All This Time(23)

I take a long, deep breath, trying to shake the feeling that I’m trapped. Stuck somewhere between Kim and Sam and my mom, unable to cross the start line.

A yellow-and-white striped shirt catches my eye, the lines thin enough for the two colors to blur together.

Marley.

She’s standing by a huge cherry blossom tree, her long hair catching the breeze and dancing around her shoulders, down to the small of her back.

I watch as she reaches up to carefully break a stem off the tree, something about the movement familiar even though I hardly know her. She smells the jumble of tiny pink flowers at the edge of the branch, face deep in concentration.

I find myself wondering what she’s doing before I remind myself why I’m here. Maybe I should just leave it to chance. She hasn’t seen me yet. I start to turn around and leave.

“You’ve decided not to see me anymore,” a voice says, stealing the words right out of my head. I look back to see Marley studying me, her serene expression gone.

I pause. How did she…? It doesn’t matter.

I look down at the cherry tree twig in her hand as I avoid the question. “What’s this one mean?”

“What do you want it to mean?” she asks, turning it right back around on me. It catches me off guard. She’s the first person to ask me something like that in a long time.

A new start. I catch the words just before they come out, the answer suddenly right in front of me. A way forward that doesn’t feel wrong.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” I say instead. I should be shutting the conversation down, saying goodbye.

Only I can’t. Her eyes don’t buy it. They hold me in place, the green strands vibrant in the morning sun, the same color as the grass at the pond. Marley’s side of the pond.

“I want…,” I start to say, watching as the cherry blossoms begin to tremble slightly. A few of the petals fall to the ground in a small shower.

Say it.

I can’t, though. Because there’s something there in her face. The exact thing I’ve been looking for. The unnamed thing we both understand.

“I want… a friend,” I say, my own words taking me by surprise. “Someone who didn’t know me before all of this happened. Someone who I can be myself with, the me that I’m becoming. Not who I was. The me I want to be.”

“We all want that, don’t we?” she says, nodding the way you do when someone says exactly what you’re thinking.

But I have to draw a line. For myself. For Kim.

“But that’s all I can be. Just friends.”

She bites her lip and nods. Something like relief settles in her shoulders. Like it’s a safe compromise for her, too. “Definitely. Just friends. Nothing more.”

She brightens then and holds out the cherry blossom twig to me. I take it, letting out a small laugh. “So… what does it mean, really?” I ask her.

“Cherry blossoms? They mean renewal, a new start,” she says.

Her words send goose bumps up my arms. Another wind gust pulls the cherry blossoms off the tree behind us, then tugs at the branch in my hand. Her eyes are bright as she smiles at me through the whirl of pink and white petals, the sunlight glittering through the trees all around her.



* * *




Later, when I get back home, I take off my jacket and find a cherry blossom petal clinging to the sleeve. I pluck it off and hold it in my palm. The color always makes me think of Kim at our senior prom, in a dress the same soft pink. I told Marley that earlier as we sat under the cherry blossom tree, and she nodded, her face thoughtful.

Her sister had liked the color pink too. That’s why she’d stopped by the cherry trees in the first place.

Until that moment I’d kept all the reminders of Kim to myself, but talking about it with Marley somehow made the memories less painful. I haven’t felt that comfortable with anyone in months.

This isn’t at all how I thought things with Marley would go.

I kick off my shoes and crawl into bed with a groan, pulling the covers up over my head. Part of me feels weak, like I betrayed Kim so I could feel better, but the guilt doesn’t rush over me like it once did.

Frustrated, I roll over. I don’t know what the right thing is.

I don’t know anything anymore.

I stare into the darkness beneath the blanket, letting it envelop me. I don’t know how much time goes by, but I eventually jolt awake to the sound of a phone ringing, the dusky twilight outside my bedroom window now replaced with midnight black.

Groggily, I fumble around on my nightstand until my fingers finally find my cell. It must be Sam.

I look at it, surprised to see the screen is black. There’s no incoming call, but the ringing doesn’t stop. If it’s not my phone, then where is it coming from?

I sit up, trying to figure it out.

I don’t have a landline in my room. The upstairs phone is upstairs, and my mom’s cell would be with her. Still, there’s a phone ringing somewhere nearby.

A wave of dread rolls through me as my gaze falls on Kimberly’s purse, sitting on my desk. No way. I walk over, my heart hammering loudly in my chest. The ringing is definitely coming from inside. I yank the purse open. Kimberly’s cell phone, with its blue glitter cover, sits at the bottom, the screen blinking the words UNKNOWN CALLER as it rings. This is impossible. Kim’s phone was almost never charged. How has it stayed on for months?