The Start of Me and You (34 page)

I turned the car into a sharp right.

Cameron glanced over at me. “Where are you going?”

I kept my focus on the road ahead of me. “There’s something I have to do.”

After a few more turns, I stopped the car at the Oakhurst Community Pool. The pool had opened for summer just a few days before, but the parking lot was nearly empty.

Cameron peered at me. “What the heck are you doing?”

I turned and looked at my sister, my eyes on hers. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t intentionally make an expression. I just let her read on my face that this was something that I needed to do.

When I opened my car door, she followed. I pulled our family pass out of my wallet and held it out as the lady at the desk reminded me they were about to close. There was only one person in the pool—an old man doing laps in the shallow end. The lifeguard wasn’t even in his chair, just leaning against the snack bar with the occasional glance at the water. Cameron trailed behind me as I grabbed a towel that someone had left draped over a lounge chair, a cheap striped one with PROPERTY OF OAKHUST COMMUNITY POOL stamped onto it.

“Do you have your phone?” I looked at Cameron, who
still seemed to be game for whatever I was doing here. She nodded. “Can you take a picture?”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I slipped off my shoes at the base of the high dive and steadied my hands against the railings. Before I could change my mind, I pressed my bare feet against the first rung, then the second, climbing higher. I was about halfway up when I paused, noticing how the cement framed the edges of the pool beneath me.

No
, I told myself. I heard Max’s voice, a chant in my mind:
Don’t look down
.

When I reached the top, I wanted to crawl, to stay as near to the ground as possible. But I stood tall and put one foot in front of the other. The board gave a little, and I held my arms out to steady myself. So many pieces of my year swirled around me—Kayleigh, brave enough to demand better, and my dad, brave enough to try harder this time, and even Clark, brave enough to start looking for happiness again. And me, in my own way: brave enough to come this far. I gathered these moments inside of myself, and I took one last step forward.

The deep end was a clear, chemical blue beneath me, as still as glass. I closed my eyes for a moment, so I could see my grandmother’s smiling face in my mind. She wasn’t here now, but I would find a way to be okay anyway. When I opened my eyes again, I found Cameron looking up at me, shielding her eyes from the sinking sun.

She didn’t encourage me; she didn’t command me to just do it already. She stood waiting because Cameron, for all of her attitude, was still younger than me, still willing to follow my lead. I wanted to do this for both of us—because the divorce didn’t take us down, and losing Aaron and my grandmother didn’t take us down, and this wasn’t going to take me down either.

There was a part of me that wanted to swan dive, to make an elegant reentry into my deepest fear. But I was new to this, and it didn’t have to happen gracefully. It just had to happen.

This is it
, I told myself, taking one more deep breath. And I jumped, feetfirst.

I was only airborne for a moment, but that single moment was long enough to feel terrified and certain at once. The freezing water rose to meet me, and the cold seemed to reach my internal organs. But I relaxed, letting myself sink in farther, and then, with confidence, I curled my arms against the water. I kicked my legs and ascended until my face broke through the surface. I took a deep breath, and then another.

It was the baptism of myself, the renewal of me and by me. The water felt, finally, like it could wash away the dust of the past, cleaning off the second skin of sadness. From here, I didn’t have to do laps or perform a skilled crawl stroke. The point remained no matter what: I wasn’t
sinking anymore. I had been floating, however precariously, on the surface of my own grief. And it was time to get out.

I climbed out of the pool, shuddering in my drenched clothes. Cameron held the towel out to me, and I wrapped it around my shoulders.

“I thought you were afraid of—” she began, but I cut her off.

“I was.”

She nodded at me, a look of understanding crossing her face. She handed me her phone so I could examine the picture. My body was a blur, halfway between the high dive and the water, and you couldn’t see my face. But sure as the blue sky beyond us, it was me. Cameron watched my face closely as I shook my head. “I can’t believe I just did that.”

My sister gave a hesitating smile. “I can.”

That night, I plucked the claw machine cat off my bookshelf. I placed it gently in a shoebox, which I slid under my bed. I couldn’t bear to remove the framed picture of Aaron and me. After all, he would always be a part of my history, a part of me. So I moved the snapshot of us to a higher shelf, where I could remember without being reminded every single day.

In that space, next to my flower crown, I set the framed photo of my grandmother, mid-spin in front of the Eiffel
Tower. I was going to be me, but I hoped that meant being a lot like her.

I put a huge strike through my plan:
5. Swim
.

I’d done three things out of the five that had felt so impossible just months before, and so many other, smaller things that filled my life back up. I smiled at my new collage—but not because it was a representation of the girl I was now. No, that girl was changing moment by moment, and no static collection of images could capture that. I smiled because it showed the loves that glued me back together. The tiny lights that, together, led me home.

Finally, I uploaded the picture of me jumping into the pool, printed it on thick paper, and cut it into postcard size. I grasped a black Sharpie and wrote my secret—my truth—in thick letters across the infinite expanse of blue sky:

I am living my life now. Period.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

After I turned my secret in the next morning, I couldn’t concentrate. There was no need to, really. The last day of school bent toward chaos, as teachers granted the leniency they’d withheld all year. It was class after class of games and “free days.”

I almost hoped that Max wouldn’t be in English class. I wouldn’t have to wonder if he’d read my thank-you note and known what it meant. Besides, we’d left things in a good place, and I could ride out the whole summer on the hope of next year. But as I walked into my last day of fourth-period English, there he was. Butcher paper hung around the perimeter of the classroom, presumably covering everyone’s secrets.

“Hey, girl,” Max said from behind me.

“Hey,” I said, smiling.

“How are you?”

“I’m good. You?”

“Good.” It was the most basic of conversations, but our easy expressions changed the entire tone. We were happy to see each other, and we weren’t trying to hide it. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Me neither. My mom was supposed to be here already.”

“Well, tell her I say hi. And I hope you have fun.”

“I will—thanks.”

The bell rang from behind us, signaling the start of class. The intercom beeped after the bell chimed for the final time, and a secretary’s bored voice cut in.
Max Watson to the office, please. Max Watson to the office.

“Have fun, buddy,” Ryan called from the front of the classroom.

Ms. Pepper smiled. “See you next year, Max.”

“See ya,” he said. I turned around as he swung his backpack over his shoulder. He gave a wave to the class and moved the few steps toward the door. His eyes connected with mine, with one quick smile that was specifically for me.

And then he was gone. My last sight of him for months. The familiar ache in the left side of my chest returned. This time last year, I hadn’t even known Max Watson. And now my life felt so much different, just because of a seat in a shared English class.

Ms. Pepper’s voice cut into my thoughts. “I hope you’ve learned something about yourselves and each other this year. But, in one last-ditch effort to make sure that you did, I give you …”

She tore off the paper from the front of the room, then the back.

“… your classmates’ secrets.”

There were definitely more than thirty, so I figured the other class’s postcards must be up there, too. People were peering around, squinting at the secrets around them.

“Why are you just sitting there?” Ms. Pepper asked. “Mingle!”

Everyone leaped up from their seats, chattering to each other as they dispersed. I stood up slowly, after everyone else, because something had just occurred to me: one of these postcards would be Max’s secret. How had I not thought of this before? Would I recognize it? My eyes flitted desperately over a line of postcards, hoping I would know.

I took a few steps closer to Ms. Pepper’s desk, gaze darting around the secrets that hung closest to the front of the classroom.

“I put it next to the door,” she said quietly, not looking up from her laptop, “in case you had an Elizabeth moment.”

“What?” I asked.

“An Elizabeth moment,” she repeated, her lips curling into a small smile as she studied the screen in front of her.

“Elizabeth?” I repeated stupidly. I wasn’t sure what she meant.

She looked up. “Sometimes we get it wrong the first time. But you only have to get it right once.”

“Get what right?”

She shrugged. “Anything.”

Confused, I turned away, toward the door where she had directed me. Without another word, I pushed through everyone else, nearing the classroom door.

There it was. The top half of the cover of
Pride and Prejudice
cut into postcard form. I could hear my pulse in my ears, blocking out the chatter. The cover featured two girls in dresses, presumably Elizabeth and Jane Bennet. Across the bottom, it said, in scrawled handwriting I’d come to know so well—

I think I’ve loved you since that first day.

That simple. I stood there, only the postcard in focus, while the rest of the room blurred. I felt Morgan walk up by my left side.

“Whoa,” she breathed, staring up at the wall, then at me.

I nodded, eyes still fixed on the wall.

“I knew it,” she said, laughing incredulously. “I
knew
it. What are you going to do?”

I could feel her looking at me, and even though I didn’t
respond, I knew the answer. I didn’t know what Elizabeth Bennet would do, but I knew what I would do. I
knew
it because it was true, and it was beautiful: I was living my life now.

I ducked through my classmates, who were still staring up at postcards. In one quick motion, I pulled my own down from the wall. Before anyone could react, I slipped out the open door and into the empty hallway. I turned the corner and began to run desperately, my legs flying beneath me. It felt like breaking free, like snapping the last cords that tethered me. I didn’t have to be defined by Aaron or by my crazy family or by any character in a book. I didn’t need a plan. I was just me, Paige Elizabeth Hancock, and I was making it up as I went.

There wasn’t a single person in sight, all the classroom doors closed with end-of-the-year parties inside. I turned another corner of locker-lined walls and saw a tall figure at the end of the hall. I skidded to a stop, my shoes squeaking against the floor.

“Max!” I yelled into the distance. But he wasn’t leaving—wasn’t moving away from me. He was waiting. He stood at the base of a small flight of stairs, just three or four steps near the front doors of the school. I should have felt so crazy and vulnerable, but I didn’t. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Still clutching my postcard, I walked toward him—because this was never about getting there fast. This was
about being sure of my steps forward. They always call it falling in love, but for me? It was also a choice.

I used to think it took me so long because, on some level, I wasn’t quite ready to be with Max. But now I think I wasn’t quite ready to be
me
. I needed to relearn myself, to venture into new friendships and nerdy after-school activities and my own mind. I needed to realize that I was one-fourth of a family that is not normal and that no family is normal. I needed to start seeing my sister as a person, so nearly a peer, and to watch my girlfriends grow, each in her own way, together. I needed to paddle without my grandmother, despite my sadness. I needed to let go of my unknowns about Aaron, to let peace fill the empty spaces.

Max stood waiting for me, not moving closer, and maybe he had been waiting for me to take the steps for myself this whole time. I was closing in, nearly reaching the three steps down that separated us. And I jumped.

I felt my feet leave the ground, the air beneath me. If I was scared, it was in that pulsing, breathless scared you feel when what you’ve just done might change your life forever. When you know that there’s someone to catch you, and he does.

He set me down, and, the moment my feet hit the floor, I pressed up onto my toes and kissed him for the exact right reason: because I wanted to. Not because he was a silly crush or an item on a checklist. Because he was Max, plaid shirts and robots and airplanes and all.

When I dropped back to my heels, it was only because I had to do this all the way—no more overthinking. So I looked up at him, his rumpled dark hair and a flustered smile I knew so well. I almost laughed crazily—with both nervousness and relief—but instead I said, “I think I might love you, too.”

“Oh, please.” He rolled his eyes. “You do.”

I opened my mouth to agree, but before I could, he kissed me again. It was the second of so many—the second of not enough.

He pulled back, looking at me as if he were about to say something. Before he could, I held my postcard up, the image of me midair, nearly touching the pool water.

There was no surprise in his smile—not even the tiniest lift of his eyebrows.

I pointed to the picture. “That’s the
high dive
. Aren’t you shocked?”

“Nope.” He reached for my hand. My face reflected back in his glasses, but I looked past to his familiar green eyes. I could see both of us completely. “I knew you’d get here.”