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In the Debris

Flotsam

Edward

Isabella cheers like a mad person at Max's soccer game. It's an early game, and they're playing in the rain, Isabella and I both holding umbrellas over us. She doesn't even know the game or when to cheer, but whenever Max makes the slightest move on the field, she cheers, her rainbow-striped umbrella bouncing or swaying above her. She doesn't seem bothered by the fact that her hair gets wetter with every cheer. On the field, mud-splattered Max can't stop smiling, and really, on the sidelines, I can't either.

I decide now, Isabella jumping up and down beside me - "Go Max!" - that she deserves to get her wish.

After I drop Isabella off at home, I turn to Max. "Want to go on a search with me? We'll have to go to Port Angeles."

"For what?"

"A camera."

I stop home first for Max to get in a quick shower - his legs are covered in mud - and then he begs me to take the Porsche instead of the old Mustang. I agree to it, and we hit the road.

Turns out our final destination isn't Port Angeles. Unless I want to wait weeks for the camera to be shipped to me, we have to go all the way to Seattle to pick it up.

I drive fast, tires hugging the curves, and for once, my passenger is telling me to go faster instead of slow down.

"Not too fast, kid," I say. "Gotta get there in one piece."

Stopping by a few more stores for new clothes, we come across an art walk going on in an open park. The ground is layered with leaves that nobody bothered brushing aside before displaying paintings on easels - or maybe the piled up leaves is part of the whole art thing they have going on. It is pretty beautiful - something I think Isabella would want to witness, camera-ready. Without thinking, I grasp a little tighter to the bag in my hand. The saleswoman had asked me if I wanted it gift wrapped, and I decided against it. I don't want to make it a big deal; I just want Isabella to have it.

Max and I hang out for a while checking out the art, talking with the artists. Each artist is prepared for rain with a tent overhead. They may have had rain earlier, but now, in the late afternoon, they've got strong sun shining low, streaming through town before evening wheels around.

There's some girl here, around Max's age, displaying her paintings. They're unbelievable.

"I can paint you," she tells Max, taking him by the sleeve. "Sit down." She motions to an empty plastic chair and starts painting Max's portrait before he's even fully seated. Curls tumble down to the bottom of her neck, out from under a tilted beret. She's wearing lipstick that matches the red in her coat. In under ten minutes she's finished with the watercolor portrait.

"How much?" I ask when she hands the painting over, the perfect likeness of my brother.

"Fifteen," the little hustler says.

I reach for my wallet and hand her a twenty, telling her to keep the change. Even if it was forced on us, it's well worth more than twenty.

"Aw, I thought she just liked me," Max says.

"She probably did, she just wanted to sell a painting more."

"What am I going to do with it?"

"I'll take it if you don't want it. I think I need paintings or something in the pool house anyway."

For dinner, I take him to a diner a few buildings over, an old-fashioned place with checkered walls and floors, personal radio players on each table, and such bright overhead lighting you almost have to squint.

There's a real backend of a classic Chevy coming out of one wall, and a part of me mourns for the rest of that car.

Max chooses some songs from our radio, but it seems so many other songs were picked before his, we won't hear his choices unless we stay all night.

"I like this place," he says when his food is brought to him on a plate in the shape of a car. He ordered a kids' meal so he could get mac 'n cheese with his burger.

"Yeah, I should've ordered a kids' meal, too." I turn my own, regular plate around. "Boring."

Max complains when the next song that comes over the speakers isn't his. "The least they can do is give you the option to turn it down when it's something you don't want to hear. I mean, they're making us shout and we're sitting right across from each other!"

I pop a fry into my mouth, laughing. "You'll survive, old man."

We talk about Max's game, our day, the art, the girl who painted Max, all of that, before I chance bringing up an issue I've been wanting to talk to Max about since the first week of school. It's a conversation whose urgency was fueled further by Max's questioning of being "cool."

"What's going on with the rest of the guys? You're always hanging out with Josh, and that's cool, he's a cool kid, but where'd the rest of your buds disappear to?"

"They all suck. I don't like them anymore."

"Why not?"

He shrugs. "They're always picking fights, and like, ditching school and stuff. And they make fun of you if you don't do it, too." He squirts more ketchup on his plate and it seems he's not really in this conversation. Does it really not mean much to him or is he trying to avoid it?

"They make fun of you? Or just people, in general?"

"Did you ditch school before?"

I want the truth to be that I never ditched school. Unfortunately, it isn't. "Yeah. I ditched classes sometimes. Not really ever a whole day. But sometimes, with the guys, I did ditch a class. It's a stupid thing to do. My grades sucked. You don't want to do that."

"Did you smoke? These guys think it's cool to smoke."

I lean forward, my eyes widening. "Smoke what?"

"Cigarettes." He kind of glares at me. "What'd you think I meant?"

"Um, nothing. Don't smoke, kid. And don't do what I did. I was an idiot. You know what?"

He bites into his burger and asks, "What?" with a mouthful.

"I look up to you. I really do. You're awesome. I may be older, but you're smarter. You are. Just keep being you, Max. Don't change yourself just because other people think it's cool or because I did it once. The truth is, I don't smoke anymore and I don't ditch classes anymore. It took me five years of school to learn what you already know in seventh grade."

"You don't look up to me."

"Calling me a liar?"

He laughs, his expression still somewhat shocked. He really doesn't know who he is, and maybe, at thirteen, he isn't supposed to. But I wish he did.

.

Ever since my party, I've sort of fallen in to hanging out with Isabella, Victoria, and James at lunch. It began with just Isabella, but a few days later, she wanted to sit with Victoria, who obviously sat with James.

After Victoria was dosed, and both James and I were worried about her, I wouldn't call us friends, but we're cool with hanging out, I guess.

"Have you ever looked at the word 'minimum' in print?" Victoria asks me. Since the weather's dry, she wanted to have lunch outside, and she's sitting on top of the picnic table, her feet on the bench. "It's the most perfectly symmetrical word I've ever seen. Check it out." She bends the textbook toward me.

"You're high," I say, without looking. I'm too busy looking at Isabella standing over there in a crowd with Jasper, several tables over. They're laughing. She hugs him, then heads over to us. She's smiling.

Hopping over the bench, she sits next to me at the table. "They're calling this table Misfit Island. I've been warned that hanging out with you guys is social suicide." Her smile grows as she talks; she seems amused by this.

Victoria turns around to face the table, moving down to the bench on the other side of me.

"Who said that?" I ask.

"I don't remember who started it. Lauren or Angela, maybe Jessica? I don't know, but all those girls agreed."

"What did you tell them?"

"I'll take my chances. Yeah, like they can control who I'm friends with. You know, they say you two-" she gestures across to James and then over to Victoria "-think you're better than everyone else now that Cullen's hanging out with you."

We all laugh, except for Isabella.

"What's funny? I think they're right. You are too good for them."

"No," James says. "You didn't grow up here. To hear them think we're too good for them?" His finger points and taps the table as he talks. "They spent half their lives trying to let us know that we weren't fit to share the same sidewalk as them."

"Not all of them," I say, and James doesn't like it. He shoots me a look that warns me not to stand up for any of them. But I don't take well to threatening looks.

"Lauren, Jessica, Newton, Crowley and all their followers, yeah, they had it out for both of you. But Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie? They were indifferent to all of it. They've never cared what those idiots think."

"I'm getting a coke. I'm not listening to this." Victoria leaves.

I feel Isabella eying James like she expects James to follow Victoria. I kind of do, too. But he doesn't move or even look over his shoulder.

"Aren't you going after her?" Isabella asks him.

All he does is shake his head, his focus on me. "Okay, inside man, if Whitlock's indifferent, then why is Victoria in his sketchbook?"

I look past him to see Victoria still retreating from us. "She isn't."

"Maybe not her face."

And James is pissed. His voice was low, controlled, but he looks like he's about to throw his fist right through the table.

"What sketchbook?" Isabella asks, and I know she's in it and all I want is for this conversation to be over before I have to tell her what the sketchbook means. "You mean because he draws pictures of people? He drew one of me." She shrugs. "Is that a bad thing?"

James gives her a look that shows he's just as shocked to hear it as I once was to see it.

We all sit back and pretend to eat. Isabella doesn't press the issue.

"I thought you knew what kind of guy Jasper is," I say.

"Yeah, it's not that hard to figure out. He's pretty much the 'I wear my flaws on my sleeve' kind of guy."

"So, why are you huggin' on him?"

Her face jolts toward me. "Huggin' on him? Those girls just got through telling me that if I come over here, it's social suicide. It made me laugh. I bid them a dramatic, you know, like, old-time actress 'farewell' since I was going off to my social death. Jasper liked that bit. He hugged me. And anyway, I didn't know I wasn't allowed to hug him. It's not like I have a boyfriend, do I?" She tosses the rest of her bag lunch into the trash beside our table. I don't think she really ate any of it. "I'm going to find Victoria. You guys kind of suck today."

"We suck," I tell James.

"Guess so."

I ask him about what went down between Victoria and Jasper.

"I'm not telling her what I saw. But Whitlock? She wouldn't. No way. He's up to something. I don't think he's telling the truth about that sketchbook. Or he's letting you all believe what you want to believe."

"How do you know she's in it?"

"The dude buys from me, man. And why would he leave it open for me to see?"

"But if her face wasn't in it, how do you know it's her?"

"Let's just say I do. No doubt."

Now I'm blown away because I never thought the "friends with benefits" rumors were true. Especially not with the way Victoria talks about James.

He's shaking his head. "No, nothing like that. I saw her, but only because she was candy-flippin' that one night. She was pretty outta control."

But Jasper and Victoria? I'm still not believing it's her in the picture; it makes no sense. I don't think he would've gone after Victoria, and Victoria wouldn't have gone after him. "How would he have seen her? I mean, enough of her to draw her?"

"Fuck if I know. All it would really take to draw her the way he did is to see her in a bikini. And he's over there talking to Mallory, isn't he? She's had it out for Victoria since-"

"No way. Jasper wouldn't be in on anything with Mallory."

"Sure about that?" He nods his chin, his eyes shifting past me.

I glance over my shoulder and Jasper is still there, surrounded by the same crowd of girls. "What's he up to?"

"I don't fucking know. But guess who's going to find out."

Inside man, I think. And I have more than just Victoria to confront him about.

.

I don't say a word to Jasper until we're in his room, and even then I take my time. He has to ask me "What's up?" to get me to start talking.

"I want Isabella and Victoria taken out of your book."

"Why, man?" He picks the sketchbook up off his dresser. "Why do you care?"

"The whole book should burn, and I'll do it if they're not taken out."

"Fuck off. It's my book." He's actually hugging the book to his chest with one arm. "Shit, I know you've got something going on with Isabella, but she earned her spot."

"How did I never know what an asshole you are?"

"Because you were just as big an asshole? You got off on this sketchbook. Now because some of your new friends are in it, it's wrong? Whatever happened to make you Señor Sensitive-o fucking sucks. You lost your balls in the process."

He's already started swearing like crazy, and when he starts in, I start in, so I know this is going to be a fuck heavy conversation.

"Yeah, that does fucking suck. Hand over the pictures."

He tears one out and hands it to me. "How'd you know about Victoria?"

"You bought from James?" I take the drawing and start to rip it up.

"Don't." His face and shoulders cringe. "Don't do that in front of me."

"Why was she in there?"

"None of your goddamned business."

"Does anyone else know this-" I hold up the partially torn sketch "-is her?"

"Nobody else has seen it. I didn't even know Hood saw it. I was still finishing it up - guess I left it out."

"How did you see her? You spying on her or something?"

"Fuck, Cullen, give me some fucking credit. Fuck." He shakes his head. "I fucking saw her, and you don't fucking repeat it. Not to Hood or anyone else. Not Isabella. No one."

"How did you see her? When? Here?" I glance at the bed and scratch my forehead. This can't be right.

"Nice try."

"What was she? Is this a joke? She gets enough shit at school. Why don't you lay off?"

"It's not a fuckin' joke. Why don't you fuck off with that shit?"

"Now, Isabella's." I motion with my hand for him to give it to me before I get too far sidetracked. "She didn't know you, man. She wasn't trying to earn anything. The girls you draw in there, they pose for you. They know what they're doing and for whatever fucking reason they want to be a part of it. You've got them thinking it's some privilege-"

"Hey, they have minds; they make their own choices."

"But Isabella doesn't even know what your sketchbook means."

"All right man, but only for you. Don't go blabbing about this. I don't need every girl-I-ever-fucked's boyfriend coming after my sketches. This is my journal, you motherfucker."

"Last I heard, journals were personal. You flash yours to anyone who wants a look."

There's no way I'll be able to tear up Isabella's picture. It's just her face. I fold it up with Victoria's and slide them into my back pocket. I'll give the pictures to the girls, let them decide what to do with them.

"What went on with you and Victoria, anyway?"

"Ask her, man. I'm not saying a word. Maybe if you were who you used to be, but now? No fucking way."

I'm Inside Man no more.

"What the fuck's up with you? Do you even remember who you were? Who we were?"

"I remember."

"You remember having a fuck-it-all good ass fucking time? Our trips to Port Angeles, the girls. So easy. The car rides. You and me, man. It was you. And me." He points to me and then himself.

I sit in his chair next to the slider and look out. There's rain out there, turning the dirt in their garden to mud. "Yeah, I remember. It was a good time, but that's not me anymore. No more."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it's not."

"What about everyone from out there? You see any of them anymore? How about Heidi?"

Heidi. I haven't even thought about her. I see her smile, her hair cut short, just below her ears, and how I slipped my fingers back there to pull her closer to my face. I hear her laugh. I feel her hands on me. I like the way you kiss, she told me, and I said it back to her even though I didn't care how she kissed, as long as she just kissed me. She was the closest thing to a girlfriend I've ever had, and still she was nowhere near.

My father wanted it - he introduced us at some hospital banquet. Heidi's father is some fellow surgeon. My father was pissed when he found out I was bringing other girls home. He told me to be true to Heidi. All my mom said was, Treat the girls right.

I didn't listen to either one of them.

"I haven't seen her since…"

"She was at your mom's funeral."

"Yeah, since then."

"You blocking her calls like you do mine?"

He pulls my attention from the view outside I wasn't really seeing anyway. He's got an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He lights it up.

"I don't block - it's not like that. I'm just not into that scene anymore. I'm not. I can't be."

He takes a drag. And as he lets his smoke out, he asks, "It's because of what happened to your mom, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it is. And Max. Seriously, Max."

He takes a seat on his bed and another drag.

"I guess the right thing to do is be supportive or some shit?"

I don't say anything.

"Doing the right thing sucks balls, Shorty."

I get that he's saying he misses how things used to be. He won't say it in those words. I try to imagine what it would be like if roles were reversed, if he was the one who pulled a near-one-eighty, if he was the one who turned away without a glance back.

"I'm sorry." I'm apologizing for deciding not to be someone I don't want to be, which is a bullshit thing to apologize for. But I'm also apologizing for turning my back on him, on our past. In a way, I've left him alone. Not that Jasper would ever be alone; he'd never let himself. But he's right. It used to be him and me. It was all-nighters and us in the front seat, two girls in the back on our way to his house or mine. It was a chick on top of me in one room, Jasper on top of a chick in another room. And it was worry free. Consequence free because we didn't even think about consequences. It was always willing girls, and the booze that helps. It was girl laughter, and guy fist-bumping. It was Jasper chain-smoking and me strumming the guitar 'till dawn. It was driving the girls home in the morning while Jasper sat in the backseat sketching out pictures. It was on and on and on until it all ended in one day.

"It is what it is."

.

On the drive home it's all invading my mind - things I haven't thought about since before my mom passed away. Heidi did show up, a week after the funeral, knocking on the pool house door. My dad sent her out, still wanting us together, I guess. I went over to the door and locked it, never answered it. I'm sure she knew I was in there ignoring her. She left me one more voicemail after that, told me she'd miss me.

I should've at least called her back. Just once. At least to tell her I wasn't interested in that life anymore.

But it's too late for that now.

Wanna see something pretty? she said to me our first time together, my first time. With a dry mouth, I nodded, and she unzipped her dress, let it fall. She wore nothing underneath. She wasn't a virgin.

The thoughts are running as wild as Jasper and I used to be until they calm down into Isabella. Where would I be now if I was still that same guy? Would I have fucked her and let her go? Would I be missing out on everything she is?

When I get home, I call her and ask her to come over. I have something for her.

"Me? The hugger-onner of guys?"

"Come on." I rub my face up and down. "It was just a question. Hug who you want."

"Thanks for your permission."

She says she'll be over when she finishes her homework.

"What ya got for me?" she says, hours later as she walks through the door. Her hair's kind of messy and a little rain-wet. I open a drawer, pull out the box and place it in her open hand.

She gasps, one hand shooting to her chest. "What is this?" I can't figure out the tone of her voice. She doesn't sound happy, but not mad either. Something in between, like maybe she doesn't know how she's feeling.

"A camera."

"No, Edward, it's a two thousand dollar camera." She pushes it at me.

"Forget about the money." I push her hands and the camera back against her stomach.

"You can't give me this." She pushes it back at me, and we continue this back and forth throughout our argument.

"I want you to have it."

"I don't want it."

"Yes, you do."

"Edward, you can't give me this!"

"If I wanted to give you a pack of gum, could I give you that?"

"It's different."

"Not really. I want you to have this." I push it back at her one more time and hold her hands there so she can't push it forward again.

"Every time I use it, I'll be reminded that you bought it for me."

"That's what gifts are."

"Edward."

"It's yours. I'm not taking it back."

"I can't take it."

"Maybe it isn't from me, exactly. Maybe it was the lavender under your pillow."

"Don't make fun of me.

"Sorry, but it's yours."

"It isn't mine."

"All right, it isn't yours. It's mine, and I want you to use it. Can you at least do that? Can you use my camera?"

She opens the box, takes the camera out, dropping the box on the bed, and turns the camera over in her hand. She switches the power on and peeks through the viewfinder, adjusts the focus. "You charged it up, too?" When she pulls it from her face, I spot wetness in her eyes. "It isn't fair. I can't turn it down."

"I really don't want you to turn it down. I want you to have it. I went out looking for it for you. It gave me and Max something to do together. So I should be thanking you, really. Take it. Say it's your birthday present from me and my brother. We missed your birthday. And, Bella," I say that name on purpose. Her name. "You deserve it. I want you to know that I think you deserve to have it."

"I'm just going to borrow it. Or I'll pay you back in monthly installments."

I laugh, all frustrated. "That isn't the point. Look, if you take the camera, then I'll promise to stock up on peaches and eat them every time I feel like playing the guitar. How's that?"

"You drive a hard bargain."

She gives me a kind of shy or reluctant thank you and then takes my picture as I tell her she's welcome. As she checks out the image in the screen, there are tears streaming down her cheeks, and this time, this cry, I'm not ashamed is caused by me.

Victoria

October, the amber month, and the twenty-fourth, my birthday. Dead leaves, the color of tree sap, take over the ground, the wind, the cars, and yet in Forks and surrounding Forks, there's still so much green. Everywhere you look, mountains of green.

Just like the past four years, James and his mom join us at the lodge for my birthday dinner. His dad came for a couple of years, but of course, he can't anymore.

We meet them in the parking lot, all of us right on time. James is wearing a fedora and a loose button down shirt. He looks relaxed and he smiles for me, opening an arm, and there's no possibility of me talking to him tonight about the distance I need from him. But when he puts his arm around me, it feels heavy, like the sky right now, thick with clouds so low that instead of appearing vast and endless, the sky feels encaging. If I reach up through the clouds, I'm certain my hand will hit surface, like a roof, or a lid. I can't help but twist out of James' hold.

Inside, gift shop to the left, restaurant to the right, we follow our host to a big round table in front of the fire, glowing warm and a little humid with how damp it is here just after the rain. I sit between my aunt and James.

His mom tells him to remove his hat at the dinner table. He does, placing it on my head and patting the top.

"Nice," he says to me, and then to his mother he says, "The Birthday Girl can wear hats anywhere, anytime." He whacks the brim of the hat with a finger.

"How do you like my lipstick?" James' mom asks me, leaning forward to peer around James.

"Pretty," I say. The last time I was at their house, she paraded around showing us her "interview outfit." I hadn't seen her that done up in a long time: pumps, straight skirt to her knees, her hair curled and twisted into a loose knot at the crown of her head. I swiped my lipstick out of my bag and applied it to her lips. "Finishing touch," I said. "Now you'll get the job, for sure."

A few times during dinner, James' hand finds its way under my hair and squeezes the back of my neck. It occurs to me that this is something he's been doing for a long time. I used to rarely even notice it. But now I can't help but feel it. It feels too much like something a boyfriend might do and reminds me too much of Jasper's touch, reminds me how close James was to finding out. Edward brought me Jasper's drawing the other day, his eyes like bolded question marks.

"I didn't look at it," he said, standing on my doorstep, lowering his hood. "And you don't seem that shocked to see it."

"I…" A longer gaze at the sketch shows me lying on my side in shaded lace, legs crossed, and the freckles he promised just below my stomach. And one corkscrew curl dangling over one shoulder. The whole thing looks very real. Too real.

"Hey, Victoria." He brought a hand to my shoulder and squeezed. "You all right?"

"Can you not tell James? If I decide to tell him, I'll tell him, otherwise-"

"It's true? You and Jasper? Why?" His voice grew quiet on the "why" like it stood for some shameful secret.

"Don't ask me that. I mean, why did you sleep with anyone you slept with?"

He starts nodding. "Got it. Yeah, you're right."

"You won't tell James, will you?"

"He's seen the picture, he's the reason I have it, but he's completely denying everything. He doesn't think you'd ever - and neither did I. I didn't believe it until I saw your face just now."

And now, reminded of all of this, and James knowing something, but not knowing all of it, I reach back and make him release my neck.

He looks over at me now and mouths, What?

"Just, don't."

Still, he doesn't give up trying to make me laugh. Whenever Mud starts to say anything, James interrupts him. He keeps singing The Clash's Spanish Bombs, accent and all, so it sounds like Spanish Bums.

His thumbs drum a rhythm on the table.

Everyone stares at him.

"Won't get outta my head. You know how it is."

He cracks several knock, knock jokes that are so awful they're funny. And he keeps asking for someone to pass the salt; he must have asked seven times already.

"It's still right in front of you," his mother says. "What's the matter with you? Where are your manners?" She dabs a napkin at a corner of her lip-sticked mouth.

"Sorry, I forgot." He adds more salt to his plate.

"At this rate you'll be eating nothing but salt," I tell him.

"Long as you're smilin'." He tosses an overly salted fry into his mouth, his smile crunching it away. It's not a fake smile, either. His eyes are involved, and unclouded. He's sober.

"You want an order of fries with your salt?" Aunt Cheri asks. His mom and Mud might want to strangle him after tonight, but Aunt Cheri loves James' humor about as much as I do.

Mud starts to compliment their new chef, and again, James interrupts him.

"Did you know my cousin Marc sweats whenever he eats cheese? I kid you not. One bite and his forehead drips with sweat. Even after he wipes at it, it keeps going, like sprinklers have turned on in his head. Horrible."

I laugh into my hands. It's a whole body laugh; my shoulders are quaking.

"James! What has gotten into you tonight? Table manners!"

"Sorry, Ma, it's just an allergy. They don't follow manner rules."

"Humans do."

James turns to me, fingers dripping down his face from his forehead as if they're beads of sweat. "Horrible."

Aunt Cheri and I crack up.

Tonight he's the same James he's always been, the James I know every nuance of, the James I don't want any break from. But he's also the same James I've grown to love, and so I remind myself that I need distance.

James asks me to ride with him and his mom back to their house. He has a present for me.

In his room, I ask him if he has a special birthday bowl.

"You want to smoke a bowl?" He locks his door and opens his window, not waiting for or needing an answer.

He packs his pipe and passes it to me first, holding the flame over it.

"Pipe dreams," he says as I take my hit.

"So," he says, falling sideways on his bed, resting on his forearm, pipe in his hand. "Eighteen. Feel any different?"

"I've felt different since I was six." I take the pipe from him for another hit.

"Any different from seventeen, though?"

I pretend to think about it even though I don't have to. In my pause, I sit on the opposite side of the bed from him, my legs stretched out in front of me. "Not a smidge."

Everything that changed and made me feel different happened when I was seventeen, and today I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday.

"I think you should keep that hat. It looks better on you."

"Everything looks better on me." I lower the hat and tilt it sideways over my forehead. I have to lift my head to see anything out of my right eye.

He takes my ankle and wiggles it back and forth and tells me he really does have an actual present for me.

He goes over to a dresser drawer and shuffles things around, pulling out a book and hands it to me, looking a little shy. I reposition the hat on my head so I can see, and turn the book over in my hand. It's bound with wood covers, a thick "V" carved into the front. Inside are thick, textured blank pages.

"I made it for you with scrap pieces at work. And the paper, it's from that store in town, you know with all the handmade things? The way I see it, the only kind of paper that deserves your poems is the kind that goes through a lot of trouble to exist."

I run a hand over the surface of the cover, the wood so smooth he must have sanded and polished it. I fumble with the little open lock on the side.

"It's a combination lock. You don't have to worry about losing a key."

"It's beautiful. Perfect." I stand up to hug him. "Thank you."

He shows me how to set the combination.

It's a school night and getting late, but I don't want to leave. Not yet. I glance down at his bed, tempted to spend the night. If my aunt and Mud didn't already know I was here, I would probably stay. I know I have to go, though, and my rational side understands it's better this way in the long run.

Instead of James giving me a ride home, I tell him I want to walk, and like I know he will, he offers to walk with me. I make us go the long way home and he doesn't complain.

I'm savoring this night with him, knowing I'm about to change everything we have between us tomorrow. I'm completely aware of what I'm doing. I even give him a too-long hug goodbye on my porch. When I hug him tighter, his hand runs up and down my back. He squeezes and lifts me a little.

"Happy Birthday, Victoria."

In bed, settling myself against pillows, I open my new poetry book; the first page is too blank. My eyes shift over to James' fedora sitting on top of my dresser, and I have my idea for the first poem that will go on the first page of my new book. It's one of James' knock, knock jokes from dinner.

I write:

Knock, knock…

Who's there?

Ifyoucan't…

Ifyoucan't, who?

If you can't hang with the big dogs, stay out on the porch.

Even if it makes no sense as a knock, knock joke, I think it's the best kind of poetry - the kind of poetry that symbolizes absolutely nothing to one person, but everything to another.

A/N: Thank you for sticking with this story. I love your devotion to Victoria. It makes me happy.