“Is it true?”
Everyone has their own way of asking about our story. Some people gossip and whisper, others are more direct—hugging me, touching my arm, offering sympathy and grief counseling even if it’s fifteen years later than I really need it. The funny thing is, though, that few people actually really ask for the story. Most assume.
I shift the gear into park just outside the orchard driveway gates, the festival season long past and most of the trees starting to show their winter branches. My fingers grip over the top of the steering wheel as I breathe in slowly, then exhale, noticing the slight trail of fog my breath creates as it threatens to leave a steamy circle on the window. I push the heater up one level before resting my arms over the steering wheel, laying my head flat against them and looking at her next to me.
She’s beautiful. And I want this one to be the girl—the one I remember. And my sad family history is going to ruin it. But she asked. So I’m going to tell her.
My lips tight, I force a smile, not wanting to make anything about this moment sad, despite the history I’m going to share. She twists in her seat to face me slightly, unbuckling her seatbelt so she can bring her knee up to her chest.
“I’ve only ever heard the stories, too. I was one, maybe, when my dad died. He was sick. He had bipolar disorder, and his brain—it made a lot of things up. He wasn’t taking his medicine, and nobody knows exactly why he stepped from the Ferris-wheel carriage. But he wasn’t well when it happened. That’s the one truth I know for certain. My brother and mom, they don’t talk about him much,” I say, turning my head to look down at my lap. “I think what really happened is a secret that will forever be kept between my father’s ghost and a five-year-old Owen.”
“You said brother. But before…you said you learned to skate from your brothers. So that’s…that’s also true?” Her voice breaks slightly when she asks. I lean back into my seat and stretch my arms forward to flex my muscles before letting my hands fall to my knees.
“Yeah. That one…I have more of a memory of. But…” I stop, holding my breath.
“But it’s not a memory you want to share,” she finishes for me.
I nod slowly, then look up to her waiting gaze, her stormy eyes lit by the moon. If she was the ocean, I would be happy to be lost at sea. “If that’s okay, I think I’ll just let the rumors fill that one in for you,” I exhale.
Her freckles. Her small nose. The waves of brown of her hair. Her long lashes, and the way her fingers search for something to do when she’s nervous. I watch it all; I savor it. “I’d rather just leave it blank…until you want to share,” she says, her lip curling briefly on one side. I take that small movement in too. “I don’t much care for rumors,” she says, her grin stretching just a hint wider.
The radio is barely audible in the car, and part of me wants to turn the music louder to fill the silence taking up too much space between us. Another part of me, though, wants to leave the silence alone, because when it’s quiet like this, and she’s close, I can hear every breath she takes.
Her phone steals away my choice, buzzing regularly in her pocket until she pulls it out and answers a call from her dad. I only hear her end of the conversation, but her answers are clipped, relegated to single words. Without asking, I shift the car into reverse and back away from the orchard and onto the road. Emma needs to go home; this much I’m sure of.
“Sorry, my dad doesn’t like me out late,” she says as she puts her phone into the side pocket of her purse, not adding the part where I’m sure her father said he didn’t like his daughter out late with me.
“It’s okay. I’m getting up early to drive to Champaign with my mom and her boyfriend. I should get home too. He’ll want me to gas up the car,” I say, not wanting her to feel guilty about her parents’ opinion of me.
It takes us twenty minutes to get back to our neighborhood, and instead of finding out more about her, I give into my insecurities and turn the music up loud enough to give both of our minds something else to play with. There are a few times, though, where I catch her lips moving with the lyrics of one of the songs, and I tell myself that visual is almost as good as finding out more of her story.
As I sit in the car next to her in front of her ornate, giant house, I know that there’s no way I’m going to sleep tonight. There’s no guarantee that if I dream, I’ll dream of her.
“Thank you for teaching me to skate,” she says, pausing with one leg out of the car, the other still here with me.