Gudmund made a surprised move in the driver’s seat. ‘What? But you said—’
‘Owen’s therapy is costing them a fortune. If I want college at all, it has to be on the faculty family rate where my dad teaches.’
Gudmund’s mouth opened in shock. This hadn’t been their plan. Not at all. They were both going to go to the same university, both going to share a dorm room.
Both going to be hundreds of miles away from home.
‘Oh, Seth—’
‘You can’t go,’ Seth said, shaking his head. ‘You can’t go now.’
‘Seth, I have to—’
‘You can’t.’ Seth’s voice was breaking now, and he fought to control it. ‘Please.’
Gudmund put a hand on his shoulder. Seth jerked away from it, even though the feel of it was what he wanted more than the world. ‘Seth,’ Gudmund said. ‘It’ll be okay.’
‘How?’
‘This isn’t our whole lives. It isn’t even close. It’s high school, Sethy. It’s not meant to last forever. For a goddamn good reason.’
‘It’s been—’ Seth said to the windshield. ‘Since New Year, since you weren’t there, it’s been—’
He stopped. He couldn’t tell Gudmund how bad it had been. The worst time of his life. School had been nearly unbearable, and sometimes he’d gone whole days without actually speaking to anyone. There were a few people, girls mostly, who tried to tell him they thought what was happening to him was unfair, but all that did was serve to remind him that he’d gone from having three good friends to having none. Gudmund had been pulled out of school by his parents. H was hanging out with a different crowd and not speaking to him.
And Monica.
He couldn’t even think about Monica.
‘It’s a few more months,’ Gudmund said. ‘Hang in there. You’ll make it through.’
‘Not without you.’
‘Seth, please don’t say stuff like that. I can’t take it when you say stuff like that.’
‘You’re everything I’ve got, Gudmund,’ Seth said quietly. ‘You’re it. I don’t have anything else.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Gudmund said. ‘I can’t be anyone’s everything. Not even yours. I’m going out of my mind with all this. I can’t stand the fact that I have to go away. I want to kill someone! But I can take it if I know you’re out there, surviving, getting through it. This won’t be forever. There’s a future. There really is. We’ll find a way, Seth. Seth?’
Seth looked at him, and he could now see what he hadn’t seen before. Gudmund was already gone, had already put his mind into Bethel Private, sixty-five miles away, that he was already living in a future at UW or WSU, which were even further, and maybe that future included Seth somehow, maybe that future really did have a place for the two of them—
But Seth was only here. He wasn’t in that future. He was only in this unimaginable present.
And he didn’t see how he’d ever get from here to there.
‘There’s more than this, Sethy,’ Gudmund said. ‘This sucks beyond belief, but there’s more. We just have to get there.’
‘We just have to get there,’ Seth said, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘That’s right.’ Gudmund touched Seth’s shoulder again. ‘Hang in there, please. We’ll make it. I promise you.’
They both jumped at the sound of the door slamming. ‘Gudmund!’ Gudmund’s father shouted from the porch, loud enough to wake the neighbours. ‘You’d better answer me, boy!’
Gudmund rolled down his window. ‘I’m here!’ he shouted back. ‘I needed some fresh air.’
‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’ His father squinted into the darkness where Seth and Gudmund were parked. ‘You get back in here. Now!’
Gudmund turned back to Seth. ‘We’ll email. We’ll talk on the phone. We won’t lose contact, I promise.’
He lunged forward and kissed Seth hard, one last time, the smell of him filling Seth’s nose, the bulk of his body rocking Seth back in the seat, the squeeze of his hands around Seth’s torso—
And then he was gone, sliding out of the door, hurrying back into the glow of the porchlight, arguing with his father on the way.
Seth watched him go.
And as Gudmund disappeared behind another slamming door, Seth felt his own doors closing.
The doors of the present, shutting all around him, locking him inside.
Forever.
FROM
THE INFINITE MOMENT OF US
BY
LAUREN MYRACLE
The park, when they arrived, was inhabited by drunk college kids – Wren assumed they were college kids because of their Georgia Tech T-shirts, and because they looked old in a way that even Tessa and P.G. couldn’t yet pull off – and they were as loud as the bat killers back at the graduation party had been, if not louder.
There could be no talking here. No nice boy to unsadden her. Her heart felt heavy, and after a Frisbee flew at her out of the darkness, making her duck, she exhaled and said, ‘We should go.’
‘Already?’ Charlie said. ‘We just got here.’
‘Yeah, but . . .’ She gestured at the partiers by the swing set.
One of them cupped his hands over his mouth and called, ‘Yo! Frisbee! Sorry ’bout that!’
Charlie knelt, grabbed the Frisbee, and threw it deftly back at the group. To Wren, he said, ‘One second.’ He started for his car, then stopped. Came back for Wren and took her hand. ‘Actually, come with me.’
Wren’s tummy turned over. Charlie was . . . why was Charlie holding her hand? She’d held his arm earlier, but that was to get him away from Tessa, and she hadn’t thought about it first. She’d just done it. But unless she was mistaken, he was holding her hand on purpose.
She looked at their linked hands as if the answer lay there. She noticed the stitches on his thumb from his visit to Grady Hospital two days ago. She took in, again, how strong and capable his fingers were. With his hand curled protectively around hers, she felt safe – only, as soon as she recognized the feeling, she tugged her hand free. Or tried to. He tightened his grip, striding across the grass.
‘What about Starrla?’ she said.
Charlie stopped. She bumped into him.
‘Ow,’ she said, rubbing her nose with her free hand.
‘Why are you asking about Starrla?’ he said. He held her hand tightly.
‘Uh, because you two are going out?’ Wren said. A guy wasn’t supposed to hold another girl’s hand when he had a girlfriend. Even if he was handsome. Even if he smelled like pine needles. Even if he looked dismayed at the very thought of . . . well, whatever he was thinking of.
‘I’m not going out with Starrla,’ he said. ‘I thought . . . well, no, I guess he couldn’t have.’
‘Huh?’
Charlie’s shoulders relaxed. ‘Nothing.’
‘Well, good,’ Wren said. ‘I mean—’
Hush, she told herself. She was glad, very, that Charlie wasn’t claiming Starrla, even if she was fairly certain Starrla still claimed Charlie. This morning, before the graduation ceremony, Starrla had caught Wren looking at Charlie and narrowed her eyes. Back off, Starrla’s expression had said. Her lips, curving into a smile, had added, Don’t even. You are weak, and I am strong.
But Charlie was with her, holding her hand, and Wren had her own brand of strength, brought to the surface by the dim glow of the streetlight and the whisper of night air on her skin. It was new to her. Her heart beat with a low, thumping exhilaration.
‘Starrla and I did . . . date,’ Charlie said. ‘Once. A long time ago. But now we’re just friends.’
‘Oh,’ Wren said. ‘Um, thanks. For explaining.’
The moon was full, lighting up Charlie’s face. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, perhaps to make sure she truly knew they weren’t together anymore. Then he furrowed his brow adorably – he was adorable – and squashed the thought, whatever it might have been. He fished in his pocket for his car keys and pop
ped the trunk, all the while not letting go of Wren’s hand.
What am I doing? she wondered. What is happening?
Go with it, she told herself. For heaven’s sake, stop thinking for once.
With a coarse army blanket tucked under his arm, Charlie shut and locked the trunk. ‘This way,’ he said, and Wren allowed herself to be led across the far corner of the park and into the bordering grove of trees. Cautions from her mother burbled through her – never, ever go to an isolated spot with a stranger, you don’t do that, Wren – but Charlie wasn’t a stranger. Also, Wren wasn’t her mother.
‘You carry a blanket with you everywhere?’ she asked. She was trying to tease him, as in, Just how many girls do you take into the woods when the sun sets?
He looked puzzled, and Wren felt dumb. She wasn’t her mother, but she wasn’t Tessa or some other flirty girl, either. She needed to just be Wren.
‘One of my . . . um, at one of the houses I was in, the dad was a scoutmaster,’ he explained. ‘“Always be prepared.” That was his motto.’
‘Oh. That’s cool.’ To try and normalize things, she added, ‘Was he a nice guy? That dad?’
‘No,’ Charlie said.
‘Why not?’
He was quiet, and she wished she hadn’t asked.
They were thick in the woods behind the park now, and she had to watch her footing. Then the ground sloped down, and the trees thinned out. They reached a small ditch – maybe a ravine that had been eroded by running water? Behind them were trees, and on the other side of them were trees, but the ditch itself was clear and dry. There were leaves and a few sticks and a mat of prickly grass, but once Charlie let go of Wren’s hand and spread out the blanket, none of that was a problem.
He had climbed to the bottom of the hollow on his own, and now he held out his hand. Wren accepted it, grasping him as she slid-hopped down. Following Charlie’s lead, she sat on the blanket. Gingerly, she leaned all the way back, her body at an incline on the ditch’s banked slope.
‘Oh,’ she said, enthralled. Through the gap in the trees she could see the sky. The moon, luminous and huge, peeked through the leafy branches. ‘Beautiful.’
They lay next to each other, not speaking. Wren could feel the heat radiating from Charlie’s body. Tiny hairs on her neck and on her forearms seemed to prickle awake and stand alert. Wren felt very strongly that, since he had brought her here, to this secret place, it was her job to keep the conversation going. Just not by talking about foster families. At first she thought, Guatemala, but she realized she didn’t want to talk about Guatemala, either.
Guatemala would work itself out. She’d bought her plane ticket the very day she got her Project Unity acceptance letter – and yes, she probably should have used her savings to pay back the money her parents had spent on her college fees, but she didn’t – and either her parents would get used to the idea of her leaving or they wouldn’t. She hoped they would.
But she didn’t want to think about Guatemala, or leaving for Guatemala, right now. Right now, amazingly, she was exactly where she wanted to be.
‘Your thumb seems better,’ she said.
Charlie held out his hand, examining it in the pale moonlight. His fingers, splayed against the stars, seemed . . . more than. More than fingers. More than a part, or parts, of a whole. Just as one plus one is more than two, she thought, not knowing where the idea sprang from, or why.
‘Good as ever,’ he said. He turned his head towards hers just enough so that she could make out his grin. ‘Better.’
She smiled back. She felt her pulse in the hollow of her throat, and she felt the night air on her throat as well. She didn’t think she’d ever noticed that sensation in that specific location.
‘Bodies are funny, aren’t they?’ she said.
‘How so?’ Charlie asked.
She stared at the sky. She was nervous. She didn’t want him to laugh. ‘Just . . . are they us? Are we them?’
Charlie was silent long enough for Wren to regret her words. Then he said, ‘Do we have souls, you mean?’
Relief pressed her deeper into the scratchy wool blanket. ‘Yeah. I guess. Or are we just, you know, chemicals? Brain cells talking to brain cells, talking to lung cells and spine cells and thumb cells?’
‘Like when Ms Atkinson compared us to computers with organic hard drives?’ Charlie said. ‘A blow to the head can create a system failure? A disease, like Alzheimer’s, is a computer virus?’
Wren nodded. She didn’t like that concept, because if it were true – if a human was a highly specialized computer, but a computer nonetheless – where did that leave the ‘human’ part?
‘My dad’s an atheist,’ she said. He wanted Wren to share his beliefs, but she didn’t.
‘My foster mom teaches Sunday school,’ Charlie replied. ‘And during the church service, when it’s time for “A Moment with the Kids,” she plays “Jesus Loves Me”.’
‘“A Moment with the Kids”?’
‘When the youth minister calls up all the kids and tells them a story that has to do with the day’s Scripture.’
‘Didn’t know,’ Wren said. She rolled onto her side to face him. ‘So, you go to church?’
She bent her knees slightly to get more comfortable, and her thigh touched Charlie’s. She inhaled sharply. Charlie didn’t move his leg. Neither did she.
What passed between them, even through the fabric of their jeans – it felt like way more than computer circuitry.
‘Sometimes,’ Charlie said. ‘Pamela likes it when we do, me and my brother. But Chris usually stays home and works. When I can, I like to stay and help out.’
‘In the wood shop?’
‘The cabinet shop, yeah.’ He raised his arms and clasped his hands beneath his head, and she saw the hard slope of his biceps. The expanse of skin stretching from his bicep to his shoulder, paler than his forearm and more vulnerable, disappearing into the shadow of his sleeve. Not an entirely private place, but not a part of this boy – Charlie – that everyone had seen, either.
And, again, not just a part. More than.
‘I think souls are real,’ Wren said in a burst. ‘Maybe they’re not things you can measure or hold or feel—’
‘You can feel them,’ Charlie said in a low voice. He turned his head, and she saw his cheek meet his upper arm.
I would like to feel that arm, Wren thought. I would like to touch that cheek.
She swallowed. ‘What about trees?’
His lips quirked. ‘Trees?’
‘Do they have souls?’ she asked, because at that moment they seemed to. Leaves rustled, saying shushhhh, shushhh. Branches formed a canopy high over their heads. Add in the matted grass below them, and Wren and Charlie were nestled in . . . a set of parentheses. They were in a moment outside of time. Just the two of them. Their eyes locked. Their bodies, as Charlie rolled onto his side, forming parentheses within the parentheses, and within the parentheses, their souls reached out. Like roots. Like fingers. Like wisps of clouds and slivers of radiant moonlight.
Wren shivered.
‘They probably don’t,’ she said. ‘That’s just in fairy tales, right? Druids and dryads and alternate worlds?’ She was babbling, but her heart was fluttering, and she was helpless to stop her string of words from issuing forth. ‘Anyway, I’m a scientist. Or will be, probably, since doctors are scientists. I know that’s silly – trees with souls – but I just . . . I guess I just . . .’
She waited for Charlie to jump in and rescue her from her stupidity. He didn’t, and when Wren checked his expression, when she let herself truly see his expression instead of hiding from it, she realized he was waiting for her to finish. Not because he was enjoying watching her make a fool out of herself, but because he cared about her thoughts and was interested in hearing them.
His auburn eyes weren’t auburn in the dark ditch. They were dark and liquid. A well to fall into. The ocean.
‘I guess I think the world is more connected than people re
alize,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. You’re allowed to have thoughts, she reminded herself. Just because others might scoff, that doesn’t mean Charlie will.
She tried to steady her breath. ‘I think . . . sometimes . . . that scientists . . . some scientists . . . want to package things up into neat little boxes. Explain, explain, explain, until there aren’t any mysteries left.’
‘I think you’re probably right,’ Charlie said.
‘Well . . . I like the mysteries,’ she said. Her skin tingled. Those little hairs stood up again, all over her. It wasn’t as if she were undressing in front of him, and yet that’s how it felt. And she wanted to keep on going, even so. What had this boy done to her?
‘I want to understand them, or try to,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to put them away in boxes. And if there doesn’t seem to be any explanation for something, I don’t want that to scare me away. I don’t want to force an explanation to fit or throw my hands in the air and give up. You know?’
He nodded. A faint shadow of stubble ran from his hair-line down and along his strong jaw.
She swallowed. ‘Does that make any sense?’
He pulled his eyebrows together endearingly, like a little boy trying to act grown up. ‘You’re saying the mysteries are worth examining, even if they’re too big to be understood. That maybe they’re bound to be too big to understand, but that doesn’t take anything away from them, and in fact just adds to their beauty. Is that close?’
‘That’s it exactly,’ she said. He put it into words so beautifully: Marvel and wonder all you want. There will always be more. She laughed, and the surprised smile she got from Charlie was a pure gift.
Then he grew serious. He pulled his eyebrows together again, but this time he didn’t look like a little boy at all.
‘Hey,’ he said. He propped himself up on one elbow. With his other hand, he reached out and lightly, lightly stroked her cheek.
Wren’s chest rose and fell. She almost felt as if she were out of her body, except she was very much in her body, and her body knew what it wanted.