Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,24
right back,” Thea told him as she followed me toward the main road. There was a shortcut through Mr. Leonard’s property about half a mile up that was quicker than going back through the woods next to our house.
The grass crunched beneath our feet as we walked.
“Thanks for doing that back there. I’m totally embarrassed, but thanks for covering for me with him.”
She smiled. “I meant what I said, Nora. I know you think we’re only friends because of Ramsey, but I’m always here for you if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” I whispered.
She stopped at the edge of the road and turned to face me. “Now, can I say one last thing before you leave?”
“I’m scared to say yes.”
She chuckled. “I can’t imagine losing Ramsey. If he lived in Alberton, I’d be a mess too. But if this Camden kid has even half a brain, he won’t just choose to come back next summer. He’ll spend his whole life trying to come back to you. Maybe just cut him some slack for a few years until he gets a driver’s license, okay?”
I didn’t know it then, but Thea had proven herself to be something of a fortune teller, because that night was only the first of over a decade of excruciating goodbyes for me and Camden.
“Come on, Mom. I gotta go.” I impatiently bounced on my toes.
She continued to spoon banana pudding into a plastic container slow as molasses. “Honey, relax. The creek isn’t going anywhere.”
No. The creek wasn’t, but I was. My time with Nora was dwindling by the second.
I’d been dreading the day all summer. Going back to Alberton was going to suck on epic levels. Middle school was a nightmare on its own. I couldn’t imagine it would be any better now that all the kids in my class had spent the summer hanging out without me.
Don’t get me wrong; I regretted nothing of my days spent with Nora. Honestly, those humid mornings chilling by the water were some of the best of my entire life.
Originally, I’d felt like I was taking care of her, doing everything I could to make her forget about her piece-of-crap dad at home. I stayed later than I should have each afternoon and had to wake up super early in the morning to get all my chores done before I was allowed to go back each day. But it was worth it.
As time passed, Nora started taking care of me too. She might not have had much, but she gave me more than anyone else ever had: real, honest friendship.
It wasn’t about ham, pickle, and mustard sandwiches. Though I did appreciate those. It was about how she noticed I never ate the crust. She didn’t ask me why or tell me I was dumb. She just showed up the next day with the crust cut off.
We’d spent nearly a week trying to get a rope tied to the branch hanging over the creek. When we were finally successful, I chickened out on the very first swing. She didn’t call me a wimp or harass me into giving it another try. She just spent the day using it to do flips into the creek and arguing with me when I scored them below a perfect ten from my towel on the bank.
I’d spent so much of my life trying to fit into a mold of who others thought I should be that I’d lost sight of who I truly was.
But Nora didn’t want me to be anyone. She just liked that I was there.
We didn’t get along about everything. She picked on me relentlessly about the sci-fi books I’d read while she got lost in a magazine from two years ago. But in the next breath, she’d plop down beside me and ask me all about it, just to be sure it was something she wouldn’t like.
With Nora, I was free to be whoever the hell I wanted without consideration or consequence, and losing that when I went back to Alberton terrified me.
But all good things come to an end, right? At least that was what Mom had said when I’d begged her on my hands and knees to let me stay at my grandparents’ and go to school in Clovert. It was an argument I’d never fathomed having three months earlier.
Dad had chimed in with a booming, “Have you lost your mind, boy?” He didn’t even bother to read the three-page report I’d stayed up until four in the morning writing, detailing