One Moment (18 page)

14

His Too Blue Eyes

“I found a package on the front porch for you,” my mom said as I came down the steps the next morning. She was standing at the island, the newspaper spread in front of her as she munched on a piece of peanut butter toast.

“From who?” I asked, not really caring. With Joey gone and Adam so totally disconnected, nothing seemed to matter anymore.

My mother smiled, holding a small rectangular box in the air. It was wrapped in brown paper, with my name written on the front. No address or shipping labels. Just my name, which was spelled in block letters with a dark blue Sharpie.

“It’s very mysterious,” my mom said, sliding the package across the counter to me. “I think you have an admirer.”

“Mom, please.”

“I’m not saying that you have to jump into a new relationship right away,” my mother said. “But you can’t close yourself off forever. It’s not healthy.”

“Why don’t you leave the therapy to Dr. Guest?” I said. “She’s a trained professional.”

“Well, it’s something you may want to discuss with her. There will naturally be some guilt. But it’s something you need to—”

“Mom, really,” I said, walking behind her and tugging on the belt of her robe, “leave it alone.”

My mother sighed, then turned to face me, holding her coffee mug with both hands. “I’m heading upstairs to get ready for work.”

“Have a good day,” I said as my mother made her way through the kitchen and to the staircase.

“Maggie,” my mother said, stopping, her robe swaying around her legs. “I meant what I said. I know you and Dr. Guest have been focusing on your memories because recovering them is so important to you, and I know that a month is too soon to expect you to move on, but everything that comes next is just as important as everything that’s already happened. Okay?”

“Right.”

“Don’t do that,” she said, shaking her head. “Say what I want to hear so I’ll—”

“Mom. I get it. Okay?”

She sighed. “I made you some pancakes and bacon. They’re in the microwave if you want to zap them for a warm-up.”

I thumbed the buttons on the microwave and grabbed the bottle of maple syrup from the counter, turning to look down at that package. Part of me wanted to rip it open. But another part of me wanted to throw it in the trash. In my life, surprises had lost their appeal.

But as I poured the syrup on my pancakes, the package sat there calling to me, and I had to know what was inside.

So as soon as I finished breakfast, I grabbed a pair of scissors and went back up to the privacy of my room, wishing the little brown-wrapped gift had the power to flip everything back to normal.

When I pulled the paper away, I was confused. Someone had left me a photo album, the front cover dotted with hand-drawn hearts. My first thought was that it was from Joey. That was the stutter my brain still suffered from, a misfire that made me instinctively believe that he was still alive. But even if he were still here, he’d never been the type to doodle pink hearts.

I reached out, expecting the book to send shock waves of emotion up my arm—love, loss, hope, regret.

Something inside me pulled tight with unease, but I told myself that was stupid. I had to convince myself that none of my fears were justified. That there was a perfectly good explanation for all the things Joey had kept from me. And that this photo album was probably someone’s way to honor the relationship I’d had with him, cataloging our time together with photos I’d somehow never seen.

I held my breath, hoping with everything in me that someone from the yearbook staff or the school newspaper had searched through old files for pictures that had once been unimportant. I visualized a shot of Joey and me walking through the locker-lined hall, clasped hands swinging between our bodies. But that vision was quickly erased.

As I flipped open the front cover of that album, I saw the worst thing ever.

A picture.

Of Joey.

And Shannon.

Kissing.

Shannon had taken the picture. I could tell by the way her outstretched arm reached toward me that she’d been holding the camera, turned it toward them, and pressed the button the instant Joey’s lips had touched hers. How she’d gotten the picture so perfectly centered, I’d never know.

But she had.

And there they were.

Sitting in Shannon’s basement. On her couch.
Exactly
where I had been sitting just a week ago, when we confronted Adam about blowing us off.

Shannon was laughing, her eyes squeezed tight.

Joey, too, his parted lips pressed against hers.

I slammed the album shut. Pressed my palm into all those hearts. Willing it away, away, away. But it didn’t disappear like I needed it to. Instead, the album seemed to grow heavier, holding me down.

It flooded me in an instant. Understanding that all of Joey’s secrets revolved around Shannon. That everything I’d feared most since finding that stupid necklace in my drawer was actually true.

His secrets
. They weren’t just his. Those secrets belonged to both of them.

Together.

I wanted to know how big it was. How long it had been going on.

But the only way to find out was to face everything in that album.

I was nauseous from just one picture. I didn’t want to go on.

But I had to. There was no other choice.

“You have to face this, Maggie,” I told myself. “Just do it. Fast.”

And so I did.

I flipped through the pages, finding more of the same. Pictures of Joey and Shannon together in the woods surrounded by falling red, orange, and yellow leaves; eating ice cream while wearing wool caps and gloves; sitting lazily on a swing in the park in T-shirts and jeans. They were laughing, or kissing, or touching in almost all of them—through the seasons of at least one full year.

The others, the ones where it was obvious there was some special meaning even though I couldn’t see either of them, those were creative, just like Shannon. A shot of their bare feet in the grass, her toenails painted a bright pink, his underneath, perfectly trimmed. One of a sunset melting into a bank of snow-covered trees. A picture of pebbles along the bank of a creek, gathered together to spell out their names.

Joey & Shannon.

So together.

And so very alone.

The last page was different. A folded piece of paper, creased and worn.

Joey’s name written on the front flap in Shannon’s loopy handwriting. In her favorite purple pen.

I yanked the note free, practically ripping it in my need to understand.

Maybe I had something wrong. Maybe this was old, whatever had been going on. I needed to believe it had all happened before Joey and I ever began.

As I started to read, I held onto that hope.

And quickly felt it all fade away on the tide of a new loss that somehow outweighed the darkness of Joey’s death.

Joey,

I know what you’re thinking. What you’ve been thinking since this all started last fall. That this is bad. All kinds of bad. But it’s not, Joey. Nothing that feels this good can possibly be bad. It might hurt some people, Maggie most of all, but we have to figure this out. And we have to get it out in the open before the damage can’t be undone.

School will be ending soon. Summer starting. And that gives everyone three months to deal. To understand. And to let go.

They will. You’ll see. They have to.

I love you. And you say you love me. So this should be simple. I’ll do it any way you want. So take the next few weeks to do what you need to do. And then the summer will be ours.

I’ll be waiting.

Always.

Shannon

My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t refold the note. So I balled it up tight and shoved it back under the thin plastic sleeve, flipped the album closed, and threw it on the floor. I scrambled to my feet, clawing my hands through my hair and wanting to scream so loud that everything around me would shatter to pieces. I was pissed. So very pissed I could practically see waves rippling from my body and out into the room.

But then I saw his face. His too blue eyes. And his smile. Staring right up at me from the frame on my nightstand. It was my favorite picture of us together, because we looked so at ease. Tanna had taken the shot after school one day just a few months ago, when we’d all gone to Getrie’s Dairy Farm for ice cream. I was sitting on Joey’s lap, one leg kicked up, with my head tipped back mid-laugh. Joey’s arms were wrapped around me, his hands clasped around my waist. The hands that had touched Shannon. I didn’t understand how the Joey in my picture could have been the same Joey that was tucked away in her photo album.

I slipped down onto my bed, curling up on the quilt my mother had mended with thread that didn’t quite match the rest, feeling the pain well up fresh. Joey’s death somehow hurt more, swelling inside me until I felt like I might burst.

15

The Countdown

They had always been so alike. Crazy and senseless, rushing into things without thinking. Plotting pranks together. Daring to dive down the most curvy sledding hill in town while I stood at the top trying to convince myself I’d be fine if I followed after.

She’d always looked at every boy but Joey.

And me, I was the opposite.

Cautious. Reserved. And Joey had always been my only interest.

When I thought about it, all of it, the years we’d spent growing up together, it made sense, Joey and Shannon together. More sense than Joey picking me.

And that thought nearly killed me.

But what sliced into me even more were all the things I should have picked up on. All the rushed glances I’d missed. All the spontaneous things they’d done together that essentially eliminated me from the picture.

How totally stupid I had been.

“Lookie there, lookie there,” Joey said, running a hand along his chin as he stood in the middle of the Duttons’ oversize, three-car garage. A few feet in front of him was a shiny black and green motorcycle, with paint that literally sparkled in the overhead fluorescent lighting.

“Joey,” I said. “Please tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

Joey looked at me. His eyes sparking with the not-so-quiet kind of mischief he’d always been known for. “I promise I’ll be good.”

Tanna laughed out loud, the sound echoing off the white walls of the garage, the super-shined surface of the Duttons’ black Jaguar, the riding mower, and the totally organized work space stuffed with every kind of tool imaginable.

“Good?” Shannon asked, poking Joey in the arm, and the back, and the gut like an annoying little sister. “I wasn’t aware you knew the definition of that word.”

Joey whipped around, grabbing Shannon’s hand and twisting it behind her back. “What did you say?” He was smiling, and so was she, but Shannon was wriggling to pull away from his grasp.