Where the Staircase Ends(57)

If there was one picture I wanted to hold on to forever, it was the look in his eyes the moment after we kissed. My first true dance with love happened on the roof of Sunny’s house, and only now could I really see what a wonderful gift it was. Maybe I should have been sad to leave it behind, but I was grateful to have known it, if only for a moment.

I wanted to shout to Justin, to thank him for the brief interlude that promised something bigger. It was the last gift I was given before I left.

Blink.

It was the first day of second grade. Across the room there was a little girl with fiery hair and a grin so warm it lit up the whole room. It seemed fitting that her name turned out to be Sunny. She bounced over to me and took my hand in hers, proclaiming us best friends. I was overwhelmed with a sense of pride. She could’ve chosen anyone to be her best friend, but she chose me.

“Okay,” I told her, “You’re my new best friend.” What I didn’t tell her was how badly I wanted her to pick me. How much I needed her to pick me.

Blink.

It was dark outside. The clock on Sunny’s nightstand read 2:07 a.m., the red numbers glowing like the embers of a cigarette as the minutes passed slowly by. Outside, a car door slammed. Sunny jumped out of bed and peered out the window, where she watched her mother lean into the driver’s side window of a car she did not recognize. Her mother kissed the man behind the steering wheel, her lips lingering over the top of his in a way that made Sunny feel sick. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man who was not her father. Her small fingers dug into the white windowsill as she watched her mother brush the back of her hand across the man’s cheek before he drove away.

He was not the first man to pull into their driveway in the wee hours of the morning. He was not the first man to feel the weight of her mother’s boozy kisses before she snuck back inside the house and into the bed of the husband she didn’t really love. But this man was different from the dozens of others because Sunny recognized him. He was at the parent-teacher open house the week before, holding onto his daughter Alana’s hand.

Two nights later Sunny’s mother left, saying she didn’t love Sunny’s father anymore. She looked Sunny in the eye and promised to come back for her once she’d had time to figure out where she was going and who she was meant to be.

“Can you take care of Miss Violet Beauregard while I’m gone, Sunny? She’s a special dog who needs a special person to care for her.”

“Okay,” Sunny said as her mother placed the small dog into her arms. She pressed her face into patchy fur, tears of relief streaming down her cheeks. Her mother had to come back now. She would never abandon Miss Violet Beauregard. “I’ll take good care of her for you,” Sunny promised.

She watched as the taxi carrying her mother disappeared down the street.

It was the last time Sunny ever saw her.

Blink.

We were at the father-daughter Girl Scout dance, but Sunny’s father was nowhere to be seen. Sunny sat by the window of the church all night long, her face pressed up against the glass watching for him.

“Any minute,” she told me. “He’ll be here any minute.”

My dad held out his hand to her, asking her to dance. She looked at me once to make sure it was okay, and even though I felt a pang of jealousy, I nodded and took her seat by the window so I could keep an eye out for Frank while they danced. My dad twirled Sunny around and around on the dance floor. She grinned and laughed as the pink tulle of her dress billowed around her like a bell. Her father never came.

Blink.

Sunny was seated next to me at my ninth birthday party, cheering me on as I blew out the candles. Sunny grinned and slung her arms around me and the snowwoman we created as my mom snapped a picture. Sunny taught me how to french braid my hair, holding the mirror up patiently for me so I could see what I was doing. Sunny shoved Tracey Allen into a pile of mud after she stole my boyfriend. Sunny sat next to me at my family’s dinner table, cracking my dad up with a joke. Sunny leaned against my mom the night her mother left, tears streaming down her face. Blink, blink, blink.

And then I saw the thing that I should’ve seen all along. I was ashamed that I had to climb so high and so far to see what had been right in front of me the entire time.

I saw Sunny on the night of The Fields, her hair dripping wet with pool water as she wandered around the house looking for me and Justin. She stopped when she walked into the Africa room, listening to the sounds of our voices out on the roof. She sat down on the bed when she heard Justin say he didn’t like her, and I saw her hands ball up into fists as she listened to him say the only reason he even talked to her was because she was my friend. She heard him tell me I was better than all of this, and even though he didn’t exactly say “Taylor is too good for Sunny,” it’s what she heard. And she didn’t hear me deny it. I didn’t correct Justin or tell him that he was wrong. Instead she listened as I told him my theory about the fly. She heard me say that she was a big buzzing distraction, keeping me from all the great things I could have done if she hadn’t been in my life.

I watched as tears welled up in her eyes just before she punched the lamp and sent it crashing to the floor, the sound of broken glass punctuating her anger like an exclamation point. She ran out of the room and down to the party, where she found Logan standing by himself in the kitchen. She whispered in his ear and took his hand, leading him into her bedroom.