The Leaving Season (19 page)

When I didn't hear back from Lee, I was actually relieved. Lee's presence in my life was unstable, an unknown—who needed that? With Nate, I knew exactly where we were headed and what I was supposed to do. And if I didn't, there were plenty of people to remind me.

We were two days away from New Year's Eve, on holiday break, when Haley brought up party plans while we were at the Matchbox, a coffee shop not far from the high school.

“There are at least three that I know of,” she told Katrina, Debra, and me over hot chocolate and handmade marshmallows. It was our annual tradition to meet at the intimate café to exchange Christmas gifts but really we simply liked
hanging out in a place that wasn't a cafeteria crowded with a million other students. The coffee shop, especially in winter, was a quiet oasis with a background music of espresso being ground and milk being frothed. Today, we watched wet snow fall lightly outside the plate glass window, the fat flakes melting as soon as they hit the sidewalk.

“One is superdressy,” Haley said. “One is my parents'.” She rolled her eyes. “And one is—”

“Mine!” Katrina said, grinning and holding her hand up.

“Not completely yours,” Haley said. “It's your sister's place, isn't it?”

Katrina nodded. “Yeah, but she and her husband are totally cool. They said we can drink if we don't go anywhere.”

“Ooh, champagne?” Haley asked.

“Only if you bring it,” Katrina said with a laugh.

Debra tapped her spoon on the table absently. “Who's going to be there? Like, guys our age or their age?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well, yeah. I don't want to get a new outfit if it's just going to be guys we know.”

“There'll probably be more college guys than regular guys,” Katrina said, looking up at the ceiling of the café as if she were mentally calculating the ages of the party guests.

“And how many of us? Like, what's the ratio?”

Katrina lifted one curious eyebrow. “Are you about to use
math
for a party?”

Debra looked down at her hands and arms in astonish
ment. “Why, yes, I think I am,” she said, and we all laughed.

Haley glanced over at me. “What about you, Mid? You gonna come out with us this year?”

“Well—”

“Last New Year's Eve party of high school,” she teased.

“Oh my god, you have to! We'll have so much fun!” Debra said, adding, “You can wear my dress again, like you did at Halloween.”

I laughed. “That was a costume.”

“You can make it into a sexy dress,” Katrina said. “Just don't wear the green makeup again.”

“You can wear whatever you want,” Haley said. “And so can Nate.”

Nate.
I tried to imagine him at a big New Year's Eve party. I shook my head. “It's too soon, I think. He just got back and he gets tired pretty fast.”

“Oh, right, yeah,” Debra said quickly. “You should do what he wants. He's the one who's been away.”

Been away.
“I think we'll probably just hang at his house like we usually do.”

Katrina leaned into my shoulder. “And watch the
ball
drop?” she snickered.

“Yeah, actually, we will.”

“Ugh, boring.”

“But romantic,” Haley said. “It's sweet. Just the two of you.”

“Not
just
the two of us. His parents will be there.”

“Well, if you change your mind, there are three parties to choose from.” Haley stopped and shook her head. “Hmm, just two. I'm not going to wear a superfancy dress like it's the formal or something.”

“And
I'm
not going to your parents' party,” Debra said.

“Then it's
my
party!” Katrina beamed with delight. “Party! Party! Party!”

The girls cheered, filling the small café with laughter, and I couldn't help but join in.
Party, party, party,
I thought. It did sound like fun. I wondered if I could convince Nate to go.

“Aw, Mid, I'm sorry,” Nate said when I arrived at his house on New Year's Eve. “I really don't think I want to go to a party. Can't it just be you and me tonight?”

Even though I knew that would be his response, I'd dressed up a little nicer than usual, just in case, wearing a lacy long skirt over black boots and a V-neck white-and-black embroidered top. Yeah, I was a little disappointed. Not that I
didn't
want it to be just the two of us, but with his parents and Scotty and the twins around, it was mostly
not
the two of us.

Still, I bobbed my head with a smile. “Sure, of course.”

“They'll go to bed early,” he said with a sly grin. He pulled me down to him on the sofa.

“Were you reading my mind?” I blushed as he took me in his arms.

Nate brushed his lips against my cheek. His gaze held mine forcefully, as if to prove to me his inner strength was greater than his physical limitations.

“I want it back,” he said. “I want all of it back just the way it was.” He looked at me expectantly, and I whispered, “So do I.”

He bent toward me, placing a kiss firmly on my lips, his hands on my back and his fingers in my hair. Just as things began to heat up, we heard voices in the kitchen.

“Can I stay up till midnight?” Scotty asked.

“If he gets to, we get to too!” one of the twins said indignantly.

“No one is staying up till midnight,” Mr. Bingham replied.

“Why not? Nate and Middie are.”

Mrs. Bingham's voice rose above the others. “When you're twelve you can stay up until twelve.”

“What can we do if we're not twelve?” Scotty wanted to know.

“Make popcorn.”

I whispered to Nate, “I'm so glad we're older than twelve.”

Then one of the girls said, “Can we watch TV with Nate and Middie?”

Nate looked at me. “Are we watching TV?”

“Ask first,” Mr. Bingham said.

“Nate!” the twins shouted. “Can we come in and watch TV with you?”

Nate and I exchanged a glance and a shrug. “You mind?”

I shook my head. “Of course not.”

As the twins bounded in, I rearranged myself on the couch, detangling my skirt from Nate's legs.
All dressed up and no place to go,
I thought.

Or was I? This
was
my place.

For the next three hours, we played Monopoly with the girls and video games on Scotty's Xbox. We ate popcorn and chocolate kisses and watched the ball drop in Times Square at nine West Coast time, which was the best compromise Nate's parents could come up with for the kids. After celebrating with sparkling apple cider and playing another round of Monopoly, Scotty and the girls managed to eke out an extra couple of hours before they were sent off to bed. Mr. and Mrs. Bingham finally left us alone just before twelve.

We were both beat. Nate's grin was tired as he sprawled back on the couch. “This being-normal thing is exhausting. I hope it gets better.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Every day will get better until
you're
better.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” I turned to look at him. He had a smudge of chocolate on his chin from one of the candies. I wiped it off with my thumb and licked it. Suddenly, Nate dove toward me, his lips on my mouth, his tongue darting out to taste the chocolate on my lips. His hands were on my waist and he was pulling me onto his lap, folding himself over me on
the couch. I stretched my legs along the length of the sofa and felt Nate do the same, aligning his hips and his legs to mine. I heard his voice whisper my name, a sweet, melancholy sigh, just before he kissed a gentle trail down my neck.
Not so tired after all,
I thought, smiling to myself.

I let my hands follow a path along his shoulder and back, down the side of his waist and slope of his hip. We were getting back to the way things were before—finally. And even though Nate's body felt different beside mine, it was him. I felt myself sigh in return.
“Nate . . .”

I wanted Nate's kisses to make me forget everything else, to let me sink into him and never return, which was almost close to happening when the doorbell rang. Nate looked at me. “It's almost midnight. Who's coming here on New Year's Eve?”

“No idea.”

The door opened. “Yo, Happy New Year.”

I shot up to a sitting position, but Nate merely grinned. “Lee, dude, come in.”

Lee?
I felt myself stiffen as I glanced at Nate. “Were you expecting him?”

He shrugged. “You never know with Lee.”

Part of me wanted to stand when he walked in—a hug? A half kiss? What did friends like us do? My mind raced, trying to recall how we were with each other before Nate left. We barely knew who the other was—would we be like that again? Should we?

Lee solved that conundrum by remaining at the edge of the rug, hands stuffed in the pockets of his ripped jeans. Despite the cold weather, he wore only a Windbreaker over a T-shirt and his ink-covered sneakers.

“Hey, Lee,” I said with a smile. “Happy New Year.” Nate tucked his fingers around mine, and I felt his solidarity with me. We were a couple. Lee was a third wheel. If anything I should feel sorry for him. “You want some sparkling cider?”

Lee's hazel eyes barely registered my presence before alighting upon Nate. “Dude, you're not at a party.”

Nate leaned forward on the couch and slung an arm around my shoulder. “Neither are you.”

Lee opened his jacket and showed us a bottle of beer tucked inside. I recognized the brand and felt my cheeks warm as I remembered drinking it with him. “I take the party with me wherever I go.”

“Classy,” I said, but again, Lee ignored me.

He opened the other side of his jacket. Another beer. “Got one with your name on it. Come on, let's go.”

“We're kind of hanging out,” I told him. “Alone.”

“I'll get him back by midnight, Yoko. Don't you fret.”

“It's almost midnight now.” I heard my voice harden.

“Well, sure, if you're celebrating in this time zone.”

I turned to look at Nate, but he was watching Lee. “What do you have in mind?”

Lee's eyes twinkled. “Maybe a drive?”

Nate clapped his hands once. “Yes!” He stood uncer
tainly but refused my help.

“Are you going? Really?”

“Just for a few minutes,” he said, pecking me on the cheek. He started to leave the room. “I gotta get a sweater. Entertain Lee while I'm gone.”

My face flushed beet red and I glanced down at my feet. “You sure? I can go—”

He put his hands on my arms. “You don't have to do everything for me. I'll be down in two seconds.” He left the room and I expected . . .

What, Middie? What could possibly happen?

I hadn't seen Lee in person since Nate's party, and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't this. He wasn't talking to me, wasn't looking at me, wasn't even acknowledging my existence.

Jerk,
I thought. Well, if he wanted cool, then I would give him cool.

“How's work?” I asked. “Business good?”
That was nice,
I thought. A very nice, casual thing to say.

I heard a crinkle of a chocolate kiss being unwrapped.
Rude jerk. Whatever.

“Guess not too many people want to go hiking now, huh?”

He drowned out the second half of my sentence with more wrapper noise.

So irritating.
I turned to him, mouth open, about to call him out on his rudeness—and met his gaze. Suddenly my nerves were like live wires. I could feel every word in my
mouth as if it were in a foreign language, as if I'd never spoken it before.

The room felt supercharged, the air electrified. And yet, the only word I could use to describe Lee's mood was “bored.” He chewed the chocolate candy as if he were eating cardboard. There was absolutely nothing in his face that showed he was engaged, interested, or even present.

I cast a glance down my body—was I the only one feeling this? Was Lee completely immune to the energy between us? He couldn't be.

But his eyes were so vacant, so absent. His gaze flicked over me briefly before he rolled up the tin foil and hooked it above my head and into an empty cup on the coffee table.

“Two points!” Nate called from the staircase. Lee and I turned.

“Shoulda gone pro,” Lee said with a lopsided grin.

“Shoulda played JV,” Nate replied.

“Eh, high school ball is overrated.”

Nate opened the door and a blast of cold air swept through the foyer. He stared down the driveway and a grin spread across his face. “Is that it?”

The Mustang.

“It is,” Lee told Nate proudly. He slapped Nate on the back, boxing me out. “I told you it'd be done in no time.”

“Holy shit, it looks awesome!”

“Well, come on, let's drive.”

I grabbed my jacket and started to follow them out the
door, my hand firmly in Nate's, when Lee stopped us. “Uh-uh, just us, Yoko.”

“But . . . we're friends, aren't we? All three of us?” I asked. I could feel my heart thumping behind my ribs as I waited for an answer.
Friends, we're friends.

“Yeah, of course we're friends,” Nate replied matter-of-factly.

We both looked at Lee, who reluctantly shrugged his shoulders. “Friends, sure. Peachy keen, happy friend time. Whatever, dude, can we go?”

“So then . . . ?” I glanced at Nate, who looked torn. He also looked pretty excited to drive the car.

“It probably won't be that much fun,” Nate said. “I mean, for
you
, since you can't drive stick.”

“I can dr—” I stopped and looked straight at Lee. His gaze betrayed nothing. In that moment, I felt like I could have dropped the entire bomb on Nate—about Lee, about me, about us—and Lee could not have cared less. I was nothing to him now.