Inland (9 page)

“Ben, where are we? I thought you said we had a bio assignment, extra credit or something.”

He grins. “I did. Mikah is meeting us here with her camera. But there’s something else—it’s kind of for you.”

I blink and feel a stupid, confused smile spreading across my face. “What’s for me?”

His grin gets broader, his nose crinkling behind his glasses. “I think it’ll be more fun if I don’t tell you in advance.”

“Ben!”

“Cal!”

“I don’t like surprises,” I say, whining more than I mean to, and he laughs. Ahead of us, the dappled denseness of the slender road opens up into a small lot with dry, bleached grass beyond it. Picnic tables sit in the shade of looming oaks; the air is thick with the scent of vegetation. Two spaces away, the door opens on a silver bullet of a car, a sleek, expensive convertible with smooth lines and sparkling paint, and Mikah steps out. Her camera has been outfitted with a lens so long that she has to support it with both hands.

“Ready?” says Ben.

“Ready,” she replies. “But if I get a single drop of mud on this camera, it’s your ass, Benjamin.”

At one corner of the lot, a narrow line of hard-packed dirt leads into the woods and then becomes a trail of wooden slats, curving back and away over the muddy ground, overhung thickly with tall trees and trailing vines. I’ve stopped asking about our final destination—Ben only grins and shakes his head at my questions, while Mikah clicks the shutter and smiles like a secret-keeping sphinx—and our shoes tap softly on the weathered wood. It’s cool back here, soft and damp and shaded. Animals keep startling in the brush. I breathe in as the trees breathe out, and the air tastes earthy.

“All right,” says Mikah, breaking the silence. Her voice startles something in the unseen muck beneath us; we hear it rustle away, and her next words are cautious and breathy. “All right, I’ve got some good stuff here.”

“Good stuff?”

She points at the tree nearest us and we all lean into the rail to look closer. The bark is covered with a thin scrim of red-flecked growth, a second living skin that begins at its base and climbs heavenward until I can’t crane my neck farther to see it.

“Check that out. Remember, that whole crazy thing with Strong and fractals?”

I think back, and grin. Just before break, Mr. Strong had stood in front of the class and cradled a head of green cauliflower as though it were his infant child, waxing poetic about the predictable, mathematical beauty of its conical florets while Ben leaned in close, tapped me on the shoulder, and whispered, “You know how most people feel about God? That’s how Mr. Strong feels about cauliflower.”

“Right,” I nod, remembering. “An extra point on the final if we can bring him photos of fractal patterns in nature.” At the time, I’d silently thought that the assignment was meant particularly for Mikah and her camera.

We hunt our way along the path, pointing to the symmetrical fronds of ferns, the scattered growths of lichen, an exposed log riddled with cracks. Mikah removes the long lens, caps it, and carefully secretes it in her bag.

“It’s a stupid, easy assignment, but whatever. I’ll take all the points I can get.” She sighs. “I’ve got dibs on the lichen, but I’ll send you guys pics of the leaves and ferns.”

“You sure you don’t want to come along?” asks Ben. She shakes her head and purses her lips nonchalantly, but I swear that I see a look pass from her deep brown eyes to his gray ones, and her mouth twitches in a half-second smile.

“Nah, you guys go. I’ve seen them a million times.”

I watch her retreat back the way we came, a single beam of sunlight sneaking through the trees to glide gently over her shoulder and bounce off the canvas surface of her bag, until the wooden track curves between two thick stands of trees and her footfalls are swallowed by the rustling green all around us.

“Them?” I say, turning to Ben. “What’s she talking about?”

He grins back, and then, with just a flicker of hesitation crossing his face, he reaches for me.

“C’mon,” he says, and I watch as his hand, smooth and freckled, slips into mine. My heart beating fast, faster, the blood in my ears rushing so loud that it drowns out the gentle sound of the treetops, as we step in silent tandem down the wooden path to the place where the tree line ends and the sun breaks through.

I see why we’ve come, what he wanted to show me.

I see the long, pale bodies in perfect motion, tumbling over and under each other, a smooth and supple back cresting quietly into the sunlit air and then slipping below the surface.

“It’s for you,” he’d said.

And it is. They are. The manatees are playful and unselfconscious, suspended in perfect harmony with their underwater world. There’s a lump in my throat as Ben says, “I remember you said you were hoping to see one.”

I can’t tear my eyes away. I can’t keep the emotion out of my voice.

“I told you that?”

“At lunch, a month ago,” he replies. “It was just in passing, but I remembered.” He looks at the ground, and for just a second, for the first time, Benjamin Barrington looks really and truly unsure of himself. Quietly, he adds, “I remember a lot of the things you say.”

And all I can do is gulp and nod and squeeze his hand when he squeezes mine.

—

I am here. Anchored. Tied to this place, this boy, this sparkling winter hideaway with its narrow wooden path, the sweet and musty smell of tree bark when it’s damp. He is holding me here, under the green canopy and the dangling gray of moss, and when I part my lips to breathe I feel as though my lungs have dropped into my hips, so deeply and heavily does the air move inside them.

I think,
Wait until I tell Nessa
.

And then, I think,
But I won’t.

Because she knew. Even before he took my hand. Even before Mikah’s secret smile. From the moment he said hello, from the moment he stepped into orbit around my life, she knew.

And though I don’t want to—though I don’t want anything to break the spell of the sunlight, the river, the manatees at play, and Ben at my side—in my head, I hear her voice again. Low and dark as her lips brushed my ear, as she held me close and then let me go.

“Just be careful, Callie,”
she’d whispered.
“Be careful. This boy will want to keep you.”

BUT NOT AS BADLY,
I think,
as I want to keep him
.

There is something happening between us, something thrilling and terrifying, a series of small moments that add up to so much more than the sum of their parts. The rush of pleasure when I catch a glimpse of him by my locker, the way the bottom drops out of my stomach when his arm brushes up against mine. The way he casually says, “We should”—we should do that, see that, try that together—and smiles when I smile at the way we suddenly have a year’s worth of plans.

“Have you D-T-R-ed?” Jana asks, then laughs when I look confused. “You know ‘discussed the relationship’? You and Benny boy. Don’t tell me nothing’s happening there.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, we haven’t talked about it.” But I’m smiling, I can’t help myself, and she rolls her eyes and laughs.

“You’re not denying it, either.”

—

—

On the last night before break, five of us slip into the back left row of the darkening auditorium and watch as the choir files in.

“We should see Jana sing in the holiday concert,” he’d said, smiling at me—then caught himself when Mikah cleared her throat and shot him a look. “I mean, we should
all
go. Not least because I’m pretty sure she’ll kill us if we don’t show up.”

I feel the heat of Ben’s leg pressed against mine as the music begins, I’m acutely aware of his hand on the armrest between us. I feel it there, even as the harmonies begin to soar, even as Jana steps in front of the humming chorus wearing a dangerously low-cut red dress and launches into the throaty first notes of her solo, even as Corey whispers, awestruck, “Oh my God, she’s
amazing
,” and everyone lets out low sounds of agreement. When the applause begins, I feel his fingers brush mine.

When he whispers, “Let’s go,” I realize I’ve been waiting for him to say it.

We slip out just as the lights come up, darting past the tables piled up for the intermission bake sale, calling, “No thanks!” to the pink-lipsticked mom who drawls, “Wouldn’t y’all like a gingersnap?”

He takes my hand and we run through the dim and empty hallways, deeper into the deserted school, the walls of lockers flashing by with exhilarating speed. With no bustle of between-class traffic, the resonant slap of our steps echoes off the walls, the ceiling. When Ben skids to a halt in front of a classroom door, the sound of our rushed breathing is very, very loud.

“In here,” he says, and twists the handle.

The art room is thick with the competing smells of glue, paint, rubber erasers, and wood shavings. I’ve never set foot in it, but Ben strides confidently through the door and then closes it behind me. There’s a panel of switches on the wall beside us; he flicks the last one, and at the back of the room, a light illuminates a single wall of mounted work. He crosses to it, and points to a small, single canvas.

“This one is mine,” he says. His voice is hushed, though we’re the only ones here. My body suddenly feels like it’s made of spare parts, and nothing fits together quite right. I cross the room and stand beside him, more conscious than ever of the space between us, of how easily I could close it. I busy myself with examining the painting instead. It’s a still life assignment, a standard-looking arrangement of objects on a table; there are other versions of it hanging nearby, done by different students from different angles. But I can see Ben’s hand in this one, in the careful attention to light and shadow, the enthusiastic brushstrokes, the way one edge of the table looks hastily painted-in as though he’d grown bored toward the end and wanted to move on to the next thing.

“It’s really good,” I say.

He steps up beside me, replying, “It’s really not, actually. But it serves its purpose.”

“What purpose?”

I turn my head. He does the same, looking at me seriously, and the skin between his freckles turns pink.

“Well, there’s this girl I kind of like. And I wanted to be alone with her.”

I guffaw; I can’t help it. In my head, I hear Jana’s voice saying,
Soooo, have you D-T-Rrrrrred
?, and wish I could borrow just a sliver of her confidence, the total self-possession that lets her stand on a stage in front of an audience of hundreds and slay the whole room. I have an audience of one, and I feel like I’m dying.

Ben’s smile loses some of its strength.

“Okay, that definitely wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.”

I shake my head, “No, that’s not . . . I wasn’t laughing at you. I just—” I look everywhere but at his face, and finally end up confessing to my own feet: “Ben, I really don’t know how to do this. Whatever this is. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

It’s his turn to laugh. “You think I do?”

I shake my head. He doesn’t understand. “Yeah, I do. At least, more than I do. You’ve had a normal life, you just don’t know—”

He sighs, and looks away.

“You know what? You’re right. I don’t know. But,” he adds, urgency creeping into his voice, “I want to. I
want
to know. You keep people at a distance, and you probably have your reasons for that. I’m not saying you don’t. But then there are these times when something happens, and you let your guard down, and I get these little glimpses of who you are. And all I can think about is how amazing that girl is, and how I wish I could see her all the time. I really do. I don’t think you even realize how cool and different you are, in the best way. It makes me angry sometimes. Like, I want to find whoever made you not trust people like this, and punch him in the teeth for ruining things for the rest of us.”

Even in the dim and empty room, I feel suddenly, utterly exposed. I know I’m guarded, close-mouthed—of course I know, how could I not?—but to have Ben point it out so casually, to just reach out and deftly, gently pluck off the mask I’ve been pretending I wasn’t wearing. To tell me he’s seen what’s underneath it, and that it’s okay. Until he said it, I never knew how much I wished somebody would.

I keep my gaze straight ahead, staring at the little painting. I focus on the dab of white that represents a patch of reflected light on the curved base of the painted vase. He says he wants to know me, and I will give him what he wants. One piece of my past.

“I’ve never dated,” I say. My voice is surprisingly even. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve never even had a crush, not really. Because I’ve never been around people enough to get to know one to have a crush on. And my first kiss—my only kiss, actually—was in the hospital, and we had matching oxygen tanks.”

The room is very quiet, and we both stand very still. Until, from the corner of my eye, I can see Ben nod.

“Mine was in the pantry during a holiday party,” he says. “On a dare. And after we came out, I realized that I’d sat on an open box of Fig Newtons.”

I turn my head to look at him. He mirrors me, and shrugs, and smiles. “So, now we both know something new about each other.”

“But yours isn’t even that bad.”

“That’s only because I haven’t gotten to the part where everyone called me ‘Figgy Pudding Pants’ for the next three weeks.”

A beat passes, one moment for what he’s said to sink in, and then I’m laughing. I laugh so hard that it hurts, until tears stream down my cheeks, until I can’t breathe. It’s not just that it’s funny (but it is, I think, because
figgy pudding pants
, and I’m giggling again), but because I’m giddy—with relief, with excitement, and with the realization that despite what I said, he’s still here. And so am I.

He moves closer, and I lean into him. When his arms lift and encircle my waist, it’s with so much practiced nonchalance that anyone watching us would think he’d done it a million times. That we were one of those couples, so comfortable, so easy, that his hands pressing lightly on my hips was nothing new. Only I can feel the tension singing in his fingers, see the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows and stares straight ahead.

Only he can feel the way my heart is pounding, thrashing in pulse points I didn’t know I had, fluttering in my fingertips and armpits and underneath my jaw. His body is close to mine, the distance between us shrinking to a crack, then a seam, then vanishing entirely.

And then I move my head, trying to see his expression, and it’s a mistake, because I’m tall, much taller than him, and my nose is in his hair. I smell his shampoo, lemongrass, and the scent of his skin underneath. It’s the scent of him, of a man, warm and human, and the feeling inside me is like a thousand knots pulled tight. For all the times I’ve embraced Nessa, or pecked my father’s cheek, even the moment so long ago when I touched my lips to those of another hospital kid, and smelled disinfectant, and ignored the strange barrier of the oxygen tube that ran beneath his nose, I have never been so close to another person.

I never wanted to be.

I thought I didn’t know how to be.

But he doesn’t mind. And if he feels the shudder that goes through me, he doesn’t say. His nervousness is gone; he’s assured enough for both of us. And he looks up at me, his face inches from mine, and smiles. The moment stretches out so long that I can count the freckles on his forehead, the slivers of green and gray in his eyes. I can marvel at the quiet confidence I see there, and wish I had it, too.

He keeps his eyes fixed on my face as he lifts his chin, and leans in. And I can’t bear it anymore, I close my eyes—I think,
You’re supposed to close your eyes, I remember that much
—and then I feel the whisper of air as he speaks, softly, directly into my ear:

“Cal. You have to bend down a little. I can’t reach your face.”

And our laughter should break the spell, but it doesn’t. It should be impossible to kiss while laughing, but we do. We do. I lean into the warmth and weight of him. I drape my arms over his shoulders. He puts his fingertips against my cheek while his lips press against mine, and the last of my doubts—that it was real, that he meant it, that I’d know what to do—wink out quietly, one by one. The only one left, so quiet it’s barely even there, is the unwanted, whispered memory of Nessa’s voice, warning me to take care.

—

But if Nessa thinks it’s dangerous, then she doesn’t understand. This life is the ship I would go down clinging to. I would clutch it greedily to my chest, I would hold him tight and close. Him and all the rest of it. I want it, want to keep it, so badly that it aches. This place, this boy who grips my hand as tightly as I grip it back.

This is the secret that I whisper, in the dark and drifting safety of my dreams.

My mother, pale and inscrutable behind the floating shade of her hair, shakes her head and disappears.