Time Between Us (7 page)

“Every day,” I say.

“I can’t imagine being in one place that long.” I shrink back away from him, but he props his head against his hand and fills the space I’ve just created. “I’ve traveled everywhere. I’ve seen more than most people get to see in a lifetime.” This isn’t helping. He must realize that, because he suddenly shifts gears. “But you have something I’ve never had.” His expression softens and he looks almost sad. “Deep roots. A history of a place. You’ve watched the kids you knew in kindergarten grow up right before your eyes. Aside from my parents and my sister, I feel like everyone I know is somehow”—he pauses to search for the right word—“temporary.”

It’s my turn to look sympathetic. I’ve known Justin longer than I’ve known my other friends, but I can’t imagine thinking of any of them as temporary.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to Northwestern.” He keeps smiling, so I just keep talking, like I’ve been injected with truth serum.

“God, no. At least, I hope not. I’ll apply, because everyone does, but it’s definitely my last choice.” I tell him about running and my plans for a scholarship, and he looks at me like he’s hanging on every word, and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why. But his eyes are wide with interest, and this time, when I picture my map, I decide I can tell him. “There’s also the other plan,” I say, “the one my parents don’t know about.”

He smiles excitedly. “I get a secret too?”

“Yeah, except, see, I’m actually planning to tell you the whole thing,” I say, and that makes him grin so wide his eyes narrow into little slits. “I’m thinking of taking a year off after graduation to travel. I know I’ll go to college, but I feel like I have this one window after high school, you know, to see the world.” I look down at the sofa. “But of course, my parents would never approve of this plan.”

“Why can’t you travel after college?”

Of course he’d have to ask. I’ve seen where he lives. “I’ll need to go straight to work to pay off my student loans,” I explain. “Even if I get a cross-country scholarship and financial aid or whatever, I won’t get a full ride.” His smile encourages me to continue. “I guess I’m afraid that if I don’t go soon, I never will, and I just…need to.”

He’s staring at me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re interesting.” His mouth curves into a half smile.
And beautiful
, I want to add.
Earlier, you said I was beautiful.
“I had a feeling you’d be interesting.” He watches me, and I hope he can’t tell that my stomach has started doing those damn flip-flops again.

And as I stare back at him, I realize that over the last hour I’ve let myself forget all the little—and big—things that have haunted me for the last two weeks. How he disappeared into thin air at the track that day and then denied it. How strangely he reacted the first time he heard my name. How I found him in the park that night. Even that bizarre trip to his grandmother’s house just hours ago. I don’t see what he’s learning about me that’s so interesting, but I know I’m a little too fascinated by everything I don’t know about him. I just want to complete this puzzle, but the most important pieces keep dropping on the floor, landing upside down and just out of reach.

But the questions disappear again when he reaches forward and slowly traces the line of my jaw to my chin. I close my eyes as his thumb slides toward my mouth and brushes my lower lip, and I can feel myself moving in closer, like I’m being pulled into the gravity that surrounds him. He starts to kiss me, and I close my eyes and take a little breath as I wait for the touch of his lips.

But the kiss never comes. Instead, I feel him pause. His breath travels past my cheek, and the words
I’m sorry
fill my ear in a whisper.

“About what?” I murmur.

“This.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I can’t—”

“What about daring adventures?” I hope he can hear the smile in my voice.

I feel him laugh into my neck and he sighs again. “I’m afraid I’m already on one. A different one.” I pull back to see his eyes, and wonder why he looks sad. He rubs my cheek with his thumb and pulls away from me.

He looks at his watch. “I should really get back to Maggie. Can I walk you home?”

I sink back into the chair, confused. Dejected. “That’s okay. It’s just a few blocks.”

“I’d feel terrible if something happened to you.”

“If I went missing?” I ask sarcastically. “Yeah, it sounds like you have that effect on people.” I’m still close enough to see how his face falls, and then hardens.

“Thanks.” He scoots backward, and the part of me that’s upset he didn’t kiss me feels satisfied. “I’ll be right back.” He walks toward the bathroom, leaving me alone on the couch to berate myself.

“Bennett, I’m so sorry,” I say as soon as he returns. “I was trying to be funny.”

He bends forward and picks my backpack up off the floor. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” We maneuver into our bulky jackets and walk in silence past the couches and tables and out into the street. We walk side by side, but there’s a visible gap between us. We hardly say a word for the next three blocks, and I can’t help noticing that the Bennett I just spent the last hour talking to isn’t anything like the one who’s now walking me home.

“This is mine,” I say when we arrive at my house. I watch as Bennett looks up at our nineteenth-century Craftsman, with its flaking yellow paint and wraparound porch that serves as its only exterior asset. The kitchen light is on, but there’s no activity inside, and my parents won’t be home for hours. “Do you want to—”

“No.” He cuts me off, his voice sharp. He sets my backpack on the ground by my feet. “Look, you were right…about what you said back there.” His voice is softer now, but it’s almost like he’s forcing it to sound that way.

“Oh, come on. I was kidding.” I try to get him to lighten up, but he stuffs his hands into his pockets and refuses to look at me. I didn’t think my comment was that insulting, but it was enough to send him into the bathroom as one person and emerge as a completely different one. The first one was just about to kiss me. This one can’t wait to get away.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

I step closer and give him a flirty smile, hoping I can bring back the Bennett from the coffeehouse. “I know two of your secrets.” Something about that near-kiss in the coffeehouse makes me feel brave enough to reach forward and grab on to the lapels of his wool coat. “That’s got to be good for something. Isn’t it?”

He moves in close to me, just like he did on the couch, but this time his face is tight and he stops far short of my lips. He reaches up and grabs hold of my wrists to remove them from his lapels, and I reflexively loosen my grip. His expression turns even colder.

I can’t believe my comment has offended him so much. “What’s wrong with you?”

He takes a big step backward. “Listen. This is
not
going to happen again. Do you understand, Anna? This,” he says, motioning back and forth between us, “is not going to happen this time.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about! What do you mean ‘this time’?”

“Nothing.” He crosses his arms tight across his body and stares right into my eyes. “Look. I’ll be here for another two weeks, and only because I don’t have a choice. Then I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again. So please, go back to your life.” He turns on his heel and I watch him march off through the snow.

Thirty-five days. Bennett’s been in town for thirty-five days, which, by my definition of a calendar month, means he should have left town four or five days ago. Yet when I walk into Spanish each day, he’s still here. We’ve barely spoken since the night in the coffeehouse three weeks ago, and he never looks at me; if our eyes do accidentally connect, he gives me a perfunctory smile, and I avert my gaze. But everything about that night still haunts me, and I can’t quite figure out how he’s still managing to turn my world upside down while simultaneously allowing it to stay exactly the same.

“I have news!” Argotta sings, beaming and spreading his arms wide. He glances around the room, holding all of us hostage with his words, and we stare at him as he walks back to his desk and sits on the edge of it. “How many of you have heard about my Annual Travel Challenge?”

A few of us raise our hands. “Good,” he says. “Well, this year, even
you
will be surprised. Because this year, I have a really big, very exciting reward.”

He hops down off the desk and pulls on a long tab marked
MEXICO
. The giant, color-coded map of the country unrolls from its home in the ceiling. “But first, let me tell you about the assignment. Each of you will be planning a fabulous two-week vacation in Mexico. You must depart from our lovely O’Hare International Airport, but you can land anywhere you like. From there, you must create an itinerary that will allow you to see as many Mexican destinations as you can in fourteen days. The person who creates the most logical, interesting, and cost-effective travel plan will win the challenge.”

He walks forward to the front of the room and stops. “Sound good?” Twenty heads nod in unison. “Great. Travel plans are due next Monday—a week from today.” He turns his back to the class and erases the whiteboard.

The room is silent. We look around at one another. Finally, Alex clears his throat and raises his hand.

Argotta spins around and throws his arms up in the air. “Oh, wait a minute!” He walks back and forth in front of the class, grinning. “I bet,” he says slowly, drawing out each word, “you want to know what you get if you win, right?” He stands there at the front of the room nodding and smiling while we nod back at him. Alex lowers his arm.

“Of course, of course.” He paces his words to build tension in the room. “I have this friend, you see, who works for one of the major airlines.” I bet he’s practiced this all morning in front of the bathroom mirror. “I told this very good friend about my Annual Travel Challenge, and he thought it was such a great idea he arranged for his company to donate a five-hundred-dollar travel voucher to the winner.”

We all look around the room at one another. I can’t help looking at Bennett and when I do, he gives me an obligatory grin and shifts his gaze to the window.

“So, what do you think?” Argotta searches the room. “Could anyone here put a five-hundred-dollar voucher to good use?”

Sure, everyone here could use it. But I’m the only one who thinks it can change my life.

I sit cross-legged on the carpet in front of the shelf marked with the word
Mexico
and scan the book spines. The store is empty and, given the storm that’s been raging outside all afternoon, likely to stay that way. Which is perfect, since I have a vacation to plan.

I pull
Let’s Go Mexico
from its home on the shelf, and place three more thick books on top of it.

I thumb through the pocket-size Michelin Green Guide and remove a slim book that opens into a giant road map. Pretty soon, I have a stack of guides, each valuable to the planning effort in at least one way. I pull out my spiral notebook and stare at the stack. And decide I need a latte.

I pull on my coat, hang the
BACK IN TEN MINUTES
sign on the door, and lock the dead bolt behind me. It’s only six, but it’s pitch-black outside, and if it weren’t for the calendar, no one would know that there should be grass on the ground and leaves on all of these bare wooden sticks. We’re two months away from summer vacation, but it’s snowing hard. Again.

I buy my latte, take it back to the store, return to my spot in the travel section, and start dividing the books on the carpet into smaller stacks. I know what I want: A balanced combination of archaeological sites and beaches, where I can run on sand and swim in a real ocean. I draw a line down the center of the paper and begin my list.

The left column quickly fills with archeological sites: the Mayan ruins in Tulum, Chichén Itzá, and Uxmal. The right column, as it turns out, is more challenging. Cancún has the Great Mayan Reef, so that has to be on the list, but I’m not sure if I want to include better-known destinations like Los Cabos, Acapulco, Cozumel. They all look pretty, so I add them, along with small question marks in the margin.

The hail is pounding against the window, and one of the branches of the giant oak outside keeps scraping against the pane. I’ve stopped jumping every time it happens, but it’s still unnerving. I try to ignore it and let Mazatlán’s quaint village squares and the open-air pottery and ceramics markets of Guadalajara take me away from the snow and wind.

But when I hear the noise again, I stand up, peer around the bookcase, and creep toward the window. The storm is still whipping the tree around, but the branch that was screeching against the glass is now limp and broken, dangling silently over the sidewalk below. Then I hear a sound behind me, and I spin in place. This time it’s not coming from the street at all—it’s coming from the back room, and it’s not the sound of the storm—it’s a voice. I hold my breath and listen.

My heart’s racing as I move to the phone at the counter. “Who’s there?” I yell toward the back room while I pick up the receiver and dial 911 with trembling hands. I stand completely still and listen, watching the back door as I wait for someone to pick up. “Answer!” I whisper into the receiver.

Suddenly, the front door bursts open, and I whip my head around in the opposite direction as the bells jingle without their usual pleasant ring. I put the phone back on the cradle and rush toward the door. “Hi!” My voice is shaking. I rest my palm on my chest, like that will help steady the pounding, and try to act as if everything were normal. “Can I help you?”

He looks past me, searching the store, and then over his shoulder at the street. Just as I’m about to ask him if he’ll help me check out the noise I heard in the back room, he pulls the door closed so hard the bells slam against the glass and rolls his hat down to cover his face. Then he locks the dead bolt.

“Cash.” His voice is deep through the wool, but my attention is on the shiny metal knife he pulls from his baggy jeans. He points it straight at me. “Now.”

It’s hard to gesture toward the front desk when my limbs are shaking so badly. “Over there. It’s not locked. Take it all.” It’s hard to speak, too.

Before I can move farther away, he pulls me toward him, presses the knife to my throat, and pushes me past the register. “The safe!” he yells into my ear as he tightens his grip.

“In the back—” The words come out wobbly, but I stick to the plan Dad laid out when I first started working here. “The combination is nine–fifteen–thirty-three. We don’t have an alarm. I won’t call the police. Just take the cash and leave.”

I calculate in my head. The register might have fifty dollars in it, if even that. The safe would have closer to a thousand.

He pulls me around to the register, opens the drawer, and releases his grip on me for just a moment while he dumps the cash into his bag. He grabs me again and pushes me to the back room, while I keep my gaze on the floor and try not to think about the cold steel of the blade on my neck or his heavy breath in my ear. “Move!”

I feel a wave of nausea pass through me.

I figure that’s why I’m seeing things.

I narrow my eyes so I can focus on the movement near the bookshelves. I’m somehow certain I saw it, even though I know it’s impossible. The store was empty, the door locked.

I squint over the tops of the bookshelves and see a dark patch of hair moving toward the aisle. I jerk my head up to get a better view, but stop when I feel the cold blade tight against my throat. When we reach the back room, the man removes the knife from my neck and shoves me inside, and I land hard on the floor in front of the safe.

“Open it,” he orders. I spin the dial—right, left, right—and pull down on the heavy handle. The door opens wide, and he pushes me away.

That’s when I see the movement again, slowly emerging from the shadows at an angle where only I can see him, and I watch, stunned, as Bennett puts his finger to his lips. There’s no way the two of us could ever overpower a man with a blade and a fierce sense of desperation, but my first feeling even so is one of relief.

He moves out of my direct line of vision but I can see him from the corner of my eye, creeping with careful steps toward me. I stay silent and still.

And while the thief is distracted by the contents of the safe, three things happen, so fast and overlapping that they seem to take place simultaneously. Bennett disappears completely, and suddenly he’s kneeling next to me on the floor. He grabs my hands and closes his eyes, and I must follow suit, because when I open them, the store is gone. The robber and his knife are gone. And Bennett and I are in the exact same positions—him kneeling, me sitting, still holding each other’s hands—only now we’re next to a tree in the park around the corner, the wind throwing snow violently around us.