“What about Emma? The Peronis would let you stay with them. They’d love it. Or, me. You can come stay with us!”
The hopefulness in his tone was heartbreaking. We had been best friends for as long as either of us could remember, walking into kindergarten holding hands and being virtually inseparable ever since.
He sighed, long and hard. “We should have brought food and water.” He rubbed his stomach. I heard it growl when he leaned over to check on my leg.
Blowing out a shaky breath, he looked up, worried. “You’ve got to clean this, Charlotte. It’s going to get infected. I knew we should have stopped at Gigi’s,” he mumbled.
I dug around in my pack for napkins or tissues but came up empty. Sliding off the rock, I hobbled over to the river to splash water on my leg. “It burns.” I watched the diluted blood slide down and color my white socks pink. “I don’t know if it’s supposed to sting like this.”
When I looked up, he was beside me, handing me a shirt from his backpack. “Use this.” His face was pulled tight, expressionless.
“No way,” I said, pushing the Transformers shirt back to him. “That’s your favorite.”
He shrugged, tipping his head back toward the rock I was on.
“It’s what best friends do.” With the shirt balled up in his hand, he bent down and soaked it in the river. Then, with careful hands, he blotted the white shirt against the cuts on my leg, careful not to rub too hard.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a sympathetic voice when I winced from the sting. I couldn’t imagine how sad he was using that shirt. He’d saved his own money to buy it from the mall in Barreton.
Now it was streaked with blood and dirt because of me.
It’s what best friends do. There was a sticker on the pole beside my makeshift seat that read BEST FRIENDS. We had put it there last year when we had coincidentally taken off from another birthday party. That time, it was mine. “I remember that,” I said, pointing up to it. Seeing the sticker brought back the drama my mother had caused at my tenth birthday party.
My father and Gigi had planned all of it: the invites, the food, securing the location and getting a copy of the movie The Goonies for all of us to enjoy. My mother’s only job was to get me a cake. It should have been simple, but she arrived late and forgot to pick it up. When she ran to the bakery to get it, she insisted someone else had bought it—with my name on it—which was unlikely.
My father drove me to Gigi’s with my presents, but the embarrassment was thick and heavy around me and I couldn’t enjoy anything. When we pulled up to her house, my friend was already there waiting. As if he knew that I would be upset and need to escape. We took off for our spot until the sounds of crickets told us it was time to go home.
This time, we were ignoring the crickets. We didn’t have a home for me to go back to.
I smiled up at the sticker, trying to shake off the overbearing sadness creeping in. The sticker looked as though it was brand-new. “I wonder if that sticker will look that good when I come back to visit.”
We both knew that running away wouldn’t work and that we would have to face the inevitable. But it was still worth a shot.
“Of course it will. You’ll be here next weekend,” he said, with his usual hopeful tone. “Your mom promised.”
“Of course,” I lied, hoping to spare him the pain that I was feeling. I didn’t know when I’d be back, but I was determined that it would be soon. I took out the Polaroid camera that was a gift from last year’s doomed party and snapped two pictures. One for each of us.
“What’s this for?”
“To help us remember the good times.” Even though I was leaving, I’d have people back here as an anchor.
We looked at each other as best we could under the darkening sky. “This place won’t be the same without you, Charlotte,” he said, taking my hand in his.
My belly erupted in flutters. My usual defense mechanism was humor, so I went that route, tamping down the nervous energy that I started to get when he looked at me. “Quite literally.” I laughed, pointing over his shoulder.
“They will be building houses over there soon,” he said, nodding his head toward a sign that was stuck in the wet ground. It read FUTURE SITE OF THE LOVE LANE COMMUNITY. The sign sat on the edge of a steep embankment that would be the location of a new housing development. All the houses would look over the rest of the town below, and a massive yellow dump truck was already parked there for when construction started.
“It’s a silly name, isn’t it?” I scoffed. “Love Lane.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’s nice, you know, if you like someone.”
My eyes swung to him, wide and curious. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing, nothing. I’m just saying it’s not that bad,” he mumbled, kicking the dirt. “It’s sad that people are going to be so close to this spot, though. It won’t be a secret anymore.” He looked up, and my heart plummeted when I saw the tears in his eyes. “This was supposed to be just for us.”
I nodded, holding back my own tears. “My dad said they’re not building up this far, but it’s only a matter of time before someone does,” I said, patting him on the knee.
“I’m going to miss this place.” I stared up at the chipped white railroad-crossing sign, my hand resting on the BEST FRIENDS sticker.
“Aren’t you going to miss anything else?” he asked, sitting beside me and stretching his legs out. Side by side the size difference between us was comical. His legs were bony, pale, and shorter than mine. My father said I’d had a growth spurt and that eventually he would have one, too, but there was also the chance that he was going to be slight in stature like his mom and not built broadly like his father, who was practically a giant.
It wasn’t just our height, though, that made us appear so different in age. He still looked like a little boy, whereas I—much to my dad’s dismay—was moving solidly toward preteenville. Doctor or not, my dad was jarred by the fact that his baby girl needed a training bra. My hair was growing faster, becoming more wayward with its curls, and my skin was starting to get the telltale signs that acne was going to be starting soon. Hormones were awful.
The only real similarity between us was the road map of scars, scabs, and black-and-blue marks that marred both of our limbs. It was thanks to hours of horseplay outside with friends. Friends I wouldn’t see every day anymore.
“Charlotte?” he said, bumping my leg with his.
“Oh, sorry, I was thinking. What did you ask?”
He sighed. “I asked if you were going to miss anything else.”
I smiled sadly. “I’ll miss my dad most of all. Three hours is a long way away to visit me, and he’s already so busy.”
“Are you going to miss anybody else? Teachers, classmates …” He paused, shrugging his shoulder. “Friends?” In hindsight, I should have realized what he was referring to.
Friends.
Him.
“I’m afraid.”
“Of leaving? New York is so cool! And you’re going to be so close to the city. Just a train ride away! We went with Cooper and his parents. There are shows on Broadway that you’ll love and the park has a zoo!”