Saving June (26 page)

“Got it in one!” she exclaims, and when she holds up her hand, I roll my eyes but indulge her with a high five
anyway. She looks up at the sky and says, “Too bad we can’t see the fireworks from here.”

That makes me think of something. “Hey,” I say, “I’ve got an idea.”

We scramble through the window and down the stairs, out the front door, and I pay one of the kids across the street two dollars for two of his sparkler sticks. I have my heavy black funeral dress in one hand and my mom’s lighter in the other. Laney stares at me like I’m crazy as I spread the dress out on the driveway.

“What are you doing?” she asks, but she says it like she already knows the answer.

“Making our own fireworks.”

I light the end of the sparkler, then press the tip into the heap of fabric on the asphalt. It takes a few tries with both the sparkler and the lighter, but the material is flammable, and soon enough the dress goes up in flames. After a minute or so of watching it burn, Laney rushes to grab the hose. She douses the remaining flames, until all that’s left is charred remnants of the dress.

It’s not all gone. That’s just science—matter can be neither created nor destroyed. The same way pieces of June survived in the dust of her ashes, the way those pieces are settling into the ocean floor right now. The dress and the memories that go along with it will last forever. Or until everyone who remembers dies, too.

Laney drops the hose and looks at me. “Harper. How are you doing? I mean, really?”

I think about it and say, “Better,” and as I speak the word I realize it’s true.

I still go to bed sad, and wake up sad, and it still hurts like hell, but there are moments during the day when it hurts less. Sometimes I can think of June and not want to burst into tears or put my fist through a wall. Sometimes I’m close to happy and it doesn’t even hurt. Much. I’ll never be the way I was before, but maybe that’s okay. Life goes on, I’m going on, even without her. Not every day hurts. Not every breath hurts.

Maybe that’s all we can really ask for.

All of the pictures taken en route to California are still inside Carmen’s shoebox. I shoved it far under my bed the same night I came back to Grand Lake, and since then I’ve mostly forgotten about them. But the day after Laney reminds me of their existence, I get down on my hands and knees and slide the box back out from underneath the bed.

The photos aren’t the only thing I haven’t sorted through—my duffel bag remains halfway unpacked. I probably would’ve finished if I hadn’t discovered Jake’s CBGB T-shirt buried among my things. Yup, somehow I mistakenly ended up with his shirt. Seeing it made my heart hurt, and I was torn between setting it on fire in the
front yard like I did the dress or curling up on the bed and sleeping with it like a little kid’s blanket.

I was too pissed off to do the latter, and feeling too maudlin to do the former, so I settled for tossing my duffel in my closet and leaving it there, untouched.

Now I sit on top of my bed with the shoebox in front of me. I pull off the lid and turn it over onto the bedspread, scraps of celluloid spilling out everywhere. I pluck a photo out of the pile at random—it’s a candid of Jake and Laney pretending to duel with beef jerky ropes at some gas station in Texas. Or maybe it was Arizona, I can’t remember for sure.

What am I supposed to do with these? Keeping them stashed away in a shoebox doesn’t seem right. I could put them in an album, except I don’t have any that are empty, and I’d probably have to buy a special one to fit Polaroids. I’m mulling over my options when I turn my head and see the answer staring me in the face.

The wall closest to my bed. My white and empty and begging-for-decoration wall, the only blank one in my room. The others are covered in film posters and other pictures I’ve taken and liked well enough to showcase. My closet door is proudly decorated with patches of orange and green paper—all of the detention and tardy slips I’ve accumulated over the years, badges of my insubordination. It was Laney’s idea.

Just as I’m working out the arrangement in my head, the doorbell rings. It can’t be Mom, since she’s at work, so
really there are only two viable options: It’s either Aunt Helen, dropping by for one of her cherished surprise visits, or Laney, having managed to liberate herself once more. All the way down the stairs, I cross my fingers for it to be Option Number Two.

Turns out, it’s neither. I open the door to see…no one. There’s no car or person in sight. At first I assume some stupid brat on the block decided it’d be fun to play a game of Ding Dong Ditch, but then I glance down and see it.

A mix CD.

It’s sitting on the doormat, in a clear case. I bend over and pick it up, and I can make out the words written across the silver disc—Saving June.

Back in my room, I set it on top of my stereo, then pace back and forth for so long I make a dark trail on the carpet. What is this supposed to mean? It has to be from Jake, obviously, being his modus operandi and all. No one else would’ve done this. No one else would’ve known what I’d said, that evening on the boat.

Finally I decide to stop torturing myself and listen to the damn CD.

Every song on it is something we listened to at some point during the trip. The Bruce Springsteen jam he blasted when he picked me up, the Beatles song I cried along to in Oklahoma, the Doors song that played when we—while we—

Listening to that one brings back a slew of memories.
The feel of his mouth on mine, the way our bodies stuck together with sweat in the afterglow. God, even just thinking about it, alone in my room, makes me blush.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Jake had to ruin everything by giving me that letter, or that June had to ruin everything by writing it in the first place, by choosing to end her life, by not caring what that did to everyone else’s. It is so unfair, and I am so, so mad at them, but even so, I still love them both, against my better judgment. It’d be so much easier if I could hate them—but I can’t.

It’s like that Crosby, Stills and Nash song Jake sang to me on the hood of his van; my love for June and Jake is an anchor, bound with unbreakable chains. Weighing me down, but at the same time…keeping me grounded. Keeping me here. Tying me to the world. It hurts, but it’s supposed to, because that’s what it means to be alive. And that’s comforting, actually. The realization that I’m not some robot devoid of emotions. That I still have the ability to feel things this brutally, this immediate and sharp.

When the room plunges into silence, I think at first the CD has finished, but then static crackles, and Jake’s voice comes out of the speakers.

“Uh, hi, Harper. Didn’t expect this, did you? Well, you told me I was too chicken-shit to write my own songs. You’re not entirely wrong about that. But I don’t back down from a challenge, so here’s my best shot. I know it probably sucks, but…I hope you don’t hate it.”

There’s another silence, and then some rustling like he’s moving around, followed by the strum of a guitar.

The song is just Jake and his acoustic guitar, open and aching and unguarded. It’s beautiful. It makes me want to
laugh and cry at the same time, but I do neither. I just sit on my bed and listen to the CD on a loop until I’ve finished sticking each and every Polaroid to my wall.

Until I’ve picked up my sister’s letter and finally read the last words she ever wrote, words intended for me.

Until I’ve figured out exactly what I want—what I need—to do.

The writing in June’s letter is sloppy compared to her usual perfect script, like maybe her hand was shaking while she wrote the words. I imagine her sitting down, plotting this out in a notebook, her final message, the grace notes of her life’s composition. The moment that must have cemented her decision. I’ll never know what she was thinking. What, exactly, drove her to that point.

The closest I’ll come to knowing is through her note.

Harper,

I know you will not understand this. I don’t expect you to. I don’t feel the need to justify why I’m doing what I am to anyone except myself, but I do want you to know a few things.

1) I love you and Mom and Dad, and I know you all love me. I’m sorry for the hurt this will cause you.

2) Trust me that it’s better this way. It’s the only way I can be free of this. I’m so sad I can’t think. I’m
scared all the time. Nothing helps. I don’t see the point. I can’t explain it. The bastards have ground me down. Maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

I should’ve tried harder. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t be strong like you. I think you were right before, about real love not existing. At least not the love I needed. But that’s my fault. Not yours.

Tell whoever finds me that I’m sorry. I tried my hardest not to leave a mess.

I feel like I should say more, but there’s nothing else.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

Love,

June

P.S.—I’m not scared anymore.

Twenty-four minutes. That is how long it takes to get from the bus stop closest to my house to the Oleo Strut. Fourteen minutes on the bus, six minutes of walking time and four minutes of stopping every fifteen feet and willing myself not to ditch out on this.

At least the heat helps, in the sense that I finally reason to myself that if I don’t get out of the sun, I’m going to fall over and die of heatstroke, and that’ll be of help to no one.

“Well, hello, hello,” Eli greets the second I walk into the Oleo. He’s taping a blue flyer advertising a Journey cover band to the inside of the window. “Hey, weren’t you in here a while ago with that blond girl? The one who thought she was Nancy Drew?”

“Maybe,” I answer evasively.

He waggles his eyebrows—much like Jake used to
waggle his. Must be a genetic trait. “Hope you’re not here for a follow-up interrogation.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll spare you,” I assure him. I take a deep breath. “Is your brother around?”

“Ah,” he says with a knowing smirk, and I’d be embarrassed if I wasn’t so annoyed. Apparently also a Tolan family trait: the ability to bug the crap out of me with a single look.

Eli makes up for it a little by informing me that Jake is out back and allowing me to cut through the exit in the stockroom rather than walk all the way around the building. I push open the heavy door and find Jake hosing down Joplin, a bucket of soapy water at his feet. My heart warms a little at the sight of the familiar black van. It’s stupid, it’s just a piece of machinery, metal and bolts and rubber, but I’ve missed it.

Jake is wearing black jeans, as usual, and a shabby dark gray wife beater. No fedora today. Other than the fact that the bruise below his eye has faded, he looks exactly the same, even though so much has changed. But of course he wouldn’t look any different. It’s only been a few weeks.

I wait for a few seconds, and then I say, “Joplin’s looking good.”

The idea was to have a smooth, cool opening line, something that would give me the upper hand, but in this case, the element of surprise does not work in my favor. When Jake turns in the direction of my voice, the hose turns with him—and douses my entire front.

“Shit!” He jerks the nozzle away, shuts off the spray of water and looks at me, shocked. “Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” I say quickly. I wipe the cold water off of my face with one hand and pull the bottom of my drenched shirt away from my middle. “Uh, I actually needed the cool-down anyway.”

“Oh.” He stares at me with his mouth open, like he’s trying to decide what to say. Finally he clears his throat and says, “Um. Do you want to come inside? I can get you a towel—and…and I wanted to show you something. If you don’t mind.”

This isn’t how I pictured my first time in Jake’s room, but here I am: standing in the middle of it, dripping water all over his hardwood floor. He goes to the bathroom for a towel as I survey his space. It’s pretty much what I imagined it to be; the walls are layered ceiling-to-floor in posters of old rock stars and punk bands, with a few jazz artists thrown in for good measure, signed flyers from local shows and newspaper clippings from various protests.

I’m reading about two guys who scaled a skyscraper in Manhattan to raise awareness for global warming when Jake reenters the room. He wordlessly hands me a blue towel.

“Thanks,” I say, patting off my face. We look at each for a while, both silent. I realize he’s waiting for me to make the first move. I’m not sure where to start—but I figure there’s no point in beating around the bush. “I read June’s letter.”

“Oh.” He blinks a few times, but doesn’t move. “Did it help?”

“Yes,” I say, “and no. It said all of the right things—and none of the right things. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” he says, without hesitation, and I know he’s telling the truth, because Jake never thinks twice about telling me when I’m not making sense.

The look on his face draws me by the anchor chain between us closer to him. I’m swept a step forward, my heart so tight in my chest it could burst.

“I really miss her,” I say. My voice cracks a little around the edges.

“I know.”

“And you.”

“What?”

“You. I miss you.”

His mouth hangs open, and then he smiles sadly, in a way that makes my insides ache, with longing and hurt and everything else standing between us.

“I…miss you, too,” he says.

It’s what I want to hear, but—

“I’m still pissed,” I tell him.

“I know.”

“Good.” All of that was hard enough to say out loud that I have to look away for a minute. Eventually I meet his eyes again and say, “So what did you want to show me?”

Jake goes to the vinyl record player sitting on top of his
dresser, turns it on and sets the needle. He holds up the record cover—it’s the autographed Jimi Hendrix album.

“I wanted you to hear it,” he explains. “Listening to Jimi Hendrix on vinyl is something I think every person should experience at least once in their life.” He sits down on the floor with his back against his bed, and I lower myself down next to him, close enough so that our hips and thighs touch. The contact sparks something inside of me, hot and breathtaking, thrumming.

We listen to the music in mutual appreciative silence. Jimi makes the guitar come alive, makes it wail and scream and rage and sing, each soaring riff searing through me. This is the kind of music that changes people, the kind of music that changes the world.

The same kind of music that changed me.

I close my eyes, soaking it in, and when I open them again, Jake is looking at me funny. His mouth slants to one side like he doesn’t know whether or not it’s okay to smile.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I just—I didn’t expect you to show up. Ever. I mean, I’m glad you did. You just caught me off guard, is all.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I say. “But I listened to your CD.”

A lengthy pause. “What did you think?”

“It sucks.”

“Really?” His mouth turns down in disappointment. “You didn’t like the music?”

“No, the music was great. And your song at the end, I
loved it. I did. It’s just—you told me that the art of the mix CD is like a book. That it has to have the exciting hook in the beginning and the right closer that wraps everything up the way it needs to be. Your song was amazing, but there’s a problem. It’s not an ending.”

“Not sure I follow you.”

I take his hand in mine. He looks down at our interlocked fingers and then back up at me. His eyes are this unreal shade of green. I remember, the first time I saw him in the garden, how that was the first thing I noticed, before I knew anything else about him.

“‘June is over and so are we,’”
I say. “I don’t want that to be how things end.”

“You don’t?”

I meant it when I said I was still mad. There’s no instant fix for this. But I care about Jake, and that means something, right? Maybe it’s a mistake, maybe I’ll get hurt in the end. But maybe not. I loved June. I still love her, and that will never change, but for the first time in my life, I truly, truly don’t want to be her. I don’t want to be so scared all the time. So alone. I want to believe something can be worth it. Worth the pain. Worth the risk.

Deciding to kiss Jake is like standing on the edge of a pool, staring down and wanting to take the leap, but fearing how cold the water will be.

I hold my breath and jump.