After Max finished helping the attendant, I waved him over.
He hesitated, but approached. “Hi, Gina.” I barely heard him.
“Your voice is better.”
“It exists,” he agreed.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, and stood to hug him properly.
I found myself staring at a distorted version of an image I’d seen many times. Rewind the clock, and this was Trent and Gina. She must have known it, because she’d turned to catch my eye.
I didn’t hold this embrace against her, and I let her know with a slight nod.
When she let go, she said, “We should all get together tonight. I could call Gray. We could go to the jetty or something.”
“Um . . .” Max checked with me before he answered.
I opted out quickly, not wanting to press my luck. “I usually run.”
“You can skip one night, right?” Gina asked. “Come on, I’d love to spend some time with you. Both of you. Hear about El Salvador.”
There she was, with her constant invitations that led to constant apologies. I shrugged my shoulders, held up the jeans as if I needed to get to the stall, and said, “Maybe some other time.”
She nodded in defeat. I’d refused enough invitations that she didn’t seem surprised. Gina hugged Max again and gave me a sad little stare. “Sometime this summer? Please,” she said to me.
My head moved up and down; the scar at my mouth twisted as I bit my lip. “Sometime.” Thinking about the list, I threw her a bone. “Maybe for Pirates and Paintball.”
“I’m sorry about the . . . you know.” Max finger-puppeted her tackling the attendant.
“No, I’m sorry.” Color rose in her cheeks. “Pirates and Paintball,” she repeated. “Let’s make it a plan.”
Max massaged his neck. “If Sadie wants to,” he rasped.
“I’ve been doing everything I can to get her out of that shell she lives in. Max, please remind her that she used to do stuff with us. Stuff like riding motorcycles—”
Sonia, who was listening, interrupted with an answer of her own. “And skipping school and going to the water park.”
I wanted a sinkhole to open up and suck me into the bowels of the earth. Even Sonia McCall was trying to get me out of the house by suggesting something that had gotten me grounded for a month. I was pathetic.
Sonia touched my shoulder warmly and added, “The kids have a point. You really should have some fun this summer.”
Well, on that note, it was time to end the conversation. I held up my jeans, walked straight into the dressing room, and collapsed onto the bench with my pile of denim.
“I love your bangs,” Gina called over the wall.
In my head, I heard Trent. This time, Hold on. Hold on. Hold on came out like Forgive her, Sadie May; you’ll get her back.
“I don’t want to,” I told him.
The voice in my head, whether it was Trent or my own conscience, knew the same Latin phrase I knew. A posse ad esse.
“Shut up,” I whispered.
The voice wandered away, and I felt like I’d kicked a dog.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Some Emails to Max in El Salvador
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: September 13
Subject: Prayers
Max,
I know you’re the praying sort, so if you don’t mind, would you say one for me and Gray? For the first time, I am starting to believe we won’t make it.
He came over yesterday and . . . I think he wanted to break up with me and couldn’t figure out how. I just sat there. I honestly don’t know whether to hold on or let go.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: September 15
Subject: Bad News
Max,
I went for a walk on Monday night and caught Gray and Gina on the beach together. She said he was drunk. He swore it didn’t mean anything. She pleaded with me to understand it was an accident. (WTF? Is there such a thing as accidental groping?) He said he was sorry. She cried. They promised they never meant for anything to happen.
There wasn’t much to say after that.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: September 18
Subject: No
Max,
I don’t want you to beat him up. I just have to figure out what to do.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: September 20
Subject: Done-Done
Max,
I broke up with him.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: September 24
Subject: Theory
Max,
I can’t believe you overnighted that card. It was the first time I smiled in three days. Thank you.
I have a theory on what happened.
Step one: Change happens. (The wreck.)
Step two: Pretend the change doesn’t exist. (What wreck?)
Step three: Get angry the other person can’t be who they used to be. (You’re a wreck.)
Step four: Create change. (Wreck this.)
I wish I could hate them and mean it.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: September 30
Subject: RE: Theory
Max,
No, the worst part isn’t that it was with Gina. That’s awful. Sure. The worst part is this feels like it’s my fault.
My dad’s mom, Pazie, has this formal dining room, and it’s so formal no one is allowed to use it. Some people have hearts like that, and I’m worried I’m becoming one of them. I feel myself shutting down, closing off, like I should tell people, “No, we don’t use this heart anymore. It’s too fragile.”
It started with the crash. I held on to all these emotions and truths that I should have expressed, but I didn’t know how to say what I needed to say. I thought that would ruin us. Well, silence ruined us too.
I’m not saying Gray and Gina are off the hook, but maybe some part of what happened between Gray and Gina happened because I put my heart in the formal dining room and told him (and her) he couldn’t go in there.
I don’t want this thing in my chest to beat me to death, but I also don’t want to protect it so much that I never use it again.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: October 2
Subject: Pinkie swears
Max,
Yes, I’m a little bit better today. And I promise I will try to never put our friendship in the formal dining room. I can’t lose you, too. I won’t have anyone left.
Sadie
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mom banged on the fitting room door. “Sadie.”
I opened it, and she slipped inside. She was always slipping behind my barriers.
“Oh, honey,” she said when she saw me.
Oh, honey opened a floodgate. I’d changed many behaviors over the last year, but I rarely purged emotions for anyone. She sat, and I lay my head in her lap. “I’m sorry I made you do this,” she said.
Sorry slid nicely into my broken places until I was able to sit up again. Mom held my face in her hands, thumbed away my rogue tears.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” I said. “Why this is all so hard for me. Why everyone has to be my intervention. Jesus, even Sonia thinks I’m broken.”
“I don’t know either, baby doll.”
“Mom . . . I don’t want to be mad at them anymore. I know it was an accident, but when I see them, Gray or Gina, something tightens right here.” I shoved my fingers into the place at the bottom of my rib cage. “W
ill that ever go away?”
My mother stroked my hair and gave me an honest answer. “I don’t know.”
“I hate hate.”
“Me too, Sadie. Me too.”
She didn’t try to fix the hurt or offer trite expressions. My mother spoke with her arms, tightening them around my body, until my breathing returned to normal. I lingered there in her safety until my stomach settled enough so I could stand.
“What do you say we call it a day?” she said. Then she gathered up the jeans I never tried on and slipped out of the room.
I followed her example. She was at the counter, buying all four pair of jeans, so I darted toward the door and escaped. Max’s hand found mine again, and he walked us away from the crowds. Back at the van, he opened my door for me and handed me a sack.
“You won’t want it yet, but I want to be there when you do.” Then he kissed my temple, a tiny peck, and walked around to the other side of the van.
I touched the place where his lips had been and looked at the sack. It was from a store where I used to shop. I peeked inside and saw Max’s purchase.
A tank top.
Across the front was the popular “You Only Live Once” saying. Bold lines marked through all the words except Live. Cutting my eyes to the back row, I mouthed a polite thank-you.
“That baby blue will look awesome with your eyes,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Wear a tank top in public. It was first on my list.
Max’s optimism concerned me. What if this thing that had grown between us was based on who he thought I might be someday rather than who I was? Even though he’d lost his brother, his progress looked like an ascent rather than a plateau. So far, I hadn’t figured out how to accept the new story of my life. Should I shut down this hand-holding, heart-holding kindness before it heaped more heartache on us both?
I didn’t want to.
I wanted to put on a tank top and walk in the sunshine with Max. All the way home, I imagined a world where I could.
When we pulled into the driveway, I surprised everyone by following Max into his house instead of mine. I didn’t want to try on jeans or put away clothes or see my traitorous bird. I wanted company.
That was a good change.
We sat in each other’s space, close enough that we shared a couch cushion. After a year apart, happiness was the comfort of being able to hug each other anytime we wanted. Sonia popped kettle corn and put on an old version of Peter Pan. We didn’t watch much of the movie, but we did discuss all the films and television shows he’d missed over the past year. Everything from Woody Allen to Christopher Nolan to Wes Anderson to Aaron Sorkin. Max made a “Must Watch These Together” list. It would take ten years to get through all the titles he wanted to see with me. I liked that idea.
“You know my favorite show of all time—”
“Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” he said.
“Did I tell you that before?” I asked, thinking about Big.
“No. I’m just observant.”
Or was he covering up a little slip?
That thought made me switch the topic to his life in El Salvador. “Speaking of observant, I want to see all your El Salvador pictures.”
After scrolling through a thousand photos, we ate BLTs at the kitchen counter and talked until his voice was gone and I didn’t have much to say.
By six o’clock, a heaviness made our twosome a threesome. Without a word, Max led me into Trent’s room, and we both curled up in his bed. Him on one side. Me against the wall. I was in a bed with my boyfriend, and we were both thinking about his brother. It wasn’t romantic; it was exactly what I needed.
“I’ve been sleeping in here,” Max said.
“I took a nap in here once while you were gone.”
We tried to hold each other, but we were both stiff, unyielding. “You know why I sleep in here?” Max asked.
“No.”
“This room is full of mysteries.”
I rolled over and watched him. Max was flat on his back, hands squeezed into fists, eyes locked on the ceiling. He didn’t blink. Didn’t move.
“What do you mean?” I asked, and flopped on my back. Above me, a pattern of glow-in-the-dark star stickers shone. I focused in on them and listened.
Anger, and maybe . . . guilt, crept into Max’s tone. “Like, there are pieces of him I didn’t know or understand. We shared a frickin’ bedroom wall. How did I miss . . .” He exhaled, but it was a beginning rather than an end. “When did he build that Lego temple-thing on the desk? Who gave him the card he kept between his mattress and box spring? Gina? Was it her? Was it you? Someone else? They loved him, whoever it was.”
I didn’t dare interrupt, but I inched my hand closer to him.
He continued. “What happened to his YOLO paddle? Where did he get that black leather jacket? We live in Florida, for God’s sake. When would he need a leather jacket? And those damn tennis shoes with the toes in them, when did he stop wearing Scotts? Did you know he kept a journal? And did you know he ripped out more than half of it? Why? What was in there? God, I shouldn’t have even looked at it.”
Max had so many questions that his voice dissolved into scratching sounds rather than words. He rarely spoke in paragraphs, opting for clipped answers that saved his voice. I pieced together the last thing he said before he went silent. “He would bust my ass if he knew I went through his stuff.”
I nodded a yes at the last comment, but really, I nodded at all of the questions. I knew some of the answers, but letting Max know I knew, when he didn’t know, felt cruel. Still, I offered him the only truth I understood.
“I think maybe everyone is a mystery. Even the people we know really well. If I died”—he turned toward me, fear splashed across his reddened face, and latched our pinkies together—“and you went through my stuff, you’d have the same type of questions. Why I kept one thing but not another. What I was hiding and telling and hoping and believing. We all have that stuff, and it’ll drive you crazy if you fixate on it. I know. In a different way, I’ve been doing the same thing with Gina and Gray. Acting as if answers will change feelings. I’m not sure it works that way.”
“Sadie?”
“Yeah.”
His face relaxed into a near-smile. “Tell me something you’ve never told me.”
I laced my hands behind my head and relaxed.
“I made Trent that Lego temple-thing as a thank-you for helping me study for the SAT. It’s supposed to be Machu Picchu. We were planning a trip someday.”
Max nodded. “Yeah, he loved explorers. Even the brutal ones like Ponce.”
“He didn’t love Ponce for Ponce. He loved Ponce because he loved the Fountain of Youth. And he loved the Fountain of Youth because”—my eyes swelled with tears and I ground my teeth into my final words—“he was scared of dying.”
Max pulled me to his chest and found the strength for a few more words. “I’ll tell you something I’ve never told you. In the end, he wasn’t scared.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We took a long nap and I woke up around ten. When I opened my eyes, I gave Max a lazy look and he threw a thumb toward the window, toward our dock. “You . . . want to sit out—”
I wondered how long he’d been awake.
“Yeah. Let me check in with Mom and Dad first. They’ll be worried,” I said, thinking I really wanted to brush the nap-fur off my teeth.
Max’s cheek quivered. An almost-smile that I almost missed. For all the hard stuff we’d talked about today, that smile was like an eraser. I loved it. We walked to my deck together, and he took a seat on the edge of an Adirondack chair as if to say, I’ll wait right here.
I waved. My attempt at a wordless I’ll be right back.
He nodded.
After all those emails, we could speak without words.
The door was unlocked and lights were on in the kitchen. I stopped by a
nd found Mom and Dad in some sort of hug.
Teasingly, I shielded my eyes. “I’m home. I’m home.”
Dad kissed Mom on the tip of her nose. I should have been fifty shades of grossed out by my parents, but they’d always been this way. It was sweet when you considered that many of my classmates’ parents stayed married because they had children and expensive mortgages. My mom and dad liked each other. From what I could tell, happiness was getting stuck with someone and never feeling stuck.
Are you okay? Mom asked with her eyes.
Better, I said, also without words. I was pretty decent at nonverbals tonight.
“I’m going down to the dock,” I announced.
“No run?” Mom asked.
“Not tonight,” I answered. No run. No list. No Latin phrases. No worries about Big. I’d had enough of those today.
Mom licked some frosting off a spreader, acted casual, too casual, and said, “Max still with you?”
“Yeah.”
My parents wanted to ask: Do you swear you’re okay? Should we call Dr. Glasson? You know you can talk to us if you need to? They didn’t ask or say any of those things; instead, they psychoanalyzed me from three feet away. Their eyes were piercing.
So I smiled at them.
And it worked.
The atmosphere lightened considerably. Mom offered me icing off a fingertip—buttercream heaven—and trusted my silence. No more Oh, honeys tonight.
After a full sixty seconds with my toothbrush, I darted toward the back door. Dad called at me, “Family movie sometime soon.”
“Sure,” I agreed as always.
“Tell Max to join us.”
I smiled again. “I will.”
“Honey . . .”
“I know, Mom. Love you too.”
“Stay out late,” Dad suggested.
The Social Experiments were finally working to my advantage.
Back on the deck, I apologized to Max for taking so long inside. “I interrupted my parents having sex.”
“Seriously?”
“No, but they were up to something.”
“My parents were like that too,” he said.
“Were?” I asked, thinking they’d moved around the world to fix crap like that.
“Sometimes they’re fine. Sometimes they’re not.”