I Will Save You (18 page)

She shoved me and said: “Is that, like, the craziest story you’ve ever heard or what?”

“It’s sad,” I said.

We crossed the 101 and passed some clothing stores, and Olivia pointed to the sky over the ocean. “You’re missing a pretty awesome sunset, by the way.”

I looked at the sky and it was so colorful it didn’t even look real. It looked like what some painter would do. Or a postcard. And then I thought, How could I let Devon pull me out in a riptide? If I had drowned I never would’ve seen the sunset sky again or heard about one of Olivia’s books.

“Anyway,” she said, stopping in front of a store sign that said
MOONLIGHT MUSIC
, “this is where I’m taking you.”

I looked in the store window and saw a big row of guitars.

“Before we go in, though, I have to finish what I was saying.”

“Okay,” I said.

“The first time I read the story I thought the two young people were total idiots. They had true love, right? They were each other’s one-hundred-percent perfect match. Why the hell
would anybody test something like that? I was so mad at the author I threw the book against the wall and swore I’d never read anything by him again. But later that night I kept thinking about it. And I picked it up and looked at it again. Then I reread the entire story and saw it a different way.”

She grabbed my arm again, said: “What if the couple was right to test their love like that? And even though they got really sick and lost their memory of each other and never came together again, maybe it was still a happier story than if they’d gotten married and moved to the suburbs and had two point five kids. It’s kind of like
Romeo and Juliet
in a way.”

I looked at the ground thinking about which ending would be happier, them staying together or them splitting up. I put me and Olivia as the characters.

Olivia pushed up my chin so our eyes looked at each other. “What do you think?” she said.

“But they could’ve just stayed together.”

“I know,” she said. “But maybe
that
would’ve been the truly sad part. You know what I mean?”

I shook my head and told her the sad part was how they were meant to be. And they didn’t believe it.

“Here’s what I mean,” she said. “Say Romeo and Juliet had stayed together, right? Their love would’ve eventually faded like all love fades and they’d have had kids and jobs and errands just like everybody else. Eventually their lives would become amazingly ordinary. The only reason
Romeo and Juliet
is such a famous love story is because their relationship was cut off at its most intense moment.”

I thought about me and Olivia having an ordinary life. Sitting on the couch, eating pizza.

It sounded like the best life ever.

“Same thing with the young Japanese couple in the story. Sure, technically it’s a sad ending because they don’t recognize each other later on, when they’re both single. But I think the author is saying that even though they don’t end up together they also never have to see their perfect love fade and become ordinary like everybody’s parents. You see what I mean?”

“I guess so.” I looked at the ground and then looked back at her. I knew Olivia was smarter than me, but her opinion didn’t seem right.

“What?” she said.

“I still think they should’ve stayed together, though. I bet they’re more sad being alone than being ordinary together.”

She nodded and looked at me like she was thinking.

“I don’t know, though,” I said.

“Me either,” she said. “But I love stories like that. Ones that make you really think.”

“Me too.”

“Hey,” she said. “I have an idea. Maybe I could give you the book, and you could read the story for yourself, and when you’re done we can discuss. Like our own book club.”

“Okay,” I said, even though I was nervous about reading the same story as her.

“Nice. Now come on.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me into Moonlight Music.

She waved at the old man behind the counter and we went right up to him. “There she is,” he said, and he slid a key across the counter.

“Bobby’s not doing lessons today, right?” Olivia said.

He shook his head. “Bobby’s fishing in Mexico with his kid.”

“They’re talking again?”

The old guy nodded and looked at me.

“Oh, this is my friend Kidd,” Olivia said, picking up the key. She turned to me. “And this is DJ. He’s owned this place for eighty-something years.”

“Thirty-seven,” DJ said.

“This is where my dad bought my piano.”

“And where Olivia comes to practice when her folks are home. You know she’s a virtuoso, right?”

I looked at Olivia.

She was blushing.

DJ waved us off and said: “Well, you didn’t come here to talk to me. Go on.”

Olivia led me through this solid door, into a room with a piano, and turned around a folding chair. “Okay, you can sit here,” she said. “I’m gonna play this song I wrote about you, okay?”

“You made a song about me?” I couldn’t believe she’d just said that. It didn’t seem possible.

She laughed. “It’s just a silly one, but I promised myself I’d play it for you someday.”

Nobody’d ever done anything like that for me before. My own song. From Olivia. It proved she thought about me sometimes. Even when I wasn’t there. Which made me think maybe Devon was wrong.

I had to tell myself to stop smiling.

“Okay, sit,” she said, pointing to the chair.

“It’s facing the wrong way.”

“Exactly.”

I sat down facing the wall and looked over my shoulder as Olivia went and turned off the overhead light and sat at the piano bench. She turned on this dull night-light on the piano.

“Here are the rules,” she said. “You have to face the other way the whole time, no peeking, and when I’m done you can’t say anything about what I’ve just played. You have to act like it never even happened. Deal?”

“Okay.”

“Good.” She looked at me, said: “Well?”

“Oh,” I said, turning to face the wall.

It was quiet and dark for a few minutes. Three different times Olivia said “okay,” but she still didn’t play. I never thought she’d be so shy.

Then a few low notes came out of the piano.

It was a happy-sounding piano and she hummed with the chords a few times through, and then she started singing. I closed my eyes and listened to her tell the story of me and Mr. Red fixing everything around the campsites and how before we met she considered breaking things on purpose, close to her tent, so we’d have to work next to her, but she didn’t want to make us do more than we had to.

She sang how she’d actually followed
me
into the park the day I saw her on the swing. She’d been waiting for me to notice her. I was shocked.

It was mostly a funny song, and I was smiling the whole time. But I also had chills, ’cause I kept thinking how Olivia had followed me. And how she’d sat there, writing these lyrics about me. I never would’ve considered that.

After a while I started daydreaming.

I pictured me and her walking to the music store, how the backs of our hands sometimes touched. I pictured her undoing my shoelace and petting Peanut. I pictured Devon holding my arms in the riptide ocean.

Olivia played and sang and I thought about everything, the summer so far, even before the summer, at Horizons, in my therapist’s office, and then my mind went to the craziest thing ever. I pictured me and Olivia facing each other on a stage somewhere, holding each others’ hands, as a priest person said: “You may now kiss the bride.” I saw our faces slowly leaning together and us kissing and everybody cheering and the band playing this exact song.

We just kept kissing.

And the priest said: “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

And right then, at the exact second I was picturing me and Olivia walking off the stage together, going toward our honeymoon, her telling me on the plane how wrong she was about the story of the boy and girl who tested their love, they should’ve just stayed together, like us. Right that second Olivia’s last note faded out.

I opened my eyes and stared at the dark wall in front of me and all my insides felt tight and my head felt dizzy.

I wondered if that’s what love was like.

Becoming unsteady.

Olivia got up and flipped on the lights.

I turned around and went to say something, but she put a finger to my lips and said: “Remember the rules.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling. “But I loved your song.”

“That’s a clear violation.”

“Sorry.”

We were both quiet for a sec, while she turned off the night-light on the piano and fixed my chair. Then she looked up at me and said: “But you see what happened here, right?”

“What?”

“I got you to leave your tent.”

I smiled.

When I took my next breath it seemed like I was breathing in the world.

As we walked out of the piano room I told her: “Hey, Olivia.”

“Yeah?”

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I think that couple in the story should’ve stayed together.”

“I’ve been picking up on that.”

“I believe some things are meant to be.”

She smiled and touched my arm. “I know you do, Kidd.” She flipped off the lights and told me: “And you wanna know something weird?”

“What?”

“That’s one of the reasons I like hanging out with you. I’m secretly hoping you’ll rub off on me.”

 … After Devon said his name, he didn’t wait for you to say yours back, he just came in your room and sat on the other end of the bed and looked all around. “Worst thing you can do in here, by the way, is act shy. No foster parent will ever pick you. Especially from a freak show like Horizons. It’s the same as when people go to pick out a puppy from the pound. First one who runs over and licks their stupid hand, man. That’s who they pick. It’s all psychological.”

You just stared at him. You’d never met somebody who’d just come up and start talking like that, like you were supposed to instantly know each other.

“Wanna know why I call Horizons a freak show? It’s ’cause we get the most messed-up kids in San Diego who don’t have parents. Like, I’m guessing something pretty messed up happened with your family for them to ship you out here. Am I right?”

You didn’t answer.

“Maybe your dad’s a serial killer. Or your mom’s a porn star. Or maybe they sold you into child slavery and got thrown in a max-security prison. Or you’re all part of a cult.”

Devon reached across the bed and into your bag, pulled out Mom’s letter and looked at the writing. He flipped it over a couple times, said: “And what do we have here?”

“Nothing,” you told him and reached for it, but he turned to shield you with his back and tore open the envelope and started reading: “ ‘To My Son …’ ” He turned to look at you. “Wait, you haven’t read this yet?”

You shook your head.

“Oh, damn. So this is, like, a pretty big moment, then. It’s the part of the movie where super-dramatic music starts playing.”

You reached for the letter again, but he held it out of reach.

“You really want me to stop? Or do you want me to keep reading?”

You didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Let’s be honest—you’re too scared to read it on your own. You’ve been sitting here waiting for someone like me to walk through that door.” He smiled. “I know how it is, dude. Life’s a bitch.” He looked at the letter and started again.

And it was through this kid you’d just met, Devon, that you heard the last thing your Mom ever wrote. How if you were reading this then she had some explaining to do. She’d been dealing with abuse from your father for as long as she could remember. He wasn’t evil, but something had happened to him when he was young. His own father, a construction worker and a drunk, had almost beaten him to death. He was twelve. He’d left his bike in the front yard overnight, and it was stolen. His father had always beaten him and his mom, but this time he put his own son in the hospital. And though he recovered physically, something in his heart died. When she first heard his story she wanted to save him, she wanted to fix him, teach him about love and show him another way to live. And for a while it worked. Their relationship was beautiful. But eventually, she realized, people who’ve been hurt that bad revert back to what they know.

He panicked about the sudden responsibility of having a family. He took it out on her. Eventually he started taking it out on you, too. She kicked him out of the apartment. Things got better. But he’d still come knocking. Mostly when he was using. Or when he needed something. He’d break in, middle of the night. She had bars put on all the windows. But then she’d trust that he was trying to turn his life around and she’d let him in for a few days. Only to have him raise his hand again. She went to the police, got restraining orders, moved to an unlisted address, but he always came back.

The last time he beat her, in the living room, with you standing there watching, it was so bad he knocked her unconscious, broke her arm and her orbital bone and detached her left retina. Laying in the hospital bed, she finally realized what she had to do.

Devon looked up at you with a frowning face and said: “Jesus, dude, is this all true?”