Since You've Been Gone

9 BREAK SOMETHING

“How long is this going to take?” Beckett whined, kicking one sneaker against the other.

“It might take a while,” I admitted, trying at least to be honest with him. Beckett and I were standing outside the office of My Pretty Pony, where I was scheduled for a four o’clock ride. Even though Frank had been trying to schedule my makeup ride, I kept putting him off. I figured as long as there were giant horses, and I was expected to ride them, I couldn’t imagine a different outcome than before. So like the Saddleback Ranch woman had suggested, I had looked into the pony ride option, and found there were quite a few. They admittedly were mostly geared toward small children, but there was nothing on this place’s website that said adults couldn’t have a pony ride too. I’d checked.

“Aggh,” Beckett groaned, slumping onto a nearby bench.

“Hey,” I said. “I just bought you ice cream, remember?”

Beckett just looked at me, unimpressed. “It was free, Em.” I had to concede this was true. We’d come from Paradise, where Kerry was working. She had just waved me off when I’d gone to pay, which was a nice surprise for me, but apparently wasn’t going very far to win over my brother. I had hoped it would work to basically bribe him into coming with me, since this way we could spend time together when he didn’t have camp, but also because I didn’t want to do this alone, and was way too embarrassed to admit to anyone else where I was.

“Hi, are you here for your four p.m. ride?” A woman wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt came out, bending down to smile at Beckett, who pointed at me, stone-faced.

“Um, that’s me,” I said, waving at her. “I’m Emily.”

“Oh,” she said, just staring at me for a moment. Then she seemed to regroup, and nodded a little too vigorously. “Well . . . okay. We should be able to accommodate you.” She glanced at my brother and then back at me, still obviously very confused as to what was happening here. “Are you two riding together? Or did you want to try it out first and show him it’s not scary?” She mouthed the last word to me, and Beckett rolled his eyes hugely at this.

“No,” I said, wishing that either one of these explanations was true. But when I’d offered Beckett his own pony ride, he’d looked at me like I was crazy, making me think that maybe I should have invited Dawn instead. “I just . . . wanted to take a pony ride.”

“Okay,” she said, after waiting a moment, clearly expecting something more rational to come after this. “Well, I’ll get you all set up then.” She headed back into the barn that was adjacent to the office, and I was about to try again to sell Beckett on the idea of joining me when my phone buzzed. I saw that it was Collins, which was unusual. Collins would sometimes text me, and he was always sending me links to what he assured me were hilarious videos, but he almost never called.

“Hey,” I said, answering the call.

“Emily!” he said, and I could hear that his voice was high and stressed. “Where are you?”

“Um,” I said. I looked around, and my eyes landed on the very pink My Pretty Pony sign, written in elaborate cursive. “Why would you need to know that?”

“Because I am freaking out,” he said, his voice getting even higher. “Do you even know it’s Frank’s birthday?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, walking a few steps away from my brother, who seemed far too interested in this conversation. “We went running this morning, stopped for donuts afterward, and everyone at the donut shop sang to him.” I didn’t get the sense that this was something they normally did, but by the time I’d pulled out the pack of birthday candles I’d brought from home, and then had to ask the staff if they had any matches, everyone had gotten into it (it probably didn’t hurt that we were the only customers) and had sung, and then clapped when Frank blew out the candle in his bear claw. When we’d traded iPods that morning, I’d also made sure to assemble a mix of all Happy Birthday songs for him—starting with the Beatles, of course. I had a present for him as well but I’d figured I’d just give it to him the next time we went running, since I knew Lissa was coming into town today to celebrate with him.

“Well,” Collins huffed, “everything is falling apart and I need your help.”

“Sure,” I said, glancing back quickly to my brother, to make sure he hadn’t decided to start scaling the barn, but he was still in the same spot on the bench. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on,” he said, “is that Lissa can’t get up here from Princeton, for some reason. And Frank’s at lunch with his mom and then going to dinner with his dad, and I’m stuck at work and can’t leave to get the party set up, because Frank has the day off, and if I left Doug in charge of more than just shoe rental, the whole place could burn down and he’d still just be reading about gnomes.”

“They’re not gnomes,” I heard Doug say in the background, his voice heavy with disdain. “Please.”

“So what can I do?”

“I need you to go get Lissa.” I drew in a breath, and Collins must have heard, because he started speaking fast. “I know it’s a long drive, and I’m sorry to ask. But there’s nothing else to be done.”

“Um,” I said. It wasn’t the two hours down—and back—that was giving me pause. I didn’t know what was. I thought as fast as I could, frantically casting about for another option. Maybe Dawn? She had never met Lissa, but I could always text her a picture or something. “The thing is . . .” I felt someone tugging at my sleeve, and looked down and saw Beckett.

“What’s going on?” he asked, my distressed expression clearly giving him hope. “Can we leave?”

“The thing is,” I said again, “I actually have a lot of stuff going on this afternoon. Important stuff. And—”

“Emily?” I looked over, and saw the woman in the pink shirt smiling at me. “Your pony is ready, whenever you want to take your ride.”

I clamped my hand over the microphone, but clearly not fast enough, because Collins said, his voice heavy with disbelief, “Em, seriously?”

“Fine,” I said, realizing I was caught. “Text me the address.”

Since I’d already prepaid, I got a coupon for another pony ride, and it didn’t escape my notice that I was starting to accumulate riding credits all over town. I dropped a thrilled Beckett off at home, then yelled to my parents that I was going out for a few hours and taking the car, and while my mother nodded distractedly, my dad barely looked at me. They both had the rumpled, exhausted look they got when they’d been working for hours. I headed for my car, getting in and then doubling back to the garage to put the wooden piece that fitted over the roof into the trunk. Because while I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to rain, the last thing I wanted was for Lissa Young to get rained on in my car. Then I let out a breath and headed out of the driveway, putting on some music, loud, aiming for the highway, telling myself that I was just doing Collins—and Frank—a favor, and there was no need to be this nervous. But despite this, even just the prospect of Lissa being in my car suddenly made me want to change everything about it.

As I pulled onto I-95 and skipped through on my playlist to what had become my favorite Eric Church song, I realized that there was something else that was bothering me about having to spend time with her. Lissa seemed to belong to a different world, the school world where Frank was Frank Porter, this impossibly perfect guy, the one who was nothing like the one I’d gotten to know this summer, the Frank who tripped over his own feet occasionally and was scared of heights and who sometimes had flecks of orange paintball paint in his hair. Someone who could speak in Beatles lyrics for two days, and who I’d watched have a nacho fight with Collins.

I’d been driving for about an hour when my phone started to ring from the passenger seat. My car was old enough that I couldn’t use any hands-free devices with it, so I jabbed at the screen, trying to hit the button that activated the speaker. Sloane had told me once that when she talked to me like this, it sounded like I was at the bottom of a cave with bad cell reception, but I figured it was better than getting a cell phone ticket, like Collins had gotten the week before.

“Hello?” I called in the phone’s general direction. It hadn’t looked like it had been a call from any of my saved contacts, but I didn’t want to look away from the road long enough to really investigate this.

“Hello?” I looked at the phone and saw, to my shock, that Lissa had appeared on my screen—I must have pressed the button to do a video call.

“Oh,” I said, trying to lean a little more into the frame. “I didn’t mean to—just hold on a second.” I signaled, glad to see that I was almost at a rest stop. I didn’t know what the cell phone laws were regarding video calls, but I also didn’t want to risk finding out. I pulled off the highway and into the rest stop. It was a small one, just bathrooms and some vending machines. But it was pretty crowded, several minivans filled with families, exhausted-looking parents and kids running around in the late afternoon sun. I pulled into a space away from the noise of the families and put the car in park, holding up the phone, wishing that I’d brushed my hair recently, or that I’d put on more makeup this morning than just a swipe of lip balm. “Hi,” I said. “Sorry—I was just trying to put it on speaker, I didn’t mean to select video.”

“Hi,” Lissa said, giving me a small smile. “It’s fine.” She looked the same as she did in school, maybe a little more tan. But I couldn’t help notice that her eyes looked red and a little puffy. “How are you, Emily?”

There was something about Lissa that made me want to sit up straighter, and made me wish I’d read a newspaper recently. “Fine,” I said, straightening my posture. “I think I’m about an hour away right now. I have the address, so—”

“That’s what I’m . . . well . . . ,” Lissa said, looking away, and pressing her lips together. After a pause, she turned back to me. “I just wanted to talk to you before you got too far. I hope it’s okay that I’m calling. Collins gave me your number.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Like I said, I should be there in an hour. I drive slow.” I smiled, but she didn’t smile back, just looked a little bit stricken and I suddenly realized why. “Slowly,” I added quickly.  “I drive slowly. But if I get back on the road, I should—”

“I’m not coming,” she said, interrupting me. “I . . .” She looked down and let out a breath before she looked at me again. “I know I should have been planning on it, but there’s just too much going on here.”

I just looked at her for a second. I didn’t know this girl at all, but I could tell that something wasn’t right. I just sat there in silence, hoping that it wasn’t obvious I didn’t believe her.

“I thought I’d be able to get away,” she continued, still not looking at me. “I’m sorry that you’ve had to drive all this way for nothing.”

“Oh,” I said. “Um . . .” I suddenly thought about Frank, about how disappointed he’d would be, and what this would do to the party that Collins had been organizing.

“I’ll call Collins and tell him about the change in plans,” she said, sounding more businesslike now, like this was one more thing to be checked off her to-do list. “And Frank,” she added after a moment, “of course.”

“Okay,” I said. “Um . . . all right.” Lissa nodded. I realized I wasn’t sure how to wrap up this conversation.

“So you’ve gotten pretty close with Collins, I guess?” she asked, looking right at me. “I was a little surprised when he told me that you were coming to get me, but I guess if you two are—”

“No!” I said, more vehemently than I meant to. Not that I couldn’t understand the appeal, in theory—Dawn had been going on and on the other day about how he looked just like the astronaut’s cute sidekick in Space Ninja, and I could kind of see it—but I just wasn’t interested in him like that. “Um, no,” I said, a little more quietly. “We’re just friends. Frank, too,” I added. If Frank hadn’t told her, I wasn’t sure I should be the one to let her know that I’d been hanging out with her boyfriend. But I also didn’t want to let her think that I was just Collins’s friend. It seemed too much like lying, somehow, or like Frank and I had been sneaking around.

“Good,” she said after a moment. “That’s . . . good. I’m glad.” We just looked at each other for another moment, then she glanced away. When she looked back at me, the vulnerability that I’d seen a moment before was gone, and she looked somehow distant, her voice all business. “I shouldn’t keep you,” she said. “I’m sorry, again, about not reaching you sooner.”

“No problem,” I said, and then a moment later immediately regretted not saying something more impressive. “I’ll . . . um . . . see you around?”

She gave me a quick smile. “Absolutely,” she said. “Thank you, Emily.” And with that, my screen went dark, and I was staring back at my own confused expression.

My phone rang again an hour later—but an hour in which I’d only moved a few miles. There was something going on—I figured it had to be some sort of accident, and I’d been trying to scan through the radio stations, looking for some answers, but somehow only getting ads and weather. Because I wasn’t moving very fast, I could see that it was Collins calling me, and I was able to answer without accidentally starting a video call with him. “Hey,” I said, as I answered. “Did Lissa call you?”

“She did,” he said, and let out a long breath. “Sorry to send you all that way.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Um . . . how’s Frank?”

“I’m trying to make the best of things over here,” Collins said, which, it occurred to me, wasn’t exactly an answer to the question. “Plans are in flux, so just text me when you get back to town, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “There’s some weird traffic thing going on, though, so I might be a while.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “I’ll—” I lost what Collins was saying, though, because the car in front of me slammed on their brakes. And even though we were crawling, I still had to slam on my own, and then hold my breath, hoping the car behind me saw this and wouldn’t rear-end me. After a few seconds, I relaxed—I was fine, but all the stuff that had been congregating under the passenger seat had been jostled loose, and there was now a pile of junk on the floor.

“Collins?” I called into the speaker. But whether the phone had gotten turned off when I’d stopped, or he’d given up, either way, he was no longer there. I put the phone aside and glanced down at the mess. There was a tube of Sloane’s mascara, a cracked pair of sunglasses, a half-filled water bottle, and the book I swore up and down to the Stanwich High librarian that I’d returned. There was something else, too. I glanced away from the road for a moment and bent down for it. It was a disposable camera.

HOW EMILY SEES THE WORLD was written across the back of it in Sharpie, in Sloane’s handwriting. She had given it to me sometime last year, and it was almost full, just a few pictures remaining. Even though it was getting dark fast, I held up the disposable and took a picture of the highway and the hood of my car and the seemingly endless red ribbon of brake lights—capturing, at that particular moment, how I saw the world.

I parked my car in the Orchard’s lot, then killed the engine and just sat for a moment, looking out into the night. It had taken me much longer than should have been rationally possible to get back to Stanwich. I’d been getting text updates from Collins along the way. People were meeting up at the Orchard, and I should come by when I made it back into town.

I had hesitated before responding to this, once I’d made it back home and into the sanctuary of my room. Presumably, a lot of the people who were hanging out were Frank’s other friends—like the ones that I’d encountered the first night with him, when he’d taken me to get gas. I hadn’t been back to the Orchard since, and I really wasn’t sure how I would fit in with those people. I was preparing to write Collins another text about how bad the traffic was, begging off, when I got another text.

Hey are you coming? At the Orchard. See you soon?

It was from Frank, and I texted back without a second thought that I’d be there soon. Then I reached for a Sloane-chosen outfit—a vintage dress from Twice that I’d worn a lot last summer. But after I put it on, I found myself pulling at the straps, tugging at the hem, not liking what I saw in the mirror. For some reason, it didn’t feel like me any longer. I took it off and changed into the denim skirt I’d bought with Dawn last week and a white eyelet tank top. Feeling more like myself somehow, I dabbed some makeup on, and made sure to get Frank’s present before grabbing my flip-flops and heading back to the car.

Now that I was there, though, the present suddenly seemed stupid, and I didn’t want Frank to feel like he had to open it in front of people—which was actually the last thing that I wanted. I carefully placed it behind my seat and got out, straightening my skirt as I went.

As I walked, I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d been to the Orchard. When I’d been all alone, miserable, looking down at my phone and trying to pretend that I was meeting someone, that there were people there waiting for me.  And now, I realized with a shock, both of those things were true. And unless things went really wrong, there was no way I could picture myself spending tonight hiding behind a tree. It hit me just how much could happen in two months, how, since the last time I’d been at the Orchard, everything had changed.

Maybe not everything. I slowed as I realized Gideon was sitting on top of one of the picnic tables, at the very edge of the clearing, his head turned away from me. I immediately looked around for Sam, but didn’t see him, which I was glad about. I knew I could have just taken the long way to the center of the clearing, where I was pretty sure I could see Collins—I couldn’t imagine who else would be wearing a plum-colored polo shirt, at any rate. But I somehow found I didn’t want to skulk around and hide from Gideon, or have things be awkward all evening. And so, before I could talk myself out of it, I was walking up to Gideon and touching him on the shoulder.

He turned around to look at me, almost losing his beer bottle in the process. “Hey,” I said, giving him a smile. “How’s it going?”

He just blinked at me for a moment, like he was trying to make sense of the fact that I was standing in front of him—or that I was going up to him to say hi, and not the other way around. “Hi,” he finally said.

“I just wanted to say hello,” I said, after a slightly strained pause. I’d kind of forgotten just how painful conversations with Gideon could sometimes be, and I was beginning to regret starting this one.

He nodded and rolled the bottle between his palms, and when nothing followed, I finally got the hint that he really didn’t want to talk to me. I took a breath to tell him that it was great to see him, and that my friends were waiting—one of which was true—when he looked up at me. “Have you had a good summer?”

“Oh,” I said, gathering my thoughts, and not just replying with a standard “Great!” Gideon didn’t ask these questions just to be polite, and never wanted to hear that everything was fine when it wasn’t. “It’s not what I expected,” I said. As I did, I realized we’d all had summers we hadn’t been expecting—Frank, Dawn, me, Collins, even Beckett and my parents. “But it’s been good. I’ve been having fun.”

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “I’m glad,” he said, in that slow, careful way of his. “Have you been . . .”

“Well, hello there.” There was suddenly someone next to me, sliding his arm around my shoulders. I turned, expecting to see Collins or a Stanwich College freshman pushing his luck, but took a tiny, startled step back when I realized that it was Benji.

“Oh,” I said. I took another step away, extricating myself from his arm. “Um, hi there.”

Gideon had stood up and was frowning down at Benji—no small feat, since Benji was pretty tall himself. “Emily, you know this guy?”

“Oh yeah, she does,” Benji said, with a wink at me—maybe it was a Collins family trait—clearly not reading the room very well and taking another step toward me. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, fine,” I said, a little too brightly.

“Em,” Gideon said, and I could hear the hurt in his voice, though he was clearly trying to cover it up. “Are you two—”

“What am I thinking?” I babbled, mostly so Gideon wouldn’t ask his question and I wouldn’t have to answer it. “This is Gideon,” I said, making the introductions. “And that’s Benji.”

“Ben,” Benji said, his smile fading.

“Right, of course,” I said quickly. “Well, this was fun, but I should probably—”

“So what have you been up to?” Benji asked, smiling at me again. “I haven’t seen you around.”

“Well, no,” I said, wondering what he was getting at, since the only place I’d ever seen him before had been in Frank’s pantry.

“So you guys . . . ,” Gideon said, looking from me to Benji, his expression hard.

“No,” I said quickly, just as Benji replied, “Well, this one time . . .”

“Emily,” Gideon said, now just looking confused.

“There you are.” I turned and saw Frank, a bottle of water in his hand, walking up to me.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at him, happy to see him even though I’d just seen him that morning. Now that he was in front of me, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought about not coming here.

“What’s going on?” Frank asked, looking slightly confused as he glanced from Gideon, to Benji, to me.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, realizing this might be my opportunity to make an exit and leave unscathed. “We should go, right? To celebrate your birthday? Now?” I widened my eyes at him, hoping that he would get the hint.

He seemed to, because he gave me a smile that was clearly concealing a laugh and said, “Yes. My birthday.  Absolutely.”

“Bye,” I said to Gideon as Benji wandered away toward the keg guy. Gideon was now looking from Frank to me, his expression crestfallen. “I’ll see you around?” I asked him. But Gideon had never made things like this easier when he didn’t have to, and he didn’t say anything, just steadily looked back at me for a long moment.

“Okay,” Frank said brightly after a moment, morphing into the student body president, capable of organizing large groups of people and doing it smoothly. “Have a great night. Emily, if you want to follow me, we’re set up over this way . . .” He steered me toward the far picnic table, where there was what looked like a supermarket cake, Collins talking to a girl entirely out of his league, and Doug standing awkwardly next to some of Frank’s school friends.

I could sense the question that Frank wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to answer it, and just looked straight ahead, not meeting his eye as we walked toward the party.

MAY

Two months earlier

“You have to let me see it,” Gideon said, trying to twist around to see his arm and the Sharpie tattoo I was currently working on.

“No,” I said, turning his head away. “Not until I’m finished. You know how bad I am at this.”

He reached over and brushed one of his big hands over my hair, smoothing a piece of it behind my ear. “You’re not bad at it,” he said.

“Ha,” I said. “It’ll be worse if you don’t hold still.”

“Holding,” Gideon said, shooting me one of his small, rare smiles. In the two months that the four of us had been hanging out, Sharpie tattoos had become a thing we did. While we started the evenings together, Sloane and Sam would inevitably break off on their own, and then it would be me and Gideon and a Sharpie, passing the time. It had started that first night we’d gone to the Orchard, and had just become a tradition, though it had taken me a while to build up the courage to draw one on him. I had less than no artistic talent, and Gideon was a natural and gifted artist, though he denied this and insisted it was just something stupid he did for fun. I’d started to really look forward to mine, even though I knew as it was being drawn on that it was temporary. The tattoos faded over time and with every shower until there was just a faint suggestion of whatever it was that had been adorning my hand or arm or ankle.

Sloane clearly thought that Gideon would be the perfect solution to my problems with Sam. This way, we could all hang out, but she could spend time with Sam as well. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like Gideon. He was a really nice guy, a good kisser, and had a sly sense of humor that only came out once you got to know him. But I was still left with the lingering, nagging thought that I hadn’t chosen him, he’d been presented to me. And I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if we’d just met, without the expectations of both our best friends pushing us together.

But it was nice with him now, in Sam’s TV room, sitting next to each other on the couch. The movie we’d all been watching was on pause, the TV having long switched over to the screensaver of generic pictures—a butterfly on a leaf, an African vista, a lighthouse. We’d all been watching together when Sam had gotten a text. Sloane had seen it and said something to him I couldn’t hear. Sam had stormed into the kitchen in a huff, and Sloane had followed. That had been over twenty minutes ago, and when it had become clear they weren’t reappearing any time soon, Gideon had paused the movie and procured the Sharpie, raising an eyebrow at me. It was my turn, and since you couldn’t erase marker, I had planned out this design and was working very carefully on it. It was a series of ocean waves that wrapped around the front of his arm. I could draw waves, they were pretty easy, just a continual scrolling pattern. And then atop one of the waves, I’d drawn a bear on a surfboard. I knew it didn’t make much sense, but cartoony bears were one of the few things I could draw well, so I just hoped Gideon wouldn’t question it too much. I put the final details on the bear’s ears and leaned back a little, looking at my handiwork. I realized I was actually pretty happy with this one. Gideon was still turning his head away, and impulsively I scrawled Emily xoxo on his arm, then sat back and capped the marker. “Done,” I said.

He turned his head, looked at it, and smiled. “That’s awesome,” he said. “The best one yet.” He squinted down at his arm. “Is that a bear?”

“Um,” I said. It didn’t seem like such a great sign that he had to ask this. “It’s supposed to be.”

“I love it,” he said. “It’s great.” He looked at me for a moment, then leaned forward and kissed me. After hesitating for just a second, I kissed him back, and I felt the Sharpie fall from my hand. He pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around me.

“Whoa.” I pulled away and sat up slightly, seeing Sam standing in the doorway of the TV room, a sour expression on his face. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Didn’t see you there,” Gideon said, sitting up straighter, his face flushed red.

“Clearly,” Sam said, with one of his smiles that never seemed to have all that much humor in it.

“Where’s Sloane?” I asked, looking behind him, but not seeing my best friend.

“Kitchen,” he said with a shrug, like it didn’t concern him all that much. He nodded at the TV. “We watching this?”

“Sure,” I said, moving closer to Gideon to make some more room on the couch. Sam crossed to sit against one end of it, grabbed the remote and pointed it at the TV just as Gideon picked up his phone, resting on the coffee table, and groaned.

“I have to go,” he said quietly to me as he set the phone back down. “Curfew.” I had never been to Gideon’s house or met his parents, but from the little he’d told me, I had gotten the distinct impression that they were very strict. His curfew was a full two hours earlier than mine. I nodded, and he leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, while I felt Sam watching us. “Call you tomorrow,” he said, pushing himself up off the couch. He and Sam did the thing they always did—it was half a high-five and half a handshake. “Say good-bye to Sloane for me?” he asked as he headed toward the front door, and I nodded.

“Sure thing,” I said. He smiled at me, and a moment later, I heard the door slam and the sound of his car engine starting up.

“You know,” Sam said from his side of the couch. I suddenly wished I could move to sit at the other end of it—or even leave the couch entirely—without it being incredibly obvious that I wanted to get away from him. “I think that was directed to me.”

I just looked at him for a moment. “What was?”

“When he asked about saying good-bye to Sloane. I think that was to me, not you.”

“Oh,” I said. I couldn’t believe that this mattered to him, but apparently it did. “Um, sorry about that.” I glanced back toward the kitchen, wondering if my best friend needed me. I was actually feeling a little uncomfortable about it being the three of us here; I usually left around the same time Gideon did. “I think I’ll go find Sloane,” I said, starting to get up.

“And leave me all alone?” Sam asked. If he’d been smiling, or joking, I might have laughed at this, but he was just looking at me, his face serious.

“Ha,” I said, glancing back to the kitchen again. I knew I should just get up, go find Sloane, and tell her good-bye.

“So you and Gideon are getting close,” he said, moving a little nearer to me on the couch.

“I guess so,” I said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. And Sam moved closer still, his expression almost carefully blank, like he knew he was making me nervous, and he liked it.

Sam leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You want to know what he told me about you?”

“I really don’t,” I said, forcing a laugh that even I could hear fell flat. “Want to watch the movie?”

“Nope,” Sam said, still looking right at me. “We should be friends, Emily.”

“We are,” I said lightly, just wanting this strange exchange to be over as quickly as possible. It was underscoring for me that I was never alone with Sam; I was beginning to realize that I preferred it that way.

“Really?” he asked, leaning even closer to me.

Two things happened then, very quickly, the kind of quick where you don’t have time to think anything through, you just react and hope for the best. Sam leaned in to kiss me and I saw Sloane rounding the corner, coming in from the kitchen, carrying two glasses in her hands.

And I could have just ducked or turned away from Sam. But I didn’t. I let him kiss me, and I waited just a second more before I broke away, pushed him away from me and said, loudly, “What are you doing?”

There was the sound of glass breaking, and I looked over to see Sloane, her blue eyes wide, shattered glass at her feet and what looked like Coke spilling onto her shoes, the new white pony-skin ones she’d saved a month to buy.

Sam’s head snapped around, and he looked from Sloane to me, shaking his head. “It isn’t . . . ,” he said, talking fast, his voice high. “Emily was totally throwing herself at me after Gideon left, and . . .”

Sloane looked at me, like she was looking for the answer. I looked right back at her and shook my head. There was a fraction of a second where I wondered if she would pick Sam, his version of things, their three months over our two years. But this worry faded when I saw in her eyes how completely she believed me. “Em, would you mind waiting by the car?” she asked, her voice quiet and breaking. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”

I nodded, scrambled to my feet, and grabbed my purse. As I headed to the front door, I saw that Sam’s expression was equal parts shocked and angry. “Wait, you don’t even believe me?” he asked, his voice rising.

“Nope,” I heard Sloane say, still quiet, before I stepped out into the night and pulled the door shut behind me.

I just stood on the Welcome, Friends! mat for a moment, trying to put everything that had just happened into some kind of order. Deep down, I knew I could have stopped it. But if Sam was going to try and kiss me anyway, shouldn’t Sloane have seen it? So she could finally see what kind of guy he was?

I knew I was justifying something that I shouldn’t have done, but before I could continue to talk myself into it, an SUV pulled into the driveway. Through the windshield, I recognized Gideon, who was already smiling at me as he killed the engine and got out of the car. I walked down Sam’s front steps and over to my car, and we met halfway.

“Hey,” he said. “Leaving already?”

I glanced back toward the house. I knew I didn’t have a ton of time, if Sloane did go through with ending it, like I was fairly sure she was going to. Sloane didn’t fight with people, ever, so even if Sam wanted a long, drawn-out breakup, he wasn’t about to get one. “I am,” I said slowly. I had no idea what—if anything—I should tell him. I had no doubt that Sam would soon spin this story whatever way suited him.

“I forgot my phone,” he said, nodding toward the house.

“Listen,” I said quickly. Between his curfew and the fact that I had a feeling that Sloane wasn’t going to want to linger, I had to make this fast and get it over with. Because Gideon and I were done. I felt a small pang as I realized this, but I pushed on past it. We had always been the add-ons to our best friends’ relationship, and it wouldn’t make much sense for us to continue, just the two of us. There probably wasn’t enough there to last on its own. Better to get out now, before we’d had the chance to try and preserve something that wouldn’t have worked. “I think Sloane and Sam are breaking up,” I said, glancing back toward the house.

“No,” Gideon said, his face falling. “Are you sure they’re not just fighting? Because—”

“So I just . . . ,” I started, then stopped when I realized I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I’d never had to break up with anyone before. “This has been really great,” I said after a moment. “But . . .”

Gideon just looked at me, and I saw understanding slowly dawn on his face. “Wait,” he said. “Emily. What are you saying?”

“Just that I think it would be too hard now,” I said, realizing as I did that there had been very few actual nouns or verbs in that sentence. “I just do.” The door opened, and Sloane came out barefoot, carrying her ruined flats. “So . . . take care, okay?” I asked, hating myself even as I asked it, but telling myself that this was for the best. It would be better to end it right then, rather than drawing it out.

Gideon was still looking at me like he was hoping that at any moment, I might tell him this had all been an elaborate joke. But I made myself turn away from him and headed to my car, but not before I got a glimpse of the xoxo I’d drawn on his skin not very long ago.

Two hours later, the cake had been eaten, the birthday song had been sung, and most of the guests had departed.

And I was tipsy.

It wasn’t something that I had planned on, at all. But when I arrived at the picnic table, Collins had given me a red cup of beer and a fork—he hadn’t remembered to get plates for the cake. He’d gotten the cake at a discount, since someone hadn’t picked it up, which was also the reason it read You Did It, Wanda! There was no indication of what, exactly, Wanda had done, just a few lopsided red sugar roses on the corners. The cake was sickly sweet, and at first, I’d just sipped at my beer to balance out the taste. But as I’d had more, I found it made my strained conversations with Frank’s other friends a little easier to get through. None of them could understand why I was there, most of them appeared to think I worked with Frank and Collins, and the remainder seemed to be convinced that I was dating Doug.  And it wasn’t until I’d finished my second cup that I realized I was officially tipsy. I was baffled as to why until I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat that day except for birthday donuts with Frank, hours and hours before.

Which explained my current state, but didn’t help me do much about it. I ended up sitting on a picnic table with Collins, who was finishing up the last bites of the cake and bemoaning his romantic woes to me. It was perfect, because it seemed like he was more interested in a monologue than a dialogue, and whenever I had too much to drink I got oddly honest and told people things I never would have otherwise.

“And I’m a catch, right, Emily?” he asked, waving his fork in his general direction. “I mean, the C-dawg’s got style. He’s got panache, you know? And he knows how to please the ladies.”

I started to feel slightly sick, and I wasn’t sure it was the beer. “Um . . .”

“And yet all these girls just passing up their ride on the C train! Their loss, though. Am I right or am I right?” He took a big bite of cake and ended up with frosting on his nose.

I reached over, held his face steady, and wiped it off while Collins blinked at me, surprised. It was another thing that I did when I’d had a bit to drink—I acted without thinking first, without running through possibilities and outcomes, and just did. “I don’t know,” I said, thinking back to the girl he’d been hitting on earlier that night, and all the girls he was forever making a spectacle of himself in front of at school. “Did you ever think about asking out someone maybe a little less . . .” I paused. I had a feeling that I was going to insult him if I kept going and said something along the lines of “on your level.” But my brain at the moment wasn’t coming up with any other alternatives. “You know,” I finally said. “Someone that you’re maybe already friends with.”

Collins shook his head. “Dawn said the same thing last week,” he said dismissively. “But you can’t help who you fall for. The heart wants what it wants.” I didn’t feel up to arguing with that at the moment, and just looked around at the dwindling crowd.

“Too bad she couldn’t make it,” I said.

“Yeah,” Collins agreed. “I tried my best, but apparently she had to ‘work.’ ” He put air quotes around the last word, shaking his head dismissively. Dawn had been invited, but her manager apparently had been calling into question how long she was taking with her deliveries ever since she’d started hanging out with us, and so she didn’t want to push her luck.

“I think that was the last of them,” Frank said, coming to join us as he waved at two guys—they’d been convinced I worked at IndoorXtreme and seemed insulted when I’d said I couldn’t get them free passes—as they headed to the cars.

“Did you have fun?” Collins asked, like he couldn’t have cared less what the answer was, but I knew him well enough by now not to believe it.

“It was great, man,” Frank said, hitting him on the back as I rolled my eyes. I had no idea why boys, when they became affectionate, got violent. “Thanks a lot.”

“Yes,” I said, carefully standing up, but still somehow managing to lose my balance and catching myself on the table. “Really . . . great.”

Frank looked at me, levelly. “Keys,” he said, holding out his hand for them.

“Have you had anything?” I asked, even as I was digging in my purse for them.

“Just a month’s worth of sugar,” he said, glancing at the remains of the cake. “Nothing to drink, only water.” I handed Frank my keys, very relieved I hadn’t had to call Dawn or my parents or a taxi—the possibilities I’d been running through in my head, none of which I’d particularly liked. “I’ll meet you by your car,” he said. “Collins and I are just going to clean this up.”

Collins turned to him, looking surprised. “We are? I mean, I am?” He sighed and gestured to the picnic table with the remains of the cake and empty red cups scattered on the ground. “But I organized all this!”

“I’ll help,” I said, bending down to get a cup, but losing my balance halfway and having to brace myself on the picnic table.

“Car,” Frank said, placing his hands on my shoulders and turning me in the direction of the parking lot. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“This is going to take five minutes?” Collins grumbled as he bent down to pick up a cup.

“I’ll see you there,” I said, somehow not even feeling embarrassed that this was happening. I knew I would probably feel it in the morning—along with a splitting headache—but for the moment, I was just vaguely relieved that things were working out.

I focused on making my way back to the car, wondering why I never normally had to concentrate this hard on walking, since it was actually very challenging. It wasn’t until I reached the Volvo that I realized I couldn’t get in—I’d given Frank the keys. So I carefully pushed myself up to sit on the trunk, feet resting on my back bumper. I leaned back to look up at the stars, amazed at how they were taking over the whole sky. “Emily?” I sat up more cautiously than usual to see Gideon standing by the driver’s side of an SUV parked a car away from me. He must have unlocked the car, because the interior lights flared on, suddenly very bright against the darkness. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I said, pronouncing the word carefully enough that I might have undercut my intention. “I mean, I’m not driving or anything,” I assured him. “But it’s being handled.”

“Do you need a ride?” he asked, his brow furrowed, and I could see why he was confused—when someone is sitting on the trunk of a parked car, it would seem to indicate they’re having some transportation issues.

“No,” I said, shaking my head once to each side—things started to get a little spinny if I did more than that. “My—Frank is driving me.”

“Frank,” Gideon said, shaking his head as he looked down at the keys in his hands. “You sure didn’t waste any time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, but not in the sarcastic way people generally asked it—I honestly didn’t know what he meant. A moment later, though, I caught up and felt my jaw drop. “No, no,” I said. “No. We’re not—he has a girlfriend. A really serious one. And I was supposed to pick her up this afternoon, but . . .” I trailed off when I realized Gideon probably didn’t need to hear about the details of my day. “Where’s Sam?” I asked. Not that I wanted to see him, but seeing Gideon twice without Sam’s presence was just surprising.

He gestured back to the Orchard. “He wanted to stay a little longer.” He looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “Where’s Sloane?”

I shrugged, feeling how loose my shoulders were. “She . . . left,” I said. “At the beginning of the summer.”

“Where?” Gideon asked, and the force of that simple word—and the fact that I still didn’t have an answer—hit me hard.

“I don’t know,” I said, hating that I had to, that I didn’t have any other answers. “But I’m working on it.”

Gideon just shook his head, looking down at his keys. “The two of you,” he said. “You just leave people behind, no explanations, don’t care if—”

“Wait,” I said, getting down from the car. “I don’t—” Gideon ran his hand over his close-cropped hair, and it was then that I saw something peeking out of his T-shirt sleeve. It was something I never would have done if I hadn’t had two beers on an empty stomach. But without thinking it through, I was crossing to him and pushing up his shirtsleeve to see what I knew would be there.

It was the last Sharpie tattoo I’d given him, the night everything had fallen apart with the four of us. And though I’d given it to him in May, months ago, it looked freshly done, the waves still endlessly cresting. And since Gideon didn’t smell terrible, he’d obviously been bathing, which meant . . .

I looked up at him, and he took a step away, but not before I saw where I’d signed my name just to the side of his tricep—Emily xoxo. He’d been coloring it in ever since—those lines I’d drawn without any real thought to them, just to kill some time. It felt like someone had just punched me, and I felt dizzy in a way that had nothing to do with the beer.

He slowly rolled his sleeve down, and I finally let myself see it—the pain I’d caused him, the damage I’d left behind. “Gideon,” I started. “I’m sorry—” But he was already turning away from me.

“Sure,” he said, his voice flat and sarcastic.

“I am,” I said, taking an unsteady step closer to him, resting my hand on the hood of his car. I wished that I was more sober for this, because getting my thoughts in line was a struggle, but I knew I had to at least try.  “Listen. I shouldn’t have ended things like that.” As soon as I said it, I realized that I probably also shouldn’t have been dating him in the first place, but wasn’t sure that would be helpful to say.  “I never meant to hurt you. Really.” I searched his face, trying to see if this had gotten through, these words I should have said months ago.

Gideon looked at me for just a moment before shaking his head, pulling open his door, and getting in his car. “See you,” he said, not looking at me. Then he pulled out of the Orchard, his lights briefly lighting up the old faded sign, with its ever-hopeful, twinned cherries.

I watched his taillights until they got more and more distant and then faded from view entirely. I realized, in that moment, that I hadn’t needed to destroy Bryan’s sunglasses in the Paradise parking lot. Because it was clear to me now that I’d already broken something.

Frank arrived at the car a few minutes later and unlocked the doors. I got into my passenger seat, where I wasn’t sure I’d ever sat before. I looked at him as he adjusted the seat, pushing himself back from the steering wheel, then starting my car and pulling out into the night.

“So who was that guy earlier?” Frank asked after a moment, glancing over at me. “The one you clearly wanted to get away from?”

“Gideon,” I said. “My . . . ex, I guess.” I wasn’t sure I had the right to call him that, since we’d never been official. But he was really the closest thing I had to one.

“Oh yeah?” Frank asked, looking away from the road for longer than I would have advised. But somehow, in my slightly fuzzy state, it didn’t seem to bother me that much. “What happened?”

I shrugged, really not wanting to go into the whole thing—and not only because I had behaved in a way I wasn’t proud of. “We weren’t right for each other,” I said, realizing as I said it that it was true. I took a breath. I was starting to talk again before I’d even worked out what I was going to say. “You wouldn’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “Not without asking me.” Frank glanced over at me, baffled, but I didn’t stop to explain. “Of course you wouldn’t.” I could feel myself start to laugh at the thought of it. Frank wanting me to date someone like Sloane had was crazy, but if he did, I knew he’d be checking with me constantly, making sure I was okay with it. Frank drove me home when I had too much to drink, and scheduled horseback rides for me, and had seemed really alarmed that I’d never heard of a band called the Format, and made me a mix to correct it. He looked out for me. “But I wouldn’t do it now, either,” I said. I wouldn’t agree to it now.  The fact that I’d just let Sloane set me up with Gideon, barely asking any questions, seemed like it had happened a long time ago now.

“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about, right?” Frank asked as he made the left onto the street that would take me home.

“I know,” I said. I thought about trying to explain it to him, but then just decided to let it go. “I’m sorry about Lissa.”

Frank glanced over at me, then back at the road again. He leaned forward slightly, and moonlight from the open roof spilled across his face, lighting him up. “It was okay,” he said slowly, like he was trying out these words, in this order, for the first time. “It turned out fine. And I had a great birthday.”

“Really?” I asked, a little doubtfully, thinking of Lissa bailing, of  Wanda’s cake, of having to drive me home.

“Really,” he said firmly. “I mean, I started off the day being serenaded by donut shop employees, so it was pretty fantastic.”

“I’m still just sorry about this—making you drive me on my birthday.” He glanced over at me, one eyebrow raised, and it occurred to me after a moment this wasn’t quite right. “Your birthday,” I said, trying to get my thoughts in line. “Drive me on your birthday.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” he said. “It’s the least I could do after you trekked down to New Jersey to get Lissa.”

“Not all the way,” I said. “She called me about halfway there.” Frank nodded, and I leaned back against the passenger-side door, curling my legs under me. I stretched my hand up through the open roof, feeling the warm night air rush around and through my fingers, looking up at all the stars that were visible tonight. In the dark car, with only the dashboard light, it looked like I could maybe reach them, if only I tried hard enough.

I leaned my head back against the window. My neck felt liquid and relaxed; despite what had just happened with Gideon, I was feeling somehow peaceful as I watched Frank driving me home. “You’re driving my car,” I said, shaking my head. “Nobody ever drives my car but me. It feels like I’m always driving other people around.”

“How am I doing?”

“Good,” I concluded after a moment. “It’s acceptable.”

Frank smiled at that, and when we reached my house, he pulled the car into the spot I always parked in, and as he killed the engine and handed my keys to me, it hit me that he knew where I parked my car. He knew where I lived, and didn’t need directions to bring me home.

We just sat in the car for a moment, looking ahead at my house, which was dark and quiet. Even all the cicadas seemed to have signed off for the night, and it was like the whole world was sleeping, the moon above out in full force and lighting everything up.

“Wait,” I said suddenly, turning to him.

He smiled. “I’m not going anywhere, Em.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, how are you going to get home?”

“I’ll walk,” he said. “It’s not that far. I do it every day, after all.”

“But that’s during the day,” I pointed out. “It’s nighttime now. There could be vagrants. Or coyotes.”

Frank just shook his head, still smiling. “I think I’ll be okay.” He got out of the driver’s seat, and I scrambled out of the passenger side to follow him.

“Well, then I’ll walk with you,” I said, and Frank stopped in the driveway and shook his head, turning to me.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, his voice patient. “Because then you’d have to walk back here, and I’m not letting you do that in your present state.”

“Oh my god!” I said, maybe more loudly than I should have, since it seemed particularly loud against the quiet of the night, and Frank glanced toward my sleeping house. “Present! I forgot to give it to you! Hold on.”

“Still not going anywhere,” he pointed out, and I could hear a laugh somewhere in his voice. I walked back to the car and yanked the wrapped package out from where I’d hidden it behind the front seat.

“Here,” I said, walking back to him and holding it out.

“You really didn’t have to do this,” he said, shaking his head.

“Of course I did,” I said, reaching out and giving his arm a small push. But it didn’t quite work out like I’d hoped, and my hand lingered a little too long on his arm before I got my thoughts working and pulled it back again. Somewhere in the more lucid part of my brain, I knew that was something I would have not ordinarily done, but it had already happened before that part of my brain could catch up to things.

Frank unwrapped the package slowly and carefully, and as he got closer to seeing what it was, I suddenly wondered if I’d chosen the wrong thing, or if he would think this was stupid. “No way,” he said as he pulled back the final corner and held up the CD I’d had to track down online. Curtis Anderson—Bootlegs and B-Sides. It was a comedy CD that had a tiny printing and hadn’t done well, but from everything I’d been able to glean, it was considered his best. I’d had to bid against anderfan2020 on eBay in a heated auction, but I’d gotten it in the end.

“I just thought,” I said, wishing I wasn’t so worried about his reaction, “that, you know, in a well-ordered universe, you would already have this. So . . .”

Frank shook his head and looked up at me. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“You can return it if you want,” I said, even as I said it, wondering if that would be possible. But I was pretty sure at the very least, I could probably sell it to anderfan2020.

“Are you kidding?” he said, turning it over to read the back. “This is fantastic. Thank you.”

I felt myself start to yawn, and Frank tucked the CD under his arm. “You should get some sleep,” he said, starting to head toward the road.

“I’ll walk you,” I insisted, falling into step next to him.

“Then I’m just going to have to walk you back,” he pointed out.

“Stop halfway?”

Frank looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Deal,” he said, and we walked together down the driveway, and turned left onto the road. Since it was totally deserted out, we could walk down the middle of the road, each of us taking one side of the center yellow line. The moonlight was so bright that it was casting our shadows onto the asphalt, and we walked in silence that felt totally comfortable, like maybe we didn’t need to talk just then.

I yawned again, and Frank stopped walking. “I’m walking you home now,” he said, changing direction.

“What happened to halfway?” I asked, even as I turned around as well and started walking back toward my house.

“I was never going to actually do that,” he said. “I mean, there could be coyotes out here. Or vagrants.”

“Good point,” I said, trying to stop myself from smiling but not really succeeding. “Hey,” I said, suddenly thinking of something that I’d been wondering all night. “What do you think Wanda did?” When Frank just stared at me, looking baffled, I added, “Cake Wanda?”

“Oh,” he said, as understanding dawned. “I was wondering about that, myself. Maybe she broke out of prison.”

“Or she won the lottery,” I suggested. “And her friends realized she could afford a much better cake.”

He laughed. “She rid the town of its chronic vagrants-and-coyotes problem.”

I smiled at that, and we walked in silence for a moment before I said, “Maybe she didn’t do something big. Maybe she just told someone something.”

Frank looked over at me, more serious now. “Like what?”

I shrugged. “Something they’d been needing to hear,” I said. I thought it over for a moment, then added, “I don’t think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it’s the little things that are harder anyway.”

“And you usually don’t get cakes for doing them,” Frank pointed out. He stopped walking, and I realized we’d made it back to my house. I was about to protest, to offer to walk him halfway back, when I was suddenly hit with another wave of fatigue, and I yawned hugely.

“Thanks for walking me home,” I said, looking across the road at him. “And for, um, driving me home as well.”

“Of course,” he said. He lifted his CD. “Thank you for this.”

I just looked at him in the moonlight for a long moment—something I knew, even as I was doing it, that I never would have done if I’d been stone-cold sober. “Happy birthday, Frank.”

He smiled at me, looking tired but happy. “Good night, Emily.”

I walked down the driveway to my house, and I knew without looking back to check that Frank was still there, waiting to see that I got in okay. And sure enough, after I’d unlocked the door, I turned around and saw him, alone in the road, CD under his arm, moon shadow stretching out behind him. From the doorway, I raised a hand in a wave, and Frank waved back, then turned and started walking home himself.