I bite the insides of my cheeks. “I guess I mentioned you a couple of times …”
“Only a couple?” he teases.
“Fine, fine—you got me. I’ve been totally stalking you ever since I met you in the café, okay? I can’t help myself.”
He laughs. I like his laugh. Just hearing it makes you feel happy. “Come on—your parents won’t be impressed if we let dinner get cold,” he tells me.
As we enter the kitchen, I see that Dad is plating up dinner. It’s a chicken casserole, with extra vegetables in a dish on the table and a basket of bread and butter. My parents have put in just a little extra effort because Dwight’s here.
“So what’s this project you kids are working on? Madison hasn’t told us much about it,” Dad says, when we’re all settled down.
I roll my eyes. I should’ve expected something like this. I’ve told them everything I can be bothered to about the project; they know the basics. But I have to hand it to them: it’s a clever way to initiate conversation with Dwight without seeming too intrusive.
I glance sideways at him, and even though he isn’t looking at me, I catch the gleam of enthusiasm in his eyes as he begins talking about our project.
“You’re interested in physics, then?” Mom asks.
He nods. “Yeah. There’s something truly amazing in discovering how the universe works. Trying to re-create the Big Bang, learning all the intricate little details of a single particle …” He trails off and takes a mouthful of chicken, ducking his head down.
“So is it just physics that interests you, or science in general?”
He looks back up, swallows and clears his throat. “Science in general, but I’ve always liked physics in particular.”
“Guess what,” I say. “Tiffany texted me earlier and suggested I go to cheerleading tryouts, since they got postponed to next week.”
“Well, why don’t you give it a shot?” Mom asks.
“Yeah, Madison,” Dwight says. For some reason, I get the impression he’s mocking me—just a tad. “Could be fun.”
“As if.” I snort. “I am not—no way, no how—trying out for the cheerleading squad. I have some sanity left.”
Mom sighs. “You should give it a shot, Dice—it’s not that bad. Jenna always loved it.”
“Dice?” Dwight picks up on my parents’ nickname for me. There’s a small line creasing his forehead, drawing his dark eyebrows just a touch closer together. When he frowns like that, there’s a little wrinkle on either side of his nose, like it wants to scrunch up. It’s cute, I think, before I can stop myself.
“Oh,” Dad says. “It’s just what we call her.”
“Dice.” It’s like he’s testing out how it sounds, how it tastes. “That’s unusual. Why not Maddie?”
“I hate that name,” I snap, a bit too sharply.
There’s a heavy heartbeat of silence hanging over the table. Then, “Dice is cool, though.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, because I don’t know what else to say.
“Do you play any sports, Dwight?” Dad asks him. “Soccer, tennis …?”
Dwight laughs, as if the idea is entirely ridiculous. “No, I’m not much of a sportsperson, really. I do surf, though. My … my dad used to surf. He got me into it when I was younger.”
“Ah.”
“The great thing about surfing is that I can apply physics to the waves—there’s a difference between waves in shallow and deep water … it’s all to do with refraction—”
He cuts off midsentence, then laughs sheepishly. “Sorry, I really shouldn’t get started on this, or I could go on forever. My sister hates it when I talk science at dinner.”
“I always thought surfing looked really cool,” I say. “I never got the chance to try it, though.”
“Really? Maybe I could teach you sometime. I taught Carter one summer. Unless you’re afraid of getting your hair wet, or breaking a nail?”
“Ha ha,” I say sarcastically, rolling my eyes. He chuckles at me. “Sure. That’d be great.”
We finish dinner with a little more easy conversation, and just as I’m helping Mom load everything into the dishwasher, the phone in the hall rings.
“I’ll get it,” I offer, and hold up a finger to signal “one minute” to Dwight. I dash into the hallway and snatch up the phone. “Hello?”
“Aloha, baby sis!” Jenna all but yells down the phone at me, and I have to hold it away from my ear briefly.
“Tone it down, Jen!”
“What’s up?”
“Uh, you called me.”
“Yes, and I called with the purpose of asking what is up. And I ask this because I know for a fact that you have a study date.”
I roll my eyes, even though I know she can’t see me. I walk around the banister and sit on the stairs. “Would you calm down already? It’s not a ‘study date,’ okay? We’re just working on a physics project.”
“Mm-hmm,” she says doubtfully. “Sure, Mads, whatever you say. This is the cute guy who asked you to the beach party, though, right?”
“Yes, and that doesn’t matter because it’s purely platonic—and are you forgetting Bryce?”
“Sexy football-player boyfriend? Of course not.”
“He plays soccer, not football.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry! How’re things going with him?”
“Good. No different from when I spoke to you … what was it, Wednesday?”
“Yeah. Aw, I am happy about that. Now I absolutely have to tell you about this guy I met yesterday on campus. His name’s Henry. He’s British. How cool and sexy is that, Mads? He’s British! His accent is adorable. He asked me out for coffee.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“No, when are you going for coffee?”
“In about an hour. He’s in my art classes, but he’s majoring in history.”
“Aw,” I say, smiling. Jenna vowed to Mom that she won’t let any guys get in the way of college work—at least for the first semester—unless she thinks they’re worth it. And a year in, she’s been true to her word. But there’s something in her voice that makes me think she already likes this guy.
“Is Mom there?”
“Uh, she was in the kitchen …” I stand and lean over the banister, peeking into the kitchen, but there’s no sign of my mom. In fact, there’s no sign of Dad or Dwight, either.
“Mom?” I call.
“Don’t worry,” Jenna says. “Tell her I’ll give her a call later, yeah?”
“All right.”
“In the family room, honey!” Mom calls in reply to me.
“Okay!” I yell back. To Jenna I say, “Have fun on your date.”
“Ditto to you,” she giggles. “Bye!” And she hangs up before I can sigh and argue that it’s not a date.
I find Dwight sitting in the middle of the couch, a familiar big fat photo album on his lap. Mom is beside him and stretches an arm to turn the page, and they look over at me as I walk in.
“Who was on the phone?” she asks.
But I just stand there, horror slowly creeping over me, as I stare at the photo album. It’s the one that Jenna and I put together for Mom’s birthday last year, with all her favorite photos—ones from her wedding, from when we were born, various birthdays and Christmases and Halloweens, and even as far back as her college graduation.
It’s a great photo album.
But it isn’t meant for other people to see.
What I should be thinking is: Oh, gosh, how clichéd of them. They’ve gone down the old-baby-pictures route of embarrassing me. How predictable.
But that’s not what I’m thinking.
The page Dwight’s on at the moment shows a photo of me and Jenna at the beach when I was about five. But I know that the next one was taken at Jenna’s high school graduation: it is a photo of the old Madison.
Then the panic sets in and overtakes the horror that froze me in place.
I pounce onto the couch, half tumbling over Dwig
ht’s shoulder and knocking the album away. Mom gets up hastily and catches it before it hits the floor. I balance precariously for a second, and then collapse onto the space Mom just vacated, an arm splayed across Dwight.
“Madison!” Dad exclaims as I sort myself out and sit up. “What are you doing?”
I turn to Dwight. “Sorry.”
For a split second I catch the confusion on his face—and then it vanishes and he’s perfectly composed again. “Don’t worry.”
“Madison,” Mom admonishes.
Still looking at Dwight, I say, “I just don’t like people looking at old photos of me.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
I give him a sort of fleeting half-smile. He smiles back for a moment to let me know it’s okay.
Mom lets out a sigh, but it’s not one of frustration or irritation at me. It’s more of a tired, sad sigh. She moves over to the bookcase and slides the photo album back into its slot between her Collected Works of Shakespeare and the Complete Charles Dickens Collection.
“Right—we’ll leave you kids to work on your project, then,” Mom announces, as though I didn’t just attack her photo album in a completely crazy way. “We’ll stay out of your way, don’t worry.”
They close the door behind them. I hear the TV in the study, and the low hum of voices is the only noise.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Dwight again. “I … It’s just—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He gives me a gentle smile, one that tells me he won’t ask about it and he doesn’t think I’m a complete freak.
I let out a sigh of relief. “So … should we get started or what?”
“Yup. I’ll just grab my bag.”
“Okay. I’ll be back in a second—I have to get my laptop and books.”
I’d put my laptop and textbooks and a notebook and pen ready in a neat pile at the foot of my bed. I snatch up my laptop charger as well, just in case, and head back downstairs.
I’m almost at the bottom of the stairs when I hear: “Dice.”
I pause for a moment, closing my eyes and taking a slow, long breath. In … and out.
I poke my head around the door of the study. Dad’s reading the newspaper and Mom’s surfing the Internet—she’s looking at winter coats. There’s a rerun of some soap playing on the TV.
“What?”
“You didn’t have to overreact like that.”
“You didn’t have to show him a photo album,” I snap back, only just remembering to keep my voice low. “I know it’s your job to be embarrassing and whatever, but not—not … You just can’t do that, okay?”
I don’t expect them to understand properly. It’s just that … it was so hard. It was hard trying to stay invisible when people wouldn’t let me. And I didn’t react, not once. I refused to let myself react; reacting would have made it worse, given them another excuse to laugh at me. And now I want to leave all of that behind me. I don’t mind that there are occasional reminders of how I used to be—photos and home movies, stuff like that—but I don’t want them to be shown to someone who I hope is my friend. I don’t want anyone to know about the old Madison. I’ve started moving on and I’d like it to stay that way. The past stays in the past.
But it’s not like I can explain all of that to my parents, exactly.
“Just … please don’t do that to me again,” I say instead, and then I leave.
Back in the family room, I find Dwight surrounded by books, his laptop booting up. He turns and smiles at me, and I smile back, as though everything is completely and entirely normal.
Chapter 22
“You’re kidding me!” Dwight exclaims, laughter in his voice. “You have an apple tree in your backyard?”
“I’m totally serious.”
He throws his arms up in the air and then brings his hands down to rest on top of his head, his fingers knitting together. He looks up the ceiling, chuckling and shaking his head. “Oh, man, this is … this is brilliant!”
“Um … okay …” I frown, not understanding his enthusiasm about the apple tree. I clear my throat to get his attention again. “Why is it brilliant, exactly?”
“Well, you know the story they tell you in, like, fourth grade, that an apple fell on Newton’s head and then he discovered gravity and whatever, right? Well, we can use your apple tree in experiments. It’s perfect! We can—”
“Wait. You’re not going to actually drop an apple on my head, are you?”
“Of course I am. It could help you pass AP Physics. Look what it did for Newton.”
I stare at him for a long moment, a moment that stretches out as we both try and discern each other’s thoughts. The innocent enthusiasm in his wide eyes makes me think he’s serious … but he can’t be, can he?
Eventually he starts chuckling. “You didn’t actually think I was serious, did you?”
I punch him in the arm, scowling. “Heck yeah!”
He carries right on laughing at me. “Oh God, you should’ve seen your face!”
I huff, “Whatever.”
“In all seriousness, though,” Dwight continues, “we can do an experiment to prove that acceleration due to gravity is 9:81 meters per second squared. We can drop an apple, measure the distance it falls, time how long it takes to fall … it’ll be easy. Plot a graph, et cetera. I might be able to put together some kind of electromagnetic timer so the apple flips a switch whenever—”
“Yeah,” I interrupt. “If you want to do that, it’s entirely up to you. I will try to help where I can, but I can’t promise I’ll understand what I’m doing.”
He laughs, then cries out, “Oh! And you know what else we can do? Drop an apple on some cornstarch and water.”
“What? Why would we do that?”
“There’s something called non-Newtonian fluids …,” he tells me, and goes on to explain about how certain liquids (like cornstarch mixed with water) can become solid (the particles form hydroclusters, whatever that means) when something hard—like an apple—hits them.
I tune out and reflect that there’s something very cute about Dwight. It’s hard to put my finger on what, though. I think it’s mostly his smile. It’s just so undeniably happy, and the way it reaches higher on the left is quirky rather than strange. As he’s talking, he gestures with his long limbs; he’s thin and gangly and looks just a little uncoordinated, like he could knock a vase over at any moment.
Right now, he’s just wearing a T-shirt with a faded design of a band I’ve never heard of, and a pair of black jeans. Whenever I’ve seen him at school, he’s always in a plain T-shirt or polo. Maybe a pair of slacks instead of jeans. And I’ve never seen him wear Converse to school—it’s always shiny white sneakers or polished shoes.
But I really like band-tee Dwight. We’ve only been working on this project for about an hour and a half, but he’s talked and laughed more than I’ve ever heard him during Physics class. It’s like a different side of him.
And yes, again, he is very, very cute.
“Madison … Madison …”
I jerk out of my thoughts. “Huh?”
He laughs. “Was I really boring you that much?”
“No—well, yes. I mean, no! No, you weren’t boring me,” I stammer, then slap my palm to my face, blushing sheepishly. “Sorry.”
He laughs again. “Don’t worry. I get carried away sometimes, I know. How about I just note down the experiments and how we’re going to do them, and you can put in extra effort when it comes to carrying them out?”
“Deal,” I say. Then, “Wanna take a break?”
“I think we deserve one. After all the work we’ve done.” He gestures at the notebooks we’ve scribbled in. His scribbles are more extensive than mine. There are even diagrams. My page leans more toward doodles than diagrams.
I get up and stretch my legs and arms. I pull back the blinds to check it hasn’t suddenly started raining. “Wanna check out the apple tree?”
&nbs
p; I turn back and see Dwight grinning at me, and he clambers to his feet and stretches too, cracking his knuckles. “Lead the way.”
It’s pretty mild outside, but the sky is cloudy. The air acts as a kind of blanket, almost tangible as it presses against my skin.
Our backyard here is bigger than the one we had in Maine. Mom’s flower beds sit on either side, against the fences that divide our yard firmly from the neighbors’. There’s the pool too, of course—but that’s got a cover over it because there was something wrong with the filter, and Dad hasn’t managed to get someone to fix it—and a small deck with the wooden table and chairs we brought from Pineford.
Right at the back of the yard, though, is my favorite spot. That’s where the apple tree is. Whoever owned the house before us must’ve had a kid—or been a kid at heart—because there’s a tire swing hanging from a thick branch. The rope is dark with age and a little frayed, but it’s very thick and strong. There’s also a bench. That’s where Dwight sits; I take the swing.
Hooking my legs through the tire, I push my feet off the ground so that I spin in a circle a few times, and then rotate back until I come to a stop.
He’s just smiling that crooked smile at me. “You’re such a child.”
I giggle, not bothering to deny it.
“So this is the apple tree.” He looks at it appraisingly and nods. “It has surpassed my expectations, considering they don’t grow very well in this kind of climate.”
“Oh. Um, cool.”
After a moment’s hesitation he swings his long legs up onto the bench. One dangles off the end and the other is bent, and his left arm is slung over the back like it doesn’t know where to go. I just rock myself back and forth. It’s nice to have the company, even if we aren’t touching, or speaking, or communicating in any way. Dwight is just there, and I am just here, and it’s nice.
I’m not precisely happy. I wouldn’t call it happy. But I wouldn’t call it sad, or lonely, or in any way bad.
I’m … content. Yeah. That’s the word. Content.
“Dice.”
I glance up with a “Hmm?” It takes a moment for me to register what he just said, though. “Why’d you call me that?” I ask before he can go on.