I punched her back. “You were supposed to say I’m tall.”
We sat there a moment, silent, listening to the coo of doves on the electrical wires. It was such a mournful sound. Then I started thinking about getting down from there, or rather, getting down without looking like a total idiot or actually hurting myself. This was an issue every single time we did this.
Amanda spoke first. “Do you think they were ever in love? I mean, they must have been, right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, they were college sweethearts. They met at a frat party. She once showed me a whole album of love notes he sent her.”
“Weird.”
“How about your parents?”
“They were in love. He’s still in love with her. That’s why every few years they start talking, and I think they’ll get back together.”
“Do you want that?”
“I used to, but now I don’t. She says she loves us, but she loves drugs more.”
I nodded.
“I wish he’d meet someone else,” she said. “Then I’d know they’ll never get back together.”
“I’m not there yet.” The monkey bars were starting to dig into my butt. “I still want everyone to pretend they’re happy together, even though we apparently never were.”
She touched my hand with her fingers. I don’t know if it was intentional, but I sort of started a little at the unexpectedness, and she pulled her hand back. But I grabbed it.
“Thanks for coming here with me,” I said.
“I didn’t have anything better to do.”
“Sleep, homework, answering BuzzFeed quizzes about which Hogwarts house you belong in, watching . . .”
Down the street, I saw a flash of red, followed by blue. A police cruiser. Did I mention we weren’t, strictly speaking, supposed to be on the playground?
“Shit,” Amanda whispered. “The neighbors must have heard me screaming.”
“You think?” I whispered back.
“Come on. Jump down. We can go before they see us.”
I gaped down at the black hole that was the playground. In the occasional strobing light, I could see the ground, some patchy grass, mostly hard, brown dirt. This would be where I died. Or broke my leg, then got arrested, then needed my dad to bail me out. Or died.
“I have to climb down. You go.” I started to pull my hand away from hers.
She clutched mine. “Never leave a man behind. Come on. When I count three, jump, and then we’ll split up. You go left, I’ll go right.”
“I can’t.”
“One . . . two . . .” She tugged at my hand. “Three.”
And I jumped, knowing she’d pull me off with her if I didn’t. I landed, mostly on my feet, my whole body jolted like a punch to the gut, but okay, still holding her hand.
She yanked it away.
“Run! Text me when you get home.”
We both ran in opposite directions just as the police car stopped.
When I got home, I saw she’d already texted me.
Same time tomorrow at 9?
I texted back:
Yeah
A moment later, she texted back:
Do you ever wonder if you have a doppelganger?
Clearly I do. It’s Ryan Gosling
No, that’s not true. There couldn’t possibly be 2 such great-looking guys on the planet But if you had a double . . . what would you do with one?
Send him to take my SATs for me if he’s smarter Boring
If he was from another country and spoke another language I’d send him somewhere to speak it and really freak people out What about you?
I’d send her to take my classes in school so I could sleep in Now who’s boring?
Okay, I’d make her have Thanksgiving dinner with my mom and grandmother. She’d probably behave better As usual, we texted all night.
10
That summer, I went to camp for the first four weeks so I could be back for football practice. In that time, Mom and Dad separated. Dad moved in with his new girlfriend, Chelsea (turned out Julia was just temporary), and Mom had five garage sales to sell off twenty years of memories so we’d fit in the condo we were moving to.
“Will you still go to school here?” Amanda asked one night at the school playground. We’d been going there every night since I got back. The possibility of getting caught just made it cooler, though we’d found that, if we refrained from screaming, nobody called the cops.
“Mom said she’d try to find a place in the district,” I said, not adding that most of the condos and townhouses were on the other side of the district. I wouldn’t be able to walk or run to her house unless I was planning on joining the cross-country team. But maybe I’d get a car.
“You could always move in with us,” Amanda said.
“Matt too?”
“Sure, why not?”
“You wouldn’t say that if you lived with him. The smells alone . . .” I pretended to shudder.
“Or your mom could marry my dad.”
I laughed. “You want to be my sister?”
“Why not?” she repeated, and even in the darkness, I could see she was looking at me, like she was daring me to say why not. And I wondered what would happen if I just leaned over and kissed her.
It would ruin everything, that was what.
I slapped my arm. “It’s really buggy here.”
“Yeah, I wish they’d spray.”