Finding Dell (17 page)

Natalie moved slowly, deliberately, across the room as she stripped her bed of her dirty sheets.

“How are you feeling, Nat?” I whispered. “You scared me so bad last night. I tried to stay awake all night to watch you, but I must have fallen asleep.”

When she met my gaze, her eyes were naked and I could see her emotions swirling in the brown depths. Then her eyes settled on Will’s hand in mine and they darkened and narrowed. The unguarded fragility was gone instantly.

“Don’t play a martyr when you used me as an excuse to call your ex.”

I gasped and my grip on Will’s hand tightened and he woke with a start. Natalie bundled her sheets in shaking arms and left the room, shutting the door heavily at the same moment that Will’s hand shook loose of mine. In the wash of weak morning light, I saw the fractures with Natalie and Will more clearly than I did last night.

CHAPTER 18

FOR ALL THE
time I spent daydreaming about being with Will, it was still surreal to find myself sitting on his couch before school let out for winter break. After spending every night with him last spring, talking until we realized it was almost time to wake up, it was disorienting to be in his apartment. I didn’t even know which bedroom was his.

Will sat in a camping chair with his eyes trained on the computer in his lap while I perched on the edge of the sofa. As I watched him out of the corner of my eye, I wondered if I’d made a mistake in coming over. It’d seemed like he still cared about me when he came over to help with Natalie, but maybe he just pitied me. I realized I was gnawing on my nails, a disgusting habit, and I jerked my hand down to my lap.

Will stood up and I watched him with wide, expectant eyes as he relocated to the couch, leaving a cushion separating us. His eyes didn’t leave the glowing screen as he inched closer, closing the gap between us, until his warm leg touched my thigh. He tilted the computer to adjust to the light and I could see a photo of us on the screen. My pulse quickened.

“I look through pictures from last year a lot,” he said. He tapped a key and the slideshow revealed a photo of him and Dean cheering on the football team in the stands of the stadium, both wearing the royal blue school colors and looking tan in the autumn sunlight.

“I remember that game,” I said, leaning closer. “We lost, and remember how Dean almost got in a fight with the mascot?”

I laughed. Will laughed too, so I scooted closer to him.

“I miss hanging out with Dean. Actually, there are a lot of things from last year that I miss,” he said.

“We’re all still here, Will. You’re the only one who’s missing,” I said softly.

He kept clicking through photos, pausing a few seconds on each one. After several minutes, he closed the computer and looked at me, clear blue eyes meeting mine.

“One thing we didn’t do last year is go to the lights parade in town. Do you want to do something new tonight?”

Will reached up and smoothed a piece of my hair behind my ear, giving it a playful tug at the end. My heart was beating faster and I wanted to lean forward and kiss him, but instead I nodded. He smiled and stood up, setting his laptop down on the coffee table.

“Then you’d better get a hat on, because, baby, it’s cold outside,” he called as he walked to the closet.

I bit my lip to hide a growing smile.
Would tonight be the night we finally got back together?

A quick drop in temperature pricked a hole in the heavy clouds and they burst with a flurry of irregular snowflakes that melted upon hitting the sidewalk. A respectable crowd was gathered for the lights parade. Will and I huddled together facing the street.

Parents dashed after children who wandered into the street,
and the crowd struggled against the invisible barrier of the curb as we waited for the parade to make its way down to our corner. In the distance, we could hear the horn of a fire truck mixed with tinny Christmas music. A few hundred feet away, a blur of lights inched its way closer.

Pickup trucks dragged flatbeds filled with lights and children, with no discernable theme but to be the most brightly lit float in the parade. Hard candies were tossed from the window of trucks gleefully and toddlers sprinted from the sidewalks to gather the treats. They took off their mittens and dropped candies into them like trick-or-treat bags.

Will held his phone in front of us for a photo and I burrowed my head comfortably into his shoulder and smiled at the camera. Now that I’d been in his apartment, I could imagine him sitting on his worn couch looking at this picture of us and remembering what a good time we had tonight.

Down the street the lights burned inside Sidetracks and a gray-haired couple handed out white paper cups filled with hot apple cider to a line of people. Will and I edged along in line to receive a steaming cup from a woman wearing flashing reindeer-themed earrings.

The Bridlemeade High School marching band stomped past us, the feet of the smaller kids sliding in the slick street that was lightly collecting snow.

Following the band, a float filled with red lights and tinsel drifted past and cast the faces of the crowd in a feverish glow. A mile down the street the urgent whirl of a silent fire truck’s lights reflected in the windows of the shops on Railroad Pass.

The crowd started to split up as the gaps between floats grew longer and the snow fell faster. Discarded cider cups formed mounds at the curb and the street glittered with broken remains of candy canes.

“I don’t want to leave before it’s over,” Will said into my ear as he watched parents dragging whimpering kids to their cars.

I tugged on Will’s arm and pulled him closer to me. I couldn’t let him go a second time.

“Do you miss living in the dorm?”

Will paused. “I miss the convenience. It was so effortless. Everything was right there in front of you.”

I bit down on my bottom lip in the dark truck cab and wondered if he was referring to me or the food in Georgian Grande.

“So why did you move off campus?”

He swung the truck around a corner and I could see the glow of Wild Mare Point ahead.

“My parents thought there were too many distractions and that I’d be more focused if I lived in an apartment.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, tugging on a dangling string on my hat.

Will eased the truck over a speed bump and slowed to a stop in front of Paso Fino. I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned to him.

“Do you want to come upstairs? It could be like old times,” I said. “You and me, just hanging out in the dorm. Most people have left for break already.”

Will’s hand flicked up and turned a knob to switch on his wipers, clearing the windshield of gathering snowflakes. They started to squeak and scream. Will let up on the knob and sighed.

“I better not.”

I nodded. Suddenly I was embarrassed by my fluffy hat with the earflaps and I yanked it off my head, turning it over in my hands. The heat in the cab was too warm and my cheeks burned red in the dark.

“Will,” I started, “I never found a way to say—”

“Not now, Dell.”

Will put his hand on the gearshift and I fumbled for the door handle and stumbled from the truck, my feet sliding on the slippery pavement. I slammed the door and put my head down, my hat dangling from my defeated hand, and I prayed I wouldn’t fall on a hidden patch of ice while Will was looking.

When I reached the door, I stole a glance behind me. Maybe Will had followed me, ready to apologize and stay the night. We could spend the night kissing like we used to and stay up until he had to leave for home.

But the taillights of his truck were turning the corner.

Someone had turned off the overhead lights in the hallway, so only the red exit lights burned. The lake usually sent lapping shadows down the hall, but tonight it was eerily still. Every door was closed, but the sound of Ben’s off-key trumpet reverberated through the walls. As I slid my key into the lock I noticed there was no sliver of light under his door; he must be playing in the dark.

The lock unlatched and I saw that a piece of folded yellow paper had been slipped under the door.
A message from Natalie before leaving for winter break
, I thought. But the handwriting was angular and loose, not Natalie’s loopy script. I wiped at my swollen eyes as I raised the letter and squinted to read it in the dark.

Madeleine—

Before my grandfather passed last week, he urged me to follow my desires. My wandering gypsy soul became infatuated with street art in São Paulo and I’ve left to explore Brazil. Our bond isn’t defined simply by nearness, but I will still miss you. Remember one thing for me: happiness doesn’t require anguish. When it’s dark, look to your stars
.

—B
.

My tears didn’t have time to dry after Will drove away before they started to fall when I realized that Bernie wasn’t going to return for the spring semester.

I dropped my keys with a clatter and slid down the smooth wood of the door. I cried for Will’s rejection and Bernie’s departure—until I remembered to cry for the dissolve of my friendship with Natalie and the lies I’d been fed by Cam, too.

I wondered if this ranked in my top three worst nights on campus, but I’d had so many bad nights this semester I lost count. I imagined Bernie scolding me for list-making again, but it just made me cry harder to realize she wouldn’t be around to make me better anymore.

I hadn’t turned on the light before I read Bernie’s note. Now I cried noisy tears in the dark until I exhausted myself and fell asleep with my back to the door and the soundtrack of Ben’s trumpet in my ears.

CHAPTER 19

THE MATTRESS ON
the twin bed in my childhood bedroom was hard and flat, and too low to the ground after sleeping on a lofted bed in the dorm. I rolled onto my side to get comfortable, but the sheets felt slick and new, not like the warm jersey sheets on my bed in Paso Fino.

My pastel dollhouse, full of furniture and tiny figurines, decorated the far corner of my room. After I moved down to Bridlemeade, my mom pulled the rambling dollhouse from the attic and set it out in a wave of empty-nest panic and nostalgia.

“Not now, Dell,” I whispered in the quiet room. “Not now.”

I played Will’s last words to me over in my head all night. I had already cried myself to sleep by the time Natalie’s flight landed in San Diego. I was puffy-eyed in the morning for the train home and I avoided Ruby’s goodbye as her dad’s car idled in the drive below to take her home for the holidays.

The grandmother figurine in the dollhouse was vacuuming, I noted. I smiled as I pictured my mom spending her afternoon rearranging the tiny pink and yellow furniture in the house. I
wondered if she whispered conversations as she placed the people in lifelike scenes.

My mind rushed backward through a blur of memories: Will’s tense hand on the gearshift in his truck; his blue eyes under his bright green winter cap; the involuntarily flick of his neck while the girl sat on his lap; his lips kissing mine in the warm stairwell on move-out day. . .

I settled on a memory of lying in his bed when our relationship was still new. I cuddled deeper into my own firm mattress as I imagined curling my body into his and burrowing into the crook of his arm. Will always said goodnight with a kiss on my forehead and hand, and when he took his place sleeping behind me, a light kiss on the back of my neck, too. One night, a tickle of breathy words stirred me awake:
“I fall for you every day.”

The pillow was moist with tears and I rolled over. I reached my hand behind my back and touched the spot with my star cluster tattoo. I thought about what Will said to me when we were moving out and I’d be lying if I said his words didn’t affect my choice in tattoo.

If a star falls every time I think of you this summer
. . .

My body shuddered with a sigh. It was going to be a long month of painful recollections while I was away from the bubble of Wild Mare Point. Knowing that I wouldn’t have Bernie by my side when I returned made it even more difficult.

Between the covers, my phone buzzed with a call and through blurry eyes I read the screen: Cam.

I swallowed hard before answering and tried to mask the sound of tears in my voice. I wiped a wet eye with a corner of the slick sheet.

“Dell? Did you get home okay?”

“About an hour late, but I’m home now.”

“Look, Dell. The reason I’m calling…”

He paused and cleared his throat noisily.

I pressed the phone to my ear. The sound of another person, rather than my tears, was welcome. He was probably sitting in his childhood bedroom, too. Maybe he was staring at a pile of action figures or old model cars just like I stared at the grandmother in the dollhouse earlier.

“I . . . well, what are you doing for your birthday?”

I felt my eyes widen. “My birthday?” I asked, surprised. “Nothing, really—”

“Because I want to take you out for dinner,” Cam said breathlessly, interrupting me.

I bit my lip and smiled. The tears had started to dry on my face and the streaks made my skin tight and itchy. I rubbed my cheek distractedly.

“Before you say anything, there’s another reason I’m calling. It might not affect your answer, and I understand that, but I want you to know I broke up with my girlfriend. For real this time.”

There was a long pause and I felt my breath catch in my chest. I fought to swallow.

“I don’t know if that changes anything for you. But can I take you out to dinner for your birthday?”

“I’d like that a lot, Cam.”

There was a rhythmic clicking on the other end of the phone in the background. In my mind, I could see Cam running a toy car over his nightstand as he perched on the edge of his bed, nervous and expectant.

“I’ll see you next week, then,” he said. “Have a good Christmas, Dell.”

When I hung up the phone, I sat in silence for a while, thinking back to when Will said something similar to me.

I remembered saying goodbye to him on the steps, and him
wishing me a good summer. It was right before everything went wrong.