The Leaving Season (22 page)

I know this much is . . .

—but I also knew how I felt when I was with Lee. And I knew he felt it too. I lifted my eyes from the ground and found his. For a split second, I saw fear and vulnerability behind his anger. “Lee—”

Just as quickly, he closed back up. “You're not supposed to be with me,” he said coldly. “Don't you get it? The future is you and Nate. So just go ahead and get back to it. That's what you want, isn't it?”

I started toward him, my hand raised to his chest, but he hopped back and away as if I were on fire, spinning around
and out of my reach. I felt like an idiot following him, but he was wrong in so many ways.

“Don't, Middie. Don't make me tell Nate.” Lee shook his head, backing away from me and out of the circular driveway. “I can't hurt him like that. He's the best fucking friend I have in the world.”

“It wasn't just me. It couldn't have been,” I said quietly.

“I don't love you,” he said. “I felt sorry for you. Nate is the one who loves you. Him. Not me.
Him
.”

“Then what are you doing here, huh? Why did you come to a dance you weren't invited to? Do you normally crash high school parties?” I put my fists on my hips. “Oh yeah, that's right. You came to our senior party too. Guess you're just a loser with nothing better to do.”

He turned without another word and walked toward his Vespa in the parking lot.

“Wait, Lee, I didn't mean that!” I watched, unwilling to believe he wouldn't have a change of heart, wouldn't at least glance back at me, but he didn't. The scooter disappeared, its taillights fading quickly in the foggy night.

I didn't know how long I stood there, long enough for the fog to re-form in Lee's spot, replacing him as if he'd never been there. I hugged my arms around my waist, suddenly feeling the cold, and turned back toward the school's entrance.

My breath hiccupped in my chest when I saw Nate standing at the top step, his weight leaning against the open
door. We stared at each other in silence.

With every step I took, my heart pounded harder and harder.
When had Nate come outside?
What had he heard or seen? Inch by inch, my mind raced and my thoughts spun.

Finally I reached the landing and looked at him. He said nothing but stood aside and held the door open for me. Our arms brushed lightly as I walked past him.

He knows.

He knows.

We returned to the dance, to our table, and not long afterward, left. While I drove, Haley and Brett giggled and kissed in the backseat. After dropping them at Haley's house, I took Nate home. I tried not to grip the wheel as I steered, tried to slow the pace of my beating heart, but it was impossible. The tension in the car was as thick as the fog outside it.

What are you waiting for?
I wanted to shout at Nate.
Say something!

It felt like a year from the time we left Haley's until I pulled up Nate's driveway. With every twist and turn in the road, I thought something would stir within him, jostle him
to life, but he remained stoically silent.

The car rolled to a stop and Nate slowly eased himself out of the passenger side, one long leg at a time. I could tell he was in physical pain, tired from the long night, and he exhaled with a sigh as he stood up. I started to get out of the car, but he stopped me.

“I'm good,” he said quietly. “I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

But, but, but—

The words
I'm so sorry
were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't speak them aloud. I felt like something was stuck in my throat and I couldn't breathe. As Nate started up the steps of his house, I saw an image of him standing at the school, his eyes on me as I turned away from Lee. It burned itself into my brain, refusing to let go.

Even after I'd been home for hours, after I'd said good night to my parents, carefully hung up Allison's dress, and washed my makeup off, I still could not get that picture of Nate out of my head.

I lay in bed, curled up on my side and face buried in my pillow, cursing myself for what I'd done.

Tears soaked my pillowcase; I'd screwed everything up. Everything. I had the best guy in the world and I was throwing him away for what? For whom?

And what was worse, Nate had seen what an awful person I was, how deceitful I could be. I'd hurt him and I'd hurt us. I wouldn't blame him if he hated me forever.

For the rest of the weekend, I must have checked my phone about a hundred times every hour, but Nate never called or texted me. I ran the scenario in my mind over and over again, trying to imagine the timing of when Lee left, how close Nate was to us, how quickly he could have gotten outside, and how much of the conversation he might have heard. Each time I did, I came to a different conclusion. It was like living in purgatory.

So it was a tremendous shock when I got a call from him on Monday morning at our usual time. “Ready to go?” he asked, as if nothing had happened.

I hustled outside and met him on the road before he could get to my house.

I did the same thing on Tuesday and on Wednesday, and each time, Nate didn't speak a word about the dance. He talked about the speech he was going to give in a few weeks, about my grades, about my essay. We made jokes about Emma and her Brownie troop. We wondered how much longer she would idolize him.

Had I been in some alternate universe on Saturday night?

Each morning I felt like I was running on weak ice, as if I might slip at any moment and crack through to freezing water. Would today be the day Nate asked me about Lee?

How about today?

Or today?

And when would I have the guts to tell him?

Never.

I had to. But I couldn't. And it ate at me every single day. My stomach cinched up when my phone rang and didn't relax until long after I was in the shower, until I was on my way to school.

“Earth to Middie?” Haley called to me on Friday morning, knocking loudly on my locker door. “You awake yet?”

“Yeah, I'm awake,” I said. I dove into my locker and searched for a clean pad of notebook paper and pens that didn't leak. I was a little tired, true, and certainly distracted. And so was she: a minute after she'd arrived at my locker, Brett appeared behind her.

She giggled as he put his hand over her eyes. “Um, is it Ryan Gosling?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Justin Bieber?”

“Ugh, gross, no!” Brett said and released her. She tumbled backward into his arms and he landed a kiss on her lips.

I busied myself in my locker, humming to myself and tuning them out. I knew it was hypocritical of me, but their PDA irritated me. I just didn't want to watch another couple together.

A moment later, Haley knocked again on the metal door—alone. Brett was gone. “I had to deal with
your
smoochy-smoochy with Nate for years.”

“You're right,” I agreed. “I'm sorry. He's a nice guy.”

“And he's a good kisser too. Just the right amount of tongue.”

“Good. I'm glad. I think.”

Haley laughed. “I don't know if he's, like,
the one
. Not like Nate is for you. But I like hanging with him.”

I avoided my best friend's gaze. “Yeah, sure.”

“I mean, no one's like Nate.”

My heart and brain tugged as she said his name again, I wished I could tell her about Nate, but then I'd have to confess about Lee, and there was no way I would do that. I shut my locker and we headed down the hallway, arms locked at the elbow.

“The formal's over, Middie! It's just a few months until graduation.”

I nodded, but my thoughts were still absorbed by Nate and Lee.

“Hey,” Haley said, concern in her voice. “You okay? Something you want to talk about?”

I hoped she couldn't read everything on my face. I shook my head and tried to smile. “Crazy, you know? Just . . . crazy. Nate and graduation and—”

“Whoo-hoo!” Haley's eyes lit up. “Senior year!”

We arrived at homeroom and Haley and I jostled each other goofily as we tried to enter side by side. “I'm gonna miss you when you're off at school with Nate,” she said in a voice that was quiet by Haley's standards. “I kind of feel like I was starting to see a new side of you.”

I leaned into her. “Yeah, me too.”

By Saturday night, I'd apologized to Nate in about a million ways, but only in my imagination. He picked me up in his truck without telling me where we were headed, except to say it was a nice restaurant. I chose one of Allison's pretty dresses; it had a floral skirt that swirled around my knees. I paired it with short black booties and wore my hair loose and in waves.

Tonight had to be the night to talk about Lee. I wasn't even sure I could eat if we didn't get this out in the open.

The restaurant was a seafood place that was known for serving huge amounts of fish and pasta that people took home in Styrofoam containers. Nate and I sat near one of the many fish tanks; the bubbling water was like a musical accompaniment to our meal.

Throughout dinner, I sensed something was coming, something horrible. The question was, should I wait for Nate to bring it up or should I suck it up, be a big girl, and do it myself?

“Middie, I want to talk to you.”

Too late. This is it. He had a week to think about it; maybe he even talked to Lee.
The knot in my stomach tightened.

He reached under his chair and pulled out a plastic bag. He handed it to me. “Go ahead, take it.”

I unwrapped the bag and saw the beautiful wooden box I'd given him. The light in the restaurant hit the delicate curlicues and hand-cut metal hinges.

“I can't believe you had it all this time,” I said with a
gasp. The wood was chipped in a few places and the bottom was slightly bowed, but otherwise it was in near-perfect condition.

“It was tough to hold on to. I almost left my backpack behind,” he said, as if he too were amazed he still had it. “But I grabbed it when I ran out, and I guess that's how I was found . . . with it.” He shook his head. “Crazy, huh?”

I ran my fingers over the design, feeling the swirls and ridges as if I were reading Braille.

“Open it.”

“Hmm?”

“Open it.” Nate's eyes shone.

I carefully flipped the clasp and used my fingernails to peel apart the top lid. The velvet lining was ripped, sadly, and the box itself was empty. I smiled, remembering all the items I'd placed inside. “Is everything gone?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

I felt the loss of the items in the box as if they were my own. And then I recalled the secret hiding spot at the bottom of the box. “Did you find it?” I asked. If he had, he'd know exactly what I meant.

With a sly grin, he took his wallet out and opened it to show me. Nestled beside a couple of twenties and tens was a triangular-shaped paper, what everyone called “footballs”: blue-lined notebook paper folded into a stiff triangle, ends tucked into one side. It was a “football” because one kid would hold his fingers up on the edge of a desk as if they
were a goal post and another would try to flick the paper over with his finger.

But we also used them to pass notes. One person would write on the paper, fold it, flick it across a desk to someone else who would then write on it, fold it back up, and flick it to the next person. This was a note between me and Nate from when he was a sophomore and I was a freshman. There was something more exciting about an actual physical note than a text. It was more personal, more intimate to feel the paper in my hand, paper we had both touched. I'd tucked one into the bottom of the shade box for Nate to find.

I took it from his wallet and unfolded it. Almost instantly I began to tear up. The words, in black and blue ink and pencil, began to blur in front of my eyes.

You look supergood in that sweater.

I was late to class because of you!

What time's the movie tonight?

I miss you!!!!

“How long did we keep that one going?” he asked me. “Can you figure it out?”

I shook my head. “A week? Our handwriting got smaller and smaller to fit on the paper.”

“And the triangle got softer and softer,” he said.

I looked up from the note and held Nate's gentle gaze. “You kept it.”

“Well, to be honest, I didn't actually find it until I was back in the city.” Nate's smile was sheepish. “You hid it pretty well.”

I felt absurdly proud of that. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome. Now go ahead and look inside.”

“I did. It's empty.”

“Is it?”

The secret compartment. My eyes flew open when I saw what was inside.

A ring.

I stared at it, mouth agape.

“It's not what you think!” Nate held up his hand quickly. “It's a promise. Me to you. And, hopefully, you to me.”

The ring wasn't fancy, just a simple band of white gold with a small diamond surrounded by a trio of emeralds. Nate's grandmother had given it to him before she'd passed away two years ago. I knew she intended the ring for me—she'd approved of me from our first meeting—but I doubted she knew it was coming to me before my eighteenth birthday.

I took the ring from him and held it up but couldn't bring myself to put it on my finger.
Winter formal.
My brain flashed to the school, to the Vespa's taillights in the fog, to Nate standing at the front door. I had to say something. I set the ring down on the table. “Nate, I have to tell you something.”

He sat back in his chair and regarded me. “It's over, isn't it?”

“It's . . . what?” I felt panic grip my chest.

“You and Lee?”

“You knew?”

“Lee told me.”

My whole body froze in place. “When did he . . . What did he tell you?”

Nate shook his head dismissively. “Look, you both thought I was a goner out there. I did too.”

“But . . .” Did he know we'd texted? That I'd called Lee? That he was still on my mind?

“Lee told me it was over. He said he's seeing someone else now. A girl named Liza? I don't know. They work together or something.”

My heart sank. “He . . . he said that? Yeah, good, that's good that he told you. When, um, when was this?”

“After the dance.”

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Nate was holding the ring up again. “It's all right. I understand. You thought I was gone. Middie, I wasn't even sure I was alive myself. But I'm back now and . . . Please, Middie. Take it.”

This was a second chance with Nate. I'd blown it, but now I could make it up to him. All I had to do was take the ring. That was what I should do, right?

“You and me,” Nate said. “Just like we always planned.”

I pulled back and met his gaze. “You're sure that's what you want?”

“It's what I've
always
wanted,” he said. “Haven't you? Can't you see us together?”

I could. I had. But did I still?

Nate pointed to the wooden box on the table. “That proved it to me,” he said. “That proved how perfect we are together.”

Perfect.
I felt the weight of expectation settle on my shoulders. I didn't want to disappoint Nate. How could I, after all he'd been through?

He still loved me. He still wanted to be with me. I would be a fool to turn him down.

And besides, Lee is with another girl. He doesn't love me. He never loved me.

My cheeks flushed and my lips trembled: Had I really just thought those words? Lee had nothing to do with this. It was about Nate and me.

“Middie?” Nate said quietly, his voice hopeful.

I took the ring from Nate and slipped it over the third finger of my right hand. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I promise.”