Chapter Forty-Five
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
Derek
The open mic ends and the pavilion turns into a beehive of activity with Oh my God and Did you hear buzzing around us. Gina comes swooping in with a floral-scented hug.
“So proud! So proud!” she says with such gusto, I wonder if she was a cheerleader back in the day.
“Mah gawsh,” she drawls, “if a man wrote a poem like that for me, I don’t know what I’d do.
I just don’t know. Who’s the muse? I saw you looking at somebody.
Good God, I wanna lay my eyes on that lucky girl. Where is she?”
I point across the pavilion to Jae, who’s leaning into Swan, giggling. “The short one,” I say.
“Now, she is cute,” Gina says. “I can see why you’d write a poem about her.
Thank you so much for inviting me. You made my week, my month!
I am so proud of you. Now, let me go say hi to your amazing teacher before I head on out.
And Derek, you don’t have to be on the clock to come by the diner and see me.
I’m always around.” She squeezes my arm and hurries off, and I stand there and laugh because I only got three words in.
I turn back to the group and almost fall over at the sight of Jae. She’s talking to Henry. When did he get here? I nearly sprint over, plant myself between them. “What’s going on?”
Henry takes one look at my face and steps back.
“It’s okay,” Jae says, grabbing my arm and giving it a small pull. “He was apologizing. And I appreciate it. Thanks, Henry.”
“Long overdue,” he says, nodding, then looks at me. “Disappointed to see me?”
I look him over—his Mohawk is braided down, and he’s dressed in a checkered black-and-white shirt—and I’m trying to decide exactly what I feel. I can’t be a hypocrite. His apology is as good as mine. But when I rode away from Miguel’s house a month ago, I was sure I was leaving all of them behind.
“Just surprised,” I answer.
He holds out his fist. I bump it.
“How’d you find out about this?” I ask.
“Was on my way to the principal’s office.” He gives an embarrassed shrug. “Saw the sign on the bulletin board. Figured you’d be here.”
“Man. You care about me.” I laugh at his grimace and clap him on the back. “Thanks.”
“Of course, man. Hey, uh … That was kinda cool. I mean, you’re a good writer.”
“Yeah? You should join the club.”
“Ehhh.” He shakes his head. “Hey, why don’t you come over tomorrow? Call of Duty? Just you and me.”
“Yeah. Sure. Cool.”
“Yeah. See ya later,” he says. “And good job.”
And that’s it. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and leaves.
Mr. Oakland offers me a ride home. He makes Jae sit in front. Then we fold my bike into the trunk and I get into the back seat. I sit behind him so I can watch the streetlights and shadows roll over her face. On our way to the pink bungalow.
I wonder what Mom’s doing tonight, or what she did while I was standing in the pavilion, staring at the faces of people rooting for me.
It hurts to think that I lost her completely, the mom that she was.
But I have something too. People who care.
And there’s a girl, and my heart beats for her. Maybe that’s happiness enough.
“I think it’s cute you ride your bike everywhere,” Jae says, and her voice breaking the quiet rattles my insides, makes me flutter.
“Cute?” I say, in mock offense. “Then I’m glad I didn’t get that Ferrari they promised me.”
“Ferrariii,” she says, impressed. Then she turns in her seat to look at her uncle with a very serious expression, eyebrows furrowed. “Uncle Rowan. Your poetry career. We can bury it, burn it, or cast it into the ocean. But it ends today.”
“What are you talking about?” he objects. “That was some good stuff!”
“I will never be the same.”
“You got jokes. But I bet you learned a thing or two.”
“Before and after your poem, maybe.”
“Be for real, now. What did you learn?”
“Don’t get too comfortable.”
I haven’t heard a laugh so loud from that man before. He laughs until I see him wiping away tears in the rearview mirror. And I’m laughing too, watching this back-and-forth Serena-versus-Venus match.
“Okay. But seriously, though? You don’t believe in love?” she asks him. “You almost made me cry.”
He grunts.
“She might be your soul mate. That girl from apartment twenty-three,” she says dreamily. “I mean, like, I don’t think you could love another person. You might be incapable.”
“Incapable?”
“Have you looked her up recently?”
“No.”
“What if she’s divorced?”
“What if she’s not?”
She gasps. “Uncle Rowan. You went after everything but the girl.” She shakes her head and looks out the window. “I think this proves adults don’t know what true love is.”
Mr. Oakland sucks his teeth but doesn’t say anything.
He looks up, his dark eyes in the rearview mirror, light bouncing off his glasses.
There’s something he’s not saying, but I can read it, and it makes me flush, ears on fire.
It’s like he can see inside me, sees what I am, or what I’ve always wanted to be, and he thinks I’m all right.
It feels good being here. With this family. The girl who cared enough to come out of the stall and ask if I was okay. She was soft when everything around me was hard.
I could, as Mrs. Aldana said, burst into a million butterflies.