The Love That Split the World (18 page)

“If you carry me in like this, we’re technically married,” I tell him.

“That so?” he says, lids heavy, smile wide, as he takes me inside. “I can live with that.”

He sets me down on my feet, the floorboards creaking in the dark space, and he walks me up against the wall to kiss me.

A deep snore shakes the wall. “So nice you finally got to meet my brother, Natalie Cleary,” Beau says, smiling.

“Real
nahs.
I wish he weren’t so uptight and formal, though. How will I ever feel comfortable here?”

“Yeah,” Beau says, tightening his arms around my waist and lifting me up, squeezing a squeal and a laugh out of me. “It’s sorta like living in the White House.” He carries me like that, laughing, down the hall to a partially open doorway and into his tiny room, setting me down onto his single mattress on the floor and lying down beside me.

I’ve never seen a room that managed to be both so bare and so messy. His blue flannel sheets are rumpled, his clothes all over the floor. Crumpled water bottles spill over the trash can, and the outdated lamp sitting on the floor beside the mattress sprays yellow light across the wood laminate walls. There’s one thing, though, that’s completely out of place. Along the far wall there’s a long smooth credenza made of bright reddish-gold walnut, its natural finish showing a slice of
blond curving through the center and a darker grain on either side, thin stainless steel spindles holding it up a few inches off the floor. It looks like it was made from the most beautiful tree in a Japanese forest. It’s the kind of thing that begs to be touched. Beau’s eyes follow mine to the lone piece of artwork. “That actually belongs in the White House,” I tell him. “During Jackie’s reign, of course.”

“Right, President Jackie,” he says, then after a pause adds, “I made that.”

“You did not.”

“What, you think I couldn’t make a pretty thing, Natalie Cleary?”

“I’ve heard you play; I know you can make pretty things,” I say. “I guess I didn’t expect them to be quite as pretty without a piano.”

“No piano,” he says. “That used to be a beat-up armoire the Kincaids threw out. I used the inside of the doors for the front.” A strand of hair falls across Beau’s cheek to the corner of his mouth, making me think about riding in his truck that first night we spent together, when the wind trailed his hair across his face and I wanted so badly to move it.

“I should go,” I say.

He kisses me, sliding a hand down my thigh and lifting it over his hip. “You should stay.”

“My dad might be waiting for me.” I’m dizzy with his closeness, pulsing with warmth everywhere he touches me. I shift my leg off him, and he sits up, but I don’t move.

He’s silent for a long moment. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Nothing, why?”

“You wanna go to Derek’s party with me?”

I groan as I remember the mass text invitation. “My version or yours?”

“Whichever,” he says with a shrug.

“Whichever I want or whichever we can get to?”

“Either.”

Thinking it over gives me a little thrill. This is a chance to meet the Others, to be around people without any of the pressure. It’s a chance to practice moving between the worlds too, which might bring me closer to finding Grandmother. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go. To your version.” He nods, but then something occurs to me. “What if I slip? What if I can’t stay in your world?”

“Then I’ll come find you,” he says.

“What if you can’t?”

He cups the side of my neck. “I’ll find you, Natalie. I promise.”

Maybe it shouldn’t be enough, but it is.

Beau walks me to the front door and kisses me goodbye. When I look back at the house, he’s gone, the windows broken and yard overgrown. I’m slipping back and forth between the two worlds and I don’t even know how. I walk back to the barn and find Dad sitting in his car, staring at the steering wheel.

“Dad?” I say, getting in across from him.

“Foal made it,” he says quietly then starts the car. “Foal made it.”

I touch his elbow. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s life,” he says. “It’s all right, sugar. It’s all right.”

We start to crackle over the driveway. I’m thinking about Grandmother and her warning, about Megan being so far away, about my blowout fight with Matt, and everything else there is to fear in the world. I can get swept away in those things, drown in them for hours, fixate on something like the death of a horse until standing up feels like climbing a volcano I know is about to erupt. “Sometimes the whole world feels like that horse to me,” I say aloud. “Does that make sense? Like everyone’s just groaning and screaming through the pain, hoping something better comes out.”

Dad nods. “It makes sense.” He reaches over and stretches an arm around my shoulders, kissing the top of my head. “I feel that too.”

“The bad things get exhausting,” I say. “Sometimes I just want to be somewhere else.” I can’t explain what I mean, but I imagine a place like outer space. Where nothing exists.

Dad’s eyes soften as we pull onto the road. “Honey, you’re a smart kid, and you’re sensitive too. That’s not a bad thing, but it is a hard thing. For you, the dark’s going to feel a whole lot darker, and you won’t be able to hide from it.” He pauses for a second then goes on. “But I want you to listen to me. Listen good.”

It sounds like something Grandmother would say.

“You don’t know everything,” he says softly. “Not yet you don’t. And when you see those good things—and I promise you, there are so many good things—they’re going to be so much brighter for you than they are for other people, just like the abyss seems deeper and bigger when you stare at it. If you stick it out, it’s all going to feel worth it in the end. Every moment you live, every darkness you face, they’ll all feel worth it
when you’re staring light in the face. Okay?”

I swallow the knot in my throat. “How do you know?”

He smiles and rustles my hair. “Because you’re like me. And when you came home with us, everything changed. I saw my whole life for what it had really been, and even though I was goddam
terrified
of all the things that could happen to you, when I looked at you it was like all the bad things had been a dream, and I was finally waking up. That’s how I know, sugar cube. This is only the beginning. If you want the good, you can’t give up.”

19

“I think it’s
great
that you’re going to Derek’s party,” Mom says from the doorway as she slips on her dangling earrings.

“Really? Great?” I say. “Have you met Derek?”

She purses her lips. “Admittedly, he’s not my favorite of your friends. But I know how hard it’s been for you being apart from Megan, and growing apart from Matt. You only have a couple more weeks here before vacation, and then you’re pretty much off to Brown.” Mom looks wistful despite her best attempts at tranquility. The summer trip always has this effect on her. It’s the one time of year where everyone’s happy and connected and engaged simultaneously, and that’s because she carefully plans it that way. This year, with Brown looming, the trip feels different, like we’re planning one last hurrah before our family splinters. “You should take advantage of that time,” Mom says.

“You want me to get wasted.”

“Natalie,”
Mom says, touching her hand to her chest. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Kidding,” I say.

“Will there be drinking at the party?” she says, suddenly worried.

“No,” I lie, trying to keep my eyes from flicking sideways.

Mom grabs a pump of hand lotion from the bottle on the top of my desk and rubs her palms together. “If you need a ride home, you know you can call, right? I’d always rather you were safe.”

“Okay, now you’re
definitely
telling me to get wasted.”

“I am not,” Mom protests. “I just recognize that you’re becoming an adult. You’re going to make your own decisions, and I know you’re a smart girl, but everyone makes
some
mistakes. I want you to know you’ve got me, no matter what. You can
always count on your dad and me.”

“So you want me to get pregnant, or . . . ?”

Mom crosses her arms and gives me a stern look. “Be good,” she says, turning down the hallway.

Beau picks me up at nine, about an hour after Mom and Dad take off for their date night and twenty minutes after Abby’s mom picks up Jack and Coco to drop all of them off at the movies. He honks from the driveway, and I run out to find him looking unbearably good in worn-out jeans and an equally aged plaid shirt.

“Ready?” he asks when I climb in.

“As I’ll ever be.” Truthfully, just about the second we parted ways last night I started worrying that we’d get separated again, but now that we’re together that seems impossible. I feel
like we’re anchored together.

We drive out past the high school to the Dillhorns’ fancy neighborhood of mini-mansions, with its own golf course and country club. The party’s already going full force, music blaring and cars parked all the way around the circular driveway at the top of the hill. “My version or yours?” I ask Beau. I felt that sinking sensation in my stomach awhile back, but it had been so subtle I’d thought I imagined it.

He closes his eyes for a second. “Mine.”

“How do you know?”

“I told you, you belong here more than anyone else,” he says softly.

“You did.”

“Your version of the world feels different,” he says. “It feels like you.”

I laugh. “When did it change?”

Beau shrugs. “They’re so alike sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

“I guess I’m holding up my end of the deal so far,” I say. “I came to your Union.”

“So I shouldn’t drink tonight?”

“Only beer,” I say. “Beer doesn’t count.”

I hop out of the car, following him around the expansive lawn to the glowing blue pool and patio behind the house. The back doors are open to the kitchen, people spilling from the keg on the counter inside all down either side of the pool to the deep backyard, moths fluttering around the mounted lights, their fragile wings vibrating with the music.

Beau’s hand slides around mine, and he leads the way through the crowd toward the patio furniture on the far side of
the pool, where half the football team is crowded around, drinking and sharing joints, their girlfriends perched in their laps.

Beau clamps a hand on one of their shoulders, and my heart nearly stops when Matt turns around, the blond girl in his lap jumping up to let him stand. I’m doubly stunned when I recognize the blonde as Megan.

Oh my God. They’re together. In a parallel universe, my best friend and my ex are together. That had to have been who Matt was at the theater with that day.

“Hey, man,” Matt says, clapping Beau on the back, and I desperately fight to get my facial muscles, heart rate, and nausea under control. Seeing Matt with Rachel was one thing, but this is something else entirely.

“Wanted you to meet someone,” Beau says. Matt’s and Megan’s eyes both wander over to me. Megan’s hair is cut short, her eye makeup more generous than usual and her hoop earrings bigger, but she’s undeniably the double of the Megan I’ve known for years. And this Matt looks identical to the one who gave me a ride to NKU a few days ago.

“Hi,” I say, holding a shaky hand out to Megan first. “I’m Natalie.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting. Some flicker of recognition maybe, some sign that she’s aware we were born to be best friends, but I don’t get it, and I feel like my heart’s collapsing. Megan smiles politely. “Meg.”

I turn to Matt next, trying to compose myself. When our eyes meet, his soften immediately and his mouth drops open, a blush spreading rapidly up his neck as his gaze roves over me. “Hey,” he says, taking my hand.

When his eyes drift back up to me, I’m stunned by what I see in them: not recognition, exactly, but something that shouldn’t be there, not in
this
Matt Kincaid: softness, connection.

Beside me I’m aware of Beau’s eyes dropping to the ground, and I let go of Matt’s hand as fast I can. Megan’s noticed Matt eye-fondling me too: She crosses her arms and lifts her eyebrows as she looks out across the yard. “Excuse me,” she says. “I think I need to pee. Or take a shower. Puke. Something in the bathroom.”

I want to go after her, to apologize, but at the same time I feel betrayed, no matter how illogical that is. How could Matt and Megan be together? And why isn’t she at Georgetown? It shouldn’t matter—they’re not
my
Megan and Matt. It’s hypocritical and I know it. How can I tell Beau he doesn’t need to feel bad about what’s going on with us when
I
feel bad about what’s going on between them?

“How do you and Wilkes know each other?” Matt asks, his voice tight and awkward. This whole thing is too weird.

I open my mouth to answer, but I’m cut off by someone drunkenly shouting from across the pool.

“SCREW YOU, BEAU WILKES.” I turn to find Rachel and some of the dance team girls huddled together on a couple of Derek’s plastic chaise lounges, Solo cups in hand. She smiles aggressively and lifts her cup to wave at me. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” she calls.

The crowd sort of
ooh
s, and Beau sets a hand on my back. “You want that beer yet?”

“Or fifteen consecutive tequila shots, whichever you find first.” Beau’s version of the world or not, tonight might be
harder to get through than I had realized. I glance at Matt. “You want a drink too?” Beau stiffens beside me.

Matt just shakes his head. “Nah, I shouldn’t.”

Beau relaxes again. “Be right back, then.”

I watch him slip off into the crowded kitchen, until I feel Matt’s stare on me. “We’ve met before,” he says.

“We have?”

“At the movie theater. And at some point before that, right?”

“Oh.” I peel my hair off my neck and pull it over my shoulder. “That’s right. I think maybe we met at a party last summer, or something.”

“Huh.” Matt digs his hands into his pockets and looks down at his shoes. “Are you from around here?”

“Rhode Island,” I lie, as quickly as my brain allows. “I’m just here visiting family.”

Matt laughs. “Rhode Island? What’s in Rhode Island?”

“Brown University, for one thing.”

“You go to Brown?”

“I start in the fall.”

He glances over his shoulder to the kitchen, where Beau’s filling a couple of cups from the keg. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not Wilkes’s usual type.”

“And what would that be?”

Matt looks back again. I follow his eyes to the girl leaning across the counter, death-glaring at Beau. “Rachel Hanson,” Matt says. “Crazy girls in general.”

“I wouldn’t call Rachel
crazy
,” I say. Matt looks confused, and I backtrack. “I mean, she doesn’t strike me as crazy. It’s
sort of admirable how she just screams whatever she’s thinking at the top of her lungs.”

“Even if what she’s thinking is that she’d like to shave your head?”

“That would be her mistake,” I say. “I’d look great with a shaved head.”

“Probably so,” Matt says, blushing. The joking, the flirting, the feeling that it
means
something to be wanted by Matt Kincaid. God, this feels so familiar. But he’s also different from my Matt, more relaxed. Definitely less animated or affected, though just as friendly.

I look over his shoulder into the kitchen. Rachel’s gone, but Beau’s been hijacked by Derek and some of the other players. He’s leaned up against the pantry door, staring straight past everyone to me, and when I meet his gaze, he just barely smiles. It’s such a small, quiet expression, but it lights him up, makes me flood with heat until I have to look away.

“So is he any good?” I ask Matt.

“No, he’s pure evil,” Matt jokes.

“I mean at football,” I clarify.

“Yeah, he’s good. Really good, but lazy. He could be great if he wanted.”

“You don’t think he wants to be great?”

“Nah, not really. I don’t think he’d know how to handle it if the world found out how good he was. He can barely handle having
us
rely on him, and most of us have played together since we were ten.” Matt pauses and scratches the back of his head anxiously. “It was the same way with Rachel, you know.”

“Oh.”

It feels like a slap in the face, and he must notice because he hurries to say, “Not as
you
and him. I mean, he was the same way with her that he is with football.”

“I don’t get it. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain,” Matt says, staring out over the pool. “They only lasted as long as they did because she kept settling for less and less. She’d cheat on him and he wouldn’t even care, but every time she got in a fight with her mom or got pushed around by some other guy, he’d be there for her and they’d slip back into it.”

I find myself thinking about my Matt, how many times I let things drift on because I couldn’t parse out loving him from just wanting to be with him.

“When it comes down to it, Wilkes can’t help himself,” Matt says. “He’s a martyr. A self-sabotaging martyr, actually, which in my opinion is the worst kind.”

I laugh. “What a monster.”

“Exactly,” Matt says, smiling at the ground. “It’s probably what makes him so good at the game, but it’s also why he took all the blame when we both accidentally burned down my family’s barn when we were thirteen. And now I’m forever in that dick’s debt.”

“Do you want me to trip him or something so you can catch him?”

“Would you? That’d be great.” After a second he adds, “He’s a good guy. Remember that . . . if he starts to push you away.”

He holds my eyes, and a strange ache passes through me. This is more like the Matt I know than the Other Matt has been in weeks. This is what it would be like if we’d managed to
stay friends instead of falling into a relationship. I miss him, I realize. I miss a Matt Kincaid I’ll never have again. “I should go save him from the team,” I say, tipping my head toward the kitchen, “before anyone
needs
anything from him.”

“Yeah.” Matt’s voice carries a hint of regret only someone who knows him well would catch. “Definitely.”

I squeeze between the Other Brian Walters and the Other Skylar Gunn and make my way inside. Beau straightens up as I approach him, setting his cup on the counter and sliding his arms around my waist to pull me in close to him. “No tequila shots?” I ask over the music.

He shakes his head.

“Who’s your friend, Wilkes?” Derek shouts. “You know her name, Four?”

“You better get it before Rachel assaults her and you have to make a statement to the police,” Other Luke Schwartz says.

“Four?” I stand on tiptoe so Beau can hear me.

“Football number,” he says.

“That’s Matt’s number,” I say. My birthday.

He shakes his head. “Kincaid’s nineteen.”

Giddiness and nostalgia flutter through me simultaneously. There’s a whole world where Matt
didn’t
build his life around me, didn’t plan a forever with me that I couldn’t give him, where no one thought we were headed down the aisle. Here’s a world where I am nothing but myself, where, by coincidence or chance or fate, Beau is number four.

My birthday.

Luke and Derek are still carrying on, trying to one-up each other in their game of making me uncomfortable,
completely unaware that I’ve seen them get pantsed, hammered, dressed in Buzz Lightyear and Woody Halloween costumes, and spanked by their parents on field trips. Beau’s ignoring them completely, his eyes heavy on me.

“Let’s go outside,” I say.

He follows me back out to the patio. We walk along the illuminated pool and sit down at the edge, ignoring the flurry of mosquitos circling the warm surface. Rachel’s left the kitchen, but she and her friends aren’t out in the yard anymore either, and I feel a momentary flash of guilt that I might’ve chased her away, the same way seeing her and Matt together sent me running.

It occurs to me then that it wouldn’t matter. Just like Beau said, if we’d all been born into the same world—if Matt and Beau were best friends and Beau and Rachel were exes—it wouldn’t change anything for me. I can’t undo everything that’s happened between me and Matt; I can never go back to just being his friend, but I can move forward from the past I have.

“You okay?” Beau asks, bumping his shoulder into mine.

“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head clear. “Hey, guess what I heard.”

“What?”

“That you’re really good at football.”

He studies the electric blue glow of the pool, nods but doesn’t answer.