19. BACK THEN – December
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
WILLOW MOORE
I find Garrison waiting for me by Lo’s covered pool.
Quickly, he stands off a lounge chair as I approach.
The cold bites me through a puffy blue jacket and thin mittens, but I’d rather bear the winter with Garrison.
A minute ago, I entered through the garage, and Lily said he was out back.
And he had something important to tell me.
“Hi,” I breathe softly, scanning his solemn features.
Garrison cracks a few knuckles, on edge. “You should sit.” He brushes snow off another lounge chair for me.
My heart knots. Tension builds so rapidly, and for some reason, I feel like an avalanche looms in the horizon. I take a seat, and he sits on another lounge chair across from mine.
Garrison licks his lips and then says, “So…I saw your Tumblr post this morning.”
Is that what he wants to talk about…or is he just sidetracking? “Oh yeah.” I cup my cellphone in one of my mittens. Last night I made a post about X-Men: Evolution , the animated series. It was short and went something like:
Me: *sees Storm creating lightning and thunder*
Me: Strike me down, beautiful eternal goddess!
I nudge my glasses. “You didn’t think it was lame?”
Garrison looks like he wants to smile but can’t. “Have you checked your notifications lately?”
I slowly shake my head and remove a mitten. Fingers cold, I tap on my cellphone screen and pop open Tumblr.
I immediately smile. “You didn’t…” He did. Garrison made gifs of Storm from X-Men: Evolution where she wields lightning with her mutant powers. And he tagged me in them.
There aren’t many gifs of the X-Men animated series to begin with, and to have this—and know personally who made them, and that he made them for me—means more than he realizes.
“Merry Christmas,” he says. “Really, though, that isn’t the present I meant to give you.”
My smile fades, remembering that I forgot my Christmas present for him in my Honda. “I left my gift for you in my car. I didn’t know you’d be here right now, but I can go get it—”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says quickly. “I left mine for you at my house, too.”
So he’s not here to exchange gifts then. In the lingering silence, I fit my mitten back on, and Garrison hunches forward, winded by his thoughts alone.
“Can I tell you what I got you?” he asks. I think he must want to kill time before he unleashes the important news.
I nod tensely.
His blue-green eyes flit to my ears. “I know you always wear the star and the bat studs, but I thought you’d like something X-Men related.”
My lips stretch into an uncontrollable smile. “You got me earrings?”
“Yeah.” He pinches his fingers to try to describe them. “They’re X-shaped, with a circle around them.” The X-Men symbol.
A guy bought me a gift. A guy bought me jewelry . It’s hard to believe. “It’s perfect,” I say without thinking.
Garrison tilts his head. “You haven’t seen it yet.”
I push up my glasses again. A nervous tic now. “I don’t have to see it to know it’s perfect.” Because you bought it for me. “I made you something, so it’s probably not as good, and it’s sort of…”
His lips try desperately to lift. “What?”
“Dorky?” I cringe at myself. “It’s a scrapbook.” I just come right out and spoil it. Maggie would hate if I spoiled her about anything, and thankfully, she’s been texting me again as I update her on my life with Garrison Abbey.
I have to constantly censor myself with my friend from Maine, so it’s not as easy talking with Maggie as it is with Daisy Calloway. Recently, I’ve noticed that more and more.
“A scrapbook of what?” He takes off his beanie to rake his hair out of his eyes.
Sometimes (a lot of the time) his whole bad boy persona intimidates me. The tattoos, the skillful sarcasm, and the good looks, but he’s always gentle with me. He has his mother’s innate and natural beauty, I’ve realized, and of the pictures I’ve seen of his father, he has his hair and lean build.
“Um…it’s hard to explain. I’ll just have to show you later.” My heart races at the sight of this person I really, really like. I can’t imagine not crossing paths with him. Not becoming friends. I can’t imagine my life without the company of Garrison Abbey.
He stares at me for a really long moment. His deep expression practically caresses my cheeks. My chest swells, and I find myself covering my face with my mitten-hands. I feel undone, and we’re just sitting across from one another.
“Hey,” he whispers, his voice low. Garrison stands and brushes off more snow beside me, and then he takes a seat next to me on the lounge chair. Our shoulders touch, but good nerves swarm me.
Nerves that shout, “Carpe Diem, Willow Moore!”
“I’m glad you’re here,” I suddenly say what I feel. Instantly, the bottom of my stomach plunges and I regret every single word.
His features contort, breaking and breaking. Then he rubs his face with his gloved hand.
I hold onto my knees. Lost for words. I can’t look at him, but I feel him drop his hand and turn his head towards me, studying my anxious face and body.
“I’m leaving,” he tells me abruptly.
“What?” My voice spikes, sounding strange. I feel even stranger. Like this out-of-body experience belongs to another Willow in an alternate dimension. Not me. Not here.
Not right now.
Garrison fists the beanie in a hand. “I’m leaving,” he repeats, as though trying to make sense of this too. I dazedly hear his explanation about Faust, his parents, and being forced to finish his senior year at the boarding school in upstate New York.
The news pummels me. I jinxed myself. Moments ago I was thinking about how I can’t imagine not sharing his company, and now he’s leaving? I don’t just need Garrison with me at Dalton Academy and Philly.
I want him.
And I’ve never wanted a friend like this. Never yearned for a person to be next to me. Never slept and smiled thinking about seeing them tomorrow.
The more he explains his fate, in a very dry but hollow voice, I slump forward. My stomach caves, and the avalanche begins to roar down the figurative mountain that is our lives. I shield my face with my hands, afraid that I’ll start crying.
Crying is hard for me in front of anyone, and he needs encouragement. Strength. He needs, it’ll be okays. Not a blubbering, dejected friend.
My throat and eyes burn.
“Willow,” he whispers, his voice raspy.
I inhale deeply and wipe my running nose. “What about Superheroes & Scones? Maybe…maybe you can work the weekends.”
“…maybe,” he says, not entirely sure himself. “It’s not like you’ll be alone.”
My face twists. “What do you mean?” I meet his reddened eyes.
“Ace Davenport? He’s totally into you.” His face is unreadable, and his voice is too flat to make sense of.
My gaze widens, and my face keeps twisting into a wince. “That’s not funny.” I think I might cry now. I quickly rub the corners of my eyes.
Garrison looks genuinely confused. “He always talks to you at work.”
“To tell me how I stock the shelves incorrectly,” I say. “And every day, after I help a customer with comic book suggestions, he makes a comment about how I’m a know-it-all, and that I’m really some poser trying to be cool.” Ace is mean to me.
His nose flares, restraining hot emotion. “Why didn’t you tell me he was a dick to you?”
“I thought you knew.” I swallow the rock in my throat. “You always seemed irritated by him…”
Garrison stares up at the sky, tormented by this news too. “I knew this would happen,” he mutters more to himself than to me.
I shake my head. “What would happen?”
He touches his chest. “I’m cursed …and I hung around you long enough, and I cursed you too.” His voice breaks.
“I’ll be okay,” I try to assure him, rubbing my dripping nose as fast as possible. Pressure bears on my chest so hard that I feel physically sick. “ We’ll be okay.”
His tortured gaze sweeps my face. “Then why are you crying?” A tear drips down his cheek at the sight of my leaking eyes. Water brims over my lower lids and scalds my skin.
“I’m scared,” I say the truth so softly. I wipe my face again, and he rubs his bloodshot eyes.
Garrison lets out a staggered breath and then stands up. He extends a hand to me, and I put my palm in his palm. He pulls me to my feet, our boots knocking together.
Very tenderly, he asks, “Willow, can I hug you?”
I nod.
It might be our last hug for a really long while.
Garrison tucks a flyaway hair behind my ear, and then he wraps his arms around my body. I coil mine around his frame, my arms feather-light still, but his embrace carries warmth and extra pressure that dizzies my senses.
I hold tighter than before, my fingers gripping the fabric of his hoodie. Don’t go yet. Please don’t go yet. I’m picturing my life without him, and it’s so much lonelier than before.
Garrison tilts and lowers his head to whisper against my ear. “You’re still my girl.”
And then, without a single pause, Garrison Abbey kisses my cheek. His lips leave a fiery imprint, and my body solidifies like hardened magma.
He drops his hand to mine. I’m too stunned to speak, too sad to say how much he means to me, and too heartbroken to wish for a real kiss.
“If Ace Davenport gives you shit, you’ll tell me?” he asks, and he keeps talking as he sees me nod quickly. “You have my Twitter, Tumblr, and all that whatever, but…” He shoves his beanie in his back pocket. “I know we said we like the internet, but I’d really love your number.”
He’s asking for my phone number. It brings us closer in a different way than we both planned. “Yeah, of course.”
After we exchange numbers and add each other to our contacts, he prepares to leave. Taking a few steps back, Garrison hesitates.
I wipe my fogged glasses and then set them back on my nose.
“It’s not goodbye,” he says to me, as though he can’t bear that idea. “I’ll come back here. I promise.” He takes a few more steps backwards. “If not, then I guess I’ll just have to find two cans and a string long enough to connect you to me.”
My heart hurts, and just as he turns his back to me, I call out, “Garrison.”
He glances over his shoulder.
I don’t know what I planned to say. Maybe I just wanted to stop him. To see his face. I swallow hard and murmur, “Merry Christmas.”
He hears my quiet voice. “Merry Christmas.”
It’s the saddest holiday of my life. I lost one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever been given. I lost my first friend from Philadelphia.
I lost him to New York. I lost him to Faust. To a boarding school and his parent’s demands. I wonder if he’ll return after he’s graduated. Maybe we’ll grow apart. Our paths that kept crossing are beginning to diverge, and I’m really scared.