Indigo

ridiculous eyelashes. He pulled me to him and sat up. He repositioned me in his lap, and I crossed my legs around him.

His hands were on my back, under my tank top, palms flat to my body, and we were so close, so close, and he pulled me to him, closer, closer, and it felt so good, I could hardly contain myself. I threw my head back, sighed, and his lips were on my neck again.

I reached down to pull off my tank, and Rennick froze. “Corrine,” he said, “we don’t have—”

“I want to,” I said, and I meant it. “I trust you. Us. This moment.”

His face twisted up, like he was going to protest. He raked a hand through his hair. He pulled me close, kissed me hard. But then he pushed me away. “Corrine, wait.”

“Rennick, I want to—”

He traced his fingers over my lips then, onto my cheek, my chin. “I love your chin. That little point.” He kissed me again softly. Sighed. Pulled away.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s just everything. Us. It doesn’t have to be such a grand gesture. Huge decision. It’s not like either we can’t touch at all or we completely do it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want … I would love to …” He raked his hand through his hair again.

And I resisted the urge to be hurt by this, to slink inward. I tried to really hear him.

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I want you, Corrine. But I want you always … a million yeses, every day. Forever.” He swallowed hard, and I could see that he was scared of how honest he was being. “It doesn’t have to be one huge yes. It can be us. Together. Over and over. Every day. I want that. Not just one big decision to prove something.”

I thought I understood what he was saying.

I nodded, tried to internalize this. I kind of got it. And I thought of Mia-Joy. It’s not like we get to perfect and then we’re done. Isn’t that what she had said?

I could do this. I believed in the power of decision. And I could decide yes to Rennick, over and over. Again and again. A million yeses. I liked that. My heart swelled and floated when I stepped out of my own insecurities enough to really hear what he was professing to me.

Him and me. Every day. Forever.

Inside my head I was listening to Beethoven’s Romance in F Major. The flurry of crescendoing excitement. I looked at the guy in front of me. The well of emotion in his eyes. The sweet, heartbreaking wrinkle of concern between them. “Thank you,” I said, wanting to kiss that sweet, beautiful spot on Rennick’s front teeth, right where they overlapped. My Rennick. We held each other’s gaze then for a long moment and he changed then. Became gentler, slower, more in charge, made us savor it. Poco a poco.

And later when he held me close to him, his arms wrapped around me, I pressed my palms to his face, brought his lips to mine. It was still Beethoven in my head, but now Ode to Joy.

“I love you, Rennick.”

His eyes softened then. He buried his face in my neck, and he whispered it. Dolce. “I love you too, Corrine.”

That night, as I lay in my own bed, I was back in that place, where I felt so open to possibility. To everything. To meanings.

Nobody tells you that this is what growing up is.

I mean, Rennick was right in everything he had to say to me, and Mia-Joy was right too. But they both were still only circling the target.

Nobody tells you that this is what growing up is, learning that you actually control very little in your life. Learning that you can’t force your hand. Learning that you are not in charge. Learning that you have to risk, take chances, walk that thin, thin line. Moderation. Faith.

These are difficult things for a person like me. It goes hand in hand with humility.

When I came home from Rennick’s, Mom and I had talked about Mia-Joy, and she asked me if I had tried to heal her at all. If I thought that was possible.

“I think,” I told her, “that sometimes there are things, certain important things, that you can only fix by digging down deep into yourself, finding that faith. Nobody can give you that. You have to find that on your own.”

Mom had nodded, and the way she sucked in breath and absolutely forced herself not to relate everything back to my situation, well, it was written all over her minister’s face. And there was something else written there. Pride. Love.

Now, watching the shadows of the pear tree dance on my bedroom wall, listening to the cicadas sing their nightly song, I let myself consider that there was nobody to blame for Sophie’s death. I considered that I might never know the whys of it. The hows. And I had to make my peace with that, inside. This is what growing up was. Understanding that nothing real has a glossy, shiny sheen to it. Nothing perfect lasts. And we are all left with this reality eventually.

I had to give it up and move forward. This seemed scary and exhilarating. And I felt naked going out into the world without that insulation. Because although Rennick was close to understanding how I was using Sophie’s death to push others away, he didn’t understand one part of it. Giving up that insulation, that cushion of guilt, meant facing there was no more Sophie. Letting her go.

No Sophie graduating from high school. No Sophie learning to put on makeup. No Sophie at my wedding. No letters from Sophie when I went away to college. No more ridiculous pantomime shows performed by Sophie and her buddy Mitchy. No more checking under her bed for spiders while she played with seventeen earthworms housed in a jam jar by her bed.

No more Sophie. Whether I saved others with the touch or not.

No more Sophie. And that insulation had been a barrier, something to focus on rather than staring that fact in the face.

I tiptoed out of my bedroom into Sophie’s old room. I wanted to look at her pictures. I wanted to think of her, just how she was. But when I got there, I saw that Mom was already sitting on the floor, the album in her lap, a glass of wine in her hand. I settled down next to her, folded my feet under me.

“I miss her,” I said.

Mom nodded, sniffled, took a sip of her wine. I slipped my hand into hers and tried to ignore her tears. I let her have this moment. I heard Dad clear his throat from the doorway. I got up and hugged my father. My mother joined in the fold, and the three of us held on to each other. Broken, imperfect. But ours. Dear. Irreplaceable. Real.

I eyed Sophie’s second-grade photograph, the open album on the floor. Her gap-toothed smile. I felt her there, right then, with us.

Dad pulled away first. “So are you going to move forward with this thing?”

“I think so. Maybe,” I told him. “I might want to interview a few of the scientists. See about some help. Take it slower.” A million little yeses, I reminded myself.

17

I was listening to Beethoven cranked up high on my iPad, and I knew that I was sketching Rennick’s face, I knew that. But I was in that zone. I wasn’t really thinking about it. The square jaw, the little scar in his eyebrow, the lashes over those dark blue eyes.

It took me a while to get the fwoof of his hair lifting off of his forehead, but I did it, and then I was finished with the pencil sketch. I began to add some color. My mind was back at Rennick’s garage, though: the feel of his skin beneath my hands, his lips on my collarbone.

At the same moment that Mom came bursting into my bedroom, I realized what I was doing and dropped my pastel.

“What in the world?” I said, yanking the earbuds out of my ears. I could see in Mom’s face that something