Still Point (10 page)

The guy yelled something back into Justin's ear, and then Justin's eyes snapped to me like he could sense my presence.

My stomach jumped and kicked and rolled. He didn't smile at me. He didn't acknowledge me with a wave. He just watched me. There was an open spot next to him on the couch, and he moved his glass into his other hand so he could lift his other arm and rest it on top of the couch back.

I made my way over to him and sat down, sagging into the couch so that our shoulders touched. In that dark, warm space, people started to disappear. All I saw was a warm body and soft lips, and all I felt were warm fingers gliding over my neck and massaging my shoulder.

I leaned closer to him. “We need to talk,” I shouted over the music.

He watched my lips move and smiled. He leaned toward my lips like he was going to kiss me, but he pressed his mouth against my ear instead. “You don't want to warm up before we do the heavy lifting?” he asked. “We don't want to pull something.”

He leaned back and I stared at the cool smirk on his face. I looked at his T-shirt, bunched at his shoulder, and reached over and slipped my fingers inside the fabric and pulled it down. My fingertips grazed his arm. I noticed his chest rise. In a way it felt like we
were
talking. It was our way of saying things were fine, we were fine.

The guy sitting next to Justin yelled something, and Justin looked away. He lifted his hand off my shoulder, and his fingers found my hand, lingering next to his leg. He was talking to the guy next to him, but I couldn't make out words. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes and let myself feel. Justin's fingers enveloped my hand, and it was such a small gesture, such a common touch, but it felt like my entire body was being shocked. All I could concentrate on was that touch. His fingers played around mine, tapping and then squeezing and then brushing and then squeezing again. There was an entire conversation going on with those movements. His hand was trying to tell me something. It made me smile. It made me crazy.

We kept having our own private conversation. I squeezed his hand back to tell him I was happy to see him. I pressed my fingertips against his, to tell him I missed him. He rubbed his thumb slowly over each of my knuckles to tell me how much he loved every piece of me. I squeezed his hand again to tell him I wished we were alone, and he agreed with his own squeeze.

I'm glad we're still okay,
we both seemed to be saying. It was one of the best conversations I had ever had.

I looked around and saw Riley and Becky on the dance floor, glued to each other. I raised my eyebrows to see Clare and Gabe making out in the middle of the floor, but I wasn't surprised.

The couch cushions shifted and the guy sitting next to Justin stood up, and before I could blink, Justin pulled me up off the couch. The floor vibrated under my feet, rattling my arms and legs until it loosened every tense joint. I became water, fluid and bendable. I became myself. Justin led me to the dance floor, and I tried not to stare as couples straddled each other, their hands and mouths and tongues roaming each other's skin. In my T-shirt and jeans, I was extremely overdressed. Justin leaned into me and pulled his arms around my waist.

“I thought dancing wasn't your thing,” I yelled. His eyes were intense, and instead of answering me he leaned his head into me and rested his lips against my ear. That was all I needed. I lifted my head up until his lips were on mine. His hands trailed below my waist, and we started another conversation that was really hard to have in public.

But I didn't care.

I pulled at his hair and he pulled my T-shirt sleeves over my shoulders. I was half touching, half clawing his skin.

I didn't care.

We got tired of standing, so we sank into a free couch in the back. I straddled Justin and my hair fell over my face and he had to move it away so he could find my lips. Music and people and time blurred. We were still sitting there, I guess. The room was still there, and walls, but it was all white noise. It all faded into the background, and I was alone with one person.

I couldn't believe I was doing this. I used to see people acting this way in virtual clubs, or in movies—making out and groping each other in public—and I always thought it was disgusting and why couldn't they do it in private. But now I wondered if they were just hanging in a fleeting moment, never sure if they would ever get another chance. Maybe they were just meeting or leaving or on the brink of separating and they were letting it all out. That's what I needed to do tonight. To do more every day. Just let it all go. All the bad stuff. The grit. And let the love in.

Even in public.

The black cement walls were cold against my bare arms. I stood in the hallway outside the club. Justin was leaning up against me, one hand pressed against the wall, the other one clasped hard on my waist. He rested his forehead against mine.

“I missed you,” I breathed.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.”

I missed this so much, this being alive, this waking up. Everyone else seemed to want me hypnotized and controlled, under some kind of sleep-induced spell.

“You're finally touching me again,” I said. Since I had escaped from the detention center two months earlier, Justin had been hesitant with me. Tonight he let go too.

He nodded his forehead against mine and let out a long breath, like he was just as relieved. “I was afraid before,” he admitted. “I thought if I went too fast, you'd have a seizure or something.” He moved his mouth down my cheek until I could feel his lips against my neck.

“Don't be careful with me,” I said. “You're the last person I want to give me space.”

He leaned back a little so he could see me. “Then what are you doing?” he said. I could see in his eyes that this was torturing him. He still wanted me to go with him.

“I have a plan,” I said.

“Maddie—”

Becky came around the corner and interrupted us. I blinked at her, confused for a second, like she'd stumbled into my fantasy.

“There you two are,” she said. “My mom's wondering where I am. We need to get going.”

I nodded and looked back at Justin. His fingers still clung to my waist. He didn't let up. I kissed him quickly before I slipped out of his hands and followed Becky to the door. I looked back before I walked out, and he was watching me, leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets. His face was flushed and his hair was a mess and his eyes were on fire, and I could still feel the warmth of his skin. Walking out that door was one of the hardest things I had ever had to do.

 

“You two had a romance marathon going on,” Becky noted, sitting across the aisle of the train.

I chewed on the corner of my pinkie nail and blushed. I was floating. I looked out at the moon and admired how it painted everything metallic; even the wet leaves hung like silver ornaments.

“Yeah, sorry. I'm not usually like that. I don't know what came over me.”

“You don't need to apologize,” she said. “I think you two are awesome together. You're going to have super smart, super hot, superhero kids.”

I laughed and stretched my feet across the aisle until they were nearly touching Becky's sandals. My body felt loose, like someone had unglued all my tendons. “I think we're a ways away from that.”

“How is it ever going to work between you two? Considering who your father is?”

My mind snapped out of its daydream. “I try not to think about it.”

Her eyes were steady on mine. “Maybe you should. You guys are obviously in love. But it seems masochistic to me, falling for the one guy you can never have.”

“We'll figure it out,” I said, suddenly annoyed. It's easy to think people have no business giving you advice when it isn't the advice you want to hear. But she had a point. I laid my head against the train seat. My entire body was warm, my cheeks were pink, my skin was hot. Being with Justin was like taking a drug; it was a high my body crashed into with a scintillating rush. When I immersed myself in it, I could feel my whole body glow on the inside until it pushed out. I just wanted to focus on that. I didn't want to think about the crash that always came later, because I was too addicted to the high.

I took Justin's advice—to stop thinking so much and to feel more. I wouldn't let myself think tonight. I wouldn't let myself doubt. I just wanted to soak in this perfect moment.

 

The next morning I walked downstairs and stalled when I heard my father's voice in the kitchen, echoing down the hall. At first I thought he was home, and my chest deflated, but I realized he was just face-chatting my mom.

“She was with Becky,” I heard my mom say.

I inched my way down the hall.

“This isn't what we agreed to,” my dad argued.

“We never agreed on anything. I think Maddie
should
get out of the house. If you want to make rules, then you stay home to enforce them.”

“I can't be home right now, Jane.”

“Well, I'm not playing cop in this house. If you want to tie Maddie down, then you come home and do it yourself. I'm just happy to have her home, Kevin. For whatever reason she came back, for however long, I'll take what I can get. But I'm not forcing her to stay here. That
never
worked.”

“I'll be home in a few days,” my dad said. “We can talk about it then.”

The call snapped off and the wall screen switched to a morning news program. My mom turned as I walked into the kitchen.

“Hi,” she said. I wasn't sure whether I should thank her or apologize, but she took care of the silence by listing breakfast options.

I sat down and we watched the news coverage in Portland and Washington, D.C., discussing interviews with politicians preparing for the national vote. Reporters talked about the vote as if it had already happened. No one even mentioned the words
oppose, disagree, argue
. We were ghosts.

“I almost forgot to give you your books this year,” my mom said. Every year around my birthday, she handed down ten real, paper books to me. It had become our tradition. She got up and came back a minute later with a cloth bag. She took the books out one by one, carefully handling them as if they were rare artwork, and displayed them on the table.

I looked at each one, running my hands over the colorful, smooth covers, as beautiful as pictures you could frame. There were two books of poetry. A mystery series. A memoir.

“I love this one,” my mom said, and flipped over a book called
The Missing Piece.
“The message changes every time you read it depending on where you are in your life. I reread it every year. I have my own copy.”

I looked at the simplistic line drawings inside. It was mostly white space, as if so much of the story was there for readers to interpret for themselves. I liked that. It made me think that so much of life is white space, waiting to be filled.

“This one's my favorite,” she said. It was a square hardcover book, large and heavy. “It's local photography,” she said, and bent over me, flipping through the pages. “It captures pictures of Oregon today, contrasted with pictures of Oregon one hundred years ago. I thought you'd appreciate it.”

I looked at my pile of new friends.

“Thanks,” I said.

“How was the movie?” she asked, and sat down.

“What movie?” I asked.
Oh, crap
. “Oh,
the
movie.”
Double crap
. “It was very . . . entertaining.”

I started chewing my nails. I am a terrible sporadic liar, especially when I knew my mom deserved the truth. “It was just a sports club, Mom. We watched soccer games and then we danced. That's it. No rioting, no police. Maybe some boys.”

My mom blew a long breath out of her nose.

“Don't tell Becky's parents. Her dad would probably send her to a detention center for looking at a boy.”

She took a sip of tea. “Was Justin there?”

I nodded. “Yes, Mom. My boyfriend, Justin, was there.”

For an instant a smile crossed her face, but she quickly swept it away.

“Boyfriend?”

“Yes, and it's getting pretty serious. And don't say you're disappointed in me because I know you're not. You've always liked Justin. You can't even keep a straight face when he's around.”

She didn't say anything. She looked down at the table.

“I'm being honest, so you should too,” I said.

“I knew you weren't going to a movie. I've had a rebellious teenager long enough to know better than Margaret Thompson.”

I smiled. “Then why did you let me go?”

“Because every day I wake up with one wish, Maddie. That someday I'll have my family back. I lost Joe to the digital world. I lost your father to his career years ago. Now you're practically running away because you can't stand this lifestyle, and honestly, I don't blame you. But I can't run away, because I have commitments. And even though I don't agree with your father on everything, I still love him. He's a good man.”

I thought about this. “What do you do when you don't agree with the person you love?”

She sighed. “You agree to disagree. But you need to respect each other. If you lose the respect, then you have problems. And that's one thing I haven't lost. I still respect your dad, for what he's trying to do.”

“Does Dad know where I went last night?”

She nodded. “He knows you went out. He's furious.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him that you went to a movie with Becky. I don't know if he bought it, but I'm not going to play prison guard. You're an adult. If he's upset, he can come home and talk to you about it. I'm not tracking you, Maddie. As far as I'm concerned, when your father leaves, do what you want.”

I stared at my mom with surprise. I had an ally.