The Lies About Truth

  “I really thought we’d make it,” he said.

  “We did. Just not in the way we thought we would.”

  “True,” he said.

  “True,” I said.

  The truth was finally a beautiful thing.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Gina and Max must have been watching us. The moment we stood, they arrived, map out, ready to explore.

  “Want to check out the Spring House?” I asked, my voice nearly normal.

  “Absolutely,” Gina said.

  “Anywhere you want to go,” Max said.

  I took Max’s hand, hoping he’d accept mine, hoping he understood that true closure had happened with Gray. He did, spinning his hat around backward, the way I loved, and rubbing the scruffy part of his chin against my face to make me laugh. Some people just snapped back into place. Thank the good Lord for the occasional easy answer.

  Gray moved closer to Gina, but not so close as to make a statement. “Let’s go drink Ponce’s Kool-Aid,” he said.

  We all laughed.

  The Spring House was near the park entrance and a short walk from the statue. Other than the two wire peacocks that flanked the sign, the doorway looked like a hobbit hole. It looked like comfort.

  “Sadie, I think we’ve found the Shire,” Max teased.

  “Cross it off your list,” I said.

  Sharing a heart with someone isn’t a crowded thing when they understand you that well. I squeezed his hand, trying to tell him that without words, and Max got it loud and clear.

  The earthen room we entered wasn’t grand. It had Dixie cups and a semi-hokey museum display. Six-year-old Sadie would have loved it with her whole heart.

  Gray said, “Seriously? This is it?”

  Gina shoved him toward the door and he said, “I’m kidding. It’s great.”

  I sort of doubted that was true.

  The sound of water hitting water captured our attention. Not the roar of a waterfall, but a dime-size stream that fell into a tiny well.

  I watched it without speaking.

  I stepped away from Max, closed one eye, and held up my thumb until it blocked the small fountain.

  “Neil Armstrong,” Max said.

  I smiled.

  “Trent told me.”

  Sometimes a small thing was bigger than a big thing.

  Gina and Gray watched curiously, but didn’t ask what we were doing. Gray stepped forward and took two Dixie cups from the table and filled them up.

  “We should toast,” Gina said.

  Max filled two cups for us and we made a semicircle.

  “To Trent,” Max said.

  “To Trent,” we said together, knocking the plastic cups against one another.

  Cold and good. Healing? We’d see.

  “To us,” I said.

  “To us,” my friends said.

  That drink tasted like the first day of autumn. Cool. Refreshing. Like water from a garden hose, except without the metallic after-bite. I felt as if I’d arrived at the end of a long journey.

  Friendship was more of an adventure than we intended for it to be. Maybe it was Ponce’s magic fountain. Maybe it was Sadie Kingston growing a freaking brain and a pair of cojones. I’d been waiting for a feeling and had gotten it backward. The feeling had been waiting for me. Choosing forgiveness takes more courage (and far less energy) than sustaining anger.

  I decided.

  Forgiveness (n.) releasing the toxins of bitterness.

  Tears fell from my eyes as I said the two words I’d withheld, though they’d been given to me many times this year.

  “I’m sorry,” I told them.

  And to be sure they understood, I got specific, starting with Gina and Gray. “I shut both of you out, because you were in the front car . . . because . . . I blamed you. I thought you couldn’t understand, and really, I didn’t understand, or even acknowledge, what you’d been through either. I’m sorry we didn’t talk. Sorry for my anger. Sorry I pretended to sleep when you visited. I pushed you away. I pushed you together.”

  “Sadie.” Gina tried to stop me.

  “We still messed up,” Gray said.

  “You’ve given me a year of apologies; I still owe you a few more,” I said.

  They nodded and slid closer together.

  Max placed his hand on the small of my back, and as I continued, I inched toward his strength. “Guys, I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me the truth. And that all those times when you apologized, I wasn’t listening. We lost Trent together, and I’m sorry it took me a year to start healing. And Max . . .”

  “Hey, we’re good,” he said.

  “We are good,” I said with a slight grin. “But I should have Skyped with you. Should have shown who I was and trusted you to see me the way you do. I was scared I’d lose you, too.”

  He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “I get to see you now every day. We’re all better than we were.”

  “Hear, hear,” Gina said.

  “Hear, hear,” we all echoed.

  No blubber sessions followed. No conversations. We all filled up another cup and chugged.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Outside the Spring House, the sun scorched us. I lowered my sunglasses and squinted at Gray, who pointed in the direction of the gift shop. Woe to us if we didn’t commemorate the experience with a souvenir magnet.

  Max used the coupon and bought two bottles of water. “For next year,” he told me, and dropped them into my bag.

  “Who’s driving?” I asked.

  They all paused nervously.

  “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I drove the whole way here.”

  Our laughter started as a peep and became thunderous. The three of them happily decided they’d share shifts on the way home.

  Three hundred and sixty miles with Gina, Gray, or Max at the wheel was much quicker than one mile with me. Every time we stopped, we rotated seats. Shotgun controlled the radio, and whoever sat there kept us on a steady diet of hard rock and easy listening. We had musical whiplash by the time the radio died. After that, we told stories.

  We laughed harder than I thought was possible. We cried some, too.

  The tears led to talk of autumn and the future. Gray was headed down the road to Valparaiso for his freshman year; Gina, Max, and I had two more semesters at Coast Memorial. Bells and teachers and crowds weren’t so bad.

  With friends.

  About halfway home, I texted Mom.

  Me: The Social Experiments worked.

  Her: You better not be driving and texting.

  Me: Not a chance.

  Her: Be safe. I want to hear all about it.

  I had plenty to tell.

  Back at the yard, Metal Pete was still up and working in the garage. He slid out from under a Honda Civic and yelled, “So did you find the fountain?”

  “Yeah, it was under a big sign that said ‘Fountain of Youth,’” I answered.

  Metal Pete grinned. “Go figure.”

  I gathered up my bag from the truck, ran the keys back to him, and scrubbed Headlight between the ears.

  “You’ll tell me about it?” Metal Pete asked.

  “Tomorrow, when I come to work.”

  “Work?” he asked.

  “I sort of need a job if I’m going to start driving again. Gas and insurance and stuff.”

  He wiped a smudge of grease on my nose. “Does this mean I have to pay you real money?”

  “Well, you can’t pay me in doughnuts,” I said with a laugh.

  “Then I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  When I got back to the group, we stood around as if we weren’t sure if the day was over or not.

  “Thanks for going with me,” I told them.

  Gina said, “We should try to road-trip somewhere every anniversary.”

  We all agreed, but I wasn’t sure we’d follow through. Maybe we would.

  Gina and Gray walked wearily toward her car, and I asked Max if he’d escort
me to the Yaris. Max gave me a little chin-nod, and we trudged toward an aisle I’d been down many times.

  “What are we doing?” he asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  He didn’t seem to need more than that.

  Halfway down the Yaris’s aisle, we passed the Buick I’d written my list on the first day I brought Max to see Trent’s car. Wind had blown the dust around, but it hadn’t rained, so the list was still visible. Max ran his hand over the hood, erasing the list, since it was nearly complete. We followed the moonlight to Trent’s car.

  “What are we doing?” Max asked.

  “We’re leaving the rest of the past in the past,” I told him.

  When we reached the Yaris, I asked Max if he needed a moment, but he said no. The old heap didn’t draw blood or tears from him as it had the last two times. Instead, Max walked around to the bumper and ripped away the top layer of an I Love Climbing sticker.

  “I never asked where he got that,” I said.

  “Souvenir shop in Denver. On family vacation. Right before the accident.”

  “Did y’all climb?”

  Max shook his head. “We tried. He was scared of heights so he bought a sticker and said he’d do it next time.”

  “Sounds like him,” I said.

  Trent, lover of star and sky. Fear couldn’t tie him to the ground anymore. I think Max and I were both considering that as he let the sticker curl in on itself and placed it in his pocket. Max was taking something with him. I was leaving something behind.

  I removed Big from my bag. Empty, he wore only his own gouging scar from where I’d removed his paper stuffing.

  The idea had come to me on the drive home from Willit Hill this morning. If the stuffing went into the ground, then Big should go down with the ship—er, Yaris. If I wanted to live in the present, I needed to commit to it. These were tangible choices—an anchor, a trail marker, an emotional tattoo—to recognize the decision.

  I opened the Yaris door, set Big in the shotgun seat, and buckled him in.

  “You’re giving him up?” Max asked.

  “He’s the old me.”

  “He’s empty.”

  “Exactly. The new me is full.”

  Well, hopefully.

  I closed the door. The metal-on-metal thud echoed through the yard. From her bed on the porch, Headlight bellowed.

  Good-byes are never easy; not even for dogs and stuffed ostriches.

  The words and thoughts I’d given to Big over the years, I would give to Max. Or my friends. And my family. That seemed right, and Big wouldn’t care. He was just an arcade toy with a hole in his belly.

  He was a time machine.

  I didn’t need him anymore.

  “I like it, Kingston,” Max said, a long yawn stretching his mouth wide. “I think you’re going to be okay.”

  “Well, I drank from the Fountain of Youth in a Dixie cup, so it’s only logical that—”

  Max touched my cheek, touched the scar at my mouth, and stopped me from saying anything else. “That one have a name?” he asked.

  “The scar? Nope.”

  He kissed me again. “I’m thinking Max is a pretty solid name.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?” I asked playfully.

  “Well”—kiss—“I plan to spend”—kiss—“a bunch of”—kiss—“time”—kiss—“right here.” He threw both of our hats on the ground so nothing was in the way. When our lips were tissue-paper-width apart, he said, “That scar’s my favorite.”

  He kissed it again.

  I felt the kiss in my eyelashes.

  Felt happiness.

  If there was such a thing greater than happiness, I felt that, too. Peace, perhaps. Yes, I was definitely more at peace with the Sadie I was now—bangs and scars and T-shirts and forty-five-miles-an-hour driving. Not because Max kissed me or accepted me, or because I worked through my list, or because Gray hijacked my thoughts from Big, but because I wasn’t scared of my story anymore.

  Sometimes the journey to let someone love you is the journey to loving yourself. I still had plenty more miles to go, but I had Pink Floyd, Tennessee, Idaho, and Max for company.

  I had a feeling we’d get along just fine from here.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To God, who knows exactly how much I have in common with Sadie May Kingston. You love me when I’m stuck, when I’m scared, and when I isolate myself. You see my scars and my shame and you still say I am beautiful and redemptive. While I don’t always understand, I am so very grateful. Thank you for making art with me.

  To Rosemary Brosnan, who also knows how much I have in common with Sadie Kingston. You held my hand in this project and during two very difficult years of life. If you asked for the ends of the earth, I would start walking now. (Well, after I asked you to point in that direction.) You are deeply loved.

  To the entire team at Harper: Susan Katz, Kate Jackson, Annie Berger, Bethany Reis, Brenna Franzitta, Erin Fitzsimmons, Heather Daugherty, Kim VandeWater, Aubry Parks-Fried, Margot Wood, Kathleen Morandini, Patty Rosati, Olivia Russo, Andrea Pappenheimer and the sales team, and all the people who work behind the scenes to make great books.

  Kelly Sonnack: Once upon a time this book started in a culinary cooking class, and two thousand pages later . . . it is about salvaging the wreckage of life and the power of truth. That is the odd journey we travel. I’m so thankful I never have to travel alone.

  Before I get into my deep thanking lists, I should say this project had three huge turning points: 1. Batcave. 2. Patricia Riley. 3. David Arnold. I can safely say that I owe my sanity and finishing this project to all three. You impacted my work and my heart; I owe you. My mom isn’t a turning point, but she reads, edits, and encourages me tirelessly. I wouldn’t be here (or anywhere) without her.

  To my accountability group and dear friends: C. J. Schooler; Katie, Matt, and Sam Corbin; Leah Spurlin; Brooke Buckley; Alina Klein; and Victoria Schwab.

  To my critique partners: Kristin O’Donnell Tubb, Rae Ann Parker, Ruta Sepetys, David Arnold, Erica Rodgers, Lauren Thoman, Patricia Nesbitt, and Janice Erbach.

  To my community: Sarah Brown, Paige Crutcher, Ashley and Sherra Schwartau, Dawn Wyant, Myra McEntire, S. R. Johannes, Jennifer Jabaley, Becky Abertalli, Ally Watkins, Kate Dopirak, Sharon Cameron, Jessica Young, Michael Smith, J. W. Scott, Linda and Kent Schwab, everyone at Batcave, the Lucky Fourteeners retreat group, Parnassus Books, Kim Liggett, Christa Desir, Jolene Perry, Julie Stokes, the wonderful people in the SCBWI Midsouth (What a group!), and my SCBWI LA conference friends from around the country and world.

  To my LWC students; Crosspoint Church, Percy Warner Park, State Street UMC; Climb Nashville; Fort Walton Beach, Florida; Daniel Hilton of Sunset Beach Service; and Ballard County.

  To teachers, librarians, media specialists, booksellers, bloggers, reviewers, podcasters, and fellow authors.

  To Adam. Be the crash. Rhinos forever. Broadway is yours for the taking.

  To my family: Mom, Dad, Matt, Angela, Bryce, Brooklyn, Grandmother, Nana, Barbara, Mike, Dave, Sheridon, Taylor, Daniel, Destin, Kristen, Claiborne, Shelby, Kurtis, Matt, and Pat. I love you. Thank you for loving me.

  As always, to all you readers. Of the two of us, you will always be my better half.

  EXCERPT FROM FAKING NORMAL

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A LOOK AT

  COURTNEY C. STEVENS’S

  Faking Normal, OUT NOW.

  CHAPTER 1

  BLACK funeral dress. Black heels. Black headband in my hair. Death has a style all its own. I’m glad I don’t have to wear it very often.

  My dress, which I found after rummaging in the back of my closet, still smells vaguely of summer and chlorine. The smell is probably just a memory.

  “Alexi, slide in closer so Craig can sit with Kayla.” My mother’s voice pulls me from my misery and back to the funeral.

  Mom makes room for me to shift down the pew toward her, and I slide obediently into the crook of her arm as Kayla’s boyfriend joins ou
r family. Even though I don’t tell Mom, it feels good when her arm loops over my shoulder, and her hand gives me a little squeeze-pat that means she loves me. If we weren’t at a funeral, I’d probably shrug her off. But that would be sort of selfish, since Mrs. Lennox was in Mom’s prayer group all that time.

  “How’s Bodee doing?” Mom asks.

  “I don’t really know him,” I answer.

  “You’ve been in school together for eleven years.”

  I shrug. “He’s the Kool-Aid Kid.” Why do adults always think kids should be friends just because their mothers are? Sharing homeroom and next-door lockers doesn’t mean you know a person beyond his label. Across the church aisle from me is Rachel Tate, the girl whose mom did Principal James on Bus 32. I’m Kayla Littrell’s carbon-copy little sister. Before this week, Bodee was the Kool-Aid Kid. Now, he’ll be the kid whose dad murdered his mom. That label will pass from ear to ear whenever Bodee walks down the hall. But now it’s a pity-whisper instead of a spite-whisper.

  “It would be nice if you reached out to him.” I can tell Mom wants to say more, but the music changes and she faces the front.

  There are no words to the music, and that makes me sad. Every song deserves lyrics. Deserves a story to tell. Mrs. Lennox’s story is over, so maybe she doesn’t need words, but Bodee might. Reaching out to him is one of those Christian things my mom talks about, but you can’t share a closet and a stack of old football cards with someone you hardly know. So I say a prayer and hope he’ll find a place of his own to hide.

  But this’ll probably always be what he goes back to. Mom. No Mom.

  That’s a forever change. I never understood life could be so dramatically sectioned, but it can. And is. There is only after. And before.

  My moment was by the pool; Bodee’s is by the casket. Or wherever he was when he found out about his mom.

  Kayla leans away from Craig and asks, “Alexi, is he in your grade?”

  I nod and wish Kayla would lower her voice.

  “Lord, he’s homely,” she adds.

  “His mom’s dead,” I say. I inch even closer to Mom, which isn’t exactly possible. Kayla’s wrong, anyway. He’s not homely; he’s unkempt, and there’s a difference.