Chapter Six #2
“Let’s go on a walk. It’s so beautiful outside,” Kristen says, breaking the growing silence and probably beginning to sense how awkward this is going to be.
She opens the sliding screen door to step out onto her deck, and I stop short of unzipping my backpack.
We always do our homework right after school.
Always. Both of us used to be anal about it, but I don’t say anything.
Kristen leads us over to the golf cart her dad uses to travel throughout the farm.
Vincent sits up front with her, and Skittles and I take the back.
“We survived the first day of senior year,” Kristen says as we cut through the section of young Fraser firs, the farm’s prized Christmas crop.
“There’s still so much to come,” I say, thinking about the festival.
Even though I’m not going to tell Kristen the truth about Hannah, Hannah and I being copresidents isn’t a secret.
But without the backstory of Hannah’s gesture, Kristen will just get defensive about how I shouldn’t have to share the title I worked so hard to get.
She wouldn’t be able to offer any support for the real issue.
“I’m not worried about it,” Vincent says, reaching his hand out when the path narrows enough that he can brush the fir needles.
The smell intensifies as we move deeper into the farm. I know that whatever school I end up at next year, I’ll have pine-scented candles to remind me of home.
“Why not?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation going instead of letting the demoted to back seat third wheel feeling wash over me.
“Because school doesn’t matter.”
Again, what does Kristen see in him?
“Yeah, it does,” I say, leaning forward.
“In the real world, no one cares what grade you got in history or how well you graphed an equation. Your success doesn’t hinge on metaphors and chemical reactions—unless that’s what you want to do,” he says, turning to look at me.
“In the real world, without a primary education, you wouldn’t know anything.”
“Wrong. Someone might not have book smarts, but they’d have street smarts. They’d have real-world experience,” he argues.
“And what ‘real-world’ experience do you have?” I ask.
Vincent lives around the block from me in a neighborhood named Colony Grove. His mom is an architect, and his dad is a chemistry professor at Kent State.
“Are you guys really going to argue about school when we just left there?” Kristen asks.
“Babe, we aren’t arguing. We are debating.”
“Still,” Kristen says, “talk about something fun.”
Kristen and Vincent start going over some of their publicity plans for the skate show while I scratch Skittles behind the ear and watch the farm pass us by.
The farthest acre of the farm has hemlock and some old pine trees that have been in the Haverford family for generations.
Mr. Haverford rarely uses these trees. For Kristen and me, they formed our own magical woods where we could reenact fairy tales and quests.
Kristen parks the cart, and we start walking among them, Skittles weaving in between us, sniffing the ground.
Kristen and I used to climb the trees, saying our problems couldn’t follow us up so high.
I wonder if Vincent can climb.
Kristen sits down at the base of a tree and pulls a small box out of her pocket. Vincent drops into a divot in some roots beside her.
“What are those?” I ask upon noticing a lot of weeds in the shade next to them.
“Exactly what you think they are,” she says, unfazed, as she pops her little case open.
She passes a Backwood to Vincent and snaps her fingers when Skittles tries to bite one of the leaves of her weed plant. So, maybe Vincent’s accusations were grossly exaggerated, but they weren’t completely false.
When? Why? How?
I stare in disbelief as Kristen takes a hit, opening her mouth and sucking the smoke back in through her nose. She smiles at me, exhaling a gray cloud in front of her face. She passes it back to Vincent, and I look around. Two or three young plants are nestled at the base of a few more trees.
“Do you want to try?” she asks, like this is completely normal. As if when my cousin Jeremiah offered us a hit of his blunt at my Momma’s cookout three years ago, we didn’t say smoking seemed stupid.
Who is she?
“Um, I’m good. I think I’m actually gonna head back,” I admit.
I feel small, and I hate feeling small. I don’t belong here.
“Don’t be such a prude,” Vincent mumbles.
“Shut up, don’t be mean,” Kristen snaps, swatting his shoulder. Then to me, she softens. “Clarity, don’t go.”
“It’s okay, really. I have homework—” I stop short, flinching internally when I hear myself sounding exactly like a prude.
“Clarity, look, I’m sorry. I should have told you—”
“Kristen,” I say, scrunching up my nose when Vincent exhales in my direction. It smells like a skunk, like a musky, spicy skunk. The secondhand smoke alone stings my nostrils. “I’m just gonna head home. We can hang out some other time.”
She stands up, brushing dirt off her pants and avoiding my eyes. “I’ll walk you to the cart. You can take it and we’ll walk back.”
I’m glad to have a moment alone with Kristen and to get some fresh air. But I have no idea what to say. I hardly have any idea what to think.
“Are you judging?” she asks.
“No,” I say. It’s not a complete lie. In order to judge I first have to emerge from my state of shock. “I just did not see that coming.”
I watch for her reaction. She only stares ahead.
“A lot changed,” she says when we arrive at the cart.
“I know,” I say, because she’s my best friend and I love her. Also, because I have a lockbox of all my changes that I’m too cowardly to talk about.
“You don’t have to leave. I really want to hang out with you.”
“I want to hang out with you too,” I say, feeling fractional relief at the fact that we at least agree on this point. “I just… uh… don’t think this is really my thing.”
“You haven’t even tried it. You might like it. I mean, I used to think it was kinda wild too—”
“And then you started hanging out with Vincent,” I say, more so piecing it all together than telling her.
“He’s not some bad influence if that’s what you’re thinking. He didn’t make me smoke.”
I want to remind her that she didn’t smoke before him, but I know that’ll only make her mad, and the bitterness in her tone makes me feel like we’re at the edge of a cliff.
“I know. And it’s, um, good that you guys can do this together.” I force a smile, hoping she can tell that I’m not mad at her. If anything, I’m embarrassed and feel out of place, which is a highly unfamiliar feeling to have around my best friend.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” she says.
There it is, in her voice, I hear it. Real Kristen.
Not lip-locking, pot-smoking Kristen but Kristen My Best Friend.
And I feel even smaller at the accusation that I might betray her trust. I want to say, Of course not.
I might not agree with you, but I wouldn’t betray you.
But I don’t say that. It should go without saying.
Instead, I say, “I won’t,” before starting the cart.
“We will hang soon, just the two of us,” she says, smiling.
I feel the weight of all my secrets and all her secrets pushing us apart as I drive off.
I glance down at my hand wrapped around the steering wheel, the ring standing out even more now. Weaving through the familiar paths of the farm, I wonder if, despite my efforts, going to Camp Refuge has changed us after all.