Page 53 of Exchanged

“Never again. I guess I don’t know what I expected. I think I had this image of me stalking a wild animal through the forest, ranger-style, like Aragorn or some shit. But it was just hours and hours of sitting still in a deer blind. I wish I’d brought a book.” He looks up and exhales, his breath cloudy in the cold night air. “But the silence was amazing. And the stars.”

“What?”

“There are so fucking many of them,” he says, gesturing upward. I follow his gaze to the endless pinpoints of light dotting the inky sky. “It’s wild.”

“You don’t have stars in Atlanta?”

He looks at me like I said something oblivious. “Light pollution, you know? I’m lucky if I can see a few dozen from my house in the suburbs. And in the woods, it’s so quiet. Back home, there’s always this distant roar of interstate traffic and city sounds, but here…” He gestures up at the ether.

“Just wind.”

He nods. “Just wind.”

We sit in the dark stillness for a few minutes looking up into the night. Then he asks, “Any more thoughts about Burton-Clark?”

“I don’t know. Every time I imagine going there, going to Los Angeles, I can only think about what it would mean to leave them. Dad and Emma and Aunt Liz, I mean. How much it would change everything, how guilty I would feel for moving away. I already have this great life, and I feel shitty because I want more. And I have no idea how we’d afford it, especially since the break-in.”

He nods but doesn’t say anything. I’m vaguely aware that my right leg is pressed against his left. I’ve already unloaded on him, but I’m tired of the awkwardness that’s been between us since our walk by Lake Superior. I’m tired of spinning between Aunt Liz’s encouragement and Dad’s dismissiveness. I want someone I can be totally real with.

“And then I think about this town and how much I love it.” Feeling agitated, I stand up, take a step down to the pathway that winds through our yard. “And I think about how I don’t have to leave everything I care about. There’s a perfectly fine school twenty minutes away. I could go there and still live at home and work at the shop and see my family every day.” For some reason, my voice trembles.

He moves to stand in front of me. “True.”

“And when I think about that version of my future, it feels safer. More comfortable.” My body is shaking now, too.

He places his hands on both of my shoulders and tilts his head down so that his eyes are directly in front of mine. “Enzo. You deserve so much more than comfortable.”

And that’s when I start crying, my body releasing these conflicting emotions in the form of heaving sobs. Garrett puts his arms around me and pulls me into him, my cheek pressed against the scratchy fabric of his jacket. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to make this better, and I am grateful for that. He only holds me between his hands and chest.

When I’m done, I take a step back, embarrassed. I don’t know what to say about what just happened, so I look up at the sky and wipe the snot from my nose and attempt a watery laugh. “There really are a shit-ton of stars up there.”

“Yeah.” He watches my face and not the sky. “So many stars.”

FIFTEEN

On December 1, Dad carries up box after box of Christmas decorations from the basement. He pulls out all the stops, insisting it’s because the seasonal flair is good for business, but Emma and I know better. Dad loves Christmas.

Everyone pitches in to help decorate, and I relish how normal it feels. Dad and I have been quieter than usual around each other since our argument a few weeks ago, but we’ve settled into an uneasy truce, agreeing not to talk about college. We’ve become two off-key instruments playing in the same space, neither of us willing to stop and adjust our pitch. The air around us feels uncomfortable, charged with the conflict we refuse to address.

Business picks up around the holidays with tourists from downstate doing Christmas shopping, so I work extra shifts at the shop. We take on two estate sales during this time, and four separate elderly women complain about the disappearance of our Precious Moments products.

I continue composing music, and Mr. Campbell has the band perform one of my carol arrangements at our winter concert. A couple of kids in the digital animation club create a short film and ask me to write the soundtrack, so I pour myself into that project, creating a whimsical, percussive theme I’m proud of.

At school, Garrett remains popular, surrounded by close friends and medium friends and vague acquaintances: Tyler and the football guys, Ryan and the cross-country team, and somehow a quirky group of junior theater kids. At home, the two of us spend more and more time together. He wanders into my bedroom to complain that my classical NPR station is too loud, and I wander into his room to ask for help on calculus homework, each visit extending longer than the last until I eventually find that I’ve gotten to know him: his life, his interests, his personality.

He loves cerebral sci-fi movies and raunchy comedies and knows way too much about the Marvel universe.

He gets hangry and unreasonable when he goes too long without eating.

He’s messy and impulsive and blunt, but also considerate, quick-thinking, and funny.

He remembers everything I tell him.

I meet his brother Charlie on a video call the evening before winter break begins. I’m heading to my room with Emma’s Christmas present—copies of the first novels in three different fantasy series I think she’ll like—when I hear a voice drifting through Garrett’s open door.

“We missed you at Thanksgiving, Gare,” the voice says. It sounds almost like Garrett, warm and brassy, but with a slightly stronger accent, as if its owner leans into the charm of his twangy vowel sounds. “Mom and Dad said the placement is going well, though?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Garrett says. “What else did they say?”