Chapter 17

CHAPTER

17

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO

That summer was hot and boring. Earlier that same year, we’d had back-to-back blizzards that blanketed Maryland in more snow than I’d ever seen in my life, but the summer that followed was largely forgettable. I never thought of myself as struggling to find things to do—I’d spent a good chunk of my life at home, after all, and had gotten pretty good at entertaining myself—but for those three months, I felt a little lost. Come September, I’d have to start thinking about college, mapping out my future, but in the meantime, I existed to make my parents’ lives easier. There was an uneasy sort of truce in the house—my parents had stopped arguing every night, but now it felt like they hardly spoke to each other. I drove Dad to his physical therapy appointments and watched Reagan while Mom was at work. I couldn’t find the motivation to pick up a book and I barely saw my friends.

I kept in touch with Teddy over Facebook; his replies were sporadic, dependent on whether he had internet access in whatever hostel he was staying in. So naturally, when I booted up the computer on a random Wednesday morning in July and realized he was online, I decided to post a status update to mess with him.

Well-behaved women seldom make history— Eleanor Roosevelt

Within minutes, he’d liked the status, and then an instant message popped up on my screen.

Teddy: How do you suppose Laurel Thatcher Ulrich feels when you attribute that quote to Eleanor Roosevelt

Teddy:?

Clara: Who is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich? I thought it was a quote by Anne Boleyn

Teddy: Haha

Teddy: You can’t fool me

Teddy: I know a Mary Todd Lincoln quote when I see one

Clara: I’ve missed this

Teddy: I’ve missed you

Teddy: Free for a video call?

Ten minutes later, I’d set up my webcam, hurriedly swept my fingers through my hair to make sure I didn’t look like I’d just crawled out of bed, and clicked to accept. Teddy materialized on the screen, a little pixelated at first, but then it cleared. Warm light spilled through the hostel window and his handsome face split into a broad grin. “Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I said back, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. “How’s Europe?”

“Great. We’re in Bruges right now, but tomorrow we’ll catch a train back to Brussels, and then it’s over to London.” He said this very fast, with breathless wonder, as though it was still surreal, even for him. “Clara, there’s so much history over here. You’d love it.”

My heart squeezed in my chest, an ache and a relief all at once, like massaging a sore muscle. I wanted to be there with him, to decide for myself. But I didn’t voice that; we hadn’t discussed what transpired that day at the park, just as promised. It could wait. “Bruges,” I repeated. “They’re famous for, what? Painting?”

“Lacemaking,” he corrected me, “but I think most people visit for the architecture.”

“How’s the weather?” I cringed even as I was asking it. It was a throwaway question, impersonal, the sort of thing my mom asked strangers while paying the cable bill over the phone. But I wanted to live a little vicariously, to imagine something other than being cooped up in the house.

“Pretty mild,” he said. “It was hotter down in Marseille, though.”

They’d spent at least two weeks backpacking through Provence-Alpes-C?te d’Azur, couch surfing and staying in cheap hostels. The Mediterranean had treated him well, it seemed. His olive skin was tanned to a deep bronze and the shadow of stubble traced his jaw. He looked good. Really good.

“I hope you’re taking lots of pictures,” I said.

“I am, but I won’t be able to upload them until—” He was interrupted by knocking and pivoted at the waist to look over his shoulder. Hinges groaned and a male voice drawled somewhere off screen, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was saying. “Right,” Teddy said to him. “Yeah, I know. Be there in five.” He turned back to me, raising his eyebrows in that way that said, wordlessly, This guy is annoying the hell out of me . “Sorry. Not a lot of privacy, traveling like this.”

A triple bunk with a metal frame was pushed up against the wall behind him, the bleached white sheets tangled on the bottom bed. I wondered what he needed privacy for. Insecurity bubbled to the surface, because maybe he wanted to bring girls back to his room, but I shoved that thought back down.

It wasn’t any of my business what he was doing, because we’d put that conversation on hold, at least for now —however long that was. And while it was hard to get a read on things without seeing him in person, I could tell that our friendship hadn’t gone back to normal, exactly. The kiss had changed things, a shifting of tectonic plates that had settled but left a permanent fault line.

“Hey, so I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he continued, “but I wanted to wait until I could actually do it, you know”—he indicated the camera—“face-to-face, sort of, or at least as close to face-to-face as we can get. My application for transfer got accepted. I’m going to Cornell in the spring.”

I blinked at him, processing the new information, because my mind was still on him flirting with French girls. “But that’s all the way up in New York.”

“I was expecting something more along the lines of ‘Congratulations, Teddy, that’s great.’”

“I’m sorry, it’s just—” I tried and failed to put what I was feeling into words. This was exactly why we couldn’t be anything more. I didn’t want to resent Teddy for getting in to his dream school, for succeeding in all the things he wanted to do. But it felt as though the plates were shifting again, the fault widening.

I put on a tight-lipped smile. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you. I really am.”

“Thank you,” he said, a little wary.

I could sense that he was still a little bothered by my initial reaction, so I elected to change the subject. “So, London.”

He swept a hand through his hair, mussing the loose curls. He hadn’t had a haircut in months, probably, but it suited him. “For a few days. Then it’s over to Cardiff.”

“I’m so jealous,” I breathed. I’d always wanted to travel, but the farthest I’d ever been was my grandmother’s house in Knoxville. And my parents certainly weren’t in a position to pay for any summers spent abroad, so I likely wouldn’t get to go anywhere until I could pay for it myself.

“I’ll bring you a souvenir,” he said, like it was my consolation prize, but I looked forward to it anyway.

We didn’t see each other for an entire year.

Because he’d finished with the homeschooling program a year ahead of schedule, Teddy didn’t attend camp that September. A part of me mourned, because it hadn’t crossed my mind that last year would be his last year, and now it was my last year and it didn’t feel the same without him.

I hadn’t told anyone about the kiss in the spring, but I ended up confessing to Izzy the first week of camp. It was an usually warm day for September, and we’d decided to lie out by the lake. “It’s like Allie and Noah in The Notebook, ” she said, a lithe brown arm slung over her eyes to shield them from the sun. “Sometimes people drift apart because the timing’s not right, but if they’re meant to be together, they find their way back to each other in the end.”

I picked at a loose terry cloth fiber in the towel I was lying on. “Okay, but they were actually in a relationship. Teddy and I are just—” I broke off, because I wasn’t sure friends summed it up anymore.

That night, drowsy after a day of sunbathing and swimming, she insisted on putting The Notebook on her laptop before bed—for “educational purposes.” I’d seen it before—several times and often under duress, because it was one of my mom’s favorites—but when Izzy passed out about ten minutes in, drooling on her pillow, I had little else to occupy my thoughts. I lay awake on my side, propped up on an elbow with only the cold light of the laptop screen for company.

When the movie reached the first fumbling sex scene, my heart sped up. I was going to be eighteen by the end of the school year and I hadn’t had sex yet. I didn’t know if eighteen was late for that sort of thing, and I felt all the more na?ve for not knowing. I shut the laptop and rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Teddy was the only boy I’d ever kissed. I never thought of myself as particularly sheltered—I’d had unrestricted access to the internet in recent years, with plenty of time to look up sex terms like Eiffel Tower on Urban Dictionary, only to X out of the window, mortified—but I also had very limited practical experience.

“Izzy,” I whispered. She didn’t respond, so I shook her shoulder. “Izzy.”

“Mmm?”

“Are you a virgin?”

She lifted her head a couple inches, disheveled hair spilling around her like a lion’s mane. “Virginity is a social construct.”

“No, but I mean—have you done anything? With anyone?”

“Yes.”

“With who?”

“Skylar. You met her, at the sleepover that one time.”

I considered this for a moment. “What sort of stuff did you guys do?”

Izzy made a noncommittal noise into her pillow. “Touching,” she said, her voice muffled. “And I sent her some pictures.”

“Pictures?” I hissed, surprised. “What kind of pictures?”

“Just me in a bikini. And underwear, one time.” She lifted up to fluff her pillow and turned her head to the other side. “Can we go back to sleep now?”

“Sorry. Good night.” I crawled out of Izzy’s bed and back to my own bunk, but I didn’t fall asleep. I lay awake for hours, thinking about pictures. And I wondered if any girls had sent pictures to Teddy.

As soon as camp ended in October, I drove to a couple local universities to meet with admissions counselors, some of whom did more discouraging than actual counseling.

“But my test scores came back really good, and my GPA is almost perfect,” I’d argued during a Skype call with an advisor at University of Pennsylvania, when she told me she just couldn’t see how to frame my application in a way that felt competitive. “The only reason it’s not a 4.0 is because I got a B in Latin, and that was an elective. I got an A in French I and II. I got As in everything.”

She gave me a paper-thin smile. “To be frank with you, dear, I’m not sure that counts for much of anything when your mother’s the one who graded you.”

“But my mom’s not the one who graded me,” I said, my face hot. “I have an independent study teacher who checks all my work. The program is accredited. It’s a public charter school, the same as any other public school, we just do the work at home.”

The counselor heaved a sigh. “Well, I can’t stop you from applying,” she conceded. “All I’m saying is, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. These homeschooling programs, they don’t look great on college applications.”

I applied anyway, to all the schools on my list. Penn rejected me with a polite but impersonal letter, as did several others, but I was accepted to both Duke and Johns Hopkins—without the sort of financial aid packages that I’d hoped for. The only school that seemed to take pity on me was University of Maryland, just a stone’s throw away on the outskirts of Washington D.C.

“Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise, Clare Bear,” Dad told me one day. I was moping at the dinner table, pushing my mashed potatoes around my plate with a fork so that the gravy spilled down the sides in rivulets. “Now you’ll be closer to your family.”

I suspected he felt guilty, like it was his fault for getting injured, his fault that my parents had burned through my would-be college fund when our family needed it most. I didn’t resent them for it. If it weren’t for our difficult financial circumstance, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the aid to attend UMD at all. But it seemed lackluster compared to my friends’ plans—Izzy taking a gap year to live with her cousins in Brazil, or Darvish’s parents covering his full tuition to UC Berkeley.

By the time the holidays rolled around, my schedule was just too jumbled to coordinate anything with Teddy. I’d picked up a job at a local sandwich shop to help sock away money for college. Mom suggested that I invite him for Thanksgiving, but his parents wanted him to spend Thanksgiving with them, so we came to a sort of stalemate. We tried to revive Long-Distance History Club, but it was more a series of history memes and fragmented texts than any meaningful conversation.

An envelope arrived in the mail addressed to me the week before Christmas. Enclosed was a brief note from Teddy, along with the souvenir he’d promised: a reproduction Tudor sixpence on a simple leather cord. It wasn’t lavish or particularly high quality—more like the sort of thing I imagined they sold in the gift shop at Hampton Court Palace—but I took to wearing it anyway.

My mom dragged us down to Knoxville for Christmas to visit my grandma, and to my surprise, Dad came as well, though neither of them talked all that much on the car ride down. Teddy and I sent our respective Happy Birthday texts a few days later. Our eighteenth birthdays, a turning point in our lives. We were adults now. Perhaps him more than me, in some ways—while he was away at college, I was still plunking through my last few high school requirements.

But it was also a turning point for our friendship. The longer we put this conversation off, I realized, the greater the likelihood that it would be irrevocably complicated. Maybe he’d get tangled up with some girl at school, or I’d start dating some guy in my dorm next year, when I started college. But it wasn’t until the day after my birthday, New Year’s Eve, that I found the courage to actually bring it up.

My family had gathered around the yellowed oak table in my grandma’s dining room with plastic flutes of Martinelli’s, watching Times Square on the boxy old television set. My phone buzzed in my lap and I checked it beneath the table.

Teddy: Happy New Year’s Eve. Any resolutions this year?

Clara: Not exactly

Clara: Do you have time for a quick phone call?

Within seconds, my phone started ringing. Incoming call: Teddy Harrison. I got up from the table.

“Where are you going?” Dad asked, indicating the television. “You’re going to miss the ball drop.”

“I’ll just be a second,” I said before slipping out of the room. I wandered over to the living room, well out of earshot from my parents. The tree was still up, decked in multicolored lights and ugly, sentimental ornaments. I held the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Teddy said, his voice low—like he, too, had stolen away to some dark corner to talk to me. “So what’s up?”

It was only a few minutes to midnight, so there was no time for beating around the bush. “Do you remember last spring, that thing that happened in the car?”

“Well, yeah.”

“We said we wouldn’t talk about it. Or that we’d talk about it later, I mean.” I was speaking fast, frantic, trying to get it all out before anyone came looking for me. “I’m tired of not talking about it.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “What do you want to say?”

“I wanted to let you know that it’s been really confusing. I’m not blaming you, it just—” I broke off, twiddling a pink light on the tree, the bulb warm to the touch. “I’ve thought about it. A lot. And I think it’s pretty obvious that it wouldn’t work. At least not right now.”

Teddy chuckled awkwardly. “It’s not like I asked you to marry me.”

“I know, it’s just—” I lowered my voice, not quite a whisper, but quiet enough that I knew there was no chance of it carrying into the next room. “That’s the thing. We both want to focus on our futures. Right? We don’t want to end up like our parents did.”

“Right,” he agreed.

“But we kissed and we’re still friends.” I paused, waiting for him to understand what I was saying, the big eureka moment, but the line was quiet. “So, I’ve been thinking, you know, maybe—” I took a deep breath. “Maybe we can. Kiss. And do other stuff.”

“What, you mean just as friends?” he asked.

“Yes.” Another pause, but still he didn’t say anything. “You’re being quiet. What are you thinking?”

He sighed, a rush of air into the phone. “I’m thinking that I care about you. A lot. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Then don’t hurt me,” I said. “As long as you keep being my friend, I promise, I won’t get hurt.”

I wished I could see his face, get a better read on him, but even over the phone, I sensed his hesitation. In the other room, my family started counting down to midnight.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

My dad’s voice cut through the chant: “Where’s Clara?”

Six .

Mom stepped into the living room, a flute of champagne in one hand, my Martinelli’s in the other. “There you are.”

“Give me five minutes to convince you,” I whispered into the phone.

Three.

My mom pressed the plastic flute into my hand and ushered me back into the dining room.

Two.

One.

“All right,” Teddy agreed.

I hung up just after the clock struck midnight, without ever wishing Teddy a happy new year. Grandma pulled the string on a popper, showering the table in confetti. My parents shared a quick, chaste kiss, like they were actors on a stage, trying to convince the rest of us that they were happy. Reagan blew on a paper horn, a relentless honk, honk, honk that drowned out whatever rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” was playing over the television. I toasted my plastic flute, downed it in two gulps, and excused myself to the bathroom, taking my phone with me.

I locked the door, peeled off my sweater, and checked my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I was wearing a coral-pink bra trimmed with lace, not a push-up or anything fancy like the stuff Izzy wore, but it didn’t look bad. I tousled my hair with my fingers and stepped back from the mirror for the full effect. I felt like it looked weird to leave my jeans on, so I shimmied out of them, revealing black boy shorts. It didn’t match. Was it supposed to match? But I only had a couple minutes left, so I didn’t have time to change. I opened the camera on my phone and snapped a quick picture. It actually looked pretty good. Pulse hammering, I pressed send.

Afterward, I dressed and went to tell my family good night, but all I could think about was Teddy. The minutes ticked by, but he wasn’t answering. I’d never sent anyone a picture like that before, and I felt suddenly more than a little self-conscious. Was he just going to ignore it? Maybe it wasn’t a good picture after all.

It wasn’t until I was lying in bed that he finally texted back. I reached for my phone on the nightstand, the screen blinding white in the dark.

Teddy: I’ve figured out your New Year’s resolution

I stared at the message, my brow knit. Maybe he didn’t receive the picture. Or maybe he was trying to change the subject. I started to text back, but then he sent a follow-up message:

Teddy: Wear that for me. In person.