, most musical thing in my life, and I never doubt that until I’m around Dahlia.

  She grunts. “I guess it’s fine for you guys to do things like that since you’re basically related.”

  “Okay, well, except you’re being gross and we are so not related.”

  She only laughs, gestures at some trinket shop up ahead. “You wanna go in here? They have good stuff we can totally make into better stuff.”

  I grunt.

  In the store, when Dahlia finally notices I’m more quiet and introspective than contributing, she pauses like I’ve offended her. She’s angry, like I’m the one kicking dirt all over the vibes.

  I guess I am. I don’t even know why I’m here.

  “Look,” she says. “I’m just gonna say this. Take it however you want. You know I was kidding, right? About you and Kai?”

  Grunt.

  “Oh, my God,” she says. “Can you not? I was joking. Like, me and Kai were so whatever. He hooked up with anyone who asked. And I know you two aren’t, like, actual family or whatever. But Kai has always been free with his—”

  “Okay, stop,” I say, running my hands over a rack of thigh-length silky dresses.

  “More than just me and Co—”

  “Dahlia. I get it. You think my boyfriend is a whore.” I’m overlooking the fact that that is a ridiculously shitty thing to presume about a bisexual person.

  She laughs. “But is he your boyfriend? It was all about who was there at the time. Flavor of the month.”

  I exhale. She’s under my skin and I don’t have the scalpel to pick her out. And I understand on the weirdest level that she isn’t even trying to be cruel.

  “Dahlia, where does this even get you? Like, Jesus. Why? You want Kai back? Fine. Tell him that, if he’s so easy, so quick to stray. So anti-commitment. Don’t tell me. I don’t even care.”

  She stops trying on the rings on display. “You don’t care? Okay,” she scoffs. That time she is a little cruel. I don’t think she can help it.

  Shit, shit, shit. I hate this feeling. I hate being this angry at people, where everything they say is offensive, even when it’s not.

  I used to know what kind of person I wanted to be. What kind of adult I wanted to grow into. I thought I was sort of on my way there, but it’s suddenly very in my face that I, apparently, am not.

  I knew what kind of thoughts and opinions I wanted to have without having to try very hard for them. But now my entire existence is wrapped up in parental angst and familial angst and racial angst and friendship angst and is-he-my-boyfriend angst and I live minute to minute, in a state of teenage anger that’s been slowly trying to swallow me whole.

  “Tell him you want him, then. Tell him I don’t care. If that will get you off my back about it, Dahlia. If that will end this competition crap, then yes, tell him, for the love of God. Are you in love with him or something?”

  Dahlia’s quiet. The girls who work in the store have also gone quiet. I grab a scarf sitting on the table to my left and march up to the counter to buy it. I don’t even know why. It’s hideous. But I feel like I owe the store something after my outburst.

  I buy the scarf and six gold bangles. Dahlia doesn’t say anything. They are my apology accessories.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  As soon as we get back to Merrick’s, Dahlia lets me out without a single word. Her big sunglasses sit perched on her face and they look great and quirky against her olive skin, with her shaved head.

  I spent the entire drive back thinking about how I should just burn that stupid box that’s sitting in my closet, still waiting for Who sent me? answers.

  Hate to tell you, box. No answers coming anytime soon.

  When I get inside, I have a text from Slim that she’ll be on her way in an hour. I suddenly don’t want to do anything but eat cookie dough from the tub and binge old episodes of The OC.

  I wait long enough that she should have arrived already. When she isn’t here, and I’m getting impatient, I call. “Hey,” I say, once she picks up the phone. “I kind of just want to stay in. Bring some of your dresses and I can pick one of yours.”

  “Yeah, I figured, so I’m strapped with all the options. What’s wrong, Taze?”

  “Nothing,” I say. I text Kai while I’ve got Slim on speaker-phone.

  I miss you

  “I can hear it in your voice. It sucks that you think you have to lie to me.”

  I nod. “I know. I’ll tell you when you get here. Can you just get here?”

  The door slams.

  Murmurs of people whose voices I try to parse out.

  I’m right here, Kai texts back.

  Mm. The voices. It’s Merrick and Merrick’s latest midlife crisis in female form.

  All the best things happen at once—

  Kai texts me a picture of us. In it, he’s crossed his eyes and is nearly licking my face. In it, I am smiling big and toothy and uncoordinated. I hate it and I love it. Slim comes into my room and gathers me up into her arms and, God, hugs are just the best things: cathartic and re-centering. I know whatever burst of feelings I’m having right now is mostly for her. She’s my best friend, but we don’t do this feels-gasm stuff much unless we have a reason to. The last time either of us got this raw with each other was in eighth grade when Slim had sex for the first time with an ironically named eleventh-grader, Junior Justice.

  And she came to me the next day and said she thought something was wrong because she was experiencing so much pain. We were both so scared, all I could do was sit with her in the bathroom while she soaked in a tub of warm water and cried while swearing that she wasn’t.

  I have a text from Tristan.

  a non-colorblind person can distinguish between like 500 shades of grey. probably horrifying for those colorblind people who loved that 50 shades book.

  Then he texts again. remember mamma’s great uncle Xen? isn’t he colorblind? can you ask him

  Then again, wonder if he read that 50 sexes book. ask him that too

  Slim reads all the texts to me and then laughs. I smile but don’t laugh. Leave it to Trist.

  “Tell me,” Slim says, cradling me like I am a toddler.

  And I do. I tell her everything. I give her all the dirty details about meeting my “grandparents,” about the box and how empty I’ve felt since figuring out that the box is V’s, that it belonged to her, that she cared about herself enough to put it together but didn’t care enough about me to send it. I tell Slim about the concert and the drinks and Cole and I tell her every. Single. Detail. About me and Kai. I tell her, descriptively, about every touch and every look and sexual thing we’ve ever done together, and she doesn’t flinch or tell me I’m gross because that’s the kind of best friendship we have. I tell her about Dahlia and Victory. And after a moment, I’m silent. Because I know—I know—she’s wanted to tell me about her and Josiah. I know it.

  “You can tell me about him, too,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “You don’t want to know. He’s like your brother.”

  “Nah, not really.”

  “But close.”

  I shrug. I think she thinks football makes us much closer than we really are. If I was a dude, that’d probably be the truth, but. “Yeah,” I say, “but I want to know.”

  She pulls back. “Do you, Teez? Do you really want to know? Because every time I’ve posted a pic or something,
or Tweeted about it, you never like or respond to it. And I hate to be that person who’s all, ‘You don’t like my photos and I notice you not liking them,’ but I super notice! And it seems like you hate me sometimes. And, like, Siah can tell that you feel that way too. It sucks, Tasia.”

  Oh, God. “I don’t. I don’t hate you guys. I was just so mad that you guys got so happy so fast, and that it was while I was dealing with so much. While I’m falling apart and losing people and getting nowhere, you guys were coming together and gaining each other, and I don’t even know what kind of stupid jealousy monster I’ve become, but I can’t help feeling like that. I still feel like that now, a little.”

  I reposition us so that Slim is right next to me and we’re on our backs and keeping conversational tempo by tapping our palms together.

  Slim’s lips blow a raspberry into the air. “I get it now. I’m sorry I didn’t before. But you’re saying it, and it makes total sense and, like, I made him a priority. And I should have made you my priority.”

  “No, shut up. I just—”

  “Teez. You are my best fricking friend. I love you beyond all reason. When you’re a bitch to me, when you talk football and nothing else, when you don’t text me back. I love you because you’re funny and fun. I love you because you always tag me in the best stuff on Instagram. I love you because you bake two cookies and two cookies only, but then give one of them to me.” She pauses. Asks, “Wouldn’t you have made me a priority?”

  “I would try to. If I knew what I know now about us, I would try to. I can’t say how successful I’d be, but I would do my best.”

  She nods. “I’ll do my best,” she whispers. “Lets bake cookies. You have stuff?”

  I nod. I’ve got stuff.

  Slim and I bake six cookies. Two for each of us, one for Kai, one for Josiah. We are those girls. It’s perfect. We snap selfies of us baking and caption them accordingly.

  @dontTazemebro: KITCHEN MAGICIANS w.

  @SlimJimSandwich

  @SlimJimSandwich: Damn we’re good w. @dontTazemebro

  Later, after I’ve chosen a homecoming dress from Slim’s closet and Slim has chosen one for herself via mine—a white one that makes her look like a beautiful, naïve young bride—we sit in the living room and watch bad reality TV.