Page 58 of Exchanged

I suddenly feel tired, like I could climb back beneath the covers and sleep until New Year’s Day. “Yeah,” I say. “I guess that’s what we are.”

He gives me a small, sad smile and leaves. I sit on the edge of my bed with my face in my hands until I’m ready to join my family downstairs. The family in which Garrett does and does not belong.

Global Youth Ambassadors offers young people the once-in-a-lifetime experience to immerse themselves in a culture vastly different from their own. Unlike a vacation, the GYA Exchange Program places a young person with a family and a community for an entire year, giving them a taste of the traditions and customs that casual travelers rarely encounter. While some of these experiences may be unfamiliar or even intimidating at first, we encourage our Youth Ambassadors to keep an open mind and participate as much as possible!

—From The Global Youth Ambassadors Handbook,

Section 4: “Community Immersion”

SIXTEEN

You’re a great host brother, Garrett told me, so I attempt to act like it.

We pretend Christmas Eve didn’t happen.

“Yikes,” Gloria says sympathetically when I tell her about it. “Sounds like the dude is working through some things.”

But even she fails to offer any useful advice about what I’m supposed to do.

My extended family leaves the day after Christmas, and Garrett and I spend the week of school break playing games with Emma, sledding on the hill at the end of the street, baking with Aunt Liz. We wake up each morning and are together until we go to bed, and I tell myself it’s because he’s part of our family and nothing more, that I would hang out this much with Davit from Tbilisi. But part of me knows that Davit and I wouldn’t spend entire afternoons playing Lords of the Shadowrealm together, wouldn’t stay up until three in the morning, drunk on sleeplessness, arguing about books and repeating inside jokes until we cry from laughter, wouldn’t read each other’s facial expression across a room and know what the other was thinking.

Almost like family.

But family are the people who have been there from the beginning and will always be there, and that is not who Garrett is. At this time next year he will be with his real family in Atlanta and I will be here, and we’ll have only the memory of how a messed-up exchange placement brought us together for ten months.

On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, Emma, Garrett, and I sit on the couch watching The Lord of the Rings—Garrett because he idolizes Aragorn, Emma because she idolizes Tolkien, and me because I idolize Howard Shore, the composer of the most brilliant soundtrack ever written—when Dad steps into the room, phone in hand.

“Jim just texted,” he says. “Little Ollie has the flu, so he can’t make it tonight. Are any of you up for running this year?”

Emma and I look at each other. We have successfully avoided getting roped into this every year, and we’re not about to start now.

“Garrett would be awesome,” I say, deciding to throw him under the bus. “He’s great at running.”

“What am I running from?” Garrett asks.

Dad looks him over. “You’re strong, too…”

“And,” I add, “he already knows the team from your weekend at deer camp.”

“What team?” Garrett asks.

Dad nods decisively. “Yes. You’re in. You’ll be great.”

“At what?”

I nudge him with my shoulder. “Just think of it as part of the foreign exchange experience.”

Our family trudges down to Main Street as twilight begins to fade into night, casting the snow-covered world in a cold, dreamlike blue. We wear warm mittens and hats and winter jackets, and Garrett and Dad also have ice cleats strapped to their boots, though Garrett has no idea why.

“Seriously,” he says, falling in step next to me, “what the hell is about to happen?”

We reach the top of Main Street just as the streetlamps turn on. Wooden barricades block both ends from traffic, and the whole length of the street is packed with people. Ahead of us, the road descends in a gentle slope toward the woods, where it dead-ends at the Caving Grounds. With the snow-covered trees in the background, it almost looks like something out of a Christmas card. Parents with small kids line up at a stand selling hot pasties, a type of meat pie that’s a U.P. specialty, while people without kids hover near a beer tent.

At the far end of the street stands a ramshackle line of structures resting on skis. I point. “That’s what’s about to happen.”

Garrett squints. “Are those … outhouses?”

“Yeah. You and a half dozen of Dad’s very drunk friends are going to pull one up Main Street.”