Jake mumbles agreement. No one likes Reid or his brother, Rob, though most people aren’t stupid enough to say so within earshot of them. My mom says that when God was handing out brains, the Walsh brothers were at the very end of the line. Though they’d both pushed their way to the front of the line when the steroid-infused muscles were being handed out.
Jake and I start dragging our duffels toward the exit in silence. My face is burning hotter than the surface of the sun. What must he be thinking? If only Reid hadn’t said anything. If only I hadn’t reacted. It was stupid. It’s not like I haven’t heard it before. Jake and I have been teased about having crushes on each other since third grade. We’ve always ignored it. So why didn’t I ignore it this time? Why did I have to flip out like that?
I can’t stop hearing Reid’s voice in my head yelling, “You love Jake!” His fat face honking with laughter. The sniggering of the whole team is now playing on repeat as the soundtrack to my life.
I came at him like a tornado. He didn’t even have time to put his arms up to deflect me. My only regret is that Coach hauled me off him before I could get a second punch in.
Being the only girl on the team sucks. But today it sucked even more than usual. I blink away the tears before Jake can see them. I don’t need him thinking I’m even more pathetic than he must already.
We’ve reached the first set of doors. Jake holds them open for me. I accidentally bump against him as I walk through and get that stupid surge of butterflies in my stomach. I shoot them down with a spray of bullets. Why do I have to feel this way about Jake, of all people? I hold open the door for him in turn so that he can drag his bag through, and as I let the door swing shut behind us, Jake unexpectedly grabs for my hand.
I’m paralyzed with shock. Jake and I don’t hold hands. We don’t touch. Ever. Unless we’re clashing on the ice or playing thumb wars.
What is happening?
“Em,” he says before breaking off. He swallows, pressing his lips together. I notice a glimmering shard of pure terror in his eyes. I’ve only ever seen that look once before, when he threw himself down Toe Jam Hill Road on his BMX before realizing his brakes weren’t working.
Without warning, he darts forward, and before I know what is happening, his lips are mashing against mine.
I’m so startled I don’t do anything. I don’t even shut my eyes. I just stare at him. Up close, his freckles form a constellation. After a few seconds of nonaction on my part, Jake’s eyes fly open too, and now the two of us are staring at each other in alarm, our lips still smashed together.
It’s like a car crash.
My heart has joined my lungs and gone on strike, refusing to beat. And then, with a banging stutter, it starts again, exploding in my chest like a horse at a gallop.
I sense Jake about to pull away, extricate himself from the wreckage, and finally figure out that I should be doing something. I close my eyes in a hurry and part my lips, not even sure that that’s the right thing to do but hoping it’s enough. Jake hesitates for an excruciating beat and then the next thing we know, we’re kissing. Actually kissing, that is. Inexpertly, messily, tentatively, yet somehow . . . perfectly.
It’s my first kiss. I’m pretty sure Jake’s, too. And when we break apart, coming up for air like two free divers, we’re both so embarrassed and awkward that we just stand there for a few seconds in an epic, end-of-the-world-type silence, both of us contemplating the line we just crossed. It’s wider and deeper than the Grand Canyon and the Mariana Trench put together.
I stare down at our interlocked fingers, struck by the strangeness of seeing Jake’s hand holding mine—his hand as familiar as my own, both of us with bloody scrapes across our knuckles, doing something so unfamiliar. I’m not sure what comes next, so I look at him, feeling a flush spread across my face like an ice-pack burn. He’s grinning stupidly at me, and I have to resist the urge to shove him in the chest and tell him to stop it.
It’s then I notice the skates hanging from his other hand and remember I’ve left my own skates in the locker room. They’re still on the floor, where I flung them after the Reid Walsh incident.
“Oh no,” I say. “I forgot my skates.” Because, yes, that’s the best I can come up with after my best friend has kissed me for the first time and created a need for a whole new geographical feature to better metaphorically express the enormity of what has just happened.
Jake lets go of my hand, reluctantly it feels, and I start jogging back to the changing room.
“Want me to wait?” Jake calls out after me.
“No, don’t worry,” I say, spinning back around to face him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He’s still standing where I left him. “The usual place?” he asks, and there’s a hint of uncertainty in his voice that I’ve never heard before. Jake’s normally so confident it throws me to hear him sound so unsure.
I nod and start smiling. I must look like a total dork, but I can’t stop the nodding or the smiling. I push my shoulder against the door to the girls’ locker room, glancing back one last time and catching sight of Jake punching the air with his fist.
Jake
I slam the car door, and after that doesn’t make me feel any better, I punch the seat. Damn. Okay. It’s not that bad. It could have been worse. I try and come up with ways it could have been worse. No. There aren’t any. I lean my head back against the steering wheel and close my eyes.
I can’t stop seeing Em’s face when I opened the door to the storeroom (which is clearly no longer a storeroom—thanks for the warning there, Toby). And it’s not just her face I can’t stop seeing either. It was only a split-second glance, but oh man . . . For eight years I haven’t been able to get Emerson Lowe out of my head, and now I know for certain it’s going to be at least another eight before I can erase that particular mental image. Maybe longer, since I’m pretty sure my brain isn’t going to work that hard on the erasing.
For a moment I feel bad for even thinking the thought, for allowing myself to go there, but my mind ignores me. It’s already enjoying the playback of Em stepping out of her bikini. Not even a blow to the head with an ice puck could dislodge that image.
The last time I saw Em, she was thirteen and I was fourteen. Her brown hair was cut to her chin—“hacked” is probably a better word for it since she’d cut it herself with some kitchen scissors, claiming that the hairdresser always tried to make her look like a girl. She was wearing a red ice hockey jersey that fell to her knees, and she had scrapes across her knuckles and her cheekbone from an earlier clash on the ice with Reid. She was the definition of a tomboy back then, desperate to prove that she was tougher and better than any of us boys. Which she was. She could skate faster than anyone on the team and scored more goals that first season than anyone in the league.
Now . . . Wow . . . She’s nothing like the tomboy I remember. She’s not much taller, but her hair is longer—to her shoulders now—and her face has lost any trace of girlhood, become more angular, her cheekbones sharper, her mouth fuller. And those legs . . . Hell, that body. She never used to fill out a bikini—in fact, I don’t ever remember her even wearing one. She used to wear board shorts and baggy T-shirts—but not anymore.
Shit. I shake my head and pinch the bridge of my nose. Emerson Lowe grew up.
Emerson
I have to go,” I say to Toby. “Can you close up?”
“Sure,” he says, frowning at me. I know I look a mess. I haven’t showered. I just pulled a T-shirt and a pair of ripped jean shorts on over my bikini.
“I told my mom I’d get home and help with my dad,” I say by way of explanation. “There’s no time to shower.”
Toby nods at me and I see that small smile of sympathy. “It’s fine. You get home,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” I say, grateful for the fact he isn’t asking me about Jake, and that he’s agreed to lock up for me. We’re understaffed at the moment, and Toby, who’s only meant to work part-time, has
been working overtime the last couple of weeks as a favor to me.
“Has anyone come in and asked about the job?” I ask, glancing at the HELP WANTED note I pinned to the front door a few days ago.
Toby shakes his head.
Damn. Sighing, I grab the keys to my bike lock off the counter. “See you later. Thanks, Toby.”
The whole way home all I can think about is Jake. Why is he back? Where is he staying? How long is he staying for? Can I avoid him for however long that is? A little voice in my head wonders if I should just seek him out and confront him, but this time on my own terms. And fully clothed. And with a speech prepared. But the thought of it, of what we would need to confront, is too much to contemplate. It’s not just about what happened in the minutes that followed that very first kiss, it’s about what happened in the days after. It’s about the fact Jake left. That I never saw him again and never heard from him either. I don’t know how to forgive him. Or why I even should.
I stand up on the pedals and bike furiously toward home. Thinking about the past makes it feel as if a giant hand is squeezing my rib cage so hard that my bones are going to splinter. Jake coming back has brought all the memories of that day rushing to the forefront of my mind, and I don’t want to dredge through them. I want to shove them away where they were, firmly locked up in the darkest corner of my mind. I have enough to deal with right now with my parents and managing the store.
I pull into my driveway, noting that the grass needs cutting and that the garden is so overgrown it resembles a jungle. Our mailbox needs straightening too, but God knows when I’ll get around to it. No, I decide, climbing off my bike and leaning it against the side of the house, I can’t see Jake or talk to him. I have to focus on the present. I don’t have any other choice.
As soon as I get inside, my mom walks out of the front room with a look on her face I recognize well. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she’s holding a spoon in her hand. There’s a streak of tomato sauce down her shirt that looks like a gunshot wound. Without a word, I take the spoon and walk by her into what used to be the living room.
My dad is sitting in his wheelchair. A bowl of spaghetti sits on a table in a puddle of sauce.
I take a deep breath. “Hey, Dad,” I say, trying to sound upbeat.
He doesn’t move. He stays staring out of the window, his body contorted into that unnatural shape that, however hard I try not to think it, always reminds me of a pretzel. One arm is bent and pressed against his chest. The other hand rests limply on the arm of the wheelchair.
“You want to try this again?” I ask, sitting down opposite him and fixing on my best customer service smile. He nods at me and I start to spoon-feed him.
“How was your day?” he asks with a slur, after he’s struggled to swallow three mouthfuls of pasta.
“Fine,” I say. I won’t tell him about Jake. I worry that hearing the McCallister name might send his blood pressure through the roof.
“Your mom’s angry,” he says as I spoon some more pasta into his mouth and then reach for a napkin to wipe the dribble.
“She’s fine,” I say. “She’s not angry at you.”
She’s angry at life. She’s angry at the doctors, who tell us there’s nothing they can do to stop the progression of this damn disease, and the insurance company, who refuses to pay for palliative treatment or occupational therapy or adaptive support for the house. And though she doesn’t say it, she’s mad at my dad, too, for missing our medical insurance payments in the months before he was diagnosed. I’m mad too. Not least because I’ve had to watch my athletic, healthy father turn into a wheelchair-bound stranger robbed of a future and struggling with debt.
My dad’s hand suddenly jerks out in a spasm and knocks the spoon out of my hand. Spaghetti sauce splats against the wall. I ignore the mess and go and pick up the spoon, eyes burning.
Blinking the tears away, I sit back down. “More?” I ask my dad, offering him another mouthful.
He nods and I spoon the pasta into his mouth, trying not to think about how dependent he is on us, and how my mom is struggling to cope, or about how we’re going to pay the bills stacking up in order to keep the business afloat. I try not to think about all my peers and friends who’ve gone away to college.
I try not to think about anything. That’s the easiest way to get through the days.
Jake
The place I’m renting for the summer is an artist’s studio in the middle of the woods. It’s small—just a living area, kitchenette, and bathroom. There’s a ladder leading up to a tiny loft under the roof where a double bed is squeezed in beneath a skylight. A wood-burning stove, grill, and two wooden chairs sit on a deck that overlooks the forest. That’s my favorite thing about living here.
I slump down into one of the chairs and put my feet up on the railing, drawing in deep lungfuls of air. The familiar dank smell of moss and fern and mulchy wet soil makes me smile, bringing all kinds of memories flooding to the surface.
It’s approaching dusk and there’s a damp chill in the air that makes me shiver. The forest of Bainbridge is a couple hundred years old, all towering pines, cedars, and thick-trunked firs. In places the underbrush is so dense you’d need a machete to cut a path through it. We’re close to the Olympic Peninsula, which is one of the wettest places in all of North America, so even in summer the island has a fall feel to it.
I don’t know if it’s the high of seeing Em again or the forest calling me, but within minutes I’ve changed into my running gear. I start jogging through the trees, letting my feet choose the direction. I know where they’re taking me, and for a few seconds I consider stopping and turning around, but I can’t stop myself. I keep running, sweat trickling down my back and adrenaline pumping fiercely through my body.
About a quarter mile into the woods, the track peters out and I stop, unsure of where I am. It’s been years since I’ve run in these woods, and the old landmarks that used to mark the route are gone. There was once a moss-covered tree stump in the middle of the path. I turn around, frowning, wondering if I ran by it already, but then I spot it almost entirely hidden by undergrowth. A sapling has sprouted from the center and is valiantly pushing its way toward the sky. Oriented, I fight my way through waist-height ferns, until I finally make it into the clearing.
For a minute I stare up in wonder. I can’t believe it’s still in one piece. The roof has collapsed in places, the wood looks rotten around the ledge, but the tree house is still standing.
I step closer and run my fingers over the slats of wood we nailed into the tree trunk to make a ladder. They feel solid enough, but from the derelict feel and the moss carpeting the wood, it seems as if no one’s been here in a while.
I climb up, testing each rung before I put my full weight on it. An injury would be just what I need. I can hear my coach yelling at me for taking such a dumb risk, but whatever . . . I want to see inside. I need to see inside.
Once I reach the ledge, I step even more carefully. The wood is so rotten in places it’s the consistency of papier-mâché. One wrong step and it’s a six-meter drop to the ground. For a moment I stand there, dealing with a wave of vertigo that comes out of nowhere. I remember sitting here in the dark. Waiting. Hoping . . . I’d rather forget about that, though.
Ducking low, I walk inside. Instantly, I’m struck by how tiny the place is. In my memory it was huge. In reality it’s about the size of my college dorm room—that is, about as wide across as a double bed. We all used to be able to stand up in here. Now I have to stoop to avoid smacking my head.
Em and I built this place, along with our teammate Denton and Em’s other best friend, Shay. It took us a whole summer, ransacking yards and the forest for discarded bits of wood and tarp, stealing hammers and nails and even a power saw from Em’s dad’s shed.
The place was finally finished and we were all ready to start enjoying it when the Walsh brothers found out about it. They followed Em one day when she was dragging some old sun-lounger cushions throug
h the woods for us to use as a sofa.
“Jake and Emerson sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Reid started singing from below.
Em reached straightaway for the hammer. I had to stop her from chucking it at their heads. Knowing her, she would have managed to hit both of them with just one throw. Thinking back on it, maybe I should have let her.
After that, every time we tried to use the tree house, we’d find Reid or Rob and their crew of friends already occupying it, piles of cigarette butts and smashed beer bottles littering the forest floor below. One time we found a porn magazine stuffed beneath the sun-lounger cushions, the pages stuck together with what Em loudly hoped was glue. Another time we caught Rob making out with some tenth-grade girl.
Em was so mad she wanted to tear the tree house down, preferably while they were both still in it. She even stole an axe from her dad’s workshop and marched off down the road swinging it. I had to chase after her on my bike and wrestle it from her hands. That was Em. She’d chop off her nose to spite her face before ever admitting defeat.
But then Rob started taking football more seriously and Reid began hanging out with a guy whose parents owned a boathouse. And just like that, the tree house was ours again.
We hosed it down with Lysol before we moved back in and burned the porn magazine in a victory campfire.
I smile as I stare around at the place, my eyes catching on the markings etched into the wall. There’s Denton’s name, and Shay’s—both scratched into the wood with a blunt penknife. I cross to the other side of the tree house. Dusk is falling and I can barely see, but mine and Em’s initials should be here too somewhere.
I take out my phone and shine the light on the wall, running my other hand along it. There they are. Or rather, there they were. Someone’s scratched through our initials, hashed them out, scoring deep rents in the wood. It looks like whoever it was used a carving knife . . . or possibly an axe.