All This Time(19)

The wattage of her grin could power nine suns. Her eyes seem brighter, the hazel color bolder. More vibrant. Greener.

It’s contagious. Suddenly I’m smiling too. My first real smile in months. It feels good to make someone happy for a change.

“I would like that very much,” she says, and the two of us head down the path together, toward the big iron gates. I hesitate, looking back at Kimberly’s grave as we leave. I don’t know what I expected would happen, but this is definitely not it. I promise her I’ll come back, that I’ll know what to say next time, but her voice stays silent.





9


A few minutes later, I stop short when I realize where we are.

Here? Really? Of all the places I could’ve taken us to, my feet automatically led me to this one, the winding paths of the park giving way to…

“Oh, I love this pond,” Marley says.

I glance sideways at her. “You’ve been here before?”

She nods, and a puzzle piece clicks into place. Maybe that’s why she’s familiar. I must have seen her when I was here with Sam and Kim.

The pond was one of our favorite spots, mostly since it was usually pretty empty in the evening, and definitely empty at night. With no lights around the perimeter, the entire dark pool of water and the trees around it were usually ours and ours alone. We drank bad champagne out of red Solo cups when Kim earned her spot as cheerleading captain, and Sam stood on the rock in the middle, pumping his fist, when he was named to All-States after a killer junior season.

Sometimes Sam and I would come alone if we were killing time after practice, or Kim would meet me here to work through whatever we were fighting about.

Now I wonder if they ever came here, alone. If this was the spot where Kim told Sam about Berkeley.

“But I go to that side,” Marley says, drawing my attention back as she points across the pond to a small army of ducks, their orange feet standing out against the green blanket of grass. “That’s where my ducks are.”

I don’t know if my eyes are playing tricks on me, but I swear on my good leg that the grass looks greener over there. It’s a stupid metaphor, but I need an excuse to get away from our bench and this clawing feeling in my chest.

“Let’s go to your side, then.” I start walking that way, my eyes meeting Marley’s as I nod across the pond.

I stop to readjust my crutch, and when I glance up, I see that Marley is already halfway around, leaving me completely in the dust.

“Hey!” I call out to her. “Where’s the race?” She spins around to look back at me, her long hair catching in the breeze, the sun outlining her face. It’s like an engineered Instagram photo come to life. A perfect shot that would usually take a hundred tries to get.

I pull my eyes away and point a few feet off the path to a small snack shack, a red-and-yellow sign plastered to the side. “Let’s get lunch,” I say, repeating the words from earlier.

She grins. We head over, slower now, to the small stand, where each of us buys a hot dog and fries. I get a Coke, but Marley goes for their iced tea with mint, grown fresh at the small community-run garden in the park.

“Mint iced tea is my favorite. Especially in the summer,” she says as she glances past me to look at the yellowing trees along the path, the first signs of fall starting to appear all around. “I’ve only got a few weeks left to enjoy it.”

I try to balance my plate and watch as she gets an extra tiny paper plate for her condiments. She carefully divides the ketchup, mustard, and mayo on it with a barrier French fry between, her brow furrowing with serious concentration.

“What’s with the division? You think mustard and ketchup don’t get along?” I ask as we sit on the sparkling green grass on her side of the pond.

“I like to think of it as… each deserves its own space,” she says, tucking her foot under her leg as she holds up a fry.

So, because I’m an asshole, I dip one of mine into the mound of ketchup on my plate and drag it straight through the mayo. She grimaces as I pop the whole thing into my mouth.

“Okay, but did you taste the French fry at all?”

I chew, frowning as I swallow. Full mayochup taste, but not very much fry. I couldn’t even tell you if it’s made of potato.

I watch as Marley carefully touches the very tip of a French fry to her ketchup before she takes a slow bite. “Sometimes… less is more.”

I shrug and force myself to look away, in the direction of the cemetery. I remind myself I’m just being polite. Doing a good thing. It’s not like I’m ever going to see her again.

But the guilt starts to bubble up with every passing second, the food becoming tasteless.

This is not why I came here. I came to say goodbye to Kim, not to learn proper condiment protocol from a random girl I met inches away from my girlfriend’s grave.

Ex-girlfriend, I correct for the millionth time, even more frustrated.

What am I doing?

I quickly finish off my hot dog, abruptly standing as I push my fries over to her. “Uh, you can have the rest of these,” I say, avoiding her eyes, because I know if I meet them, I’ll probably stay. “I have to go. My mom needs help with—”

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” she says, cutting off whatever lie I was in the middle of coming up with. Like she sees right through it but doesn’t care. She gives me a small, shy smile.