Once I told him how I used to try to read all the same books he read in high school because I had such a huge crush on him.
He told me he loved that idea, the idea that he and I were trying to go to the same fictional places at once, and asked what if both of us tried to dream of the same place so we could meet while we’re sleeping? Then, that night, Stuart called me and we tried to do exactly that.
“Okay, where should we go?” he asked.
I could feel the medicine tugging me to sleep. “How about the mountains?” I said.
“Which one?”
“On top of my mountain,” I said.
“What does it look like?”
And I don’t remember what came next, but Stuart told me I described it in detail, the rocky path that is barely a path and the red scrub grass that grows in the cracks and the layer of clouds that sits on the peaks. He went that night, he said, and I was there. I wish I could have been there.
On the days we sit together and I don’t feel like reading, I look at books of photography or read old, trippy comics or just stare out the enormous arched window at the people on the lawn.
Sometimes I cry and that is okay.
At first I was embarrassed to do that in front of Stuart, but he told me he cries, too, sometimes for no good reason.
As he reads, Stuart moves his thumb across my hand. These are good days.
CAPTAIN STICKMAN
Maddie came to get me the other day in her two-door Toyota, kicking up dust on the mountain and honking to get Puppy to move out of the way so he didn’t get run over. It was late June in the Juniest way, hot and bright, bees everywhere, sticky sugar spilling from the hummingbird feeder. It was Saturday and Maddie gave Harry and Bette and Davy high fives, all in a row, and waved to Mom where she was weeding in the garden and took me off the mountain.
We pulled up to her house, where Maddie’s relatives, or more like various versions of Maddie at different ages and with different hair, were sipping lemonade under a banner that said CONGRATULATIONS MADELINE. To be among people who weren’t my family, even strangers, I could have sung just like Davy, “People come from everywhere because I’m almost there.”
The free air. Nobody asked me questions. I just sat on the porch swing and ate chocolate chip cookies, and occasionally Maddie would swing by and we’d exchange a joke, or she’d tell me a story about how she’s been Facebook stalking her new roommate at Emory, a lizard enthusiast.
When she started in on what classes she was taking, I had to bite my tongue. College shit. I couldn’t handle college shit.
I nodded along for Maddie’s sake, but every mention of higher education was still like someone pinching me and twisting. Mariana Oliva’s words rose up behind me, a ghost: Study everything. It’s not like I still harbored dreams that I could do it. I couldn’t do it, I knew I couldn’t do it.
But damn. All the hope I had felt, flaunting itself like a peacock in the letters we received from the NYU registrar, every logo, every mention.
After her aunt so-and-so called Maddie away, I noticed Coop and that guy Maddie had punched all those years ago refilling their lemonade cups.
When Coop spotted me, I waved, and he came over and sat down on the swing. We didn’t say anything for a while. I remembered I had forgotten to make him brownies for giving me a ride.
“Qué pasa, Sammie?” He bumped his cup on mine. One of the last classes we had taken together was Spanish 1, our first year of high school. He used to greet me like that every class period.
“Nada, zanahoria.”
Coop turned to me, confused. “Did you just say, ‘nothing, carrot’?”
I laughed. “I couldn’t remember what asshole was.”
“Are you still mad at me for digging into that Stuart guy?”
“You can just call him Stuart.”
Coop rolled his eyes. “Are you still mad at me for digging into Stuart?”
“Well, maybe I was, but you were right.” I took a deep breath. “I told him.”
“And?” Coop raised his eyebrows, his voice bracing for another blow.
“Stuart’s sticking around.” I swallowed. “I mean, for the time being. He even comes over and helps out around the house. That’s why my parents haven’t asked your mom to check in for a while.”
“Wow.”
“I mean, not all the time,” I said. “He still has to write a lot. And he works at the Canoe Club.”
Coop nodded, shrugged, didn’t say anything for a second. “Good,” he finally said.
We smiled, but there was a little sadness to his—I’m not sure why.
Anyway, the fight was over, like rapid fire, because we knew it was over. It was just like letting him into the kitchen after all those years. We could have been fighting about who got to lick the cake-batter spoon.
Over in the yard, Maddie screamed with delight. Coop and I glanced in her direction.
Pat and Maddie’s aunt had just presented Maddie with one of her graduation presents: a navy blue hooded sweatshirt, embroidered with EMORY UNIVERSITY.