The Sky is Everywhere(28)
Author: Jandy Nelson

I don’t holler, Yes, right now, with you, stupid, like I suddenly want to, but say, “No. I’ve never been anything.”

He gets up on one elbow, looks over at me. “What do you mean?”

I sit, hugging my knees, looking out at the spattering of lights down in the valley.

“It’s like I was sleeping or something, happy, but sleeping, for seventeen years, and then Bailey died…” The wine has made it easier to talk but I don’t know if I’m making any sense. I look over at Joe. He’s listening to me so carefully, like he wants to catch my words in his hands as they fall from my lips.

“And now?”

“Well, now I don’t know. I feel so different.” I pick up a pebble and toss it into the darkness. I think how things used to be: predictable, sensible. How I used to be the same. I think how there is no inevitability, how there never was, I just didn’t know it then. “I’m awake, I guess, and maybe that’s good, but it’s more complicated than that because now I’m someone who knows the worst thing can happen at any time.”

Joe’s nodding like I’m making sense, which is good, because I have no idea what I just said. I know what I meant though. I meant that I know now how close death is. How it lurks. And who wants to know that? Who wants to know we are just one carefree breath away from the end? Who wants to know that the person you love and need the most can just vanish forever?

He says, “But if you’re someone who knows the worst thing can happen at any time, aren’t you also someone who knows the best thing can happen at any time too?”

I think about this and instantly feel elated. “Yeah, that’s right,” I say. “Like right now with you, actually…” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it, and I see the delight wash across his face.

“Are we drunk?” I ask.

He takes another swig. “Quite possibly.”

“Anyway, have you ever…”

“I’ve never experienced anything like what you’re going through.”

“No, I mean, have you ever been in love?” My stomach clenches. I want him to say no so badly, but I know he won’t, and he doesn’t.

“Yeah, I was. I guess.” He shakes his head. “I think so anyway.”

“What happened?”

A siren sounds in the distance. Joe sits up. “During the summers, I boarded at school. I walked in on her and my roommate, killed me. I mean really killed me. I never talked to her again, or him, threw myself into music in kind of an insane way, swore off girls, well, until now, I guess…” He smiles, but not like usual. There’s a vulnerability in it, a hesitancy; it’s all over his face, swimming around in his beautiful green eyes too. I shut my eyes to not have to see it, because all I can think about is how he almost walked in on Toby and me today.

Joe grabs the bottle of wine and drinks. “Moral of the story: violinists are insane. I think it’s that crazy-ass bow.” Genevieve, the gorgeous French violinist. Ugh.

“Yeah? What about clarinettists?”

He smiles. “The most soulful.” He trails his finger across my face, forehead to cheek to chin, then down my neck. “And so beautiful.” Oh my, I totally get why King Edward VIII abdicated his throne for love. If I had a throne, I’d abdicate it just to relive the last three seconds.

“And horn players?” I ask, intertwining my fingers with his.

He shakes his head. “Crazy hellions, steer clear. All-or-nothing types, no middle ground for the blowhards.” Uh-oh. “Never want to cross a horn player,” he adds flippantly, but I don’t hear it flippantly. I can’t believe I lied to him today. I have to stay away from Toby. Far away.

A pair of coyotes howl in the distance, sending a shiver up my spine. Nice timing, dogs.

“Didn’t know you horn guys were so scary,” I say, letting go of his hand and taking a swig off the bottle. “And guitarists?”

“You tell me.”

“Hmm, let me think…” I trail my finger over his face this time. “Homely and boring, and of course, talentless—” He cracks up. “I’m not done. But they make up for all that because they are so, so passionate—”

“Oh, God,” he whispers, reaching his hand behind my neck and bringing my lips to his. “Let’s let the whole fucking world explode this time.”

And we do.

I’m lying in bed, hearing voices.

“What do you think is wrong with her?”

“Not sure. Could be the orange walls getting to her.” A pause, then I hear: “Let’s think about it logically. Symptoms: still in bed at noon on a sunny Saturday, goofy grin on her face, stains on her lips likely from red wine, a beverage she’s not allowed to drink, which we will address later, and the giveaway, still in her clothes, a dress I might add, with flowers on it.”

“Well, my expert opinion, which I draw from vast experience and five glorious, albeit flawed marriages, is that Lennie Walker aka John Lennon is out of her mind in love.”

Big and Gram are smiling down at me. I feel like Dorothy waking in her bed, surrounded by her Kansans after having been over the rainbow.

“Do you think you’re ever going to get up again?” Gram is sitting on the bed now, patting my hand, which is in hers.

“I don’t know.” I roll over to face her. “I just want to lie here forever and think about him.” I haven’t decided which is better: experiencing last night, or the blissed-out replay in my mind where I can hit pause and turn ecstatic seconds into whole hours, where I can loop certain moments until the sweet grassy taste of Joe is again in my mouth, the clove scent of his skin is in the air, until I can feel his hands running through my hair, all over my dress, just one thin, thin layer between us, until the moment when he slipped his hands under the fabric and I felt his fingers on my skin like music – all of it sending me again and again right off the cliff that is my heart.

This morning, for the first time, Bailey wasn’t my first thought on waking and it had made me feel guilty. But the guilt didn’t have much of a chance against the dawning realization that I was falling in love. I had stared out the window at the early-morning fog, wondering for a moment if she had sent Joe to me so I would know that in the same world where she could die, this could happen.

Big says, “Would you look at her. We’ve got to cut down those damn rosebushes.” His hair is particularly coiled and springy today, and his mustache is unwaxed, so it looks like a squirrel is running across his face. In any fairy tale, Big plays the king.