Back When You Were Easier to Love (9 page)

I thought about our trips to the Sev, just off the freeway outside of Haven. It was a trucker exit, mainly; nothing was out there but oil refineries and the lone 7-Eleven. Everybody else hung out at DQ, which was why we didn’t.

I’d get a piña colada Slurpee, or maybe a cherry/orange hybrid. He’d started ordering Mocha Java, a definite Mormon no-no no matter where you lived, but I didn’t mind. I figured the coffee had less to do with a crisis of faith and more to do with Zan flipping off Haven culture in his usual over-the-top style.

But what if it went deeper than that? And if it did, why hadn’t he told me? He told me everything. Didn’t he?

And I remember that night, after church, when he invited me to the Sev one last time. And it was so late and too dark, and there were mosquitoes out, lots of them, because it was late, but not cold, and dark, but not still. I remember that night in flashes, like a dream you remember some of, but not all, so you’re not sure whether it’s a dream or if it actually happened and just
felt
like a dream.

It was real, though. Every day I live with how real it was.

All I remember is the one line he kept saying: “I have to get away from this. All of this.” And my mind must know he said other things. My mind must hold them tight in its deepest creases. Because all my ears know, all my eyes know, all my heart knows is that he had to get away from this. All of this.

It’s never just one thing. It’s a combination of things so small that if they weren’t all stacked together nothing would change at all. Small things stacked on top of each other made him leave, but I wasn’t one of them, was I?

Was I?

I come to
Mattia’s house with a sleeping bag, a weekend’s worth of clothes, and a convenience-store-in-a-duffel.

As I expect, she doesn’t notice. Instead she says, “I was wondering when you’d get here!” as we head downstairs to her bedroom.

I’m late because I had to call Noah with the new plan. I don’t tell Mattia this.

Mattia has a huge bedroom, the “second master” with its own bathroom, a walk-in closet, and a window seat wide enough—and just barely long enough—for me to sleep on. I love the window seat, plus it has the added benefit of being on the ground level. I’ve told Noah to knock on the window tomorrow morning instead of honking or ringing the doorbell, so as not to arouse suspicion.

“Okay,” she says. “Now that we’re here alone, in person, without any interruptions, will you finally tell me about what’s up with you and Noah?”

I start unrolling my sleeping bag. “There’s nothing to tell about me and Noah. He’s just like . . .” What is he just like? He’s not just like anything, or anyone. “I still don’t like him,” I finally say, which is, for the most part, true.

“Riiight,” she says, glancing over at my makeshift bed. “Come on. We’re going on a walk.” Only now do I notice her hair’s braided and she’s wearing a pair of trendy-but-not-too-trendy athletic pants.

“Now?” I say, yawning.

Mattia raises an eyebrow. “It’s eight thirty.” She lifts up a corner of her bed skirt to reveal a pair of Nikes. “Noah lives a few streets over. I figured we could casually walk by his house while you fill me in on things. Like when we do drive-bys, except on foot.”

Drive-bys. We do them for the guys anyone in our group likes. Or the guys Mattia thinks we should like. We’ve driven past the houses of about a dozen guys she’s seen as potential prospects for one of us.

We drove past Zan’s. We were crammed into the Rabbit and we laughed, and we kept the windows down and the radio up. I saw a lit window and wondered if it was his; wondered if he was thinking of me.

“We’re not doing some drive-by/walk-by for Noah. Drive-bys are reserved for guys who hold romantic promise.”

“Um, yeah. Like Noah.”

“No.”

“Then why did he call you yesterday? Don’t try to lie. I already know it was about something important, or you would have told me about it long ago.” She stops tying her shoe and stares at me. This is the most attention I’ve had from her, like, ever.

“Okay, fine. Here it is: tomorrow morning I’m going to Claremont. With Noah. He needed my number so we could discuss the details.” I’m expecting an explosion and Mattia does not disappoint.

“You’re going to Claremont with Noah and not me?” she shrieks. Then her face drains of color and she repeats it, slower and softer. “You’re going to Claremont with Noah and not me. Because you want to see Zan. This isn’t a college visit at all, is it? You’re not going to Claremont—you’re going to see Zan.”

She makes it sound like I’ve been lying to her. “No, I
am
going to Claremont. And we are going on a college visit. And we’re going to find Zan there.”

“
Find
Zan? Why? Zan doesn’t need to be found. You already know where he is. You’re going there to stalk him!”

“I’m going there to help him!” He needs to remember what he left behind when he took off. He needs to remember
me.

“He doesn’t want your help! Face it, Joy. Zan doesn’t love you. He probably never did. You couldn’t convince him to stay. You couldn’t convince him to take you with him. He wanted a clean break.” It’s obvious she thinks I’m part of what he was breaking away from. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but Zan is gone.”

“Zan is not gone and you are not sorry,” I say, picking up my sleeping bag. “Zan is in California, living out his dreams, and I intend to remind him that I’m a part of them. Starting tomorrow.”

She closes her eyes, and then opens them. “You don’t understand what a huge mistake this is.”

“You don’t understand why I have to do it whether it’s a mistake or not! I have to get out of here. I have to find Zan. If I don’t try to get him back, I’ll spend my whole life drowning in regret.”

“Regret, huh? Let me tell you something about regret. Regret is spending your senior year pining after some geek who would rather make up a crazy language and ride a bicycle than be with you!” Mattia stands and turns away from me, walking straight into the depths of her closet.

“Listen to what I’m telling you.” I say each word slowly. “I. Need. Closure.”

Mattia emerges from her closet, pulling an Old Navy hoodie over her head, and storms out of the room. “You want closure?” she asks me, eyes narrowed. “
This
is closure.” The door slams behind her.

“That’s classic passive-aggressive behavior!” I yell through the door. They’re words she’s used to describe the actions of guys, celebrities, the assistant principal. They’re her own words, parroted back to her.

And still she isn’t hearing me.

It’s still dark
outside when Noah taps on the window, so I can’t see him. I only know it’s him because he taps the same way he knocks: three short, three long, then three more short.

I’ve got only the dim light from Mattia’s desk lamp to work with, so I hope Noah sees me signal to him that I’ll be out in a minute. His face looks almost sinister against the sky’s shadows. It’s just Noah. But my ice-blood still won’t slow down.

Mattia can, and does, sleep through anything. She’s snoring, oblivious to the fact that I’m leaving, oblivious that this trip will change both our lives forever. She’s content to stay here. I have to go after what’s important to me. Thoughts of leaving her a note vanish. What would a note solve?

I slip out the sliding glass door into the cold morning. The SAAB’s already running, keeping warm. The hatchback’s wide open. “Hey.” I’m surprised it’s cold enough that I can see my breath, and his.

“Good morning.” He starts packing in my bags without me asking. “Ready to do this thing?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” For the briefest of seconds, it hits me that we’re really leaving. For the briefest of seconds, my stomach shrieks out, “Wait!”

I bite the inside of my lower lip. “This is the right thing to do, right Noah?”

He opens the car door for me. “This is the thing we’re doing, whether it’s right or not.” He smiles. “Buckle up.”

The problem with
long car trips is that they give you lots of time to think. I’d prefer not to have all this time to think right now.

For one thing, my brain can’t function right before eight o’clock in the morning. It’s just the way I’m wired. I change my schedule every year so that I have keyboarding or financial literacy or some other no-sequential-thinking-required class first thing in the morning.

Then there’s the reality that thoughts of Zan never leave my mind even on days when I have no shortage of annoying tidbits to monopolize my mind. An empty, blank morning like this one is just asking for trouble.

Asking for trouble. Maybe that’s why I feel like I’m in a getaway car, doing something illegal. But we won’t get pulled over. We aren’t doing anything wrong.

Noah looks like he wants to say something, but he’s quiet.

I wonder if he’s mad. Or sad. Or thinking I’m stupid. I wish I knew what he was thinking. I hate that I wish I knew what he was thinking.

“So.” Noah fiddles with the radio, which is placed abnormally high on the dashboard. “You nervous?”

“Aren’t you?” The only things Noah’s finding us are early-morning news reports and ads for home refinancing. “Here, I’ll do that.” I motion to the radio.

“I guess I’m a little bit . . . apprehensive,” he says, his full attention now on the road. “Apprehensive, but not nervous.”

“What’s the difference?” I arbitrarily flip through a country song.

“Hey, leave it there,” says Noah. “I like that song.”

“You’re a country fan?”

“Apprehension is excitement and wariness combined.”

“Wariness?” Something about the word doesn’t sound right. Maybe it’s just because of my fuzzy head.

“Yes, I’m a country fan!” He explodes, pounding one fist on the wheel. “So sue me, okay?”

Wow. Is that my imagination or is Noah Talbot, King of Calm ’n’ Cool, totally losing it? Maybe I’m making things up. I am pretty tired. Now that all the preparing-for-the-great-getaway action is over, I have a chance to remember how little sleep I’ve gotten in the past week.

“Listen, there’s no shame in listening to country music. If you have no pride, at least.” I yawn. “Sorry. It just slipped out. Forgive me.” Need sleep.

“I’m sorry, too.” Unlike me, Noah looks genuinely sorry. “Rush hour traffic stresses me out.”

Finally, common ground. “Me too,” I say. “Me too.”

People ask me
what I miss most about California, and what I miss most is what I never had. In California, I never had a Spanish-style ranch house, with smooth, clean stucco walls and copper-colored tile on the roof, orange trees shading the front yard.

I never had this. I miss it anyway.

There is whistling.
I can’t make out the tune, but there is whistling, and it is getting louder.

I can feel the daylight penetrate my lids before I open my eyes. “How long was I asleep?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.

The whistling stops. “Maybe an hour or so.” Like Zan, Noah stares straight ahead while he drives.

I rub my eyes again and blink a few times to get a clear view out the window. The landscape just looks dirty, with some sagebrush rolling around. Not exactly postcard-perfect. “When do we get to the scenery?”

“You’re looking at it,” says Noah.

That’s when I notice it. “What are you wearing?”

Noah’s eyebrows knot. “Uh, clothes?”

“On your head, idiot.”

A smile takes over his face, and he touches his head. “Oh, you mean this.” He lifts his hat and gives it to me.

It’s one of those tacky, trucker-style baseball caps with an adjustable plastic band and a wide brim. “Ick, what is this?”

“Just read the front.” Noah grins wider.

There, embroidered in red thread: DON’T FORGET MY SENIOR DISCOUNT!

“Sweet, eh? I found out about it when I was recycling newspapers. You know, mixed in with the Sunday morning ads? I got one for my whole crew. We wear ’em with pride, just like the ad said to.”

And I believe this. Without question.

“Yeah, but the ad is for
senior citizens.
It’s just wrong wearing a hat designed for the elderly.” I stick it back on his head, smooshing his hair. A few strands escape, and they’re soft under my skin.

Noah’s hair feels just like hair that gorgeous should feel. He’s not like one of those guys who look good from a distance, but when you get up close you notice his hair is all crunchy with product or he has teeny-tiny zits at the top of his forehead. “A country fan wearing an old-man hat. Pathetic.”

But I’m thinking of Zan, how he wore his grandpa’s loafers. How I go for the guys who go old-school. Not that I’m going for Noah. So he’s hot. So? I’ve always known he was hot. It doesn’t mean anything that I’m noticing again now. We’re sitting right next to each other, after all. Proximity.

I rummage through my backpack. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I have to turn my attention away from Noah, from his soft hair and old-man hat.

“You’re just jealous,” Noah says. “You wish you were in my crew so you could wear one, too.”

“Have I not made it abundantly clear how little I want to be in your crew?”

“Yeah, but I know you’re lying.”

I groan. “Because everybody wants to be in your crew, right?”

“Everybody with good taste.” Noah grins.

“Good taste? You guys wear Senior Discount hats and dance around the school like you’re in some Disney Channel movie.”

Noah starts shaking his head before I even finish talking. “We don’t dance. I don’t like dancing.”

I hope he can see me roll my eyes. “Yeah, and nobody would
dare
do something you don’t like.”