The Art of Losing(18)

I couldn’t help laughing. “Fine. Just let me put the dog inside.”

Once Floyd was secured behind the storm door, I followed Raf into the woods behind our houses. About thirty feet past the property line, there was a nature preserve with a large pond. My dad had taught me how to skip stones here—Raf, too. We’d spent a lot of time by the pond together, playing hide-and-seek or tag, or sometimes Red Rover if we could round up more of the neighborhood kids.

I brushed a branch out of my way and stopped. “Raf, what are we doing back here? There’s nothing I haven’t seen down here a thousand times already.”

He looked back at me. “Quit whining,” he said. “Can’t you just appreciate the mystery for two seconds?”

“I’m not whining!” I said. But he was smiling, so I couldn’t smile back. “My sister is in a coma, and I just broke up with my boyfriend. I’m fragile.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, composing himself. “I didn’t realize you were such a delicate flower. I must have mistaken your anger back there for tenacity.”

My mouth dropped open.

“The Harley I used to know was feisty and confident.”

“You want to see feisty?” I said in a threatening tone as I put a fist in his face.

I couldn’t even tell if I was joking or not. I was reacting in the moment. Sure, I was a wreck, but I kind of liked that I didn’t feel the need to please him.

He took hold of my fist and pressed it against his chest. “I just want to help you forget about everything that’s going on for a few seconds, okay? Will you just trust me?”

I got a little lost in his dark brown eyes. He was so close and he smelled familiar. Sort of the way his house smelled, like warm bread, but I caught the faint scent of his cologne, too: sweet, inviting, and a little spicy. I found myself nodding, but I still managed to sound a little annoyed when I said, “Fine.”

Just past the far side of the lake was a willow tree. Seeing it brought back a rush of memories: Raf and I used to pretend it was our house. It was quiet and spacious under the long branches. We’d say the canopy was our roof and the muddy grass was our living room, bedroom, and kitchen.

Raf held open a curtain of limp branches, and I walked through.

Suddenly it dawned on me what we were doing here.

I gasped. “It’s not really still here, is it?”

Raf nodded. “I used to sneak out here to get stoned, sometimes with my friends, sometimes alone, and one night I ended up face-to-face with it.”

He crept around the far side of the tree. At the base of two roots was the body of a mini My Little Pony, so entwined with the growth that it had almost become part of the tree—impossible to move without hacking the roots away.

“No way,” I breathed, moving closer. The paint had worn off, and its eyes were now smooth turquoise spheres. Gone too were the bright polyester strands of hair. But the rest of the body was intact. “I can’t believe this is still here.”

“Imagine how surprised I was when I was high,” he said with a grin.

I laughed as I bent down to stroke the nose of the Pony. We’d tied it to the tree with a shoelace almost a decade earlier. It was supposed to be a decoration for our “house.” The shoelace was long gone.

“Do you miss it?” I asked after a minute.

“What? The Pony?” he said with a grin. “I’m pretty sure it was yours.”

I hit him in the arm.

His smile faded. “Yeah, sometimes. It was a good escape. I just kind of floated along for a while there.”

I wanted to hear more. “But . . . ?”

He sighed. “I mostly miss my friends. One of the things about rehab is you have to cut ties with all of your old friends from your ‘using days.’”

“That seems a little unfair,” I said. “You went to school with those people. It’s not like you could just stop seeing them.”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, but . . . I get it. I mean, without those guys, it’s a lot easier to stay sober.”

I didn’t really know what to say. If anyone told me I had to give up Cassidy, I’d fight like hell against them. She was the only person who really knew me. But she was good for me. My relationship with Mike was the biggest strain on our friendship. Especially after the first time we broke up because I found out he’d made out with another girl. Surprise: while he was drunk at a lacrosse party. Cassidy never understood why I got back together with him. And because of that, we saw a lot less of each other.

“Ow! Damn,” Raf cried, pulling me out of the sinkhole of my thoughts. He swatted his calf. “Mosquito.”

“Want to go back?” I asked.

He seemed hesitant. I studied his face in the moonlight. He avoided my eyes. “Are you hungry?”

I couldn’t lie. “Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

“How about the diner?” he suggested.

The diner held memories. Of my parents taking us there on Saturday mornings after sleepovers. Of Raf and me riding our bikes there for milkshakes when we were finally old enough to leave the neighborhood.

But also of Mike. Of eating there after lacrosse games and school dances. A few weeks ago, the morning after prom, he was so drunk, he knocked his whole plate of pancakes off the table. I tipped the waitress 60 percent to make up for the disgusting mess of syrup she had to clean up. But I took the money from Mike’s wallet.