“Aviator Guy?” And did my best friend just call me a skank?
“The park?” Carly’s practically yelling now. “Sarah lives at the corner? I saw you making out with him. I know it was him even though he was wearing different glasses. And I don’t know what hurts more, the fact that you lied to me about it, or the fact that I called first dibs on him and you didn’t even care.” Carly’s crying. I can hear it in her voice.
“Carly, no, you’ve got this wrong. I wasn’t— I didn’t—”
“What’s his name?” Carly clips out. “How do you know him? You never said you knew him when we were talking about him after school on Friday. What else are you lying to me about?”
“I don’t know him. I mean, I didn’t know him, not when you were talking about him on Friday.” I’m breathing too fast, and even though what I’m saying is the truth, I know it doesn’t sound like it. “I went running. He happened to be running the same way. We ran together.”
“You don’t run on Sundays!”
“Well, I ran this Sunday.” Today. A couple of hours ago. Was it really only a couple of hours ago? I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime since Jackson ran with me to the park.
“And ended up making out by the swings? With a guy you just met?”
“We weren’t making out. He hugged me. I had a—” A what? A moment, and I let a stranger hug me? No wonder Carly thinks I’m lying. “I had a rough minute where I was upset and he just hugged me. That’s all.”
Carly makes a strangled sound. “Save it for someone who wants to hear it,” she says, and the line cuts off.
I stare at the phone. She hung up on me. Carly. The one person in my life who I could count on not to leave. She just left. Hung up and left. I feel sick.
Then I feel angry. She’s my friend. My best friend. Carly’s the peacemaker. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. Shouldn’t she at least hear my side before putting me in front of the firing squad?
But that’s just it. I can’t tell her my side. I can’t tell her anything. My secrets are driving a wedge between us.
All she knows is what she thinks she saw—an eyewitness account tainted by both insider knowledge and lack thereof. Anxiety sits like a lead bar on my chest, buzzing through my limbs and crushing me at the same time. I need to do something. I need to—
“Miki!” Dad yells up from downstairs. “I threw in a couple of loads. Can you fold the one in the dryer and transfer what’s in the washer?”
Normally I’d groan, but right now I’m happy to do it. Anything to distract myself. Once I’m in the basement, I see that it’s sheets and towels in the dryer. Folding them won’t take long, and I need something that’ll take forever. So I grab the first sheet and start ironing. Good busywork for my hands; I just wish it could keep my brain busy, too.
A while later, Dad comes down and stands there, watching me. “I was wondering what was taking you so long down here. What are you doing?”
“Ironing.”
“The bedsheets? Who irons bedsheets?”
“Me.”
“You’ve never ironed them before.”
“I’m ironing them now,” I say.
He stares at me for a long time, his expression bewildered, and then he leaves. I slam the iron down hard and rub it back and forth on the sheet, which is a soft, pearly gray, just a little lighter than Jackson’s eyes.
That night, I do something I haven’t done in years. I climb out my window and sit on the flat roof of the overhang that covers the front porch, my back against the bricks below my window. Mom and I used to do this when I was little, sit out here on warm, clear nights. Mom always kept a solid grip on the back of my shirt even though there really was no chance that I’d fall.
We’d stare out at the stars and she’d try and pick out the constellations. I think that one’s Ursa Major, she’d say. Or, I think that one’s Cassiopeia. Sometimes she’d be right. Sometimes she’d be wrong. It didn’t really matter. I just liked looking at the stars with her.
There isn’t much of a moon tonight, just a thin crescent hanging on a velvet night sky. Compared to the tunnels I spent the last two days in, I wouldn’t call it dark. There’s too much ambient light from the neighbors’ houses and the streetlamps and the glow from downtown that bounces up and back down, leaving everything tinged a little bright.
I stare at the stars, but the truth is, I’m not really looking at them. I’m waiting for the prickle that will tell me he’s there, standing on my street, watching me.
It doesn’t come.
He doesn’t come.
My disappointment is bitter and chalky, like I chewed an aspirin.
It’s past midnight when I climb back inside and pull my window shut. The glass reflects my own face back at me.
I stare, something gnawing at the edges of my thoughts, and in my mind’s eye, I see a different face. A face that repeats over and over again. Smooth expression. Light brown hair. High cheekbones. Familiar, but not.