Emmy & Oliver (12 page)

“Aaaand, dramatic pause . . .” Caro muttered, her eyes on the screen.

“ . . . so much more. Colleen Whitcomb for Channel Seven news.”

I reached for the remote and muted the sound, trying not to disturb the blue dots. “Well, he looked happy, at least.”

“Simple words that say? So much more,” Caro repeated, mimicking Colleen's tone. “Who actually talks like that? That doesn't even
mean
anything. If I wrote that down on the AP English exam, I'd get a one. Maybe a two if the grader was hungover.”

I nodded in agreement, eager to not talk about AP tests anymore. “Do
you
think he looked happy, though?”

Caro glanced back at the TV, even though the story was over. “I guess,” she said. “I don't really know what Oliver's happy face looks like. Maybe he's just one of those people who just looks perpetually underwhelmed.”

“He doesn't always look underwhelmed!” I protested. “When we went surfing, he—”

“When you
what the what
?” Caroline all but chucked the bottle of Crimson Caberet over her shoulder. “You went
surfing
with
Oliver
?”

“I didn't tell you? My parents made me, they practically shoved me out the door.” I avoided Caro's eyes as I turned back to my nails.

“And you didn't
tell
me? Where's my phone?”

“Why do you need your phone? Are you going to tweet Colleen Whitcomb and give her the scoop?”

“No, I'm texting
Drew
. I don't care if he's out with Kevin right now, he needs to know about this.”

“Wait, who's Kevin?” I ran through my mental Rolodex of the guys that Drew liked. “I don't know a Kevin.”

“He's the homeschooled one. They played soccer last week and Drew's team beat his and then I guess they did that whole ‘line up and shake hands' thing afterward and love blossomed.” Caro fluttered her eyelashes dramatically. “You haven't met him yet.”

“Why didn't Drew tell me?”

Caro was typing like her fingers were on fire, wet nail polish be damned. “Drew already knew about you and Oliver?” she cried, reading off her phone screen.

“There's no me and Oliver!” I said. “And of course he knew! Where do you think we got Oliver's board and wet suit from?”

“You're both dead to me,” Caro muttered, still texting.

“Wait, though. Is Kevin cute?”

“He's cute in that tall, chiseled, soccer-playing way,” Caro said. “So yeah, pretty
much. Although, let's be honest, water polo is where it's at.” She paused to read the screen. “Drew says he needs a ride to school on Monday because his van's getting detailed.”

“Tell him I'll pick him up at seven.”

“She'll . . . pick . . . you . . . up . . . at . . . seven.” Caro narrated her text as she typed.

“Does Kevin look like David Beckham?”

Caro just raised an eyebrow. “How many high school seniors do you know that look like David Beckham?”

“Zero?”

“Exactly. And I don't even care about Kevin anymore. I care about you and Oliver surfing together.” She sat on her knees next to me, like an eager puppy who had been promised a treat.

“What?” I laughed and turned back to my nails. “We surfed, we had dinner—”

“Oh my God, you went on a date with him.”

“It was not a date!” I protested.

“If you eat food with a guy, it's a date. Proven fact. Don't argue with me, I don't make the rules. This is just how it is.” Caro flapped her hands at me. “So? What else?”

“I don't know, I just taught him how to surf—”

“Was he good?”

“No, he was terrible. Almost as bad as you.” I waited for Caro to respond, but she just nodded in agreement. “And then we went to the Stand and had food and then we came home.”

“Do your parents know you guys went surfing?”

I bopped her on the head with one of the couch throw pillows. “No, are you crazy? I can't tell them that!”

“But they know you went out? What happened to giving him space?”

“Well, apparently,
now
we're easing back into suburban life.”

Caro shook her head. “Sometimes you've got to cannonball into the pool,” she said. “Just get it over with.”

“Yeah, well, that works for
pools
, Caro.” I waved my hands to dry my nails faster. “Not always actual real-life experiences.”

Caro just looked thoughtful. “So you went with Oliver to the beach, ate dinner—”

“I paid, though.”

“—I like your style, Emmy, very modern—and then lied about it to your parents. Sounds like a date to me.”

“You know nothing,” I told her. “I babysit for his sisters, he lives next door, we were friends a long time ago. We're just picking up where we left off.”

Caro took the pillow from me and hugged it to her. “You can't pick up where you left off,” she said, her voice softer, “because he's not the same person he was back then. You're on an entirely different road now.”

This time, I didn't have an answer.

“Oh God,” Caro finally said, and sat back on her heels. “You are in
so
much trouble.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
drove home from Caro's later that night, after texting my parents to reassure them that I was on my way home. It was a five-minute drive, three if I made all the lights, and I rolled down the window as I drove, letting the eucalyptus-soaked air blow my hair back. It was cold, but after the conversation I had had with Caro, it felt good, normal, a steady constant of the past ten years when things now felt like Dorothy's Kansas farmhouse, picked up and dropped aimlessly into a land that I couldn't recognize anymore, a light so bright it made me squint and wish for familiar black-and-white dimness instead.

I parked and was halfway up the steps when I heard the
screech-screech
sound of the twins' swing set next door, cutting into the night's silence. I paused and waited for it to stop, but it didn't. There was no way anyone inside could hear it, but to me, it was all I heard.

I pushed through the back gate, my front door key still clutched in my fist in case the swing set was being used by a serial killer or something, but it was only Oliver. He was way too big for the swing, of course, his shoes dragging in the grass underneath the
seat as he moved back and forth. His shirt was undone at the neck, the sleeves rolled up, looking more blue than checked in the muted backyard light.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hey,” he said back, using his feet to stop himself. “What are you doing here?”

I pointed up to where the swing's chains met the bar. “I heard you,” I said. “I just got home from Caro's.” I sat down in the swing next to him, setting my keys in the sand. “We had a super important TV interview to watch, you know.”

Oliver huffed out a breath before he started to sway back and forth again. The movement was so small that his feet barely moved, looking like he was balanced on his toes. “Oh,” he said. “That.”

“And we did our nails, too,” I added, holding up my hand. “Don't be jealous.”

Oliver smiled and examined the blue dots. “You look diseased.”

“You're really good with compliments.”

“Don't let the secret get out.”

I smiled and rested my head against the plastic chain of the swings. “What, should I tell Colleen Whitcomb? Give her the exclusive?” I held up an imaginary microphone, still giggling to myself even as I tried to do my best faux-newscaster voice. “So, Oliver, how does it feel to
finally . . .
be home?”

He smiled, but I realized later that it wasn't turned up as much at the corners, that it didn't reach his eyes the way it should. “Well, Colleen,” he said, playing along and speaking into my fist, “I'll tell you the truth. Can you handle an exclusive?”

“Yes,” I said. “Our viewers”—I winked into an imaginary camera—“want to know.”

Oliver looked up at me, his face solemn and pained, and I realized with a terrible rush that we weren't playing anymore. “Colleen,” he said, “coming home feels like being kidnapped all over again.”

I looked at him, waiting for the laugh or the “Just kidding!” something that wouldn't make my heart feel like it was free-falling. “What?” I said. My hand dropped to my side, the imaginary microphone plummeting into the grass.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't—” Oliver blew out a slow breath and leaned back in the swing, still holding on tight to the chains. “I shouldn't have said that.”

“Did you mean it?” I asked. Both of our houses were dark, the closed blinds letting out no cracks of light.

He bit his lip and looked away, then right back at me. “Yes,” he said. “I meant it.”

“Then you should say it,” I whispered. “I don't want you to lie to me. You never lied to me before. Don't start now.”

“It's just, it just feels the same.” He shrugged, tipping his head to the sky like the stars had advice to offer him. “I got taken away from everything I knew, my friends, my dad, our apartment, homeschooling, and now I'm in a new house with sisters—I have
sisters
, Emmy, I don't even know what to say about that—and a mom I don't know and a stepdad I've
never
known, new friends, new school. And this house just feels so small, like the walls are touching sometimes when I sleep, and this town . . .” He trailed off, glancing toward the street like he could see a way out. “I don't know how you do it. I don't know how Drew does it.”

I didn't know what to say. I had never thought of my town as small before, but Oliver had been all over the country. He had been living in New York. Suburbia must have felt like an itch he couldn't scratch.

“And I can't talk to my dad because I don't know where he is,” he continued. “I can't ask him where we went, why he did this, just like I couldn't ask my mom where she went, why she left us.”

“But she didn't leave you, Oliver, she—”

“I
know
that!” he said, sharper than usual, but his voice still sounded sad. “Sorry. I know that. But knowing something and feeling something are two totally different things. I barely even remember you, Emmy. Sorry, but it's true. I don't.”

I didn't realize my eyes were filling with tears until he reached out to blot them with his thumb. “Shit,” he sighed. “See? This is why I didn't want to tell you. I knew it would hurt you. This is why I don't tell anyone.”

I pushed his hand away, though, shaking my head and wiping my own eyes. “You don't have to protect me,” I said. “I told you, I don't want you to lie to me.”

“But it's hurting you.”

“It's hurting you, too.” I dragged my wrist cuff across my eyes. “That's not fair.”

“Nothing about this is fair,” he said. We were both resting our heads against the swing chains now, swinging opposite each other in tiny arcs. More like rocking than swinging, really. “If this was fair, I wouldn't have left.”

“Did you tell your therapist?” I asked. “Could she help?”

“Maybe. But, you know, I don't know her, either. She's a stranger.”

“And I'm not?”

He looked up and smiled at me as we passed each other again. “Apparently not,” he said, making us both laugh. “I wish I remembered more about you.”

“Me too,” I murmured. “I wanted you to come home so bad that I never thought about what would happen after. I just wanted my friend back.”

Oliver beckoned his fingers toward me and I reached out, clasping on to his chain. He wrapped his hand around mine, his fingers cold, and I realized he had been outside for a long time. “I guess we both have a new friend now,” he said. “I didn't really have a lot of those growing up.”

“Because you moved a lot?”

“Well, yeah, kind of,” Oliver said, then gestured to me. “My dad homeschooled me, too. It's just disappointing because I thought maybe I would finally get to do that, y'know? Just be normal, with friends.”

“Well, you're friends with
me
, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, then was silent for a few extra seconds. “Caro and Drew, though. We were friends, too, before I . . . left. Are they . . . are they, like, mad at me or something?”

“
Mad
at you?” I repeated before I could stop myself.

“Yeah. They don't really talk to me or that day when you came over to say hi at lunch, Drew didn't say anything and then he came over and sort of pulled you away.”

“Oh, Oliver,” I sighed. I felt so horrible. Picturing Oliver alone was one thing. Picturing him lonely was another issue entirely. “When you first came back, everyone said that you needed some space. They told us to let you ease in on your own, so Caro and Drew gave you space. That's all it is, I swear. No one's mad at you. Why would they be? What'd
you
do?”