The In Between

Chapter 40

Tara

"Tara?"

I haven't heard my father say my name, in person, in so many years. It hurts to hear it.

"What are you doing here?" I croak.

He looks the same as I remember. He picks himself up, now standing on the front step. "Your mom left me a message about your friend," he says carefully. "I don't mean to ambush you."

My friend? Justin was so much more than that. But how would he know?

I don't know what to say. I realize I'm out of breath. I just stand there, trying to harden the lines of my face. Trying not to betray my shock, my pain; whatever cocktail of weird emotions is coursing through me right now.

"Your mother said that you were having trouble," he continues awkwardly. There are two identical pink gift bags at his side. I knew without looking in them that his gifts are age inappropriate. He's missed so much.

"Meg will be very excited to see you," I say quietly. I motion to the bags. "But she's out of the stuffed animal phase. If you want to buy her love, I'd go with a Nintendo DS or an Xbox Kinect or something," I mutter.

Frank kicks the front step, biting his lip. "I know I can't make up for anything, Tara," he says gruffly. "But when I heard you almost—about the accident...I had to come."

I stare at him. He's sweating and runs his hands through his damp hair nervously. I wonder if he partly stayed away all these years because he was scared to see our disappointment in person. What a coward, I think.

When I don't respond to him, he explains, "I got a room at the bed and breakfast over on Mott. I'll be there all week. "

"A week," I repeat numbly. 

"I've arranged it so that I can come back again next month. I can't fix anything in the past...but I will be at this address if you want to talk about anything. And here's my cell number, in case you don't have it." He jots it down on an old, crumpled receipt and drops it in one of the pink gift bags.

He starts to walk away, unsure of how to say goodbye. Am I supposed to wave at my estranged father? Shake his hand? It sounds crazy, but some part of me—somewhere buried away—is screaming to hug him. But I don't let myself. He doesn't deserve it.

He pats me on the back lightly and makes his way to his car.

I walk over to the porch and look in the bag. A stuffed teddy and a stuffed elephant. Maybe Meg can squeeze a couple of good memories out of them before he disappears all over again.

* * *

Every hour, every day that passes without a word from Justin is worse than the one before. 

I imagine Justin waiting for me at the quarry. I imagine him alone.

I imagine him and imagine him until I can't think or see straight, and then I imagine him some more. But I can't imagine what's keeping him from me.

I'm still on bike probation. I can't get back to the quarry.

My mom is insisting on driving me to school, which, frankly, is incredibly annoying, if not downright humiliating. I mean, how many juniors still have their moms drive them to school? There's no way around it, though.

I eat just enough of my oatmeal to satisfy her and run back upstairs to get Luke's history book, hiding mine at the bottom of my backpack. 

I have to admit, I leafed through his copy last night for no good reason—at least no good academic reason. It was a welcome, if short-lived respite from the endless loop of Justin thoughts that is otherwise constantly playing in my head. I'm not sure what I was expecting to find—girls' names squiggled everywhere in loopy cursive? I did spend an inordinate amount of time puzzling over his doodles (all very geometric), but that's just because I was procrastinating actually doing my own work. I've found that thing about homework is, once you start letting it go, it's easy to keep letting it go.