Page 88 of Exchanged

On prom night, I borrow Dad’s truck to pick Garrett up, and he emerges from Aunt Liz’s house in his navy suit. He gets in the passenger seat and hands me a small sachet.

“I didn’t think you’d care about a corsage or anything,” he says. “So I got you this.”

I open it. Inside is a polished black stone, awash in thousands of nearly luminescent sparkles. “It’s beautiful,” I say.

“It’s from the Caving Grounds,” Garrett tells me. “Hematite. I found it on our first trip there. Aunt Liz has a rock tumbler, and she helped me make it look like this. Now you’ll always have part of the Caving Grounds even if you don’t go there anymore.”

I burst out laughing. For a brief second, Garrett looks hurt, but then I pull my gift out of my pocket. “I didn’t wrap mine.”

He takes the object from my hand and puts his palm over his face. “We got each other rocks,” he says.

“Mine’s from Lake Superior,” I say. “Also polished by Aunt Liz.”

“We’re so dumb,” he says, then reaches for the stereo’s aux cable. “I created a playlist of my favorite movie soundtracks for our drive. You better love it. This shit took work, especially since I never pay close attention to soundtracks.”

We drive to Watertown, listening to Michael Giacchino, Patrick Doyle, and James Horner. Garrett chose bangers from Star Trek, Brave, and Titanic, all of which are driving, evocative pieces with an edge of hope hiding behind hurt. It fits Garrett, and it fits us.

Prom is magical, taking place in a bright, open banquet hall next to Lake Superior. We laugh with our friends and dance, eventually spilling out onto a balcony that overlooks the lake under a vast sky of stars. Time freezes.

And then the weeks continue moving toward graduation, and our class does all the things that generations of seniors before us have done. We skip school and get crappy food from Harry’s Mexican Restaurant and hang out on the playground of our elementary school until the teachers shoo us away at recess. We dress like idiots for Senior Spirit Week and break our voices during our final pep rally. We undertake an elaborate prank that involves live geese and several gallons of hand lotion.

On the night of graduation, we sit in rows of folding chairs on the football field, which smells of warm dampness and fertilizer. The sun dips behind the iron hills to the west of town while chickadees chatter irreverently from a nearby tree.

Garrett, seated several rows in front of me, is stoic. I know this must be hard for him. My entire extended family watches from the stands, and while they are also here to support him, it’s not the same as having his own family come. While Katrina gives the valedictorian address, I watch the back of Garrett’s head and wonder if there will ever be a way to help him find the home he’s lost.

Then there are diplomas to distribute, hands to shake, caps to toss. When it’s all over, when the audience has swarmed the field, turning it into a mass of navy gowns and hugging bodies, Garrett finds me. Standing with my family, I catch a glimpse of a clean white collar and a neat tie, and then Garrett’s arms fold around me, enveloping me in the curtains of his gown.

“Thank you,” he says, lips against my ear. “Thank you for everything this year.”

He steps back, and before I can respond, my family cascades into us, pulling us into crushing hugs. There’s Dad and Aunt Liz and Emma, but also Aunt Anna, Aunt Julia, Gloria, and Remy. Remy, still Garrett’s biggest fan, leaps into his arms and finds himself on Garrett’s shoulders, fingers gripping his hair. Garrett is grinning, looking up at him, when his eye catches something behind me, and he freezes.

I turn. It takes me a second to recognize the man because I only met him on a video screen. He’s shorter than Garrett, but in person, their resemblance is even stronger.

“Charlie,” Garrett says, and he looks like he’s about to break. He lifts Remy from his shoulders and sets him on the ground, staring wide-eyed at his brother. “You came.”

Charlie grins and draws him into a hug. “Wouldn’t miss it, baby bro.”

They pull apart, and Garrett’s gaze lands on the woman behind Charlie. His jaw slackens, his eyes shifting focus as if he had been unexpectedly tackled.

“I hope it’s okay that I came,” his mom says. She stands, hands folded in front of her, uncertain and small. “I wanted to be here for you. But I understand if you don’t want to see me right now.”

Garrett’s eyes refocus. “No,” he says. “Thanks. Thank you for coming. I’m … I’m glad you’re here. Really.”

He means it, I can tell. Even if he isn’t ready to forgive her, even if he isn’t ready to forget what happened and return to Atlanta, he is glad his mother and brother came here to support him. A beat of silence falls, and then my aunts swoop in, making Garrett’s family feel like our family.

“Garrett has told me so much about you,” Aunt Liz tells Charlie, pulling him into a hug.

“We’re having a party,” Aunt Julia tells Gina, “at Joe’s place. Right after this. You don’t need to bring anything.”

Gina looks horrified by the idea of returning to the place where her husband almost fought my dad. “I couldn’t—”

“Please come,” Dad says, stepping forward and cutting off her objection. “Garrett would love to have you there. We’d all like to get to know you.”

Gina still looks uncertain, but she glances at Garrett, and I can tell she won’t refuse an excuse to be near her son right now. She nods.

We return to our house, and everyone streams into our backyard, which is lit by twinkle lights and filled with tables groaning under the weight of pizzas and salads and every dessert Aunt Julia knows how to make. Throughout the evening, friends from school stop by, and I listen to Garrett invent a dozen different reasons to explain why he’s staying in Irontown for the indefinite future.

I watch him laughing with Charlie and a group of football players on the other side of the yard. He has rolled his shirtsleeves up, his tie hanging loose around his neck. He seems like the most carefree person in the world, like any high school senior might look on the night of his graduation.