I’ll Meet You There (24 page)

“I’m gonna miss this,” Chris said, throwing his arm around my shoulders.

I shrugged him off. “Stop saying that. You’re depressing me.”

It was like every few seconds, Chris was pointing out that we were all going to be
apart for pretty much the rest of our lives. It didn’t help that I had no freaking
clue where I was going to be next week, let alone September.

“Hey, there’s always Christmas break. And spring break. And summer. Unless, of course,
my professors recognize my brilliance and I get an internship. In which case—”

“Oh, get over yourself,” I said.

My voice had a slight edge to it, and I laughed it off and gave him a slight push.
Chris didn’t seem to notice, just laughed with me.

Be happy for him. It’s not his fault.

We squeezed back into his dad’s truck, gasping at the hot vinyl and keeping our faces
away from the infernal air blowing out of the vents while the faulty air-conditioning
kicked in.

“So, there’s no chance Asshat’s moving out anytime soon?” Chris asked as he pulled
onto the highway.

It was the name we’d decided to give Billy.

I shrugged. “I haven’t seen my mom since I left.”

I needed a break, but I knew we had to talk. I was just still too raw from having
her choose Billy over me. It was weird, not seeing her. I wished it didn’t feel good,
the distance, but it did.

Dylan leaned in from the truck’s cramped back seat. “Do you think she’s, you know,
in love
with him?”

“God, I hope not.” The thought made me queasy. “I think he’s taking advantage of the
situation. And she’s letting him.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how she can put her tongue in his mouth,” Chris said.

“Don’t even …
ugh
.” I covered my face and groaned.

“That’s an image I never thought I’d have in my head,” Dylan said.

Sean whimpered, and Dylan lifted up his favorite stuffed animal and made it dance
for him.

“Asshat’s an asshole,” she cooed. “Yes, he is.”

I grinned and watched her working him up to full-on belly laughs.

“Dude, that’s just wrong,” Chris said. “You’ve scarred him for life.”

Dylan shook her head. “It’s all about the tone of voice.”

I tried to pretend this was my life for the next year, living in Creek View or maybe
a couple hours away, in Fresno or Bakersfield. Of course, Chris wouldn’t be driving
because he’d be in Boston, so it would just be Dylan, Sean, and me getting strawberries.
I’d be talking about the classes I was taking at a community college in between shifts
at the Paradise or some other job. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I’d be close enough
to Mom to keep an eye on her but not have to deal with Billy on a daily basis. I could
go to school, kind of, and I’d be around to help Dylan out with Sean.

No.

God, just the thought of that other Skylar filled me with the kind of hopelessness
that makes a person stay in bed all day and do nothing but watch
Judge Judy
and chain-smoke. Except …

For just a second, I saw Josh’s face, the way he’d looked at me on the steps in front
of the trailer—angry, worried, and some other thing I couldn’t name.
Wouldn’t
name. If he didn’t stay in the Marines, he’d be here.

“What are you thinking about?” Dylan asked.

I started guiltily. “Huh?”

“You’re smiling like you’ve got some dirty little secret,” she said.

I could feel her staring at me, putting pieces together, replaying that moment on
her porch after Josh walked me across the street. I rearranged the boxes of berries
on my lap, then looked over at Dylan, my face, I hoped, a blank.

“What?” I said. “I was zoning out.”

Dylan’s eyes widened. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

“Asshat?” Chris asked, confused.

Dylan shook her head. “Chris, you are such an idiot.” She leaned over the seat, staring
me down with her chocolate brown eyes. “I know that look, Sky. But I’ve never seen
it on
you
before.”

I glared at her. “I’m
not
thinking about Josh.”

She sat back, smirking. “Who said I was talking about Josh?”

Shit.

“You tricked me!” I said. I tried to slap at her, but she ducked into the corner,
laughing.

“You bitch!” she said. “I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me. Details—
now.
”

“Wait, wait,
wait
.” Chris slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Skylar. Tell me, please, for the
love God, tell me there’s nothing going on between you and Josh Mitchell.”

I felt high, jittery, like I was everywhere at once.

“There’s nothing going on.”

“Yet,” said Dylan. “Every time I go to the Paradise, you two are attached at the hip.”

You two. Attached.
I felt the blood creep up my neck, and I collaged a wall to hide behind. A thick
stone one that only archers and big men with swords could get past.

“We just hang out,” I said. Dylan raised her eyebrows in a totally lecherous way.
“We play chess or read by the pool. Most of the time Marge is with us!”

“Josh does not play chess,” Chris said.

“Actually, he does. And he’s really good at it,” I said, defensive.

Chris pointed to himself. “This is my Not-Convinced face.”

“This is my Shut-Up face.”

“This is my Oh-My-God-Sky-Is-Getting-It-On-With-Josh-Mitchell face,” Dylan said, looking
comically scandalized.

I threw up my hands, groaned, played my part. But inside …
inside,
I’d turned into something that craved moonlight and whispers and dark corners.

With Josh, it felt inevitable. Only a matter of time. Every second we were together
this past week had brought us closer to the promise I’d seen in his eyes the day I
moved out: the excuses to touch each other, how close we sat, the long hugs before
he went home. But whenever it seemed like Josh might go for it, I chickened out, made
up excuses because I couldn’t have that mess on top of everything else … could I?

Chris glared at me. “Flings endanger the pact.”

“Yes, Christopher, I know.”

He looked at me for another second, his eyes narrowed. I could see Dylan in the passenger
mirror, shaking her head.
Unbelievable
, she mouthed. I set my elbow on the window and covered my lips so that she wouldn’t
see me smile. It sort of
was
unbelievable. I didn’t know how long I could pretend I didn’t care about him.

“Five more weeks,” Chris murmured, like a mantra.

For you,
I wanted to say. The fluttering feeling in my chest died.

Judge Judy.
Chain-smoking.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Five more weeks.”

“And did your roommate call again? Are you doing that girly thing where you try to
coordinate your dorm decorations or—”

“Chris.” I gripped the boxes of strawberries, kept my eyes on the road ahead of me.

“—are you just gonna do your own thing? Dude, I hope your roommate has a TV because
mine is all—”

“
Chris
,” I said, louder.

He looked over at me, shoved his sunglasses farther up his nose. “What?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know if I’m going, okay? Haven’t you been listening to me these past
few weeks?
No
.” My voice was getting loud, but I couldn’t help it. “You haven’t. You’ve been in
this perfectly happy I’m-getting-out-
tralala
world, but I’m not
tralala
-ing. At all.”

I bit my lip and stared out the window, feeling like an idiot. The whole Josh ambush
had turned me into an emotional pinball.

Dylan squeezed my shoulder.

“Sky.” Chris reached over and shut off the radio. “Everything’s gonna be fine—”

I turned in my seat so that I was facing him. He used to be the only person in the
world who got me totally and completely. But not anymore. It felt like he’d already
left—more and more often, it seemed like Chris didn’t understand me at all.

“You keep saying that, Chris. Every time I try to tell you what’s going on, you keep
saying,
Don’t worry, it’ll work out,
blah blah blah. But it’s
not
working out, okay?
It’s not
. I mean, I live in a motel room.”

Chris gripped the steering wheel. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your
mom’s an adult woman. How many times are you just gonna drop everything when she loses
her shit?”

I stared at him. “It’s only been five years. Her
soul mate
died—that’s not something you bounce back from right away,” I said.

“And you lost your
dad
.”

“Thank you, Chris. Like I didn’t know that,” I snapped.

Dylan leaned forward. “Okay, you guys—”

He glanced over at me and shook his head. “I’ve tried to be cool about your mom, okay?
I know it sucks for her and she’s been through a lot. But so have you, Sky. And lately,
it almost feels like … you’re looking for an excuse to stay.”

I stared at him. “
What?
”

“Not cool, Chris,” Dylan said.

He frowned, his voice softer. “I don’t know if it’s Josh or what, but you need to
get the hell out, or I swear to God, you’ll end up spending the rest of your life
in this shithole, just like all those girls—”

“You mean like me?” Dylan asked, her voice suddenly hard.

“God, Dylan, I’m not saying that,” he said, stricken.

“Might as well,” she spit. “You know what it feels like, being friends with you guys?
Do you have any idea how it sounds when you talk about how crappy this town is and
how you’d rather die than end up saddled with a baby, living in a trailer park, broke
as hell? Every time you say that, you’re describing
my
life. A life I’m actually okay with—I’m sure as hell a lot happier than either of
you.”

Chris and I sat there in stunned silence. Dylan glared at us, arms crossed, chest
heaving.

I felt the sting of her words. Every time I’d ever said anything about people who
wanted to stay in Creek View, I’d been talking about her. I’d just never thought about
it that way. It always seemed like she’d understood that she was mine and therefore
exempt from my disdain of all things Creek View. To me, she wasn’t one of
those girls.
And I knew for a fact she was
the
girl for Chris, only he’d never tell her that.

I turned around, forcing myself to look her in the eye.

“Dyl—”

But she cut me off.

“My life is your worst nightmare. I get it.”

“No, it’s not like that,” I said.

She looked out the window. “Forget it.”

I opened my mouth, but what the hell could I say? I slumped down in my seat. “I’m
sorry,” I whispered.

I closed my eyes and listened to the slap of tires on the road and Sean’s gurgles.
A heavy, suffocating silence settled over us, louder than the shouting match we’d
just had. Was this what it meant to grow up, to move on?

JOSH

You play chess?
That’s the first thing you ever said to me—well, first thing after
Private, you better get that hair into regulation
. We were still in the States, back when I thought I was the shit. You were holding
your chess set and I’d been a smart-ass, said something like,
No, sir, I’m no ninety-year-old grandpa
, and you just stared at me with that look you get—all Clint Eastwood and shit, until
I said,
No offense, sir
. You laughed. I can’t believe I only knew you for a year and a half—how can one person
change you in two football seasons? But you did. You didn’t give up on me. Told Command
I had promise.
Promise.
No one had ever said something like that about me before. And they believed you,
let you show me the ropes, teach me what it really means to be a Marine. You were
a good soldier, the best, and you cared about all of us, even that little dick, Panelli.
I’ll never forget how before we went out each day, you’d tell everyone in our squad
that we were cocksuckers and we better not die or we’d have to look up from hell and
watch you screwing our sisters and wives and even our mothers. So most of us,
most of us
, didn’t get dead. Chess and you taking a picture of me reading
Slaughterhouse-Five,
telling me I’d need proof someday because nobody in Creek View would ever believe
I had actually read a goddamn book, let alone five. Talking about God and why there’s
evil in the world and bitching because the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Camp Leatherneck,
me not missing home at all and you missing it like crazy, always talking about going
to college and how when you had leave you were gonna marry Hannah. And you wanted
kids, and I said I didn’t because people like me, we just end up disappointing one
another and I’d probably be like my dad, and you told me I had to get over it, get
over my dad and my mom and how screwed up everything is because you said,
Josh, you’re gonna have it all. I know it. You’re gonna have it all.
And for the first time, I’m almost believing that.

chapter twenty-two

“Okay, so remember, the queen is the best piece. You gotta guard her with your life.”

Josh was pointing to the carved chess piece on the board in front of me, and I nodded,
trying to keep all the rules he’d taught me in mind. Playing chess by the pool had
become this thing we did every few days, when it was almost twilight and the heat
of the day had dwindled to a bearable warmth. It was one of those perfect summer evenings—the
sky looked like someone had thrown a can of pink paint onto it, and the crickets were
playing their reedy symphony. One of my baskets of strawberries sat between us, washed
and still warm from the sun, and if I leaned forward, I could catch a bit of their
sweetness in the air. But I couldn’t look at them without thinking about everything
that had gone down with Chris and Dylan. It’d only been a few hours, but the fact
that neither of them had called didn’t bode well.