The Words We Keep

My body drags around the track Friday afternoon. I was up half the night waiting for Alice to sneak back in from wherever it is she goes. I cross the finish line, still 1.5 seconds behind the time I need for state. Coach asks me if I’m doing my home runs on the weekends. I lie. He doesn’t need to know about the heart-pounding episodes. I’ll get my times down. That’s all that matters.

On the drive home, my phone dings:

Sam: why’d you leave practice so fast? And can we PLEASE hang out tonight?

Lily: can’t. Working on the project

Sam: please tell me that “working on it” is some sort of lurid euphemism

Lily: Mind. Out. Of. The. Gutter.

Sam: another day? I miss your face

Lily: definitely. Just been busy

Trying to fix my brain

my sister

everything.

Sam: we’re all busy, Lil. You are MIA.

I don’t know why I don’t tell her about Micah and his muse-recovery plan. Probably because she’d go into graphic detail about his paintbrush again. But it’s not like that. It can’t be like that. Not with Alice and this contest and the 400 meter taking up all the space.

Which is why I show up at his doorstep later that afternoon armed with my favorite book and a determination to squash any sort of skin-buzzing, twitterpated-girl antics before they start. Focus on the project. That’s all.

So the lip gloss is for the project, then?

I shush the monsters and knock. His house is small, with a freshly mowed lawn and purple sage bushes in full bloom out front. The walkway up to the front door is covered in chalk drawings like the ones from the 100-acre-wood. Micah opens the door, his hair and clothes semi-rumpled. His hoodie has a picture of Bob Ross that says good vibes only, and his socks match, with little Bob Ross heads floating in a sea of black.

“You’re just in time,” he says.

“For…”

“Tamales!” Micah rubs his hands together as a woman in blue scrubs scurries from the kitchen and practically tackles me in a hug. She rocks me back and forth so forcefully, I’m afraid I’ll snap in half.

“Lily, my mother. Mom, this is Lily,” Micah says.

I say hello from deep inside the woman’s voluminous black curls.

“Que linda,” she says, putting her palms on either side of my face. Then she wraps her fingers around my upper arm, shaking her head and clucking her tongue. “But too skinny. All you girls these days. You need to eat. Need to grow. So you can have babies.”

“Mom!” Micah’s face flushes pink as he shoots his mom a shut up—I’m serious look. I relish this rare moment of Micah mortification. His mom rumples his black curls like he’s a toddler.

“This one, embarrassed by his own mother.”

Micah pulls her hand off his head and holds it between his. “Oh, I’m sorry. Please, oh please, talk more about making babies in front of pretty girls I bring home.”

His mother smiles at me like we’re in on a secret. Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed.

“Okay, okay, mijo. I’ll be quiet,” she says. “You work; I cook.”

His mother hums softly to herself as she fills corn husks with meat and the house with the aroma of spices. Micah pulls out a chair for me at the kitchen table. “All right, poet laureate of Ridgeline High, teach me. Mold me. I am putty in your hands.”

I put my favorite book, The Bell Jar, on the table with a thick black permanent marker.

“So, poetry is about putting emotions into words in a way that surprises the reader, and maybe even the poet. So we’re gonna do an exercise I did once in creative writing, just to kind of get the juices flowing.” I open to a random page. Micah scoots his chair over, his black hair dangling in front of his eyes. I focus on the assignment rather than the nerve endings where his arm touches mine.

“Basically, it’s not about the words we cross out,” I say, dragging the black marker along a line of text, leaving only one word revealed. “It’s about the words we keep.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Micah says. “We’re going to draw in a book? That’s a very coloring-outside-the-lines thing to do.”

“Didn’t know about my wild side, huh?” I try not to laugh. “Plus, I may or may not have three copies of this book at home.”

Micah laughs and picks up the marker.

“I don’t know, seems like a gateway drug. Today it’s scribbling in books; tomorrow it’s not using a planner. Where will the madness end?”

I shove him slightly, and he shoves me back, until his mother gives us a knowing grin while she folds a tamale.

Stop being an idiot.

Focus.

We take turns finding words we like, dragging the black marker in lines until the page is covered except for tiny windows of white.

Micah clears his throat and reads the blackout poem out loud.

“Bravo!” His mother cheers from in front of the stove. “An assignment for school?”

I tell her about the project, and before I even finish, she has turned to Micah, her hands on her hips. A string of quick Spanish words spills from her mouth, and Micah replies just as rapidly. They talk so much faster than my Spanish teacher, but I pick up that Micah has not told his mother about the summer college program, and she is not happy about it.

In the end, his mother throws her hands into the air, stomps to the counter, and then returns with two plates of steaming tamales. She shoves them in front of us.

“Lily. Talk to my son.”

She tosses her apron onto the counter before walking out, still muttering in Spanish. Micah runs his hands though his hair, leans his head back, and groans lightly.

I blow on a bite of tamale. “Flustered looks good on you, Micah Mendez.”

“Har-har. Well, I’m glad one of us enjoyed that.”

“Oh, I did.”

“Well, you’ll love this, then. My mother shares your opinions about college being the path. The only path.”

I chew the tamale, the warm deliciousness exploding in my mouth.

“I knew I liked her,” I say. “Tell me again why you’re so against it?”

Micah stabs at his food with his fork. “She already works all the time. I think she took out a loan for Fairview. I’m not about to ask her to pay for college, too.” He pops a bite of tamale into his mouth without waiting for it to cool. Steam escapes from his lips as he talks. “And say I do go to college? What if I relapse and it’s all for nothing?” His eyes follow down the hallway to the bedroom door where his mother disappeared. “I’ve put her through enough. It’s better if I get a job, start pitching in. Dad would want me to take care of her. Keep this family together.”

I understand the feeling. After Mom died, Dad was left trying to do it all on his own, and even as a six-year-old, I felt that burden. It was like there was no more safety net, no breathing room. I knew our family was more fragile without Mom, and even though it wasn’t my fault she was gone, I believed that if I was good enough—did enough—I could keep us from cracking.

Behind Micah, a picture on the wall shows a schoolboy version of him standing next to a thinner version of his mother and a man with slightly lighter skin but the same dark hair as Micah’s. And even though I know exactly how Micah feels, I also know his art is incredible, and throwing away this chance would be a waste.

“I think your parents would want you to go as far as you can with your art.” I finish off my tamale. “And maybe this is just a classic case of safer not to try than fail.”

Micah shoves me again playfully. “Hey. No using my own wisdom against me.” He picks up my plate, shaking his head. “Here I invite you to my home, make you a delicious—and authentic, I might add—Mexican dish, and you repay me by dumping on all my life choices.”

I clear the silverware and glasses and follow him to the sink.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right. Unsolicited life advice is really more your area of expertise.”

Micah’s eyes crinkle up as he smiles and takes the silverware from me, our fingers grazing one another as he does, and he’s looking at where we touch and then looking at me like he did on the cliff, and there’s no ocean or sunshine to blame, just him buzzing under my skin.

I drop my hand, and he starts washing dishes, trying to ignore the awkward tension in the room.

“So, speaking of unhealthy family dynamics.” He side-eyes me while soaping a dish. “Did you ever talk to Alice? About bipolar?”

I pick up a towel and start drying. “You don’t understand, Micah. It’s like—it’s like I’ve lost her.”

She didn’t die that night, but a part of her did—the Alice who was always trying something new, who treated life like her personal choose-your-own-adventure book. The Alice who made me believe I was a fearless ocean explorer and helped me swim back to shore.

“She’s not the same person anymore.”

Micah turns off the water. “No, she’s not. When you get to a place where dying seems like the easy way out, that changes you.”

He hands me a dish. His wrist faces up, and I see the semicolon tattoo, and as much as I’m fighting it, I want to know why it’s there. Did he get to that place, too? Did he get past it? And why can’t I stop wondering about this boy with his rumored past and visible scars?

Tears prick my eyes. I haven’t told anyone the way I feel about Alice. Dad’s too busy pretending everything is better now, and Sam wouldn’t get it. But Micah? He does. “You want to hear something truly terrible? Sometimes I don’t even want to talk to her. It’s like I’m so mad at her because now I can’t slip up, not even a little bit, because Dad can’t take one more letdown. I know it makes me a jerk, but sometimes I hate her for what she did.”

Micah nods, his eyes drifting down the hall again. “She hates herself for it, too. Trust me.”

“Maybe,” I say. “I wouldn’t know. She never tells me anything. It’s like I haven’t even met this new Alice.”

He hands me another dish, and our fingers meet again, and this time we let them linger a second more than we should. I let go of the dish first, but he keeps my eyes.

“Maybe you should.”