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She unlocked the door to the casita, and once we were inside, she motioned to her old leather couch, and then the tiny two-seater table she had tucked against the wall in her kitchenette. “Sit wherever. I’m getting out of these boots.”
But I couldn’t bring myself to sit because there were so many interesting things to look at. Her fridge was aqua-colored and covered in photos I couldn’t wait to investigate. I walked to her desk where she had the most detailed wooly creations I’d ever seen, all carefully placed into scenes—a line of waddling penguins, a mother bird feeding her babies in a nest, and most intriguing of all, a gang of troublemaking raccoons digging in a set of trash cans. It wasn’t a collection, but ongoing creation, judging by the tufts of material and the needles in a basket next to the desk. She made these.
“Don’t touch anything,” Carmen warned, raising one eyebrow. She hung up both our jackets and then sat and took off her ankle boots, stretching out her legs and wiggling her newly freed toes inside the fuzzy snowflake socks she was wearing.
“But I want to touch everything.”
“Collect your facts later, Isaac.”
That had me smiling, but I stuck my hands behind my back and forced myself to stop my perusal. She’d invited me in here. The least I could do was not gawk.
She looked away as she said, “It’s strange. I feel like I know everything about you, and also like I don’t know you at all.”
“Same.” I sat on the opposite end of the couch, sinking in the perfect amount. Her couch was insanely comfortable, which was a good thing, considering how uncomfortable I was with what I was about to say. “I sweated bullets for a second there during introductions, thinking your family might recognize me. Broken foot or no, your dad would kick my butt.”
“Yes, he would.” Carmen shrugged. “But they don’t know you’re Zac. And that’s probably best. I cried a lot after you said you didn’t want us to be friends anymore. Eddie threatened to hunt you down, but I told him not to bother. I was embarrassed by how important you were to me. Because obviously I wasn’t important to you at all.”
“You were important to me,” I protested, turning my whole body towards her so she could see the sincerity of my words.
She looked unconvinced. “Isaac, we met up for the first time in years, and then right after, you texted and said you were too old for pen pals and this was stupid. You were done. I asked if you were joking, and you didn’t answer. I never heard from you again, even though I begged. All my memories of you had to rewrite themselves. It changed how I felt about you. It changed how I felt aboutme. I was thirteen.” Her gaze dropped, and the vulnerability in her face just about slayed me. That she could think less of herself because of my stupid decision...
Familiar guilt flooded over me with renewed life, so strong it physically hurt. But I welcomed the pain, because it was the push I needed to tell her things I’d been avoiding for way too long.
“I’m sorry I put off meeting up again. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see you. I did. I just didn’t know how to explain what was going on in my life. My mom remarried a few months before that. My stepdad had this big personality, and at first I really liked him. He joked and laughed with my mom, and he liked to spend money on fun things. But for some reason, I bugged him. He had this passive-aggressive way of nitpicking everything I said or did. I became anxious all the time. I ate in my room when I could get away with it. I quit soccer so my mom wouldn’t worry about getting me to my games on the weekends he had plans.”
I hadn’t realized how much I’d tensed up until Carmen’s warm hand came to rest on my arm, making me jump.
“Zac.” She scooted closer and threaded her arm through mine. “You should have said something.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “It doesn’t make what I did to you okay. Stop being all forgiving.”
She pressed her forehead into my shoulder. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Everywhere she touched me felt like comfort. I craved it, but I also felt unworthy of it. When I was silent for too long, she nudged me. “What happened?”
“That day you came over was the best and worst day of my life. I got to hug you, and it was exactly like when we were little kids, like no time had passed at all. I remember you smelled like peanut butter crackers and pine shavings from your hamster’s cage.”
“I did not.”
“You did, too. You were so excited to see me, and you were talking a mile a minute like you always did, and I loved it. You tried out my skateboard and almost ate it like five times, and you reached in the tank and picked up my pet tarantula, and I about died, thinking he would bite you. You were so fearless.”
“More like reckless.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, it was perfect. But I could already see the wheels turning in my stepdad’s head as he watched us. You were important to me, and everything important to me was fair game. It started as soon as you left. He made little digs at you and things you said. And he wondered aloud at me having a girl for a best friend. He asked when you were coming over again. I just wanted it to end. I didn’t want to have anything he could get at. So, I did exactly what he hoped, and I pushed you away. He made me want to change everything about myself.”
“Including your name?” Carmen murmured.
“I never thought about it like that. But yeah, I started going by Isaac in high school.”
“Is your mom still married to him?”
“No. My sister and I begged to go live with my dad, but she didn’t allow it until we both started getting into trouble. My grades had dropped. I picked up some terrible friends. I was really not nice there for a while. I felt like I had done you a favor by cutting you out of my life. I was protecting you from all the anger I had inside. But I took it out on everyone else.”
Carmen shifted next to me, and her chin came to rest against the top of my arm. I sensed she was studying me, but I didn’t dare turn and confirm it. If I met her eyes, she might get self-conscious about being tucked in so close to me, and I liked having her close.
“It’s hard to picture you like that.”
“Why?” I asked.
