Everyone We've Been (14 page)

On Saturday, with no lesson and no filming—only the viewing party at Zach's tonight—I decide to sleep in. It's past eleven when I get up and pad down the hall to the bathroom. I see that Mom's door is open, and it sounds like she's talking to one of her friends on the phone, so I stick my head in to say good morning. But she doesn't see me, and she's still in bed, phone cradled between her head and neck. What catches me off guard is the tremor in her voice, like she's been crying.

I quietly step out of view and listen for what she's saying.

“It's always hard around this time.” There's a pause, and then she says, “I know. And sometimes I think we're not being careful enough.”

I keep listening, but the conversation turns to some project she's doing for work, and I keep wondering why she can't get over reliving the divorce this time of year.

It's weird because Mom is the one with the boyfriend; she's moved on far better than Dad has, so why is she still so shaken about the divorce after so many years? Is it because he was the one who left?

I ride over to Zach's around six, excited to see the finished product but sad that filming is over. I let myself in and take the stairs down to the basement. Zach meets me at the bottom of them.

My hair is wet from the shower, falling in damp curls over my dress. Zach blinks at me and then blushes as he realizes he's staring. At which point I remember that he's used to seeing me in a ketchup-drenched habit, my hair sticky and frizzy and awful. If he
doesn't
think I look better, I should be worried. Plus, I might have put in a little more effort than usual, some mascara and my favorite watermelon lip gloss.

“Um, where is everybody?” I ask, looking around.

“Kevin's working an extra hour, but Raj should be on his way. Raj should
be
here.” He glances at his phone like he's expecting his friend to spring out of it. “I called him an hour ago and he'd completely forgotten, but that was an hour ago.”

“Oh, okay,” I say. I glance at the couch, where Zach's laptop is surrounded by a clutter of cords and CDs. “Did you get all the editing done?”

“I did,” Zach says proudly. “I wasn't going to sleep until I did.”

“And?” I ask. “What's the verdict?”

“
I
like it,” he says. “It's no Ciano, but definitely an improvement over our other stuff.”

Zach walks to the couch and sets his laptop on the floor, then swipes the CDs and everything else off. “Wannasit?”

“Thanks.” I walk over to the couch and sit.

“Yeah, no problem. Do you want popcorn? Or something?” he offers, picking things up, moving as he's speaking. He is strangely fidgety.

“Popcorn would be great,” I say. “Can I help?”

“No,” he says quickly. “Relax. I'll be right back.”

While he's gone, I look at some of the CDs he has lying around and realize from the pictureless covers that they are DVDs of Zach's past films.

He returns, bringing with him the aroma of buttery popcorn. “Here you go,” he says, and he sets a big bowl down in front of me. And then he's moving to do something else,
moving
something else. It almost seems like he's afraid to be alone with me; I don't know whether to be hurt or flattered.

“Can I watch some of these while we wait?” I ask, holding up a DVD.

“Good idea,” he says. He turns each of them over, trying to decide which one to start with. Then I realize he's looking for one without Lindsay, and I wonder if it really was a good idea.

Apparently, he finds one, because he pops it into the DVD player. Before he starts it, he says, “It's one of the very first ones we did.”

“Okay.”

“And,” he says, remote control still in hand, “thematically, it's a little all over the place. Also, my older brother Rob is in it. He's not all that comfortable with cameras.”

I giggle. “Okay.”

“And,” Zach says, stalling, “the music is shit. It's Raj's.”

“Anything else?” I ask, and Zach is about to answer before he catches my sarcasm, grins, and plops down next to me.

“Don't judge me,” he says.

“I won't.”

Zach's older brother appears on the screen, walking down what appears to be their street in a suit that is three times too big for him. He is swinging his briefcase a little too aggressively to be normal, and he looks right at the camera as he walks.

Zach and I laugh.

There's a bang, and all of a sudden a younger version of Kevin falls from a tree. Lifeless and soaked in ketchup.

“Oh my God,” I say.

I glance at Zach and he is watching me, a small smile on his lips.

It takes all my effort to face the screen again.

“Oh no!” Rob cries, and leans over Kevin, trying to resuscitate him. Suddenly someone is screaming, a girl. I hold my breath, thinking that maybe it is Lindsay after all, but a girl who looks just a little younger than Kevin runs into the frame, pointing at Kevin's lifeless body.

“No! Don't touch him! Don't touch him!”

“Why not?” Rob asks, his expression lifeless and flat.

I laugh.

“I told you it was bad,” Zach says, chuckling too.

“Shut up, I'm watching the next Ciano,” I say. The movie is about twenty minutes long and includes a cameo by a couple-years-younger Zach. When it's done, I break into a rousing round of applause.

Zach laughs at my response, and my stomach twirls. Is it that easy? If his smile will stay put, I'll keep clapping until it fills the room.

“Your hair was so much shorter,” I say.

He self-consciously touches it.

“No puff,” I add.

“Puff,”
Zach repeats, like it's the first time he's heard it. He laughs, still touching his hair. “It's kind of a pain.”

I sit up straighter, surprised. “I like your hair.”

Zach's eyes hold mine and I don't want to let go. “I like
yours,
” he says.

“No,” I say, shaking my head now, my voice thick with conviction. “I'm not being nice. Your hair has character.”

“I like your hair,” he says gently, like it's too precious to say out loud. And when his hand reaches out to touch it, to roll some strands between his fingers, I hold my breath.

I lean a little bit closer; Zach leans a little bit closer.

Then he's breathing on my lips. He kisses me slowly, a lock of my hair still between his fingers. And then he pauses, his lips still on mine, and when I open my eyes, he is frowning. It startles me because I'm used to him smiling.

He's still frowning when we kiss again. And he draws it out, like he's figuring something out, thinking and exploring. His hands haven't left my hair; they're all over it now, working their way in, carefully but confidently. With his hands in it, I believe it when he says he likes my hair.

My hands are in
his
hair, which is surprisingly soft.

“Zach!” We jump apart at Raj's voice. Luckily, it's coming from the top of the basement stairs.

“Um, down here,” Zach says, patting himself up and down. I stand and run a hand through my hair, smooth down my dress, but then I realize Zach has also stood up and is smoothing out
his
hair. So we both sit down. Too quickly. Guilty.

“Hi, Raj,” I say.

“Hey, man,” Zach says.

Raj squints at his friend. “You're mad I'm late? I had to wait for the car. Plus, my mom was making rajma because my cousins are coming over tomorrow, and I needed to taste it.”

“No, not mad,” Zach says casually, throwing the remote control up once in his hand.

Raj looks between the two of us, squinting still. I'm not sure what he sees, but he flops onto the beanbag chair near the wall and sighs.

Even though I was
in
it, I have no idea what happens in our movie.

Zach's parents come down for its “world premiere,” and they laugh and cringe and react with Kevin and Raj. Afterward, we put on a bunch of horrodies that Zach ordered off the Internet and no one has seen yet. My stomach is doing somersaults the entire time, just turning and turning, making knots inside me. Zach and I are suspiciously quiet throughout the evening, though he does a better job of hiding his distraction than I do. I hope being the new kid gives me a pass.

About eight, I get a text from my mom asking if I'm still at the address I gave her (Mom has a long-standing rule about leaving the address of where we are going on the fridge whiteboard) and whether she should come and pick me up. She knows now that my new friend is a boy and that he works at the video store. She knew Zach's dad from getting movies there the past few years. Strangely, her reaction was to stare at me quietly for several seconds and say, “You seem happy.” And then I scrambled into my room before she could make any rules about me seeing him or ask for his Social Security number to run a background check. Her meeting Zach and his parents, though I don't think she'd dislike them, is just not something I'm prepared to deal with tonight. So I explain to them that I have to head home and, since I'm riding my bike, want to beat the sunset.

“Do you drive, Addie?” Zach's mother asks. She has gray hair and looks a little older than Zach's dad. She has the warmest face, eyes that have a way of drawing you in, and an easy laugh. I can't pick out whose exact smile Zach has, but I can see how if you put Mr. and Mrs. Laird's together, you might get Zach's.

“I have my permit, but my mom wants me to wait till seventeen to get a car.”

“Well, Zach can give you a ride,” she says.

“In his piece-of-shit car,” Kevin supplies.

“Kevin,” Mr. Laird warns.

“It's okay, I enjoy riding,” I say.

“I'll walk you out,” Zach says, jumping up.

Everyone calls goodbye but thankfully seems too invested in the movie Zach put in to notice anything out of the ordinary or to offer to come with us.

I'm freaking out as we silently take the steps up from the basement and then leave the house. I'm freaking out that Zach is going to decide it was all a big mistake and it shouldn't have happened, because even though my lips are still buzzing, electricity zapping through them from before, I think I've already forgotten what it felt like to kiss him.

“Um,” Zach says after he's watched me silently unlock my bike. “Thanks for being in the movie.”

“Thanks for letting me be in it. I had fun.”
Oh God.
Does it sound like goodbye? We have no other excuses to see each other.

“Me too.”

We're standing in front of the garage, watching a sea of pinks and oranges start to flood the sky. I can't believe I sometimes think it looks empty.

“Addie,” Zach says.

“Yeah?” I'm getting ready to counter whatever he says, to tell him what I should have before:
Three months ago is forever. I like you. It's not that complicated.

“I think I'd like to kiss you again.” He says it softly, facing me now.

Oh.

I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him before he has the chance to change his mind. And holy freaking crap, does he kiss me back.

His kiss is more urgent this time, my back against the garage door, his kneecap against it, too. He cradles the back of my head with his hand, and I kiss him feverishly, and he doesn't stop, either, and I wonder why three days ago he said it was better if we were friends.

He doesn't kiss me like we're friends.