The Space Between Us (31 page)

E: Wow. Forget I asked.

No. No, no, no, no. He could
not
think I was being serious.

Was
he
being serious?

Crap, this was why Savannah was always harping on me about emoticons. Was it too late to send a
just kidding!!!
or what was that winky one?

The
Ezra is typing . . .
prompt appeared and saved me from humiliating myself.

E: Do you want to go to Calgary?

Calgary. I checked the time. It was four thirty, which meant if we left right away we wouldn’t be there till six. Most stores closed at six on Saturdays.

A: Now?

E: That would be why I asked you if you were busy.

I typed my response, grateful Charly was upstairs so she couldn’t make fun of the stupid grin on my face.

A: What’s in it for me?

E: Unlimited hot chocolate.

A: Carnation mix?

E: Of course not. Starbucks.

A: Careful what you promise—I will drink your paycheck away.

E: It’s taken care of. I tutored the weekend manager through Math 20
and 30. He owes me his high school diploma.

A: Do you pay for anything in this town?

E: You’re complaining?

A: Nope. I’m in.

There was a moment’s pause before
Ezra is typing . . .
reappeared.

E: You don’t want to know why we’re going to Calgary?

A: Yeah. But I’m not going to ask.

My heart pounded in my ears while I waited for his response. I meant it. I didn’t want to force anything out of Ezra. Or anybody anymore.

E: Pick you up in a half hour.

“Charly!” I hollered. She was in the loft doing a mandatory tidy-up. I’d threatened to hide the iPod Bree had lent her in a snowbank if I couldn’t see the floor by the
end of the day. “Are you okay here if I go to Calgary with Ezra?”

“But who’s going to spoon-feed me my dinner?”

“Hilarious.”

“And my butt, who’s going to wipe my butt?”

“I probably won’t be back till late.”

“Well, then you’ll definitely need to hire a sitter to put my jammies on and rub my back while I fall asleep.”

“How’s the cleanup going?”

“Shut up.”

• • •

Ezra drove faster than usual. Too fast. My stomach rolled with each curve of the highway, my mind picturing the SUV flipping over and over.

“So that deer . . . ,” I said.

“What deer?”

“The deer whose body is imprinted on the side of your car.”

“
That
deer,” he said, shaking his head. “It came out of nowhere. I was on my way back from Jasper last year. The road was really slick and it was dusk. Kind of like now, actually.”

“You don’t think it had anything to do with you driving too fast?”

“No.” He glanced at the speedometer. “And the dent is in the side of my car. So it ran into me.”

“Okay.”

He glanced at the speedometer again.

I didn’t say anything as the car slowed slightly and he put the cruise control on.

“So how are things?” he asked.

“Things?” Things were upside down—not terrible, just confusing. But I couldn’t talk about it with him. Charly hadn’t told me to keep the rape a secret.
The rape.
I still couldn’t think the word without everything inside me aching. But it wasn’t my tragedy to share, and I was finished spilling my guts to Ezra.

“School’s fine,” I said. “Bree’s chipper as usual. Charly gets bigger and crankier every day. Same old.”

Ezra glanced at the clock and put his foot back on the gas pedal.

“Are we late for something?” I asked, and instantly regretted it. So much for not asking. “Like our own funerals?”

“Kind of. Not for our funerals, but I have something I need to drop off at U of C before six.”

I nodded.
Something.
A love letter, a pipe bomb, a library book. The possibilities were endless and I still wasn’t going to ask.

“You know it’s Saturday, right?”

“Yeah. The professor that I’m giving this to said he’d be in his office today until six.” He pulled a manila envelope out of the side door compartment and put it on my
lap. It wasn’t sealed—the flap was open, and the two little metal prongs were still sticking straight up.

I kept my hands by my side and forced myself to stare out the window.

“Do you want to see what’s in there?”

“I don’t know. Are you
asking
me to look in there?”

He half grinned. “You’re a piece of work.”

“Right back at you.”

“Fine. Yes, Amelia. Would you please look in that envelope? And would you please read that top page and then tell me what you think without being a total brat? I’m kind of nervous about it.”

“Well, only since you’re begging,” I mumbled, pulling out a crisp stack of papers.

On top was a letter, addressed to a Professor Matthis. I skimmed quickly. It was a request for a recommendation. “You know this professor?”

“I had an internship in his lab the summer after grade eleven. He’s a physicist.”

“A physicist with sixteen-year-old interns?”

“I was seventeen, and not usually, but it was a national scholarship program thing.”

I flipped through the other pages. An application for University of Calgary, high school transcripts, a couple of letters from teachers at BPH, including Ms. Lee and Mr. Wozniak, the math teacher. I turned to the front page of
the application. Fall semester. He was applying for fall semester.

“Ezra.” It was all I could say. I reached out and squeezed his arm. I was so happy and relieved and jealous I felt like exploding.

“You think it’s a mistake?”

“Of course not. Are you kidding? And is this paper application for real? I’ve never seen one that isn’t online.”

“I missed the deadline so I can’t apply online, but last night I talked to Professor Matthis, and he insisted he could get me in if I brought it all in today for him. He’s leaving town tonight, going to some conference in Dallas, but he said if he can get it on the dean’s desk before he leaves I at least have a hope of being considered.”

“This Matthis must love you.”

Ezra didn’t answer, just rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw.

My fingers walked through each page and envelope again. “Wait, if you just talked to him last night, how did you get your transcripts and these letters from Lee and Wozniak?”

“Lee and Wozniak were easy. I called them last night and then picked up the letters this morning.”

“But the transcript.”

“Yeah, getting Ashton to surface from her hangover and open the school for me was trickier. That’s why I’m so late.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know what you had to do for that?”

He shook his head, his mouth grim. “Things I’m not proud of.”

I dropped the packet. One of the letters slipped out onto the floor and I scrambled to get it while Ezra laughed.

“I’m kidding.”

“I knew that.”

“I
did
threaten to leave an anonymous tip with the RCMP that she kept the confiscated weed from locker checks in her desk, but that was just to wake her up. I think she knew I was kidding.”

“Does she?”

“Keep the weed? Don’t know, but it seemed likely enough to try it out.”

I brushed the dirt off the back of the paper and slid it back into the envelope. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem. I don’t think dirt is going to matter. I was up all night writing those essays so they’re probably full of mistakes anyway, but nobody in the math or physics department knows how to write a sentence.”

“You’re probably right.” I watched as the foothills
leveled into white prairie and the sky blackened. It felt like riding on the moon. But then I saw Calgary lights glittering in the distance like fireflies, and suddenly I was sitting in the black walnut tree with Charly, legs dangling, fingers stained with strawberry juice.

I turned to Ezra, and before I could think and stop myself, I leaned across and kissed his cheek.

He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. We drove on. We didn’t slide off the road. Nor did we hit a deer, though we saw several bounding erratically alongside the highway. By the time we pulled into the faculty parking lot outside the Physics and Astronomy Building it was 6:16.

“Only two cars,” I said, “and three lights on in the whole building. That’s not good.”

Ezra was too stressed to notice the annoying commentary. “He said he had to leave right at six to catch his flight. I probably missed him.”

“Run. I’ll stay here.”

Ezra threw it into park and bolted.

My heart pounded in my chest as I watched him disappear into the squat brick building. Why was I so nervous? It wasn’t like missing this guy really meant that Ezra wasn’t getting in for fall semester, did it? But I’d never heard of professors making their own admissions rules at all, so maybe the strings being pulled could only be pulled so hard.

I watched the clock. 6:17. I listened to the car heater
rattle, fiddled with the door locks, turned on the radio.
Celine Dion again?
Turned off the radio. Snooped through the glove box—Smarties and a can of bear spray. 6:18. Why was my heart still racing? I turned on the radio again.
Bieber? Seriously?
Turned the radio off again. Finally, I just stared at the clock. 6:19. 6:20. 6:21.

When had he changed his mind? And when had leaving Naomi gone from a never to a yes? I’d been so overwhelmed by Charly’s revelation that everything else—even that fight with Ezra—had faded.

The front door of the building swung open. Ezra walked out. Smiling. He turned and held the door open for a man, a man so nerdy I could see it through the layers of wool and fur and Gore-Tex and whatever else he was bundled in. He was smiling too. Ezra walked him to his car. They stood talking in the freezing cold, while Ezra swept the thin layer of snow that had fallen on the man’s windshield. The man got into his car, started it, and just when I was sure they were done, he got back out and resumed the conversation. It ended finally with a handshake and a backslap, then the man got back into his car and Ezra jogged to the Pathfinder.

“So?” I asked.

“So.” He was shivering through his grin. “That was him.”

“I guessed. And?”

“And we should go celebrate.”

W
hat are these called again?” I asked, midmouthful. The box sat open between us, the air heavy with the smell of sugary glaze and vanilla.

“Timbits. I can’t believe you’ve been here this long and this is your first trip to Tim Hortons. Bree’s dropped the ball.”

“My dad would love these.” I picked a chocolate hole from the box and put it in my mouth to melt. “How can you drive and eat these at the same time? These things probably cause more accidents than texting.”

“Years of practice.”

“You’re still smiling,” I said.

“No, I’m not.”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

He gave me a quick glance, then looked back to the road. “I just can’t believe it’s going to happen, you know?”

Sort of. My life had become a jumble of the things I couldn’t believe were going to happen. Not good things, though.

“What changed?” I asked. It wasn’t a question I could’ve asked last week, but things were different now. The wall behind his eyes had dissolved.

“Nothing. My mom has always insisted that I should go away to school, but I don’t really know if she’s any stronger than she was last year when things got bad. I mean, she seems better.” He chewed his wind-chapped lips and I waited, praying he wasn’t about to retreat again. “But I’ve seen too many ups and downs to believe much. And my brother still reappears to make her life hell every few months. So, no. Nothing’s different. I guess I just realized I couldn’t stop it or fix it.”

I looked away from him, out my window, but really just at my reflection. My skin was only a shade darker than the snow.

I wanted to believe him, and I wanted to believe that
he
believed it too. I just didn’t. Turning it off wasn’t that
easy. Charly had spent her whole life needing me and I couldn’t for a single second forget it.

“Do you remember that night at the library when Taylor barged in on us?” he said.