Not If I See You First(25)

He and I walk to Gunther Field to get his CD player, and after spending so much time squished together on the couch we’re freely bouncing off each other as we walk drunkenly down the sidewalk. Halfway to the field, we bump again and he grabs my hand.

This doesn’t startle me and I realize I’d wanted this as we walked, touching “accidentally” off and on, but hadn’t put words to it. I squeeze his hand.

In the center of the field, I stop. I want to say something but I’m afraid it’s going to come out wrong or sound stupid or somehow ruin everything. I’m overwhelmed, and I don’t just mean because I’m holding hands with my best friend.

It’s obvious what happened today. After four years watching me be a basket case on this anniversary, he orchestrated a way to keep me busy and laughing all day long. And he did it as though it was just another day, without saying a word about what he was really doing.

I’m so grateful and warm I don’t know what to do, yet I have to do something to tell him I understand and how much this means to me.

“Parker?” Scott says. “You okay?”

He’s facing me, holding my left hand. I raise my right hand a bit and he clasps it too.

“Thanks,” I say.

I want to say more, but I just add, “For today. Thanks for today.”

Scott laughs softly.

“What?”

“Your scarf’s crooked.”

I don’t want to let go of his hands so I shake my head a bit to settle it and the two big googly eyes rattle. I must look like an idiot.

“It’s like you’re looking… I dunno… all cockeyed.”

“Straighten it.”

I reluctantly let him go and he adjusts my scarf. He leaves his hands above my ears, and I tip my head till our foreheads touch. We stand there awhile, rolling our heads back and forth a bit, like we’re dancing without music. Then he drops his hands to my shoulders and slides his head over till our cheeks are pressed together. He slips his cheek slowly across mine. I stop breathing as his lips skim over my skin until he kisses me lightly on the lips…

I burst into tears.

“Oh, Parker, no, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Parker. Please…”

“No no no…” I put my hands on his cheeks and try to kiss him a few times, clumsily getting closer to the right spot on his lips. “It’s okay…”

But my crying turns to sobbing and I can’t stop. I want to ask him if he watched a YouTube video on how to kiss a blind girl because if he hasn’t, he could make one. Or tell him how I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this and how dizzy I am over it. Or how he understands me so well that he could make this perfect day for me, and care enough to actually do it, when I’d expected my annual day of complete misery. And all this is mixed with the unavoidable grief that crushes me on this day every year, which makes it all the more indescribable.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Shhh!” I say, getting back some of my voice. “You knew I was going to cry eventually. Thanks to you I almost lasted the whole day.” I wrap my arms around him and push my face into his neck. He holds me while I let out the tears my useless eyes made and need to release.





So began the best two weeks of my life before it all crashed and burned. And it turns out I’m not one of those girls who can sit comfortably in cognitive dissonance, enjoying the feelings like they’re real while also knowing deep down they’re not, like it’s just a Hollywood set: a nice-looking house out front but no actual rooms inside. The beauty of that day, at the time, wasn’t just what happened, it was what it meant. Only I learned later it didn’t mean what I thought it did. That realization didn’t just destroy the future, it ruined the past. And like many of my other tragedies, my dreams won’t let me forget it.

Lying in bed, I regret letting these memories in. I’m trembling, my face is heating up, my throat is tightening… but the Star Chart on the back of my door has eighty-five stars on it and I’ll be goddamned if I break my streak over a stupid boy.

Yet, how can that boy who held me that day be the same one who tricked me two weeks later? It doesn’t add up. At the time I shut it all down and refused to think about it or wallow in those tarnished memories, but now sifting through it all again, it makes no sense. And beneath it all I hear a tiny voice I’ve always refused to listen to, wanting to know why it happened, how it was even possible.

Doesn’t matter. I won’t be one of those girls who falls in love with the nice half of a guy and excuses or turns a blind eye, or two blind eyes, to the bastard half. Fuck you, Scott, I don’t care how it was possible. It was and nothing else matters. Rule Number One. Rule Number Infinity. Done.

I tap the clock again. 4:58 AM. Still dark out.

Doesn’t matter. I throw back the covers and stand up.

I don’t need light to run. I don’t need light for anything.





ELEVEN


I leave my lunch in my locker—no time for it now; no stomach for it, either—and I grab the duffel bag I hastily packed this morning. I told Molly she didn’t have to come but she was happy to ditch her lunch, too. I’d prefer to be alone, to be honest, but I also don’t know this side of the school as well and I could use the help. Lunch is only fifty minutes long and I don’t know where I’ll find Coach Underhill.