Autumn's Kiss (3 page)

Sean scrunches his brows and shoots me a look. Does he not like that I noticed another guy?

“
Really
cute.” I lay it on. “Did you get to hang with him at all during the game?”

“No!” Ames gripes. We stop the conversation so we can order and get our cones; then she keeps going. “I never hang with him at all. He knows who I am—he winks at me every time he passes me, and he doesn't do that to any of the other cheerleaders. I asked. But if he's not on the field, he's always talking to his stupid coach or quarterback or wearing his headphones and riding the exercise bike—like he's not exercising by running up and down the court.”

“Field,” Sean corrects her. “And
I'm
the stupid quarterback. And the bike's to keep him warm when the defense is on the field.”

“So if it's so important, how come you're not on the bike?” Ames asked.

“I ride it sometimes,” Sean says defensively. “But he's a running back. He's the fastest guy on the team. He has to be. He's the main reason we've only lost one game.”

“I'm sure you have a lot to do with it too,” Reenzie says, putting her hand on Sean's cut bicep.

It's such a kiss-up move. I'm totally annoyed she did it before I could.

Sean rewards her with a humbly adorable smile. “Thanks. But Denny's a senior and he's seriously pro-level amazing. He did the whole summer football college camp thing like I did, and
every
school tried to recruit him. Some guy with the Patriots already reached out to him, even though Denny won't even be pro eligible for four years.”

“This is all noise,” Ames says. “It has nothing to do with me.”

“It does,” J.J. assures her. “He's saying Denny's not available for you because he's all about getting ready for college, followed by a career in professional football…”

“…followed by early-onset Alzheimer's from too many concussions,” Jack finishes.

Sean's jaw clenches. He likes J.J., but Jack wasn't his favorite addition to his circle of friends. Sean was too nice to say anything, but I have a feeling that at times like this, he wishes his beefy bodyguard of a friend Zach hadn't moved away over the summer.

“Hey!” I shout, breaking the tension. “Race you all to the water!”

I'm finished with my cone, so I kick off my flip-flops and run across the grassy patch in front of the Shack and down the long sandy swath of beach to the ocean. I'm at the edge of the waves for literally one second before two strong arms wrap around my waist and I'm hoisted into the air. I scream, then look down and see Sean's face smiling up at me as he keeps running.

“What are you doing?” I squeal.

“Too much momentum,” he says. “It was pick you up or tackle you.”

Tackle me!
I want to say…but I don't. He slows down and places me back on the sand just as everyone else catches up with us. For the next hour we just hang out. We splash through the warm ocean water up to our ankles, we write stupid things in the wet sand and let the waves wash them away, we lie in the sand and look up at the moon and just talk and laugh. I'm doing that at one point, lying back and grinning at the list of anagrams J.J.'s making for “Taylor Darby” (“Adorably Try,” “Broadly Arty,” “Dry Altar Boy”). Then I rise up on my elbows and just look out at the ocean. The waves roll in, one after the other, and the moon shines off them, and all I can hear are the voices and laughter of my friends.

I take a deep breath, and in that moment I feel more alive than I ever have.

It makes me really happy for about a second…until I think about the flip side, and the person who
isn't
alive anymore.

My dad thought I had a mission in life, to bring peace and happiness to my little corner of the world. I spent a lot of time thinking about that when I first moved to Aventura, and a lot of time messing it up. At a certain point I thought I figured it out. I made some choices and brought people together…and I kind of thought I'd succeeded. I mean, here I am, in a place I came to kicking and screaming less than a year ago, and now I'm surrounded by friends I really care about. Things
are
peaceful and harmonious.

But I wonder…would my dad really want me to just sit back and stop? Maybe I should be doing more. Maybe things could be…more peaceful. More harmonious.

I look at Taylor. She's flat on her back, hands over her face, trying not to laugh as everyone pelts her with their vision of her Big Gay Wedding to Ryan Darby. It's funny, but honestly, he could just as easily be straight. And if it would make Taylor happy to go out with him, why shouldn't I make that happen?

Then I look at Amalita. She's laughing with everyone else, but at the same time she's using a shell to carve
A.L. + D.M.
inside a heart in the sand.

Ames is a catch. And if Denny's already flirting with her, he'd probably only need a little push to actually find time to ask her out.

I look at Reenzie next. She's looking at Sean so dreamily I can practically see the cartoon hearts in her eyes.

Sorry, can't help you there. Reenzie and I might be friends now, but I'm not a masochist.

Taylor and Ames, though? They're a task worth taking on. I promise myself that the minute I get home I'm going to do something I haven't done in ages.

I'm going to write in my journal.

I turn the key in the door gently. It's late, and Mom works at her rescue shelter, Catches Falls, early Saturday mornings, so I know there's a good chance she's asleep.

I shouldn't have bothered. First I trip over our basset hound, Schmidt, who's lying
right
in front of the door. I slap/clunk down to my hands and knees, but my fall is completely drowned out by the wild gunfight coming from our family room. I walk in to find my twelve-year-old brother, Erick, and one of his buddies standing on the couch and screaming as they play on the Wii. The TV screen is a gruesome mess of body parts, blood, and zombies, which is almost as gross as the fact that both Erick and his friend are wearing hideous rubber monster masks for no possible reason on earth.

Erick is the taller of the beasts, which I realize when his voice roars gleefully out of the snaggle-toothed mask. “It's after midnight! You're gonna be in major trouble!”

“So not,” I tell him. “I called Mom and told her. She said it was okay. And by the way, none of your business.”

The smaller creature pulls off his mask to reveal Erick's best friend, Aaron. His face is bright red and covered in sweat. “Hi, Autumn,” he says. “Did Erick tell you I'm taking guitar lessons?”

Why would he? “Nope. You sleeping over?”

Aaron grins, and his already red face turns even redder. “Yup.”

I choke down a gag as I realize he's acting like he has a crush on me. Ignore…ignore and hope I'm wrong.

“Don't stay up all night,” I say. “G'night.”

“Night, Autumn,” Erick says, while Aaron chirps, “See you in the morning!”

Whatever. I grab a late-night Diet Coke and take it up to my room. Once I'm in my pajamas, I sit on my bed and look up at my bookcase. The journal's there, on the top shelf, and part of me thinks it's crazy that I don't just grab it and write in it…but it's been months. And it's not just a journal. It's my dad.

I know, that sounds ridiculous and even crazy, and believe me, I'm not saying my dad is physically
in
the journal. It's not some Tom Riddle/horcrux thing. I don't know
what
it is exactly….I only know that somehow the journal is tied to my dad's spirit, and when I write in it and say,
I wish
for something…the wish sometimes comes true. Not in the way that if you wish on a penny and throw it in a fountain it sometimes coincidentally comes true, but in the way that the journal actually
makes
things I wish for come true.

Sometimes. When it wants to. Even when I don't want it to do exactly what it does.
Obstinado,
that's what my grandmother Eddy calls it. My dad left the journal with her and told her to give it to me so I could use it to bring peace and harmony to my little corner of the world. Which I did. And which I want to do again…only I know I need to be careful, because while the journal did some great things for me last year, it also messed things up pretty terribly. That's why I stopped writing in it.

Actually, that's not fair. It wasn't the journal that messed things up.
I
did. The journal was just listening to me.

So maybe it'll be okay if I try writing in it again. I'll just be more careful.

I reach up and pull down the journal. The familiar feel of the leather makes me all warm inside, and I'm amazed I let it sit for so long. I look at the cover, eager to see the familiar three-point
zemi:
the triangle with what looks like a face in it, the symbol that my dad's people, the Taino, believed held the spirits of their dead ancestors.

I guess I believe that too…except the symbol isn't there. The front cover of the book is plain milk-chocolate brown.

That's impossible. I must be holding the book the wrong way. I flip it over…but the other side is as blank as the front.

Did the symbol wear away?

Impossible. It was etched into the leather. I remember running my fingers over it and feeling its deep grooves. That kind of thing doesn't wear out. It's part of the leather forever.

Just in case, I carefully feel every inch of the cover, front and back. If the embossed symbol
did
somehow get shallower and harder to see, I should still be able to feel it, if only a little.

Nothing. The cover feels perfectly smooth, without a single imperfection.

Fury rises inside me as I realize the only possible answer, and I can't believe I didn't think of it right away.

This isn't my journal. When I was away this summer working as a camp-counselor-in-training with Jenna, my best friend from home, Erick must have raided my room, even though I made him swear he wouldn't set foot in it. He was probably
looking
for a diary so he and his stupid friends could read it. Then he must have ruined it or something—or even worse,
kept
the thing—and found a near look-alike to try and replace it so I wouldn't know.

I get a hideous image in my head of Erick and Aaron in their monster masks jumping on the couch and reading parts of my journal out loud to one another. My stomach churns. I feel even more nauseous when I think about the actual things he read—not just me talking directly to Dad as if he were in the journal, but every nightmarish thing that happened to me last year—stuff I would rather die than have Erick know.

I'm going to kill him. That's the only answer.

I storm downstairs, journal in my hand, but something stops me and I look again at the book.

I pull it open and read.

Dear Dad,

I know you're not connected to this thing, and it's not like you can actually read it…

It's my writing. My entry. I flip through and see every entry I wrote.

It's all there. This is my journal. If Erick took it, he put it back with a new cover. Would he have done that, maybe? If he somehow ruined the old cover?

No. He couldn't. It's a bound book. It would be next to impossible to rebind a bound book—he'd have to have it done professionally. And honestly, if he'd had the time and money to do it, he'd have made sure a matching
zemi
was on the new cover.

I slowly walk back to my room. Erick will live another day, but I still don't understand. If this is my journal, where is the
zemi
?

I want to call Jenna, but it's way after midnight by now. Saturday mornings are her long run days, so I know she's been asleep for hours. I grab my phone and take a picture of the blank front and back covers and text them to her anyway. I also explain everything. She's the only person who knows everything about the journal, so I know she'll have advice.

I flop down on my bed and stare at the cover.

No
zemi.

Nothing holding the spirits of dead ancestors.

Does that mean no Dad? Is it just a regular journal now?

One way to find out.

I roll over and grab a pen, then flip to the first blank page.

Dear Dad…

I'll make this short because I'm not positive you're there anymore…

I'm surprised to feel tears springing to my eyes. I blink them away and keep writing.

I wish that tomorrow morning…

I need something good. Something not so obvious that it would happen anyway and therefore proves nothing, but not something so outrageous that the journal will get stubborn and not want to do it.

It hurts when I hit on the right answer. It's something I secretly want badly, and something that
could
happen, but I haven't seen any sign of it yet.

I wish that when I wake up tomorrow and see Mom, she'll tell me she's come up with costumes for her, Erick, and me, and that we'll decorate the house for Halloween and have our regular party like always.

I know for me it'll be a pretty lame party, since all my friends are already committed to Reenzie's. I probably can't even invite them without getting her upset since hers came first. But that's okay. I don't care if anyone's there for me or not. I just want to have Dad's favorite holiday the way he liked it.

Tears fall on the page, and I dab them away so they don't smear what I just wrote. I close the journal and sleep with it under my pillow.

I don't wake up until after noon. When I check my phone, there's a message from Jenna:

Show journal to Eddy! Then call and tell me what she said. Miss you! P.S. Glad you didn't kill Erick. Sorta.

I laugh out loud. Erick has had a mad crush on Jenna forever. She tolerates it, but it grosses us both out.

She's probably right. I should bring the journal to Eddy. But Jenna doesn't know about the wish I made after I texted her. I pull the journal from under my pillow and read it again, just so I can remember exactly how I asked; then I put it back and head downstairs. The house smells like cookies.

“Mom!” I say when I see her bustling around the kitchen. She's wearing yoga pants and a tank top, and her long dark curls are piled on her head in a loose bun. “I thought you were at Catches Falls today.”

“I was supposed to be, but the boys stayed up all night, so they're still out, and I didn't want to just leave them without asking if you were okay watching them.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, flopping into a kitchen chair. “You could have gotten me up. I'd have been fine with it.”

Mom smiles, then kisses the top of my head. She can only do that when I'm sitting, because I'm taller than her, which never ceases to be a little weird.

“It's okay,” she says. “I had one of the girls go in instead. Besides, I wanted to be home today. I want to talk to you about Halloween.”

I feel a flutter over my skin. Halloween? Is this about my wish?

“Pumpkin muffin?” she asks.

That explains the cookie smell. I nod, and Mom butters one for me while I try to be patient and not jump in and ask her what she wants to say about Halloween. Then I notice she has a photo album out on the counter. I walk over to it. It's open to a full-page picture from last year: Mom, Dad, Erick, and I standing in front of the house in Maryland. It's nighttime, and the house is a wild mix of spiderwebs, tombstones, skeletons, and eerie lights. I remember there was a smoke machine too, but you can't tell in the picture. And Dad had rigged the doorbell so it shrieked when anyone pressed it. We're dressed as the characters from
The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Erick is Jack, I'm Sally, Dad is Oogie Boogie, Mom's the mayor of Halloween Town, and Schmidt's Zero. As I flip backward in the album, I see us in the same place, growing younger page after page, each time with a new theme. On one page we're the Addams Family; on one we're traditional monsters—Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Dracula, and a mummy; on one we're Freddy Krueger, Jason, the Tall Man, and Leatherface; on one we're Fred, Velma, Daphne, and Shaggy. In that one, Schmidt is Scooby-Doo. The album goes all the way back to Mom and Dad outside a college party, dressed up as a ghost couple from Disney's Haunted Mansion, with their clothes and entire bodies all made the same shade of powder-white.