Abigail Johnson - If I Fix You

Dad’s own smile took longer than I would have liked to match mine, but it got there. Better. I needed to find a way to keep it there.

“You want me to make you something—” he yawned “—for breakfast?”

I raised an eyebrow. Mom was the cook, which maybe explained why I’d never wanted to learn. Dad’s culinary skills were only slightly less hazardous than mine, which meant we were on a first-name basis with all of the take-out restaurants within a fifteen-mile radius of our house. Still, he tried. Or at least, he offered.

In response to my undisguised skepticism, Dad half smiled, half yawned and then stared again at my still-made bed. He let out a soft sigh and looked at me.

I held my breath.

So did he.

But all he did was sigh again. “I’ll leave the cereal box on the counter for you.” Then his face scrunched up. “I forgot to get your Froot Loops. Sorry, honey. We’ve got some chocolate-sugar-cinnamon things though. You like those, right?” He kissed the top of my head and disappeared down the hall.

I shut my bedroom door and leaned my palms against it.

We were never going to talk about it.

Why she left.

CHAPTER 4

My dark red Schwinn was parked in the garage next to Dad’s current project. I eyed one with disdain and the other with enough desire to make my mouth water. The truck was a big, beautiful beast. Large enough that I had to hop up when I got into it. Driving it was like trying not to get bucked off a wild animal. No power steering and the brakes were a tad temperamental. Little by little it was becoming street safe, but not, according to Dad, daughter safe yet.

Details.

The bike was the same one I’d had since junior high and I took it as a deep, personal insult that I still had to ride it most mornings even though I had a driver’s license and a revolving supply of vehicles in varying stages of drivability at my disposal.

Dad had yet to agree. I’d keep working on him.

The wheels clicked softly as I rolled my bike out of the garage. At least the temperature hadn’t reached lethal limits yet. The wind that whipped my ponytail around didn’t feel like a hair dryer in my face. That fun would come on the bike ride home.

I turned into my high school parking lot ten minutes later and saw a lone figure jogging around the track by the canals. Her hair was pulled back in a French braid with a few wispy curls escaping around her face. She looked like she’d stepped out of a toothpaste commercial with her big blue eyes, white-blond hair and matching smile.

She’d been my best friend since the day her family moved in down the street from my old house. She’d knocked on my door with her mom in tow and introduced herself to my mother. “Hi, I’m Claire Vanderhoff. Do you have any kids I can play with?”

She’d been six at the time and was still every bit as forthright at sixteen.

She waved and hurried to meet me.

“Hey! Look at you almost being on time.” Claire bounced in front of me, her body in perpetual movement. “Be careful, waking up this early is addictive. I alphabetized my entire pantry already this morning, and tried out a new juicing recipe. Here.”

My hands were balancing my bike as I walked it to the rack, so I had no choice but to tip my head back when she lifted the thermos to my lips. The blackish-green liquid that hit my tongue tasted like super bitter—and chunky—grass. I mostly concealed a gag.

Claire rolled her eyes and took her thermos back. “That’s your body crying out for more than milk shakes.”

“Do I look like I pedaled through a drive-through on my way here?”

“No, but that’s probably your plan for the ride home.”

She had me there. “What did I just drink anyway?” I nodded toward her metal thermos.

“Wheatgrass, kale and gingerroot.”

I grimaced. “Seriously, Claire?”

“What? It’s supposed to help detox and give you all this energy.” Claire took a whiff. “I found the recipe on this diabetes website that’s pretty good.”

I noticed she was quick to put the lid back. “You need to start your own site. You could make something a million times better and it wouldn’t have to taste like grass and dog piss.”

Claire widened her eyes, uncomfortable with anything that even hinted at crude language. She did brighten at my compliment though, which was completely true. In the two years since her type 2 diabetes diagnosis, Claire had transformed from an overweight spectator to a rather impressive athlete with an ever-expanding nutritional knowledge base.

“I’ve been thinking about starting something...maybe.” She smiled at me. “I could definitely make a better juice.”

“And I will definitely watch you drink it.”

“So,” Claire said after I chained my bike, suddenly very interested in a rock by her foot. She nodded toward the end of the parking lot where a forest green Jetta was idling, its driver fast asleep behind the wheel.

Sean.

Unlike Claire and me, this was the end of his day, not the beginning. He came to the track straight from his summer job—the night shift working security at his dad’s construction site—so someone usually had to wake him. I kept waiting for the morning when the simple question “Do you want to get him today, or should I?” wouldn’t swirl misery through my gut.

We’d been running together for five straight weeks, and I still didn’t know why Sean had agreed to run with us when Claire told him she wanted to go out for cross-country. There were days when I barely knew why I did.

Actually, that wasn’t true. I knew exactly why.

Sean had been sitting on my front porch the morning after my mother left, eyes as bloodshot as mine, waiting for me before I left for school. I hadn’t been surprised to find him there. He’d been calling and texting all night until I shut off my phone. He wasn’t the kind of person to give up easily. Growing up with four older siblings, he couldn’t afford to.

But it had hurt, the sight of someone I used to love mired in a memory too fresh and painful to bear.

He’d been wearing the same clothes from the night before, wrinkled and slept in; he hadn’t even fixed the button Mom had undone.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” I’d said, in a voice that sounded stronger than I’d felt. I’d shut the front door behind me and kept a death grip on the knob.

Sean had jumped up, never taking his gaze off me. “You don’t have to talk but I need you to listen.”

I’d shook my head, feeling tears pricking my eyes as he drew closer.

“I’m sorry.”

And they’d spilled over, streams running down my cheeks. I’d wanted him to deny what I’d seen the night before. I’d needed him to make me believe my own eyes had lied. To tell me something, anything, that meant I could keep him, keep us. I’m sorry was a confession disguised in an apology.

I’m sorry I was with your mom.

I’m sorry you found out that way.

I’m sorry I couldn’t love you back.

I’m sorry you can’t tell your dad why his wife left him.

I’m sorry your family was destroyed.

I’m sorry.

“I shouldn’t have left you last night,” he’d continued. “I panicked and I ran.” He’d taken a middling step forward. “I need to tell you what’s been going on. Your mom—”

“Is gone.” My chin quivered. He was so close I’d had to look up. “And she’s not coming back.”

His brows drew together then smoothed, and that easy acceptance had galled me. When he opened his mouth, I’d cut him off. My lips curled back. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry again.”

He hadn’t. He’d shook his head and reached out a hand, brushing the back of his fingertips against mine. “I didn’t know. She said some things last night, but I didn’t know.”