Upstream Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee
Upstream
Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee
I’ve been instructed to come straight home from school on Friday afternoon, and I’m not happy about it.
Isaiah wasn’t in Ceramics, and he hasn’t replied to the texts I’ve sent, and I keep thinking about today’s court hearing and Naya. I wish I could make a trip to his house, but my parents, who’ve said a total of ten words to me since last night’s CVU proclamation, have a flight to catch and, apparently, rules to dole out.
“No driving outside town,” Dad says, gathering his wallet and keys from the basket on the kitchen counter.
“No friends in the house,” Mom puts in.
“No drinking,” he contributes.
Her mouth falls open. “Cam, Lia doesn’t drink.”
He gives her a condemnatory look, nowhere near as trusting as she’s chosen to be.
“Check in every morning,” he tells me.
“And every night,” she adds.
“No boys,” he says.
So…I’m grounded, but without supervision.
Fine.
Outside, the sky is blanketed in storm clouds. As my parents head toward the door toting suitcases and carry-ons, the house vibrates with a clap of thunder.
Mom shudders. “If we could postpone this trip,” she tells me, “we would.”
“You’re lucky we’re not insisting you come,” Dad says, hand on the doorknob.
The only way they’d get me on that plane is by first administering a strong tranquilizer. It’s wild, the power they think they hold. Their belief that they can influence where I go to college, who I date, where I spend spring break.
I’m less than a week from eighteen.
“Have fun in Virginia,” I mutter, turning for the stairs.
I’m halfway to my room when the front door closes. The dead bolt slots audibly into place. Misgiving tangles around me.
I should’ve said goodbye .
I should’ve said I love you .
It’s not as if I don’t know what it’s like to suddenly lose a loved one.
The day Beck died, Mom came home with almond chicken, fried rice, and egg rolls. She was in a great mood. Thanksgiving was a day away, there was snow in the forecast, and Dad was on his way home from Hawaii. He’d already completed the first of two flights that would have him landing at Reagan early in the morning.
While we ate dinner, I thought of Beck. Hours had passed since I’d called to thank him for the ice cream. It troubled me, the way he’d sounded on the phone: run-down, like he was getting sick. But he’d had a taxing week of classes, and his training schedule was intense. He likely hadn’t slept well the night before. I sure hadn’t.
I was shoving my worries aside when Mom’s phone rang.
That call was surreal, like the moments before you fall asleep, when sounds are muffled, muscles are lax, and eyelids are heavy. I remember the fear that lanced Mom’s expression. The way her face drained of color. I remember her dropping into her chair, legs lacking the strength to support her. I remember the tears that pooled in her eyes as she listened to Bernie, whose words were indistinct, whose tone was hysterical.
Mom pressed a hand to her chest and said, “I’ll come now. Ten minutes.”
Her eyes found mine. She shook her head, stricken, and my chest caved in on itself.
Beck.
As soon as the call ended, she was up, circling the table. She pulled me to my feet and into her arms. “Beck’s been taken to the hospital,” she told me. “Bernie and Connor need to go to Charlottesville, and they need me to stay with the twins.”
“I’ll go to Charlottesville too.”
“You’ll come with me. Norah and Mae need you.”
“ Beck needs me.”
“You can’t go, Lia. Bernie said—” She covered her mouth, smothering a sob. Through tears, she finished, “It’s serious.”
If I’d been admitted to the hospital, Beck would’ve moved mountains to get to me.
I straightened my spine, sure I could change Mom’s mind. “All the more reason for me to go. I’ll drive myself.”
“Absolutely not!”
I flinched, my throat swelling with panic.
She looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, lovey. If I knew more, I’d tell you. If it made sense for you to go to Charlottesville, I’d let you. But I can’t have you on the road at this hour, not with all that’s going on and snow on the way. Come to the Byrnes’ with me. We’ll be there for the twins. That’s the best thing you can do for Beck.”
I was choking on confusion.
I’d spoken to Beck not six hours before.
He’d been fine.
Call me later , I’d said to him.
And to me, he’d said, I love you, Amelia Graham.
He died doing the safest possible thing: napping in his fucking bed.
Today, my parents will board a plane, ascend thousands of feet into the air, and rocket toward the East Coast. If there’s an accident while they’re en route—if they die— and our last interaction was drenched in snark, I’ll never recover.
I’m a half second from running downstairs to apologize, to say what I mean, which is I’m sorry—I’m sorry about everything , when I hear a car door slam. Peering through my window, I see Mom in the passenger seat of the Volvo. Dad’s loading bags into the trunk. He looks pulverized, as if someone stomped on his heart with heavy boots. He rounds the car, then climbs into the driver’s seat.
My stomach clenches with guilt.
Charcoal clouds billow overhead, casting our neighborhood in purple shadows. Lightning fractures the sky; not five seconds later, thunder rumbles.
Dad starts the car, then backs down the drive.
They’re off.
To Virginia.
Without me.
***
Outside, rain pummels River Hollow, but inside, all is eerily still. My family has only been gone a few hours, but I miss the click of Major’s claws against the hardwood, the history podcasts Dad’s always listening to, and the clanks and clatters of Mom’s kitchen tinkering.
She texted after they’d boarded the plane. Thanks to a brief break in the storm, they were moments from takeoff.
I should be with them.
I test the idea out loud. “I could’ve survived a trip to Virginia,” I say, tentatively at first. “I could’ve hugged Bernie, Connor, and the twins. I could’ve represented at Connor’s ceremony. I should’ve shown up for Beck.”
He would’ve wanted me to. He would’ve wanted me to do a lot of things: trust my instincts, take chances, follow my dreams.
Instead, I’m drifting.
Even a dead fish can swim downstream , Dad’s fond of saying.
I could go to Virginia.
And not in theory; I could pack a bag right now. Get in my car, and drive all night. I could be in Rosebell—I check the time—by sunrise tomorrow.
I could battle my way upstream.
The storm is starting to pick up again; God, it would suck if the power went out.
The Magic 8 Ball on my desk catches my eye. I’ve consulted it enough times to know it’ll offer one of twenty answers. Ten assenting, five opposing, and five annoyingly vague. If I ask it the question sprinting circles through my head, chances are decent that I’ll get some version of yes. But I don’t want a toy to make this decision.
I know what I have to do.
I turn for my closet, eager, now, to get on the road. The air around me cools, like a gust of wind has funneled past. Goose bumps fan out across my arms as I turn to find my window battered by rain, but closed. All is as it should be. Except…my bulletin board. A rectangle of cork has become exposed, negative space left behind by a fallen photograph.
I pick it up and turn it over. My breath catches at the huddle of faces grinning at me. The Byrnes and the Grahams, gathered on my sixteenth birthday—a thousand lifetimes ago. I’m at the center of the group, beaming, wearing a baby-doll dress and a Sweet Sixteen sash. Beck’s holding my hand, laughing as his sisters twirl blurry circles in the foreground. Our parents act as bookends, Mom and Dad next to me, Connor and Bernie beside him.
The eight of us together, as fate intended.
Except fate erred.
Or, maybe not.
Beck and I shared sixteen amazing years. He taught me to live with compassion. With zeal. He showed me how to find humor in the direst of situations. Thanks to him, I learned to bloom where I’m planted.
He loved me unconditionally.
But fate and forever are not synonymous.
I misinterpreted my mom’s long-ago fortune, and that blunder has left me scarred.
Still, every day I’m more okay than the last.
All I can tell you is that your heart will heal.
I trail a finger along Beck’s smiling face.
I’m doing the right thing.