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“It’s not like it’s a gift I’m giving you. You did it yourself.”
“You helped.”
“I hope so. You’ve done more and better than I imagined.”
“I’m getting there. I’m really beginning to think so.”
“You are. I can see it. I can feel it.”
Lena smiled at the thought of all the seeing and feeling that went on in this room. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Annik said.
“I’ve been wondering for a long time. I feel like I should probably just ask.”
Annik nodded encouragingly, almost like she knew what Lena was going to say.
“Why are you in a wheelchair?”
Annik clapped her on the back in her Incredible Hulk way. “God, I thought you’d never ask me.”
Win was waiting outside her apartment building with the car running. Carmen had never imagined there would be a boy with whom she would want to go to Target to shop for school stuff. It was yet another project they had together, more light-hearted than some.
Carmen burst through the front door to collect her shopping list and her debit card. She’d forgotten to bring them when a bunch of them had met for breakfast—Tibby, Brian, Lena, Effie, and Win—at the Tastee Diner a couple of hours before.
Carmen slowed to a pause in the living room. She was struck by how different the apartment felt to her in these days since Win, since the baby. The walls felt closer in and yet the floor seemed slightly farther away. It was quiet. For once the air conditioners were mute. The tiniest hint of autumn blew in the open window. Maybe that was why the air felt new to her.
She was in a hurry; she had things to do. This apartment waited for her nonetheless. It always waited.
She knew that when she turned the corner of the hallway she would find her mother in her room with the baby. And there she was. She and baby Ryan were curled up in the bed.
They spent their mornings nursing and sleeping. Carmen often visited them in her free moments, kissing the baby’s fists and swaddling him like a burrito before he kicked his way out again. Now Christina was sleeping, and Ryan was starting to wriggle. Carmen put her hand on his miniature back, admiring the efforts of her small brother.
She felt so different about him than she had expected. He was hers, and she ached at his fragility and his temper and the shape of his ears, already just like hers. But she also respected that he was Christina and David’s.
She had expected, before he was born, that he would be part of her old world, vying for her space and all that she claimed. But he wasn’t. He belonged to the new world. They both did, together.
Bridget’s victory wasn’t so sweet. Well, except for her players. It was sweet for them. They strode around the camp like superheroes for the rest of the week, clucking and retelling the major points of the game (there weren’t many). She was happy for them. She had grown to love them.
She’d had a blessed, one-day return home to Bethesda, and seeing her friends made her feel like life made sense again. When she came back to camp, she hung out with Diana and slept and ate, building up her strength again. She knew she could withstand her injured heart, but it took work, and in some moments, a lot of faith.
She realized she wasn’t completely finished with Eric. She could keep her sadness to herself and wonder forever what had really happened. Two summers before, she had been mute. She had taken it all upon herself and let it churn and spoil inside of her. But she didn’t feel like doing that anymore.
She waited until the camp was mostly quiet and went searching for him in his cabin. It brought back memories of a certain other experience long ago, fetching him from his bed. That time she went in after him. This time she was prim as a pilgrim. She knocked politely and waited.
He came to the door and opened it. Did he look slightly afraid of her, or did she imagine that?
“Would you mind taking a walk with me?” she asked. She was going to say something to reassure him that she wouldn’t jump him or anything, but was that really necessary? Hadn’t she proven her good intentions? Hadn’t they earned her anything? Or could you never live something like that down? Could a girl ever really repair her reputation in the ways that counted?
He nodded. He disappeared for a few seconds and returned wearing a T-shirt and shoes along with his shorts.
They just walked for a while. She had her hair bunched up in an elastic. She wore a beat-up football jersey over the Pants. She’d tried wearing shoes for a week, but now she was back to bare feet. She’d decided she could accept a splinter every now and then as the cost of foot freedom.
Without thinking they wandered down toward the lake and ambled onto the dock. She sat down and he sat next to her. If they had a place, this was it.
The moon was full, and bright enough to make shadows of them on the quiet water. She liked their watery selves.
“I’m just going to talk for a while and you listen. Okay?” Why had she added the okay? She didn’t mean to ask him for permission.
He nodded.
“I may talk about stuff you don’t like,” she warned him.
He nodded again. He looked tired, she realized. Even in this frail light she could see the bluish half-circles under his eyes. He looked as though he hadn’t shaved in a while.
“I thought we became friends this summer,” she said. “I didn’t know if it would be possible after what we did—I did—two summers ago, but then it happened. I was happy. I loved being your friend. I admit I may have had some other thoughts too, but they didn’t matter to me nearly as much as being your friend. I was happy to be close to you on any terms.” Bridget needed to be honest tonight. That was the reason she was here.
He looked down, fiddling with the worn leather watchband around his wrist.
“I wasn’t trying to be your girlfriend. I know you have one. I accept that. I didn’t want to get in the way of it. I am happy for you if you are happy with her. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard for me, but I meant it…I mean, I mean it. I wanted you to trust me.”
Still looking down, he appeared to nod.
“And we spent time together and we did stuff and we had fun. At least, I had fun. And I thought you had fun.” Her voice was getting a little wobbly, but she pushed ahead. “And then when I got sick you took care of me. You took care of me as nicely as anyone ever did in my life. Even if our whole lives pass and we don’t see each other or talk to each other again, I will never forget it.” She paused so that the tears wouldn’t drown her words. She wanted to keep them in her eyes if she possibly could.
“I trusted you. I thought you cared about me. Not like a girlfriend. I’m not talking about that. I trusted you to be my friend. And then you just disappeared. I couldn’t figure out what happened. I felt so close to you and then you were gone. You made me believe in you and then you let me down. Is that how it is with you? Do you let people get close just so you can disappoint them?” She brushed the tears out of her eyes before they could fall.
Eric was looking up now, his eyes serious and shiny like hers. “Bee. No. That’s not how it is with me.”
Her chin quivered, though she wished it would not. “Then how is it?”
He sat up a bit straighter. He studied his knuckles. He opened his hands and shut them again. “I’m just going to talk for a while, and you listen, okay?”
“Okay.”
“The reason I don’t like to talk about what happened two summers ago is because I hate myself for it. I’m not saying you didn’t do your part; you did. But I could have resisted. That would have been the right thing to do. But I didn’t because I wanted the same thing you wanted, and that was wrong. You think it was just you, but I wanted it just as much. You should know that.”
She could hardly move. She watched his face and listened.
“The reason I disappeared after you got sick is because I needed to go to New York and it couldn’t wait. I drove up there and saw Kaya because I needed to tell her that I couldn’t
be with her anymore.”
Bridget sucked in a little breath.
He looked sad. “I thought I loved her. Two months ago, I told her I loved her. I couldn’t let that stand. It seemed wrong.”
Bridget wanted terribly to ask him questions, but she also wanted to do her fair share of being quiet. She pressed her lips shut.
He opened his hands and put them together like he was going to pray. “And the reason it was wrong is because I knew I couldn’t really love her if I felt something so much bigger for somebody else.”
Bridget was frozen. She was scared to think through what he meant in case he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
“And the reason I’ve been mostly staying out of sight is because when I’m near you my thoughts don’t go straight. I need to get them straightened out before I do anything else stupid.”
Bridget grabbed a look at him. Hope was filling her chest even as she tried to push it back out.
“When I was in New York, all I wanted was to rush back to you. But what would that mean? That I dumped Kaya so I could be with you? That I was a guy who’d forget a girl he thought he loved in five hours or less?” He was shaking his head. “And anyway, I didn’t want you to feel responsible for breaking us up. I know you weren’t pulling for that. All summer you were selfless enough to respect the thing with Kaya, and I wasn’t. That sucks. I didn’t feel like I deserved to come running back to you. I felt ashamed.”
