The Breaks Between You and Me Page 2

  It’s hard to get rid of things out in the country. Everything anyone has ever had is supposed to stay with them for forever. So, getting rid of all the junk in the house takes an awful lot of time because there’s nowhere to put the things that we don’t need.

  There are books, super old ones that have thick cream-colored paper and coffee and tea stains all over the pages. There are also some old books that Mom used to homeschool me with, ones about Abraham Lincoln and the cold war and slavery in the 1800s. There are old Christmas decorations and random boxes of clothes and icky sheets and comforters, and I tell them all good riddance, throw them into some trash bags, carry the obnoxious things over my shoulder and lug them to the lawn, where I just leave them there in hopes that I’ll figure out something to do with them later.

  Lil spins when she’s excited, and pretends she’s one of those oak seeds, like the ones we were running figure eights around earlier. She spins and jumps and her long hair swings around her as I’m tossing the last box onto the heap of empty cardboard with a whoosh and a “Thank God.”

  “We don’t believe in God.”

  I guffaw and roll my eyes. “Mom believed in every god there possibly was.”

  “You said you were gonna stop talking about her like that.”

  I look at her, “Sorry. You’re right.”

  She lies down on the hardwood and presses her chin to the dusty ground. “This place isn’t like California at all,” she breathes.

  “This place was your home, you know.” I poke at the right corner of her cheek. “You’re just not used to it because you were too itty-bitty when we actually lived here.”

  “Are there beaches here?”

  I’m stumped for a second by how much she talks about California. With the beaches, and the wilderness, and the palm trees on the shore she nicknamed into simplicity: palms. I sit down on the hardwood beside her and use my palms to swipe away the dust on the floor that’s currently coating her shirt and shorts.

  “There are lakes. They’re way more sparkly and not nearly as angry and they’ll be perfect to spend our time in now that it’s summer.” The lakes here are millions of times better than any California beach. They sparkle like they’re made of glitter and the water feels nice, not horrifically cold and jolting.

  I crack a smile and stand back up, rubbing my hands off on my blue jeans. Lil and I neglect the minimal unpacking and cleaning we have to do at home to head into town once more. Our paired feet crush the gravel underneath our feet as she skips along, laughing at random things. Eventually she barrels into me and jumps on my back, weighing me down so our would be fifteen-minute trip takes twenty. I smile and let out a hearty exhale that’ll blow that wild hair of hers out of my face.

  “Listen to the trees,” she says.

  “They are loud today, aren’t they?” I close my eyes a moment. Tuning in.

  “It’s like a concert out here sometimes.” I hoist her higher on my back since she’s starting to slip. “But a peaceful concert. Like a symphony or something. There’s nothing peaceful about the city. There’re cars honking and people talking all the time. It’s never quiet in the city.”

  “I’ve never been to a concert before.”

  “That’s because we live in the middle of nowhere. But maybe one day you’ll see one.”

  “Will we always live in the middle of nowhere?”

  “I belong here. But maybe you’re like Mom. Maybe you can be in the country or the city or the suburbs or anywhere, really, and maybe you’ll love it like that. And then you can see a concert, and you can tell me all about it.”

  Lil slides off my back and runs up ahead.

  “Slowpoke,” she yells.

  “Fastpoke.”

  Years and years ago, I had a crumpled-up piece of paper list that was at all times stuffed into the right back pocket of my jeans. The list was the debate between you and I: the city versus country one. The one that lead to me tallying up reasons for why our town was better than any another place in the known universe.

  Whenever ideas struck me, I would write them down so I could fight your overly-logical-ness with my own bullet points: there are no trees in the city, there’s no bench like the peeling wooden one by the lake and near the dock, there’s no mint chip ice cream like the stuff there is at the place on Main Street, etc. I wonder what happened to that list. Mainly, I wonder if my logic was powerful enough to make you rethink your points.

  We’re walking, Lil’s head tilted toward the sky and mine is faced nowhere but outward, toward the Montana landscape. It spreads out and around like it’s endlessly infinite. I look to my right and then, out of all people we could have run into, I see your mom.

  She’s painting long strokes with a huge brush and all of her crazy summery blonde hair is being thrown up and round and round by the wind. She’s got a flowy dress on— I think it’s strawberry-colored underneath all the paint splatter? Beneath her outstretched hand is a bucket of paint she’s using to absolutely douse the small building ahead of us in the color of sunshine. She reaches down to take another dip.

  Lil goes, “Why are you stopped?”

  I lower my voice until it’s a barely heard whisper. “That’s Andy’s mom!”

  “Who’s Andy?”

  “The boy. If she sees me, this entire town will know we’re back. And he will!”

  “Why’s that a bad thing?” Lil says with big eyes.

  I groan frustratedly. “Because they’ll wanna know why. And they’ll wanna know where we were for that last two whole freaking years. They’ll start asking questions, and once they see that our Mom isn’t with us…” Except it turns out that I’m not nearly as good as a whisperer as I thought I was, and when your mom is straightening her back from reaching down to submerge her paintbrush in yellow, she turns toward us.

  Lil steps to my side and I promptly realize I made her aware of a threat I didn’t even mean to make her aware of. But I’m already straightening my back and smiling, and your Mom is looking at me with wide-eyed, happy surprise.

  She smiles toothily, the way you do, and looking at her smile brings me back to the years I spent surrounded by you and your family. Your mom has been the stabler one out of mine and yours; walking into her house almost always meant the strangely predictable smell of flowering blossoms and flour and a homemade dinner on an always-set table.

  “Harper!”

  Her hazel eyes go to that sister of mine, who’s busied herself clutching my right leg and acting like she’s invisible. “And Lilac. I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen the two of you.”

  “Me too.” But to be frank, I’m still reeling with how long it’s seemed to have been since I’ve been in this town in the first place. I’m already pointing toward the building she’s working on battering with sunshine paint. “It’s beautiful,” I breathe. “Didn’t this used to be—”

  “The diner,” she smiles. “When it closed down, I made it my own project.” She raises her shoulder a little and looks at the walls gently. At the same time, I can almost tell that she needs more than this building for this town to grow on her. Your mom is basically just like you: she lives and breathes the city.

  She sets down her paintbrush on the paint can’s top. “It’s so nice to see you.” The corners of her lips arch softly. “I completely understand wanting to get the heck out of this place.” She laughs gently. “But no one figured that the three girls who this town revolved around would ever go away. When I realized you had even Andy stumped, I started to think maybe this whole town took all of you for granted.”

  “This town re-volve-ed around us?” Lil’s hands let go from my leg when she whispers.

  “You love to be the center of attention, don’t you?”

  Your mom cracks a smile.

  “And anyways, this town revolved around Mom,” I correct. Just Mom.

  I cross my arms over my chest and click together the heels of my flip-flopped feet as I admire your mom’s newest project. “I like the yellow, and the new door, and the patched-up windows.”

  This building used to have rectangle windows lined up with way-too-bright green paint. The whole thing always seemed too cheery, but I liked the way it screamed: our town. Loud enough so that I’m compelled to put the side of my face to its walls and listen in to the screaming.

  It always felt so homey inside. Cozy, even though every surface was grease-coated, or coffee stained. The me who strolled by that place on morning walks to elementary school viewed that diner as a mountain. It was big, tall, and looming, but mostly, nothing could ever seem to move that thing. In the winter, snow would stack itself up over absolutely everything and the diner stood untouched underneath it all, as mountainous and untouchable as everything else in this town’s boundaries.

  Now, it’s being painted! And sprinkled with love by her’s truly: your mom and all her city-eyed glory.

  She says she has to get back at it. “Tell that mom of yours to stop by and admire this for herself, once I’ve put the paintbrush to rest.”

  Lil’s wide eyes look up, toward mine.

  I grab her hand. “Of course, we will.” And then with waves, we’re off.

  3

  CHAPTER TWO

  I’m on my knees of icky-looking grocery store linoleum, thinking of you.

  And somehow, that’s when you appear, while my calves are to the ground and I’m picking up the bags of powdered sugar I dropped while frantically searching for jam-making ingredients to pay off that cop’s ridiculously overpriced ticket. My hands are covered in powdered sugar dust, and strays of my hair are blowing into my face from the vent in the ceiling, and you turn the corner, and all of the sudden, you’re here.

  You.

  Lil asked me about you on the hour-upon-hour-long car drive we had been stuck in for the last week. She was kicking her legs up and down while seated, and then opted for sitting crisscross in her pink skirt and unicorn-patterned shirt.

  “Are you excited to see the boy?” She said, the word “boy” spoken in a whisper. For a second there, my eyebrows were busy furrowing themselves in spite of the fact that I had no idea how she knew about you. Then I reminded myself that you were all I had been thinking about while in California. You had been all I had talked about, too. During too-hot, too-sandy, too-wet beach days, you were the thing on my mind, because Jesus Christ— I missed you. And I couldn’t help but exclaim that to the world every few seconds.

  Anyways, Lil asked me that question, and I responded, “What boy?” playing dumb because I didn’t want to reveal all the feelings that were unearthed by being apart from you. Of course I thought about it, but I didn’t end up telling her that your name is Andy, and you’re a city boy.

  You’ve never dressed like one, but the reason how I know is because you’ve always dreamed like one. You stay up late on cloudy nights because you’ve always said they look like city skies, and you love city skies, even though you’ve never even been to the city in your life except for once in New York with your mom when you were seven. It was loud and you loved it. She held your hand on the streets and you gripped it. The air smelled like hundreds of different things at once and somehow, you could manage to breathe it in. I don’t understand how anyone could be able to breathe that in.

  On the other hand, I’m a country girl. I know so because you used to tease me for it by poking at my pulled to the elbow flannel sleeves and smiling at my rolled-up denim jeans. On your favorite days, which were the cloudy and cool ones, we laid on the dewy grass outside my house and you would pull your always-slightly-shaky fingers through my hair.

  My hair is auburn, and long, and frizzy and thick, and you used to say big city people have straight and dark and shiny hair, and my hair is one of the only things about the country that you would miss.

  When we were younger, we were those kids, the ones who pretend to get married and then divorce and then it’s all forgotten by first grade. Except, we didn’t forget each other by first grade, or second, or third or fourth or fifth, and the first time we broke up I was six and you were seven.

  I drew a picture of a lake my mom and I went to once on a pink piece of paper in second grade art class and showed it to you and said, “Do you want to see my Montana?”

  My Montana was beautiful, but somehow your big blue eyes weren’t impressed by my drawing in the slightest. You took out your paper and without saying anything, showed me your drawing of the city, because of course you would draw a city, and of course it would be New York. Your city was gray and boring and there were stick-figure people dotted all over it.

  I said, “Don’t you have an imagination?”

  You gave my drawing a twice-over, at the blue lake water with rainbows of fish inside and the pink and purple clouds. “Montana doesn’t really look like that. Mine is accurate,” you debated, and I didn’t know what accurate meant so I just watched you take more crayons and add on to your piece of paper artwork as you said, “The city looks just like what I’m drawing.”

  “But yours isn’t pretty,” I said finally, because I totally wasn’t going to deal with failing to have the last word in the conversation. I crossed my arms over my chest and squinted at your boring city compared to my positively gorgeous Montana.

  You looked at me blank-faced. “It is to me.”

  But because it wasn’t to me, I argued with you the rest of the class about it, offering up good points as to why Montana was the world’s most gorgeous place to ever be in existence, even when it’s drawn inaccurately. You stayed strong on your opposing side and the teacher laughed at us and called us “diametric opposites!” and then finally, you stuck out your hand for a shake and called our breakup a mutual agreement.

  After that, we stuck to friends, all the way up until I told you I was leaving town for the summer—during middle school, right after grade six— and you hated my guts because we had become best friends and we were supposed to be best friends forever, but forevers don’t exist when people leave, and I was leaving.

  You’re one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known, Andy, but you’re terribly good at holding grudges. I’m not sure if you know this, but I thought about that the last two years when I was gone, hopelessly worried that you would be holding a grudge on me for leaving and that when I got back, we would never be the same.

  When I see you in front of me, NOW of all times, I freeze. And you freeze. And we’re stuck, frozen and standing, in the baking aisle of the grocery store looking at each other dumb-foundedly.

  I take this chance to notice you and your changes, because there seem to be a lot of them.

  Exhibit A: Your hair’s grown out. I like it better this way, because you need to constantly rake your fingers through it to get it out of your eyes and the almost-bangs look cute covering your freckled forehead. Also, it used to be like your mom’s; thick and blond and an obtainer of the sunlight, and now, it’s brown, the color of soil and molasses and tree bark.

  Exhibit B: You’re taller! I think about the days when we used to be basically the same height, and I feel a smile coming on. I would tease the heck out of you for it, and your cheeks would flush bright red. You’re so tall now— especially as I’m sitting on the grocery store floor— that I have to crane my neck to look up at you.

  Exhibit C: Your smile’s different than I remembered it. Over the last two years, I’ve thought a lot about that smile of yours. It seems more contained now, subtle and small. But God, how I’ve missed that smile. And even better, it widens and freezes into its glorious place when we make eye contact.

  Out of all the things, what stands out the most is that absolutely iconic blue baseball cap that sits on your head. It makes my previously-tense face melt into a smile because I remember when we sat on the lawn of my house, and you held that thing in your hands like it was treasure. You had cried your tears from your grandfather’s death and held that hat to your chest like it was part of him. “Right now,” you had said, looking hard at the mountains in front of us. “It feels like he’s still with me.”

  “Because of that ratty old thing?” I said, poking at the hat with my finger.

  It made you smile. “Because of this ratty old thing.”

  Ever since we were younger you’ve worn that hat, almost every day, and right now I’m tempted to stand up and thread my fingers into your hair, so I can touch the hat, and touch you, and remind myself of how real you are— standing in front of me the way you’re doing now.

  You take a long, slow, inhale. “Harper Cassidy sits on the floor of the grocery store—” Your cheeks flush. “Covered in powdered sugar.”

  I stand up quickly and let out a breathless laugh. It sounds like a piano staccato, though, because of how much anxious energy is roiling around inside of me, and I brush the powdered sugar off my forearms, off my fabric skirt, and realize my hands are shaking, and my feet are restless as I shift my weight from my right to my left.

  I take in a slow inhale. “Harper Cassidy puts her hand out,” my smile brightens, “Because she doesn’t know how to reunite with Andy Madden now that she’s actually here in front of him.”

  “And he grabs hers,” you say, and your fingers curl around mine as we shake hands, slowly. The feeling of your skin on mine after so much time without you makes me shiver. “Even though…” you whisper, here. “His hands are kinda sweaty because he’s anxious.”

  It makes me laugh so hard my stomach cramps, and then I clamp my hand over my mouth to stop— because we’re in the middle of a frigging grocery store and are already receiving looks. My hand drops. “She doesn’t care, obviously, but she can’t keep herself from laughing. Even though on the inside, she’s really, honestly—” My voice drops to a whisper “—quite nervous.”

  “And he, meanwhile, is looking at her like he can’t believe how much time it’s been without his best friend.”

  “Two years.”

  When you hug me, it’s tight. Our hugs used to be… not like this. They were loose, and as awkward as two middle schoolers hugging could be. We never hugged when we were younger. We high-fived and made ourselves silly handshakes. But this is real, and tangible, and it makes my heart melt. More than that— it makes the feeling go away.