A Year Without Autumn (19 page)
Autumn still doesn’t answer.
“If you don’t come, I’ll know you don’t want us to be friends and I’ll leave you alone. I won’t bother you again.”
Eventually, she nods.
“OK,” I say awkwardly. “I’ll leave it up to you.” Then I turn and walk away, heading back to our condo and suddenly realizing yet again that I haven’t got a clue what’s waiting for me when I get there. All I know is that I need to get back to my own territory and find something I can recognize — something that will help me find my way through this crazy, awful world that I’ve landed in.
I need a place where I can think. I need to be on my own. I need to make a plan.
“That
you, Jen?” a woman’s voice calls as I close the front door behind me.
I step into the living room. There’s a strange woman sitting on the sofa with Dad. “Who are you?” I ask.
Dad puts his paper down. “Jenni. Don’t be so rude.”
The woman puts her hand on his arm. “It’s all right, darling. I don’t mind.”
“Well, I do,” he says. “Jenni, apologize to Karen now.”
I stare at them both: Dad’s face dark and angry; the strange woman — Karen, apparently — smiling at me through big brown eyes. “She doesn’t have to apologize,” she says. “We’re all right, aren’t we, Jen?”
“I don’t know who you are,” I say before I can stop myself.
Karen sucks in her breath as she half closes her eyes. Then she smiles again. “I’ll make a cup of tea,” she says, leaning forward to get up.
Dad stops her. “No, you won’t,” he says firmly. “Not until Jenni apologizes.” He turns back to me. “We talked this through. We’ve all had plenty of time to get used to it, and if Craig can accept Karen, then I think you can, too.”
My brain tries to do a quick catch-up on three years’ worth of missing facts.
Come on, Jenni. Remember you’re fifteen now. Everyone else’s world has moved on three years. Get with it!
“I’m sorry, Karen,” I say, trying to get my voice to come out sounding natural. “It was a shock. I just need to get used to it.”
“Get used to it?” Dad repeats. “You’ve had six months! We talked about Karen coming with us. You said you didn’t mind.”
Six months?
Karen gets up. “I’m going to get that cup of tea,” she says, lightly touching my arm as she passes me.
“I thought you liked Karen,” Dad says in a lower voice. “I thought you got along well.”
“I — I . . .”
Say the right things. Act as if you know what’s going on.
“I do,” I say eventually. I suppose it’s not Dad’s fault that as far as I’m concerned, he and Mom were still together yesterday. In my world. In my messed-up, impossible world.
“Well, do you think you could act like you do, please?” Dad says sternly. Then his voice softens a little. “We’ve talked about it so much. I know it’s hard for you — it’s hard for me, too, sometimes. You know I’ll always love your mom, and it would have been great if we could have made it work. But we didn’t — and we’re both happy with how things are now. We’re happy enough. Can’t that be enough for you, too?”
I nod. My head is swimming.
“Thank you.” Dad picks up his paper again. “We’re having lunch soon, all right? Try to be civil.”
“I will,” I reply. “Where’s Craig?”
“Out with his pals. He’ll be back soon.”
“Where’s Thea?” I ask, suddenly remembering I have a baby sister now.
Dad shoots me a filthy look.
“What?” I ask.
“You know very well that Thea’s with your mom. Jenni, please stop trying to make this hard for us.”
“I’m not trying —” I let out a heavy breath. “Forget it,” I say. “I’m going to my room.”
I go to the room I share with Craig and slump down on my bed. His side is a complete mess. Dirty khaki pants, inside-out jeans, and crumpled-up T-shirts litter the floor. There are no stuffed animals on his pillow this year. There’s a chemistry set on the floor by his bed.
My side is tidy, the bed made, clothes put away. I sit up and look around. Maybe there’ll be a clue somewhere. Something that can help all of this to make sense, to fit together. Better still — something that could help me work out how to get back. I feel as though I’m doing a jigsaw puzzle; the only problem is that the pieces are from three different puzzles and they’re all mixed up together.
I scavenge through the bits and pieces on the dressing table. Most of it’s Craig’s. Miniature cars broken into pieces with their wheels hanging off, a penknife, screwed-up tissues and bits of paper, a magnifying glass. My side just has a few things on it: a bottle of perfume, two necklaces, some mascara. Mascara! I can’t imagine wearing makeup. Dad’s always had this thing about me being too young, despite the fact that half the girls in my grade already go to school looking like models. I’ve only ever put makeup on at Autumn’s when I’ve been staying over so Dad doesn’t have to realize his little baby’s growing up.
No clues. Nothing to help me work out how to play this new game called my life.
I turn back to the bed and glance at the nightstand. Maybe there’ll be something in there. I yank the drawer open. There’s a book. I pull it out. Of course — my diary! I scan through the pages for the latest entry. It’s dated last Saturday.
I hope Autumn’s coming to the condo this week. I wish we could go back to how we were. Maybe there we’ll be able to try again. Maybe this time it won’t end up in a huge fight. I just don’t know how to talk to her anymore. It seems there’s nothing I can do that doesn’t create an argum
ent. Maybe she’s right and we should just stop trying — but I can’t. I want her back.
It was awful last Saturday at the club. For once, I was out with Natalie and the others, making a reasonably good attempt at having fun. I’d almost forgotten how miserable this last year has been, but Autumn’s face when she saw me there — it was so horrible. She looked at me as though I was a rodent that had crawled out of the drains. It was as if I had no right to be somewhere that she wanted to be. As if we hadn’t shared everything in our lives like twins up until the last few years. Natalie said it’s best to leave her. It probably is, but — oh, I don’t know. I just miss her so much.
I wish I could have my life back how it used to be. Nothing’s the same. Nothing will ever be the same again.
I wish I’d never gone in that stupid elevator.
At least I’ve got the letter. No one knows about that. I know I’ll find Mrs. Smith again one day — and maybe then we can help each other out of this mess. Maybe if I can help her to be happy, this can all be different. If I could just do one thing right.
The letter! Of course! I’ve been so wrapped up with everything to do with Autumn that I’d forgotten all about it! I still don’t even know what it says.
I reach into my pocket, pull out the pages, and open them up.
Dear Bobby,
I don’t know if you will remember me. In fact, I very much doubt it. I am the girl you spent carefree days with and exchanged childish dreams with many eons ago.
We spent a week of each year together — at the Riverside Hotel — and I have to tell you, those weeks were among the happiest of my life.
Whether you remember those days or not, I wanted to tell you — I have never forgotten them.
In fact, in recent years the memories have played with me and the promises have plagued me. Do you remember our promises?
I should tell you first of all: I have lived a happy-enough life. At least, as happy as it could have been, given my rather unusual circumstances. But more of that later. For now, I want to tell you this, and if it seems somewhat dramatic or obtuse, then at least I don’t need to worry about what your reaction may be. I can tell you my true feelings — I can tell you anything at all — because I know that you will never read this letter. And so I am going to tell you the truth — the truth that I have never spoken aloud and that no one has ever known. The secret that has been stored in my heart, like a genie hidden in a bottle.
My secret is that I have always loved you and I always will.
There, I’ve said it. And it’s true. But it’s also pointless, and so I am writing this letter to get the feelings out of me and let them rest, before they can take away any more of my years or trap me any longer with the hold they have over me. And so, Bobby, I —
The front door slams. “Back!” a boy’s voice shouts. Craig. A moment later his feet thump up the stairs, and I quickly fold the letter, place it in my pocket, and shove my diary in the bedside drawer.
Craig appears at the door. A grown boy, mud all over his T-shirt, spiky, gelled hair, but a still-childish scowl on his face. “What are you doing?” he asks in a grown-up, serious voice.
I get off the bed and pick up some of his clothes. “Cleaning up.”
He shrugs. Then he squints at me. “What are you
wearing
?”
I pull at my T-shirt. “I —”
“Lunchtime!” Dad calls from the living room. “Craig, get changed.”
Craig pulls a clean shirt out of the closet and disappears into the bathroom. I shut the bedroom door after him, then grab some clothes out of my closet and throw them on, shoving the letter in my pocket. At least I
look
more normal now, even if I don’t feel it.
We’re just finishing lunch when there’s a quiet knock at the door.
“I’ll get it.” Craig leaps up from the table.
A moment later, he calls me from the hall. “It’s Autumn,” he says as he sits back down at the table.
“Autumn?” Dad looks surprised. “I thought you two weren’t speaking.”
“We — we weren’t,” I mumble as I get up from the table.
“Have you made up again, then?”
“Um. I’m not sure. I think so, maybe,” I falter.
“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?” Dad says, smiling at Karen.
“OK if I go out?” I ask.
“Of course it is, love.” Karen answers this time, putting a hand on Dad’s knee. It feels really weird to see her do that.
“Great.” I hurry to the door.
Autumn’s waiting outside. She gives me a shy smile as I close the door behind me and follow her out. “Shall we go for a walk?” she asks.
“Definitely!” We walk along in silence for a while, following the path upriver, the opposite way from earlier.
“Look, I’m sorry about before,” I say eventually. “I shouldn’t have gone off like that. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Neither do I.” Autumn laughs.
I grimace. “I shouldn’t have done it,” I repeat.
Autumn reaches out to grab my arm. I stop walking. “Yes, you should have,” she says seriously. “It was amazing. It was like an electric shock.”
“What d’you mean?”
Autumn shakes her head. “I don’t know. I feel like you woke me up again. Seeing you like that. You’ve never done anything like that. It was always me, wasn’t it? I’d always take the lead. I’d be the pushy one, telling everyone else what to do.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” I admit, a smile creeping onto my face.
“I always used to wish I could be more like you.”
I nearly fall over in shock. “More like me?” I gasp. “Why on earth would you want to be like
me
?”
Autumn kicks her feet in the gravel as she carries on up the path. “You’re so calm and steady. You take things as they come, take people as they are. And they’re the same with you. You’re easy to please.”
“Oh, thanks!”
“No, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I mean — I mean, things make you happy really easily, you’re laid-back. You don’t have to be the center of attention in order to feel good.”
“But you’re the center of attention because you’re so much fun.”
Autumn stops again and turns to me. “Do I seem like much fun now?”
I don’t reply.
“That’s the problem, you see. I’ve spent my whole life being like that — but I can’t do it anymore, and now nothing works.”
“What doesn’t work?”
“Me. My life,” she says. Her voice is dark and empty. “I put on this act, make people think I’m coping, make them think I’m happy enough. I spent the first year after the accident looking after Mom and Dad, the second year falling apart myself, and the third — well, I don’t even know where that’s gone. It’s as if I’ve disappeared altogether. I’ve turned into a paper-thin image of who I really am — and you just showed that all up for the pretense it is.”
“How did I do that?”
Autumn smiles shyly. “You reminded me what real friendship is.”
I can feel my cheeks burning. For a moment, it all feels worth it. Everything I’ve gone through over these last few days. It
is
all going to work out after all! Even if I end up trapped three years ahead forever, at least I’ll have Autumn by my side. We’ll be best friends forever. I’ll tell her everything, and we’ll help each other cope with it all. She’ll help me fill in the gaps, and I’ll help her deal with everything that’s happened to her. A huge weight feels like it’s flying off me and into the distance.
And then Autumn speaks again, and the weight boomerangs around and comes back to hit me flat in the stomach.
“But it’s not enough,” she says.
“What? What isn’t enough?”