If These Wings Could Fly - Kyrie McCauley Page 0,28
art class. It’s homework.”
“Hmm,” she murmurs. It’s a heavy hmm. I drop the mascara on the counter and give her my undivided attention.
“Yesssss, June Bug?”
“Nothing. Just that maybe ‘art homework’ is code for something else.”
“Juniper! What would it be code for?”
“How should I know? It’s something Campbell said, and I never know what she’s talking about.”
Ugh, Cammy, stop growing up so fast.
“Talking about me?” Campbell asks from the door.
“‘Homework’ is code for something? She’s nine, Cam.”
“I’m not a baby,” Juniper says.
“You are such a baby,” Campbell says. “And a tattle.”
“Am not!” Juniper shrieks.
“Enough,” I say. “Campbell, stop antagonizing her. Junie, please tell Mom I’ll be ready to go in two minutes.”
Juniper hops off the sink, slamming her shoulder into Campbell as she passes by.
Campbell drops the toilet lid and sits down. She pulls her legs up and crosses them.
“He’s really just a friend?” she asks, then makes a kissing face at me.
“Campbell.”
“Is he nice?” And there it is. That’s what she wanted to ask. She tries to be subtle, or to trick Juniper into asking me things, but we can never pull that off with each other. Her forced casualness is so familiar to me.
“He’s very nice. And if he’s ever not nice, I will stop hanging out with him.” She holds my gaze for a moment, then shifts, nods her head. The tension eases from her shoulders.
It’s visible to me, even if others can’t see it. The things Campbell carries. The worry.
“You like him?”
Campbell deserves honesty if I’m leaving her all evening to hang out with him.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Okay,” she says. She leans forward and holds out her hooked little finger.
“Swear you’ll be careful.”
I reach to link my pinkie finger with hers and tug down. “Pinkie promise.”
We should go. Mom and Juniper are probably ready to leave. I grab my backpack, but I pause at the door.
“Hey, Cammy, we’re gonna find a way to get you another bike, okay? I don’t know how yet, but we will.”
“It’s my own fault anyway.”
“For leaving it out front?”
“No, for being mean to Juniper that day.”
I drop my backpack and shut the door, moving right over to Campbell and crouching in front of her. People think she looks like Mom, but it’s just the red hair. She has the hard set of Dad’s jaw, and his eyes. “Hey. That’s not how any of this works, Cam.”
“No? It felt pretty karmic to me,” she says. She stands up and moves to the vanity, lifting a tube of toothpaste and starting to squeeze it all toward the opening, lid tight in place.
“You think it’s a punishment? You do something mean, so you get something bad back? I don’t think there’s anyone keeping a tally, Campbell.”
“I guess not. I’ve just always wondered . . .”
“Wondered what?”
“What we did to deserve . . .” Emotion makes her voice crack, and she stops talking. She’s rolling the toothpaste now, so it’s all condensed at the end. Pressure built. Ready to burst when opened.
“Nothing, Campbell.” I take the tube from her hand and set it on the counter. “That’s why it isn’t real. There is no magical ledger of good and bad.”
“Maybe it’s too bad there isn’t, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because that means no one will ever punish him.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
BY THE TIME WE ARE CROSSING town to where Liam lives, the sun has started to set. Auburn has a lot of flaws, but it does sunsets right.
As the sun sinks, the colors change, and remind me of the time Juniper got into my desk and used highlighters to color in my copy of The Bell Jar. I remember trying to read it after and being unable to—the colors were so bright against the chaos of Plath’s words. The contrast kept pulling me from the pages. Neon pink and lemon yellow in layers, just like the sky looks now. Dark words covered in highlighter. A stifling town blanketed by pretty sunsets.
Just before the sun disappears, it glows red like a fireball over Auburn. Like it could make everything its light touches burn.
Liam’s family lives up against the mountains, and every house we pass is a looming, but pristine, Victorian. Wrap-around porches and dog houses in the yards. No weathered gray siding or neglected flower beds on this side of Auburn.
“So, you’re really sticking with the tutoring story?” Mom asks as we pull into the driveway. The girls came with us even though Dad is home. Or maybe because he is.
“What do you mean?” I ask as I haul my heavy backpack into