maybe we really would get through this

I winced as the underbrush cut into my ankle, immediately feeling the warmth of my blood colliding with the cool night air. It was the time of year when summer gave way to fall-- warm and sunny all day, changing to cool and crisp as the sun disappeared into the horizon, making shorts not the best choice.

Gracie squeezed my hand. I glanced over, noting her forlorn expression. It seemed to be permanently plastered on her face anymore. I gently squeezed back, feeling her soft fingers grip tighter around the curve between my thumb and forefinger. She didn’t have fingernails; they were all bitten to the quick. Her gray eyes were guarded when she glanced up at me.

I sighed. “Wish I knew what was bothering you.”

She looked away, pulled her hand from mine and tucked both hands under her arms as if she were cold. “Don’t.”

I swallowed hard. In the three years we’d been together, she’d never been so distant. The last few months had become practically unbearable, making me wonder how much longer we would last. We used to share everything, be the best of friends. Now she was suddenly remote. This wasn’t the Gracie I fell in love with.

The Gracie I fell in love with wasn’t like any other girl I knew. She was focused, sweet, and always smiling. The future was all she ever used to talk about; getting out of this town and beginning the rest of her life. Her eyes would light up like fireflies in June when she spoke of how she would be a journalist in a big city, writing stories that made a difference. I guess it was this passion that drew me to her. She made the impossible seem possible.

We reached the point where we parted, halfway between the subdivision I’d grown up in and the trailer park she’d moved to the summer before starting high school. I stood in front of her and pulled her hands from under her arms. Lacing our fingers together, I tried to look into her eyes, but her gaze fell beyond me.

“Hey, look at me,” I said softly.

She craned her neck to cast her vision higher- anywhere but into my eyes. I followed her gaze down the path that would take her home.

“There’s just things, Tanner,” she said, her voice shaky. Finally, her eyes found mine. She faked a small smile and blinked quickly. “It’ll all be alright.” She looked away again. “Soon.”

I bit the inside of my lip, frustrated with how evasive she’d become. She looked at me again, this time her eyes moist.

“I just don’t get why you can’t let me in anymore.” I looked at the night sky. “What is going on that you can’t tell me?”

She shifted her weight, and I looked back to see a tear stream down her left cheek, leaving a trail of wetness behind. Letting go of one of her hands, I reached up to wipe it away. Those random, unexplained tears had become more and more frequent.

When I tried to brush away the tear, she pulled back, leaving my hand midair as she crossed her arms over her chest again and took two steps back.

“You can’t just wipe it away. It doesn’t fix anything,” she said, blinking her eyes nervously.

“Gracie, I….” I didn’t really know what to say. “I love you, and hate seeing you like this. Maybe you need to see a counselor or something.”

“Oh, yeah.” She rolled her eyes and chuckled softly. “A counselor. That’ll fix everything. Why didn’t I think of that?” She took a few more steps away.

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just worried about you.”

She met my eyes with a hard look. “That’s good. You should be.”

I took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t want to fight. Okay?” I held my arms out to her, but she didn’t move. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

She stood rigid like the tall oak trees enveloping us, staring at me, tears cascading her smooth cheeks.

“Gracie?”

“Yeah. In the morning.”

She moved into my arms, and it felt as natural and perfect as it had when summer began-- except her body quivered with sobs now. I folded her into me, feeling her hands on my waist, creeping under my cotton t-shirt. Her honey-colored hair smelled of coconut and reminded me of warm summer days. I kissed her forehead, and she looked up at me.

“I love you, Tanner.”

I smiled, kissed her forehead again. “I love you, too. And we’ll get through this.”

She nodded, and it made me feel better, as if maybe we really would get through this.

hoping there would be a smile

I glanced at the clock to see I was going to be late again. Damn it. Why can’t I wake up on time? This would be my fourth tardy, and it was only the third week of school. Fourth tardy equals detention. Detention equals pissed-off dad.

I threw on khaki shorts and a T-shirt I thought was clean, realized it wasn’t, grabbed another one, ran to the bathroom, swiped deodorant across my pits, brushed my teeth, grabbed my cell and threw it in my backpack, ran down the stairs, out the door and got into my car.

As I pulled out of my neighborhood, making a left on Highway 7, a few raindrops fell from the sky. I looked down Candletree Lane, the road that led into Candle Wood Park where Gracie lived, as a car turned into the park from the opposite direction.

People say love at first sight is a crock, especially when you’re fourteen, but I believe in it wholeheartedly. For three years I’ve defended our relationship. I wasn’t just going to give up because she’s depressed. She means too much to me. We’ll get through this.

Luckily, I flew into first hour American Studies as the bell rang.

“Nothing like the last minute, Mr. Kelley,” Ms. Plesko said as I slid into my seat.

“It’s a monsoon out there. Mudslides everywhere. They should’ve cancelled school,” I said with a straight face.

Ms. Plesko glanced out the window as several students snickered. The drops from moments earlier had vanished, the sun now peeking through the clouds. “Ah. I see. Hurricane-force winds and everything.” She looked pointedly at me. “Nice try, but this is Illinois.”

I shrugged and winked at her. “Thanks.”

She shook her head and looked away, picking up some papers from her desk. Quinton Pierce tossed a folded piece of paper on my desk. I snatched it up, threw him a nasty look and moved the paper to my lap where Ms. Plesko couldn’t see it.

I opened it gingerly and read: She’s got it bad for you, Mr. Kelley.

I rolled my eyes and crumpled the note up in my hand, glancing at Quinton. He was making a kissy face. I threw the balled-up paper at him, hitting him on the shoulder. It fell to the floor and rolled several feet away.

I bent over, but before I even had a chance to grab it, Ms. Plesko’s high-heeled feet were there, her manicured hand reaching down to pick up the note.

I shrunk back in my seat, propping my feet on the book rack under Bailey Thomas’s desk in front of me. Opening my textbook, I glanced at Quinton as Ms. Plesko flattened the paper in her hand. Her face turned bright red as she read the words. I couldn’t help grinning. She walked away, ripping the paper as she went, and tossed it in the trash before returning to the lesson.

When the bell rang, I darted to the door, hoping to avoid any scrutiny even though I wasn’t the one who wrote the note. Besides, second hour was calculus with Gracie. Hopefully she was in a better mood than last night.

“Tanner,” Ms. Plesko said firmly. I froze and rolled my eyes. I stood by the door as everyone else, including Quinton, passed by. When they were gone, she sat on the edge of her desk and picked up a packet of papers, resting it on her knee. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

I sighed, knowing what was in her hand. Last Friday I had turned in a paper about my thoughts on whether or not slavery should have been abolished. The thing was: Gracie wrote it. Last year. But I changed around most of the words. Okay, some of the words. A few. Fine. My name. I put my name instead of hers.

“This paper is very deep,” she started. “And strangely familiar.” She hesitated, probably waiting for me to ‘fess up. “So I looked back at papers written last year and found that Gracie Hamilton’s is very, very similar. Almost identical. Do you have any thoughts on that?”

I crinkled my brow. “Well, Gracie’s my girlfriend, you know. We’re pretty close and share a lot of the same views.”

She nodded slowly, crossing one leg over the other. “So you think slavery shouldn’t have been abolished?”

“What?” It doesn’t say that. Or does it?

“Gracie is the only one who’s ever had that view in all the years I’ve been handing out this assignment. Well, and you.” She held the paper out for me to take. Hesitantly, I did.

I stared down at the words on the page, never really seeing them before. Gracie thought slavery shouldn’t have been abolished? Why?

“I want a new paper tomorrow or you get a zero.”

I sucked in my breath and nodded. “I’m gonna be late.”

She smiled wryly. “Blame it on the hurricane.”

I gave her a half-smile and darted out the door, my mind shifting to seeing Gracie’s face, and hoping there would be a smile on it today.

or so I thought I did

Once again, I slid into my seat as the bell rang, but the seat next to mine-- Gracie’s seat-- was empty. I leaned over to ask Natalie Weaver if she’d seen her when the PA system beeped.

“Mr. Bland?” the voice on the other end bellowed.

“Yes?”

“Um, could you send Tanner Kelley to the office?”

A chorus of oooohhh’s sounded from my classmates, and I flashed a lopsided smile at them as I stood, leaving my backpack on my desk.

“See ya in detention,” Matt Rhodes called out.

No, I doubt it. I hadn’t done anything. Unless Ms. Plesko turned me in for that note. I didn’t even write it; Quinton did. If I’m going down, then so is he. This couldn’t be about the plagiarized paper I’d tried to pass off; she was giving me another chance.

Maybe someone had seen me and Gracie sneak off campus during lunch last Friday. That had to be it. And Gracie’s already in the office. That’s why she not in class. Skipping class was nothing new for me, but for Gracie, if we were caught, this would be a big deal. We hadn’t done anything, really. It was a short walk to The Spot, and we’d only been gone forty-five minutes, returning to school in time for fifth period, Gracie’s eyes red and puffy from all her unexplainable crying.

Whatever was eating at her core was starting to eat at mine. We’re two halves of a whole. We complete each other. I’m everything she’s not, and she’s everything I’m not. She used to say I was her Siamese twin and we’d been separated at birth. Then she found out it was politically correct to say conjoined twins. I liked Siamese better. Made me think of those cats in Lady and the Tramp. They were just plain evil. When I told her this, she looked at me as if I were nuts.

Anyway, this pain she’s in, this sadness she’s battling, I feel it too. And every day it got harder and harder to just be idle and watch her suffer. Something had to give. The light in her eyes was gone, the passion in her voice nil, and her big dreams seem to have disappeared.

I skipped down the last of the steps and crossed the hall to the office. Mrs. Kinney, the school secretary, nodded once toward the door to the principal’s office. I clenched my jaw and stepped in to see Mr. Carter, disappointed Gracie wasn’t there. I’d have to text her after this.

“Tanner, have a seat.” Mr. Carter, the assistant principal, was a large man, haven eaten a few too many double-cheeseburgers in his life. His dark hair was receding, and he always looked like he needed to shave. Permanent five-o-clock shadow.

“What’s up?” I asked easily. Didn’t want to seem guilty. Which I wasn’t.

He smiled, but it seemed forced, the lines around his eyes deep. “Tanner, something….” He stopped and looked at his desk, as if he forgot what he was going to say. When he looked back up, I could tell something was wrong. “I called your mom, and she said she couldn’t leave work, so she wanted me to let you know.”

My mind raced. Something seriously was wrong, but not so wrong that my mom would leave work. Had my house burnt down? No, not this quick. I was just there an hour ago. Oh, my God. Had I left our dog, Lucy, outside and she got hit by a car? No, I’m pretty sure my mom would leave work for either of those things.

I leaned forward, waiting for Mr. Carter to spill the news.

“There’s been an…accident…with Gracie.”

The way he said accident told me it was more than an accident. “What do you mean? Is that why she’s not here?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, it is.”

“What happened? Can I leave to go see her?”

He looked at his desk again, and I pictured her smiling, driving her old Honda along Highway 7 and getting broadsided by a Mack truck.

“Is she okay?” I spouted, fearing something worse than an accident. In the outer office, I could hear the cackle of the old music teacher.

“Tanner, Gracie was found unresponsive in her bedroom this morning. They weren’t able to revive her.”

He might have said more, but I can’t be sure. It was like the chair slipped from under me and I was falling-- falling from somewhere very high. And to whatever depths I was plunging, the oxygen was being sucked from my lungs. Good. Give it to Gracie. Give her breath. Give her mine.

“What?” I heard my mouth say. Mr. Carter moved toward me, but I looked all around the office, desperate to find something, some evidence this wasn’t real. But all I could see was diplomas and books and family pictures. Mr. Carter has two daughters and a son. His wife’s a cow. They have a fluffy dog. He graduated from the University of Illinois. In 1990. God, how old was he? He had to be in his-what? - fifties? No, wait. He’s the same age as my parents. They went to school together.

This was a dream. In a minute, I would wake up and look at the clock and be late for school. I’d gladly serve detention. Proudly, even.

Just not this.

Mr. Carter’s mouth moved, and I could feel wetness on my cheeks: tears. Gracie’s pain coming through me now. It happens, just usually when I’m alone.

“Tanner,” Mr. Carter said, probably for the hundredth time.

I tried to focus on him, but my vision was blurred by salty tears. Over his right shoulder, I could see out the window into the staff parking lot. Mrs. Evans, the school counselor, was getting out of her sedan, her cell phone in hand as if she were checking a text message. Beyond her was the green expanse of the football field, surrounded by the track where Gracie and I had run so many times. She always beat me. I acted like I let her, but the truth was she was just faster than me. She knew it but wouldn’t tell. Maybe if we started running again, that would help her depression or whatever this was.

Beyond the track were the woods that separated her house from mine. The woods where we went to be alone: The Spot. Back when everyone was against the idea of ‘us’, we would hide there for hours.

I stood up, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but here. I needed to see Gracie, make sure she was all right. Mr. Carter stood too, grabbed my elbow to steady me.

“Are you okay?” His sounded like it came from far away.

“What happened?” My voice, too, sounding like it came from a distance. I wiped my cheeks and asked again. “What happened?”

His hand moved to my shoulder, trying again to keep me from falling. “It looks like suicide.”

No.

No.

No.

That wasn’t what he was supposed to say. If anything, if she was really dead, then it had to be something beyond her control. “She wouldn’t,” I breathed. “She wouldn’t.” She was supposed to get better.

She said we’d get through this.

She said she’d see me in the morning.

The door opened behind me. I hadn’t even realized it was closed. Mrs. Evans, the counselor, came into the small office. She slammed the door without meaning to, and I felt like the minty green cinderblock walls were closing in around me. I shrugged out of Mr. Carter’s grip.

“I gotta go,” I said louder than I meant to.

“Tanner, let’s talk,” Mrs. Evans said, her breath reeking of coffee. “I don’t think you’re in any condition to drive right now.”

“I’m fine! Everything’s fine.” I wiped my cheeks again. “And Gracie’s fine, too. She would never kill herself. She’s too smart to do that. Her whole life is ahead of her!” I choked on my own words, a sob wracking my body.

“Sometimes people have issues no one else knows about. Whatever was hurting Gracie, she didn’t see any other way out.” Mrs. Evans wore her trademark fake sympathy smile as she smoothed the collar of her cream-colored blouse.

I wanted to scream. Scream at both of them, scream at the world. Gracie is fine. “Gracie is fine.” I took a deep breath and met Mr. Carter’s eyes. “I’m gonna go now.”

He glanced at Mrs. Evans and nodded once at me.

I bolted out of the office and ran through the gravel parking lot, digging my keys from my pocket while I searched for Gracie’s car. Proof she was actually at school. When I started my car, music blared from the speakers, a Rascal Flats song, making me jump out of my skin. I slammed the power button on the stereo, silence suddenly consuming me. On my dash, covering the temperature gauge, was Gracie’s senior picture.

She looked like a dream to me. The type of girl any guy would be lucky to have. In the picture, she was laying on her stomach, her legs bent up at the knees, ankles crossed, feet bare. Her chin held up by her left hand, the dimple in her cheek showing. Her smile was priceless, framed by soft pink lips, and her long blonde hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall of spun gold.

To me, her eyes were her best feature. They were the color of the sky right before it rained, surrounded by long, dark lashes. They were wide and deep, filled with happiness. At least they used to be. Anymore they were full of shadows and unspoken words.

Well, I guess now they’re lifeless.

The thought came from somewhere, but not from me. Birds chirped outside the car. Maybe they were chirping their thoughts into my mind. I’ve always been a little suspicious of birds. The way they can just fly around without a care in the world. Something’s up with that.

I could feel pain in my heart, radiating outward through every organ, shooting through my every nerve and into my limbs.

Lifeless.

She can’t be lifeless.

I patted my pockets for my cell phone to no avail. Of course not. It was in my backpack, which was still in Mr. Bland’s classroom. God forbid we carried our cells in our pockets like normal people.

It didn’t matter. I put the car in reverse, the crunching of the gravel under my tires deafening to me, and pulled out of the parking lot, making my way to Highway 7. I headed north through town thinking maybe I could get Gracie to laugh when I told her about how Mr. Carter tried to tell me she killed herself. I laughed out loud. Yeah, she’d get a kick out of that.

If she’s still alive.

Another wave of pain moved through my body. This time it felt like it was in my veins, hot and acidic. Like alcohol on a fresh cut.

This couldn’t be a day someone died. The sun was shining. People were in cars all around me going about their days as normal. Two men stood outside Wood’s Barber Shop laughing. A mom was buckling her toddler into the backseat outside the First National Bank of Thomas City.

I turned right into Candle Wood Park and followed the winding roads, slowing for intermittent speed bumps. The speed limit through the park is 10 miles per hour, and according to the signs, strictly enforced. I moved at a snail’s pace past the older, single wide trailers until I got to the newer part of the park where the double-wide homes were. Modular homes, Gracie’s mom called them. Like that made it any less a trailer. Not that it mattered to me. I’d love Gracie even if she lived in a cardboard box under a bridge.

I pulled behind Gracie’s black Honda parked in front of the familiar tan trailer with the maroon shutters and turned off the engine. Her stepdad Tom’s truck was in the driveway. The house looked normal, like every day. There couldn’t possibly be anything wrong. Today is a day just like any other. I could hear the buzz of a lawnmower nearby and the whack of someone swinging a hammer.

With trepidation, I made my way through the yard, up the four steps and rapped on the door. I looked around the yard, the neighbors’ yards, and then to the sky, which was gray. In the distance, dark clouds loomed, threatening storms a crescendo to the earlier sprinkling.

Tom opened the door, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Um, is Gracie here?”

He took the cigarette from his mouth and rubbed his jaw line thoughtfully, as if I’d just asked him to solve a complex algebraic equation. “Gracie? I thought Tracy called the school.”

I stared at him, waiting for more. Some sort of an explanation. Waiting for him to tell me she had cramps and was in bed hopped up on Midol. Anything.

Anything except that she was dead.

He kept rubbing the stubble on his jaw, his dingy, once white t-shirt donning a grease stain in the center. “Well, I suppose she might still be at the hospital. Want me to call Tracy?”

“Yes, please.” I took a deep breath. If she’s at the hospital she couldn’t be dead. I went inside and stood in the living room while Tom made the call.

Everything inside looked as normal as always. Dust covering the Dollar Tree knick-knacks, toys from Gracie’s younger sisters strewn about. Someone had been playing Littlest Pet Shop near the window. It didn’t look like anyone had died here. Mr. Carter didn’t know what he was talking about. There was a freshman named Gracie. Maybe she’s the one who killed herself. Surely not my Gracie. Not the other half of my whole.

“Yeah, Tanner. She’s still at the hospital,” Tom said, the phone to his ear.

I nodded, relief flooding into me. Every part of my body relaxing, cell by cell. I wondered if I could sue Mr. Carter for lying to me.

“Is she alright? Can I go up there?”

He stared at me for a moment, not saying a word. “He wants to know if he can come up there,” he said into the phone, his voice strained.

Thunder rumbled outside, shaking the trailer.

“Tracy doesn’t think it’s a good idea. She says you can see her later.” He snuffed out his cigarette in a glass ashtray on the coffee table. The butt joined dozens like it in the grave of ashes.

I nodded. “What’s wrong with her?”

There was a long silence, accented by the sound of rain beating down on the roof of the trailer. Tom furrowed his brow and sat back on the worn couch.

“Tanner, son,” he started, and I knew. “Gracie’s dead. She killed herself.”

I bolted out the door and ran across the street into the woods, oblivious to the buckets of water pelting me from the sky. It was cold on my skin, but it didn’t faze me. I hoped whoever had been cutting their grass had finished before the rain started. And I hoped Ms. Plesko could see these monsoon rains from her classroom. I hoped she laughed.

I couldn’t hear the thunder; I couldn’t see the lightning. Stumbling through the brush, mud slapping up onto my shins, I made my way to The Spot.

I spread the wiry branches on the old pine tree, the only one in the woods, and fell into its canopy. It was damp in there, but I was shielded from the worst of the rain. Leaning back against the thick trunk, I pulled up my knees and lowered my head onto them. My brain wasn’t working right. I don’t think it knew how. My heart felt like it was being strangled, and it might as well be, because really, how was I going to live without her?

“Why?” I screamed, knowing no one would hear me, especially not her.

Especially not her.

Especially not her.

Maybe I should have pried a little more. I shouldn’t have just accepted that she didn’t want to talk about what was bothering her. She was my whole world, or so I said, and I accepted her evasiveness over and over again. I shouldn’t have let her go home last night. We could’ve stayed right here in The Spot all night. It was sheltered enough, and if it got too chilly, our body heat would’ve kept us warm.

Warm. I wondered if her body was still warm. When did she do it? Right when she got home? When she woke up? Did she know she was going to do it last night?

My mind couldn’t wrap itself around any of it. Like I’d walk out of the woods, and she’d be there again. Gracie would never kill herself. Never. We used to tell each other everything. I knew her better than anyone.

Or so I thought I did.

guess this was where our forever ended

The rain didn’t stop, even as darkness fell. I didn’t move from The Spot until blackness surrounded me. Luckily, I’d navigated through the woods in the dark enough times to know my way home. Even so, I bumped into a few trees and scraped my legs on the underbrush.

My split-level home came into sight, the kitchen lights letting out a yellow glow through the patio door and the little window above the sink. I wondered if they’d already eaten. There was a dull ache in my gut, but I figured it was more attributed to knowing I had to live the rest of my life alone than actual hunger.

I slid the glass door open and stepped into the kitchen. My mom stood by the stove, scooping the last of the spaghetti sauce into a Tupperware container. She looked up as I shut the door.

“Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

That’s what she had to say? Really? My girlfriend of three years, my best friend, my other half, is dead. And that’s what she says.

“You’re sopping wet. Go get changed.” She looked me up and down. “Go on. You’re getting the carpet all wet.”

I didn’t move.

“Tanner, go.”

“Gracie’s dead.”

Finally, she faced me. She cocked her head to the side and gave me a sad smile, the last of her bubble gum colored lipstick in the creases of her lips. “I know, honey. Mr. Carter called me at work.”

“And you didn’t think you should tell me yourself?”

“Obviously she was a troubled girl. My telling you wasn’t going to change what she did.”

I stepped forward tentatively, feeling a new, raw rush of emotion- anger- moving through me. “So you thought it was better a virtual stranger tell me?”

“Mr. Carter is not a stranger. He’s been your principal since you started high school.”

“Would you want him to tell you dad was dead?”

She laughed, and it was like nails on a chalkboard. “Your dad and I have been married for twenty years. It doesn’t even compare to your little relationship with Gracie.” She closed the Tupperware and walked to the fridge with it. There were four dollops of sauce left on the counter.

I felt my blood go hot, adrenaline coursing through my veins. Gracie and I always talked about how our relationship was stronger than either of our parents’. Mine barely even talk to each other; hers always fight. So, no, our relationship didn’t compare to my parents. It was better. Stronger. We were going to be together forever.

For as long as we both shall live.

Guess this was where our forever ended.