The Beginning of Everything(74)

“I’ll be back. I’m just going to see Cassidy,” I whispered.

At the mention of her name, Cooper perked up and whined louder.

“Stop that! You’ll wake up everyone!”

But it was no use. Cooper followed me to the front door, letting out another insistent whine.

“Do you want to come with me, Cooper?” I asked in exasperation. “Is that it? Either you come, or I don’t go?”

He started turning circles at the word “go,” so I gave up and went to get his leash.

“You have to be good,” I told him, clipping it onto his collar. “I’m serious. I’m not supposed to be walking you. You can’t tug the leash or anything.”

I had the impression that he understood, because when I let him out the front door, he stopped to wait for me, as though sensing that it was a special occasion.

The streets were empty, and gray with fog, which I’d been hoping would burn off, but no such luck. The pavement was damp, and the windshields of the cars we passed were beaded with condensation. Even the gate to Meadowbridge Park was slippery.

Cooper sniffed indignantly when he realized we were headed across the wet grass, but I told him that he was the one who’d insisted on coming along, and he dutifully pranced through it with his nose in the air, making me laugh.

I wasn’t laughing when he shook the water out of his fur at the other side, though.

“Cooper!” I scolded.

You asked for it, old sport, his expression seemed to say.

I sighed and supposed he was right. And the more I thought about it, I was glad I’d brought him along, since Cassidy had always adored him.

When her house came into view, I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d half expected him to have disappeared, but he was still there, adorning her front lawn with magnificent irony: my tumbleweed snowman.

He was about five feet tall, with button eyes and a piece of licorice for a mouth. An old scarf around his neck fluttered in the breeze. He sat there, still slightly wet from the spray paint. A snowman in a town where it didn’t snow, made by a boy who couldn’t wait to leave, and given to a girl who had never belonged.

Toby had been right—now wasn’t the time for flowers. Now was the time for grand gestures. The time to build a snowman out of tumbleweeds.

Cooper stared up at me, wondering why we’d suddenly stopped, and I whispered for him to wait. He cocked his head and then relieved himself on a neighbor’s rosebush.

The fog was thinning, finally. We were across the street from Cassidy’s house, and I pictured her coming out the front door in her pajamas, her hair mussed from sleep, grinning with delight when she caught sight of the snowman.

I took out my phone and dialed her number. Waited three rings. Four.

And then a sleepy, murmured hello.

“Come outside,” I told her.

“Ezra, is that you?” she mumbled.

“If you’re not standing on your front lawn in five minutes, I’m ringing the doorbell until you do.”

“You’re not serious,” she protested.

“Doorbell,” I threatened. “Outside. Five minutes.”

And then I hung up.

“Time to hide,” I told Cooper, but he wouldn’t cooperate with me at all.

He was acting strangely, his ears perked, body rigid, hackles raised.

“Come on, Coop,” I urged, tugging his leash. “You’ll give us away.”

Finally I managed to coax him across the street, behind a parked car, just as Cassidy slipped out of her house.

She’d thrown on jeans and that green sweater she always wore. She looked so beautiful—so vulnerable—hugging her arms across her chest in the gray light of early morning as she padded down the front walk.

She was frowning, and then she caught sight of the snowman and laughed. It was the happiest I’d seen her in a long time.

“Ezra?” she called doubtfully.

“Yeah, hi,” I said sheepishly, joining her on the lawn.

Cooper rubbed his nose against her leg, and she yawned, scratching him behind the ears.

“Hello, gorgeous,” she cooed. “Did you make me this snowman?”

“He did,” I said. “All by himself. He dragged me here so I could call you to come see it.”

“It’s wonderful,” Cassidy said, and then she bit her lip, her expression serious. “Here, I’ll help you take it down.”

For a moment, I didn’t think I’d heard her correctly.

“You’ll help me take it down? I just spent all night making the freaking thing.”

Cassidy sighed. Stared at the grass. Pulled her sleeves over her hands.

“I didn’t ask you to,” she muttered.

“No, you didn’t,” I said angrily. “God, I’m trying to apologize for what I said, okay? I’m trying to give you something interesting and weird and wonderful so that maybe you’ll finally talk to me about your brother, and you want me to take it down?”

“I want you to take it down,” Cassidy said coolly, her eyes darting up to meet mine. “And I told you to let it go. I told you it was better not knowing.”

“Evidently I didn’t listen.”

“Yeah, evidently,” she said, mocking me. “Now if you’re not going to help get rid of this snowman, please, just—please leave.”