X.
It was late when we got home. I said a quick good night to the twins and then padded up the stairs. I tiptoed into the guest bedroom and flopped down on my bed. It seemed lonely in the room without Harlow.
If she had still been here, I probably would’ve crawled into her bed and laid next to her—head to head, toe to toe, like how we used to do when we were little. When Har first came out in eighth grade, some idiots relentlessly teased me. They asked if I was worried that Harlow would creep on me while I changed or crawl into my bed in the middle of the night during sleepovers—all of which were obviously ridiculous concerns. Anyone who knew us would’ve known I was the one always crawling into Harlow’s sleeping bag, as I was the one who had night terrors. (Not to mention, if I were gay, Harlow would’ve been way out of my league.)
But she wasn’t here anymore, so I rolled onto my side and tried to go to sleep. But I couldn’t. I took a deep breath and reached for my phone. I dialed Harlow’s number.
After three rings, I was almost certain she wasn’t going to answer.
But after the fourth ring, she picked up. “Tal?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Did you get home okay?” I could hear people chatting in the background and I wondered where she was.
“Yeah. But how are you?”
“Weird,” I said. “Really weird. And I’m still pissed at you.”
There was a long pause. For a moment, I wondered if Harlow had hung up. But then I heard breathing—a series of long exhales. I imagined her pacing across a room.
“I know,” she finally said.
“I don’t want us to grow apart.”
“I know,” she repeated. “I don’t want that either.”
“But sometimes it feels like you do.”
“I just want us to both have the chance to grow. To change. But that doesn’t have to mean growing apart,” she said.
I thought of what Debra had told me about love being a living and changing thing. About how the tricky thing was learning to accept different and new versions of the people you loved. The problem was that it seemed like I was never the one who changed. It seems like it’s harder to watch the people you love change and grow when you feel like you’re staying exactly the same. When you feel stuck.
But maybe tonight I had changed. Even if it was only a tiny bit.
“You’ll never guess what happened tonight,” I said.
“What?” she said, and I could hear the curiosity in her voice. That made me smile. So I told her all about the lake and the slight progress I’d made with the twins. And Toby.
“Wait,” she said when I was finished. “You guys didn’t kiss?”
I laughed. Of course that was Harlow’s first question. “Nope. Plus, it would’ve been too weird anyway. It feels like the wrong timing.”
She made a noise.
“What?”
“I thought you were going to work on giving more new people a chance?”
“I am!” I protested. “I went to the lake, didn’t I? And you would’ve been so proud of me. I actually talked to him. About real things. I hardly recognized myself. Like, Har, I answered his questions. Personal questions.”
“I am proud of you,” she said, and I smiled to myself in the darkness of the room. “But seriously. No kiss?”
“Harlow! It’s the wrong time. And the wrong place.”
“What’s so wrong about Oak Falls? ‘Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.’”
My smile widened. Harlow was quoting the Philip Larkin poem “I Remember, I Remember,” which she and I dissected last year in English class. She’d loved that line, and I’d thought it was stupid and nonsensical because it was so obvious.
But maybe what Harlow got then is what I’m starting to understand now—that it’s sometimes the most obvious things that need to be said the most.
“Hey, Har?”
“Yeah?” she said.
“I’m glad you came with me. Even if I’m still mad at you for leaving.”
“I’m glad I came too,” she breathed.
“We’re going to be okay, right?”
There was a long pause on her end. I thought for a moment we had been disconnected, but then she finally said, “Yeah, Tal. We’re going to be okay.”
There was another stretch of silence and then she said, “Before we hang up, I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I want you to call your mom.”
“What?” I sat up with force and clutched the phone tightly.
“Please, Tal. I’d feel better if you called her. Besides, you promised me that you’d call her once we got to Oak Falls.”
“And you promised that you’d stay with me. And you didn’t,” I shot back.
“No. I. Did. Not,” she argued. “I said I would come with you on what I thought was an ill-advised trip, but have since come around to thinking otherwise.” And then she quickly added, “But I haven’t changed my opinion on the fact you need to call your mom.”
“Ugh,” I repeated.
“Tal, you should call her now. Just get it over with.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow morning?”
“Just do it now,” Harlow pleaded.
“I don’t even know what time it is in Paris. She’s probably just waking up. Or busy.”
“That’s a flimsy excuse and you know it.”
I slouched back down, resting my shoulders against the headboard. “I don’t know, Harlow. The truth is, the more Julian tells me, the more I wonder if I don’t really know my mom as well as I thought I did. Like tonight, I found out she was the one who first ended things. Can you believe that?”
Harlow made a surprised sound.
“See?” I pressed. “It’s weird.”
“Yeah. All the more reason why you should call her. You haven’t given her a chance to tell you her side of the story.”
“She only had sixteen years,” I pointed out.
“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Harlow said diplomatically. For all her punk rock bravado, she still had a deep respect for authority figures.
“Maybe I could just email her. She doesn’t like to pay international premiums.”
“Taliah. Stop messing around. And call her. Please.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Text me once you’ve done it?”
I agreed reluctantly and hung up on Harlow. I scrolled through my contacts and selected Mom. She had a paintbrush emoji next to her name. I assigned all my contacts corresponding emojis. For a moment, I let myself wonder about whether I would ever have Julian’s number and what emoji I would select for him.
I pressed Call and brought the phone to my ear. I listened to it ring and hoped beyond hope that Mom was asleep and she’d turned her ringer on silent. When I heard the sound of her automated voice informing me that I’d reached Lena Abdallat’s voicemail, I breathed a sigh of relief.
At the beep, I left my message: “Mom, it’s Tal. So don’t freak out, everything’s okay. I’m safe and healthy and everything, but there’s something I need to tell you. And it seems wrong to be telling you this over voicemail but …” I trailed off, my nerves getting the best of me.
I swallowed, gathering my courage, and continued, “You’ll never guess who showed up on our doorstep. Julian Oliver. Yeah. So the thing is … well … a while ago … You know what. Never mind. I’ll explain the details later. But I just wanted to let you know that I’m in Oak Falls with Julian. Tom had a stroke and he’s really sick and they think he might die, so Julian wanted to come back home. Tom is Julian’s dad. Wait. You know that already. Okay … well, this is getting really weird and—”
The automated voicemail robot was back. I elected to save my rambling message, and then hung up the phone.