The Space Between Us (22 page)

“Riding the gondola.”

“Seriously?”

Did she think I was lying? I nodded.

“Nice,”
she exclaimed. “So, since when has this been going on?”

I sat on the bench by the door and unzipped my boots. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just starting now.” What was I saying? Was something really starting? My insides swirled at the thought of Ezra, his sinewy arms and black eyes, his silence.

“Ha. You’re blushing.” Bree elbowed Charly, who didn’t respond. “Look, she’s blushing.”

“My cheeks are red from the cold.”

“Sure they are. So what happened?”

I glanced at Charly. A few months ago she would’ve cared that I’d spent the last few hours with a guy. She was staring across the kitchen, avoiding eye contact.

“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, we talked.”

“So did he call or something, or did you guys just bump into each other?” Bree pressed.

“No. He picked me up while I was walking home from school.”

“Like he just happened to be driving by, or he knew you’d be walking home?”

“I didn’t ask him. He didn’t say.”

Bree shook her head. “I did
not
see that coming. You and Ezra . . . ”

Did she not realize that was insulting?

“Ezra’s a good one, by the way,” Bree said. “He’s a genius, not to mention the sweetest kid in the world. Naomi would totally be in the loony bin without him.”

“Sorry, a genius?”

“Yeah, he had a scholarship to University of Toronto last year. Some math or engineering thing, but he turned it down to stay here in Banff.”

“What?
Why?
” I asked, watching Charly slide down from the stool, collect the bag of adoption binders, and head up to our room.

“His mom. I’m guessing he didn’t tell you about Quinn.”

“No. I mean, I know you dated him.”

“Dated.”
Bree rolled her eyes, opened the fridge, and pulled out a bowl. “I don’t know if that’s how I’d describe it. Tabbouleh? Charly and I already ate.” She placed the bowl on the island and retrieved a clean plate and fork for me from the dishwasher. “If sitting in his basement, smoking
weed, and occasionally making out counts as dating, then sure, we dated. That was before he started doing the serious stuff, though.”

“Serious stuff.”

“Meth. Crack too, but mostly meth. I can’t say I emerged unscathed, but at least I got out. No thanks to my mom.”

I took the seat Charly had just left, the rush of being with Ezra draining out of me with every word. Too many questions cluttered my thoughts.
No thanks to my mom
—I knew almost nothing about her mom,
my
grandmother, the woman my own mother had moved across an entire continent to get away from. I knew what Grandma muttered under her breath about Fiona Goodwyn when asked about her—words like “tramp,” and “manipulator,” and “princess.” And on the one occasion that I asked him, Dad had described her as “difficult.” Then he’d changed the subject. He was excellent at not speaking poorly of people.

“Why? What did your mom do?”

“When I was seventeen I got busted trying to buy drugs and she used it as an excuse to kick me out.” Bree dumped a few spoonfuls of tabbouleh on my plate, then pushed it toward me. “But it wasn’t about the drugs. That was just good timing. Her boyfriend wanted her to move to Montreal with him, and I was cramping her style.”

I took a bite so I didn’t have to look Bree in the eyes,
so she wouldn’t see me looking horrified. What kind of mother would do that? Hopefully I’d inherited only a bare minimum of her genetic material. And as for Bree—sitting around smoking weed, busted for buying drugs? Seriously?

“They’re still together, surprisingly enough. They live in France though, and I see her about once a year. That’s plenty. You like the salad?”

I did. The mixture of garlic and lemon and mint was different, but good. “I’ve never had it before.”

“It’s Mediterranean.”

I nodded, my mind pulling back to Ezra. “But Quinn . . . ”

“Quinn’s just . . . ” She paused for words. “Sad. He’s a cautionary tale, you know? Total junkie, in and out of rehab and jail since high school. I heard he just got kicked out of some intense detox program up north of Edmonton. He stops by his mom’s every once in a while to beg for cash or steal something, but luckily he doesn’t come find me anymore. Not since I moved in here. Not since Richard.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said, thinking aloud. “Ezra staying, I mean. Why wouldn’t he want to get as far away as possible?”

Bree took a wet rag from the sink and began wiping the countertop. “He stayed for his mom. Not that she didn’t want him to go, but she’s kind of, um, unstable.
Depressive. After Quinn got sent to jail for grand theft last year, she had some kind of mental breakdown and ended up in the hospital. She’s sweet and all, but—”

“I met her,” I interrupted.

“Naomi? Really? When?”

“Last week at the library.”

Bree stepped back from the island and put her hands on her hips. “Wow.” Her face was a mixture of surprise and admiration. “So you guys really have been hanging out, then. I’m glad he got over Taylor so quickly. They’ve been on-again, off-again for so long.”

The mention of Taylor made me feel queasy. Had I forgotten about her or had I consciously pushed her out of my mind? Or maybe it was the digging into Ezra’s secrets that made me slightly nauseous. He was so private. I knew I should let it go, but curiosity pushed me onward. “Back to last year. What happened with Naomi?”

Bree sighed and tried to look like she didn’t love having all the answers. “She took a bunch of pills.” Then she stared into my eyes and paused for effect. “And it was Ezra who found her.”

I was too stunned to hide the revulsion that rolled through me. I shuddered. He’d found his own mother trying to kill herself.

“That was last winter, so probably right around the time he was offered that scholarship to U of T,” she continued.

I tried to hold on to the words, but they slid by me. All I could think of was Ezra finding Naomi cheek-down in vomit, calling 911, doing CPR, riding in the back of the ambulance. Anyone would’ve been out of their mind with fear, but what did a terrified Ezra look like? Did he cry? I couldn’t even imagine it, but clearly I didn’t know him at all.

“After that he wouldn’t consider going to school anywhere, not even Calgary. He barely got through that last semester of high school, and supposedly, the teachers just let him graduate out of pity or—”

“How do you know all this?” I interrupted.

She shook her head. “Banff is small.”

Yes, it was.

“It’s one of those things. Everybody knows what happened.”

And now I did too.

“You’ve really never had tabbouleh?” Bree asked. “I got the recipe from Richard’s sister. She’s a
real
chef at this swanky restaurant in Bragg Creek, which makes impressing Richard impossible. Once I tried to make this soufflé . . . ”

She nattered about eggs and air, while I pushed tabbouleh around on my plate. My mind turned Bree’s words over and over, looking for something to grip, something that made sense, but it was all too slippery. If Ezra’s too-cool-for-school persona was just an act, if Ezra was a mathematical
genius tied to his unstable mother and screw-up brother, if he spent every day wondering if his mother was going to commit suicide—then he had to be the most miserable person on earth. And I hadn’t seen any of it.

“ . . . and he’s super excited to take us all there this weekend.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, suddenly sick of her voice.

“I said Richard’s coming again on Friday. And he wants to take us to his sister’s restaurant. The one in Bragg Creek.”

“Oh. Sure. I’ve got homework I should be doing.”

Bree bit her lip, covered the bowl with Saran Wrap, and put it back in the fridge.

Why did she have to be so needy? I just wanted to be alone, and to think about Ezra. “I’m excited to go to the restaurant too,” I said.

She gave me a sunny smile. “Good.”

“Night,” I said over my shoulder.

“Good night.”

• • •

The light was off. Charly had burrowed under the covers as part of her pretending-to-be-asleep routine, so I sat at the desk and flipped on the reading lamp. Then I stared at the cover of my photography textbook.

Ezra had beautiful eyes. Dark and warm.

Except I had no idea what was behind them. I thought I knew, but clearly that was only what he’d wanted to show me. Or what I’d wanted to see.

But Ezra the math genius, Ezra the dutiful son, Ezra the dream-broken hero—why hadn’t I been able to see any of that on my own? Was I that bad at figuring people out?

I forced myself to do the photography questions, then put on my pajamas and got into bed. Charly’s breathing was louder now and her foot and arm hung off the side of the mattress, which meant she wasn’t faking anymore. I stared at the back of her head in the dark. She’d forgotten to take her hair clip out.

Charly.
I sighed, gently removed the clip, and placed it on my bedside table. Then I got out of bed to tuck her limbs back in, and finally went to sleep.

T
hrowing the CALM personality test had been stupid. Fun, but stupid. Now I had a list of careers I was supposed to research that looked like serial killer day jobs: coroner, lighthouse operator, medical transcriptionist, security guard, pathologist. Clearly, my file had been tagged
DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS
.

I pushed the stupidity of my school situation from my thoughts as I left the building after the final bell. Bree had the day off school, which meant she was at the apartment, which meant there was no way I was going there. So I was going to the library, as long as I didn’t chicken out before I got there and end up at Rocky Mountain Coffee House instead.

Charly had an after-school study group with some people from her biology class. That’s all she’d said. Probably the girls I’d seen her talking to in the hall before class this morning. Or maybe the tall guy with the glasses I’d seen her outside the cafeteria with yesterday. I guess she didn’t have Ms. Lee every lunch hour, but I didn’t really know. I was still sneaking lunch in the library.

As for dealing with me, Charly had realized that profound silent treatment was too complicated. So we got by on a relaxed version that allowed for basic communication.
Yes. No. Hurry up with your hair—I have to pee. Get your own ice cream.

I unzipped my jacket to let the breeze in. It was inexplicably balmy again. Not that I was complaining, but the nonsense of it all—deathly cold one day, nice the next—was unsettling.

People were wearing T-shirts and throwing snowballs in the parking lot, a situation Dr. Ashton had only herself to blame for. She’d started the school day by giving a five-minute lecture over the PA system about the dangers of throwing snow (corneal abrasions, concussions, car accidents, wet hair) and the response was an all-out snowball war. I had to assume she was inside slapping another couple of nicotine patches onto her arm because she didn’t appear to have snapped and expelled everyone.

At first I just watched my classmates pack the slush
with bare hands and lob it at each other, cars, the side of the school. Then out of solidarity, or maybe just curiosity, I threw one too. Right smack at the
P
in the Banff Public High School sign. It didn’t feel nearly as satisfying as I’d thought it would.

I crossed the street, hopping over a huge pile of slush. My legs were taking me to the library, but I was distracting myself by thinking about my newest CALM assignment. I had to write a response to the list of careers by answering a bunch of questions: Do you agree with the assessment and the careers suggested? What did you learn about yourself from this? Do you think the test overlooked specific traits or talents that you have?
Do you give a crap?

The last one was my own, and the only one I had a solid answer for.

Prepping for disappointment seemed safest, so I was telling myself Ezra wouldn’t be there. It wasn’t like I knew his schedule. Or the library could be busier than last time, or maybe he worked with other people. Naomi could be there. And I didn’t even know if Ezra would be okay with me just stopping by again. He’d said I could, but maybe he was just being polite. Maybe “come again” was Canadian for “good-bye.”

The walk was shorter than I’d realized, and I was suddenly there. What was I doing? I scanned the parking lot for the red, deer-dented Pathfinder. There it was. I flattened
the flutter in my stomach and walked almost calmly down the steps to the library entrance. This time I didn’t have to worry about slipping, since the ice was slush now.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself, nothing about the way he’d treated me so far suggested Ezra was
interested
interested. He’d been nice. Friendly. No flirting, no checking me out, no touching, or not really. So coming to the library like this, I wasn’t pursuing him, I was just doing what everyone kept bugging me to do, which was make a friend.

I pulled open the door, suddenly wishing I hadn’t tried so hard—my green sweater was too fitted, and based on my reflection in the window, my lip gloss was too red.

Ezra was sitting behind the desk reading a book. He looked up, but didn’t smile. I shouldn’t have come. “Let me guess. You’re looking for a winter sports guide.”

“Guess again.” I tapped the toes of my boots on the mat, knocking the clumps of slush off of them, and looked around. Empty, aside from two middle school–age boys at the computers and a woman perusing the romance paperbacks.

“How about something girly and Canadian, like
Anne of Green Gables
,” Ezra said, closing the book he was holding and shoving it under the circulation desk. Then he slid off the stool and put both palms on the counter. He was wearing a black T-shirt, the words
WE HAVE COOKIES
in cursive and a green lightning bolt on the front.

“You have the most random T-shirts. What does that mean?”

“Thank you, and it’s hard to explain.”