She was still so embarrassed about the day before, but her embarrassment was overridden by the unbearable ache in her chest that only eased when she was close to him. Her face was burning as she put her stuff down next to his. She knew she needed to say something.
“About yesterday,” she started. “I’m sorry about that. That was an accident.” Except she said it so fast it came out like one long word: AboutyesterdayI’msorryaboutthatthatwasan-accident.
Alex turned slightly. “Oh, hey,” he said. “What did you say?”
“About yesterday . . . ,” Lucy whispered.
“Sure, fine, no worries.” But it sounded like he was just trying to appease her to get her to stop.
Lucy stood there. She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on pulling power up from down below, holding it in her belly, and radiating it out. Her hands began to tingle.
She inched in closer so her elbow was just barely grazing his.
He looked at her, then started backing away. She took a deep breath.
“I really love that photo!” she said too loud.
He smiled a little and then nodded.
“Which?” His voice softened.
“Um.” She stuck out her finger and pointed at random. “That one.”
They stood side by side staring at it.
It was a photo of a few people dragging a canoe into a lake. The shot had been taken from high up above, at the top of a hill perhaps.
When Alex took that photo, had he known he would be ending things with her? Had he known he would be coming back to break her heart?
Lucy felt heat on the back of her neck, sharp claws digging in, and was immediately sick with jealousy of everyone in those photos even though she could not see a single thing about them other than that they were people with arms and legs and that one was wearing flip-flops and two were wearing hiking boots.
“They look so tiny,” she said. “Like little toy people.” Her voice squeaked, as though she was just a little toy person herself.
She felt herself begin to deflate. She was projecting no power or glow. There was nothing but raw need oozing out of her.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “And I like the way I captured the light here”—he pointed—“through the trees onto the lake. And the composition is excellent because the focal point of the photo is . . .”
While Alex went on, Lucy forced herself to breathe. Sometimes when Alex was talking about something he cared about, it was almost like he forgot about the fact that he was talking to another person. But that was okay; Lucy had never really minded that. Her heart slowed, and as he talked, she tuned out and closed her eyes. She concentrated on breathing. On taking strength and power from the center of the earth, on radiating something else back out. She breathed in; she was beautiful. She breathed out; she was strong. She breathed in; she was a goddess. She breathed out; she was luminous.
She felt her pulse slow and her lungs open up to hold more air. Her shoulders pulled themselves back and she licked her lips. Alex was still talking. He was pointing out photos one by one. But Lucy wasn’t paying attention. Her skin was tingling. Something was happening.
Suddenly Alex stopped. And finally, finally he looked at her.
“Your hair is different,” he said. She breathed deeply and felt a lock of it fall in her face. She swept it back behind her ear.
“True,” she said.
“And you’re wearing a dress.”
Lucy looked down. “Yeah, I don’t really know how that happened. I could swear I put on shorts this morning.”
Alex smiled with half his mouth. “You look nice, Luce.”
Lucy waved her hand and shrugged like it was nothing as a lightning bolt of joy hit her straight in the gut.
Suddenly she smelled something sweet and sharp. She turned. Mr. Wexler was behind them, holding his coffee cup in one hand, stroking his yellow mustache with his other. He was looking over their shoulders.
“Not bad,” he said.
Alex turned too, a pleased little smile blooming on his lips. But Mr. Wexler was not looking at Alex’s nature photos, his artsy still lifes, his shots of the moon and people in the lake. No, he was looking at Lucy’s half-crooked contact sheet full of the things she’d wanted to show Alex.
“Me?” said Lucy.
“That one.” Mr. Wexler pointed to a photo in the center of the page. It was barely anything, just Tristan smiling at her over a sundae. She wasn’t even sure why she’d taken that picture, except that something in her told her to.
“There’s something there,” Mr. Wexler said. He tapped it with a gnarled, tobacco-stained finger.
“Thank you?” Lucy was embarrassed to be thanking him in front of Alex, as though the thank-you implied she must agree.
“Don’t thank me,” Mr. Wexler said. “Thank this.” And he reached out and pointed at Lucy’s eye. “And maybe a little bit of that.” He pointed at her heart.
Lucy stood there trying to think of how to respond, but before she could, Mr. Wexler had walked away.
Lucy turned back to Alex. He was looking down, suddenly quiet.
“He’s obviously drunk,” Lucy whispered.
Alex shrugged. “Maybe.” But he didn’t sound happy anymore. Lucy looked down at his photos again. She scanned his contact sheet for another one to compliment.
There was one right in the center of the page, three pairs of legs, all bare feet, scratched-up knees, bits of dirt and cut grass and leaves stuck to their skin. One of the six ankles was wrapped in a complicated-looking anklet made of flat carved beads; another ankle had a bug bite right near the bone. There was a pile of backpacks and reusable water bottles off to the side. And the photo was taken from such an angle that you could see that they were standing on the edge of a cliff and that there was water down below.
It wasn’t particularly complex or thought provoking, she had to admit. It looked like a page from a camping gear catalog.
“I love that one too.” Lucy pointed. Then looked up hesitantly.
“Yeah, it’s a good shot.” Alex was nodding. “It was amazing. We went cliff diving right into the Colorado River after. You should definitely go sometime. I think you’d like it.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Sounds like it.”
Alex went back into the darkroom after that. The corners of Lucy’s mouth twisted up into a private little smile. And okay, so, no, the truth was she would most certainly not have enjoyed cliff diving. The idea made her dizzy. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that he thought he knew—that meant there was still a place in him reserved for her, reserved for knowing her. That was the important part.
When the bell rang, Lucy put her negatives into her folder and put it all in the storage closet very, very slowly, waiting for Alex. Finally he emerged from the darkroom.
She tried to find things to occupy herself as the other students filed out of the room: she dropped her negatives on the floor and slowly picked them up; she put on lip balm like she was moving underwater. Scratched her elbow for a long time. As he was leaving she walked out right in front of him.
He caught up with her. “Hey,” he said. “Listen. I was thinking and I just wanted to tell you something. . . .”
Lucy held her breath.
“. . . and maybe it’s too late now but . . .”
“It’s not too late,” she said quickly. She felt her face flush. Someone was tossing rocks inside her rib cage.
“. . . I just wanted to say I’m really sorry for breaking up with you so fast like that and then freaking out at you yesterday too. I mean, I know it all probably seemed really sudden to you, that everything ended like that. I just wanted you to know that . . .” He paused. “Well, it seemed sudden to me too, is all.” He was talking in the special soft voice he used to use when they were together, like she was something delicate and he did not want to break her with the force of his words.
Their eyes met then. He smiled almost sadly. It was, she realized, the first time he’d actual
ly looked her in the eye since before he went away for the summer.
What is it about eye contact that feels so . . . important? There is no almost there. A half centimeter to the right of eye contact feels like nothing. A millimeter to the left, nothing too. No points unless you hit the bull’s-eye.
But he was hitting the bull’s-eye then.
They stood there, eyes locked together. She did not have to pull up feelings because they arrived all on their own, a waterfall flood of them coming out from her heart and her gut. Her pupils expanded to take him in. The boy who’d taken her picture and told her things and taught her things. The boy who she held that afternoon on the roof so many months ago. The boy she’d been desperate to know ever since that very first time their eyes met, whom—she realized in that moment—she’d never really gotten to know at all, not fully, not the way she needed to. Because if she had, then maybe she would have the tiniest hint of understanding of how they could be standing there, eyes locked, and to her it could still feel just as magical as it always had. Only somehow it didn’t to him.
But maybe it wasn’t too late.
“You know if you want to talk about it more,” she said. She wanted to ask him what he meant by “sudden.” How could it seem sudden to him when he was the one who did it? Was this his way of saying he missed her? That he’d made a mistake? “Maybe we could get together after school or something. . . .”
Alex was not looking at her anymore though. “Hey.” His voice sounded different again. He was talking to someone behind her.
Lucy turned. Gil was standing there, a giant iced coffee in each hand. Lucy felt her face redden.
“Hi!” Lucy knew she sounded guilty. And hearing herself sound like that made her face even redder.
Gil stared at Alex, then Lucy, then Alex again. She looked like she was trying to figure something out.
“You were in my American History class last year, I think,” he said. “Mr. Broome and his spit strings.” He smiled the smile that usually charmed everyone.
Gil just shrugged. “I guess,” she said.
“You’re Gillian, right?”
“Yup.” Gil’s voice was flat. She turned toward Lucy. “Thought you might be tired.” Her voice was back to normal. “Because of last night.” Her eyes flickered. She held out one of the giant iced coffees. Lucy reached out for it; the condensation dripped onto the floor.
“You guys know each other?” Alex was staring at Gil, his head tipped to the side. “Right, because you were in that class too,” he said to Lucy.
“Right,” said Lucy.
Gil stared at him until he gave a little shrug and a “Well, okay then” and turned to go. “See you ladies later.” His eyes met Lucy’s one last time before he walked away.
She wanted to scream, WAIT!
“Bye Alex,” Lucy said weakly.
“Bye-bye,” Gil called out. She sounded sarcastic.
They both watched as he walked away, bag bouncing against his hip. He stopped halfway down the hall to take a picture of an old water fountain.
“What an ass,” Gil whispered. She was smiling a sort of smile that Lucy didn’t understand.
“Yeah.” Lucy sucked some coffee through the straw. She normally didn’t drink coffee; she was anxious enough as it was. But this was a gift. It was cold and sweet. “Thank you for this.”
“I thought you could probably use it,” Gil said. But her voice was just nice then, back to normal. “Liza is skipping today and Olivia never seems to need to sleep for some reason, but whew.” She shook her head. “Exhaustion!”
Lucy nodded, but she wasn’t thinking about coffee or how tired she was anymore. All she was thinking about was Alex and how it had felt when their eyes met, and the expression he’d had on his face, at once completely familiar, and not familiar at all.
“So, hottie, having a good day?” Gil gave a sly little grin.
Lucy just smiled and shook her head. “It’s . . .”
“Wackyland, right? All the attention?”
“But did you . . . ?” Lucy paused. She lowered her voice. “I mean, did you guys do something . . . ?” She stopped and held her breath. She was scared to ask the question. She didn’t know what she wanted the answer to be.
Gil laughed like she understood everything. Then shrugged. “Well, that’s hard to say, I’m so tired.” She held her hand in front of her mouth and mock yawned. “I’m not sure I even remember! And if we did, it was just a teensy-tiny little thing anyway. And it was maybe more of a me than a we. And you should definitely not mention it to anyone. And by anyone, I think we both know who I mean.”
“I do.” Lucy smiled. “Well, thank you then. Thank you a lot.”
Gil smiled back.
Lucy’s heart was hammering.
So it was magic. And it was working.
“If you ever felt like doing anything like that again,” Lucy said. “I mean, you could do whatever you—”
Lucy felt the cup yanked from her hand. She turned. Tristan.
“First you get completely different hair, then you start drinking coffee?” Tristan raised the straw to his lips and took a long sip. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore, buddy.” But he was grinning. He took another sip. “Mmm, sugar, my favorite. But hey, coffee makes you cuckooballs, doesn’t it? Who said you could have coffee?”
“I guess that’s my fault,” Gil said. “I’m the caffeine pusher here.”
“Perfect sugar-to-coffee ratio, pusher,” said Tristan. “You know your poison.”
Gil smiled.
“Anyway,” Tristan said. “See you later, dudes. I’m off to have a special meeting with the old Van Buren vee pee. Apparently this year everyone is expected to go to class all the time? Huh? Wha?” He made a mock-innocent face. “That doesn’t even make any sense!” He threw his arms up in the air and walked away.
“That was Tristan,” Lucy said.
“Well, he seems fun,” Gil said.
“We’re just friends though.”
“Oh-kay,” Gil said slowly. “What else would you be?” She looked confused.
“Nothing, I just . . . Liza told me that guys and girls aren’t really friends ever. So I was just making sure you didn’t think . . .”
Gil waved her hand. “Yeah, the girl has her theories. Try not to take her too seriously.” Gil smiled. “She’s actually a total sweetheart deep down.”
“Really?”
Gil laughed. “Well, maybe not a total sweetheart. But she’s not the bitch she seems like either. It’s just her life at home is really . . .” Gil took a long slurp of her coffee and tipped her head to the side, like she was trying to decide whether it was okay to say what she was about to say. “. . . Messed up. She doesn’t know who her dad even is.”
“That’s so sad.”
Gil shook her head. “Oh, that’s not even what’s bad over there. The problem isn’t a lack of Dad, it’s too much Mom.”
“Who’s her mom?”
“Imagine Liza, but thirty years older, still completely gorgeous, only instead of a Heartbreaker, she’s like the exact opposite. She gets her heart broken all the time. Like five or six times since I’ve known Liza, and a dozen times before that. Not just bruised, but actually broken.”
“But isn’t it good to have your heart broken? Isn’t that what Olivia said?”
Gil looked away. “Not for everyone, not for people like Liza’s mom. Glass Hearts are what we call them. Their hearts shatter so easily, over and over. It’s an awful thing to see. I have a cousin like that actually.” Gil paused. For a second her eyes flashed deep sadness. She shook her head and continued. “Every time Liza’s mom’s heart breaks she completely falls apart. She stops going to work, won’t eat, stays in bed for days. She starts drinking or taking too many painkillers. Or both. She gets fired from whatever job she has at the time so then it’s up to Liza to figure out how to pay their rent and keep their lights from getting shut off. Liza tries to act tough now, says it’s her mom’s pro
blem, that her mom is how she is and that she can’t wait until she’s eighteen and can leave. But that’s not actually how she feels about it deep down. Especially because she feels partly responsible.”
“How could she be responsible?”
Gil stopped then, and stood there blinking as though she wasn’t sure whether to continue. She linked her arm through Lucy’s. “I wouldn’t normally tell someone this. I wouldn’t normally tell anyone. But . . .”
Lucy felt her stomach tighten. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she mumbled. Her face was getting hot.
“Soon, Liza will be your sister too and you’ll need to know this stuff. Liza had a ton of freedom growing up. Her mom basically left her to fend for herself, so one day Liza met this guy. I’m not too clear on the details.” Gil took another long sip. “She was at a party, I think. She was thirteen at the time, almost fourteen but she looked about twenty. The guy was twenty-four and she told him she was nineteen and was going to community college and was just staying with her mom to save money. She was a good liar and so they started hanging out. After not too long she was completely in love with him, but one day he found out how old she was. He freaked out and then completely cut her off, like completely. That was it. He never spoke to her or saw her ever again. She was a total mess.”
“And that’s when she became a Heartbreaker?”
Gil nodded. “Olivia and Liza were friends, and Olivia’s grandmother had just turned her into a Heartbreaker on her thirteenth birthday.”
“Olivia’s grandmother is a Heartbreaker too?”
“Well, was,” Gil said, “but yeah. She taught Olivia everything she knows. Which is how we know everything we know. Anyway, Olivia told Liza what to do. And that’s where the part with Liza’s mom comes in. Liza’s mom had a boyfriend at the time, which wasn’t out of the ordinary since her mom always has a boyfriend, but apparently this guy was different. According to Liza, he was the most boring guy on earth, but also the only nice guy she’d ever dated before or since. And he was very in love with Liza’s mom, wanted to marry her and everything. Anyway, her mom’s boyfriend had a son, and Liza’s mom and the boyfriend were always trying to get the four of them to be like a little family. Only problem was the boyfriend’s son was obsessed with Liza. And Liza hated him. So she broke his heart. His dad broke up with Liza’s mom not that long after that, pretty much for his son’s sake. And that was it. Liza’s always felt guilty about it, thought it was maybe her mom’s only chance for her heart to be safe and stop breaking. So now Liza is always making different potions and elixirs to find a new guy for her mom without her mom knowing she’s doing it.”