When We Were Us (Keeping Score, #1)(4)

But what really made things hard was what happened with Jesse. As the year went on, it seemed like Jesse was moving farther away from Nat and me. He didn’t always hang out with us on the playground in the mornings. He ate lunch with us, but then afterward he would sometimes go off with other boys and run around, play whatever game they put together. Nat and I sat on the bottom rungs of the monkey bars or on swings if we could get to them before they were all taken. We talked about school and about our families.

It was cool, and mostly I didn’t mind hanging out with Nat. He listened to me, and he didn’t think what I said was silly. And I liked hearing him talk about the stuff he was reading, his latest visits to the doctors and what he learned there, and about his mom and dad. But sometimes I would look out at the other kids, running and climbing and playing, and I would want to be a part of that. I didn’t understand how Jesse could just leave us there, but at the same time, I wished sometimes that I were out there playing with the rest of our classmates, too.

If Nat knew what I was I thinking, he never said anything. Which of course makes me think he didn’t know, because as I said, Nat didn’t hold anything back, especially with Jesse and me. Even after he learned to stop saying everything that crossed his mind in front of other people, he always told Jesse and me what he thought. I guess I was pretty good at hiding how I felt. And Nat never said anything bad about Jesse either, even though sometimes I saw his eyes follow whatever game everyone else was playing.

One day toward the end of the year, Nat missed a whole day of school. That was pretty unusual; not that he didn’t have a ton of doctors’ appointments and stuff, but his mom always made sure to make them either first thing in the morning, so he got to school before lunch, or right after school. He didn’t want to miss any classes he didn’t absolutely have to, because he almost always got sick at some point in the school year and had mountains of work to make up. So he avoided missing any days that weren’t absolutely necessary.

In fifth grade, though, Nat was amazingly healthy. He was in school every day until that day in late April, when he had to go for a day of tests at the children’s hospital in Philadelphia. He didn’t want to go, and he was grumpy the whole day before, even though I promised I would get all of his work and bring it over as soon as he got home that afternoon.

That morning, Jesse was waiting for me at the bicycle rack.

“Hey.”

I brushed my hair back out of my face. It was curly and long and always in my way. “Hey,” I answered. “Nat’s not going to be here today.”

Jesse frowned. “He sick?”

I shook my head. “No. Tests, doctors appointments, you know.”

Jesse nodded. “Yeah. So. . .we’re going to play kick ball at lunch. You wanna be on my team?”

I thought for a minute about Nat. I almost felt guilty for wanting to play kick ball, like I was being disloyal to him. But then I thought about all those days of sitting on the swing watching the rest of the school play.

“Sure,” I said to Jesse. “I’ll play.”

Chapter 3—Nathan

My first clear memory is of Abby and Jesse. We were at my house, because that was almost always where our mothers met in those days. Our house had everything I needed in it, all my medicine and my nebulizer, and there were ramps so that I could get around with my walker.

We were standing at my train table, which was my favorite place to play in those days. Trains were my obsession. Whenever I heard the whistle in the distance, I demanded that my mother take me to the crossing that was a couple of miles from our house. Sometimes she would, if we were going out anyway or if she were feeling especially guilty. But mostly she would tell me to go play with my own trains.

In those days, these were the chunky plastic toys that I could easily move and run around the tracks. Later, when my fine motor skills had improved, my grandparents bought me a more sophisticated set. But it’s the first set that I remember so well with Abby and Jesse. Playing trains was what we did together. When they got to my house, they might ask if we could go outside or watch a movie or play with something else, but we always ended up with the trains. I never thought until much later that maybe they didn’t enjoy it as much as I did.

I was running my favorite blue engine around the outside track when it ran over Jesse’s finger. He yelped just like my grandmother’s dog did when Grandpa accidentally stepped on its tail, and he pulled back his finger, sticking it in his mouth. Abby’s face puckered.

“Are you okay, Jesse?” she asked, her voice sweet and high. I loved the sound of Abby’s voice.

“My finger hurts.” Jesse spoke around the finger in question, still in his mouth. I could tell he was trying not to cry. He wasn’t a crybaby at all, so I guessed it really did hurt.

“Do you want me to get your mommy?” Even then, Abby took care of us.

Jesse shook his head.

“He shouldn’t have had his finger so close to the track.” This sounded reasonable to me as I said it. It was true; the train hadn’t moved to run over Jesse’s finger. He had put his hand in its way.

“Nat, it wasn’t his fault,” Abby protested. “It was just an accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” I insisted. “He put his hand down on the track. He saw the train coming.”

Jesse scowled at me. “Who cares? Trains are stupid.”