“You’re like Layla with her face thing,” Mac told me when I relayed this to him. “Just be sure you use your powers for good, not evil.”
“I’ll try,” I replied as we pulled out of the driveway. We’d only gone a short way when I saw something. “Hey. Stop for a second.”
He did, and I turned to my window, peering closer. There, just across the street and beyond the sidewalk, was a small opening in the brush.
“What is it?” Mac asked.
“See that clearing? Between the skinny tree and the stump?”
He leaned across me. “Yeah.”
“That used to be the best path into the woods from this neighborhood. You could get on it right here, where the houses begin, and follow it all the way back to where I live. It went for miles. We always wondered who put it there.”
“Probably some kids, just like you.”
“There was this one part,” I continued as a car slowed, then passed us, “where there was a giant sinkhole. Huge. Somebody had managed to pull this fallen tree across it, and everyone always dared each other to walk across.”
“Did you?”
“No way,” I said, shuddering. “But Peyton did. He was the only one I ever saw do it.”
Just saying this, I could see it all so clearly in my head. The bareness of the trees in late fall. Broad blue sky. And me and those older kids we’d come across in the woods that day watching as my brother put one foot in front of the other, slow and steady, all the way across.
“We can go, if you want,” Mac said now. I turned, distracted, to face him. “We’ve got time. You can show me.”
I looked back at the path, barely visible. Who knew how it looked now, what was back there. Part of me wanted to see, especially if I wasn’t going to be alone. But another part, heavier, wasn’t ready. Yet.
“Maybe another time,” I said.
At six p.m., like always, we returned to Seaside so I could head home, while Mac kept delivering until close. Usually, for the rest of the evening I’d wonder what he was doing. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might do the same about me. But that night, when I was sitting on my bed doing some reading for English, my phone beeped.
3 deluxe, 2 pepperoni mushroom. 6 orders garlic knots. Go.
I smiled. Has to be a team. All men.
A pause. I tried to go back to my book. Finally, a response: a picture of the sign in front of 7-10 Bowling Center. Impressive, it said below it.
I do my best, I replied.
Will stump you eventually, he wrote back.
I laughed out loud, alone in my room. Bring it.
That was how the texting started. No longer was Layla the only one who kept her phone within easy reach at all times. At night while I was eating dinner and doing homework, Mac crossing town, then back again, we kept in touch. It was the next best thing to being there. Or maybe the best thing, period.
* * *
“This is a collect call from an inmate at Lincoln Correctional Facility. Do you accept the charges?”
I could hear the garage door opening as my mom idled in the driveway. In just five minutes, she’d be inside. But Peyton was calling now.
“Yes,” I said.
There was a click, and then I heard my brother’s voice. “Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Sydney.”
“Oh. Hey.” He cleared his throat. “How are you?”
“Good,” I replied. “Mom’s just getting home. She’ll be here in a second.”
“Okay.”
We sat there for a moment, the only sound the empty buzzing of the line. Finally he said, “So, how’s school? I hear you’re at Jackson now.”
“It’s okay,” I replied. “Different. But I’ve made some friends.”
“That’s about all I can say about this place.” He laughed softly. “Although I’d pick high school over it any day of the week. And I hated high school.”
“You did?” I was genuinely surprised. For all that had happened, I’d never doubted that Peyton had enjoyed himself, at least when he wasn’t in trouble.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “It was probably why I was such an idiot. Misery makes people do stupid things.”
It was so weird, talking like this. Like he was someone else I didn’t know at all. “Why was it so bad?”
He was quiet a moment. “I don’t know. The regular reasons. Bad grades, pressure from Mom and Dad. You know.”
But I didn’t, not really. I’d just assumed being the firstborn meant all the privilege; it hadn’t occurred to me that another level came with it, one of responsibility, everything happening to you first.
Thinking this, I said, “I saw that path the other day, the one we used to take into the woods here. Remember?”
He was quiet for a second. “Yeah. With the sinkhole.”
“Yeah,” I repeated. “You walked across it that time, on a dare.” As I said this, I realized how much I really did want him to remember.
After a pause, he said, “Not my brightest moment.”
Again, I was surprised. How much else did we see differently? “But you did it,” I said.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Like I said, I did a lot of stupid things.”
Neither of us spoke for what felt like a long time. It was so awkward that I finally said, “So I’m looking forward to our visit. We all are.”
“Your visit?” he asked.