Downstairs, Dara bullies me into finishing the last few sips of Ariana’s lukewarm drink, which is full of pulp, but at least it lights up my chest, helps me get into the mood.
Then Dara pops open a metal pill case and fishes out something small and round and white. Instantly my good feeling fades.
“Want?” she says, turning to me.
“What is that?” I say, even as Ariana holds out a palm for one.
Dara rolls her eyes. “Breath mint, dummy,” she says, and sticks her tongue out at me, showing off the mint, slowly dissolving. “And trust me, you need one.”
“Yeah, right,” I say, but hold out my hand, the good feeling returning. Dara, Parker, and I have always gone to Founders’ Day together, even in middle school, when instead of a dance the school puts on a weird variety show, and for the past few years Ariana has been tagging along. So what if Parker and Dara are something now? So what if I won’t get shotgun? So what if I haven’t talked to Parker, really talked, since he and Dara started hooking up? So what if my best friend seems to have completely and totally forgotten that I exist?
Details.
We have to take the long way, because neither Ariana nor Dara can make it through the woods in their heels and Ariana wants to smoke a cigarette anyway. It’s freakishly warm, and all the ice is running off the trees into the gutters, soft snow whoomphing down from roofs, the air layered with that rich smell, the pulpy promise of spring, even though it’s a false promise: we’re supposed to get more snow next week. But for now, I’m wearing only a light jacket, and Dara’s walking beside me, mostly sober, laughing, and we’re heading to Parker’s house: just like old times.
Every block brings back memories. That old maple where Parker and I once competed to see who could climb higher, until he crashed through the high, flimsy branches and broke his arm—for a whole summer he couldn’t swim, and I wore a cast of paper towels and masking tape out of solidarity; Old Hickory Lane, Parker’s street, our favorite spot to trick-or-treat, because Mrs. Hanrahan could never distinguish between the kids on the block and kept forking over Snickers bars even when we rang three, four, five times in a row; the stretch of woods where we convinced Dara that fairies lived who would steal her away to a horrible underworld if she didn’t do what we said; concentric circles of growth, spreading outward, like the rings of a tree marking off time.
Or maybe we’re passing from the outer rings in, back to the start, the root and the heart, because as we get closer to Parker’s house the memories get thicker and come faster, of summer nights and snowball fights and our whole lives layered together, until we’re standing on his porch and Parker opens the door with warm light spilling out behind him and we’re here; we’ve arrived at the center.
Parker’s actually bothered to put on a button-down, although I can see a T-shirt peeking out from the open collar, and he’s still wearing jeans and his blue Surf Siders, covered over with faded ink marks and doodles. Nick is the greatest SMELLIEST greatest!! is written beneath the left sole in Sharpie.
“My best girls,” Parker says, opening his arms wide, and just for a second, when our eyes meet, I forget and start to move toward him.
“Hotness,” Dara says, moving past me, and then I remember.
So I take a quick step backward, turning away, letting her get to him first.
AFTER
JULY 20
Dara
Are you going to party @ the Drink? Parker told me about it.
The note is wedged under my door when I get out of the shower, written on Nick’s cream-white stationery. (Nick is the only person under the age of a hundred who actually uses stationery, and her handwriting is so neat it looks like each letter is a minuscule piece of architecture. My handwriting looks like Perkins ingested some letters and then puked them onto a page.)
I stoop down, wincing as pain snakes up my spine, and scoop up the note before crumpling it and overhanding it toward the trash can in the corner. The note hits the rim and rebounds into a pile of dirty T-shirts.
I pull on a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top and take my computer onto the bed, clicking quickly away from Facebook as soon as it pops up, catching a brief glimpse of all the messages, unliked, unanswered, posted on my wall.
We miss you!
Thinking of you!!
We love you so much!!!
I haven’t posted since the accident. Why would I? What could I possibly say?
I’m bored to tears alone on a Saturday night.
I’m hopelessly scarred for life.
I’m finally able to bend my knees like a normal person!
I click over to YouTube but keep imagining Parker’s face, the way he squints against the light reflected in the windshield, his nails, trim and neat, the way a guy’s should be. His eyebrows, thick and dark, drawn together. Everyone else in Parker’s family is totally Norwegian-looking, blond and fair and smiley, like they should be out hauling catches of herring on the open ocean, which somehow makes Parker’s dark hair and olive skin even cuter, like it was a mistake.
Suddenly I can’t stand the idea of another night at home, watching stupid videos or queuing up TV shows. I get the old itch, a heat between my shoulder blades, like my skin might suddenly sprout wings to carry me away.
I need out. I need to prove that I’m not afraid of seeing him, or my old friends, or anyone. I’m not afraid of Nick, either, and the way she makes me feel now: as if I’m broken. Every time I hear her blasting music downstairs—indie pop, shiny happy music, since Nick doesn’t get depressed—or shouting for Mom to help her find her favorite jeans; every time I come into the bathroom and find it still humid from her shower, still smelling like Neutrogena; every time I see her running shoes on the stairs or find her field hockey T-shirt tangled up with my laundry, she may as well be hammering a stake into the ground. TOWN: NORMAL. POPULATION: 1.