Cross Country Hearts by Suzanne August

Eighteen

“If I tell you.”

“That’s a leap in conversation change, Jasper.”

I roll back on my heels as I say this to him. It’s not what I was expecting him to say, though I have no clue what I thought he would. The question is a throwback to our second day when I told him he didn’t—and he still doesn’t—know why I am the way I am.

“I want to know,” Jasper says now. “You’re dead set against smoking, which is weird because I know how you party, and I know your sister hates them too.”

I close my eyes and turn my head to the side, away from Jasper. There’s the crackling of the fire to my left and the sounds of the forest’s crickets and owls to my right. I don’t hear Jasper, but I feel him. He’s a simple existence, all laid-back stance, hands stuffed in pockets… black shadows. After five days of constantly being in his presence, I don’t have to be looking at him to know he’s there.

I can’t look at him because he’s reminded me of April. At the same time, I can’t keep my eyes closed because my mother’s yellow, flowery dress comes to mind. My small hands, covered in black gloves and smothered within the tight grip of my mother’s own, but she was the one holding on to me for dear life. Meanwhile, I could hardly comprehend what was going on. I was loose. I felt scared. I could hardly breathe out because I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to take another breath in.

I was ten years old, and not only was I surrounded by a black mass of people, but I was falling down a black hole, too. My hands shook, but so did my whole body, and sometimes it feels like I’ve never stopped shaking. It’s a coiled snake nesting in the pit of my stomach, always waiting for the opportune time to strike.

Jasper’s question is honest. Not only that, but he shared with me a fact about himself and Carlisle that he wouldn’t have shared five days ago. I want to answer him.

I can’t.

That snake has slithered, stretching to squeeze tight around my chest again. I hate thinking about those days, and I can’t think about it now. I let a breath out—because I’ve learned since the day of the funeral that I at least don’t have to fear that—and I turn back to face Jasper.

“I’m not there yet,” I tell him. My eyes meet his, and hold on. I may say the words as straightforwardly as possible, but I don’t think they’re simple. I’m being honest. In fact, with Jasper, I want to be honest.

He must get that sense too, and I don’t know how he feels, but he does break eye contact and look away first. I don’t know what squeezes my chest then, but it’s not the snake. Like always, when I’m anxious and don’t know what to do, I have to move. I start walking around the fire toward the lake.

“I met some people at the store,” I tell him. I point toward the water in the distance. “They’re cabin sixty-two. They invited me to a party they’re having. I… I’m going to go. You should come too.”

I don’t wait to see if he’s going to come, though. As I walk past him, he’s staring at the small fire he put together. He makes no indication that he’s heard what I’ve said. And I know, just know, that he’s thinking hard about words he wants to paint together, but whatever those painted words are, they’re not a finished piece by the time I’ve walked out of hearing distance.

I will myself not to look over my shoulder. I don’t. I walk the distance to the lake in five minutes, and with each passing one, the mixed sounds of voices get louder, and Jasper gets further away. The snake lets its grip loosen, but it’s still there, waiting for its moment to strike.

I hear someone say, “Who’s that?” and in the next second, someone shouts, “Hey! It’s the girl from the snack shack!”

“What was her name again?”

“June, I think.”

I follow the voices. My shoulders sag in relief when I see the two girls who handed over the marshmallows and graham crackers. They approach me together, those same crooked smiles adorning their expressions, reminding me of Lila, Ren, and Thomas.

“It’s June, right?” Happy asks. She still wears the sundress she had on a half-hour before, her dark dreads falling over her shoulders, while Darius has changed from her bathing suit into a warmer shirt and shorts.

“Right,” I say. I glance over their shoulders, only a little uneasy. About two dozen people are milling about between two cabins, which sit on the lake that spreads throughout the camp. Both campfires in front of the house are blazing, and people either sit in chairs around them or are on the small beach.

Darius must see me looking because she explains, “It’s us and our friends from college.”

“Cool,” I say.

“We’re about to play beer pong on the beach. You want to play?” Happy asks. “There’s no pressure to drink, but there’s some beer if you want some.”

“I’ll have one drink, sure.”

Happy leads me to the beach while Darius heads off somewhere. By the time she returns, handing me my drink, I’ve met Happy’s boyfriend and his friends Niall and Chang. Ten minutes later, we’re knee-deep into a beer pong game.

But even playing the games, I feel bad for leaving Jasper behind at the cabin. As the hour drags on, I know I should’ve answered him, whether I was ready to or not, because the simple fact is, I’ve never been ready to talk about it, not even with April.

When the game finishes, I trek to one of the campfires and settle onto a log. I make small talk with the people around me, but I’m distracted.

And then, suddenly, a bag of marshmallows and a pack of graham crackers land in my lap. Startled, I jerk my gaze upwards. I note the hands in jean pockets, the black T-shirt, and finally, the bleached hair that looks so mesmerizing when the fire contrasts its light against it.

“You forgot those,” Jasper says.

I only stare at him. No words form, and Jasper says nothing else. My chest rises and falls—fast, in anticipation of what I intuitively know must come next. I don’t think the words. I’m not like Jasper. There is no creation of words I take the time to form, and instead, they burst out. There’s no greeting from me.

“If I tell you,” I say, and something inside me cracks open, something akin to anxiety but not quite the same, “you tell me about Melanie.”

Jasper startles. His body towers over my own, his brown eyes, warmed by the light of the fire, stare at me, and he only breaks eye contact to grab some sticks.

There are no words said aloud, but as he settles onto the log next to me, I know something unspoken has passed between us. A deal seals as he passes one of the sticks to me.

“It’s not complicated,” I start, and then I hesitate.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Jasper says. The music is loud. The large fire cackles close to us, so he has to edge closer to me. Five days ago, I would’ve scrambled away in disgust. Now? I take comfort in his presence and his offer to let me stay silent. There are no obligations between us, and somehow, I take comfort in that.

But I know that for us, for me, I do have to tell him. Otherwise, the small bridge of minuscule understanding between us will crumble, falling a distance so far that I’m not sure either of us could retrieve those pieces and rebuild. No, we’re at a crossroads. We’re in the middle of that bridge, and Jasper and I will never be able to move forward if I don’t make an effort to walk the whole distance across.

“It’s not complicated,” I repeat. I don’t look at Jasper. Instead, it’s the fire’s warmth and brilliant light that gives me strength. After another deep breath, I forge onwards. “My dad died of lung cancer when I was ten years old.”

There’s a moment of silence that kills me, and I have to drag my gaze from the fire. The pair of warm brown eyes are already on me, staring. They’re not hard eyes. They’re not soft either, but they are free of judgment. For once, Jasper is withholding judgment. For some reason, that makes it easier on me. My shoulders lose their tension and relax.

Jasper leans forward, so close that I know the one foot that separates his head from mine is the closest we’ve ever been to each other. He admits, “I knew your father was gone.”

“Carlisle told you?”

“April did. The one time I met her, she mentioned that your uncle would be walking her down the aisle. I didn’t ask why.”

I look down at my hands, twisting around the bag of marshmallows. “I wasn’t there when he died, but April was. My mom and I were in the hospital cafeteria when it happened. I… I’m sure you understand.”

A pause, then, “I do.”

Of course, because both his parents died in a plane crash.

I shake my head. “I was ten, and my mom didn’t handle it well. I’m not sure she could have. It was the worst summer I’ve ever had.”

“I understand.” Jasper’s voice is soft, a caress of understanding that settles around me. It’s a comfort. The last thing I expected was to have a mutual understanding between me and Jasper King.

I close my eyes, remembering how my mother rarely came out of her room that summer. April and I had to make our own meals for months. For almost a year, it felt as if we raised ourselves. That sunflower dress my mother wore the day of her husband’s funeral was the last bright, shining aspect about her, and ever since then, she’s been a shell of who she used to be.

I open my eyes. “I have smoked cigarettes before. I used to smoke them with Georgia. I have a vape, too.”

“Yeah?”

“And then April found out and, Jasper, she yelled at me like she’s never yelled at me. And that’s the thing. That’s the only time she’s ever yelled at me. We never fight, you know. We had to be there for each other when our dad died because our mom wasn’t.”

Jasper’s gaze catches my own again, ensnaring me to him. “She blames the cigarettes on your dad’s death?”

His warm eyes are more than brown, but green too. They’re brown chocolate wrapping around summer green leaves. They anchor me when ordinarily I would’ve never gotten past speaking aloud the words that reveal I have no living father.

“Yeah,” I tell him, “She does. He used to smoke a pack a day. Some people… they live to ninety smoking that much, but whether he was going to get lung cancer or not, he was a heavy smoker.” I’ve kneaded the marshmallow bag so much it pops open. I move on to the graham crackers. “After she screamed at me, I stopped. I think I only smoked them so I could fit in, but I hate cigarettes. It doesn’t make sense, but I don’t think it has to. They killed my dad. I have to believe that because I’m not sure what else to believe in.”

But this isn’t what I’m trying to tell Jasper. Maybe Jasper senses this because he remains silent, his soft gaze keeping me anchored to reality. No, while I tell him this story, I won’t slip into the anxiety-ridden haunted memories of those years. It gives me strength that no one, perhaps besides Georgia and Melanie, has ever provided for me.

I try to relax my grip on the graham crackers. “I started middle school a couple of months after he died. My only friend back then was Georgia, and we had no classes together. I knew no one. I was drowning, Jasper, both at home and school. It was the worst time of my life.”

Jasper’s chin raises like he’s realized something. “That’s when you met Melanie.”

I nod. I can’t even be surprised he guessed. “She was so popular, even back then. Everyone liked her, and I was this sulky girl everyone thought had a bad attitude. But one day… Melanie just—she found me crying, and I told her everything. About my dad. About my mom. She’s been my friend ever since. She pulled me out of my misery.”

“I see,” Jasper says, and although I still feel that understanding between us, there’s a fault to his words that belays how he doesn’t completely see.

My hands fold around the graham crackers, squeezing. “You don’t know Melanie like I do.” I’m fierce when I say this, but then my fingers loosen their hold on the crackers. “But I’ll admit that you don’t want to be on her bad side. Only her close friends can see her vulnerability.”

“Why is she vulnerable?”

I shake my head. “As her friend, I can’t tell you that. I would never. She’s a private person. And,” I add, “I’m not her puppet soldier, but… I am scared.”

“You’re scared?”

I release a shaky laugh, so low I’m sure Jasper almost can’t hear it. “Melanie has the power to turn people on each other. I’m not tough. If she turned on me, and then everyone else turned on me, I don’t know if I could take it. I’d rather not find out.”

“Really.”

“Yes,” I say. “Really.”

Jasper’s gaze intensifies. “That doesn’t excuse you, June. You know that?”

I break away from his gaze. “Of course, I know that.”

Jasper sighs. From the corner of my vision, I see him fingering that pack of cigarettes in his jean pockets. He’s distracted, uncomfortable. No—he’s staring at the fire, his expression telling me that he’s thinking again.

“Melanie and I…” Jasper trails off, his shoulders rising, tense before they relax. “We worked together for a summer.”

“Near Quincy Market,” I recall.

“Yes,” he agrees. “We worked at a gelato place. The Melanie I knew was smart and charismatic, and she had a passion for playing guitar. I admired that about her. I can give that much to Melanie. She can be very passionate.”

Jasper leans forward, staring at the fire as he removes his hands from his pockets and rests his forearms on his legs. “I remember she said her friends were gone for the summer. She didn’t have a lot to do, so we started hanging out. We texted a lot. We talked all the time, at work and outside it. I could tell she liked me because she wasn’t very subtle about it, and at first… I felt the same.”

“What happened?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Someone came to the gelato store one day. Melanie was so rude to the girl, which surprised me. When I asked, Melanie said she went to school with the girl and that she was… well, I can’t remember. She didn’t say nice things about her. The thing is, I thought the girl was nice, but when she saw Melanie, her face paled. She ran out of there, June.”

I can’t help but nod. Melanie has that effect on people.

“That day, it was obvious to me that you didn’t want to be on her bad side,” Jasper continues. “My feelings vanished for her. I liked her—but as a friend. She asked me out a couple of days later, right before school started. Even after getting a glimpse of her bad side, I was still shocked by how she reacted when I turned her down. She stopped texting. At work, she ignored me. She quit the week school started.”

I guess what happened next. “That was our freshman year,” I say. “She hated you, and I could never figure out why.”

Jasper nods. “I’m not an extrovert. The freshman year of high school was my first year in Boston, and I mostly kept to myself. The second year, when you guys started, it was easy for her to turn the school against me. I knew no one. Not really.”

I wait to see if he’s going to add anything else, but it seems he’s finished with his words—with what he wanted to say. I have the strong urge to touch his shoulder, to wrap my hand around his arm, and somehow say the words that will make everything okay. As if saying those magical, unknown words will make those years of his torture and my grotesque mistakes disappear.

But there are no magical words, and those years happened. I can only regret them now. And, maybe, learn from them.

“She never told me any of that,” I tell him.

Jasper shrugs. “I assume she doesn’t want anyone to know.”

And I realize that I’m the only person he’s ever told the full story to. Just as I’ve never been able to express my emotions about my father with Georgia, he has never found the will to tell his friends about his miserable life in Boston.

“All you had to do was tell everyone about that summer.” My words are quiet. The fire crackles in front of us. The music tries to flush out the words between us, but our eyes lock, and I know I don’t have to raise my words for him to understand.

“I don’t hate Melanie.”

I blink. And then I stare. Jasper stares right back at me, his expression as open as I’ve ever seen it. Blond eyebrows crease over eyes the color of new spring when the soil is dark brown and ripe, and the leaves are budding baby green on tree branches. His lips form a tight line, fingers tapping against his leg. I realize that Melanie is a touchy subject for him.

“You hate her,” I object. “Those paintings—”

“Are a criticism,” he cuts in. “They were my way of fighting back. I don’t hate her. I see she’s insecure, and I know she doesn’t handle that well.”

Something inside my chest swells. “Jasper.”

He doesn’t stop. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to accept being bullied. She needs criticism. She—”

“Jasper.”

I’m going to burst.

His words fumble to a stop, the first time he’s ever stumbled with his words. It seems he has to force himself to focus on me, even though our eyes lock. His fingers stop tapping against his leg, his hand stretching out over his knee.

I lean forward, and we’re so close I only have to whisper, even with the intense sounds surrounding us. “I’m sorry.”

My voice cracks. I almost cry. I repeat, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

And slightly, just slightly, the corners of his mouth turn up. They’re not happy. They’re not even an indicator that he’s going to smile. Instead, maybe he’s realizing something I don’t understand myself. The air between us is thick. I’m scared these moments of understanding won’t last forever and that once it’s over, there’s never going to be another opportunity to say this.

“I didn’t know you, Jasper. I still don’t know you.” The words tumble out. I will never be as graceful as him with them. “I should never have bullied you—I was wrong.”

Almost imperceptibly, those corners of his mouth lift further. It’s still not a smile. But he nods, slow. Then he reaches over, leaning impossibly closer, and tugs the ruined bag of graham crackers from my anxious hands. He holds them up, asking softly, so softly, “S’mores?”

I almost feel the need to laugh, but the moment is too intense. He leans so close his leg presses against mine. The arm resting against his knee almost touches mine on the edge of my lap. The feeling, the sensation of his body pressed against mine, is almost overwhelming in this moment. I can’t identify it, except for the intuitive apprehension that we understand each other completely in this one minute and that in this minute, something between us has changed. Perhaps forever. Perhaps for the better.

He doesn’t need to say he forgives me, but I don’t need to hear it aloud either. I grasp the stick by my side and accept the marshmallow Jasper hands to me. His fingers press into my palm. The sensation that travels up my arm and sneaks into my chest is warm and comfortable. It’s welcomed.

“I don’t hate you,” Jasper tells me again. He’s still sitting so close that I almost feel the breath of his words brushing against my cheek. When he smiles at me, it’s a genuine, unguarded grin that reaches his eyes, crinkling the skin around the corners. I think it’s even brighter than the ones I’ve seen him give his friends. He almost laughs. “We annoy the hell out of each other, though.”

I do laugh, and as I swing my stick, marshmallow at its end, into the fire, I lean forward on the log. My arm brushes against Jasper’s. I don’t pull away, but neither does he. In the foreground, there is music and distant laughter and voices, but they fall to an almost inaudible silence as Jasper’s marshmallow, attached to its own stick, takes its place next to mine.