The Year We Fell Apart (19 page)

“Yeah, I’m starved.”

We head to a fast-food Mexican place down the block. I order a burrito with extra guacamole. Sadie orders a salad, hold the dressing. We grab a couple seats and I take my first bite of melty cheese and bean goodness. Sadie keeps her head down, but I catch her raising her eyebrows.

I cover my mouth while I chew. “What?”

She looks up innocently. “Oh, nothing. I just wish I could get away with eating like that.”

My stomach immediately shrinks and I look down at my food. Maybe she’s right. Over the past couple weeks I’d just started to lose some of the weight I gained after being off the swim team, and this isn’t exactly the healthiest option. I set the burrito down and wipe my mouth with a napkin.

“So you never told me, how was that party the other night?”

“Fine.” She looks at her phone.

“Just fine? I thought it was supposed to be epic.”

She shrugs and takes a bite of her salad, which without the dressing is really just lettuce topped with cucumbers and shredded carrots. Seriously, how can that be any good? I take another small bite of my burrito and wait for her to elaborate.

“It was. Tons of people were there, and it didn’t end until, like, four in the morning. I told my dad I was sleeping at your place and crashed there. But ever since, Mike has been so clingy. I think it’s time to move on to someone new.”

“Like John?”

She sighs. “Like whoever. Who cares?”

Clearly, she’s done talking about this. I pick at the foil around my food. “So things with Declan have reached an all-time high on the awkward meter.” Silence. “I think he’d rather I give up trying to be his friend. But I really don’t want to; I just want to fix things before he goes back.”

Sadie’s texting again. I’m not sure whether she’s even listening to me. She doesn’t react either way.

“Are you mad at me?” I ask. Even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong.

She doesn’t look up from her phone. “Nope.”

“Really? Because you seem pissed about something.”

“No, I’m just . . . whatever. Tired.”

I take a few more bites of my food, then get up and throw the rest away. I stand at the edge of our table, and don’t sit down again. Because all of a sudden,
I’m
a little mad. “Ready to go?”

She doesn’t answer until she’s finished crafting her text. Then she stands up and follows me to the front door. We step outside and are bathed in humidity. Sadie puts on her sunglasses, and I squint down the street, in the opposite direction of her car.

“Ready?” she asks.

“Actually, I think I’m going to wander around down here for a bit. I’ll call Graham for a ride home later.”

“Oh.” Sadie puts her phone away for the first time all day. “You’re sure?”

She’s already taken her first step toward her car. And even if I asked her to stay, I really can’t handle an entire afternoon of her preset conversation topics. I guess we’re both a little
tired
.

“Yeah, I’ll just talk to you later, okay?”

She gives me a quick hug and then lets me be. I walk around for another hour, past the park where parents are lathering their kids with sunscreen. Past Frank’s, where a line of churchgoers are grabbing brunch. I walk until the heat becomes too much and my shirt clings to the sweat on my back. I call my brother for a ride, and when I turn back onto Ninth Street to wait, I spot a quarter on the sidewalk.

That day at the driving range with Declan pops into my mind, when I left my change in the vending machine for someone else to find. Such a small gesture, but the way he looked at me when I did it, like I was someone special—I’ll never forget that look. I hear him tell me he knows who I am, and I want so badly for him to be right.

I pick up the quarter. Along the sidewalk, I scan the row of parked cars until I find one with an expired meter. When I slip the coin in, for that tiny sliver of time, the old me doesn’t seem so far off anymore.

  *  *  *  

By the time the sun starts to rise the next morning, I’ve already given up on sleep. I pack my camera bag and get in my car. At least I can get a head start on this week’s photography assignment.

I drive around on autopilot for a while, trying to brainstorm. We’re supposed to capture
life
. Could Mr. Harrison have been any more vague?

As usual I don’t really have a clue what I’m doing. Which becomes evident when I pull to a stop at the Carson cemetery.

Natalie’s grave is a quarter-mile walk from the gate. I wander slowly up the path, reading names and dates as I go along. I stop and take a few shots of a row of gravestones, silhouetted in the rising sun. A new day, a fresh start.

Mr. Harrison will eat it up.

I pop the lens cap back on and thread my arm through the camera strap so it crosses my body. She’s just up ahead.

I kneel down a few feet back from the tombstone and set my camera bag beside me. It always felt a little silly to me, talking to someone who isn’t there. I don’t know what it was like when Declan visited with his dad, but whenever we came here together, he’d spend the whole time catching Natalie up on his life. The way he spoke to her made me forget to be embarrassed. But once he was gone, and we were over, I lost the courage to speak to her on my own.

“Sorry I haven’t visited much lately,” I say in a soft voice. “I don’t think my mom’s been able to come see you for a while either. But you probably already know she’s sick.” I pick a lone dandelion and twirl it around. I should have brought her flowers. Declan and Mom always do, when they visit. “Bridget has been amazing; she keeps sending over casseroles faster than we can eat them. And she’s been helping Mom deal with chemo and stuff.” I drop the dandelion. “But I know they both miss you. We all miss you.”

I sit back and hug my legs to my chest. Stare at her name.
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER.

Everything would be so much better if she were here. Declan would be happier. And we might still be together, too.

I tuck my chin and rest my forehead on my knees, closing my eyes and breathing as deeply as I can. It’s useless wondering what would have happened if Natalie had survived that accident. I can’t be sure Sadie’s stupid game of Truth or Dare would have worked, or whether we really would still be together if Natalie were alive today.

All I know is we were never just a couple. We didn’t suddenly stop hanging out together with Cory. Our history and friendship was inextricable from what we became. But being friends first didn’t make the transition any easier. It didn’t settle the butterflies in my stomach when he touched someplace new. Didn’t keep me from accidentally biting his lip once when we kissed, or from worrying about saying the wrong thing. But it did mean we knew how to read each other.

We communicated in eye contact and gentle touches as much as with words. And that’s what we lost when he left. Neither of us was as good at communicating over the phone. We never had to be before then.

A twig snaps behind me. I spin around and find Declan standing a couple yards back. I turn and wipe quickly under my eyes, and then stand to face him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. He doesn’t have a camera with him, and is instead clutching a bouquet of daisies.

“I’m sorry.” I look at the grave again. “I was just taking some pictures and thought I’d say hi.”

His forehead wrinkles. He bounces the stems of the flowers against his leg.

“Um . . . I’ll leave you alone.” I grab my bag and turn to go.

“Hold on,” he says. He frowns again and steps toward me. “You don’t have to leave.”

I get the feeling it’s the warmest welcome I’m going to receive. “Okay.”

He nods and sets the flowers at the base of his mom’s grave. He slumps down, leaning back onto his palms. His T-shirt is wrinkled and his hair is mussed all over his head, like he rolled out of bed and left without combing it. Or maybe he had trouble sleeping too.

After a moment, I sit beside him, folding my arms back around my legs.

“This was nice of you. To visit.”

I scratch my arm. “It’s nothing.”

He sits forward. Wipes his mouth. “It’s something to me.”

We both look straight ahead. “What should we talk about?” I ask.

“Bridget said your mom had another treatment yesterday?”

“Oh. Yeah, she did.”

“How is she?”

“Fine. Well, she says she’s fine. But she is getting poisoned on a biweekly basis, so I guess it’s all relative.” I pause. “She’s been losing a lot of weight.”

“That’s par for the course, though, isn’t it?”

“You and your golf metaphors,” I say. He grins and rocks into my shoulder. I smile a little too, unwinding now that he seems willing to speak to me again. “Anyway, I think so. But it’s stuff like that, and her hair, and the fact that she doesn’t have eyelashes anymore.” I bite my lip and shake my head. “It’s just kind of weird.”

He nods thoughtfully. “It’s been a weird summer.”

“Totally. And fast.” Too fast. Three more weeks and it will be over. Declan will be gone. “You must miss your friends from school.”

“A few, I guess.” He shrugs. “Dave is all right. But I’d rather stay here.”

This takes me by surprise. “But earlier this summer you said you really liked it there.”

He shrugs again.

“Does your dad know you want to stay?”

“He knows.”

“Because maybe if you talked to him—”

“Do you honestly think he would have sent me there in the first place if he cared at all how I feel?”

Declan picks at the grass. He twirls a blade between his fingers, and the words start pouring out of him.

“It’s like he’s punishing me. Because he never signed up to be a single parent, and now he’s stuck with me. And what really pisses me off is how he acts like he’s doing me this big favor. Because he’s gone so often for work, or he thinks I’d never be able to take care of myself, or . . . whatever his reasons are. He acts like it’s best for both of us. And nothing I do or say is ever enough to change his mind.”

“Dec, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you still felt that way.”

“Right, well, how could you have?”

It isn’t that he says it bitterly. Compared to our conversation in Cory’s kitchen, it’s practically cheerful. But the longer we’re quiet, the heavier the weight on my chest becomes. I’m only now realizing how completely alone Declan must have felt this past year, especially when it comes to grieving his mom’s death. After I talked with his dad and Cory over winter break, I assumed Declan was content, in a better place in life than he ever was with me. That I really had made the right decision ending things with him and keeping my reasons to myself. But now I don’t know what to think. The rationalization I’ve been using for the past year was based on a lie.

Everything I think to say sounds like another excuse.

I take a deep breath. “Well, I’m glad you told me.”

“Yeah, sorry to vent like that. I just get so mad.”

“You should vent! It isn’t fair that you don’t get a say, and . . .” I hesitate. Declan looks over at me. “I wish you were staying too.”

He studies me for a long moment. His eyebrows knit together, and he drops his gaze back to his hands. “Thanks.”

He leans back, settling in again. We don’t talk to Natalie. We don’t talk at all, actually. But it’s different from all the other stretches of silence this summer. It’s comfortable somehow. It feels like us again.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK, DECLAN SITS
next to me in photography.

As class is wrapping up, he turns toward me with a hopeful expression. “You doing anything after this?”

“Not that I know of.”

He grins. “We’re heading to the quarry. You should come.”

The obvious answer is
Yes, of course, because I would go anywhere with you, Declan.
But on the flip side, I promised Mom I’d do the laundry when I get home. I tell him so.

“We’ll only be gone a couple hours.” He checks over his shoulder to make sure the girls are out of earshot. “Besides, Cory has a plan to get Mackenzie to take her clothes off. It’s going to backfire beautifully. You don’t want to miss it.”

Well, I’m not made of resolve. “Okay, it’s a date.”

I regret my choice of words immediately, see them hover in the air between us like a word bubble that I want so, so badly to be able to erase.

“But not—I didn’t mean . . . You know what I mean.”

Oh God. Shut up, Harper. Shut. Up
.

He tries to hide his smile. “I’ll meet you at Cory’s, then?”

“Sure.”

I gather my stuff and practically sprint out to my car. Why? Why did I say “date”?

After speed-shaving my legs and saying a quick hello to my parents—who have become surprisingly lenient when it comes to plans that involve Cory and Declan—I’m out the door.

The guys are waiting in Cory’s driveway. Cory has faint red lines from his goggles under his eyes.

“Practice this morning?”

Cory nods. “Uh-huh.”

We have nothing left to say about it, and I’m kind of sorry I even asked. Declan clears his throat. “Looks like we’re good to go.”

He makes Cory give me the front seat again on the ride over, much to Cory’s chagrin. We park alongside Mackenzie’s Datsun and Gwen’s SUV, then follow the trail through the pines and down to the quarry where the girls are sunbathing at the rocky edge. I drop my beach bag next to Mack’s towel, which is Disney princess themed and extremely pink.

She pushes her sunglasses on top of her head and Cory crouches down to say hello.

I strip off my cover-up and stand with my hands on my hips. Under my bare feet, the granite is warm and inviting. I lay my towel down near Gwen’s and take note of her fuchsia-framed sunglasses.

She looks up from the book she’s reading to respond. “Present from Mack. She’s slowly trying to take over my wardrobe, one accessory at a time.”

“Crafty, that one.”

She grins and sticks her nose back in her novel. Declan has moved down the rocks a ways, testing the water. I take a deep breath and walk over to him.

“Cold?” I ask.

“Not too bad.”

He’s lying. I can tell by the way his lips are scrunched to one side. Plus he has goose bumps on his arm.