If I Stay (17 page)

I shook my head a little. Just a little. Even though I knew it wouldn't really mean anything.

“So there's someone else.”

I nodded.

“Could you actually use your mouth words, maybe?” Sacha's tone hitched up a notch, irritated. Perhaps understandably so. “Like, at least give me some kind of clarification here.”

“There is someone else,” I said to him. “But it's not the kind of thing where we're actually an
item. It's just – I don't know. A fantasy.”

“Are you
kidding
me?” he snapped. A few of the kids looked over, and I became suddenly aware of how inappropriate it was to be talking about adult things in the presence of little people who shouldn’t have to deal with adult bullshit. Sacha and I got up and walked to a corner of the mall, right by the Professional Eyebrow Design place, where nobody actually ever had their eyebrows professionally designed. “I mean, Brandon might be right about me being the reincarnation of Dallas Green in one respect or another, but at least I'm
real
.”

“I know,” I told him. Then, to solidify his realness, I reached out and touched his hand. He recoiled immediately, and I gulped: “I'm sorry.”

Sacha's eyes dropped to the ground, and he shook his head for what felt like a really long time until he finally said:

“You have nothing to be sorry about. It's not like this is your fault, Gems. It's all on me.”

And then, out of everything that he could have possibly done, he hugged me.

“Emotions are a fucking bitch. They're vampires, you know? They don't care whose life they're draining. Even passion is like a facade in a way. You get all doped up on the start of a new relationship that when you finally become accustomed to everything you enter into this state or perpetually searching for that next hit of something phenomenal.”

I stared at him, his eyes still on his shoes.

Was that how it would be with Ben?

Was I really just being stupid, falling into the trap of good-feelings that felt so damn fantastic that I didn't really have much regard for the realities of everything around me. Like the fact that my college career was ending in a stretch of nearly three months, or that I had more student debt than I cared to even think about, or the fact that – oh, yes – the man who I was falling deeper and deeper into the depths of delicious hell...was my professor.

There was that, too.

I looked back over at the kids that were still playing while their parents were busy reading their books. One mother was nursing a newborn. A father was watching the scene intently, his eyes darting quickly around. There was one kid who was trying so hard to climb the ladder that led to the top of this tiny slide. Just one of those non-expensive, red plastic slides. But to this boy, I imagine in must have felt like some huge, grand accomplishment. I watched him, admittedly with a small pang of envy, as he reached the top of the slide and slid down and everything ended with this bout of beautiful laughter that only children can really create.

We decided to stay and walk around the mall for a little while longer, which I had hoped might ease things before he drove me back home. I bought a latte, and Sacha bought a blended mocha soy-whatever drink, and we perused the shops until we both decided that it was really time to go.

It was a quiet ride back to the apartment, and even though I'd asked him a dozen times to stay, Sacha didn't want to.

“Are you sure everything's alright?” I asked. He nodded.

“Everything's fine, Gems. Really.”

I wasn't entirely convinced, but I still let him go. The thing is, even if I insisted that he stayed, it wouldn't have changed anything. I couldn't change Sacha's feelings. He'd either need to get over it on his own or figure out something else – or someone else – to preoccupy his time and thoughts with. Not in an
end our friendship forever
way, but definitely in a romantic one.

Inside, Brandon was balled up on the couch. Frozen pizza (that still looked actually frozen) on the coffee table, his bass guitar on the floor, and my copy of
Sideways
peeled open. His nose was practically buried in it.

“Wow, are you actually reading something with pages and words?”

He dropped the book, and I swear, there were actual Crocodile tears.

“Benjamin Lawson IS a writer! This is just way too sad to handle,” Brandon choked. “If you take this book away from me before I finish, I will destroy all of the artwork that you've created and, in addition, everything in this shitty apartment that you love.”

I tossed my keys on the counter, unpeeled from my jacket, and rolled my eyes.

“Just don't forget that we have homework, you know.”

A part of me, as I watched him read Ben's book with such a genuine interest, wanted to bring up the offer for us both to stay in McMansion while he was in Los Angeles, finishing up the film that would, I was certain, go on to be just as successful as the book was. But I didn't. Which was partially due to the fact that I knew how he would respond: in typical, Brandon fashion. He'd think the entire thing was insane. And he'd also probably scream a lot.

So instead, I sat down, took the book from his hands, and as he stared at me (one eyebrow raised) I finally confessed:

“Sacha kissed me. In the closet. And now I strongly suspect that things are going to get weird.”

“Well. Damn,” Brandon muttered. “I'm not surprised, though. Not really. I mean, this happens all the time in boy/girl friendships. It's hard for things to stay platonic. Still, I'm totally going to verbally thrash him in class tomorrow for soiling our friendship circle.”

“Triangle,” I corrected.

“Fine. Triangle. It doesn't change the fact that the only reason I threw you guys in the closet together was because I thought he
wouldn't
try anything. It was just meant to be, I don't know, funny. Goddammit.” Brandon was furious. With Sacha, with himself. “I'm totally going to break his arm for soiling our friendship triangle with his uncontrolled hormones...I might break my own arm, too.”

“Oh, Jesus. Brandon. Don't. Focus, please. Console me.”

Brandon picked up the book, turning it around and shoving Ben's picture flat in my face. So close that I couldn't even make out the features. It was just a colored blur.

“This guy. Think about him. He's what makes you happy, right? So focus on that. Sacha will come around, Gems. God knows he has to eventually.”

“Or not.”

Brandon sighed.

“I'm going to strangle him.”

I should have said that there was some level of consent in the action. He'd asked, and I'd told him that it was okay. And it wasn't like it was some sort of passionate make-out session. It was just a kiss. One single kiss.

I'd be damned if one kiss in a closet destroyed our friendship circle. Triangle. Deformed shape.

Sucking in as much air as possible, like helium from a balloon without the dizzying affect and high-pitched voice that followed, I stood and walked straight into my room. Closing the door behind me, I slunk into my bed, stared at the plastic stars on my ceiling, and barely even budged when I felt my phone start to vibrate.

I pulled it from my pocket, preparing myself for something from Sacha. The text read:

Look out your bedroom window.

So I did – and it wasn't Sacha. No, to my complete shock, it was Ben. Ben, standing in that same black button-down with the neon green and purple striped-checker pattern. His wool coat, his polished shoes that weren't sneakers.

Opening the window, I didn't really care about just how cold it was as the wind whipped across my face, the chill biting at my skin with a disregarding harshness. My hair fell like red ribbons from the window sill, and I was reminded for just a moment of Loreena Mckennitt's
The Highwayman.

“Stalking me outside of my bedroom window, I should remind you, is also highly unprofessional.”

Ben was beaming. His smile wide, cheeks flush, hair in lovely disarray.

“Perhaps. And yet here I am,” he called up to me. “Now quick, come down here before I start quoting Romeo and Juliet. Might I add, your gazing down at me from the window would provide quite the perfect opening for such an action.”

I gazed down at him, my heart skipping like a CD that had been left out of the case for so long it never really played right. Only I could have listened to this song forever.

“You aren't scared?” I asked. Quietly enough that I wasn't sure if he'd heard me.

But he did.

“No,” he answered. “Let's take a drive together, just for a little while. I'd like to escape this place with you.”

SIXTEEN

I would have much preferred the dramatic sneak-out via fire escape. Except for the fact that our apartment didn't have a fire escape (unless jumping out of the window counted) and the entirety of the building was locked up pretty well. The apartments themselves weren't openly available for anyone to just walk up to the front door – you needed a key, and even then, the keys had a fantastic habit of sometimes getting jammed.

All in all, it was a lot less exciting having to stroll through the living room where Brandon sat, still reading. His eyebrows raised immediately.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I thought about telling him, but the look on his face already told me that he knew.

“I'll won't be long,” I reassured. “I'm just going out for a bit.”

As I was leaving, wrapping myself up in a coat and scarf and hat, I could hear Brandon laughing to himself as he yelled:

“Don't forget, you have homework!”

I slammed the door shut, feeling giddy and excited and mostly, just feeling alive.

I ran down the hall and down the steps and through the entrance, finding Ben standing by his beautiful silver bullet. He opened the door for me, always a gentleman, and I climbed inside. The leather was warm, the car smelling like Ben's cologne and that new, fancy car smell.

“I can't believe you were standing outside of my apartment,” I gasped, rubbing my arms and trying to warm up. “You're insane.”

“I won't fight you on that,” he said gently, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. My face instantly heated.

“Did you have any idea where you wanted to go?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “But don't worry, I won't keep you long.”

“Why?” I pouted. He grinned.

“It's not good to neglect schoolwork.”

I crossed my arms as he sped out of the parking lot, tossing his iPod on my lap at the first red light.

“You're welcome to pick anything,” he said quietly. So as we drove, I sifted through his music selection and decided on
Under the Milky Way
by The Church. After that, Joy Division.

Ben had a thing for the 80's, plus a lot of old school punk rock. And I was okay with that.

As we drove, Ben kept his hands firmly on the wheel, his eyes scattered and his entire disposition strangely, unfamiliarly quiet. When his phone went off, which he kept on his lap, I glanced down and saw a foreign name blink across the screen:
Amelia
.

He cleared his throat, silencing the call, and a million thoughts ran through my head: who was she? What relationship did she have with Ben? Am I just being a complete, unreasonable psychopath?

But I didn't need to question long, because Ben answered for me.

“I suppose there's something else I should tell you,” he sighed, just barely. “And not simply because yes, I caught how you looked just now. Totally quizzical, borderline internal meltdown.”

Oh, he was cunning. I couldn't help but laugh. Not out of humor, but because it was really the only reaction that felt acceptable.

“Amelia, you should know, is my sister.”

“So you're not the only child that your book portrays you as?” I asked, dubiously. The weight of the unknown lifted from my shoulders like from a gust of wind. Sweeping away some of the questions, but only bringing along others.

Ben chuckled, although his jaw strained in a similar way as it had that night at the hotel, when I'd asked him whether or not he'd planned on bringing someone back.

“Firstly, readers do no good in trying to pick apart books to find pieces of reality for their own pleasure or curious search. You can't take something subjective and claim to discover an absolute truth. Secondly,” he took in a sharp breath. “No, I'm not an only child. Amelia has a different father. She lives with him most of the time.”

“And does she ever visit you?”

Ben grinned.

“Naturally. I'm her big brother.”

We peeled around a corner, my body pressing into the passenger door.

“But I can really wear on her nerves sometimes,” he added. “So I do think, for the most part, she prefers to keep at bay.”

“How old is she?”

At first, he appeared hesitant. And I'm not sure, even to this day, why that was. Perhaps, if nothing else, out of the desire to protect his younger sibling.

“Sixteen. And I apologize, my dear. But I really can't
not
take her phone-call. If you'd just give me a minute.”

“Of course, Ben. She's your sister.”

We pulled to the side of the road, and Ben got out, his body shivering in a way that was almost endearing in its vague vulnerability as he dialed back his sister.
Amelia
. Certainly a pretty name. And it was surely something to see as he paced around, his hands waving every so often, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper as I could tell, and just barely hear, the contents of a disagreement between the two of them. I was a little worried, to be honest, that it would be an emergency. That when Ben got back in the car he'd give me one of his sweetest, sincerest apologies and we'd be back-trekking all the way home to my apartment. Which isn't where I wanted to be. At all.

Not so soon, at least.

I wondered if Amelia looked at all like Ben, or if he had any photos of her on hand. Would it be weird to ask him? Was I totally jumping the gun? Granted, Ben and I weren't
exactly
an item. And we weren't to any extent exclusive. Still, I cared. I cared about his life and his past and his present – family included. And I cared about the person that seemed to be presently throwing Ben into a fit of brotherly rage. Which, I'll also admit, had me just a teensy bit nervous as I watched him finally hang up the phone and get back into the car, a long sigh shuddering from him like it was the cold air that had stolen his breath, and not Amelia.

“Is everything okay?” I asked quietly. He nodded.

“Oh, yes. She's just being a teenager.”

I didn't want to ask what was wrong, but at the same time, I was dying with curiosity. Ben took in another breath.

“She's at the age where she seems to think that she can go around doing whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Only she's
also
at that age where she's really been given no true adult responsibility. Her father manages everything well, considering. She has a fine home...” I could see him grind his teeth, which was a first and only instance. “She's young. She's just being young.”

“And did she want you to fix the situation?”

He nodded, and I guess I'd chosen the right words, because his lip even twinged in the corner.

“Always. I'm her Super Man, Gemma Davies. I'm the brother that swoops in and fixes everything. Even the things I maybe shouldn't be fixing or couldn't be fixing or
she's
not ready to have fixed.”

I nodded, and off we were again. Speeding down the otherwise empty road with only the sky above us, the buildings quickly abandoning our sights. It was almost like, right then, they had never existed at all. It was only us and the encompassing night.

“She's happy, though?” I asked. Ben shrugged.

“She's sixteen,” he repeated, answering plainly. “I suppose that's answer enough.”

He took my hand, and with my free digits I sifted through his iPod again, searching for some kind of music to break the weird mood that Amelia's phone call had caused. To my absolute delight, I discovered that Ben had the Garden State Soundtrack on his iPod, which thrilled me in ways beyond words.

“You're a fan of Zach Braff?” I smirked, and Ben laughed, saying: “I can do a pretty solid Eagle throw, if you're interested. There is snow, after all.”

I settled on Frou Frou's
Let Go
, which felt right. It felt good. It felt, all things considered, matching with the mood. And as Ben's fingers interlaced with mine, and I savored the sweet sounds of a swoon-worthy melody and the blanketing black sky, I couldn't help but wonder if all of this was really happening. If this really was my life.

“So where are we going?” I finally asked him. Ben whistled, shrugging as if he too had no idea. We just kept onward until the city was no longer, and until our only company was streetlights and pavement that flowed like black rivers. When we finally stopped, everything was still, and I was finally able to see the destination for myself:

“A field?” I couldn't contain my surprise. “Dear God, you're not going to murder me, are you?”

Ben laughed loudly, grinning like a madman.

“Don't tempt me. Kidding!” he exclaimed, hopping out of the car and signaling for me to wait. “Close your eyes.”

I listened anxiously as the door slammed shut, the trunk popped open, and there was a series of rustling sounds followed by the delightful sound of feet crunching against that thin layer of ice that sat like a crystal coating on the powder snow. When he opened up my door, he led me out while still instructing for me to keep my eyes clothes, and together we walked along in the snow for a distance that I'm still not sure of. But it was worth it.

All of it was worth it, and when we stopped, he whispered:

“Okay, you can open them now.”

So I did. Seeing in front of me a basket and a blanket, sprawled out on the snow.

“I'm not sure if you're actually hungry, and I know that sometimes girls get nervous about eating in front of guys and everything,” he started, sounding almost bashful. “But I thought I'd pack something anyway.”

Oh, I was nervous! Butterflies. Sheer butterflies. Ben knelt down, opening up the basket and withdrawing a thermos.

“I brought us some hot coffee, though...” he stopped, cocking his head to the side. “Are you alright, Gemma?”

“Yes.” I said, still looking at everything. The red blanket, the white snow, the field that seemed to go on infinitely. And above, the sky. The sky with the speckled, glitter-dusted stars that I'd never really looked at alone or with anyone else.

Why? I'm not sure. Maybe I was just afraid of how they seemed so capable of sucking people into this romantic trance, or feeling of helplessness. After all, so many people give up their fate
to the stars and planets. When I was younger, I used to think that the moon was following me home during those long car rides. It was strange to me, in total honesty.

But now, staring up at the darkness, I wasn't entirely sure why I had waited so long.

“I've never really done this,” I told him. “Stargazing.”

“Too cliché?” Ben asked. I shook my head.

“It's strange, but I'm not really sure what I was doing all those years until tonight. I've really been missing out on something extraordinary.”

We laid out on the blanket, holding hands. We didn't make out, or get too close, or make a point to keep a certain distance. It was one of those moments where I guess we were both contented to just be next to each other, staring up the stars, and thinking whatever thoughts ran through our heads as the dots of light above flickered and faded, lovely and alluring and alive.

“What are you thinking?” Ben finally asked. I waited before answering, letting the thoughts sift like sand through my fingers, filtering out the cluttered words that just weren't necessary.

“About you,” I answered. “And this.”

“What about this?”

I turned to him, and he turned to me. And even now I remember that instant, and how he looked so calm and peaceful as he rested on the sea of snow.

“Is this wrong?” I asked. He too waited, maybe longer than I had.

“Yes,” he finally said.

“Do you care? Are you ever worried?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Are you worried?”

“Yes. No,” I mumbled. “I'm a mix of all different emotions. But mainly, all that I really focus on is how happy I feel when I'm with you.”

His hand tightened around mine, and even though I wasn't looking at him, I knew that he was smiling.

“Who's playing you in the movie?” I asked.

Ben squirmed a little, but I could tell that he found my question humorous. I was relentless, and he knew it. But beyond that, I was capable of reading through the lines.

“A fantastic actor who may or may not actually be more handsome than I am,” he said.

“And you should be so lucky,” I said, and he laughed. “What about Ramona?”

“A fantastic actress who may or may not be prettier than she was,” he turned to me, smirking. “But not nearly as lovely as you.”

“Thank you, Benjamin Hugo Lawson, for that lovely line. Oh, you have me swooning.”

“It's not a line.” His nose crinkled, and a gust of wind sent snow dust scattering over the blanket and ourselves. I moved a little closer, just resting my head on his chest. Even from the layers upon layers, I could still hear his heart pounding. “It's true. I'll never forget that moment, seeing you across the room as I stood on that stage, thinking to myself:
she can't be real
in the sincerest of ways. I had to find you, Gemma, to ensure that you weren't a figment of my ever-wandering imagination.”