“You won’t like me anymore.”
“Stella, I like you. All the rest of it, it’s just the stuff that came before.”
“So you don’t need to know it.”
“I do if it makes you feel like you aren’t worth that fight with Cooper.”
Her lips flatten into a thin line. “Once we do this, there’s no going back. It’ll end what we have now. By the end of today, you could be running back to Cooper and begging his forgiveness.”
Going back, it’s what I craved those first few times I visited James Cohen’s grave. But in meeting Stella, I found a way forward. I don’t want what’s between us to end, and the one thing I’m learning is that there’s no going back. “Or I could choose you. Bring it, Stella. Give me your worst.”
16
Stella
So maybe Mrs. Collins isn’t the Antichrist. With one phone call to his parents, she released Jonah from school so I could, in his words, give him my worst. It’s my debut trip in his Charger and it’s also my inaugural ride in a car built this decade.
If deep down I’m honest with myself, it’s also the first time I’ve been so alone with a boy that I like as more than a friend. A boy who I dream at night of kissing.
Besides a few directions from me like “turn here” or “merge onto the interstate,” we’ve stayed silent. The only noise is the hum of the radio in the background. I run my hand over the material of the passenger seat and inhale that new-to-me car smell. It’s not the car ride I’m trying to cement into my memory; it’s every detail of being with Jonah.
He grips the wheel with his left hand and rests his right one on the console, palm up. If I wanted I could easily lay my hand in his.
For the past couple of weeks, Jonah and I have lived in a bubble—a twisted sort of bubble, but it was ours. Seeing him argue with his friend over me...I should have cut Jonah loose then. We belong to different worlds, and it’s time he returned to his and I accepted mine.
Now that he’s admitted what happened the night of the accident, maybe Jonah can find the strength to move on...without me.
But I didn’t cut him loose and it’s because when he works out whatever is going on with him and the accident and he returns to his real life, I hope Jonah will become a little bit better a person. Not laughing at Cooper’s cruel jokes isn’t enough. I want him to remember this—to remember me—and to forever be the guy who doesn’t allow anyone to talk trash.
Showing him this is the only way to teach that lesson, to give him that memory.
The tree line along the road thins out and the elementary school pops into view. In front of the half-circle driveway is a trailer I’m very familiar with.
“Over there.” I point and I can feel Jonah’s heavy stare before he pulls into the lot and parks.
“I tell you to give me your worst and you drag me out to volunteer. You’re right. I hate you. I had no idea I was friends with such an awful human being.”
“Ha. Ha.” But my sarcasm comes off flat. I rub my palms along my jeans and step out of the car. At the door to the school, children bob and weave in the line. I remember that feeling, being so thrilled over something new that I’d have to lean way far to the left or right or even stand on my tiptoes because seeing it reinforced the excitement.
We stand next to the trailer and Jonah rocks on his feet. “What exactly are we supposed to do?”
“You and me?”
“Yeah.”
I dig two shoe scales out of a box by the door and hand him one. “We change lives.”
17
Jonah
Bent on one knee, I write down a shoe size and hand it to the boy I just measured. He runs off toward the trailer full of shoes. From the schoolchildren to the volunteers, everyone has been full of smiles and enthusiasm, but what’s been amazing is watching Stella.
She lights up around these kids. She talks with them. Laughs with them. Stella becomes the kind of person everyone envies and wants to be friends with. The person you’d spend all night trying to be close to. She’s alive, addictive and contagious.
“You like her, don’t you?” A tiny girl slides next to me and observes Stella with awe.
I glance at Stella again and she’s shaking her purple hair to make a boy who can’t be older than six laugh. With a smile on my face, I refocus on my next client. “Yeah.”
“I like her hair.”
“Well, I like yours.”
She grins and her dark eyes shine. One front tooth is missing with the new one barely peeking through. A million freckles dot her pale face and after my compliment she locks her hands behind her back and swivels from side to side.
“First grade?” I ask.
Hands slam onto her hips. “Second.”
“My apologies.” I lift the scale into the air. “Are you ready?”
She nods quick enough that I wonder if she’s given herself whiplash.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
“As long as you kick off those shoes and place your feet on the scale, I’m game.”
She unties both sneakers, slips them off her feet and puts her right foot on the scale. “This is my favorite day.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I get new shoes.”
I remember racing through the mall with Martha because we loved testing out the new ones Mom bought us at the store. “It’s a great feeling, isn’t it?”