My Beating Teenage Heart Page 19

  Breckon’s eyes drain of emotion. He lets Jules walk away without chasing her. This is what he wanted after all, space.

  You should go after her, I tell him. Apologize. Try to make things right.

  “I’m done,” Breckon says aloud to no one but me. “I’m done.”

  His resigned tone gives me a bad feeling that echoes how I felt when I tried to change Shenice’s mind about Bailey and couldn’t.

  Ty catches up with Breckon at his locker a couple of minutes later and nudges him with his elbow. “Man, I have some bad news. Somehow Renee found out about you hooking up with Kylie at Anya’s place.”

  “Kylie?” Breckon repeats. His eyes are gray-blue marbles. Shiny but lifeless.

  Ty smiles. “You didn’t know her name?” Breckon shakes his head. “Yeah, man, that was Kylie. The blonde with the super straight hair. She told Anya that you were cute but so wasted that she felt like she was molesting you. Anyway, Cameron said that Jules was really torn up about it when she heard.”

  Breckon shoves his books into his locker and rubs his eyes. “I just had class with Jules. She hates my fucking guts. At first I didn’t know what she was even talking about.”

  Ty’s deflated smile collapses into a full-blown frown. “It’s not like you cheated on her. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You were completely up front with her, man. And from what I heard, you and Kylie didn’t take things very far anyway.”

  Breckon slams his locker shut. “Lauren Harvey told Renee I fucked Kylie against your car.”

  “Did you?”

  “No, but I think it could’ve happened that way too,” he admits. “I think I’m …” His glossy eyes threaten to spill over. He hunches like he’s about to break at the waist and crumple into two separate halves. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Ty looks away, scanning the hallway like he’s devising a plan of action. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He claps Breckon on the back. “Walk with me. Let’s get out of here.”

  Breckon follows Ty’s lead, trudging out of the school and into the parking lot with his eyes swimming. “Keys,” Ty prompts as they near Breckon’s car. “I’ll drive.”

  Breckon fishes them out of his pocket and hands them over. “Where?”

  “Wherever you want to go,” Ty says resolutely as he unlocks the doors and they both climb in. “Think of me as your limo driver.”

  “I don’t know.” Breckon stares at the car mat under his feet.

  “Okay, so I’ll make an executive decision. How about Central America? Costa Rica’s, like, number one on the Happy Planet Index. You know, they’re the greenest country on the planet.” Ty keeps up his commentary on Costa Rica while I listen to the sound of Breckon’s breathing and sink lower.

  What good am I if I let him bring me down? None. Fight, Ashlyn, I command myself. Take your cue from Ty and do something constructive. I let Ty do the talking while I concentrate on trying to generate positive energy. I don’t quite know how and have even less clue how to measure whether I’m successful or not, but I think happy, tranquil thoughts. That bloodred sunrise on Saturday morning. Orange ice cream. The lyrics to “All You Need Is Love.” Callum and I playing cards on the beach. My father swinging me up into the air in his strong arms when I was small, making me giggle and feel like I could fly. The way he cheered when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, a light in his eyes that I’ll never forget. Mom’s nightly soft kisses on my forehead. Puppies. Rainbows. Peace on earth. I try to believe in the possibility, for Breckon.

  According to Ty there’s a park in Costa Rica, Corcovado National Park, which National Geographic called “the most biologically intense place on Earth.” Ty explains that he watched a documentary about it the other night and that’s how he knows so much about Costa Rica.

  After twenty-plus minutes of travelogue Ty admits that when in doubt, his default is to head south and that if Breckon doesn’t want to end up at the U.S. border he should suggest another destination. I listen for Breckon’s pained breathing. The sound stings but doesn’t sear. He’s better than he was, for whatever reason.

  Ahead, on the right side of the road, there’s a baseball diamond where twelve-year-olds in uniforms and ball caps are just beginning an after-school game. An ice-cream truck’s stopped as close to the field as it can get and the players’ younger siblings are clambering for cones and Popsicles. “Here’s as good as anywhere,” Breckon says. They pull into the parking lot and take their place amongst parents, teachers and the players’ fellow students on the bleachers.

  I don’t remember going to many of my brother’s baseball games, probably wouldn’t recognize his team jersey if I stumbled over it, but I’d know my brother. My last memory of Garrett is only a year old and I scan the faces of each of the players as carefully as I can considering the distance we are away from them and my inability to uncouple myself from Breckon.

  Garrett’s not here.

  I’ve never stopped looking for my family, praying that they’d come into Zavi’s or wander by Breckon at the mall. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. I have to believe that if I keep my eyes open I’ll see my family again someday. As much as I miss them, I need to know that they’re okay without me. Breckon thinks his grandmother’s silly for believing she can sense his sister, but I believe my family will be able to sense me if I can get close to them.

  In the meantime I have to content myself with listening to Breckon ask Ty if he wants ice cream. He strolls over to thels wi truck and buys a chocolate-dip cone for Ty and an orange Creamsicle for himself. Orange. In my opinion orange is the freshest flavor in the world. Fresher and lighter than mint. Cold. Juicy. And when it’s in cream form, creamy. My mind revels in the memory of orange ice cream while Breckon tears into his Creamsicle with his teeth.

  Thank you, I tell him, and he nods almost imperceptibly but I’m right there with him; I can’t miss it.

  nineteen

  breckon

  Every time I hit rock bottom it’s harder to come back. Weeks ago my mother said she felt as though she could find Skylar if she looked hard enough, but that the feeling was a trick. A lie. Feeling better, even for a while, is a lie like that. Because I know I’ll crash again soon. What’s the point in trying to climb back up if it’s only a trick anyway?

  I’ve thought about it a lot and the answer doesn’t change.

  It was better, for a while, at the park with Ty watching kids play ball, that voice in my head acting like a sedative. But I don’t want to go to sleep again and see Skylar in my dreams. I don’t want that shock of waking up in a world without her.

  My sister’s favorite color was sky blue. Her favorite cereal was Lucky Charms (Alpha-Bits came second). Her favorite TV shows were SpongeBob, Wolverine and the X-Men, What’s New Scooby-Doo? and League of Super Evil, but she’d also stop whatever she was doing to watch any show with Jamie Oliver in it. She liked to watch him dice, season, stir and talk about cooking, but her favorite food was spaghetti and meatballs out of a can. She’d eat all the meatballs first and then tackle the spaghetti, but whenever my mom made real spaghetti and meatballs she’d only eat half of what was on her plate. Her best friend was Kevin Solomon. She was good at hitting and kicking a ball. She was tough. She learned to ride a two-wheel bike without training wheels when she was four and a half, younger than me. When she fell off a week later and scraped up half her leg, she sniffled and two fat tears streamed down her face but she didn’t bawl. Her favorite things to draw were aliens, dinosaurs and mummies. She said that when she grew up she’d be as tall as I was, maybe taller. She had my mom’s eyes and my dad’s blond hair. She liked Jules a lot, she’d miss her if she was still around but then again, if she was still around I’d still be with Jules too. She loved all animals, not just the cuddly-looking ones. She laughed a lot but she was also a good listener.

  A couple of days before Christmas, when Skylar was over the flu and feeling back to normal, she wandered into the kitchen a
s I was toasting a bagel and asked me if there was really a Santa Claus. Some kids in her class were saying there wasn’t, just like there wasn’t an Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. She said that she knew that the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy were made up but was Santa too?

  I’d overheard her ask my mother the same question earlier, ls wlomon. and my mom had said all the things you’d expect a mother to say in defense of Santa, but Skylar obviously still had her doubts.

  “Mom told you Santa Claus was real,” I reminded her. “Do you think she’d lie to you?”

  “Maybe,” Skylar said.

  “Why would she lie?”

  “To be nice.” Skylar’s blue eyes pinned me to the kitchen wall. “But I want to know for real. I don’t want to believe in him if he’s just something made up for kids.”

  She was so intense about it that I didn’t know whether I should keep up the pretense or not.

  “You don’t think he’s real, do you?” she probed. “Or how come you’re taking so long to answer?”

  “Yeah, of course I believe in him.” I tried to outthink my sister, but once somebody has those initial doubts, half the battle’s already been lost. “It’s just that when people get older they don’t think it’s cool to admit that they believe in Santa. That’s why some of the kids you know say they don’t—they’re trying to be cool and act like they’re older. It’s like, you don’t see adults going to work with SpongeBob briefcases. And lots of people think Santa’s for kids like that.”

  The truth is that none of us—my mom, my dad and I—were ready for Skylar to stop believing, even if she was. Why do the kids who already know have to spoil it for everyone else?

  I don’t know whether Skylar really believed me about Santa Claus or not, but she decided to go along with it for the holiday. I’m sure next Christmas would’ve been a different story, but now there isn’t any next Christmas.

  It’s hit me a thousand times in a thousand ways.

  It never stops. The loss is what I am now. Loss with just a sprinkling of Breckon.

  I’ve held her hand to cross the street so many times. Carried her in my arms when she was too young to walk, too young to talk. Years later, lifted her on my shoulders because she loved being up high. Played kid stuff with her—from Mega Bloks to Connect Four and Pictionary to making Insta-Snow. Babysat her from the time I was thirteen. Looked out for her even before. At places like the supermarket or the bank when my mom or dad’s attention was needed elsewhere. “Stay with her,” my mom would instruct before drifting away to inspect apples or carrots. “Can you watch her for a minute?” Dad would ask before lining up for the teller.

  I watched her all the time, all the time. I was so much older than her that it felt like second nature. My mother lost her at Toys “R” Us once, while she was trying to pick out a present for Skylar to bring to a birthday party. I was checking out video games when it happened, in a completely different section in the store from the two of them. I didn’t even realize Skylar had wandered away on my mother but I found her anyway. This was when my sister still had ternt sectilong hair and my eyes zoomed straight over to her lingering by a display of plush toys.

  I was already holding her hand by the time they made an announcement that there was a lost child in the store. Somehow I found her all those years ago, when it probably didn’t matter because my mother or an employee would’ve spotted her in the next minute or so anyway, but when it really mattered I wasn’t watching. I let my sister disappear.

  April 22 felt like it was just going to be like any other day. At the time it seemed there wasn’t a single clue that it would be any different. But when I look back now I can see them all lined up in a neat row.

  That Friday morning I woke up a little late and wolfed down leftover cold pizza before jumping in the car. In English Rob Chen and I presented a media ad we’d made for Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers.” At lunch Ty and Rory were still pumped from the soccer team’s win over Crest-gate High the day before and Mr. Cirelli was back in econ last period after two days off with food poisoning.

  It was supposed to rain all day but the downpour had trickled down to nothing by about four-thirty. My parents’ friends, Barbara and Sean, were having a twenty-fifth anniversary party and I’d promised my folks I’d babysit Skylar. My mom and dad went early to help Barbara and Sean set up. Normally Jules would come over and hang out with me while I was babysitting but she and Renee had tickets for a play.

  I heated up chicken nuggets and broccoli and cauliflower in cheese sauce for her and threw together a stir-fry for myself. All that was fine—Friday, April 22, as it should’ve been—but after dinner, while Skylar was watching TV, I went up to my bedroom, closed the door and picked up my guitar. “I’ve Just Seen a Face” was one of the tunes I’d been working on for Boleyn’s. Overall it’s a pretty easy song but the intro was tough, especially for someone who was still trying to come to grips with some of the basics of guitar playing. Sometimes I spent hours just practicing a good steady strum, trying to lay a solid foundation for myself. Staying in time and developing a sense of rhythm are harder than you might think. Or it was for me, anyway.

  There were lots of songs I associated with Jules, but in particular “I’ve Just Seen a Face” made me think about when I first started getting to know her on the New York trip. Even though I already knew who she was on a superficial level, the real Jules came as an amazing surprise. It’s like that line that goes, if it’d been another day, I might’ve looked the other way. The more time I spent with Jules, the more aware I was that I easily could’ve missed out on knowing her, and the gladder I was that I hadn’t. There’s such simple happiness in that song, a sense of wonder that I totally understood.

  When I played “I’ve Just Seen a Face” it was like Jules was in the room with me, like I was reexperiencing all our best moments together. So I wasn’t happy when Skylar crept into the room and interrupted me. Sometimes I’d let her watch me play but only when I was ready—mentally prepared—and besides, Skylar didn’t want to watch me that night. She was in the middle of her own obsession.

  A couple of weeks earlier when we were awhent t my grandparents’ (Dad’s parents) house for dinner, my grandmother had pulled out a family photo album and Skylar had pored over her baby photos (mine too but hers more). It got late and we had to leave before she’d finished flipping through them all. Then, on April 21, my grandmother dropped in for a visit and brought the album so Skylar could see the rest of the pictures. The one Skylar liked best was from when she was about two years old. She’s sitting in her old baby car seat with all her winter clothes on, including a red and gold Winnie-the-Pooh ski hat, and waving through the open car door at my grandfather snapping her photograph.

  “Do we still have that hat?” Skylar wanted to know.

  “It’s probably packed away with the rest of your baby things down in the basement,” my mom said.

  “Can we find it?” Skylar asked. “I want to see it.”

  Again, it was too late. “Not tonight,” my mom said. “You need to start getting ready for bed.”

  It was a cute hat and a really cute photo of her. I could understand why she wanted to find it, but when Skylar walked into my room that Friday and made me stop playing guitar to see what she wanted, I was annoyed. “Wait until tomorrow and Mom can help you find it,” I told her. “I wouldn’t even know where to look.”

  “All the boxes with baby stuff are probably close together,” she said. “If you come down with me I can do most of the looking myself.”

  “If you can look yourself, why aren’t you doing it right now?” I asked, impatient to get back to “I’ve Just Seen a Face.”

  I was sitting on the bed, my guitar still in my hands, and Skylar peered insistently down at me. “But the boxes are so heavy, Breckon. You know I won’t be able to lift them.”

  “I said later, Skylar. You don’t need to find it right this second. What did I tell you about bugging me when I’m in th
e middle of something?”

  Skylar frowned and shuffled over to the door with her shoulders drooping. Then she closed my door hard—not hard enough to be considered a slam exactly, but firmly enough to let me know she was angry.

  I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I didn’t think I was being tough on her and anyway, Skylar wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. It really couldn’t have mattered less that I didn’t drop what I was doing to help her find her old Winnie-the-Pooh hat.

  Until about thirty minutes later.

  It occurred to me that if Skylar and I were going to take Moose for his nightly walk (which was usually my dad’s job) that we better do it before she had to get ready for bed. And then, maybe if there was time, I’d help her look for that hat.

  I set down my guitar and went down to the family room to find my sister. Wolverine and the X-Men was on TV and she’d left what looked like an unfinisiketify">I hed drawing of a spaceship hovering over a bunch of trees laid out on the carpet. Moose barked from outside, not at me but at a squirrel scampering by him in the backyard. I stared at him through the family room sliding door. Skylar must’ve let him out.

  I checked the kitchen next but she wasn’t there either. “Skylar?” I shouted, not because I was worried but because it was usually the fastest way to locate her.

  Moose barked again from the backyard. Seeing squirrels in his territory always set him off.

  I stepped out of the kitchen and back into the hall. I was about to tackle the stairs, figuring she must’ve been up in her room, when I noticed that the basement door was ajar. I don’t know how I missed that before—we usually kept it shut. But obviously Skylar was so excited about the hat that she hadn’t waited for me.

  “Skylar!” I called again as I pulled the door open wide.

  The basement lights were on. We’d never finished the basement, and naked bulbs cast a creepy, stark light into a dungeon-like space.