I’m the one whistling at work the next week. I’m not dancing around the place, but there’s no denying the lightness in my step, which makes the contrast between me and Neel that day all the more apparent.
We’re stuck digging tree holes around a mammoth backyard and instead of crooning to the plants and spinning his shovel through the air...he’s just working.
“Okay, what gives?” I ask when Eddie yells at us for no reason and Neel doesn’t say anything in response. “Are you feeling alright?” I offer to cover for him if he needs a drink in the shade for a few, but he just shrugs me off with a mumbled, “I’m fine.”
I step in front of him when he starts to move. “You’re actually not fine. Clearly.” He looks miserable and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. Besides Rebecca, I’ve never really gotten close to anyone. There was no point with everything always going on with my mom. The whole friend thing is new to me. Still, I feel like I have to try. “Hey, tell me some more about that musical guy you like, the German one who wrote all the songs.”
His eyes narrow. “German guy? You mean Irving Berlin?”
“Yeah!” I grin, relieved that I’ve gotten him talking.
“His last name isn’t where he’s from. He was Russian.” He looks at me like I’m unbelievably stupid and I feel my neck flush.
“Russian. Fine. Sorry. Wherever he’s from, what’s his best song?”
That you’re-an-idiot-look doesn’t leave his face. “What do you care? It’s not like you listened to the playlist I sent you.”
I did actually. It wasn’t my thing, but I’d promised to check it out so I had. A couple of the songs got inadvertently stuck in my head and I really enjoy his dumbfounded expression when I start to sing one.
“Blue skies, nothing but blue skies,” I point up, “do I see.” And then I improvise because I can’t remember the rest of the lyrics. “And a pissed-off guy, yelling at me.”
He doesn’t even crack a smile.
“You know what, fine. Be a dick.” I start to turn away but Neel lets his shovel drop to the ground with a thud.
“She doesn’t want me—she wants you. And it sucks. There, are you happy?”
I’m happy he’s talking to me, but it turns out that seeing your friend get his heart broken does, in fact, suck. “Sorry, man.” Then I step closer to him as the rest of what he said hits me. “Wait, did she actually tell you she wants me—”
Neel shoves me. I wasn’t expecting it at all and I end up tripping backward over my own shovel.
There’s a moment of shock on both our faces. And then instinct kicks in and I scramble to my feet and charge him.
He goes down hard but surprises me with an immediate swing at my head that I narrowly avoid. We roll, each trying to get the upper hand.
And then the water hits us.
“Get up! Get up!” Eddie is yelling as he hoses us and for once it’s warranted.
We break apart, panting and glaring, both at each other and at Eddie who sprays us both one last time in the face before turning off the water.
“Acting like animals. What does this say, huh? Right here?” He jabs me in the chest and then Neel. “Good & Green not Bad & Muddy!”
I hear a snort from my left and glance over at Neel. Seeing him struggle not to laugh is more effective than any hose at cooling my temper. My shoulders start to bounce and Neel covers his mouth with his hand. Eddie is so caught up in his lecture that he doesn’t even notice until the laughter erupts from both of us. And we can’t stop. Eddie is threatening to fire both of us on the spot or at least call my grandparents. That last part doubles me over and has Neel hooting.
Eddie brandishes his phone at us before storming off, very loudly saying my grandfather’s name so there’s no doubt who he’s talking to.
“He’s gonna get us both fired,” Neel says, laughter still making his words come out choppy.
“No,” I say, grinning. “Just me. I’ll tell them I started it.”
Neel sobers. “I’m the one who pushed you.”
I shrug. “I’m not going to let you get fired because I tripped and got angry.”
“Because I got angry first and pushed you.”
“You were upset. I get it.”
Neel shakes his head. “No, I was being a dick. I’m sorry. Rebecca is allowed to like whoever she wants and after that—” he gestures at the dirt we were just rolling around in “—I’m getting why that wouldn’t be me.”
I pluck at my stained shirt. “Not exactly Good & Green over here.”
That makes him smile, but only for a moment. “We haven’t seen each other in forever. Did she tell you?” He waits for me to shake my head. “We’ve been texting a bit but it’s not the same. All she ends up talking about is you.” There’s no hiding the hint of accusation in his voice. “When we were together before, it just kind of happened and then it stopped happening. I always just figured it would happen again, you know?” He gathers up the hem of his shirt and wrings the water out. “And now I’m finally getting that it won’t.”
I don’t say anything. He thinks I am the reason they won’t happen again or at least part of the reason. And I’m not gonna pretend I don’t want that to be true.
“What do you wanna do about it?”
“Well as fun as fighting was, I think I’m over that.”
“That wasn’t fighting,” I tell him. “You knocked me down. I knocked you down.” I shrug.
“No, no, don’t tell me that. The closest I’ve come to a fight before this is when my older sisters would pin me down and take turns tickling me. This has to count.”
I muffle a laugh. “Okay then. It was a fight.”
“That I won.”
I cock my head at him. “I’m pretty sure the hose beat both of us.”
The hose in question is still in Eddie’s hand and based on the way he’s gesticulating while on the phone, he’s definitely making our non-fight sound much worse than it was.
“I’m not gonna let you take the blame for this,” Neel says, watching Eddie too before turning to me. “And just so you know, I don’t think you’re a dick. I even get why she likes you.”
I kick a clump of wet dirt off my boot so I don’t have to look at him. “Yeah, well, we have a lot of history.”
“You know it’s more than that.” Unlike me, Neel has no problem getting right at the issue. “I care about Rebecca, and I know you do too. Just...don’t make her wait around while you’re figuring out what you want.”
I let his words linger in my mind all the way back to the warehouse where my grandfather is waiting outside to also yell at us. Much to Eddie’s disappointment though, we get to keep our jobs, though Neel’s and mine are about to become much less pleasant for a few weeks as punishment. I’m not looking forward to that.
But Neel and I are good. And according to him at least, Rebecca wants me.
Figuring out what I want isn’t the problem. It’s been the same for me since she was that scrawny kid in the rain banging on my window. I tried to pretend it wasn’t there when I first came back, but I want her more now than I ever did.
I want Rebecca. Just thinking that thought makes me feel lighter, like I’ve had this huge burden I’ve been carrying my whole life, and all this time she was there carrying it with me. And now that I see her, I don’t even notice the weight anymore.
She does that for me.
She makes me believe her when she says I have something worthwhile in my head. That I’m worth more than...the mistakes I’ve made and the life I’ve been living.
I can’t offer her anything close to that. She already knows about the possibilities for her future, but I can keep telling her that her past doesn’t keep her from deserving one.
I sat in my room last night thinking about Rebecca, staring at my wall, and reading the last few texts from Bauer. We found an old friend who claimed to have seen my mom with one of her ex’s a week ago, but that lead had turned into nothing. Bauer is still looking, but he has a job and a family, and despite him insisting that helping me is just one of the many amends he owes me, I can’t expect him to search indefinitely.
But no matter what I want, I know I can’t build any kind of a new life while the pieces of my old one are still so broken.