Susan Pfeffer - This World We Live In

“What if you don’t stay in Tennessee?” Mom asked. “How will I know where you are?”

“We’ll let Alex’s brother know,” I said. “Carlos Morales. He’s in the Marines, stationed in Texas. Alex can give you all his information.”

“There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?” she asked. “You have no doubts?”

I had a thousand doubts, a million doubts. “I love Alex,” I said. “He loves me. I’m going with him.”

“But not until Tuesday,” Mom said. “If you do change your mind, it will be all right. Alex will understand and so will your father. Promise me you’ll think about it between now and then. I love you, Miranda, and I want what’s best for you. Think about what you’ll be giving up if you go. Think about it hard.”

“I have thought about it,” I said. “And I promise you I’ll think about it more. But, Mom, I’m going. I know what I’ll be giving up if I go. But I also know what I’ll be giving up if I stay.”

Mom took my hand. “This wasn’t how things were supposed to be,” she said. “You should be in high school, your future ahead of you. Not this.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Alex, either,” I said. “Or Matt. Or Jon. You have to fight for happiness, Mom. Maybe it didn’t used to be that way, but it is now. I’m not going to settle for sadness. That’s not what you want for me, not really.”

“I want to protect you,” Mom said. “I want to know you’re safe, that you’ll be all right.”

“Just love me,” I said. “Love me and let me go.”

I thought I knew what fear was. I thought, For the past year I’ve lived every day afraid; I must understand fear.

I understood nothing.

Last night was horrible. Matt yelled at me, told me that Alex wasn’t good enough for me, that I was disloyal and stupid. Then he and Syl got into a screaming match in their room, so loud we could all hear it downstairs.

Jon didn’t yell, at least not at me. He and Mom had a huge fight. He wanted to go with us and Mom wouldn’t let him. It was so bad she sent me over to Dad’s to bring him back to tell Jon he’d be better off staying home.

Even Charlie got in the act. He came over to talk things out with me.

“I’m glad you’re going with us,” he said. “It makes Hal so happy, and Hal’s the best friend I’ve ever had. But don’t count too much on Alex. He’s a great boy, Miranda, a wonderful boy, but that’s what he is, a boy. A boy who’s been given so much responsibility, he thinks he must be a man.”

That was last night. And awful as it was, I’d give up everything to go back to it.

Matt and Dad went out this morning to chop wood and spend their last day together. Syl hid in her room; Jon, in his. Mom and I cleaned downstairs, carefully staying in different rooms as we dusted and scrubbed.

Alex and Julie came over around ten. “Julie would like to make the food run with Jon,” Alex said. “Is that all right with you, Mrs. Evans?”

Mom nodded. She went to the staircase and hollered to Jon to come down. He did, each step taking longer than the step before.

“Julie wants to go to town with you,” Mom said. “For the food run. All right?”

Jon shrugged.

Julie took that for a yes. “Let’s go,” she said. Jon followed as she left the house.

“I’d like to go out with Miranda if you don’t mind, Mrs. Evans,” Alex said. “I’d like to look for bikes or maybe even a car.”

“It looks like it might rain,” Mom said.

“She’ll be fine,” Alex said. “I’ll look out for her.”

“I’ll get my jacket,” I said. I ran to the closet and got it, giving Mom a peck on the cheek when I returned. “Mom, don’t worry. I won’t melt.”

“All right,” Mom said. “I won’t worry.”

When we got outside, I realized I wouldn’t need my jacket. It was very muggy and close to 70 degrees. There was the smell of thunderstorms in the air. I hoped tomorrow would be better. It would be easier for Mom if I didn’t leave under stormy skies.

“We need more bikes,” Alex said. “You and I can share one to start out with, and one for Julie and Lisa and Gabriel to share, and one each for Charlie and Hal. I figure we can take one bike from your family, so we’ll need three more.”

“We only have four bikes,” I said. “Those are for Mom and Matt and Syl and Jon.”

“Your mother won’t need one,” Alex said. “She never leaves the house.”

“She will someday,” I said. “When she has to.”

“She’ll get a bike then,” Alex said. “In the meantime you’ll need a bike a lot more than she does.”

I wanted to ask Alex if we were doing the right thing, but I knew asking him meant I thought we weren’t. He must have sensed what I was feeling because he grabbed me and we kissed.

“I want you so much,” he said, and then he laughed. “I used to think I wanted things, school, success, food. That was nothing compared to how much I want you.”

“You have me,” I said.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, so I kissed him to prove it. And when I did, my million doubts flew away.

“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “Let’s see what we can find.”

We hiked over to the Seven Pines development, a mile or so away. We stopped more often than I could count, to kiss, to hold each other, to marvel that we really existed. I had lied to Mom. I did melt, over and over again.

It took an hour of searching and hugging and kissing before we found two bikes. “Let’s ride them back,” I suggested. “And go out again to look some more.”

“Good idea,” Alex said, kissing me again. “We’ll look for two bikes so your mother can keep yours.”

We began the short ride back to my house. We rode side by side, but even so Alex felt too far away from me. I thought, I’m choosing to spend the rest of my life with this boy and I hardly know him. But I wasn’t scared anymore, just excited and impatient for the next part of my life to begin.

We’d gotten back to Howell Bridge Road, maybe a quarter mile from home, when the wind picked up, howling so hard it knocked me off my bike. Alex got off his bike to help me up, but I pulled him down instead, and we kissed.

What a dumb word that is, “kiss.” I’ve kissed my grandparents, my brothers, my friends, my teddy bears. I’ve kissed other boys.

This kiss wasn’t that. This kiss was two bodies desperately wanting to become one.

“Do you still want to marry me?” I asked him. “In the eyes of God and the Church?”

“Does that mean you will?” he asked.

I nodded. We held on to each other, loved each other, for what should have been the rest of our lives.

But then hail started to fall, little pellets of ice at first, more and more of them, growing in size and danger.

“We’ve got to get home,” Alex said as he pulled me up from the road and helped me get on my bike.

It’s been a year since I’ve seen blue sky, and I thought I knew every different gradation of gray, but the sky had a new and terrifying tone, almost a greenish tint. We rode frantically down the hill, both of us falling as our wheels hit ice. Thunder was growing louder and closer to flashes of lightning.

And then I saw the twister. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, just that it was moving fast toward us, toward our home.

I yelled to Alex, who looked as I gestured. We rode even faster then, trying to outrace death. But as we reached my house, he didn’t turn off onto the driveway. Instead he yelled something at me and kept on biking, faster than I knew he could, faster than I knew anybody could.

In a flash I understood everything. He was biking toward Julie and Jon, to warn them, to save them. And he’d shouted to me to get his missal.