Andrew Klavan - The long way home

Anyway, we were sitting in the theater before the lights went down, passing a popcorn bag back and forth and just kind of staring at the advertising slide show on the screen and talking about stuff.

And Beth said, "I feel a little strange about this."

"What do you mean?" I asked her. "About going to the movies?"

"I don't know. I still think about Alex and everything. I mean, I know life goes on, but… do you feel like it might be wrong for us to be here?"

There was a silence. Then I said, "I feel…"

But before I could finish, the lights went down and the movie trailers started.

When we came outside after the movie, it was dark. We decided we would go back into town and have dinner at a place called Marie's where a lot of the kids hung out. As we were walking to our cars, I took hold of Beth's hand. It was the first time I had done that.

When we reached her car, we stopped and stood facing each other. I was looking into her eyes. Her eyes were blue, but they were a sort of pale blue with flecks of gold in them. The color reminded me of flowers.

"What were you going to say?" she asked me. "Before the movie started. I said it felt a little wrong for us to be there and you said, 'I feel…' and then you didn't finish. What were you going to say? Do you remember?"

"Yeah, I remember. I was going to say: I feel like nothing about you and me being together is wrong. I feel like when we're together, it's just right, like it's supposed to happen. It's weird, too, because it's not like in the movies with music playing or fireworks or-or anything that I expected. It's just like… I don't know, like a little click, like- You ever do jigsaw puzzles? And you find the right piece and it clicks in? It feels like that."

Beth said, "It feels like that to me too," and I kissed her.

The Worst Thing Ever The wind outside had fallen off, but, all the same, a chill drifted in through the broken window of the Ghost Mansion's parlor. Beth paused in her story. She shivered and I shivered and we both looked away.

It was kind of embarrassing, that's all-sitting there, listening to Beth describe what I said to her and how I kissed her. It was embarrassing-and it was molto weird, too, because I didn't remember any of it. I didn't remember saying that stuff about the jigsaw pieces fitting together and everything-although, I have to admit, when she told it to me, I thought it was a pretty cool thing to have said. Because, the thing was, I could feel it, even now. I could feel it was true right that second, sitting there with her.

"I bet that was nice," I said. "Kissing you for the first time. I wish I could remember what that was like."

"It was like this," she told me.

And then we didn't say anything for a while.

And for a while, Beth told me, Alex and the murder fell into the background of our lives. Just about everything did, except for us being together. Walking home together, going out together, being around each other. It was as if we had made some kind of discovery-as if we had discovered something that had been right there in front of us and yet hidden away at the same time. I guess we'd fallen in love. Which, I guess, happens a lot in the world. But it felt to us like it had never happened to anyone before. It felt like nothing that special and yet so incredibly right could happen any more than once in a million years.

We were together every minute we could be. We did homework together and watched TV together. We talked and talked to each other, telling each other the stories of our lives, everything we hoped to do after we got out of school and all the secret stuff we thought about that we never told anyone.

"It's like we're two different computers downloading our programs into each other," I said to her. "It's like we're becoming a two-machine network running the same software."

She laughed at me. "Only a guy would say something like that."

"Why?" I said. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's, like, the least romantic thing I think I've ever heard. In fact, it may be the least romantic thing anybody's ever said."

I laughed too. "Come on! You think it's the least romantic thing anybody's ever said? Ever? What about, like, cabbage. Or mud. Or, Hey, Al, I dropped my cabbage in the mud."

"Even that is more romantic than comparing us to two machines with the same software."

"It's a very romantic concept."

"To a guy!"

"It's like a love song or something." I sang it to her: "You're the software that makes my computer full-and that's why I think you're so beauter-full…"

That made her laugh even more. Or maybe it was just my singing voice, which, I've noticed, makes a lot of people laugh.

Anyway, it seems we spent a lot of time together talking about stupid stuff like that and then laughing about it. And we would wonder to each other sometimes why anyone would ever do anything else, why everyone didn't spend all of their time just saying stupid things and laughing. It seemed like the best thing two people could possibly do.

But then we stopped. Suddenly. We stopped laughing. We stopped saying stupid things. All our happiness came crashing down around us.

It happened on a Tuesday, early morning, before school. I called Beth and told her we had to meet at our place. I told her it was important.

Our place was the path by the river, the path where we'd walked that first time together. We met there sometimes in the early morning when there were no crowds, no one except the occasional young professional getting in some biking exercise before the day began.

The autumn had gone on now and the leaves were falling. The branches of the birches were almost bare and the yellow leaves lay in the grass beside the path and blew rattling across the pavement. The weather was turning too. The sky that morning was steel gray, and there was a damp chill in the air that told you winter was coming.

Beth got to the path before me and waited. When she saw me coming, when she saw my face, she knew right away that something was really wrong.

"Charlie? Are you okay? What's the matter?" she said.

She reached out with both her hands to take my hands. But I wouldn't give them to her. I stood at a little distance with my thumbs in my pockets. I looked at her and my face was hard, she said, as if I was trying to look angry or mean. But she saw something else in my eyes.

"Look," I told her. "I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything, but we have to stop."

"Stop what?"

"Stop seeing each other. We can't see each other anymore."

"Charlie, what're you talking about? Why?"

"Well, because… We just should. That's the way I want it, all right? It's-I don't know-it's just getting too serious for me. After a while, we'll go to college or whatever and… what's the point, you know? Look, I just think it's the right thing to do. I don't feel the same way about you anymore and I-I just want to end it, that's all."

Beth stared at me a long time. She had a sick feeling in her stomach, but it wasn't what she expected. She wasn't sad, as if we were breaking up. Instead, she was afraid and she wasn't sure why.

She shook her head. She stepped closer to me, studying my face, studying my eyes.

Then she said, "You're lying to me, Charlie. I never saw you lie before, but I know it when I see it. Why are you lying to me?"

"I'm not…"

"Yes, you are. I know it when I see it. You're not doing this because your feelings have changed. You feel just the same…"

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do, Charlie. Don't lie." I looked away from her and she knew she was right. "Tell me what's the matter."

When I looked at her again, my face was still set, still hard, but she could see the doubt in my eyes.

"Look," I told her. "It just… it isn't right, that's all. You and me. It's a mistake."