I know I should touch this girl’s arm. I know I should draw him (her) close and find a way to nest inside the jungle gym. But instead I say, “Look—the slide!” and jump over to it, beckoning A to follow.
If A notices, A doesn’t say anything. And even if we don’t end up physically nesting in the space that’s entirely ours, it still feels comfortable. It still feels like time is comfortable.
I’m good. Except for one moment, when I imagine Justin at home, playing video games. Sensing something wrong. Mad about it. But having no real idea how far I’ve strayed.
Then I think about what A would be doing if A weren’t here with me. Lost in someone else’s life. Erasing himself in order to be her.
After we slide, I suggest we swing. Instead of splitting into a push and a rise, we sit down on swings that are next to each other, and pump our legs to get moving in the air. At one point we’re exactly even. A reaches out her hand, and I take it. We swing like that, perfectly even, for about twenty seconds. Then we start to pull apart, the difference in our weight, or in our strength, or in the angle of our bodies—something about our bodies—preventing us from continuing like that forever.
Back in the bookstore, I make A lead me back to Feed, to The Book Thief, to Destroy All Cars and First Day on Earth. I buy them all.
“You’re so lucky,” A says.
“Because they’re good books?” I ask.
“No. Because once you have them, they’ll always be there. You don’t have to keep looking for them.”
I’m about to offer to lend them to her, but of course I can’t.
“But enough of that!” A says. “Who needs worldly possessions when you can have the world instead?”
The voice A is using is cheery. Maybe A actually believes this. Maybe I’m wrong to want things, and to want to have things. Or maybe A just gave me a glimpse of something he (she) didn’t want me to see.
There’s not enough time to explore this. I have to get over to Rebecca’s. But A and I will have tomorrow. I remind myself we’ll have tomorrow.
It’s a hopeful farewell. It’s only when I’m back in my car that I realize I could have kissed her when we said goodbye.
It didn’t even occur to me.
That night, Rebecca can tell I’m thinking about something other than Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey. She pauses the movie.
“Is something going on with you and Justin?” she asks. “Is that where your mind is right now?”
I’m immediately defensive—too defensive. “Why do you think there’s something going on with me and Justin? There’s nothing going on with me and Justin.”
With this last sentence, I realize I’ve accidentally told her the truth. But she doesn’t pick up on it.
“It’s just—I mean, it’s nice to have you back here. This is the first time we’ve done this since, well, the two of you got together. I wasn’t sure we’d ever do this again.”
Clarity. I’ve hurt her. I haven’t even noticed, and I’ve hurt her over these past months. She’s not going to tell me that, but it’s there. I see it now.
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though she hasn’t asked me for it—or maybe because she hasn’t asked me for it. “Things with him are fine. Really. But I also want to have more than Justin, you know? Like my best friends.”
Best friends. It’s like a gift I’ve been given and don’t deserve. But here I am, pointing out that I still have it, that I haven’t returned it for something else.
“Do you want more ice cream?” Rebecca asks, picking up her bowl. “Because I want more ice cream.”
“Sure,” I say. Not because I want any, but because I know she wants to have more and doesn’t want to have more alone.
As I sit there in the rec room I’ve known for most of my life, as I see photos of Rebecca and her family at all different ages, I realize this is one thing about us: Rebecca has to see me as more than just a body, because the body she’s known has changed so much over the years. That must help a person see inside.
She comes back and unpauses the movie. Our double feature takes us well past midnight, for all the breaks we take for food and random things like seeing whatever happened to the guy who played Aaron and if he’s still cute. (He is.) The only awkward moment comes when Rebecca asks me what I’m doing for the weekend. I know this is when I should recruit her to be my alibi, when I should warn her that my parents might call. But I use the grandmother excuse again. She tells me to say hello, and I promise I will.
I go to sleep wondering what I’m doing and wake up wondering what I’m doing, knowing for sure that whatever it is, I’m going to do it anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The drive to Uncle Artie’s cabin is about two hours, so I have plenty of time to think. I have the spare key in my pocket, as well as the bag I packed for my weekend at Rebecca’s. Or my weekend at my grandmother’s, depending on who you ask.
I’m excited to have time alone with A. I know it will only last until midnight—I hope that A will be able to come back tomorrow as well, but I know it’s not a sure thing. It’s funny to me that in all the time I’ve dated Justin, it never occurred to me to take him here. Maybe because we had his house. Or maybe because it never felt like we needed this kind of getaway.
Getaway. With enough time to think, I know that what I’m doing is technically cheating. I guess I knew that all along, but this is the first time I actually use that word in my head. It doesn’t seem right to explain what I’m doing, but it doesn’t seem entirely wrong, either. I feel I am in a messy middle ground of trying to figure it out. I know what Justin would say about that, and how he would see it. I am sure that I am doing to him something he has never done to me.