The air was a swamp of misery, heavy with an ominous, sullen charge that crowded the space between my boys as we neared the top of the hill. I loomed on the fringes of their silence, exhausted and somber, yet secretly riding a high nothing could touch—not my fears or insecurities, not the threat of my mother’s inevitable reaction. Not even Ben’s bleak mood.
Teddy had kissed me. All was right with the world.
The Hansen home was a shadow of silence and dark windows against the bruise-streaked sky, the fading lawn and empty driveway lit only by the cheerful glow of the porch light. Uncle Peter’s truck was gone, along with the garden tools we’d intended to fetch.
“Looks like they left.” Ben dug in his pocket, fumbled his key in the lock. “Hold on, you guys, I’ll open the garage and drive you back.”
“No worries, man. I can walk her home.”
The house key jerked almost imperceptibly, a tiny stutter against the dead bolt. “It’s cool. It’ll only take a minute, once I get this door open.”
“I said I’ll walk her.”
Teddy’s voice was a calm contrast to his eyes. They fixed on Ben, who’d gone still in the now-open doorway, ignoring the alarm system’s countdown and increasingly frantic beeps. Eight. Seven. Six.
“Um, Ben?” My eyes leaped to his hands, watched them tremble in and out of fists at his sides. “You okay?”
He turned toward us at the one count, locking eyes with Teddy as the siren wailed across the lawn. My hands smashed over my ears, but neither of them flinched. They stared each other down, the house shrieking in protest until Ben reached behind him and punched in four numbers, never breaking eye contact.
“Never been better. See you guys tomorrow.”
The door shut in our faces, before I even lowered my hands. We were still standing there when the porch light went off.
“What the hell was that about?”
I figured the question was fair enough, all things considered, but Teddy shrugged, keeping pace with me on the downhill slope toward the woods. I blew an exasperated breath upward, scattering my bangs. “Why does no one tell me anything?”
“It’s guy stuff. Nothing you need to worry about. But hey—” His grin flashed white in the rising moon, sending a thrill through my spine as we stepped onto the trail. “Do you have to get back?”
“Not right away. I can make time for—ow.” I stumbled over a rock, catching myself on a nearby tree. “Goddamn it. Do you have your flashlight?”
“Yeah, hold on.” He fumbled with his key chain, then his face appeared, illuminated by a tiny gleam. “You okay? Come sit with me.”
We settled against a tree trunk, closer than we’d have dared a year, or even a week, before. Teddy stuck the penlight in the dirt like a candle, the slim, white beam breaking the shadow between us. His lighter flared, cloaking his face in a sultry orange glow as he lit a cigarette. My breath stuttered, so afraid he’d catch my helpless, hopeless stare with his own. So afraid he wouldn’t.
“Are those Ben’s?” I asked. He nodded, a cackle escaping his mouth on a cloud of smoke as I shook my head. “That’s just wrong. He practically tore apart the cove looking for them.”
“Finders keepers. He owes me a pack, anyway—did the exact same shit to me last week. Couldn’t find your sketches, though, unfortunately. Want one?”
“You know I don’t smoke.”
“All for the best if you don’t start, really. Shouldn’t have even offered.”
“I’m not into cancer, thanks. And my mother definitely would not approve.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking your mother ‘would not approve’ of a lot of things.” He paused. His eyes slid my way, hesitant and hopeful. “Does that matter?”
The distance between us seemed very small as I made my choice. A smile crept slowly over his face as I shook my head, reached to touch his cheek, neither of us breaking the gaze we’d been putting off all our lives. It held all the answers I’d ever need.
“So,” he finally said. “One more day until you leave me.”
“One more day. I’ll miss you, you know. I always do.”
“Yeah.” He absorbed that, a tiny crease splitting his brow as he looked away. “Gotta get through another year, I guess. SATs, all that shit. College prep, like college is a thing for me.”
“It doesn’t have to be, but if that’s what you want, there are ways—loans, grants, work study. Academic scholarships.”
“Huh. Those. Does it count if my ‘academics’ are pretty much fucked, or is there a special fund for guys who have to pick between homework and rent money?”
“God. I don’t know; it’s all different.” I studied my fingers, tripping over the edge in his voice. His mood had skidded sideways, soured all at once at the mention of the future. Why was he being like this—why was he determined to shoot down even the faintest suggestions of possibilities? “What they’d require depends on where you go, and your field of study.”
“The only field I know anything about is the one I mow. No idea what I’d study even if I did manage to get in somewhere halfway decent.”
“Figure it out when you get there,” I persisted. “Get a two-year degree first, or find a trade school. Join the army, if it comes to that. Anything to escape.”
“Maybe. I mean, someone like me would basically be cannon fodder, but at least I’d die somewhere other than River Run, huh? Progress.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
I fidgeted at his answering silence, clicked the flashlight on and off and on again, dropping it in the dirt when his hand closed over mine. His low voice worked its way across the world to find me.
“I guess it won’t be so bad, sticking around. Benny won’t be lonely, at the very least.”
“You think that’ll be enough, when you hate it here? Ben means well, but you can’t stick around for his sake.”
“I’m not.”
His meaning turned from air to water, froze between us, solid and clear. He wasn’t staying for Ben. But he wasn’t leaving, either.
“That’s not your responsibility, Teddy.”
“Well, I don’t see anyone else around here stepping in to handle shit, so yeah—it is. She is.”
“For how long, though? She’ll finish school, get out on her own, and then what? It’ll be too late for you to start from scratch.”
“As long as she has a chance, it’ll be worth it.”
“So that’s it? You’ll do what—cut my grandma’s grass forever? Haul rocks at the quarry? You have to think further ahead than that. You have to—”
“It’s not up to me, okay? You have no idea what it’s like, doing the same damn thing every day of my life. It’s like circling a fucking drain, and never quite making it to the pipe.”
“That’s exactly why you have to leave,” I pressed. “So you have a chance for something better. There’s nothing here for you.”
“There’s nothing here for Nat, either. Which is why I can’t take the risk.” He took a final drag on his cigarette, stubbed out the end, and tipped his head back, sharing his smoke with the sky. “You don’t get it, Amy. You’re going to art school, for fuck’s sake.”
“Um, yeah? What’s wrong with art school?”
“Nothing. It’s everything you want, and there’s nothing holding you back. We should all be so lucky, huh?”
Silence followed on the heels of those words, building like bitter fog between us. He wasn’t yelling; he wasn’t even frowning. Still, I flinched at the resentment in his voice, and the knack he had of making money the center of everything. The way he dismissed even hypothetical success, like he didn’t see the point in more than a wish. As for his apparent disdain concerning my schooling—how was I supposed to fix that? Did he expect me to downgrade my goals, or pass up opportunities for the sake of fairness? Was I supposed to settle for less simply because he didn’t have more?
I watched him carefully, wondering which of the choice phrases crowding my mouth would best express my feelings without crushing his, and was about to say fuck it and just let loose, when he beat me to the punch.
“I looked up some of those places, you know. The top colleges for the arts—the best of the best. And for what they charge? For your sake, Amy, there’d better not be a damn thing wrong with any of them.”
“Duly noted,” I said, further bristling at his tone. “But if this is going to be a long-term issue, now’s the time to get it out. You’re right—I have money, and I’m going to art school, and I have the chance to be great, if I can. Taking that chance doesn’t make me an asshole, not when you know you’d do the same in my place.”
“No, I actually can’t say I would—because if I had in my pocket what they want for just a year at that one in Rhode Island? That’s an AA degree or vo-tech for me and Nat both, maybe more if we play it right. That’s groceries and clothes, and my own car with gas in the tank, which might mean a job that doesn’t leave me beat at the end of the day. And after all that I’d still have enough left to pay like, four years’ rent on the trailer—four entire years, Amy. You really don’t get it, do you?”
I glared at him through the flashlight beam, face flushing at his dismissive words. Like I was so far up my own ass I’d just never noticed we had outbuildings bigger than his home? For all Ben’s family lorded their status over the region, Uncle Peter’s quarry fortune didn’t approach my parents’ earnings—a point of contention between my mother and aunt that topped the list of verboten dinner conversation topics. My family’s wealth was hardly a secret, but Teddy, as much as he’d apparently stewed over the disparities in our lives, had never even left Kentucky—it was hard to imagine him fully grasping the gap between what passed for rich in River Run and the offhand opulence of the DC suburbs, where my upbringing was standard rather than elite. Was he more keenly aware of that imbalance than I’d thought? Or did it hurt him regardless, in ways I’d never guessed?
My teeth clenched over a reckless retort; I swallowed it down and made myself listen for once, instead of biting back. Made myself hear his frustration and his needs, the way they overlapped at the absence of things I’d never had to miss. That he had to consider every dollar spent just to have basics like gas and food had never really sunk in; I’d certainly never been faced with the choice of one over the other. It had never even occurred to me to worry.
“I do get it,” I began, voice soft. “I know I’ve had so much handed to me that you never did, but it takes more than money to get as far as I plan to go—and none if it would matter if I didn’t put in the work, so—”
“Work? You mean work like picking weeds out of the dirt, or driving that lawn mower all over hell and back? Tearing down goddamn branches in hundred-degree weather until you puke, then getting up the next day and doing it all again? You never worked like that a day in your life, and you never will—and that’s what I mean when I say you don’t get it. That kind of money would change everything about my life. Or, you know. I could go and learn to draw real pretty.”
It didn’t take much to withdraw from him. He let my hand slip away without a fight, then doubled down, turning his face away like there was something to see in the dark beyond the trees. I sat there like an asshole, blinking hard, burning with the sting of his words. He was right—I’d never known the hardship he saw as normal. But I’d also never judged him, or flaunted my money in his face, so what was up with the personal attack? My art, though clearly something less than vital to him, had been my constant since before we’d met. It had soothed and consumed me, given me purpose and brought me joy. It had kept me going through too many long, lonely years to be so casually mocked by one of the few people I’d thought had understood. And now he sat there glaring into the night, like he was waiting for an apology. Did I owe him one anyway, even after what he said? What was left for me to “get” about his life that I could actually help him fix?
“I’m sorry it’s not easier on you,” I said, trying like hell to keep my voice level, “but I’m not what’s holding you back. Give yourself a chance, at least, before getting mad at me for things that aren’t my fault.”
“I’m not mad,” he muttered, reaching for my hand once more. Waiting until my fingers curled around his before meeting my eyes. “Not at you. And your work… I know. I know it’s great, and it’s everything to you, and I honestly didn’t mean to talk shit about it. I’m sorry it came off that way. I think it’s awesome you get to live your dream—you’ll be amazing, you won’t have to worry, and you’ll have everything you need. I want that for you, Ames.”
“I want it for you, too, and that’s exactly why I’m on your ass to leave this town. Your life won’t change itself, especially around here—and you for damn sure won’t get anywhere better if you don’t at least try.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” His laugh was low and hollow. “It’s just so much fucking harder than I thought it’d be, watching from the outside. Knowing what you’ll accomplish and what your art could mean to people who see it, but also knowing I can’t be a part of that. Knowing you belong in that perfect world—and I just won’t. Ever.”
“It won’t be perfect. Not if the person I belong with gets left behind.”
The words left my mouth before I knew they existed. His hand tightened around mine as he ran his thumb over my knuckles, suddenly soft. Suddenly something.
“Amy—”
My fingers linked with his, answering his unasked question; we began for real in that moment, beyond words, beyond our earlier kisses. Shifted from two to one, almost without thought.
“I tell you, girl,” he said, voice caught between a smile and a sigh. “If I did have that money, I’d be out of here on the first flight to anywhere else, as far as I could go. Take you with me, and never look back.”
“I’m in. When do we leave?”
“As soon as your grandma pays me that king’s ransom she owes me for the lawn work, we should be all set.”
The night swelled around us, thick with cricket songs and late summer mist, as the moonlight caught his profile and my breath in the same silver glow. In that moment, I’d have done it. I’d have trampled over every last one of our dreams and disappeared into the night beside him, boarded the plane or train or bus without a thought. Stuck out my thumb alongside his on any road in the world.
“I’ll hold you to that, you know,” I said, breaking the silence. “If you stay, I stay, and then I’m stuck, too. You’ll have to spend your life listening to Ben and me bitch at each other over the proper liquid-to-foam ratio of a latte, or whatever. That’s no kind of future.”
“Not for you it isn’t, Amy.” He was still smiling, but the joke was long gone. “You’ll be more than fine, no matter what happens to me. The world will love you.”
The world will love you, I almost told him. I love you, I almost told him. Instead I swallowed hard, biting my lip, enduring the burn behind my eyes.
“I have to say it, though,” he continued, careless, as if we weren’t stepping off the edge of everything. “I don’t think I can ever be your friend again.”
“I know.” My fingers found the flashlight, clicked it off as I leaned in, losing us both in the darkness. “I don’t really want you to be.”
He caught me up and pulled me close, pressed his face against my neck. I breathed him, drowned in his warmth and the shudder of his sigh. Let my knees land on either side of his hips as I lowered my face to his, and when his lips found mine, leaving him was the last thought in my head.