Write This Down (17 page)

Instead, in the middle of the dance floor, Cameron starts to do a totally bizarre set of motions that look sort of like tai chi, or some new kind of Asian martial art never before seen in the West.

Am I supposed to imitate him? Is that what a dance partner should do?

I try bending my left arm and raising my right arm to copy Cameron's pose, but no sooner do I accomplish that than he strikes a new one, with both hands clasped over his head like a genie coming in or out of a bottle.

There is no way I'm willing to do Uncorked Genie in front of half of the Southern Peaks middle school student body. People are definitely looking over at us. The couple next to us, wrapped around each other in the normal kid way, have cracked up laughing. Besides, maybe Cameron doesn't even want me to copy him. Cameron himself never copies anyone, though right this moment I desperately wish he would. He might even be irritated if I turned this into an extremely awkward version of Cameron Says. Cameron says:
Move your left hand in a long, floaty way in front of your eyes
. Cameron says:
Twirl around slowly with your eyes closed.
If he's even conscious of my existence at this moment, which seems increasingly doubtful, he probably expects me to come up with my
own
thing.

But
my
thing would have been slow-dancing with him the way every other couple except us is doing.

I have no choice but to think of
something
to do as the song continues to play. I try sort of swaying in place, shifting my weight from one foot to another and leaning first to one side, then to the other. I make myself attempt a couple of swirling motions with my arms, as if I'm waving a veil from side to side or doing a very slow version of the “Peace Like a River” and “Love Like an Ocean” motions from Vacation Bible School. Finally, after what feels like an hour but has probably only been three hideous minutes, the music ends.

I can't bring myself to thank Cameron for the “dance.” But I have to say something about his song, the song that's so beautiful, the song that sums up everything I think—I thought?—is so amazing about him as a writer and as a person.

“I love that song,” I say. And I did
use
to love it. “How long did it take you to write?”

And did you write it about me?

He stares at me, utterly mystified.

“Your song,” I say again. “I love your song.”

Comprehension dawns on his face. “That's not my song,” he says. “Hunter wrote that one.”

Hunter
wrote
that
?

“Oh,” I say.

Just when I think my Cameron fantasies can't be any more thoroughly doused, I see Olivia slowly pulling apart from the arms of hunky Ryan. She's looking right at us, and trying not to laugh. Well, maybe I'm being overly charitable to assume she's trying not to laugh, because if that's what she's trying to do, she's failing. I can't say that she's mean to laugh, because I would have totally laughed if our positions had been reversed and she had been the one out there doing Vacation Bible School moves while Cameron was blissed out in his private Cameron world. I mean, who wouldn't?

Now that his dance trance is over, Cameron apparently notices Olivia's fit of giggles and the wide-eyed stares of half a dozen other couples who are still gazing at us. He gives a strange smile and the same slow wave he gave to Kylee and me when he saw us watching him make the rock sculpture, a wave that manages to convey total indifference to his audience, total disregard for the mirror. And yet—suddenly I see something I never saw before—it's a wave that also says,
See how cool I am that I don't even care what you think?

So it's not that Cameron
really
doesn't care what other people think. He cares that other people
think
he doesn't care what they think. Seeming not to care about what other people think can be the biggest act of all, in its own way. And totally un-fun for the person who happens to be cast as his partner.

Which tonight would be me.

I flee from the dance floor so fast that I collide with Kylee and Tyler, who are exiting the dance floor, too,
hand in hand
.

Kylee takes one look at me.

Here's what a good friend she is.

“I have to go to the restroom,” she tells Tyler as Mr. Cupertino heads back to the microphone. She gives Tyler a big, regretful smile, lets go of his hand, and half pulls, half drags me into the hall.

“What happened?”

I can't believe she doesn't know. “You didn't see?”

“No. The last I saw, you were heading off to dance with Cameron, and I was so excited and happy for you.”

At least if Kylee didn't see, most likely Hunter didn't see either. Only Olivia and twenty—or thirty or forty—other people saw. But that look on Olivia's face, the look she gave me when she finally managed to stop laughing, is going to haunt me for the rest of my days: Olivia felt
sorry
for me. I felt sorry for myself.

How many dreams can one person lose?

Before we even get to the non-privacy of the overcrowded girls' room, I bury my head in Kylee's shoulder and start to cry.

 

26

I've been in love with part-imaginary, part-real Cameron for so long it's hard for me to know which part is which anymore.

I wonder if this happens more to writers than to other people, that we fall in love with characters we make up in our heads. It wouldn't even be so terrible to fall in love with a purely imaginary person. It's hardest if you fall in love with someone who is partly imaginary and partly real, and the real part ends up breaking your heart.

He really is a good writer. Those rock formations he made in the creek really were amazing. He really did travel all over the world. He really did write a song Hunter's band played; it just wasn't the song I thought it was. The weirdest discovery of this weird evening is that the beautiful song I loved so much was written by my own awful brother.

In a lot of ways, Real Cameron isn't all that different from Imaginary Cameron. The main difference is that Imaginary Cameron was in love with me and Real Cameron isn't. And I was in love with Imaginary Cameron, and I'm not in love with Real Cameron. But that's pretty much a total deal breaker for our romance.

“Is it okay if we leave now?” I ask Kylee, after I've told her everything. “Or do you think Tyler might ask you to dance again?”

“We can go,” Kylee says.

Have I recently said that I love Kylee more than anyone in the world?

Then she adds, “Dancing with Tyler was pretty great. But I'd rather go now, anyway. I want to keep my first memory of dancing with a boy and not let anything ruin it. You know what I mean?”

Boy, do I know.

Kylee calls her parents to pick us up. My parents are out on a date night; they have a subscription to the symphony down in Denver. Mom wanted to cancel to stay home tonight to keep Hunter company—family Scrabble game, anyone?—but Dad knows how much she loves classical music, so he made her go.

“Did you girls have a good time?” Kylee's mother asks as we buckle our seat belts in the backseat.

“Yes,” Kylee says, just as I say, “No.”

“I have to say,” Kylee's mom remarks, “that junior high dances are not my life's favorite memory. Autumn, maybe you have material for a story here?”

Kylee's mom is as supportive of my career as Kylee is.

“Maybe,” I say.

But maybe not.

Usually when something bad happens to me, all I want to do is get home to write it down, to find a way to make peace with it by putting it into words with my pen.

But not this time. I don't feel like a writer anymore, and, besides, this is too embarrassing. On my deathbed, when my life flashes before me, I'll be out there on the dance floor doing weird awkward motions while Cameron is in his mystical trance, the Zen guy in the Zen zone.

I'm glad when Kylee's mom drops me off at home to an empty house with no worried mom to ask me any questions and nobody to interfere with my plans to cry myself to sleep all by my little, lonely, miserable self.

Which I do.

*   *   *

Something wakes me up. The digital clock next to my bed reads 11:30. It's pitch-black outside, so it's clearly still nighttime.

I hear my father's voice. He and Mom must have just gotten home from the symphony down in Denver. He's not shouting, exactly, but his voice is louder than usual, and he definitely sounds upset. Like, really upset.

The dance ended at ten, an hour after Kylee and I bailed. Was Hunter's ungrounding just meant to be long enough for him to play at the dance? Was he supposed to be home again right afterward? Is Dad yelling at him for staying out too late? Or is he yelling at Mom because Hunter's not home yet?

I try pulling my pillow over my ears. I've had all the hideousness I can take for one night. But curiosity gets the better of me, the fatal flaw of cats and (former) writers. I slip out of bed and creep to the top of the stairs in time to hear Dad race out to the garage, banging the door behind him. The big garage door whirs open. The car's engine starts.

Back in my room, I tie on my fluffy robe and scuff my feet into my bunny slippers. I'm shivering now from cold and from dread.

I find my mother in the kitchen, her head buried in her folded arms on the kitchen table.

“Mom?”

She looks up as if she doesn't recognize me.

“Oh, Autumn, honey, go back to bed.”

“Is everything okay?” I ask, claiming the prize for dumbest question asked in the history of the world.

“Hunter's gone,” she says.

“I know,” I say, puzzled at her telling me something I obviously already know. “He was at the dance.”

“The dance?” she asks, as if what I've said makes no sense. Then, as if I haven't spoken, she adds, “The Subaru's gone, too.”

It all starts to sink in now.

“But … Hunter couldn't have taken the car. He doesn't have a license. He only has a permit, so it's against the law for him to drive without a grown-up in the car.”

“I know,” Mom says dully. “Believe me, I know.”

*   *   *

So Hunter
wasn't
ungrounded for the night, reprieved from “consequences” by Dad so he could honor his commitment to play at the dance. He's AWOL and a car thief, too, though I guess the crime of taking your own parents' car doesn't count as grand larceny. But driving without a license, when you don't even
have
a license, is definitely illegal.

Plus there's the small matter that Hunter doesn't really know how to drive.

Dad's been out looking for him; Mom just called to tell him that Hunter was last seen playing with the band at the dance. So maybe Dad's driving past David's house? Timber's? Moonbeam's? I don't know if he called their parents to ask if they've seen Hunter. Maybe they're already asleep for the night and not answering their phones.

If Dad doesn't see our Subaru parked in front of someone's house, where would he look next? I guess he's just so worried about Hunter he has to be out of the house at least doing
something
.

Mom and I are sitting at the kitchen table drinking herbal tea, not even trying to talk anymore about anything—because what is there to say?—when the phone rings. It's the landline, not Mom's cell phone, which she has right beside her mug. I can see the caller ID light up with the words “Broomville Police.”

She snatches up the receiver.

“Yes, this is the Granger residence.” Then: “No,” she says. “Oh, no!”

There has to have been an accident. Why else would the police call our house at one in the morning?

And the last thing I ever said to my brother was that I wished he was dead.

 

27

Spoiler alert: Hunter's not dead—he's not even injured—but the car is totaled.

A police officer brings Hunter home in her squad car, something that would have thrilled him to pieces when he was ten but is not thrilling him one tiny bit now. I'm not in the family room when the officer comes in with him; I'm within hearing distance but out of sight in the kitchen.

It does feel like I somehow made this happen, like I have this magical wishing ability, except that it's powerful enough to get me part of what I wish for but not all of it. Like in this terrific book
Half Magic
I read as a kid, where the children find a magical coin that will grant them half, but only half, of anything they wish for. I wished Cameron would ask me to dance during “his” song, and he did, only it turned out not to be his song, and he didn't dance
with
me, just
near
me. I wished Hunter would die—well, I didn't really wish it, but I said it and at the time it felt like I was wishing it because I was so hurt and furious. And Hunter did have an accident that might have killed him, and he did totally wreck the car. Of course, none of my wishing for publication came true at all; all that wishing did was just make me give up on my writing dreams forever.

The moral is: I need to be careful what I wish for.

But I also need to be careful never again to say anything as hateful as what I said to Hunter that afternoon, because if he had died, I would have had to live with it for the rest of my days.

The officer, who introduces herself as Officer Williamson, explains to our parents—Mom called Dad, and he's home now, too—that it was a single-car accident. Hunter took a corner too fast, lost control of the car, and hit a tree. It's kind of miraculous—or
maybe
magical?—that he wasn't hurt. He has a court date where the judge will decide what will happen to him.

I can't see Hunter's face as Officer Williamson is saying all this, but I can imagine it: trying to look like he doesn't care in front of my parents, but to look like he does care in front of the police officer, in case she has to write a report that might determine his fate. She asks him some direct question I can't catch, but I hear him answer, “Yes, ma'am.” So he's definitely trying to act like a kid who deserves a second chance rather than a kid who should be sent away to reform school or wherever they send incorrigible kids these days.