The Truth About Fragile Things (41 page)

“S
o we’re
doing what, exactly?” Alicia asked as I motioned her toward the gym.

It was a perfect question. The same one I’d been asking myself all day. My shoulders buzzed with a tightness as if they’d been carrying weight and my dry mouth complained when I swallowed. “Did you tell everyone to come?” I countered her question with one of my own.

“I told them,” she promised. “I told everyone from fifth and sixth hour to meet in the gym because you and Phillip said so.”

Her words made the tingling in my shoulders even worse. “Perfect,” I lied. ”Braden is bringing a few friends. I think Taylor invited the cheerleaders.”

Alicia tossed her brown hair and ignored Taylor’s name. “I’m still getting used to the Braden thing,” she informed me, clutching her binder against her chest. “I can’t believe I had to find out from a sophomore, but…” her voice trailed off in a way that meant her sentence had no end.

“I didn’t mean for you to find out like that,” I reassured her. I had trouble concentrating on her words because my head was five minutes in the future, planning more important words.  “Sometimes I get so used to secrets I forget which ones I
can
tell.” That got her attention and she grilled me about secrets until I promised her she was about to find out a big one.

When we got upstairs to the basketball court at least forty people were clumped in small groups, peering around for a leader or at least an explanation. I’d made it there before Phillip or Charlotte.

“Thanks for coming,” I said, but my voice didn’t carry over the din of conversation. As soon as I started speaking Phillip walked in, followed by Mrs. Schatz. I smiled at her, hoping she would call everyone to attention.

She didn’t disappoint. She slammed her large hands together and the chattering stopped. “We only have five minutes before basketball practice starts, so we need to get to it. We’re here because Phillip has something he needs to do before he dies.”

Alicia missed Schatz’s sarcasm. “Are you dying?” Her panicked voice rose a decibel.

“Not quite yet,” Phillip teased, and several eyes widened with fear. Phillip held up a strong hand and tried again. “I’m not dying at all. There was someone important to me who died before he finished his bucket list. I’m trying to do something for him.”

“Who died?” Someone called from behind me.

“My dad,” Charlotte spoke up from the back of the gym. I turned around to see her standing alone on the free throw line, looking minute in the massive room. “Phillip is trying to make a half-court shot on his first try for my dad. And it only counts if he has an audience, so thanks for coming.”

The room went silent. Now I understood why Charlotte didn’t usually announce her father’s death. I choked under the smothering weight of pity all around us. She scowled against it, her small shoulders strong beneath the burden. Braden entered the room with a few kids from band, edged his way around the other students until he stood next to me, our hands so close I could feel the heat of his palms jump across the millimeters of empty space to my skin. Alicia’s eyes jumped from Charlotte to Braden, all my secrets gathered around me, ready to fall.

Phillip picked up a basketball and bounced it twice, the echo smacked against every ear. He stepped backward, well behind the half court line, and then looked up at the basket. “Okay, well.” he cleared his throat and pulled nervously at his collar, earning a smattering of laughter. “So this might take a while. I only have one shot a day, so I hope you don’t mind doing this a few times. But Charlotte’s dad was an awesome guy. A hero really, so it’s worth our time.”

“How’d he die?” Alicia whispered loud enough that several people turned to me, grateful she’d asked first. Braden took my hand, held me up while this terrible spotlight swept over me.

“Actually, he died saving a girl’s life.” I thought speaking would get easier if I had the courage to say those words. It got worse. Once they left my mouth an empty spot tore open inside me, tried to swallow me whole. So close to the truth, teetering on the edge. I couldn’t tell the rest.

Charlotte nodded as people turned to her. She met my eyes, but I knew she shouldn’t push me. “He got hit by a car saving a little girl,” she said.

I heard the quiet gasps of shock, could time the exact moment the truth registered for each person by the change in their face, the sound that they made. Braden tightened his grip.

“So think good thoughts,” Phillip told us as he paced the floor, looking for the right spot to stand. He took one fast practice jump, his nerves visible in the way he stumbled slightly on landing. Our eyes followed his stare, arching through the empty air, traced the straight and narrow path his ball would need to take. Camera phones appeared, some pointing to the basket, others at Phillip.

Alicia leaned closer to me and asked, “Did it happen recently?”

“No,” I murmured back, thinking of a little girl who filled up years and years with breathing and being and living. A girl who had learned to walk and write essays and fall in love and grow up, all in the time he’d been gone. It made his death seem unbearably far away. “Charlotte was only a baby.”

One boy I didn’t know clapped his hands for quiet and announced, “You heard him—good thoughts, everyone,” which I found oddly touching.

Phillip bent over, took a deep breath and straightened. “Should I run or just shoot?” he asked one of his friends on the sideline.

“Just shoot,” was the advice.

Phillip braced his legs, the ball clutched between his fingers. “Okay.” He looked back up, gauging distance. “Okay.” He pulled his feet back two more steps and lunged forward, thrusting the ball up and out of his hands. I grabbed onto Braden’s hand as all the breath rushed out of me and the ball sailed fast and high over the tiger mascot painted on the court. Phones lifted higher, trying to follow the arch of the shot.

For you, Bryon.

Something thrust up from my chest, pushing the ball, begging it to find a home inside the net that reminded me of a hammock and a list and one perfect night. I gave myself one giddy moment to believe in the miracle of a basket, when the streaking orange meteor lost altitude and plunged back to the earth, three feet shy of the net.

The deafening sound of the ball ricocheted off the smooth floor and filled the still room. We all watched it roll toward the bleachers, away from Phillip who stood alone on the barren court.

I felt the pounding thud of each strike on the floor, final and cruel and dead.

Until one boy in a letter jacket said, “That’s okay. That’s okay.” He retrieved the ball and returned it to Phillip.

“I can’t try again until tomorrow,” Phillip reminded him.

The boy stood balancing the ball on his fingertips and looked up at the basket. “Can I try for him?” Phillip squinted in confusion, turned to Charlotte, but the ball was already in the air. It careened off the backboard and almost beaned Schatz in the back of the head. While she was still ducking, another boy caught the ball and jogged to center court. He turned to Charlotte. “Do you mind if I try for your dad?”

Before she could answer hands went up into the air, volunteers pushing their way to the half court. I looked at the fingers held up to the sky and saw hands lifting up a burden they didn’t even understand. But they didn’t have to comprehend it— it was the lifting that mattered. Charlotte sat down on the lowest bleacher, the iron defenses in her eyes dropped and abandoned. She nodded silently, watched as the ball missed again and again.

I thought I would cry until Braden squeezed my hand and I turned to see his bright smile. “So,” he said, his eyes infinitely untroubled. “Tomorrow? Same time, same place?”

I returned his strong grasp, feeling the power of his fingers like music in my palm. “It’s a date.” I grinned at him, one last question on my lips. “Do you happen to know how to go whitewater rafting?”

The orange ball rolled past us, chased by three people. He stepped aside to let them pass and turned his eyes back to mine, like he always did, no matter the distraction. “It’s on my list.”

I blinked, Melissa’s words in my mind as I held my eyes closed for a moment and opened them to see Alicia studying me, concern transforming her face into someone older and more serious. I glanced from her to Braden, from Charlotte to Schatz, and then at the crowd of students who felt like strangers five minutes ago.

“That wasn’t my secret,” I whispered to Alicia, my voice so low only she and Braden could hear.

“No?” She asked, her eyes shaped into a sympathetic question.

“No,” I answered before the fear stopped me. I looked at Charlotte’s face and ignored everything but the way she pushed her lips together when she tried to hide how much she felt. I sucked in enough air to push the truth all the way to my lips. “The little girl was me.”

B
raden wouldn’t tell me
where we were going when he picked me up on Friday. The only clue I had was his insistence that I bring a scarf and gloves and dress warm. I imagined the cold woods of the nature center again, but it was already dark and I remembered that the gates closed at sunset. His car took us north into the streams of Friday night traffic weaving toward the skyscrapers of downtown. It was only when he veered off the highway and hugged the long curve that points to the plaza that my spine tightened. I leaned toward the door, bracing myself against the armrest and hoping he would follow the hill toward Westport or the arts district. He didn’t.

“Braden,” I whispered, but he was in the middle of a story and didn’t stop talking. When the lighted, peaked roofs with Spanish tiles came into view I closed my eyes. “Braden.”

His right hand released the steering wheel and closed over my wrist in some silent comfort.

“Braden, I don’t like to come down here.”

He didn’t say anything right away. He eased his car into a spot along the creek that makes the southern border of the plaza. A carved stone bridge arched over the water a hundred feet in front of us. “Will you trust me?”

“Will you tell me what you’re doing and then I’ll tell you if I trust you?”

He took my scarf that had fallen off one shoulder and circled it back around my bare neck. “No,” he answered tenderly and got out of the car. I watched through the windshield as he made his way to me, the streetlights reflected off the tall trees and his dark hair. He opened my door and took my hand, so gentle in his persistence that I couldn’t resist following, despite the dread icing over my stomach. He held my arm, guided me to the bridge. My feet faltered, held us both back.

“It’s too close,” I told him. “Braden, you have no idea. It happened right here. It was right on the other side of that bridge.” I didn’t let my eyes wander, didn’t let my ears compute the music pumped by the outdoor speakers of the nearest restaurant or the laughter of groups enjoying dinner. I was grateful it was too cold for butterflies, but I couldn’t help but scan the streetlights for moths. “Can we go somewhere else?”

I’d never known him to deny to an honest request. He looked up to the bridge, to a spot I wouldn’t let my eyes follow. “I promise it’s all right. I just have to show you something.”

“I promise it’s not.” I turned, fighting against the pull of his arm, anxious for the safety of the car. In a moment I heard footsteps running toward us. I looked up to see Lauren’s swinging yellow hair. “Lauren? What are you doing here?” I looked around for my parents and saw no one.

“She doesn’t want to come,” Braden told her.

“What’s going on?” I asked, panic balling up and hardening to anger.

Lauren’s soft hand took mine. “You need to see this. It’s for you,” she told me. And then I went willingly, too dazed by her fast appearance to fight back. She led me toward the bridge, Braden’s fingertips resting on my back, promising to stay close.

We rounded the statue of Winston Churchill and his wife seated on a bench. I forced myself to look to the Chinese lanterns strung over the water. A string of familiar faces stood under them: Charlotte, Melissa, Phillip, Dave, and Henry. My mother and father. I spun to Lauren, to Braden, not sure who would explain the fastest.