The Infinite Moment of Us

  “What about Starrla?” she said.

  Charlie stopped. She bumped into him.

  “Ow,” she said, rubbing her nose with her free hand.

  “Why are you asking about Starrla?” he said. He held her hand tightly.

  “Uh, because you two are going out?” Wren said. A guy wasn’t supposed to hold another girl’s hand when he had a girlfriend. Even if he was handsome. Even if he smelled like pine needles. Even if he looked dismayed at the very thought of … well, whatever he was thinking of.

  “I’m not going out with Starrla,” he said. “I thought … well, no, I guess he couldn’t have.”

  “Huh?”

  Charlie’s shoulders relaxed. “Nothing.”

  “Well, good,” Wren said. “I mean—”

  Hush, she told herself. She was glad, very, that Charlie wasn’t claiming Starrla, even if she was fairly certain Starrla still claimed Charlie. This morning, before the graduation ceremony, Starrla had caught Wren looking at Charlie and narrowed her eyes. Back off, Starrla’s expression had said. Her lips, curving into a smile, had added, Don’t even. You are weak, and I am strong.

  But Charlie was with her, holding her hand, and Wren had her own brand of strength, brought to the surface by the dim glow of the streetlight and the whisper of night air on her skin. It was new to her. Her heart beat with a low, thrumming exhilaration.

  “Starrla and I did … date,” Charlie said. “Once. A long time ago. But now we’re just friends.”

  “Oh,” Wren said. “Um, thanks. For explaining.”

  The moon was full, lighting up Charlie’s face. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, perhaps to make sure she truly knew they weren’t together anymore. Then he furrowed his brow adorably—he was adorable—and squashed the thought, whatever it might have been. He fished in his pocket for his car keys and popped the trunk, all the while not letting go of Wren’s hand.

  What am I doing? she wondered. What is happening?

  Go with it, she told herself. For heaven’s sake, stop thinking for once.

  With a coarse army blanket tucked under his arm, Charlie shut and locked the trunk. “This way,” he said, and Wren allowed herself to be led across the far corner of the park and into the bordering grove of trees. Cautions from her mother burbled through her—never, ever go to an isolated spot with a stranger, you don’t do that, Wren—but Charlie wasn’t a stranger. Also, Wren wasn’t her mother.

  “You carry a blanket with you everywhere?” she asked. She was trying to tease him, as in, Just how many girls do you take into the woods once the sun sets?

  He looked puzzled, and Wren felt dumb. She wasn’t her mother, but she wasn’t Tessa or some other flirty girl, either. She needed to just be Wren.

  “One of my … um, at one of the houses I was in, the dad was a scoutmaster,” he explained. “‘Always be prepared.’ That was his motto.”

  “Oh. That’s cool.” To try to normalize things, she added, “Was he a nice guy? That dad?”

  “No,” Charlie said.

  “Why not?”

  He was quiet, and she wished she hadn’t asked.

  They were thick in the woods behind the park now, and she had to watch her footing. Then the ground sloped down, and the trees thinned out. They reached a small ditch—maybe a ravine that had been eroded by running water? Behind them were trees, and on the other side of them were trees, but the ditch itself was clear and dry. There were leaves and a few sticks and a mat of prickly grass, but once Charlie let go of Wren’s hand and spread out the blanket, none of that was a problem.

  He had climbed to the bottom of the hollow on his own, and now he held out his hand. Wren accepted it, grasping him as she slid-hopped down. Following Charlie’s lead, she sat on the blanket. Gingerly, she leaned all the way back, her body at an incline on the ditch’s banked slope.

  “Oh,” she said, enthralled. Through the gap in the trees she could see the sky. The moon, luminous and huge, peeked through the leafy branches. “Beautiful.”

  They lay next to each other, not speaking. Wren could feel the heat radiating from Charlie’s body. Tiny hairs on her neck and on her forearms seemed to prickle awake and stand alert. Wren felt very strongly that, since he had brought her here, to this secret place, it was her job to keep the conversation going. Just not by talking about foster families. At first she thought, Guatemala, but she realized she didn’t want to talk about Guatemala, either.

  Guatemala would work itself out. She’d bought her plane ticket the very day she got her Project Unity acceptance letter—and yes, she probably should have used her savings to pay back the money her parents had spent on college fees, but she didn’t—and either her parents would get used to the idea of her leaving or they wouldn’t. She hoped they would.

  But she didn’t want to think about Guatemala, or leaving for Guatemala, right now. Right now, amazingly, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

  “Your thumb seems better,” she said.

  Charlie held out his hand, examining it in the pale moonlight. His fingers, splayed against the stars, seemed … more than. More than fingers. More than a part, or parts, of a whole. Just as one plus one is more than two, she thought, not knowing where the idea sprang from, or why.

  “Good as ever,” he said. He turned his head toward hers just enough so that she could make out his grin. “Better.”

  She smiled back. She felt her pulse in the hollow of her throat, and she felt the night air on her throat as well. She didn’t think she’d ever noticed that sensation in that specific location.

  “Bodies are funny, aren’t they?” she said.

  “How so?” Charlie asked.

  She stared at the sky. She was nervous. She didn’t want him to laugh. “Just … are they us? Are we them?”

  Charlie was silent long enough for Wren to regret her words. Then he said, “Do we have souls, you mean?”

  Relief pressed her deeper into the scratchy wool blanket. “Yeah. I guess. Or are we just, you know, chemicals? Brain cells talking to brain cells, talking to lung cells and spine cells and thumb cells?”

  “Like when Ms. Atkinson compared us to computers with organic hard drives?” Charlie said. “A blow to the head can create a system failure? A disease, like Alzheimer’s, is a computer virus?”

  Wren nodded. She didn’t like that concept, because if it were true—if a human was a highly specialized computer, but a computer nonetheless—where did that leave the “human” part?

  “My dad’s an atheist,” she said. He wanted Wren to share his beliefs, but she didn’t.

  “My foster mom teaches Sunday school,” Charlie replied. “And during the church service, when it’s time for ‘A Moment with the Kids,’ she plays ‘Jesus Loves Me.’”

  “‘A Moment with the Kids’?”

  “When the youth minister calls up all the kids and tells them a story that has to do with the day’s Scripture.”

  “Didn’t know,” Wren said. She rolled onto her side to face him. “So, you go to church?”

  She bent her knees slightly to get more comfortable, and her thigh touched Charlie’s. She inhaled sharply. Charlie didn’t move his leg. Neither did she.

  What passed between them, even through the fabric of their jeans—it felt like way more than computer circuitry.

  “Sometimes,” Charlie said. “Pamela likes it when we do, me and my brother. But Chris usually stays home and works. When I can, I like to stay and help out.”

  “In the wood shop?”

  “The cabinet shop, yeah.” He raised his arms and clasped his hands beneath his head, and she saw the hard slope of his biceps. The expanse of skin stretching from his bicep to his shoulder, paler than his forearm and more vulnerable, disappearing into the shadow of his sleeve. Not an entirely private place, but not a part of this boy—Charlie—that everyone had seen, either.

  And, again, not just a part. More than.

  “I think souls are real,” Wren said in a burst. “Maybe th
ey’re not things you can measure or hold or feel—”

  “You can feel them,” Charlie said in a low voice. He turned his head, and she saw his cheek meet his upper arm.

  I would like to feel that arm, Wren thought. I would like to touch that cheek.

  She swallowed. “What about trees?”

  His lips quirked. “Trees?”

  “Do they have souls?” she asked, because at that moment they seemed to. Leaves rustled, saying shushhhh, shushhh. Branches formed a canopy high over their heads. Add in the matted grass below them, and Wren and Charlie were nestled in … a set of parentheses. They were in a moment outside of time. Just the two of them. Their eyes locked. Their bodies, as Charlie rolled onto his side, forming parentheses within the parentheses, and within the parentheses, their souls reached out. Like roots. Like fingers. Like wisps of clouds and slivers of radiant moonlight.

  Wren shivered.

  “They probably don’t,” she said. “That’s just in fairy tales, right? Druids and dryads and alternate worlds?” She was babbling, but her heart was fluttering, and she was helpless to stop her string of words from issuing forth. “Anyway, I’m a scientist. Or will be, probably, since doctors are scientists. I know that’s silly—trees with souls—but I just … I guess I just …”

  She waited for Charlie to jump in and rescue her from her stupidity. He didn’t, and when Wren checked his expression, when she let herself truly see his expression instead of hiding from it, she realized he was waiting for her to finish. Not because he was enjoying watching her make a fool out of herself, but because he cared about her thoughts and was interested in hearing them.

  His auburn eyes weren’t auburn in the dark ditch. They were dark and liquid. A well to fall into. The ocean.

  “I guess I think the world is more connected than people realize,” she said, choosing her words carefully. You’re allowed to have thoughts, she reminded herself. Just because others might scoff, that doesn’t mean Charlie will.

  She tried to steady her breath. “I think … sometimes … that scientists … some scientists … want to package things up into neat little boxes. Explain, explain, explain, until there aren’t any mysteries left.”

  “I think you’re probably right,” Charlie said.

  “Well … I like the mysteries,” she said. Her skin tingled. Those little hairs stood up again, all over her. It wasn’t as if she were undressing in front of him, and yet that’s how it felt. And she wanted to keep on going, even so. What had this boy done to her?

  “I want to understand them, or try to,” she said, “but I don’t want to put them away in boxes. And if there doesn’t seem to be an explanation for something, I don’t want that to scare me away. I don’t want to force an explanation to fit or throw my hands in the air and give up. You know?”

  He nodded. A faint shadow of stubble ran from his hairline down and along his strong jaw.

  She swallowed. “Does that make any sense?”

  He pulled his eyebrows together endearingly, like a little boy trying to act grown up. “You’re saying the mysteries are worth examining, even if they’re too big to be understood. That maybe they’re bound to be too big to understand, but that doesn’t take anything away from them, and in fact just adds to their beauty. Is that close?”

  “That’s it exactly,” she said. He put it into words so beautifully: Marvel and wonder all you want. There will always be more. She laughed, and the surprised smile she got from Charlie was a pure gift.

  Then he grew serious. He pulled his eyebrows together again, but this time he didn’t look like a little boy at all.

  “Hey,” he said. He propped himself up on one elbow. With his other hand, he reached out and lightly, lightly stroked her cheek.

  Wren’s chest rose and fell. She almost felt as if she were out of her body, except she was very much in her body, and her body knew what it wanted.

  Charlie leaned in, and she leaned to meet him. His mouth found hers, and her thoughts flew through her, as loud and raucous as magpies. My first kiss. I am eighteen, and this is my first kiss, unless I count Jake What’s-His-Name in eighth grade, which I don’t. Because this is … different. So different.

  And then her thoughts dissolved into lips. Breath. A soft sigh, a shifting thigh. She gave herself over to Charlie and the night and the world, full of mysteries. She allowed herself to just be.

  More than.

  could think about—kissing her, touching her, being with her—and he wanted to do it again. Right away.

  He called her the morning after P.G.’s party.

  “Charlie?” she said when she answered, and his heart jumped.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m good. How are you?”

  “I’m good,” he said. His conversation skills sucked. He couldn’t talk worth a damn, but last night he kissed her, and she kissed him back. So, yeah. He was very, very good.

  “I was wondering if you’d like to do something,” he said abruptly. “I’d like to see you.”

  “Today?”

  “I could grab some sandwiches if you want. I could come pick you up. I was thinking we could go on a picnic, if that sounded like something you might like. Is that … something you might like?”

  “Um, sure,” she said.

  “Great. Awesome. Great.”

  She giggled. “What time?”

  “Now,” he pronounced, and she giggled again. He was too thrilled to be embarrassed. “I’ll be at your house in fifteen minutes. Hey—are you afraid of heights?”

  “Of heights? Why?”

  “No reason. See you soon.”

  He took her to a spot along the Chattahoochee River where the sky was wide and blue. Trees lined the bank, and birds sang as they flitted from branch to branch. The water was brown, but it glinted and turned to gold when it splashed over the moss-covered rocks.

  Charlie drove here when he needed to think. Until today, he’d always come alone.

  “It’s beautiful,” Wren said after climbing out of the car. She was wearing a sundress, or some sort of dress, and it swished against her thighs. She had on cowboy boots, and her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She was beautiful.

  “Come on,” he said, almost reaching for her hand. He didn’t, and he cursed himself.

  He headed up the trail. She followed.

  “Do you go hiking a lot?” she asked.

  “Um, what do you mean by hiking? You mean like what we’re doing now?”

  “I guess,” she said. “Being outside—is that something you like?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. When I was a kid, I was inside a lot, so yeah, I’d rather be outside if I can.” He glanced back at her. Her skin was smooth and creamy. When she stepped over a log, he caught a glimpse of the paler skin of her inner thigh. There, and then gone.

  Take her hand, he told himself, and this time he did.

  “And you?” he said. They started back up the trail. “Do you like being outside?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said. “Especially the ocean. Oh my gosh, I love the ocean. I love catching waves and getting all salty, and hungry—I get so hungry after swimming in the ocean—and then flopping down all wet on my towel and letting the sun soak in.”

  She made a small sound that was almost a moan, and Charlie’s cock stirred. Wet and warm and salty? Damn. Everything she said, she said so innocently, and yet she drove him crazy. She drove him more crazy because she was so innocent.

  Discreetly, he tugged at his jeans. “I’ve never been.”

  “To the ocean? You’ve never been to the ocean?”

  He shook his head. “One day.”

  “Oh, Charlie, you have to,” she told him. “If you like being outside—wow. You will love the ocean. It makes you feel so … I don’t know. Small, but not in a bad way. Small because you realize you’re part of something bigger. It gets you out of your head, if that makes sense.”

  She almost tripped
on a root. Charlie caught her.

  “You all right?” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said, looking embarrassed. She let go of his hand. He wished she hadn’t. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she looped her arm through his, and he was elated. Her breast brushed against him. She brought her other hand across her body and rested it on his biceps, above their linked elbows.

  She smiled shyly up at him. “Is that okay? I’m not making it hard for you to walk or anything?”

  She was, but not in the way she meant. Yes, it was okay.

  “Do you think that life has patterns in it?” she asked.

  “Patterns? Like what?”

  She exhaled in a sweet way. “Like, in a non-random way. Like, do things happen for a reason?”

  “Hmm,” Charlie said. Science and math were subjects he did well at, and in general, he was more comfortable with ideas that could be expressed in formulas than ideas that couldn’t fully be explained. Then again, scientific theories started with the seed of an unexplained idea. Mathematical formulas often described phenomena that couldn’t be physically verified.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’m certainly not willing to discount it.”

  “Me either,” she said. “And, okay, this is going to sound silly, but when you called me this morning …”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, when I heard your voice, I felt …”

  He waited.

  She blushed and squeezed his arm, and he realized that she wasn’t going to answer. But he thought that if the world was layered with meaning, then she was the evidence, right here. She was the mystery and the explanation, both.

  They reached the place in the trail Charlie had been waiting for, and he gestured with his chin at what lay ahead.

  “Hey,” he said. “Take a look.”

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said.