Since You've Been Gone

Gideon and I were sitting on opposite ends of the backseat, in contrast to the snuggling that was going on in the front. I was half on the seat and half pressed against the door handle, which probably wasn’t really necessary, as we were riding in an enormous SUV and it looked like there was probably room for several people in the space between us. I looked across the expanse of the dark backseat at Gideon, who I had met just a few hours before.

Sloane had been talking up Gideon Baker for weeks, ever since she and Sam had become whatever they were now. “We don’t need a label,” Sloane had said, when I’d tentatively asked what, exactly, they were doing. She’d smiled at me and straightened her vintage cardigan. “You know I hate those.” But when whatever they were doing had become more serious, suddenly I had started hearing a lot about Gideon, Sam’s best friend, who was also single. And wouldn’t it be so great if . . . ?

That sentence had always trailed off, never really stating what exactly she was asking, but always with a hopeful question mark at the end. Somewhere along the line, I’d agreed that it would be so great, which was how I now found myself wearing more makeup than usual, sharing a backseat with Gideon, going to someplace called the Orchard.

Gideon took up a lot of space in the car—he was tall, with broad shoulders and big hands and feet, and when we’d been sitting across from each other in the diner booth an hour before, and Sloane had been stealing fries off Sam’s plate, I’d asked him if he played any sports. He looked like an athlete—I could practically see him featured on the Stanwich Academy website, a lacrosse stick slung over one shoulder. But he’d just taken a bite of his burger as I asked this. He’d chewed, swallowed, taken a sip of Coke, wiped his mouth, then said, “No.” And that had pretty much been the extent of our conversation so far.

“What is this?” Sam asked, letting out a sigh as he slammed on the brakes. I leaned forward and saw that we were now behind a long line of cars, and that there was a bottleneck around the entrance to a gravel driveway.

“It just means that this is clearly the place to be,” Sloane said, and I could hear in her voice how happy she was. Happy we were going there, happy to be with Sam, happy that I was there in the back, with a boy of my own, not a third wheel.

We edged closer to the turnoff, Sam sighing loudly and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I glanced across the car at Gideon again, trying to think of something to say, when I saw the sign. It was out his window, and I edged a little away from my door handle, trying to get a better look. It was dark out, but the SUV’s headlights—which were sci-fi bright, and also clearly made out of something expensive and fancy, unlike my Volvo’s regular old lights—were right on it, illuminating it.

“Do you guys see that?” I asked, pointing at the sign, aware as I did so that my voice felt a little scratchy—it was the first thing I’d said during the car ride. Everyone turned to look, but Sam just shrugged.

“It’s the sign from when this used to be an actual orchard,” he said. “It’s always been there.”

I moved over a little farther into the middle, trying to get a closer look. It was mostly faded, but you could tell that it had been brightly painted at some point. Kilmer’s Orchards! it read in stylized script. Apples/Peaches/Cherries. Berries in Season! Pies! Underneath this, there was a cartoon-style drawing of two cherries, attached at the stem. They had faces and were smiling big, looking up like they were reading the message at the top. I looked at all the exclamation points, now faded and unnecessary, selling a product that no longer existed. You could also tell the sign had been hand-painted, and not by a professional—the cherries were admittedly a bit lopsided—which somehow made things worse.

“What?” Sloane asked. I glanced over at her, and saw she was looking at me, and that she could tell something was wrong.

“Just . . . that sign,” I said, hearing how silly it sounded. It was something I would have said easily if it were just Sloane and myself, but the presence of the guys in the car changed this. “I don’t know,” I said, forcing a laugh and moving back to my side of the seat. “It just . . . seemed really sad, I guess.”

Sloane had started to reply when Sam laughed and drove on, talking over her. “It’s just a sign, Emily.”

“I know,” I said, trying to keep my voice light as I looked out my own window. “Never mind.”

Sam leaned over and said something I couldn’t hear to Sloane, and I watched the trees passing slowly in the darkness. I was wishing I’d never said anything at all when I felt something touch my arm.

I jumped, and looked over to see Gideon, his seat belt unbuckled, suddenly sitting close to me, right in the center seat. He gave me a half smile, then picked up my arm and brought it a little nearer to him.

He had literally kept his distance from me all night—so why was he holding my arm? I took a breath to say something when he pulled a thin Sharpie from his pocket. He nodded down at my arm, and then held up the marker, like he was asking if it was okay.

I nodded, mostly just because I was so thrown. He uncapped the marker, then started drawing on the inside of my wrist. The marker strokes felt feathery and light against my skin, almost tickling me but not quite. I tried to lean over to see what Gideon was drawing, but he pulled my arm a little closer to him and turned it slightly, carefully toward him and away from me. I was still trying to get my head around the fact that this was happening, and I was suddenly glad that Sloane and Sam were oblivious in the front seat, because I knew how strange this must look.

Gideon’s head was bent over my arm as he worked, and I couldn’t help but notice the texture of his dark hair, so short it was almost a buzz cut, and how big his hands were, how it seemed like, if he’d wanted to, he could totally encircle my wrist with two fingers. The car lurched over a bump, and my arm flew up, almost smacking him in the face. He looked over at me and I gave him a tiny, apologetic smile. He waited a moment, steadying my arm, holding it with both hands—maybe to make sure there were no more bumps—and then started working again, drawing faster than before. He straightened up and capped his Sharpie just as Sam parked the car.

I pulled my hand back to see what he’d done and saw, to my surprise, that he’d drawn the cherries from the sign. He was clearly a much more talented artist than the sign painter, but he’d managed to capture them perfectly in their slightly irregular glory. One of the cherries was saying something, and I lifted my wrist closer to my face to see what it was.