Page 87 of Wherever You Are

It makes me nauseous thinking about it.

I just realize I’m in the backyard, and Lo opens the pool gate.

I step inside. “I know you don’t like me,” I tell him, “but will you make sure that she’s okay when I’m gone?”

Lo freezes mid-step to the snow-covered lounge chairs. “I already do now.” His expression says,combat me. Tell me I’m wrong if I really am.

I nod a few times. “Okay.”

“If you know something—”

“Forget it, dude. I’m being an idiot.” I blink rapidly and stare up at the blue sky. “You hate me, right?”

I think I’m whiplashing him with my emotions, my swift detours, and he’s having trouble following my frantic mental pacing. “What?”

“Youhateme,” I say, more forceful.

He laughs once. “Most of the goddamnuniverseis on my shit list.” With that, he walks off to the backdoor. Leaving me conflicted and confused again.

I’m standing knee-deep in the unknown.

19BACK THEN – December

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

WILLOW MOORE

Age 17

Ifind Garrison waiting for me by Lo’s covered pool. Quickly, he stands off a lounge chair as I approach. The cold bites me through a puffy blue jacket and thin mittens, but I’d rather bear the winter with Garrison. A minute ago, I entered through the garage, and Lily said he was out back. And he had something important to tell me.

“Hi,” I breathe softly, scanning his solemn features.

Garrison cracks a few knuckles, on edge. “You should sit.” He brushes snow off another lounge chair for me.

My heart knots. Tension builds so rapidly, and for some reason, I feel like an avalanche looms in the horizon. I take a seat, and he sits on another lounge chair across from mine.

Garrison licks his lips and then says, “So…I saw your Tumblr post this morning.”

Is that what he wants to talk about…or is he just sidetracking? “Oh yeah.” I cup my cellphone in one of my mittens. Last night I made a post aboutX-Men: Evolution, the animated series. It was short and went something like:

Me:*sees Storm creating lightning and thunder*

Me:Strike me down, beautiful eternal goddess!

I nudge my glasses. “You didn’t think it was lame?”

Garrison looks like he wants to smile but can’t. “Have you checked your notifications lately?”

I slowly shake my head and remove a mitten. Fingers cold, I tap on my cellphone screen and pop open Tumblr.

I immediately smile. “You didn’t…”He did.Garrison made gifs of Storm fromX-Men: Evolutionwhere she wields lightning with her mutant powers. And he tagged me in them.

There aren’t many gifs of the X-Men animated series to begin with, and to have this—and know personally who made them, and that he made them for me—means more than he realizes.

“Merry Christmas,” he says. “Really, though, that isn’t the present I meant to give you.”

My smile fades, remembering that I forgot my Christmas present for him in my Honda. “I left my gift for you in my car. I didn’t know you’d be here right now, but I can go get it—”