Saving June (17 page)

When he trails off at the end of the song, I say, “Are you in a band? You should be.”

“Me?” He sounds surprised. “No, I just play Eli’s instruments sometimes. He’s in one, though. Mostly they just jam in the drummer’s basement, but…yeah. Making music, that’s his thing. Not mine.”

I get that. It’s sort of like how it was with June and me—how I knew from the start I would never live up to her, so it was easier to not even try.

“Have you written any songs?” I ask.

“No. I’m not a writer.” He shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t have anything to say.”

I sit up and raise my eyebrows at him. “You? Not have anything to say? Hmm, somehow I’m not buying that.”

Jake shrugs again, and I lie back down, staring up at the star-filled sky. I wonder what the Southern Cross looks like. All I know is the Big Dipper. June taught me how to find that one, when we were little kids.

“It’s so quiet out here,” I say, just to say something. Anything at all. The silence is getting to me.

“What, are you bored? Want to play a game?” Jake shoots me a mock-serious look. “Something
other
than Top Three.”

“There’s always Truth or Dare.”

“Truth or Dare? Do you think I’m a twelve-year-old girl?” he says. He nudges his foot against mine.

I nudge mine back, our legs hooking together, crossed at the ankles. “Sometimes I do, in fact.”

After a beat, he says, “All right, I’ll play,” much to my surprise. He turns his head and adds, “But only if I can go first.”

“If you must.” I sigh and throw an arm over my eyes. “Okay. Truth.”

“What are you thinking, right now?”

That’s
his question, of all things? I move my arm a little and open one eye to look at him. His face is completely serious, waiting me out. My arm slides down so that my hand rests at the base of my throat, and when my thumb brushes up against the thin skin there, I can feel the
tick-tick-tick
of my heartbeat.

“I’m thinking that…” I breathe in, just for a moment. “My sister really would’ve loved to have seen that. Fridgehenge, I mean.”

He digs out a cigarette from his pocket and lights it, looking at me the whole time. “Really?”

“Yeah. June liked that kind of stuff—I guess you’d call it ironic, right? Making art out of other people’s trash.” I smile. “She had this shirt with a can of tomato soup on it that she’d wear all of the time. She said it was by some
artist, and she tried to explain to me why it was art. I never got it. It was just a can of soup.”

Jake inhales on his cigarette, the tip flaring bright orange against the descending darkness. “People see art in a lot of things.”

“I guess.” I hug my hoodie tighter around my middle. Who knew the desert could get so cold? “Now it’s my turn. Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he says automatically. How unsurprising.

I hate coming up with dares. Laney always picks them, and there’s only so many times I can dare her to run around her front yard naked at two in the morning when no one’s looking before it gets old.

And I am not asking Jake to get naked. Even if the thought is a little tempting.

“Oh, I’ve got it!” I sit up on my elbow and grin down at him. “I…dare you…to write a song.”

“Right now?” he says, making a face.

“Uh, obviously not. But at some point. When we get home.”
Home.
The word churns in my stomach. It won’t be long before I’ll have to face that reality. Mom and Aunt Helen and June’s untouched bedroom and everything else I don’t want to think about right now. I’d rather be here. “Promise me you’ll at least try,” I say.

Jake looks away. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

I shouldn’t be disappointed by his response, but I am anyway. Stupid of me to think I could talk him into it.
That my thinking he could do it would make a difference. What does my opinion matter to him? What do I matter? I’m just some girl whose sister he knew.

“Fine.” I drop down onto my back again and look up at the immense night sky. It’s better than looking at Jake and his closed-off face. “I get to ask a truth then. Tell me. What happened to your parents?”

He takes a deep breath like he’s steeling himself. “My dad left when I was four, and he’s been in prison since I was nine. Armed robbery with a side of possession, if you’re curious.”

“Oh,” I say. I’m sort of stunned; partly because I didn’t expect a real answer, and partly because I’ve never known anyone who’s even been arrested. Aside from Seth and Devon, of course. “That…sucks.”

“It’s for the best, really. He was…” Jake hesitates. “Not a good person.”

“And your mother?”

“After a while…she got tired of being a mom. So she stopped.”

And that’s all he’ll say about it.

“So what about your parents?” he asks.

“I didn’t pick truth.”

“Okay, then I
dare
you to tell me about your parents.”

That’s totally cheating, but instead of calling him out on it, I say, “Did June ever tell you anything about them?”

“A little. I know they’re divorced,” he tells me. “Let
me guess. Your dad had the cliché affair with the secretary? Mixing business with pleasure?” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Not quite. He does have a girlfriend—her name is Melinda and she is a caterer. But supposedly it wasn’t an affair. All parties claim it happened after the divorce.”

“Your family’s lack of scandal is shocking. And a little disappointing.”

“I know, it’s a boring story. I guess they just stopped loving each other. How mundane.” I sigh, shifting on the metal hood. “My dad is pretty much happy to pretend what little is left of his former life doesn’t exist. My mother made up her mind that all men are evil and conniving and out to destroy you.”

“I wondered where you got that philosophy from,” Jake says. He’s probably only half joking.

I swat him on the shoulder. “Whatever. It’s my turn.”

“Truth. Take your best shot.”

Oh, I will. I’ve been waiting to ask this since Chicago, since Anna so casually mentioned knowing my sister. This is as good a time to ask as any. “June,” I say. “Were you—were you like her secret boyfriend, or something?”

Jake stiffens beside me. “Why would you think I was her boyfriend?”

“I don’t know, let’s see.” I roll my eyes. “Maybe because you clam up whenever I ask how you knew her. Maybe
because I know she met Anna and your friends, on at least one occasion.”

“Anna told you that, huh?” he says, but he doesn’t sound mad. He takes a hard drag on his cigarette and goes quiet for a minute. “I was never. She only met them a few times. We hung out sometimes. She wanted to—get out of the house, I guess. I know things were…intense. With your parents. With college. It was hard on her. And she’d just dumped that loser jock boyfriend of hers.”

“You mean Tyler.”

“Tyler, is that his name? Yeah.” He frowns. “Anyway. One of Seth’s friends was playing a show in Detroit, so we drove up there together.”

This is news to me. “A show? Like, a punk band show? “ I sit up again, surprised. “June went to see a punk band?”

“Well, they were a shit excuse for a punk band, but yeah. Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure she hated it. Said she ‘didn’t get the scene.’” He laughs. “It’s so weird. Sometimes I can’t believe you two are related. You’re nothing like her.”

That’s just what I need. Another damn comparison. Another person stating the obvious.

“Thanks,” I say. Yeah, I’m bitter.

“It’s not an insult,” he clarifies. I don’t know what he means by that, but then he explains. “I know I didn’t know June as well as…some people, but she always seemed. I don’t know. Uncomfortable in her own skin. Maybe that’s why she wanted to spend time around me. Do things
she didn’t usually. Maybe she had an identity crisis or something.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” It would make some sense—June hated the life she’d constructed, so she tried something new, hoping it would fit better. But it didn’t. So she gave up. I slide out the pack of cigarettes from my hoodie pocket, and say, “So, you’re saying that I’m what? Comfortable?”

“I’m saying,” he says, leaning over to light my cigarette on cue, always on hand to corrupt the youth of America, “that you’re not fragile like she was. God, she was like a china doll.”

Easy to crack. Unlike me.

“And I’m just made of metal. I don’t feel anything.” I take a sullen drag off my cigarette. “You never answered my original question. Okay, so you were friends with June, but you and her. You never—”

“Never,” he answers sharply. He says it in a way that makes it clear this round of Truth or Dare is officially over.

He slowly rolls off the hood, and a second later I hear him open the driver’s door and climb in. The slam of the door shutting makes me wince. I feel kind of bad, and kind of pissed at the same time, because why should he be angry? He has no right. None.

I swing my legs over and slide off the hood, walk around to the driver’s side. Jake’s window is rolled down, and he’s draped over the steering wheel, chin tucked on top of his hands, staring straight ahead.

“I have one more,” I say. I curl my hands over the window frame’s edge. “Truth.”

He doesn’t blink. “Game’s over, Scott. Not your turn, anyway.”

“One more,” I insist, louder, and grip the rubbery strip around the car window frame. I wait until he eventually turns his head to look right at me. “I want to know. Did you have any idea—with June, that she would—or
why
she would—” My voice shakes. I’m looking right at him, but it’s all one big blur.

“No,” he says quietly. He sighs and rubs his face with both hands. “I think. Some people are just sad, all of the time. Too sad to deal with—everything. Life, I guess. I don’t know. There doesn’t always have to be a reason.” His face softens. “I wish I knew.”

“Yeah, well. I guess if June wanted us to know, she would’ve said something, or at least left a note,” I reply bitterly.

I start to step away when Jake catches my wrist and draws me back, flush against the side of the van.

“Hey.” His other hand reaches out, pushing a stray lock of hair off of my face and behind my ear. “You’re not, you know.”

“Not what?” My voice is barely a whisper. My heart races wildly, like I’ve just finished a ten-mile marathon.

Jake shifts forward so that his face is only inches from mine. If he moved forward just a fraction, our mouths would be touching.

“Made of metal,” he says.

Kissing him would be a stupid move. Monumentally stupid, epic levels of stupid—the kind of stupid that gets written down in the history books. And I’m not going to, but in that moment, I think if he closed the gap between us, I’d probably kiss him back. I can blame it on a number of things: the dry, cold New Mexico night air getting to my head, homesickness (okay, not that), temporary insanity. If he kissed
me,
then I’d just be reacting, which would be beyond my control—isn’t that like one of Newton’s laws or something? And then maybe I could live with myself. If I had physics on my side.

But Jake doesn’t make a move to kiss me. He just looks at me for a really long time, his fingers sliding down my wrist and grabbing my hand.

My chest tightens, and suddenly I feel like crying, for no reason at all. “Like you would even know,” I spit at him, then yank out of his loose grip. I turn on my heel and stalk away, shivering. All of a sudden the night seems so much colder.

“Daddy, I know. I didn’t think you’d be so upset. No! We’re not in any trouble. I just thought we could use a little…vacation.”

The sound of Laney’s voice stirs me out of sleep. I sit up on my elbows and look over to see her perched next to me, legs crossed yoga-style, talking into her cell phone. She winds one of her loose curls around her finger absent-mindedly. When she notices I’m awake, she glances over briefly, but doesn’t quite smile.

“Yes, I’m telling the truth,” she says into the phone. “No, we don’t need any money. Okay, I will. I promise! Tell them everything is cool. Daddy, it’s just an expression. All right, I know. Of course. Love you, too. ‘Bye.” She clicks off the phone and holds it out to me. “You need to call your mom.”

I wrap the blanket around my shoulders. What I really want to do is hide under it and pretend I didn’t hear any of that conversation. It only serves as a reminder of what is waiting for me back home. “Why?”

“Because if you don’t, our parents are going to sic the cops on us.”

There’s a motivation if I ever needed one.

“They’re bluffing,” I say, but I don’t really believe myself.

Neither does Laney. “Harper, I’m serious here,” she says. “My dad is not happy about this.”

“Did he freak out?”

“He’s not exactly jumping for joy at the moment. Especially since your family is flipping out. He was all, ‘I know you and Harper are close, and you need this healing time, but you’ve worried everyone and have a responsibility to come home and cope with this properly, blah freaking blah.’ The only reason he’s sympathetic is because he read too much Jack Kerouac in his twenties.”

I worry at my bottom lip. “Do you really think they’re going to call the cops?”

“Apparently your aunt Helen keeps threatening to call them herself, but he’s managed to prevent her from doing it so far,” she says. “But he says he can’t keep stalling if you won’t call to let them know you’re okay. I hate to say it, but he’s right. You owe them a phone call.”

My stomach tightens in knots. “I’m going to,” I tell her. “When we get to California.”

“No,” Laney says adamantly. “You’re calling now.” She starts to dial, and before I can steal the phone from her hands, it’s ringing. I glare and press it to my ear.

On the third ring, someone answers. “Hello?” It’s my mom, her voice surprisingly breezy, like I’ve caught her just coming in or about to leave. I breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t handle another conversation with Aunt Helen.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Harper?” Her tone changes. At least she doesn’t sound angry—but then, how much of someone’s mood can you infer from two syllables? “Is that you?”

“Who else would it be? Unless you have some illegitimate children you’d like to tell me about,” I say, trying to keep it light.

“It’s good to hear your voice.” Okay, pleasantries. I haven’t really prepared myself for that. I expected something more along the lines of vicious screaming, maybe some drunken sobbing and
how-could-you-do-this-to-me-you-ruin-everything
ranting. “Are you okay?” she presses. “Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. We’re both fine.” I can’t quite keep the note of surprise out of my voice. I clear my throat and glance at Laney, who gives me a supportive smile. “Um. How are—things? With you?”

She pauses for a really long time before saying, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that, Harper.”

Point taken. I pick at the hole in my jeans at the knee, pulling up white strings of thread. “So…have you gone back to work yet?”

“What? Have I—? Harper, I just lost one daughter, and the other has run away. What do you think?” She sounds incredulous.

“Yeah, stupid question, I guess.” This is even harder than I thought it’d be. “I’m sorry,” I say, and mean it. “This isn’t about hurting you. I know you don’t believe me, but I mean that.”

“Does this mean you’re coming home?”

I can’t yet. “I will soon,” I promise. “I swear. I just—I have to do this first.”

“Do
what?
”

“It’s for June,” I whisper. “Trust me on this. Please, just trust me.”

Her breath hitches. I expect crying, but instead she says, “Okay. Okay, I trust you, Harper,” the sound of her voice like shattered glass.

By the time we hang up, I’m pretty sure I’ve convinced her to keep Aunt Helen reined in for a little while longer. I hand the phone back to Laney with a long sigh.

“She must be really freaked out,” Laney remarks. She sounds almost…jealous.

“You’re lucky your parents let you do what you want,” I tell her.

She shrugs and tucks her phone into her jeans pocket without answering. When she looks back up at me, she’s smiling.

“Totally,” she agrees. She climbs out of the van before I can say anything else.

I never would’ve thought in any universe, existing or alternate, Laney Sterling would ever be jealous of me. She always acts like she loves her freedom. Her parents basically give her free rein, as long as she keeps her grades up, and turn a blind eye to everything else. I don’t think she’s ever been grounded in her life. Really, even after this whole mess, her father seems more mildly annoyed than actually angry.

Laney makes me feel like a shitty daughter, and an even shittier friend, and the worst part is that if I asked her if I was either, she’d tell me to shut up and stop being an idiot. Even if secretly she thought it was true.

And I’m pretty sure it might be true.

Apparently Jake has decided we aren’t talking, because he barely says a word to me when we pack up our things and drive out, just hits the highway and turns the music up loud. No
Behind the Music-esque
history lessons for me today. I do see the front of the CD case before he tosses
it on the floor—Fleetwood Mac. They have some corny lyrics, but the melodies are enjoyable enough.

Being on the receiving end of Jake’s silent treatment isn’t so bad; at least New Mexico is a nice change of pace. We drive by long stretches of desert, sparse bushes, and I can make out some rocky areas in the distance. I don’t mind leaning my forehead against the window, letting the vibrations chatter my teeth and thrum through me as the scenery flies by.

Laney pulls out her bag of nail polish colors and begins to work on her nails. I look down at my feet, remembering the last time I painted them. The color has somewhat flaked off, but I can still pinpoint that zigzag red smear on my big toe, from when June interrupted me and—

I force myself to not think about it. The next time we stop, I’ll pick up some polish remover and take care of it once and for all.

“Hey, Laney, can I have some?” I ask over my shoulder.

“What color?”

“Black.”

She snorts. “I’m shocked.” But she searches in the bag and withdraws the small bottle, drops it into my outstretched palm.

I brace my hand against the dashboard, unscrew the bottle top and very carefully swipe the brush over my
thumbnail. The process is tedious; Joplin’s rattling over every little bump in the road doesn’t help matters.

“You’re stinking up my car,” Jake complains as I start on the middle finger of my left hand.

I roll my eyes. “I’m almost done.” I finish the last two fingers, topping off the pinkie with a flourish. “So, you’ve decided we’re good enough to speak to again?” I raise my eyebrows at him.

“Keep up the attitude and I might change my mind.”

“Your silence would be a gift, Jake.” Laney shakes out her hand and examines her freshly painted nails. “You know, if it was up to me, we would extend this road trip to last all summer. When I get home, my mother is going to ground me just as an excuse to make me study for the SATs twenty-four seven.”

“Is she still pushing for U of M?” I ask. The University of Michigan is her mother’s alma mater.

“Of course. I’d so rather go to NYU, or USC. Somewhere where things are
happening
,” she says. “My dad thinks I should go to Dartmouth. Like I could even get
in
to Dartmouth if I wanted to! My GPA is not that stellar. I don’t know if it’ll even get me into any of my top choices.”

“That must be hard,” Jake says flatly. “Let me guess, Daddy is the one who will be footing the bill for this dream school of yours?”

“What’s your point?”

“Do you even listen to yourself?” he asks, voice rising with a mix of disgust and incredulity. “You might not get into your number-one college. Poor you! Let me pass you a tissue so you can cry over it some more while the rest of us deal with
real
problems.”

“What crawled up your ass and died, Jake?” Laney bristles. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what my life is like.”

“I know
exactly
what you’re like,” he retorts. “You’re one of those types—‘Oh, let me constantly whine about my privileged, perfect existence and whore it up around town because Daddy doesn’t love me enough.’”

Laney recoils like she’s been slapped. I twist around to stare at him, shocked. “What the hell did you just say?”

Jake clenches his jaw. “I don’t know why I bother with spoiled brats. The both of you.”

“Apologize,” I demand in a low voice. “Apologize, right now, or I am getting out of this car and walking to California if I have to. Do you hear me?” He slides his eyes over at me wordlessly, so I know he’s listening. “Do you hear me?” I yell it so loud that he flinches, hands jerking on the steering wheel.

Suddenly there’s a loud popping sound, and Laney screams. I brace my hands hard against the dashboard as the van swerves to one side, the seat belt cutting into my collarbone hard enough to break skin. Jake curses loudly,
slams on the brakes and pulls over onto the shoulder of the road.

For a few seconds we all sit there, no one breathing a word, and then Jake says, “Is everyone okay?” He sounds out of breath.

“What—what was that?” Laney asks shakily.

“I think we’ve got a flat.” He looks over at me, but I just stare straight ahead. “Harper? Are you okay?”

I don’t answer. I undo my belt with trembling hands and climb out of the van, slam the door and then kick it as hard as I can. My big toe throbs and it’s so fucking hot and dry out here but I don’t care. I can’t be here right now. I turn toward the desert and start walking. I hear the back door open, and Laney’s voice as she calls my name, but I don’t stop, not until I’ve reached a massive gray rock a couple yards away. It’s weird to see a random, big-ass rock in the middle of nowhere. I put my hands on the granite, scramble for a foothold and clamber on top of it.

There’s nothing in front of me but miles and miles of flat desert, yellow and gold and orange, stretching out until the sky meets the horizon, the deepest, clearest blue I’ve ever seen. I stand there and look out at it, the blazing sun stinging my eyes until my vision goes liquid fuzzy, and I wonder how far it goes before it hits anything. How far you’d have to walk before finding civilization.

God, I hate everything. I hate Jake and I hate his stupid van and I hate that people can be so horrible to Laney
and she just
takes
it, because—because why? Because she likes the attention? Because she thinks she deserves it? I’ve always thought of her as this totally fearless person, but then she just lets herself get walked all over like she’s a freaking doormat.

And I hate that I expected better from Jake. I should’ve known. He’s no different from anyone else.

A scream bubbles up in my chest, rips out of my throat from somewhere in the depths of my gut and reverberates into nothing. Even after I’ve stopped I can hear the echoes ringing in my ears. And then I’m just standing there, breathing raggedly, everything in me empty and aching.

“Harper, stop it!” Laney’s behind me, screaming too, on the verge of frantic tears. “Stop it! Stop!”

I turn around slowly so I’m standing sentinel over her and Jake. Laney looks panicked, but he is perfectly calm, unmoving.

“It’s okay,” Laney says. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Stop saying that! It is not okay!” I yell. “It is so
not
okay! It isn’t okay for a guy to treat you like you’re a piece of crap—” I point to Jake “—and it isn’t okay for you to be a raging asshole for no reason, and we have to stop pretending things are okay.
Nothing
is okay.”

I can see the road from here. A pickup truck rolls by, slows as it approaches the van but doesn’t stop. None of us speak until it’s out of sight.

“I’m sorry,” Jake says. He turns to Laney. “I didn’t mean it.”

She lifts a shoulder and drops it. “Yeah, you did,” she says, very pointedly avoiding eye contact. “Whatever. It’s fine. I mean. It’s not fine, but I forgive you or whatever.” She looks to me. “Will you get down now?”

“All right.” I sit and shimmy off the rock, land on the dusty ground. “Let’s go fix the damn tire.”

“Shit.” Jake stares into the back of the van with one hand slapped over his face. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“You’re an idiot,” I tell him. “A spare but no jack? You are such. An. Idiot.”

“Eli must’ve borrowed it and not put it back,” he says. He’s still moving around bags and blankets, searching for the jack even though we’ve torn the van apart five times already. “Shit.
Shit.”

I look at Laney, sitting on the side of the road, squinting down at her cell phone. She’s been texting Seth for the last fifteen minutes. “What does Seth say?” I ask.

“Seth says, and I quote, ‘Jake is an idiot,’” she says. Seth is a good study of human character.

Jake curses a few more times and stalks off around the van, jumping up and sitting on the hood. I follow and watch as he paws his pockets madly, until he eventually fumbles out a cigarette. I walk around so I’m standing in front of him.

“What should we do?” I ask.

He doesn’t look at me as he shakes his lighter and tries to flick up a flame. “Do I look like I have an answer to that?” I really could just punch him in the mouth, I swear.

“What is wrong with you?” I snatch the lighter out of his hands and throw it on the ground. “Why are you being such a dick?”

He stares at me with the unlit cigarette hanging on his lower lip and says, “We’re not friends, Harper. Don’t act like we are.”