The Future of Us (28 page)

I GRAB THE CORDLESS PHONE from my parents’ room and head outside. When I reach the short wall surrounding the swings, I dial David’s number. His machine picks up after two rings.

“This is David. I’m probably screening my calls right now, so leave your name after the beep, and we’ll see if I answer.”

“Hey, this is Josh,” I say, weaving slowly between the swings. “You’re probably in class, but if you get this—”

There’s a click on David’s end. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“I slept through my afternoon class,” he says. “But that’s not something you should tell Mom and Dad.”

Before I saw David’s future, I would’ve laughed at his comment. Now I wonder how much of his life isn’t for Mom and Dad—or me—to know about. Eventually, he must tell everyone he’s gay because he brings Phillip to my house at the lake. In fact, one day he’ll write on the Internet that he’s in a relationship with a man.

With my free hand, I hold onto the chains of one of the swings. “Do you have a second to talk?”

I hear David plopping into his beanbag. “Sure. What’s up?”

I can’t remember why I thought calling my brother would help. There’s nothing he can say if I don’t reveal everything about Sydney and me and our future together. Without telling him about Facebook, it’s going to sound pathetic. Who complains about going to a bonfire with Sydney Mills?

“Josh,” David says, “do you understand how phones work? When you call someone, you’re supposed to talk.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just really confused about a girl right now.”

“Emma?” David asks.

“No,” I say. “Her name is Sydney Mills. She’s the one I was talking about the other night.”

“Wait, is she the little sister of the Mills twins?” he asks. “Dude, they were hot.”

I sit down on the swing and twist to the left. Why is he saying that? Did
he
think they were hot, or is he saying
other
guys thought they were hot? If he’s trying to fool me, I shouldn’t have called him in the first place. I need to talk honestly with him.

“If Sydney Mills is
anything
like her sisters . . .” David lets out a low whistle. “So I’m guessing you took my advice. You saw your moment and you didn’t let it pass.”

“She asked me to a bonfire tonight,” I say.

“Look at you go! So what’s the problem?”

“It’s hard to explain,” I say. “She’s gorgeous. And any guy in school would
love
to be with her . . . except me. And yet, I know I should.”

“Is she nice?” he asks.

“She’s a little self-absorbed. But yeah, she’s nice.”

David is quiet for a moment. “Are you worried she’s more experienced than you? Because if you want, I can explain—”

“No,” I say. “That’s not it.” I didn’t call him because I’m nervous about hooking up. I’m nervous about my entire life.

“I know what your problem is,” David says.

“I have a problem?”

“You’re a go-with-the-flow guy,” he says. “You’ve always been that way. And that can feel great because it means you don’t have to make any hard decisions. But sometimes you need to figure out what
you
want, Josh. If that means you need to swim against the tide to get it, at least you’re aiming for something that could make you very happy.”

I twist the swing in the other direction.

“Where do you want to go to college?” David asks. “I know you won’t have to deal with that until next year, but where are you considering now?”

I laugh into the phone. He thinks I’m going to say Hemlock State, where Mom and Dad work. But I’ve seen Facebook. I know where I’m going, and he’s wrong. “The University of Washington,” I say.

“So you’ll go where your brother went,” David says. “Those are some strong currents you’re swimming against.”

“But it’s a good school.”

“I know it is,” he says. “But you need to pick the school
you
want to go to.”

There’s a beep on his end of the line, which means he has another call.

“Listen,” David says. “Tonight, you need to go to the bonfire with Sydney because you said you would. But when it’s over, I want you to think about something.”

His phone beeps again.

“If things aren’t clicking with her,” he says, “maybe it’s because there’s someone else you’d rather be with. And if that’s true, why not swim against the tide and ask her?”

Because I can’t put myself through that again.

“THAT FEELS AMAZING,” Cody groans, rolling his head from side to side.

I’ve been massaging his shoulders for a while now. A tank full of turquoise tropical fish is burbling, and the coffee table in front of us displays a fan of modern art books. I’m sitting on a black leather couch, while Cody’s sitting on the floor, leaning back between my knees. When we first got here, he pulled two bottles of chilled water from the fridge. We listened to a few songs on the Dave Matthews bootleg, and then he slid in one of his uncle’s Paul Simon CDs.

This house is amazing.

Cody is amazing.

I look at my reflection in the horizontal mirror hanging above the marble fireplace. The mirror is framed in thick bronze and probably weighs more than my dresser. If I had known this was going to happen when I woke up today, I would have worn something better than my olive-green T-shirt and jean shorts. But I suppose I could’ve done worse. I watch my reflection as I rub my fingers along Cody’s collarbone, inside the neck of his shirt. He groans with pleasure and closes his eyes.

It feels like my future is just beginning.

“This is definitely what I needed,” Cody says, turning and smiling at me. “The weight-training yesterday killed my shoulders.”

I smile back at him and flex my fingers, which are starting to ache. That massage lasted a long time.

“Mine too,” I say, hunching my shoulders. I unscrew the cap from my bottled water and take a sip.

“If you’re done,” Cody offers, “I can give you a massage back.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

I think about the first time Cody and I talked, and how I rested my head on his shoulder during the bus ride home from a track meet. I’d always admired him from a distance, but suddenly this perfect guy was paying attention to me. It took another year, and some knowledge of his future, but now here we are.

“Are you ready?” Cody asks. He pushes himself up from the floor and sits next to me on the couch. I turn toward the fish tank, and he starts massaging my shoulders.

It’s a very different massage than the one I gave him. His hands gently touch my skin, moving slowly up my arms. He glides his fingers down my sides and then rests them on my hips. I close my eyes, feeling a light shudder in my body as his lips kiss my neck.

“You’re cute, Emma Nelson,” he whispers, planting a row of kisses from my collarbone up to my ear. “This is a lot more fun than when you screamed in my car on the way over.”

He wraps his arm around my waist, and I tell myself to relax. I tell myself to be fun, and not that girl who screamed in the car.

This is the moment I’m supposed to turn around and kiss him back. Instead, I glance over at the mirror and realize that I don’t know who I’m seeing in the reflection.

“You said you come here a lot?” I ask.

“Sometimes,” Cody says, kissing down my other shoulder.

I picture that tall girl he gave his number to at the track meet. “With other girls?”

“That’s sort of a personal question.”

“This is sort of a personal moment,” I say.

“We’re just having fun.”

Cody continues rubbing my shoulders. As he does, I think about the past few days. I’ve listened to him tell me about Duke and about teaching himself to play guitar, and I’ve even recited
Wayne’s World
to him. But he’s never asked about me. That’s because he doesn’t care about me for who I am. He cares about me because I’ve been worshipping him.

I stand up.

Cody looks at me. “What’s going on?”

“I want to go home,” I say.

“We just got here,” he says, leaning back. His fingers are laced behind his head and his elbows are splaying out. “You should chill for a little longer.”

There he goes, telling me to chill again. Just like back in the car.

Kellan’s theory is wrong. When Cody jerked into traffic, then snapped at me for screaming, I didn’t see my future husband. Sitting next to me in that car was a guy so different than what I’d hoped.

“I’m going home,” I say.

Cody clenches his jaw, and I can tell he’s pissed. I don’t think many girls say no to him. “I guess I can drive you.”

And get in a car with him again? “I’d rather walk,” I say.

“We’re three miles from your house.”

I start toward the door. “I know how far away I am.”

Cody follows after me and reaches for my hand. “I said I’ll drive you.”

“No!” I say, pulling away.

I open the front door and he grabs my shoulder, turning me around.

“Do you realize you’re being a freak?” he asks.

I push his hand off me. “And yet you have no idea that you’re a dick.”

I WALK ALONG THE HIGHWAY facing traffic. The shoulder stays wide for half a mile before gradually narrowing. When it’s no longer an option to walk on the side of the road, I cut through a section of tall grass. In the distance, beyond the railroad tracks, I see the overgrown lot where a traveling carnival used to operate during the summers.

I lift my feet high to avoid the itchy weeds brushing against my ankles. As I reach the railroad tracks, I bend down to pick thistles from my socks. When Josh and I were younger, we once biked over here with coins to set on the tracks for the train to flatten. The train never came, so we ended up searching the carnival grounds for lost treasures.

I walk across a wide area where the Ferris wheel used to stand near a rickety red Tilt-a-Whirl. Next came the taffy vendor and a game where toy guns shoot streams of water into the open mouths of plastic clown heads.

I stroll through the grounds, thinking about how ever since we discovered Facebook, I’ve been changing specific things in an attempt to improve my future. Jordan Jones was probably cheating on me, so I ditched him. Kevin Storm ruined my career, so I made sure we never moved to Ohio. But every time I got a new future, I still turned out unhappy.

For the past five days, I’ve been trying to understand why this happens to me and how I can tweak things so it won’t happen again. But I’m starting to wonder if it actually has nothing to do with the future. Maybe it has everything to do with what happens now.

I step around a long plank, swollen with moisture.

Aside from Cody, most of the guys I go for are nice. Graham may have been horny, but he was never mean. And Dylan is one of the friendliest guys I know. The other day, he was checking out library books for his new girlfriend because—

Dylan was getting those books because he
loves
his girlfriend. He never did those things for me because I never gave him the chance. I never told him what I was reading or what movies made me cry. I kept enough distance so I would never get hurt.

I’ve always protected myself when it comes to love. And maybe that’s the problem. By not letting myself get hurt now, it ripples into much bigger pain later. In the future, maybe I never let my husbands see the real me either, so I never give them the chance to learn what makes me happy. Either that or I marry a conceited jerk like Cody, and then there’s definitely not going to be much love.

Once I’m across the carnival lot, I step onto the broken sidewalk. Blades of grass push through the cracks, fighting for a taste of sunlight. I’ve still got a long way until I’m home, but I will get there eventually.

THE FIRST THING I NOTICE when I walk into the kitchen is a note on the counter.