Chapter Seventeen
Stand on your Own
Lavender
Age 11
I want things to go back to the way they were, but they don’t. My parents and Kodiak’s install a special app on our phones so they can keep an eye on how much we’re messaging each other.
I’m not as smart as Kodiak so I hadn’t erased all of our messages like he’d been doing. My parents have a front row seat to every single text we’d sent for a full two weeks. Mom and Dad say they’re cause for concern. When they shared them with Kodiak’s parents and Queenie it makes everything worse.
It feels like a betrayal.
Queenie says that my dependency on Kodiak is dangerous for both of us.
She isn’t wrong.
Even at school things are different.
Courtney and her friends leave me alone, but then, so does almost everyone else. They call me weird, too quiet, and I don’t like the big groups that girls hang out in. River is always there, at my side during recess, making sure no one bothers me, but it still feels like I’m going backwards. After a while I tell River to go hang out with his friends, because it sucks to know that I’m the reason we’re always alone. I stop going outside at recess and help in the library instead.
But the hardest part of all is realizing that Kodiak is no longer my savior.
The time it takes him to respond to my messages increases from hours to days. He hardly acknowledges me in the halls anymore. And when he does, he barely smiles. After a while I become a ghost he no longer sees.
I thought things would go back to normal eventually. That this would be temporary.
But it isn’t.
It goes on like that for months.
My parents talk about taking me out of regular school and putting me in a special program because I’m not coping. I meet with Queenie four days a week. I promise I’m going to try harder.
And I learn how to control the panic attacks on my own again. How to stop them before they start when there are people around, how to find a quiet, isolated place to fall apart later if I still need to. I learn that physical pain is a good distraction, but the kind that doesn’t leave lasting marks is the smartest.
On the outside it looks like I’m doing better. On the inside I’m full of cracks and fault lines.
I didn’t think it could really get any worse than it had. I foolishly believed the bottom had fallen out already.
It hadn’t.
In June, just before the school year ends Kodiak’s dad gets a new job, which means they’re moving. Not just to another town, but a whole different state all the way across the country.
And the hurts keep piling on top of each other, pushing me further and further down. Especially when Maverick and Kodiak graduate from eighth grade. There’s a dance and a party. Maverick brings a date, and so does Kodiak.
From my bedroom window I can see them standing on the front porch, Kodiak’s arm around her waist. She’s wearing a pale green dress, a color that almost matches his eyes. He’s all dressed up in a suit, standing next to my brother. They’re laughing and smiling. Happy. Normal.
Something dark settles in my stomach. Anger that I’ve never felt before bubbles up and mixes with despair, because I finally realize what everyone else seemed to know already: Kodiak is better without me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Don’t Leave Me Behind
Kodiak
Age 14
I turned fourteen in April. We were supposed to go camping, but my dad and Alex surprised me and Maverick by taking us to Philadelphia for the weekend. I got to see our new house and we went to a playoff game. It was supposed to make me feel better about the move but all it did was remind me how far away Philadelphia is from Seattle.
Now it’s the end of June, school is over and tomorrow we’re driving across the country. My walls are bare, the only things left in my room is my bed. It’s not coming with us. I have a brand new bedroom set waiting for me in our new house. Everything else is already on route there, apart from my duffle bag of essentials and my backpack.
I flip the pencil case over and over in my hands. It’s green and covered in black hockey sticks and pucks. My name is embroidered into the fabric on one side and the other has an infinity symbol. Lavender made it for me when she was ten. It started to fray last year and the zipper kept snagging, so I stopped using it at school. Instead I kept it in my desk.
And after the big blowout I would take it out every night and use it to remind myself that Lavender could only get better if I stayed away from her, and hopefully, one day the horrible hollow ache in my chest wouldn’t be so bad, because I’d done the right thing.
At the soft knock on my door, I shove the pencil case under my pillow. The knob turns and my mom pokes her head in my room. Her smile is sad and full of empathy. It doesn’t change the fact that we’re driving halfway across the country tomorrow.
“Can I come in?”
I shrug, then nod, because it’s not my mom’s fault that my dad got a new job.
She takes a seat beside me on the bed and wraps her arm around me. I have to slouch now to be able to rest my head on her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Dunno.” The answer is really no. I have to leave the only house I’ve ever known, all my friends, everything familiar and everyone who means something to me—apart from my family—behind.
“The Waters are going to be here in a couple of minutes.”
It’s hard to swallow for a few seconds and I have to fight with my body not to react. I’ve gotten good at pretending everything is okay over the last six months. That I’m better off without Lavender.
But the truth is I’m not.
Which is exactly the reason I’ve stayed as far away from her as I possibly could. I cut her off like a limb, and I feel the phantom pain of that loss every second of every day.
It’s penance, though. For the way I dragged her down with me.
I work to keep my breathing even, to slow everything down. I want to ask the question, but I don’t want my mom to think I can’t handle this.
“Lavender is supposed to come so she can say goodbye,” she offers, as if she can read my mind.
Supposed to come. It doesn’t mean she will.
“But it depends on how she’s doing. If they don’t think she can manage she’ll stay home.”
I nod, because there’s nothing I can really say. I honestly don’t know if it will be better or worse if she comes to say goodbye. I’m afraid I’ll fall apart. That all the walls I’ve built are made of sand and they’ll come crumbling down on me. Then everyone will know I’ve been lying this whole time.
The doorbell rings.
My mom squeezes my shoulder and stands. “That’s probably them.” She looks at me expectantly.
“I’ll just be a minute.”
She brushes my hair away from my eyes. “It’ll be okay sweetie, you’ll see.” She slips out the door, the sound of voices carrying up the stairs.
We’re having a going away party today. It feels a lot more like a funeral than a celebration. My little sister and brother are a lot younger, so they’re more excited about the move. My parents made it seem like a fun trip, except it’s not for a week or two, it’s forever, or until my dad gets another new job.
I count to thirty before I head downstairs. My parent’s friends fill the kitchen and spill out into the backyard. I spot Maverick by the bowl of chips, shoveling food into his mouth. I keep searching for long auburn hair, but I come up empty and that feeling settles deep in my chest. My heart is still beating, but it’s hollow, tinny.
River is absent, just like his twin. Of course he would stay with her.
I spend the afternoon hanging out with Maverick. We do cannonballs into the pool, and later, when we get bored, we go inside and play video games. And the entire time I hold onto the hope that maybe, eventually she’ll come to say goodbye.
At four in the afternoon Maverick’s girlfriend Abby shows up and she brings her friend Leanne with her. She was my date for eighth grade graduation. I like her okay, but I don’t really want to spend my last day in Seattle hanging out with her. She talks too much, and gossips about everyone.
But Maverick thought it would be a good surprise. Or at least that’s what he says. Maverick isn’t stupid. Where River has been a guard dog, Maverick has been the sticky spider web around Lavender. Like he knew I would never be good for her, so he always found ways to protect her from me.
I don’t want to be rude, but I’m really not in the mood to deal with Leanne. Plus, she’s probably going to ask me to kiss her goodbye or something, and I don’t want to.
By dinner I’ve stopped being hopeful and now I’m just angry. Lavender should know by now that I this whole time it’s just been me pretending to be okay. She should know better and now here I am, stuck listening to Leanne tell me how much she’s going to miss me.
Abby and Maverick are making out. My parents are too busy with their friends to notice that we’ve disappeared to the basement to watch a movie.
“I have a secret account that my mom doesn’t know about so we can message each other all the time,” Leanne says.
She keeps trying to hold my hand and she puts her hand on my leg. She smells like perfume and strawberry gum. I don’t like the combination of scents. I miss the way Lavender smells, like her name and in the mornings sometimes she smells like Lucky Charms marshmallows because that’s her favorite cereal and she doesn’t like to brush her teeth after she’s been eating it because it takes the flavor away.
Abby’s phone pings, and her and Maverick stop making out so she can check it. “Dang, my dad is gonna be here in ten minutes.” She types out a quick message and quickly glues her mouth back to Maverick’s.
Watching them do that makes me feel weird. I stand up and take Leanne’s hand, pulling her up with me. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere else.” I just want to be away from here and I want Leanne to go home.
She follows me upstairs, the kitchen is empty, all the adults outside. The little kids are in the movie room with the nannies. I lead her to the side door. The porch wraps all the way around the front of the house, but this is the quickest way outside.
We step out into the warm summer night. It’s only seven, so it’s still light out, but the sun is getting closer to the horizon and the bottom of it touches the top of Lavender’s house, just down the street. Her bedroom window in the second one from the right and River’s room is beside hers. Both their lights are on.
It makes me even angrier to know that she’s right there, three houses away. And I’m mad at my mom for telling me that sometimes you have to let people go so they can find their way back to you on their own time.
But maybe Lavender never will. And maybe she shouldn’t.
“Kody?”
I look down at Leanne. Her hair is the color of sand and her eyes are the color of chocolate. All the boys in my class say she’s pretty. I know I should think she is, but then I feel guilty, like I’m doing something wrong.
All I feel right now is frustration that the girl in front of me is someone I should like but don’t, because I’ve spent my entire life connected by an invisible thread to the one three houses down.
“Are you going to kiss me goodbye?”
She locks her fingers behind my neck. And because I’m angry, frustrated and so tired of fighting, I let her pull my mouth down. Her lips taste like strawberry gloss.
And I feel nothing. Just emptiness.
A car honks, forcing us apart.
I look over at Lavender’s house; her bedroom window is dark.
It matches the black hole inside my chest.
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Meet Kodiak’s parents in A LIE FOR A LIE.Meet Lavender’s parents in PUCKED.
