The Story of Us (29 page)

He went in. I ran in too, and changed out of my wet clothes. I yelled to Mom that we were taking a drive into town. We both knew that “right” had come, didn’t we? The sky was that blue-blue that comes after it snows, and everything was sparkly, like God had taken huge handfuls of the tiniest daylight stars and threw them into the air. The roads had already gotten a little slushy. You ran up the gravel drive to your house and got the car, and when you drove back, I saw the blankets in the back, something big rolled up.

I knew where we were going too.

We found it accidentally one day, after we’d parked out there, just off Cummings Road where the trees closed off into a patch of forest. It was fall then, and we’d sat out there and kissed, and just as you started the car to head back, I noticed it. Far off, hidden by evergreens and blackberries and ferns—a tiny shingled house. Not a house, a shed. No, bigger than a shed, but not much.

“Look,” I said.

“Let’s go see,” you said. That’s how you are. You always want to get in there and investigate. If there’s someplace you’re not supposed to look in but can look in, you’ll do it. Funny, because I always think of you as being so responsible, but you’ve got this other side too that will commit a minor crime in the name of curiosity.

Which you did then. We hiked over to the shack, blackberry stickers clinging to my pant legs, and we looked into the two small, dirty windows and found this wonderful, empty hiding place. There was a bench built into one wall but other than that the place was bare. It wasn’t obvious who it
belonged to, or even why it existed at all—maybe a storage room for one of the houses up the road. Who knew? It looked like something you’d see high up in the mountains, where hikers could rest to get away from the cold, or where a forest ranger could stop to take notes on whatever forest rangers take notes on.

“Cool,” you said, and then you messed with the latch and shoved at the door.

“Janssen,” I said. I looked around. Frogs were
bllleeep, bllleeeping
, but that was about it. Maybe a few crows were watching.

“Oh no! I hear a police car!” You grabbed my arms in fake panic. “They’re coming for you, Crick. See that tree? It’s got a spy cam, like in the stores.”

“You’re hilarious,” I said.

We went inside. It smelled like cedar planks. I love that smell. We sat on the bench, our arms touching. There was that great feeling, the feeling I love, that you’re hidden and safe, but that no one knows where you are.

“Listen,” you said.

I listened. It was hard to believe.

“A rooster?” I said. “Am I hearing a rooster?”

Yeah, there it was. A curdling cry. There were all kinds of things out where we lived. Head over the hill to Dad’s house, and you had suburban neighborhoods with those neighborhood parties where the kids run around the yard and the adults barbecue things and get drunk and hit on each other’s wives. But there, out past Cummings road where we both lived, well,
you
know it. There were more crazy animals than people. Bears, mountain lions, those goats. Our own yard had a variety of creatures we named: John Deer and Gauca-mole, and Dan and Marilyn Quail, and the salmon in the creek. There was that llama farm just before town, the one we passed every day heading in to school. They stood around blinking their long eyelashes as we drove by. There was a roving band of chickens, which we would see on various stretches of the road on various days.

“Aren’t they supposed to do that in the morning?” I said.

“So, he’s a fucked-up rooster,” you said.

Anyway, that snowy day, that’s where we were going. It was white winter and glittery, and the tree branches were drooping and heavy, and I knew we were driving toward that cedar shack.

We didn’t even speak. You held my mitten-hand with your glove-hand. It took a while before the car got warm. We hated the way your heater smelled when it got going. Like someone cooking corn dogs. I didn’t care right then. Your car was shit in the bad weather, and I could see us getting stuck somewhere and having to call for help before or after this big moment. But the car did fine, and you pulled off the road and drove up the trail and parked. Snow would slip off evergreen branches in big slushy clumps, and the branches would snap back up to their regular selves again.

“Kiss me,” you said. I leaned over and did, and then you hopped out of the car and got all the stuff out. It was so quiet out there. Snow-quiet. We hauled all of that warmness and softness you brought up the hill. You planned that ahead, didn’t you? But I was glad because, God, it was cold in there, when you shimmied open the door.
I could see my breath, and you got to work with all that camping gear you have. You laid out a thick foam pad, sleeping bags, blankets. You even brought juice boxes, those little square ones we had in elementary school with the plastic straws attached. Your mom probably bought those for your lunch ten years before and still had them in her cupboard.

“Oh, my God, it’s freezing,” I said.

“Get in,” you said.

I took off my shoes, and got under all those layers of slippery nylon sleeping bags, and so did you, and when we finally got warm and when I remembered that it was just you, familiar you, I relaxed and we got undressed, and you were there naked next to me, and on me, and in me, and then you held me in your arms in that cedar shack and that stupid rooster crowed again, and I leaned in close to your ear and whispered. “That’s one fucked-up rooster,” I said, and you kissed my cheek with your cold, cold lips and told me you loved me, and there we were, on the other side.

You said I broke your heart after what I did. And I would take it back if I could. I’d be so much more careful with you. People always say, “You can’t undo the past.” It’s one of those expressions you hear so often that the words lose meaning. But it’s true. You can’t undo the past, and the minutes tick by and even the things that deserve to stay, especially those, can’t be held forever, even in hands more careful than mine. I feel it in my chest, deep and painful, this truth, a terrible truth—time goes forward and things are left behind. There’s no way around it, Janssen, and my problem is that I stepped to the other side of adulthood and realized that fact. I turned my tassel to the other side of my cap, and there it was, this truth I never felt before. Loss is the price we pay for life.

How are we humans supposed to go around with that knowledge? And can I just say that, unfairly or not (okay, unfairly), you are making it worse? You don’t admit that you’re interested in Alyssa. Instead you answer my question about her with two lines. I’ve read them a hundred times.
Maybe we should see other people. You can’t expect me to put my life on hold.

Jesus, Janssen. Am I standing here at the fucking Sea-Tac Airport?

Love always,

Cricket

“I can’t keep my life on hold,” I said.

“What?” Ash said.

“I can’t. I can’t either.”

“Are you okay, Cricket?” Everyone was asking me that lately. I was asking me that. Ash’s hands were shoved down into that sweatshirt I had worn. His head was tilted sideways in question. The room was still dark. I could see his face in the light from the moon. He sat down on the edge of my bed, shoved my pillow aside. It seemed intimate, touching my pillow. Like touching me, or my most private clothing. I was territorial about my pillow usually. It was one of my weird things. When Ben or Mom was in my room, I’d hate it when they’d fold my pillow in half and lie on it.

He took my hands. Jupiter was sniffing his pant legs. He
was pulling me toward him, but she was in the way, and he gave her a little push with the side of his foot.

“Hey,” I said. “Don’t.” We all had to get Jupiter out of the way sometimes. But a foot seemed disrespectful.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he seemed to mean it. “Just, come over here.”

I sat down next to him. I really liked how he smelled. You could believe in those things you read about, smell and attraction, some whatever-something we give off, a particular whatever-something that attracts you specifically. Maybe we had our own version of a dog’s nose without even realizing it.

“You smell so good,” I said.

“Thank you.” It sounded formal. And he had his hands in his lap, folded like a schoolboy hoping to be noticed for his good behavior. And he didn’t even realize how he looked—sweet, and it made me laugh. I forgot all my heart turbulence and just laughed. “What?” he asked. He was grinning, ready to get whatever joke I had to offer.

“You,” I said.

“Oh, I’m funny, am I?” He held his arms up, werewolf, monster-movie arms, ready to tickle.

I set my mouth into a serious line. “Not funny,” I said. “Not the least bit funny. Hey. You weren’t at dinner tonight.”

“I know. It’s stupid. But I was thinking about how to tell you something. Did you get my message?”

“I did. I guess I was thinking about how to tell you something too.”

“There’s all this chemistry between us …”

“I know.”

“I wanted to tell you … I’m not the kind of guy that does casual hookups. I don’t want you to think that. I want you to know I don’t just go doing this all the time.” He leaned in close to me. I could feel his breath on my face. “Forget what I said about waiting to kiss you, okay? Because I can’t think about anything else.”

“Wai—” I said, but he shut me up. His mouth was on mine, and his lips were warm and he tasted like fading pepper mint. He held my face in his hands, held it hard, and it wasn’t something that Janssen did really, and his tongue was different, the kiss itself was, but it was good, and I felt myself folding into it, and it would have been so easy to relax and love this. It was dark, and darkness could make you feel like you were anyone. A different kiss—even as I was kissing I thought this, and I was shoved up then against a hard truth—there were a thousand different kisses out there to experience, different hands, different moments with different people. You could cut the strings to that hot-air balloon and could see and feel more than you would even guess from the ground.

I pulled away. “Wow,” he said. His brown eyes were holding mine. “I was nervous. About kissing you. I wanted to tell you—I’ve only had one serious girlfriend…. Let’s do that again.”

I started to speak. The bad thing was, I almost called him Janssen. The name sat right there in my mouth. It almost
slipped out. I stopped myself in time, but I had a crazy moment of hunting around in my head for his name. If not Janssen, who? Nothing was coming to me.

“Ash,” I said. Thank God, there it was. “I want to. I do. I really like you. Really like. But—”

“Oh, I hate buts.” He groaned and put his hands to his head in mock pain. “No … No buts.”

“I’m in this strange place right now.
I’ve
only had one boyfriend. For years. And now we’re … I don’t know
what
we’re …”

“Taking a break?” Ash said.

“Taking a break,” I agreed. It was as good as anything.

“That’s not a bad ‘but’,” he said. He looked crushed, though.

I had hurt Janssen that day. I had done a terrible thing. I’d never been disloyal, though. I’d never done what I just did. I could permanently damage us, and some great big hand, a huge Hand of the Future, slapped me hard.

“I need to get things sorted out before I’m with
any
-one. I’m so sorry. I don’t go around doing this either. This, you—confusing.”

Ash stood up. “I think I’m going to hope that you’re a fast sorter outer.” He smiled. I thought it was really brave of him to pull that smile off. He took a pinch of my shirt and pulled a little, playfully. “So. This is awkward.”

“God, it is. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” He opened my door.

“Okay.”

He shut it behind him. My chest hurt. I felt awful. I had that feeling that sometimes sits oddly around you.
Where am I, and how did I get here?
Of course, I knew how I got there. I brought myself right to this place, to see what it would look like. The view always seems like it will be better at the edge.