Every Last Promise (14 page)

“NOAH MICHAELSON GRABBED ME
after school and asked if he could bring some of his friends to the party,” I announced as I brushed gloss across my lips. “I think guys he plays music with.”

Jen paused with her mascara wand halfway to her lashes.

The big round bulbs in her bathroom made everything look so glamorous: the hot curlers in her hair, the way we sat on stools in our lacy bras and underwear, the array of makeup scattered over the bathroom counter. We were pinups.

She used the wand to separate two clumped-together lashes and shrugged. “As long as you told him we're not turning off the good music to listen to his banjo. We have enough beer to invite the whole town. Jay called Matt and Herman and got them to order a bunch of kegs.” She closed the mascara cap and tossed it across the counter. “Those losers will do anything for him. Imagine staying here after graduation and just doing . . . nothing.”

“Um, thanks?” I gave Jen a sideways look under the eyebrow pencil I held.

“I don't mean you.” Her hair hung in a pile over one shoulder. She pulled it back and up, testing hairstyles, before
letting it fall against her spine. “I just mean . . . Honestly, I'll be so glad when we get out of here and there's half a country between me and my brother.”

I dropped the pencil, wiped off with a tissue the dark red lipstick I was wearing, and tried again with a glossy, soft pink color. “Why are you so mad at Jay today?”

“When am I not?” She laughed.

I scooted closer to her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. We stared at ourselves, cuddled up, in the mirror, her narrow cheeks and pointed chin and slender arms and my rosy cheeks and square chin and arms round with muscles.

“School's out, Jen. Be happy! Jay's just . . . Jay. A little bit annoying, but what brother isn't? Remember when he stayed up all night helping you fill out valentines for the entire junior class last February? And how he always washes your car when he washes his?”

Her mouth twitched. “He sometimes does good things. True. But I don't think . . .” Jen swallowed and brought her hands to rest on my forearm. In the mirror, her eyes changed. Losing their fight and softening into something like panic. The faucet dripped twice before she spoke again.

She spoke quietly, as if her voice would shatter the mirror if she was too loud. “I think sometimes about how nice it will be to be my own person. Not Jay's twin or one of the
Brewsters. No one to tell me what to do or not to do . . .” Her laugh was so soft it almost didn't exist. “That sounds so dramatic, right? I'm just looking forward to getting to choose who to have in my life.”

“I hope you'll choose me.” I squeezed her shoulders.

The set of Jen's mouth was beginning to worry me. Or maybe it wasn't that. Not something physical I could see, but there was a tremor in the air, a feeling that her emotions had become blurry and pixelated. Confused. And hidden from me.

Something had happened and she didn't want me to know about it.

“Kayla, I will
always
choose you. I can't imagine going to college without you. You'll be my reminder of everything good about home when I get homesick. I wish you would just come with me.”

“I'll just have to send you pie when you get depressed at college.” I straightened up again and reached for the gold liquid eyeliner. She hated that I didn't want to go with her. And her hate made me feel wrong.

“You make the best pie. See? That's exactly what I mean. Any time I feel down, you're there with pie or you get my butt on a horse or you just . . . are
you
. And that's what I'm going to need. But you won't be there. You're my favorite, you know?”

I nodded airily and pulled the gold along my lower
eyelash line. “How could I not be?”

She giggled, and in a moment, the fragile mood that had settled over the bathroom dissipated like a cloud of shower steam out the window.

THE CLOUDS ARE GRAY
with unshed rain as I wait for the school bus Thursday morning. I pull my hood up. I half expect Noah to come roaring by, tossing rust flakes off the side of his truck. But then I shrink at the idea that I'm getting used to him showing up when I most want him to. Or least expect him to. I don't know how different those things are. If there are any differences.

When I step off the bus at school, the skies open. I scan the students picking up speed to get into the school before they're drenched. Just ahead of me, Bean tucks her hair behind her ear then brushes the back of her hand across her cheek. She's not walking quickly. I'm not walking at all. My hoodie isn't doing much of a job keeping out the rain. Neither are my shoes. Water trickles down the back of my neck and soaks into my socks.

I sprint across the lawn to catch Bean before she enters the school, knowing conversations like this are easier outside where fewer people are paying attention, where words disappear into the wind whipping our bags and clothes, blowing someone's homework into the parking lot.

But before I can catch her, she mounts the one step and disappears into the building. It's five minutes before first bell
and the hallways are crowded. My shoes squeak. I stick close to Bean, falling into step behind her. She stops abruptly at her locker and I bump into her.

“We were close,” I blurt out. “What happened?” She hasn't turned around, so she misses the way I cringe at my words and sink back into myself until I feel my heels scrape the backs of my shoes. What a stupid thing to say when I, too, have been avoiding Bean. To confront her about friendships when I've managed ours so poorly makes me a hypocrite.

What I really mean to say is
You never told the police. Never filed a report. Dumping old friends is suspicious. Changing our patterns, acting out of turn . . . all those things that are supposed to clue people in that something is wrong. And since no one's picked up on that or they're ignoring that or . . . something . . . that means that not telling is what we've decided, right? To go along like nothing happened? Right?
Right?

She spins the lock open and faces me. The redness around her eyes gives her away and my heart shrinks. It wasn't the rain she was wiping away. “Nothing. We're fine.”

“We're not,” I say softly. “Not you and me. Not . . . any of us.”

There's an ache growing in my chest. Slow to spark, steady in building, then, suddenly, roaring. Painful, licking flame.

We were four. We were four in one town with one winding river and a diner with sweet rolls the size of our heads. We
were
.

Her eyes start to flicker: to the left, over my shoulder, toward the entry doors.

The wind howls through, keeping the doors open without anyone holding them, and I realize that in my longing for Jen's friendship again and my desperation to put that night last May out of my thoughts, that I've neglected one of the four. The one who needs me the most. The one I need the most.

“Maybe we could do something next . . .” I trail off as her eyes lock on something behind me.

I already know who I'll see standing there when I turn around, but I do it anyway to see Jen watching us with a blank expression, and when I catch her eye, I can't read anything there. Selena is next to her, looking suspicious. It's that moment I stop caring, though. What Selena might think. Whether or not Jen would approve of my snooping. There's something about realizing how cowardly Caleb and I have been that's lit the tiniest flame of courage inside me. That makes me believe I can fight to keep all of my friends.

I look at Bean again. “I came home, but so much changed while I was gone, Bean.”

“People change. It happens.” Bean tugs on a curl lying over her shoulder. She looks away from Jen and Selena and stares at the contents of her locker for a moment. I'm waiting for her to give me some indication that we can close the door on the past and move forward.

And when she finally looks back at me, maybe she sees
what I want. Maybe she doesn't want to give me that. She says, “You shouldn't be asking about why.”

I want to ask her why not but I don't. I just say, “That's what Selena said.”

I see Bean's disappointment in a sudden twisting of her mouth.

But it should be worse. It should be a loud, angry scream or a cry of pain.

Bean's best friend in the world knows what happened but turned her back on Bean anyway. And yet. Bean blinks slowly, smooths the frown from her face, drops the curl around her finger, and says, “She's right, I guess. See you, Kayla.”

Bean moves down the hall and around the corner, forgetting to close her locker. I shut it and turn the dial slowly. Last year, we all knew each other's codes.

When I turn back around, Jen's walked away, but Selena still stands there, has walked closer and is watching me, chewing on the eraser end of a pencil.

“Selena,” I begin. I have nothing to follow her name with.

She cocks her head to the side. “Kayla,” she says, “I told you not to snoop.”

Then she turns away and I'm standing here alone, again.

I call Bean and leave a message when she doesn't answer.

“It's me . . . ,” I begin.

But that doesn't feel right. Like I am beyond recognition.
I start again. “It's Kayla. I thought we could go to the homecoming dance together. Want to be my date? Call me back.”

She never calls.

I believed Selena when she said Bean was the one to walk away from her friends. I would have understood why, in those first days after the accident. Now, I don't know what's going through Bean's head. Why and how she can exist, calmly, day to day, beside these people when the anger inside me feels too heavy to move, but inside her . . . it should be ferocious and explosive. Because Bean had wanted to tell—she
did
tell someone, her best friend. Bean hasn't stayed silent because she's wanted to. It's because she's had to.

I could have changed that. I still
can
change that.

Except for the fear. The fear that might be, after all, bigger than the anger I feel.

In a town that felt, for so long and in the best way possible, like nothing ever changes, things have. They changed that night and they changed while I was gone and I can't change them back to the way they were before I left. Even though I keep trying.

I don't want to be angry and I don't want to be afraid. Not of my own home.

I lie in the boat and drink orange soda, waiting for Jen to come pick me up for the homecoming carnival. After the storm passed, the sky became clear and sunshiny again.

I text Noah.
Are you going to the carnival?

Who is this?
he texts back. Then,
Just kidding. Probably going.

Yesterday, at school, I caught Noah's eye as we walked in opposite directions down the hallway. My breathing picked up as he came nearer to me. His washed-out orange T-shirt was printed with a cartoon moose. It stretched nicely across his shoulders. I stopped walking, preparing to say something to him, but Jen grabbed my wrist to pull me along. So Noah and I passed each other wordlessly. But I could see the question in his eyes. His wondering if, since I have my old friends back, he is out of the picture.

Out of my life.

I don't want him to be.

I want him and everyone else. That's why I came back. That's what I've worked for.

And I want Bean back, too. So why does she stay away from me—as though we hadn't both decided to keep our secrets? As though we aren't
both
pretending nothing's wrong?

Maybe I'm only trying to convince myself that we're pretending. Maybe the world would split in half if Bean knew I remembered everything from that night.

Of course she's not friends with Jen and Selena anymore. Or me.

How can she even look at us without feeling ill?

I am so still that I feel the earth spinning under me. A
wave of dizziness blackens my vision. I sit up and lean over the edge of the boat so that my orange puke hits the grass instead of my boat.

Just when back-to-school month is winding down, the events pick up with a fever: the carnival tonight, dance tomorrow night, and then, finally, the big game Saturday against Highland Hills, the crappiest team in the state. Homecoming is always scheduled when the team with the worst record the previous season comes to Winbrooke. A guaranteed win keeps the alumni who travel back home once a year feeling like it was worth their time.

I zip up a hoodie to ward off the cool breeze running across the school courtyard at the carnival. It smells good. Everything. The lingering dampness and the air heavy with earth and food booths and the bales of hay used as seating.

“The lineup for the kissing booth sucks,” Selena says as she and I wait for Jen to finish her shift in the dunk tank. “Why even bother?”

I shrug and examine the pink-and-orange hedgehog-looking stuffed animal I won at the balloon race in Game Alley. I've always been good at fair games. Its eyes are crooked, but I like the imperfection.

“Kissing booths are gross. All that germ swapping. Ick.”

Selena raises an eyebrow at me. “I guess it's a good thing I only date college guys, then.”

“Right, because
they're
known for keeping their germs to themselves.”

“Does your brother keep his germs to himself?” Her eyes flick over my shoulder. “I forgot how cute he is.”

I turn my head and see Caleb trying to flip rubber frogs onto lily pads floating in a kiddie pool of water. Eric, who I've seen a couple of times at my house since Caleb came home, is standing next to him with that hero-worshipping expression he always uses when he looks at my brother. But Caleb is a lackluster hero. He misses the lily pad every time, passes over more money, and keeps missing, whooping and hollering it up each time a frog lands in the water, just like the old Caleb would. He's starting to gather a crowd.

“What happened to Dan?” I ask.

“I'm not known for keeping my germs to myself, either.” Her smile is pure naughty girl.

I roll my eyes and drag Selena toward the food booths. “I'm hungry. Corn dogs, root beer, and funnel cakes or death!”

“You mean corn dogs, root beer, funnel cakes,
and
death.” She giggles, holding her belly.

“You think
that's
bad? Your cute Caleb always gets deep-fried Ding Dongs.”

Her sound of disgust is accentuated by the roar of the crowd as Caleb, finally, lands a lily pad.

We walk up and down the booths and, food in hand,
enter the football stadium and climb the bleachers until we're happy with our view. A farmer in a baseball cap sips punch from a red plastic cup a couple of rows down. Some freshman boys from school balance on the railing at the very top of the bleachers, showing off for their girlfriends sitting below them. A few guys on the football team toss the ball around below us. The breeze plays with my ponytail. Point Fellows is a blur in the distance.

I breathe in and out slowly.

Selena's mouth is full of funnel cake.

I take a huge bite of corn dog and mustard. When I swallow, I set my plate on the seat next to me. “Jay was drunk that night.”

Selena brushes her hands together and a wispy cloud of powdered sugar blows toward the stadium floor.

“At least that,” she finally says.

“So how come that didn't come out in the accident report?”

A length of hair twists around her finger slowly. “His mom's Erica Brewster. She could've made people think Steven was the one driving the car if she'd wanted to. But does it matter? Jay wasn't driving. Nothing against the law about being drunk in the passenger seat.”

I squirm at the mention of Jay's mom. Even now, she avoids looking at me when I'm at the Brewsters' house.

“Except for that whole underage thing.”

Selena laugh-coughs. “Like anyone cares.”

Jen pokes her head into the stadium, rubbing a towel over wet hair, and waves us over.

“Jen's done with the dunk tank,” I say. And then, “I think his being drunk matters. In a different way.”

“Fuck, Kayla. Boys get drunk all the time.”

It's just what boys do.

She shouldn't have been drinking. She shouldn't have walked off alone. She shouldn't have flirted with him. She shouldn't have worn that skirt.

A strain of music from several bleachers over catches my attention. A small group surrounds a boy playing a guitar. Not Noah. But suddenly, I want to find him. I scan the crowd and, after a moment, spot his wet-sand hair at the dart throw booth. He pulls his arm back and sends a dart flying. I hear a balloon pop. Or maybe I imagine the sound.

I will him to turn around and look at me. He doesn't.

“You should ask someone to the dance,” Selena says.

I did.

“No, it's too late for that,” I say.

I wonder who Noah is going with. If he's going. I wonder what he'd say if I asked him. The way he'd have to stammer out a no, trying not to hurt my feelings, because why would he want to go with a girl who seems to have ditched him at
the first sign of her old friends?

I flick a mosquito off the edge of my plate. “Let's go. Jen's waiting for us.”

We head back down, tossing our half-eaten food in the garbage, and reenter the mix of students, faculty, and alumni on the field.

“Was the water cold?” I ask Jen.

“Freezing.” Jen shudders and wraps her towel tighter around her shoulders. “Have you seen Jay?”

“I don't think he's here yet,” Selena says.

“Yeah, too much to expect he'd take a turn at the dunk tank.” Jen grimaces. A halfhearted attempt to pretend she is teasing. “Jerk.”

At a souvenir booth, Bean and her new friend Grace perform a mock fight with foam gladiator swords. My feet still; I watch them for a long time. Too long.