Between (2 page)

Seth is always good-looking, but even more so in that shirt. Everything about him is dark, from his brown hair to his tanned skin to the sharp look in his chocolate-colored eyes, and the contrast of the light shirt does all the right things. He’d be downright crushworthy if he knew how to have fun at all. He’s far too grown-up to be nineteen, and sometimes it takes every bit of patience I have to get through a conversation with him.

Everything Seth says is right, even when it’s not, and I’ve never met a bigger rule-follower in my life. I’m the quintessential “good kid,” as Sam often reminds me, but even I know I have to break a few rules now and then if I’m going to live any kind of life at all.

Not Seth, though. His world is black and white. While I prefer to draw that way, I have deep appreciation for the gray areas, too.

He waits until he’s beside me to say, “Happy birthday.” His perfect lips spread into a brilliant smile.

His eyelashes are ridiculously long, making his eyes impossible to ignore. I wish for the millionth time that he wasn’t so attractive. Or that he was mute.

“Hi.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “We’re on salad duty.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Seth replies. We go up the front steps and he reaches around me to open the screen door. We’re greeted by the aroma of tomato sauce, garlic, and oregano. “Spaghetti?”

I respond with a polite nod. Birthdays always mean spaghetti around here, just like Thanksgiving means turkey and Christmas is desserts only. Spaghetti is Mom’s best meal, with her homemade sauce, salad, and the garlic bread she makes from scratch. He’s been spending birthdays and holidays with us for the last few years, so I know he knows this.

“Seth!” Mom says as we enter the kitchen. She wipes her hand on a dark-blue dish towel and embraces him like she would me or Sam. She always calls Seth her other child. His parents died when he was younger, and he’d wound up living down the road with his aunt. She worked all the time, and still does, I guess. I’ve never laid eyes on her.

Sam and I met Seth about five years ago when Mom hired him to mow our yard. He’d wanted to earn money to buy a car, and Mom basically adopted him when she learned he was eating frozen meals every night by himself. Pretty soon, he was having dinner with us two or three nights a week and spending all the major holidays with us.

Sam sets four glasses of ice on the table and greets Seth with a hug of his own. “Hey, man!”

Sam doesn’t understand why Seth drives me crazy, but it takes a lot to get under Sam’s skin. He’s as patient as I am impatient, as loud as I am quiet, as messy as I am meticulous. To be fair, while Seth acts like a protective big brother to both of us, I’m convinced he’s harder on me.

“I’ll take those,” Mom says, pulling the birthday cards from Seth’s hand, “and you two work on the salad.”

Seth goes straight to the cabinet beneath the sink to grab a cutting board. I collect vegetables from the refrigerator while Seth picks a knife from the block by the stove. I turn on the water in the sink to wash tomatoes.

“How was your day?” he asks.

I shrug. “It was all right.”

“Just all right?” Seth’s eyebrows come together, forming a crease directly over his nose.

The Collis Society’s bright white stationery flashes in my mind, along with that crushing first line: Dear Ms. Page, We regret to inform you…

I nod and turn the water up higher, hoping it’s loud enough to keep him from asking more questions. Seth has this weird knack for knowing when I’m upset about something. It’s comforting when I want to talk about whatever’s on my mind, and annoying when I don’t. I feel his eyes on me as I turn the tomato over and over in my hands and set it on the cutting board. We finish the task in silence, even though I know he’s not going to let me off that easily.

When everything’s ready, we choose our regular spots around the table. Mom’s pulled out the ironstone dishes, like she always does for special occasions, and the brightly colored foods pop against the stark white serving plates. I don’t know if she does that on purpose, but I always notice. I take a mental snapshot to sketch later. Sam pours sweet tea into our glasses, and the ice pops as it settles.

When we’re all seated, Mom picks up the platter of spaghetti and passes it around. “How was everyone’s day? Seth, did your finals go well?”

“Yep! My last two were this morning,” Seth says, piling noodles onto his plate. He takes classes at the local university about an hour away. Pre-Med.

“Just normal school stuff,” I say, taking the bowl of marinara sauce from Sam.

“No stories?” Mom asks.

“Nope,” Sam answers.

I raise my eyebrows and shrug like nothing in the world happened today, like I didn’t find out I’m less talented than everyone thought, like the thing I’ve planned on for the last two years suddenly isn’t an impossibility. My breath hitches, and I focus on swallowing.

“What’s wrong?” Seth asks, his dark eyes on me.

“Nothing.” I spoon sauce over my noodles and paste on a smile.

“Something go wrong at school?” he presses, because he just can’t let it go. He keeps watching me, waiting.

I speak through my teeth, maintaining my grin, “I said nothing’s wrong.”

“You don’t have much of a poker face, hon,” Mom says. “What’s up?”

“Ugh.” I slump against the back of my chair and let the corners of my mouth drop. There’s obviously no escaping this conversation. “Fine. I didn’t make it into the Collis Society’s summer arts program. The one with the artists in residence? I got my letter today.”

Saying the words out loud brings on a fresh wave of the humiliation mixed with the frustration I’ve been battling all day. The worst part is how sure I’d been of my acceptance. I should’ve at least thought of a backup plan. Everything was resting on that program. Heat spreads across my chest and up my neck.

Mom’s shoulders fall. “I’m so sorry, hon. I know that meant a lot to you.”

I shrug.
Everyone
knew it meant a lot to me. That almost makes it worse. Everyone at school, all of my teachers, they all thought I’d be a shoo-in. I let them down, and tomorrow I’ll have to tell them.

“Those people at Collis are obviously blind,” Sam adds, twirling spaghetti around his fork, “with no taste in art whatsoever. And they’re probably senile. I bet everybody on that board is super old. Old people smell funny, Chuck. The whole place probably smells funny. Who wants to spend a summer there? You’d miss us way too much.”

I raise my eyes to his and smile. Leave it to Sam to make the arts program I’d wanted to get into for years sound like spending a summer trapped in a nursing home. “You’re so full of sheet.”

Sam winks at me, his cheeks bulging with spaghetti. Of all my swear words, “sheet” is his favorite.

“Didn’t you send the drawings I suggested?” Seth asks. “The ones from the lake trip last fall?”

The way he phrases the question annoys me. Didn’t I? As if choosing something different than his suggestion is the whole reason I didn’t get in. Like not listening to Seth is automatically asking for trouble. Because he’s clearly never been mistaken in his life.

“No.” I smooth the hair above my ear. “I sent the series I did of the buildings downtown. The old library, the courthouse, and the mill.” The lake drawings were watercolors. They were pretty, but not all that artistically challenging. The admissions board at Collis would be looking for something more impressive. The buildings had more intricate details—more perspective, deeper angles. They were my best shot at getting in.

But what do I know, anyway? I didn’t get in.

“But the lake ones were so much better,” he says, lowering his brow, genuinely confused by my choice.

Thanks, Seth. That’s the most helpful thing to say.

“I think all of your work is incredible,” he continues, “but the paintings from the lake show how broad your talent is. Like how well you draw people and landscapes and a little bit of everything.”

The worst part is that it’s entirely possible he’s right. Maybe I’d completely screwed up by picking the wrong samples. If I’d sent the lake series, would we be celebrating my acceptance right now?

Seth leans over his plate and looks at me. “Sam’s right, though. You’re incredibly gifted. Your buildings were great. Don’t take this too hard. Really.”

I nod, unwilling to look back at him. I help myself to a piece of garlic bread from the basket on the table.

It’s pointless now, anyway. Whether I made the right or the wrong choice, it’s over. I reach for my glass of water, swiping the cold condensation with my fingers.

“You should see the sunset she was working on tonight,” Sam says. “Did you finish it?”

I take a sip of water. “No. My hands started acting funny and I gave up.”

“Your hands?” Mom asks, picking up the shaker of Parmesan cheese from the middle of the table. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. They started tingling, and it wouldn’t stop. It was like they both fell asleep at the same time, and then it sort of spread up my arms.” I shake my head and tear the crust from my bread. “It was really weird.”

Seth clears his throat and asks, “What were you doing at the time?” because obviously, on top of knowing everything about art, he’s also an expert on tingly hand disease.

“Nothing. It didn’t last long. It’s not a big deal.”

“Well,” Mom says, her eyes landing on my hands, “let me know if it happens again.”

I shove a piece of bread in my mouth and nod. Seth watches me a moment longer before glancing at Mom.

“So anyway. Happy birthday to us, right?” Sam lifts his hands and beckons, asking for applause, grinning broadly.

Mom’s head bobs up, and she laughs. “Happy birthday. I can’t believe my babies are seventeen. It won’t be long until you’re off to college and getting jobs and starting new lives without me.”

She’s smiling, but something in her words digs into my chest. It’s been the three of us here for as far back as my memory reaches. Dad died in a car accident when Sam and I were only a few months old, and I only know him through old photographs and Mom’s memories.

“Aw, don’t worry, Mom.” Sam leans over and pats her hand. “Chuck’s an artist and I’m a musician. You know we’re never getting jobs. With any luck, we’ll live here forever and you’ll be able to keep feeding us and doing our laundry long into adulthood!”

Mom laughs. “Every mother’s dream!”

Sam high-fives me, lifting my mood like he always does, and even Seth cracks a smile. Sam’s right about one thing—I’d miss this if I spent my summer at the Collis Society. I can’t really imagine going weeks without seeing Mom and Sam. At least now, I’ll have them to keep me company while I draw as much as I want from my favorite spot on the front porch.

I meet Seth’s eyes across the table. His shoulders relax and he lowers his chin, holding my gaze, waiting for me to forgive him. I take a deep breath and look toward the ceiling, breaking eye contact. He shouldn’t have pushed it. I clearly didn’t want to talk about the Collis Society. It’s my birthday dinner, and I don’t want to spend it thinking about the rejection.

When I look back, he smiles at me, a warm, genuine look of affection that slices through my frustration.

I guess it would’ve been strange to go all summer without seeing Seth, too.

I smile back.

As much as I would’ve loved Collis, at least now I can spend my last summer before I graduate high school here with my family.

Without them, it would really suck.

T
WO

T
he moon hangs high in the night sky by the time Seth heads home. I watch from the screened door while he climbs into his Jeep. When his headlights come on, I rest my finger on the light switch by the door and wait.

“You guys are weird,” Sam says, leaning against the doorway behind me.

“Shut up.” Just when I think Seth’s not going to do it, the headlights blink three times. I smile and flip the porch light in return.

Off. On. Off. On. Off. On.

The Jeep backs up and turns, crawling back down the driveway. I wait until it’s completely out of view before shutting the light off for good.

The day Seth bought his Jeep, he came to our house to celebrate. We put the top down and drove the fifteen-mile strip from one end of town to the other, before coming back to enjoy Mom’s famous double-chocolate-chip brownies. When he left, Sam and I watched from the doorway while Seth fumbled with all the controls inside the Jeep, trying to figure out how to turn on the headlights. When he finally found the switch, he flashed the lights at us. On impulse, I flashed the porch light back at him. We’ve been doing it ever since.

“You ready to do our gifts?” Sam asks.

I turn around. “Sure. In the kitchen?”

“Nah. Let’s go outside.”

“Okay,” I tell him. “I gotta get yours from my room. Meet you on the porch in five minutes.”

When we were younger, Mom gave us matching gifts every year. If I got shoes, Sam got shoes. If she bought him a video game, there’d be one for me, too. She quit doing it when we got to high school, so for the last couple of years we’ve given each other coordinating gifts as a little private joke. A few weeks before our birthday, one of us decides what type of gift we’re going to buy each other. Last year, Sam chose hats. He bought me a green knit hat with a little flower on the side, and I got him a gray flat cap. This year, I decided on bracelets. He’s going to love the one I got him—black leather string laced through a metal guitar pick.

I run up to my room to grab Sam’s gift from my desk drawer. I hate wrapping presents. I’m terrible at it. I usually get a white box or bag and draw all over it instead, but for this I’d dropped his bracelet in a clear plastic bag and drawn blue and orange swirls all over it from top to bottom.

By the time I make it back downstairs, Sam’s waiting in one of the green wicker chairs on the front porch. All trace of the clouds from earlier have disappeared. Tonight’s moon is enormous, lighting up the sky and stealing the spotlight from the millions of stars scattered over our heads. I take a seat in the chair beside him and hold Sam’s gift up. “You first.”

He plucks the bag from my hand and shakes it. “What could it be?” he asks, his eyes too wide and his voice too high-pitched.