Rebel at Spruce High

All humor has left his eyes. He is stunned, my words sinking in. “Vann … You … You know I’m crazy about you. You’ve changed me in so many ways. You came into my life at the exact moment I needed you. Hell, if you’d asked me before my senior year started if I’d be going to prom, I’d have said no. I’m pretty sure I’d be at home right now kicking back with my new game exploring realms and riding crystal dragons … all by myself. I’d never know how this feels, to be in someone’s arms—your arms—out here on this dance floor with all my friends. Vann, you lifted me, you pushed me onto a stage, you gave purpose to my painting, you gave me a story to tell. Our story.” He brings a hand to my face. “I think you literally saved my life.”

Then we have no more words to say, and every other feeling that exists in our hearts comes out in kisses, in tender looks into each other’s eyes, in strokes of our backs as we embrace and sway on the dance floor to the music, lost in this moment, kissing. Prom king and prom queen are announced, and all we know is this kiss. The punch bowl is spiked, something salacious goes down in one of the photo booths, couples sneak off to hotel rooms upstairs, and all we know is this kiss. Buildings could fall, fires may break out around us, the moon could come crashing down to the earth from the starry night sky … and the only fricking thing we’d remember is this one, precious, perfect kiss.

If eternal happiness had a moment, I’m pretty sure this is it.

EPILOGUE

- TOBY -

Maybe happily-ever-after isn’t just a gift you’re given in the end. Maybe you have to work to keep it.

And sometimes, happiness is found at the end of a road you never anticipated taking. It could even be a road in the woods you didn’t know existed, a road that never shows itself …

Until you get a letter delivered to your door.

“Hey, Toby!” Lee calls out in his deep, dull voice after having answered the door. “It’s some kinda thing you gotta sign for!”

I hop up from the couch where we’re all watching a movie—Vann, my mom, and Carl—and sign for the letter, then distractedly pop it open like just another spam letter I get from another college vying for my freshly-graduated attention. As I start to read the letter, however, everything else in the house fades away. The movie. Vann. My mom. My stepdad. Lee. I slowly lower myself to a chair at the dining room table, reading those few yet fateful words on paper. When I’m done, I lower it to the table and stare at a wall. Nothing touches me. Not a sound, thought, nor feeling. Nothing.

My mother appears at the archway. I barely notice her. “Toby, you’re missin’ the best part of the movie!” She seems to take in my eerie mood. “Toby, sweetie? What is it?”

And just like that, not even bringing my eyes to meet hers, the words fall out: “Dad’s dead.”

My mom has no reaction at first. Or perhaps she does have one, but it’s all inside, deeply buried in her heart, somewhere deep down in her soul that no one can touch but her—and this news. She sits rather abruptly into the chair next to me, but stays silent. It’s a particularly strange piece of news that would only affect me and her, as we’re the only ones with a direct relation to him. He’s my biological father and her ex-husband. I barely knew him. He never kept in touch. He vanished like a ghost … and now he is one.

“Oh, sweetie …” she murmurs finally. Then my mom’s arms find a place around me, and while I still can’t bring myself to move or speak, I find myself astonished at how little emotion I feel. I suspect tears might find me someday, but for now, I’m wondering if I missed out on knowing my dad, or he missed out on knowing me, or—considering the reckless, slightly heartless way in which he left—perhaps it was better we were never in each other’s lives.

The next thing I know, I’m sitting on the back porch staring at the backyard, which was freshly mowed just a day ago by Lee, who is likely warming up for his usual lawn-mowing summer gig. Vann joins me out on the porch, by now having heard the news from my mother inside, and he kindly lets me be in peace as the warm, pre-summer air moves slowly over the short grass, barely disturbing a newly-hung tire swing in the corner of the yard. Winona is on the steps in front of us, her head resting on my lap.