The Love That Split the World (3 page)

He blushes at my lengthy silence. “You know, me, you, Megan. Everyone.”

“Okay, it’s a date, then.”

“A date?”

Why do I do that? Why do things like that just come out every time it feels like Matt and I are on the verge of moving forward? I try to make my voice light, teasing. “Yeah. You, me, Meghan, and the ghost of River Phoenix.”

“Who’s River Phoenix?”

I tilt my head at him. “Do you even
have
the Internet up on that farm of yours, Matty? What keeps you warm at night if not angst-ridden male celebrities who died before we were born?”

“Football, Nat.”

“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect there are whole websites devoted to football too.”

“Duly noted,” he says. “Anyway, why do you care so much about this Phoenix guy when there’s a ghost haunting our very own Ryle High School band room?”

I gasp and grab his sleeve. “Wait—do you think River could be the Band Room Phantom?”

Matt rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, but before he can speak, I feel my stomach somehow rise up in my abdomen, and I double over, fighting against the sensation that I’m falling. The overhead lights cut out. The entire hall falls dark and silent. I swear under my breath and reach out for him, finding nothing but empty air. “Matt?”

The back of my neck prickles as the swarms of color fade, allowing my eyes to adjust. My heart starts hammering in my chest as my eyes try to tell me something impossible: Everyone has vanished. I’m
alone
in the nearly pitch-black hallway.

There’s a current in the air I’ve felt only in very specific moments of my life: the quivering charge of a dream breaking into reality, the same way the man in the green coat and the other hallucinations did before Grandmother came.

I’m dreaming. This is some new brand of hallucination, and, like always, it all feels too real, impossible and yet undeniable. I try to swallow but my throat’s too dry, and my arms are shaking as I shuffle forward, one palm sliding along the cool metal of the lockers. “Matt?” I call loudly. My voice echoes against the scuffed tile.

Something brushes my arm, and I stifle a half-choked scream as, all at once, the overhead fluorescents blink back on and everyone reappears.

“Oh,
God
.” I clutch my chest and try to ease my hyperventilation back into even breaths as my eyes register Matt’s faint freckles, his hand on my arm. His eyebrows pull together, and he glances over his shoulder, as if expecting to see a tornado barreling toward us.

“Nat?” He shakes my arm lightly. “You okay?”

“Power,” I pant. Matt tilts his head. “The lights just cut out.”
And everyone disappeared
.

“Huh.” He shrugs. “I must’ve missed it.”

I force my sandpaper throat to swallow. “Guess so.”

Matt looks around and lowers his mouth to my ear. “What’s going on, Nat?” he presses. “You can tell me.”

I take a step back from him, folding all my fear back down into the pit of my stomach. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

He sighs. “See you tonight.”

As he walks away, bumping his shoulder into Derek Dillhorn’s, I turn my eyes up to the light panels in the ceiling, watching, waiting.
I don’t want to scare you,
Grandmother said,
but you need to be prepared for what’s coming
.

3

After dinner, Jack and Coco ride back to Ryle with me in the Jeep, which is making a sound like there’s a cat stuck in the engine. “God, what do you think that is?” I ask them.

“I dunno,” Jack says. “Your radiator?”

“He doesn’t have a clue,” Coco says without looking up. “Hey, are you and Matt getting back together?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Abby said he asked you on a date, and you said yes. I think that’s great.”

“Really? Because you sound like Stephen Hawking when
he
thinks something’s great.”

“That’s really mean, Nat,” Coco says flatly. “He can’t help that he sounds like that.”

“
He
doesn’t sound like that. His machine sounds like that.
He could choose any voice he wants. It could sound like Morgan Freeman, if he wanted it to.”

“Could Matt get me on varsity if you guys got back together?” Jack says.

“Would you come home from college more often?” Coco says.

“That’s not how football tryouts work, Jack. More importantly, I’m not getting back together with Matt, and what the
hell
is making that sound?”

“The carburetor,” Jack says.

“He has no idea,” Coco says.

We park at the edge of the lot and make our way across the asphalt. There’s a slight breeze, but the humidity still has my hair and my dress clinging to every inch of me, and I’m hoping this night goes quickly so I can get back to the air conditioning.

I used to dream about this night.

We make our way down to the football field, whose bright white stadium lights beckon us like holy bug zappers. Parents have turned out in too-nice clothes, their formal wear too stifling for the heat, and have compensated for their inevitable body odor with too much cheeriness and zeal. I spot Rachel and the rest of the dance team just inside the chain link fence along the upper level, and they shriek and point and wave until I wave back and head over to them. Jack and Coco split off to find some of the freshmen from the football team and their popular girl friends and girlfriends to sit with.

“You guys look great,” I tell the Raiderettes. They’re performing tonight, so they’re dressed in full uniform and shimmering makeup, their hair slicked back in neat ponytails, their eyelashes impossibly long.

Rachel sticks out her bottom lip. “I wish you were dancing with us tonight. It’s still so weird to see you here out of uniform.”

“Yeah,” I stammer. “Pretty weird, but I needed the time to focus on school, and somehow you guys managed to plod on even without me in your back row. Anyway, good luck. Or break a leg. Or
merde
. Or just . . . whatever. Do some stuff, and do it well.”

I turn and make my way down the metal bleachers, and warm relief fills me when I spot Megan sitting at the edge of the girls’ soccer team. I go perch beside her. “Hi.”

“Hiiiiiiii,” she says, giving me a hug. “How are you?”

“Grandma’s in town.”

Her mouth drops open. “No way.”

I nod. I can trust Megan with Grandmother, because she’s the only one who really believes. More than anyone I’ve ever met, she believes in God and always has. And while God doesn’t talk to Megan quite how Grandmother talks to me, and our ideas of what God is aren’t identical, Megan didn’t bat an eye when I first told her my secret, because she believes in things that can’t be seen, and she loves me enough to think that if God were to appear on Earth, her best friend would obviously be the one It would appear to.

“Wow.” She gives me another quick squeeze. “Okay, you have to tell me everything.”

I nod again. The dance team is descending the bleachers in an even row, their poms behind their backs, elbows out to their sides, and chins held high. “I will,” I promise, “after Rachel shimmies us the meaning of life.”

And even as she does, there’s something magical hanging thick in the air tonight right alongside the humidity.

Maybe it’s the glow of the lights on the yellowing field or their glare on the bleachers. Maybe it’s the marching band in their white-feathered hats, all lined up to the left of the bright orange end zone, blaring out the fight song. They’re moving through the choreography like they’re all a little bit tipsy—not in a bad way. Like when Mom has a glass of red wine, how she walks with that sway. Normally she moves with perfectly upright posture, straight and aligned, as if she’s Miss October in the University of Kentucky Dance Team Calendar again, her pretty strawberry hair blown out around her by an off-camera fan.

But the wine makes her forget how to walk like that, or maybe she becomes just un-self-conscious enough to
want
to sway her hips. Either way, it’s nice, and the way the marching band’s playing the fight song, to no one but the home team, is kind of like that.

And all those feelings I forgot to feel today while I was at school, hugging people I’ve known forever and saying goodbye and promising to keep in touch, I’m feeling them now.

And then I think about Grandmother and how I may never see her again.

And I think about my front porch, and how many nights Megan and I sat out there when we were little, summer nights when we were sticky and dirty from playing, when Gus was just a puppy. All those evenings we played Ghosts in the Graveyard and tag with the neighborhood kids who went to St. Henry and St. Paul—and sometimes Matty, when his dad dropped him off after chores—until the sun dropped abruptly into the night.

And now I see fireflies in the grass down by the track that runs around the football field, and hovering around the
hill sloping up the left side of the marching band—the very hill where I got my first kiss from Matt Kincaid, the quarterback himself, when we were in the eighth grade.

My eyelids are heavy, and the fight song is growing slower and slower, until suddenly, I must drift off, because there’s that abrupt
falling
sensation right through my middle, and then everything is gone.

Not the stadium or the field—but the sound, the band, the people. Even Megan.

Everything and everyone, except me and the crickets and those holy stadium lights.

As if another light is blipping into view, a person appears, out in the middle of the field. A boy, standing with his back to me, tall with broad shoulders, and long, kind of dirty dark hair. He’s holding a paper bag in his right hand, and he brings it up to his mouth, takes a swig of whatever’s inside, then tips his head back and looks up.

The silence is so big it makes the world swell, and the boy feels farther away than he possibly could be.

I follow his gaze upward, and the Kentucky sky seems miles higher than it ever has. There’s a waning crescent moon tonight, with a fair mix of clouds and a smattering of stars. I look back down at the boy’s shaggy hair, and his back and butt, trying to place him, but I can’t.

I’m dreaming about a stranger. I guess that’s not so strange, really. I’m reminded of that first time Grandmother appeared at my bedside, the way I should’ve been afraid and wasn’t, the way I knew to trust her and felt that I knew her, unlike all the visitors that came before her.

I stand and lean against the rail in the aisle between bleachers. I want to go down to the field, to stand with this boy between the sky and the grass until every part of me touches every layer of the world. It feels important, but even though I’m so sure this is a dream, I feel a little shy and embarrassed, like I won’t know what to say when I get down there.

But my need to get out there outweighs everything else. I go down one step, and the metal creaks under my foot.

The boy on the field must hear it, because he starts to turn around, but before I can see his face, everything snaps back into place: The fight song is ending; the crowd is shouting, clapping, cheering.

And he’s gone.

“Nat?” Megan shouts over the noise.

I’m standing in the aisle, holding on to the railing.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to leave?” she asks. “We can go.”

“No,” I answer honestly, sitting back down beside her. I don’t want to take my eyes off that field. Something’s happening here, and I’m afraid to miss it.

“Are you sure?”

I nod. What I need is to stay, and to watch. I need to figure this out.

Besides, I may not be on any teams, but Megan is, and this night matters for her and for all the girls we’re sitting with.

After the dance team’s performance come senior awards for softball and baseball, followed by the cheerleading team’s performance, then senior awards for soccer, at which point I’m
forced to elbow Megan in the rib cage because Brian Walters’s icy blue eyes are so blatantly staring at her. “He wants to have your glorious, blue-eyed babies,” I whisper.

“So as long as no one tells him he doesn’t have a uterus, I have a chance?” she murmurs back.

The next award is for archery, which is when Megan and I first discover Ryle has an archery team. Then comes basketball, and then a color guard performance, and then, finally, it’s time for the football awards.

Coach Gibbons approaches the podium to call the seniors down, and the crowd bursts into whistles and foot stomping. Matty stands at the far end, looking both handsome and sheepish, and all around like a Disney prince come to life in his neat jersey and nice jeans.

“Most of y’all know I’m a man of few words,” Coach starts off into the microphone. “But I say them slowly, and that helps.” An appreciative chuckle rumbles through the bleachers, and, true to form, Coach slowly, methodically starts speaking about each of the seniors and the ways they’ve contributed to the team.

I’ve always loved watching Matt play. He has a grace that most athletes just don’t have. You can be good at a sport without it—good, but not great. Mom says Dad had that grace with basketball, before he tore his ACL his first semester of college; he was on track for the NBA when it happened, Mom says. That’s always been hard for me to picture, since I’ve never known him as anything but a horse doctor and trainer. Honestly, he’s so good at
that,
it doesn’t seem possible or fair he could’ve ever had another talent of that caliber. Right now, all Jack cares about is football, but a part of me wonders what secret talents he might
discover if he couldn’t play anymore—and then I try to cast that horrible thought from my mind so I don’t accidentally will an accident on my baby brother.

Getting lost in Matty’s big moment almost makes me forget about the dream, but then it happens again: a flicker on the field, right beside the eight seniors lined up next to Coach. Suddenly, at the end of the row, there’s a ninth. Only that’s not quite right, because every time he flashes into view, the others vanish, leaving only him.

Tall, broad-shouldered, full mouth, long dark hair, and serious hazel eyes.

The two images flicker alternatingly four or five times rapidly, as though two giant invisible hands are taking turns covering first the team, then the other boy. When the glimmering stops, it’s the team that remains in sight.

I look around the crowd, searching for signs that anyone else saw the ninth boy appear on the field, but everyone remains riveted by Coach’s speech, totally unbothered by the way the world just shuddered.

“Nat?” Megan whispers.

“Did you see him?” I ask.

“Who?”

“That guy on the field?”

Her blue eyes dart over to Coach, and she maneuvers her posture to see around either side of the podium, but when I look back to the field, the boy’s already gone.

“I’m going crazy.”

“You are not,” she whispers back. “You said Grandmother’s in town. Couldn’t it be one of her friends?”

“I don’t know if she
has
friends.”

“Of course she has friends. What do you think angels are?”

“I’m not sure she’s like
that
God.”

“She tells you stories from the Bible, doesn’t she?” Megan’s always acted like Grandmother is Jesus in a mask. I, on the other hand, have never known
what
to think about where her God ends and where mine begins. Sometimes when Megan talks about her faith, I think
yes, exactly
, but Grandmother’s stories have made me feel like the concept of God is too big for a book or a group of bodies lined up in pews or even a world religion. God is a thing I know when I see, and I see It all over, in Megan, in the night sky and the morning sun, and especially in Grandmother.

“Yeah . . . sometimes. But she also tells me stories about people named Squirrel and Chipmunk. Are those people from the Bible? Did Grandmother Spider steal fire in the Old Testament or New, because I thought that was a Choctaw story.”

Megan knocks her elbow into mine. “Fine, I don’t know how all this stuff fits together, but the point is, I know you. You’re not crazy. Grandmother’s real, and whatever’s happening to you now isn’t just a figment of your imagination. We’ll figure all this out, okay?”

I dig my teeth into my lip and nod. I slide my phone out of my purse to pick up where I left off on the ongoing Google search, and the battery icon onscreen practically frowns at me. Just then I remember the charger I left in my locker, with the rest of the stuff I planned to clean out next week.

I’m about to tell Megan I’m going to run up to the school and plug my phone in when Coach finishes his awards and the crowd erupts into applause. As soon as the football players
start filing back up to the bleachers, everyone else stands to fan themselves and shake out their sweaty shirts. Matt bounds up the steps to us and hooks an arm around our necks, kissing the sides of both of our heads, though I can’t help but notice how long his friendly forehead kiss lingers on mine.

“Ew, you’re sweaty,” Megan says, pushing him off.

Ignoring her, he says, “You guys wanna go get food?”

“Sure,” I say. “I just need to get something from my locker first.”

“Better hurry; they’re gonna lock up as soon as they’ve got the podium back in the gym.”

Mom and Dad have made their way down the steps to us now, and they’re hugging Megan and Matt. “Oh, how fun to see the three of you together again,” Mom says, squeezing Megan’s elbow and putting on that smile that earned her the real estate license. “Isn’t that fun, Patrick?”