I’d never thought of it that way before.
“I did what I could to bring them together, but it never really worked. It didn’t help that Ryan’s friends were such assholes.”
“Amen,” I said.
“Anyway, that’s how I got to know Hayden a little.” She stopped, bit her lip again.
“What happened with you and Ryan?” I could tell she didn’t really want to talk about it, but I had to know.
She looked down at the dirty linoleum floor. “We dated for about a year. Right up until . . .”
“The car accident,” I said. No wonder she didn’t want to talk about it.
“I was so lost after my dad died,” she said. “He’d gone out for takeout, and I kept thinking that if I knew how to cook, or if I hadn’t been hungry, or if I’d wanted pizza instead of Chinese . . . so many things I could have done to stop it. You know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” Oh, how I knew.
“And I get now that it’s not my fault, or at least that it’s no more my fault than anyone else’s—the woman who hit him because her car was too old for antilock brakes, the weather gods for the freezing rain that made the roads so slick. But I was a mess, and I needed to get out of myself. That’s where Astrid came from.” She waved her hand from her head down to her feet.
“Astrid is wonderful,” I said softly.
“Astrid is necessary,” she said. “And I thought Ryan would understand. He had his perfect-kid persona to shield him from his parents; Hayden had Mage Warfare to get away. Astrid wasn’t so different. But his friends, his horrible fucking friends . . . they made fun of him for going out with such a weirdo. My friends were no better; they didn’t understand why I needed to change, and they got me kicked off the cheerleading squad for not meeting the dress code or some stupid thing. When Ryan finally broke up with me I felt like I had nothing.”
“He broke your heart,” I said.
She snorted. “Sounds so stupid, doesn’t it? But yeah, I’d expected better from him. I thought he was different than Jason and Trevor, but it turns out I was wrong. And I’ll never forgive him for it.”
As happy as I was to hear that Ryan was well out of the picture, the way she talked about him made me nervous. I never wanted to hurt her like that, but there were still so many things I needed to know. Like the most pressing question of all: Who was Athena? Could she really be Astrid? How close had she and Hayden become?
“Look, I know there’s a lot of stuff you want to know,” she said, “but this conversation is kind of bumming me out, and I was just starting to enjoy feeling happy. Can we maybe talk about the other stuff later?” She leaned over and kissed me again, and I knew my other questions would have to wait as long as she wanted.
“All right, kids, time to pay up.” We were interrupted by Mr. Peterson. “We’re closing shop.” Was it my imagination, or was that grimace on his grizzled face a kind of smile? And what time was it, anyway? The clock said it was after six; apparently my loose grasp on the passage of time wasn’t limited to when I was at home.
“Let’s go to Eric’s,” Astrid said. “You should really hang out with those guys. And Eric’s been rooting for you—he’ll be psyched to know you finally made a move.”
“No need to tell him you forced me into it,” I said, and left some cash on the counter.
“You just needed a little prodding,” she said.
Eric lived within walking distance of Peterson’s, but in the opposite direction of my house, which made me wonder how I’d get home. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out,” Astrid said, and we walked holding hands as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
I knew she didn’t want to answer more questions, but I couldn’t help myself—there had to be some innocuous stuff she’d tell me. “So, Hayden never mentioned that he knew you.”
“Funny, he talked about you all the time,” she said. “That’s what made me want to meet you. The thought of someone as sweet as him and as cute as you . . .”
I blushed. She thought I was cute? “Did you tell him to watch Donnie Darko, too? He had that song on the playlist.”
“The playlist?”
Even though we’d listened to one of the songs together, I realized I hadn’t told her about it. “Yeah, Hayden made me a playlist. Before he died. There’s a bunch of songs on there I know, and then a whole bunch I don’t. He said if I listened I’d understand.”
That screen fell over her face again. Maybe I had gone too far. “Yeah, I told him about it,” she said, finally. “He thought it was too weird. He liked the soundtrack, though.”
Now I had one piece of the puzzle. I wondered if she’d given him the other music, but I didn’t want to push her away again. “It’s a great song,” I said. “What else is on the soundtrack?”
She looked relieved, and we talked about music and movies as we walked to Eric’s house. Astrid, like me, was mostly into alternative stuff; we talked about how impossible it was to find anything good on the radio, which bands we liked. I paid close attention to see how many of them were on the playlist, but either she wasn’t Athena or she was being careful—most of the bands she told me about were ones I already listened to, so there was no way to tell whether she’d given him the new stuff. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want her to be Athena, for reasons I wasn’t sure I entirely understood, but I also didn’t know what the alternative was.
“So, this playlist,” she said. “Can I hear something else from it? Do you have your iPod?”
“Always,” I said, and got it out of my pocket. I thought about what song to play for her. There were so many darkly beautiful songs on there, but they were so sad, and I didn’t want to bring the mood back down. I wondered if I should make it a test—pick one of the songs I hadn’t heard before and see if she knew it—but I wasn’t sure what I wanted her to say. Finally I chose one, and we shared earbuds again, like we had the day of Hayden’s funeral.
We walked and listened, the air growing cooler around us, the sun setting as we went, shades of red and pink and purple that seemed to make the cornfields glow. I hoped she was focusing on the part I wanted her to, about being the one if she wanted me to. I didn’t want the song to end, but it did. It had to.
I stopped walking for a minute and pulled her close to me as the last notes played. We’d kissed, sure, but we hadn’t hugged yet, and it felt so good to hold her so tightly, to feel her body line up with mine. She was almost as tall as I was, which seemed perfect just then.
“Has it helped?” she asked.
“Has what helped?”
“The playlist. Has it helped you understand?”
I thought about it for a minute. “Not yet,” I admitted. “But I’m starting to see that maybe it wasn’t all about me.”
“That’s a start,” she said.
And for now, it would have to be enough.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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WE STARTED WALKING AGAIN and turned onto a dirt road with no name, just a number. “Eric lives here?” I asked, stupidly. I hadn’t been sure what to expect from hipster Eric, with his spats and his skinny pants, but I definitely hadn’t called him living on a farm. Because there was no question that we were now on one. White house, red barn, sheep, pigs, chickens—it was all there.
“Not what you pictured?” Astrid laughed. “His family runs this place. All organic, self-sustaining, no genetically modified anything. They sell meat and produce at farmers’ markets all over the state.”
“So Eric is rebelling against all of this?”
“Not at all. He’s super into it. He’s got his own garden, and he sells his stuff at the markets with them when he can. He drives the tractor. Even knows how to fix it.”
For some reason this was blowing my mind.
“You’re not the only one who has another life outside of school,” she said.
“Good point.” She’d nailed it, but even more than that, I was embarrassed at all the many different assumptions I’d made about Eric that had turned out to be wrong. He wasn’t Astrid’s boyfriend; he wasn’t some stereotypical hipster; the fact that he was gay didn’t mean he didn’t get along with his family.
Was I just as bad as everyone else? I hoped not.
From where we were standing, the farm looked idyllic. The sun had just about set, and the last faint hints of red lit up the white house. “Come on,” Astrid said, and ran toward the door. Before I could catch up, before she even had a chance to knock, she was surrounded by a throng of children and dogs, all of whom seemed to know her. The kids all had varying shades of blond curly hair and were probably no older than eight; the dogs were a mix of yellow and chocolate Labs, as far as I could tell.
“Astrid’s here!” the kids yelled, while the dogs took turns jumping on her legs and slobbering on her face. It didn’t look all that pleasant, but she had this enormous grin on her face, which made me grateful I didn’t have to rescue her. I am not a dog person.
“You came to play with us, right?” the oldest kid asked. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl; all the kids were wearing jeans and sweatshirts and their curls were kind of long.
“Not this time, I’m afraid,” Astrid said.
“You’re always here for Eric!” another kid whined good-naturedly.
“Someday it will be just about us, I promise,” Astrid said. “Now are you going to let us in or what?”
Almost as quickly as the crowd of dogs and kids had gathered, it disappeared, and the door opened. “He’s in the attic,” a voice called out. “As usual.”
“That would be Eric’s mom,” Astrid said. She led me into the house and through an enormous open kitchen, where a woman in basically the same outfit as the kids was standing over a deep farm sink doing something that appeared to involve pulling the feathers off a chicken. I looked closer. Yep, that’s what she was doing. “Hi, Mrs. Sueppel. This is my . . . this is Sam.”
Was she about to say boyfriend? I hoped she was about to say boyfriend. “Nice to meet you, Sam,” Mrs. Sueppel said. “I’d shake your hand but as you can see, I’m up to my elbows in chicken guts over here.”
“No problem,” I said.
“Okay if we just go upstairs?” Astrid asked.
“Go right ahead.” Mrs. Sueppel turned back to the sink and continued plucking away.
“Was that one of the chickens from outside?” I whispered to Astrid as we headed up the stairs.
“Don’t mess with Mrs. Sueppel,” she whispered back, grinning.
The attic was up three flights of stairs. They were all wood, but it wasn’t wood like at Stephanie’s house or Hayden’s, all even and polished and shiny; this was wood that someone had clearly cut from a tree by hand, sanded down, and nailed together to build this house, years and years ago. The stairs creaked so loudly as we walked on them I was worried I’d fall through, except that the wood seemed so solid under my feet.
“Coming through,” Astrid called out as we neared the top of the stairs, which stretched toward what looked like the ceiling.
A trapdoor dropped down above us, allowing us to see a narrow ladder that first Astrid, then I climbed, leading into Eric’s room. Except “room” wasn’t quite the right word. His room was the attic, and the attic stretched the length of the entire house, narrowing at the sides where the roof came down. It wasn’t like any teenager’s room I’d seen before; it felt more like an art studio.
One side of the room was paint-spattered, with multiple easels where Eric and some of his friends were working. Damian was there, sitting in a corner with a sketchbook and a box of colored pencils. There was also a big plastic tub of clay sitting next to a wheel where Jess, the girl from the lunch table, was throwing a pot or something. She was the only one I hadn’t officially met; I tried to smile at her, but she looked at me quickly and then turned back to her pot, and I figured it wasn’t a good time. I didn’t want to interrupt her, especially since this whole making-new-friends thing was still not my area of expertise.
The other side of the room was filled with books and DVDs, and there was a decent-sized flat-screen TV hooked up to a Blu-Ray player and a stereo, though I didn’t see any video games. Bummer.
“Hey, guys, glad you could make it,” Eric said, coming out from behind one of the easels. “Sam, I take it you found Astrid okay?”
“I did,” I said, and she grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
Eric’s face broke out into a grin. “I see. It’s about time, Sam.”
I blushed again. This was all pretty new to me. “This is your room?” I asked.
“Mine all mine,” he said. “Ran out of bedrooms when my little brother was born so I convinced them to give me the attic. I turned it into a combo art studio/movie house, so now we hang out here a lot.”
“Your parents leave you alone?”
“More or less.” He walked back over to the easel. “Make yourselves at home. You into art at all? We’ve got just about everything here you’d need.”
“Not really,” I said, though I wished I was. “What are you painting?”
Eric looked over at Astrid. Something passed between them that I didn’t understand. She shrugged. “Come check it out,” he said.
I walked over to the easel. He’d been working on what appeared to be a portrait of a boy, blond, sharp-featured, sad. He looked familiar, though I couldn’t place him right away. “You’re really good,” I said.
“Thanks. Can’t seem to get it quite right, though.” He frowned at it, then put his paints down. “How about we watch a movie? Everyone up for that?” He walked over to the rack of DVDs and scanned through them. “Theme today is teenage angst, just like every other day.”
“You pick,” Damian called out.
“Dealer’s choice it is,” Eric said. He loaded up a movie, and Jess and Damian started arranging stacks of pillows and blankets along the wall across from the TV. I guess they knew the drill. I found a big square pillow to lean on, and Astrid curled up next to me as a creepy song I recognized from Hayden’s mix came over the speakers. Lying together watching a movie with Astrid was pretty much the greatest thing that had ever happened to me.
The movie itself was disturbing, though. It was old—from the ’80s or ’90s, I wasn’t sure—about a loner kid with a pirate radio station. At one point he dealt with a suicidal kid who eventually killed himself. He felt really bad about it and ended up giving this long, ranting speech about why suicide wasn’t the answer. I found myself fighting the urge to get up and walk out, even though the speech itself wasn’t preachy or anything like that. It was just that I hadn’t realized what the movie was about; even hearing the word “suicide” was kind of like getting kicked in the stomach. Hayden had never even tried to talk to anyone, let alone some random asshole on the radio. Would that have made things better or worse?
“You okay?” Astrid whispered as the credits rolled.
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure I meant it.
“Not the most sensitive pick, Eric,” she said.
He had the decency to look embarrassed. “I know, I’m really sorry,” he said. “Totally didn’t think it through before I put it in, and then it was too late, you know? No offense?”
“None taken.” I didn’t think he’d set out to make me feel bad.
“I was actually remembering the homophobia more than the suicide,” he said. That had been part of the storyline too; I’d been so focused on the other stuff that I hadn’t considered how the rest of it would affect other people. Like Eric. “No shortage of homophobes at Libertyville High, that’s for sure.”
“It’s not as bad as it was back then, is it?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him.
“It’s better than it was, but it’s still not great,” he said. “This is still a town where most people belong to one of two churches, and both of them preach the evils of homosex
uality on a regular basis. There’s no LGBTQ group at school, even though all the other big high schools in Iowa have them. Most people around here would rather stay closeted than run the risk of, I don’t know, losing a scholarship because your church found out you were gay.”
“But it seems like everyone accepts you,” I said. “Your family, your friends.”
“They do now,” Astrid said.
“Let’s not talk about that,” Eric said.
“They’ll get what’s coming to them eventually,” Jess said quietly. I think it was the first thing I’d ever heard her say.
“Maybe they already have,” Damian said.
I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but I had a feeling it was Jason and Trevor. I didn’t understand, though—Trevor I could totally believe as a homophobe, but I thought the rumor was that Jason was gay. I wondered whether Eric could have been talking about Jason and that church scholarship—everyone knew how religious his family was, and he was definitely the type to win scholarship money.
The room was quiet after that, but it wasn’t a normal silence. It was filled with something—I couldn’t tell exactly what, but something wasn’t right. Did they all think I’d done it, too? I wanted to say that I hadn’t, that it must have been someone else, but I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t want to lie.
“It’s getting late,” someone said. “We should probably head out.”
“Yeah, we should too,” Astrid said. “Can anyone give us a ride?”
Damian had borrowed his dad’s car, so he offered to drop us off. I thought maybe I’d get to see where Astrid lived, but Damian went by my house first. “Good to see you guys,” he said. “We should all hang out again soon.”
“If I don’t keep Sam all to myself,” Astrid said. She kissed me before I got out of the car.
If she kept kissing me like that, I imagined, maybe the other stuff wouldn’t matter so much. But I felt guilty even thinking it.