Authors: Emily Hainsworth
“I was just … missing Viv.”
Dr. Summers’s face is maddeningly sympathetic.
“It’s just, I never felt like I needed to talk to Dad before she—” I stop. Take a breath. “So I tried calling him.”
“How’d that go, Cam?”
I open my mouth and close it, glancing at the clock while I try to decide what to say, and, more important, what not to say.
“Not so good,” I say, hoping she’ll fill in the blanks how she wants.
“Oh?”
I look up, wanting this to be a rhetorical
Oh?
But all I get is an expressionless shrink-stare. I press one hand to my temple and close my eyes, trying not to think how Dad’s been the one calling and sending email, and I’ve been ignoring it. How when he answered the phone, I was madder at myself than at him—because he might’ve thought I missed him.
“I’m just not ready to really talk to him, okay?”
Dr. Summers gives me one of her assessing stares. The kind robots scan people with in sci-fi movies before either shooting them or letting them go. “We can come back to this. But I’m glad you called him when you were upset.”
I unfold my hands, palms sweaty, glance at the clock, and laugh a little too loudly. “Things could be worse. It’s not like I’m talking to little green men or anything …”
She raises her eyebrows. “I hope you would tell me if you started seeing little green men, Cam.”
I rub the back of my neck. How about little green
girls
?
“I’ll let you know if it ever happens,” I say quickly, and wonder again if she sees straight through my lies. “But seriously, getting upset with my dad for not being around when my life sucks? Not worth a prescription, in my personal opinion.”
“I agree.”
“Really?”
She nods, setting her mug aside. “I’m not suggesting there won’t be a time to reconsider that option, but you’ve proven me wrong before. I didn’t think you’d make it without meds initially, but you had been doing remarkably well this past year …”
She leaves the last part unsaid:
until Viv died.
The snail-like minute hand on the wall clock inches forward. I stay drug free if I just keep saying the right things.
I surprise myself with a truth.
“I want to keep doing well without them—for Viv.”
Dr. Summers smiles. “I think that’s reasonable.”
“
WHAT
’
S UP
?”
MIKE ASKS. THE BASS COMING FROM HIS EARBUDS
is cranked so high I know exactly which obnoxious indie rock song is playing before he shuts the music off.
“Hey,” I say, closing
Ethan Frome
. I thought I’d try reading our English assignment during lunch instead of just staring at the pages while everyone else eats, but the characters are getting to me, and my mind keeps wandering. I walked past Viv’s memorial on the way to school, but it didn’t look any different. I didn’t hear Nina’s voice. I stare into space and wonder why her green-light-portal thing came through
there
. I wish for the hundredth time that I had asked Nina how she knew Viv.
Mike interrupts my thoughts. “So the whole team is gonna grab something to eat at Fast Break after practice …”
“Um, have fun.”
I start thumbing through my book, looking for the page I’d been staring at.
He clears his throat. “I was kind of thinking maybe you’d come too.”
I stop turning pages, but I don’t look up.
“I’m not on the team anymore.”
“You don’t have to be on the team just to come hang out.”
I snap the book shut and stuff it into my bag. Fast Break is the dingy late-night diner we sometimes went to after practices, and after every game. The guys would sit on one side of the room and the cheerleaders on the other. I bite my lip at the memory. Freshman year, before Andy Lowery got hurt and I got bumped up to starting quarterback, I was sitting in the sticky booths surrounded by other Fowler Rams when I got my first glimpse of Viv. We’d just finished practice and I felt amazing. When the cheerleaders came in, the guys started whistling and calling, so I joined in. The older girls ignored us, but when Viv turned, glowing and smiling from her very first practice, I stopped. She walked to the adjacent booth and sat in Logan’s lap. My heart sank when he put a possessive arm around her, but then she looked up and our eyes met.
I winked. Viv smiled. Logan never saw it coming.
It seems like another life.
Mike is looking at me like he thinks I’ve actually stepped inside Fast Break in the last two years. Like going there now would be no big deal. I glance down the hall toward the cafeteria. A group of people loiters outside the door, and I spot Logan among them. He pinches Tash Clemons’s ass. The cheerleader whips around shrieking, feigning anger and failing at flirtation.
“Thanks … I just can’t,” I say.
Mike follows my gaze and grunts. “Come on, West’s a dick, but everyone else—”
I shake my head. I won’t win any favors with everyone else at this point.
He furrows his brow and wads up his energy-bar wrapper.
“The new place then, Dina’s Diner? Across the street.”
“What?”
He sighs. “We used to hang out all the time, Cam.”
He’s right. Even after my injury, when Viv turned in her pom-poms and I didn’t return to practice, he invited us out—both of us. The cheer squad turned catty, the team stopped talking to me, but Mike never bought the bullshit. It’s not like he quit football in support or anything, he just kept treating me and Viv the way he did everyone. So when Viv suggested we avoid him to spare his reputation, I couldn’t really argue.
He’s an adorable, loyal puppy
, she’d said.
No one wants to hurt a puppy.
I glance at the open notebook in his lap. Today he’s sketching some kind of hairy monster—he’s always drawing monsters or girls. Grabbing food with Mike would be a normal thing to do. And I might actually be spending time with someone who wants my company. These days my doctor and my mom are the only people happy to see me, and one of them gets paid by the other for the privilege.
“Um, okay, I guess—”
“Hey, man, I’m not asking you on a date,” he says.
I can’t help it; I laugh. “You think this new place has chili fries anything like Fast Break?”
“The ones that burn all the way down? I doubt it.” Mike pops me in the shoulder. “Fry judgment—six o’clock. See you there.”
The air is frosty and still as I cross the parking lot of Dina’s Delicious Diner—
Now Open!
It hasn’t snowed yet, but the clear sky seems eager to pull a blanket of clouds over itself.
I glance at the half-burned-out orange neon sign across the street. It says
FAST
over the door, and I guess no one can argue with that. The garage-door walls and rusted light fixtures angled over the parking lot suggest Fast Break used to be a run-down gas station. Now it looks like a run-down gas station someone converted into a restaurant. It’s even dingier than I remember, or maybe it’s just decayed two more years since I bothered to notice. People I used to know are crammed into hard blue plastic booths by the windows, huddled over chili fries and giant chocolate shakes. It would be easy to cross the street, open the door, and walk in.
It’s easier not to.
I pull open Dina’s door and am met with green carpet, warm wooden furniture, and chickens … everywhere. They’re painted all over the hostess stand, decorate the curtains, and are perched on high shelves, leering at me behind waxy plastic plants. There’s a display case in the foyer with at least twelve different kinds of pie, all guarded by colorful ceramic and stuffed fowl. The place is busy, but I spot Mike waiting in a booth across the room.
I weave my way behind a table of saggy old men, and around a mother trying to herd two little kids to the bathroom. I sink into the cushy green seat across from Mike and find myself eye to eye with what looks like an actual rooster … or what used to be. I slide it down the table toward the window.
“What’s with the chickens?” I ask.
Mike opens his mouth, but our waitress comes, so he shakes his head and stifles a laugh. I get my answer when she hands us each a menu, and I acquaint myself with Dina’s Delicious assortment of Country Burgers, Country Steaks, Country Potatoes, Country Gravy, and Country Pies. Apparently if you want to eat country food, it is best done in the ambiance of a quaint barnyard.
“I kind of doubt they serve Country Chili Fries,” Mike whispers.
They don’t, but we order something called Country Poutine, which is supposed to consist of french fries, country gravy, and cheese curd. Close enough.
I fidget while we wait for our food. The chickens seem to be staring at me from all over the room. Viv would’ve hated them too.
“Hey, isn’t that—” Mike stops. “I think I recognize that girl.”
I swivel in my seat, but the room is full of families and I can’t tell who he’s pointing at.
“Who?”
“That girl, over there?” He snaps his fingers, then points at me and grins. “Isn’t she the girl I saw you with last night?”
I inhale soda, and it drips into my lungs and out my nose. I cough until the room looks like a blur of green and gold feathers through my carbonation-stung eyes. I try to focus, and think I see a copper-colored head, but it ducks into the kitchen before my vision clears.
“I wasn’t with a”—I cough again and take in a ragged breath—“girl last night.”
Mike looks at me funny. “I drove right by you on the corner after practice. I was going to stop, but the way you both looked … I thought she might be a relative of Viv’s or something.” He gestures across the room. “Do you want to say hi?”
I look up, and forget how to breathe all over again.
Nina
is standing on the other side of the room taking an order. She’s wearing a green apron with her hair pulled back. There’s a pen tucked behind her ear and she’s smiling … but it’s her.
She’s here.
The noise in the restaurant rises to a clamor inside my head. The room is too warm, too small. The fluorescents are too bright. The chickens stare glassy-eyed from every corner. This is worse than opening my door and finding her on my porch, because Mike’s here watching—he’s pointing her
out
. I can’t believe he’s part of it. I’m the biggest idiot in town.
“Did Logan put you up to this?” I demand. “Is this a fucking joke?”
“Logan? Wait, what?”
“Tell me.” I slam my fist on the table. “Because I never thought you—”
“Whoa.” He holds up his hands. “What are you talking about, Cam?”
It doesn’t make sense.
I saw her disappear
. Logan couldn’t have orchestrated that. But if she went back to wherever she came from, why is she taking a dinner order across the room?
I watch Nina laughing with the patrons, a light pink blush coloring her cheeks. She hasn’t seen me. She goes behind the register alone, and I’m out of my seat, making my way through the barnyard. I get to the counter and lean over, unblinking, so I won’t miss her expression when she does notice me.
She looks up with a smile, catches my eye, and says, “How was dinner tonight?”
“What?”
“Did you get to try a slice of our Country Pecan Pie?”
The freckles on her nose bunch up when she smiles. I check her name tag, uncertain.
“That’s all you have to say?”
Her smile wavers.
“I’m sorry, was there a problem with your meal, sir?”
“Sir?”
I start to reach for her, but Mike appears next to me and grips my arm like a vice. I try to wrench him off me, but he holds fast. He throws money down on the counter.
“Here, sorry, we thought you were someone else.... Sorry.”
She looks from me to Mike to the money, and back to me. Her brown eyes go from confusion to concern, but never hint at recognition as Mike hauls me out the door.
When we’re in the parking lot, he lets go and puts some distance between us.
“What the hell was that?” he demands.
I can’t speak, but out here, I can breathe again. I squat and rest my head in my hands, trying to make sense of—everything. That she was there, not gone …
“Cam?” Mike asks uneasily.
One thought keeps playing over in my mind, but I know I’m wrong. I
saw
her disappear.
“Logan West is fucking with me!”
“Logan?” Mike asks, bewildered. “What did
that
have to do with Logan?”
I stand up and stare at Fast Break across the street.
“He has to be paying that girl. She’s in on it too.”
“I don’t think—” Mike hesitates, but when he speaks again, his voice is level. “Maybe—maybe I shouldn’t have pushed you to come out tonight....”
I roll my eyes and walk across the dark, empty street. Logan is going to pay.
“Cam? Where are you going?” He runs to catch up.
My jaw tightens against the cold. All I can see are the lit-up garage-door windows in front of me. Logan’s inside, at the center of the group. Tash is squished in next to him, giggling and running her hand through his hair. The girls all look like they want to throw her under a bus. Logan sits there like he’s the master of the universe. I used to look just like him, and it makes me want to puke.