Every Last Promise (11 page)

I've repeated it out loud, too. When I can hardly believe in the truth of it. My best friend.

“You don't know how sorry I am,” I'd said to her that Monday, still enfolded in her embrace.

“I think I do. It was hard having you gone. But now you're here and everything will go back to normal. I'll save you a
seat in Schroeder's class,” she'd promised before we parted.

And she had. So had Selena. In the classes we shared, at our old lunch table, with my old friends back on my side again, in her car when she gave me rides home from school. I could pretend no time had passed for us.

I do pretend that.

And it makes me happier than I've been in a long time.

This morning, one week after the breakfast, she got me on my horse again.

“I know you think you'll never ride like you used to, but you still belong up here.”

I greeted Caramel Star with a heavy heart, but her deep, dark eyes seemed to see through me, understanding that even though our old life of competitions and trophies was over, I still needed her to feel free, to feel home. We soared across Jen's back fields and my heart soared, because I felt like my life was finally getting back to normal again.

Now, Jen and I work together breaking in the new horse while we wait for Selena to call so we can go dress shopping for the homecoming dance next weekend.

I lead the sweet bay around the pen while Jen sits in the saddle. She looks beautiful up there. An equestrian goddess, even though she's in ragged jeans and a T-shirt, not her competition blazer and smart black helmet.

My best friend.

“If the heat holds, maybe we can get strapless dresses,”
she says, letting the reins dangle over her thighs.

I laugh and kick up some dust. “Like we weren't going to anyway.”

When Jen smiles, a deep dimple pokes her right cheek. Her eyes sparkle. Her hair glows. That might just be the way the sun backlights her head, but it might also be the way I view her now. As something precious I almost lost forever.

I lead the horse out of the enclosure and lean against the white board fence while Jen puts her away. It's warm enough for short sleeves during the day, but still cool once night falls. I grip my upper arms. The grasses sprawling out behind the barns are dotted with late-season dandelions. Squirrels zip from tree to tree in preparation for a long winter.

The air smells fresh. Light. The back of my neck warms. Contentment is almost thorough.

Then a door slams. Jay stands on the back deck, squinting in our direction. His shirt is gray, almost matching the color of the house, with its charcoal siding and white trim. Jay's been . . . cool with me since the pancake breakfast.

“Jen,” he calls. “Phone.”

Jen appears next to me, drying her hands on the front of her jeans. “That'll be Selena.”

After dress shopping, we plan on settling in for a sleepover, like we always used to. Before I left, it would be four of us snuggling under layers of blankets. Now, as we walk back to the house to talk to Selena on the phone, I want
to hear Jen's side of the story. How four became three. “What changed with us, Jen?”

She pulls her hair out of the ponytail and runs her fingers through to loosen it while she thinks.

“You and me?” she says, and I want to correct her. No, me and you and Selena and
Bean
, but she rushes on before I can say anything, as though her feelings are a river undammed. “The worst part of what you did was leaving, you know. I mean, what happened to Steven was horrible. But it was an accident. Leaving made you seem . . . guilty. Like you did something wrong. On purpose. Or there was some secret you were running from. Or even like . . . you didn't trust me.” Her chin quivers, and when she turns to me, I see her eyes swimming with hurt. Betrayal. “That's the first time I've said that. Like, realized that's what really hurt. You didn't have enough faith in me that I would be here for you. After everything we've been through. How could you think I would turn my back on you like that?”

I blink rapidly. “I just thought you'd be angry. Jay's your brother. And your mom . . .”

“I am
not
my mother.” She bites her lip, her eyes flickering to the windows at the back of her house.

I know Jen and the tangle of decisions she has to make: what to do to gain favor with her parents, what to do to pull away and show them she doesn't care what they think. It makes me wonder, even more, what she knows.

“You and me, we're basically sisters. Or something better. And yeah, he's my brother, but he walked away that night, you know? You wouldn't think it, the way he's been babied. His oh-so-precious arm is fine after all that physical therapy.”

“I'm pretty sure you're the only one who thinks that.”

“Jay wasn't a perfect QB before the accident. People
love
to forget that. Remember . . .” Her voice falters. She starts to say something but pauses again and shakes her head, as though she's thinking of one memory, but changes to something different at the last second. “Remember when he got sacked twenty yards back from the line of scrimmage last year? What a mess. I guess . . . now they have someone other than him to blame when he screws up. Easier to get pissed at you than at their god. But that will go away.”

Jen shrugs, but the gesture can't erase the responsibility the town has put on my shoulders. And it wasn't just Jay. A boy
died
in that accident. That lingers, even if he wasn't the star of the team. Even if he wasn't from a wealthy, influential family like the Brewsters.

“Okay, but . . .” I turn the conversation to what happened with Bean when I was gone. “What's going on with Bean?”

Jen's fingers freeze and fall to rest on the back of her neck. She breathes through her nose. After a long exhale, she slowly unfolds her hands. “Bean . . . changed over the summer. Found new friends and ditched us,” she says carefully.

“Weird,” I say, and there are a million reasons why it's
weird and almost as many reasons why it's not.

“It all started the night of the party, really.”

“It did?”

Jen looks at me, considering.

I let my eyes widen slightly, just enough to be curious but not guilty of knowing more than I should. They don't convey the way my blood vessels are shrinking, tightening and depriving my brain of oxygen in anticipation of her next words. Of learning what Jen knows about that night.

“I almost forgot. You don't remember.” She says that last bit forcefully, as though commanding something I've already proven I'm willing to give.

I swallow and look at the ground. Here, the dirt of the ring and broken growth around the barns gives way to the lush, thick grass of the Brewsters' yard.

“Right,” I say.

Dad's driving in on his tractor, heading to the house for dinner. I finish pulling out one of the rusted screws holding in the old oarlocks and turn off the drill.

“How's repairs?” he asks as he shuts off the engine and climbs down.

“Really good. The new oarlocks just came in and I finished the exterior sanding this morning.” I tick off my accomplishments on my fingers. “I have to finish the interior sanding, but all the seats and skeleton make it take longer.”

“I'd help more if I wasn't so busy.”

If he wasn't trying to avoid me. “It's all right. I got this.”

He surprises me when he says, “How about we do that sanding this weekend?”

“I think I'd like that.” I clear my throat. “But . . . probably not? I have a lot going on this weekend. Don't think there'll be time.”

“That's right. Last homecoming game of high school for you. It's a big night.” Dad picks up a dirty rag from the seat of the tractor then wipes the back of his arm across his forehead. “Kayla,” he says. “Can I ask you something?”

I look up at Dad, at his serious face. I don't really want to answer questions from him. Maybe because I can't predict what they'll be. Or maybe because what I need from him isn't questions but an explanation. Did he really send me away because he was scared for me or because he was ashamed of me? I sigh. “I'm not sure I'll know the answer.”

“Well, that's fair warning. But I'm going to ask anyway.” He pauses. “How did you end up in a car with Jay Brewster and Steven McInnis?”

I frown and twist a piece of hair around my finger. I stuff my hands in my back pockets and squint. “Jen and I had a fight that night. About where she's going to college. And how I don't want to go with her.” I pause, but Dad keeps folding his rag into fourths like I haven't said anything at all. A lone hawk circling overhead shrieks at us. “After that
I walked away to get some space.”

“So you went for a drive.”
In someone else's car
, he doesn't say.

“I don't . . .” I swallow and Dad picks up on my hesitation, eager to close a little bit more the gap that grew between us after that night.

“Must feel pretty bad not remembering.”

I let him believe that's the reason I didn't finish my sentence. I want that gap closed, too.

“Maybe I don't . . . want to,” I hedge.

Dad looks down at the rag. “What I really mean . . . what I really want to know . . . is if you're okay. Just . . . Steven wasn't always the finest character, from what I'd always understood.” I follow Dad to the shed, where he tosses the rag atop a pile of dirty ones. “And Jay Brewster likes to test what he can get away with sometimes. A boy like that will.”

I stiffen. Pull a splinter of loose wood from the corner of Dad's workbench.

“You're one of the few people around here who thinks that.”

“You'd think that, wouldn't you? With the way some folks get so caught up in that team. But this is a whole town of people and we're not all the same. I know that. That's why I made sure you went to Bea's.”

I dig the splinter under my fingernail, wincing at the sharp stab of pain. “Because of how people treated you after
that night. Because of what I did. Who I hurt. I'm sorry, Dad.”

“It was never about me. I should have told you right off the bat why I wanted you to go to your Aunt Bea's. I'm the one who's sorry. For not making that clear.”

For the first time since I've been home, I look my dad in the eye. The truth of what he's saying is written there. And the realization that I needed his explanation and apology all along is written in my heart. “Thank you. For wanting to protect me.”

He laughs a little and I duck my head, realizing how my words sound. Like I doubted him. But he lets it go. “Coming in for dinner?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I just want to finish getting the oarlocks off. I only have one more to go.”

Dad nods and I pick up the drill again, pressing the trigger over and over again until I've drowned out the sound of that night.

CALEB FOUND ME DURING
my free period on Thursday, sitting on the hill and doodling in an old notebook.

“What are you doing here?” I said to him. Yesterday was the last day for seniors, and the way he'd been dismantling everything in his bedroom and talking nonstop about the summer camp counselor job he'd scored made it clear to our entire family that he couldn't wait to get out of town.

“You should ditch the last couple of periods and hike Point Fellows with me,” Caleb said. He motioned to my sneakers. “You look ready to go.”

“There's a party in my French class next period,” I said. “Madame Lechat said she was bringing cheese and pastries.”

“So? I'm leaving soon. You would turn down time spent with your favorite brother for
cheese
? I'm hurt.”

“You're my only brother,” I said.

But I squinted in the general direction of Point Fellows. The air had that soft spring afternoon quality to it, when the rays of the sun were blurred into a watercolor painting by dust and dampness. The sunset, when it came, would be layer upon layer of lavender and pink and orange. Caleb headed out in a week. Our moments together were limited.

I closed my notebook and stood. “Okay.”

I followed Caleb to his truck, tossing my backpack in before climbing up. He'd scrubbed the truck spotless a few days ago and it smelled almost sickly sweet inside; a purple deodorizer hung from the rearview mirror. A swift pain struck my chest. Caleb was a notorious slob. Cleaning his truck was a statement of change.

I watched Caleb as we sat behind a tractor that had backed up cars five deep on the road to Point Fellows. It looked like he'd gone several days without handling a razor and months since getting a haircut. Still, his jaw looked sharper, and he'd taken to wrinkling his forehead so that a couple of lines emerged across it. Looking at my brother ready to head off into the world made me feel oddly young.

The tractor finally pulled to the shoulder of the road and all the cars behind it zoomed by. We raced down a road that hardly saw any other traffic, and when we pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead, knew we would have time to kill before sunset. I ambled behind Caleb for the first few hundred yards, kicking pebbles at the heels of his shoes, then we slowed as the incline grew steeper.

At the clearing at the end of the trail, I picked the first opened dandelions of the season and sat next to Caleb on the edge of the bluff, our feet dangling over, and blew the wispy seeds out over the river and valley below.

He took several long, deep breaths like he was filtering all of home through his lungs, holding on to what he loved
and letting go of what he couldn't keep, and said, “I'm going to miss you, Kayla Koala.” I smiled briefly at the nickname only he called me. A reference to the mangled-by-love koala stuffed animal Caleb had given me when I was a toddler. “I'm going to miss a lot about this place.” He jingled his keys in his left palm. I relieved another dandelion of its seeds. “There are some things I won't miss.” And I thought about how far we were from major airports and our lack of dance clubs and how there were only so many girls in town. All the things I was sure Caleb wouldn't miss. “Small towns are funny places,” he went on. “Filled with people who know everyone. No places to hide.”

I gave him a look. “What have you been reading lately?”

“We're the same.” He went on as though I hadn't said anything. “We love this place so hard. Our lungs are as full of the dirt of this place as they are the air.” He looked at me, his eyebrows narrowing as he considered what to say next. The dancing smile I always associated with Caleb was missing. “But I'm glad to be leaving.”

This intense side of Caleb gave me chills. I crushed the dandelion stems between my fingers and the bluff's dry dirt. It was hard to tell if he was telling me how happy he was to leave because he wanted to make his leaving, his changing our family dynamic, easier on me and Mom and Dad, or because he needed to make it easier on himself. Put distance between himself and a place he loved as much
as I did. Make leaving bearable.

He unclenched his jaw and softened his hand enough that his keys fell out and onto the ground. An old Caleb smile fought its way through. “New adventures, right? I'll miss you, Kayla Koala,” he repeated. “You've always kept me good. When I think about doing something, I ask myself, what would my little sister think of me if I do this? What kind of example am I setting?”

I smiled. “That's shocking because you've done some stupid things.”

“Just think of the stupid things I haven't done!”

“Like what?”

“I don't want to sully your pristine memory of me by telling.”

I snorted. “I have a few choice words to describe you if you'd like to hear—”

“Hey, now,” he interrupted. He nudged my shoulder with his and I had to throw my arm out to keep my balance. I pushed back, but he just bit off a laugh and scratched at his cheek stubble. “I wouldn't believe what you'd say anyway. I know how awesome you really think I am.”

I gave him a soft smile. He was leaving soon. “What makes you think my descriptions wouldn't have been awesome?”

“Aw, Koala.” A flush ran up his neck. For a quiet moment, we watched the sky change. Caleb broke the moment when
he took a long breath and I looked at him. His shoulders were tense, but he dropped his chin and his whole body slumped with it. “I'm not always awesome, though.”

The tone of his voice kept me from cracking another joke. Instead, I waited.

He raised his head again. A light flickered in his eyes. The same hazel mishmash of green and gray and yellow as mine. We could see a long way from the top of Point Fellows, but he seemed to be looking even farther than was possible. Into another place. Another time. “Have you ever been in a situation when you weren't sure you did the right thing?”

I shrugged. Pushed a strand of hair out of my mouth. Tasted the bitterness of dandelion stem on my lip. “I guess.”

He shook his head. “No, I mean . . . a time when maybe it was easier to believe you
weren't
supposed to do something even though you probably should have? And you convinced yourself inaction was the same as not doing harm when really . . .” His fingers fidgeted along the seams of his jeans, but my body was still. There was more he wanted to say, something important he needed to relieve himself of, maybe. But the funny thing was that, just like he said, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it, even though I probably should want to. It was the way his secret, if that's even what it was, felt so heavy.

“Are Mom and Dad okay?”

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “They're fine.” He shook his head, swung his legs back onto solid ground, and held a hand
out to help me to my feet. “It's nothing. What I'm trying to say is . . . keep cool while I'm gone, okay?”

I stared at Caleb's hand for a beat before taking it. There was something new about Caleb. Something damaged. I flipped through the events of the past few months, trying to think of when the change began but couldn't pinpoint a specific moment.

“Don't worry. I'll keep being the superhero,” I said. “Fighting for what's right and good.”

“Koala suit and cape and trusty steed and all?”

I laughed, but Caleb didn't join in. “Something like that. But yeah, you can count on me to be the good one.”

The good one.