Every Last Promise (2 page)

“Thank God you can paint, Bean,” I said as we settled back into our places in the circle. Bean stuck her tongue out at me as she got to her feet. I took a chunk of Jen's long hair and began a thin plait. Selena retrieved another drink and walked to the water's edge, still watching Caleb's antics. Bean joined her, pushing her hip into Selena's to get her attention and starting to dance. Selena put her hands in the air and moved to the beat from the stereo behind us. I moved my shoulders back and forth as I braided. Overhead, the stars winked at us.

I could have stayed sad. Thought about the day when I wouldn't have Jen's long, confident stride beside me as I walked down the school halls. When there would be no one to gossip with me on long, rambling trail rides. When the four of us lounging like this on a riverbank on a lazy weekend night would happen more often in my memory than in reality.

Like I did every time those thoughts wiggled to the surface, I stamped them back down. Because right now—this moment—was perfection.

THE BLUE HOMECOMING BANNER
reaching across Main Street shimmers like the river on a stifling summer afternoon. Windless, golden warmth greets my return home. Despite the sweat beading under my arms, my sweatshirt is zipped all the way up, pulled high to hide the bottom half of my face. But even without it I would have trouble breathing.

It's been almost three months since I've been here. Home. And this late August looks the same as every August before it. Even the same face on the homecoming banner as last year. Jay Brewster has led Grant High to the state championships three years running.

We drive under the banner and I feel like I've driven into it instead. Pressing against my throat until I let out a cough. Mom glances at me in the rearview mirror, and I turn my face away from the worried wrinkles around her eyes. As the sun dips below the horizon, my breath creates a cloud on the window, and I'm glad. Because now I can't see the town I love or the people who don't want me back.

My suitcase lies open on the floor, my summer-in-the-city wardrobe spilling over the sides. Every time I start to unpack, I stop. I'm waiting for that sense of permanence, of
This is
mine
, to wash over me. It hasn't yet.

“Kayla, did you get the mail?” my mom asks, drifting into the doorway as I reach under my bed, poking into the darkness that veils all manner of ancient treasures: raveling ponytail holders, too-small T-shirts, crumpled papers with bold numbers printed on them from riding competitions.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Did your application packets come?”

“I think it might be too early.”

“Is it?”

Under the haze of my bed skirt, her feet shift toward the stairs as her voice shifts up an octave. Her nurse's voice. The one she must have perfected when she worked in the hospital, before two kids brought her home full-time. “Well, I'm sure they'll be here soon.”

It's the tone she used the day after the crash, when I finally woke from unconsciousness.
You'll be okay
, she said as I rolled into a ball, white flashes cutting through my skull. She called for pain meds to relieve my throbbing head, going so far as to suggest a specific medication and dosage to the young nurse on staff.
You'll be okay
.

My fists are clenched around dust bunnies and rubber bands when I emerge from under the bed. My hair hangs in my face, messy, a curtain that softens the reality of my mom's expectations, which are going to be dashed, I know, when I tell her and Dad that I've decided not to apply to college
at all. At least, nothing beyond the community college the next town over, despite my parents' hopes, despite Jen's once-upon-a-time certainty. After being away this summer, I just don't want to leave again.

“Yeah, they'll be here soon,” I mumble. Mom smiles and disappears down the hall.

I reach beneath my headboard for a sparkly notebook caught between my mattress and box spring, only a hard corner poking out, gouging a tiny hole in the paint in the wall. Unicorns and fairies and hearts drawn with glitter pens embellish the cover. My eyebrows rise with recognition. I thought this notebook was long gone, dashed away once mythological creatures began to pale in comparison to a real world of best friends and cute boys and long, lazy summer days.

The notebook is the girl I was, and so maybe that's why I cling to it. Maybe that's why I move my hand over my trash can, the notebook hovering, but pull it back quickly before dropping it in. Open to a page in the middle.

Selena kissed Lance today. She said it was like kissing a frog. Jen wanted to know how Selena knew what it was like to kiss a frog.

My notebook is a place where secrets live. If I had a pen right now, I could add one more. Instead, I stuff the notebook back under the mattress, hiding it. Hiding every secret. The way I've had to so that I can slip back into my old life.

I move across the room, light-footed with hope that I can mend the damage I've done here, and reach into my closet blindly. A paper sack crinkles, and inside, the sequins on a tank top scratch my palm. I freeze. When did my bag of stuff from that night get put in here?

Heat covers the back of my neck. I reach farther into the bag, lying to myself about what I'm certain I'll find. And what I won't find. But my fingers brush against the hard edge of truth. A cell phone. With a sharp breath, I shove the bag back into my closet and stand.

Hangers catch my ponytail and click together in a dull, thudding wood-song. I draw my hand across the back of a scratchy wool blazer. It's too small, from two years ago, but I pull it to me, pressing it against my chest. It smells like sawdust and mane oil. I hear the
clock
of hooves. My ankle aches and I flex my toes, as though I can work out the pain with a little foot stretch. As though I can forget the night my ankle was shattered.

I don't ride anymore, but that doesn't mean I can unlearn the sound of the ring. The taste of competition air. How the wind whipped through my hair as I raced across the jumping course and the way my back curved and my legs flexed taut muscles as my horse, Caramel Star, took flight over gates and walls. I always felt determined, in control, gloriously powerful in that saddle. Like I could accomplish anything.

I wonder if it's the same for Jay. If he feels like the hero
people think he is, if every breath he takes tastes like sweet glory and a town's adoration.

And if, on the back of his tongue, there's a faint, bitter aftertaste of knowing someone could destroy it all.

Like me.

I wince at each rotation of the creaky bike chain in the otherwise silent night. Shop owners are home, having closed their doors hours before. Farmers are closer to their dawn waking than they are to their bedtimes. At the place where the small businesses on Third Street give way to the gas stations before the interstate, I drop my bike on the sidewalk.

In most towns, Third Street would be called Main Street or First Avenue. It's the center of town, the pumping artery that gives life to the farms around it. But now, at this time of night, it's empty.

I walk to the middle of the street and stare up at the banner. The white lettering for the homecoming event listings glows. The high school mascot is in one corner, his Roman warrior costume frozen in mid-dance except for when the wind blows and the fabric sways to the strains of a silent marching band. Jay's body, in the middle of throwing a pass, takes up a third of the banner. His face is frozen in the throes of concentration. Beneath the helmet with the red Mohawk painted down the center, his mouth is set in a hard line, a muscle in his jaw clenched. His gaze focuses on something in
the distance. It's an expression that makes this town believe in something big. In the idea that determination can open doors to success. That people from little nowhere places can become great. I always did. Believed.

I stare long enough that my eyes begin to water, washing out the blinking red of the stoplight.

I cup my hands over my mouth and breathe. A sharp wind brushes my hood back from my face. Dust creates pinprick stings across my cheeks.

A bulb slowly warms to life in the back of Mackleby's Diner. Abeline Mackleby will be in the kitchen, her sleeves pushed up and her strong, round shoulders working the rolling pin on the dough for her famous sticky buns. In an hour, Third Street will smell like yeast and cinnamon and sugar. My favorite.

Since seventh grade, I've met up with my best friends on the morning of the first day of school to indulge in those huge, gooey rolls. This time, in our senior year, I won't be at that table gossiping about who will pull what pranks this year, who will hook up and who will break up, what everyone's going to wear, how we're going to crush our football opponents and how good Selena will look on the sidelines, cheering our team to victory. I don't think I'll be welcome after what happened.

I get back on my bike and go home. I sit on the porch because the house is too warm, and I think about Jen across
town, her blankets kicked off her bed like she always does when she sleeps. I think about my aunt, alone in her house in Kansas City. Probably the way she likes it. Her text remains unanswered:
How's your first day back?

I don't know how to answer her. There are too many words for a text message. There aren't enough words to fill the empty space behind the blinking bar, waiting for my response. I thought about staying in Kansas City for good. Forgetting my friends, my home, that I was popular here. Turning my back on a summer of changes as this town moved along without me. Staying far away from the guilt that eats away at my muscles. Away from what happened that night in the inky darkness behind the Brewster barn. Away from what I did, and away from what I haven't done about it.

THE MEASURING TAPE SNAPPED
closed in my palm and I called out the measurement to my dad, who wrote the number in his pocket-sized notebook. On the back steps, Caleb watched us work, his jeans and T-shirt still dusty from his morning chores.

“You could come help,” I told him, “instead of just sitting there uselessly. Hold the end of the measuring tape for me.”

His backward baseball cap slipped a little as he shook his head. “Who am I to take away any part of the satisfaction you'll someday feel knowing you restored that boat all by yourself?”

I climbed inside the boat frame and made a face at Caleb through the openings where some old boards had rotted away and needed to be replaced. “Dad's helping me,” I point out.

“Yeah, but it was his idea to have a little daddy-daughter project.”

The look of pride Dad shot me brought a smile to my face. It was only partly for me, though. The rest of it was because the boat we were working on reminded him of the sea. A place I knew he missed from his Navy days. He always wanted to get a boat but said he never had the time for one.
Three months ago, at a horse show across the state, I saw this one sitting at the edge of someone's property with a Free sign propped on the side. Lucky for me, Jen's car has a trailer hitch. My dad wasn't sure whether to grin or yell when we pulled into the yard with something that looked more like a scrap pile than a boat. All he said was that since I'd brought it home, I'd have to help make it sailable.

“And?” I said, pulling a bit of flaking paint off a board. “Are you going to tell me that once I have this thing up and running you aren't going to be begging for rides every weekend?
Kayla
”—I set the board on top of the to-keep pile and mimicked Caleb's voice—“let's go to the lake and fish. Can I borrow the boat so me and my friends can get drunk and drown ourselves in the river? Come ooonnnn.” I stretched the tape out and wedged one end in the seam of two more boards, then pulled the tape even longer and shouted out that measurement, too.

“If it were that easy for drunk people to drown themselves in that river, half this town would be dead.” Caleb took a long drink of the can of Coke next to him and gave me a wicked smile.

“Hey. Be nice.”

“What time are you going to Jen's?” Dad cut in.

“As soon as I get one more measurement. Then I think we're ready to order the new boards.”

“I'll take care of that,” Dad said.

“You should have just taken the thing in to a boat shop.” Caleb crushed his can under the bottom of his shoe.

“Right. Because there are so many of those around here, and we have all the money in the world,” I said. “Besides, I like working on it.”

I stood and crossed the yard to Dad, trading the measuring tape for the notebook, and jotted down the last of the numbers we needed.

“Almost done with
our
boat.” My words were louder than they needed to be, with Dad standing right next to me. But I wanted to make my point.

Caleb laughed. “I'll help next time. Want a ride over to Jen's?”

“Sure.”

I ran into the house to pull my hair into a ponytail, then back out to hop into Caleb's truck. At the Brewsters' house, I sprinted around to the rear yard, where Jen met me with an exasperated grin.

“Where have you been all day?”

I rolled up the sleeves on my shirt to avoid a farmer's tan. “Boat stuff.”

“Why did I ever let you bring that rotten thing home?”

“Because you love me.”

We listened to Caleb's truck roar away before I ducked into the stables to greet Caramel Star. I saddled the bay Thoroughbred my parents had gotten me for my fourteenth
birthday and drew her outside to warm up. When she was ready, I planted a kiss between her eyes and climbed on her back. Jen sat tall on her striking black Trakehner waiting for me. Together, we spent the next three hours exploring the Brewster back fields, at times pushing the horses into a sprint or over a wooden cross-fence, while at other times letting them walk slowly while Jen and I gossiped.

“Did you hear Maria and Eve got into it after cheer practice Friday?” I said. “Rumor is Eve snuck into the boys' locker room to take a shower with Jared.”
I
needed a shower. My hair stuck to the back of my neck.

“Wow.” Jen wrapped the reins around her hand slowly. “Maria's liked him for weeks. And they just announced she's cheer captain next year. She's going to make life hell for Eve.”

I shook my head. “You don't do that to your friends. And you definitely don't do that to someone who can demote you to the bottom of the cheer pyramid.”

“Speaking of Eve and not doing crappy things to friends, did you hear Jay and Hailey finally broke up?” Jen said as we approached Nickerson Road.

“It's been coming. How's he taking it?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. Fine, probably. I'm just glad all that drama's done with. He's been a total asshole the past few weeks.”

“He was weird at the river party during spring break. Like, pissed off but . . .” I squinted at my best friend, waiting
for her to finish my thought. Which she did, like she always could.

“But trying to play it off? Yeah, I noticed that. The river dunking? What was that all about?”

“Who knows? I bet Hailey's relieved, though. The way Bean talked about how she was caught between Jay and leaving . . . I felt sorry for her.”

“I felt sorry for her for ever being with Jay in the first place.”

I laughed. “She was really good for him, though.”

“She did make him a little more human.” Jen sighed. “He'll probably go back to being the whore he was before they were together. Eve can help with that.” Jen hardly had to make a motion to get her horse to stop, they were that attuned to each other. Dressage was her specialty, after all. I started to turn Caramel Star around to head back to Jen's. “Hey,” she said, and I paused. “Looks like Nickerson's just been oiled.” Her exasperation with Jay blew away on the breeze as her eyes lit up. A dimple dug into her cheek and she faced me. “You know what that means.”

I grinned and pushed Caramel Star into a trot back to the stables.