“That’s my best friend Lisa. She should be coming for dinner tonight,” he says, and I can tell he’s behind me because every nerve in my body, starting from my neck down, awakens.
“H-how old were you on here?” I ask him, my voice a little squeaky.
“Seventeen,” he replies.
I look to my right and I see more pictures on his wall out of the corner of my eye. “May I?” I ask. I hope he doesn’t think it’s intrusive, but who am I kidding? I can do it while he’s here and deal with a little awkwardness or shuffle through his things after he leaves and potentially deal with even more awkwardness if he catches me.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. I walk over to the Wall of Christopher. There’s a picture of him when he’s about six in a little league outfit. He’s adorable, his chocolate brown curls peeping out from beneath his hat. There’s one of him near a lake where he looks about twelve or thirteen. I’d bet it’s the same girl from the science fair photo but this time there's another boy, blonde with piercing blue eyes.
“How old are you here?” I ask. He’s leaning on the chair behind the desk, his eyes on me, and I feel uncomfortably excited for just a moment.
“Thirteen. That’s Lisa again and my other best friend Aidan. He’s doing a tour in Iraq. He’s been one of my closest friends since he moved here from Chicago in second grade. His dad was in the army and they always moved around a lot. But his grandmother never left and he came back to visit every year. She has to be going on like 80-something now. And he’s obviously not as scrawny.” He chuckles and I smile.
“You guys all grew up together?” I ask curiously.
“Yeah, I’ve known Lisa since pre-school and I met Aidan when I was around seven. Lisa went to visit her dad the summer Aidan’s parents moved in with his grandmother. When she came back, it was awkward. It was pretty much a fight over who was my best friend. Turned out, Aidan and Lisa had a lot more in common than I did with either of them. They liked to fight. They’d throw tantrums if they lost at anything and basically would get into as much trouble as possible. When they figured out they were so alike, they implemented voting on everything, which was two against one from then on.”
I smile at him for being so open about his past. That’s definitely not something I’m used to. “So you were all little troublemakers?” I ask with a giggle.
He shakes his head. “They were the troublemakers. I was caught in the middle.”
There’s another picture of him and his dad sitting on the porch. He looks about 19, same green eyes, longer hair, his build a little more defined than the last teenage version of him. Then there’s the infamous pie-eating contest with his dad. The clarity of this one is much better, of course. I start to turn away, but before I do, there’s one last picture that catches my eye. It’s him and the blonde I met the other day. Who am I kidding? I know her name; it’s burned into my brain.
Jenna.
He’s next to her, dressed in a black suit and a bow tie (Cal wouldn’t be caught dead in a bow tie) and his hair is obviously styled back. He looks like he’s being suffocated in the suit. He’s smiling, and maybe I’m just jealous but this picture isn’t reminiscent of Cal or even of the Chris standing next to me...
“Her dad is a renowned Doctor. He wins a lot of awards, so lots of sitting in uncomfortable suits,” he replies like he’s reading my mind or maybe my expression. I think I’ve seen enough pictures for today.
“Is she coming for dinner tonight?’ I ask, the thought almost making me dizzy. His best friend is coming. Who knows who else they’ve invited.
“Not likely,” he says, pressing his lips together. I imagine she wants to sit down and break bread with the wife of the man she’s in love with as much as I want to sit down with her.
“I’ll let you get to your nap,” he says, leaving the room. I nod before he shuts the door and let out a deep breath. I look at the bed once more before sitting on it. It’s really comfortable. I fall back, look at the ceiling and wonder if this my new normal. Am I doomed to: trying to be polite, not seeming intrusive, walking on eggshells, afraid of asking what I want to know, or afraid of knowing too much? Because the more I get to know him, the guiltier I feel that I wish, more than anything, to see Cal. And gosh, I already have enough to feel guilty about.
Chapter 30
Chris
I’ve been holding my breath in forever. It feels like I’ve been on a rollercoaster all day, my stomach going up and down, my heart speeding up and slowing down. When we stood in front of the horse yard, I intended to apologize to her about the ring tone thing with Jenna. To ask her what I could do to make things easier for her, but, for the first time, standing there with her was easy. I didn’t want to ruin it. I wanted things to stay how they were, but part of me wanted to push the invisible boundary, the wide line drawn that’s keeping the appropriate distance between us. To see how close I could get to it without going across. To be closer to her. To see if she noticed I was crossing the line. I think she did and she backed away. I wanted to make up for earlier, for the lie I told. I just wanted to try to make her feel better and that backfired too.
I don’t think I made her feel better at all by telling her I want to remember, then asking—well, I didn’t technically ask. I wanted to, but deep down, I tried to stop the words from coming out. But she knew and she wasn’t afraid to answer. I was afraid to hear the answer, but her answer was as loud as anything I’ve ever heard and it was terrifying. I want answers but not the ones she’s going to give. I want the easy answers, the ones that will make this less complicated, the answers that mean I’m not hurting anyone. All her answers won’t make things easy. They’ll just produce more questions, hard ones, and I have enough of those.
The most puzzling thing of all is how I seem to notice things about her, little idiosyncrasies, that I don’t usually notice about other girls this quickly. How she grabs her wrist when she’s nervous. How she looks up at the sky when she’s thinking. How she bites her bottom lip when she’s fascinated with something. How she bit it the entire time she saw the wall of, pretty much, my entire life.
After I destroyed my room, my mom took it upon herself to create a collage of all the pictures she found. I guess she knew what I didn’t. Lauren has probably never seen any of these. Cal doesn’t seem like the sentimental type to have shown her. Especially seeing the way her expressions changed with each one, like she was taking in little pieces of me as she looked at each one, even if it looked like she was going to vomit when she saw the one of Jenna and me. I hate going to the banquets and conferences for her dad. They’re all boring and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like me. If she tells him about this, I’m sure his campaign to get rid of Chris will have a lot of support behind it. Not that Jenna needs much more of a push, but she’s texted and I need to call her. I head down the stairs and hear laughing and a commotion. Lisa has arrived and she’s holding Caylen. Standing next to her is my other best friend, Aidan. They’re both staring at Caylen in amazement.
“Scott, you have a fuc—freakin’ kid. And she looks like your twin!” he says.