***
“Did I freak you out last night?” Tommy leaned against the old apple tree next to the Millers’ fence.
Small green apples had formed on it, easily making the transformation from delicate white bud to growing fruit in the hot summer heat. Usually, the bugs dug into them before people got the chance to enjoy them. If the bugs didn’t devour their sweet flesh, deer who traveled through the woods would certainly take care of the job. Last summer when we moved here, I’d salvaged a few. Tangy, sweet, and juicy. Everything an apple should be, wrapped up in a golden, delicious skin.
I looked at him and rolled my eyes. I couldn’t hide anything from him. But I didn’t want to admit anything either.
“I know you were upset.” His dark-blue eyes held my gaze. “So don’t act like you weren’t.”
“Why’d you take me there? In the middle of the night? You knew I was scared of going outside in the dark. I told you that. So you take me to some stupid graveyard?”
He shrugged. “I thought it was cool. I just wanted to show it to you. I didn’t want to scare you.”
I yanked a buttery dandelion from the grass, closed my eyes, and took a sniff. They never smelled like anything. Just a weed, which I guessed they were. I always thought dandelions were pretty, though. Something pretty should have a nice smell. It didn’t.
I leaned against the fence. My thin blue tank top did little to shield me from the scorching sun, baking my back. Exactly the type of hot, sweaty day Dad had been buried. Mid-July, and the summer heat had reached its peak. Even hotter than today. I’d worn a scratchy black dress and strappy black sandals that had been my favorite at the time.
We’d stood on the Memorial Cemetery lot, surrounded by gray headstones, all exactly the same, and perfectly manicured grass. Some headstones had flowers sitting by them, some had small American flags, I imagined for the Fourth of July holiday that had just passed, and others were bare. I’d stared at the mound of fresh earth nearby, adjusting my uncomfortable dress for the millionth time; this was where Dad would be going. Forever.
I’d known it was just his body, not his soul. I may have only been eleven, but I’d known about Heaven and Hell since I was three years old. At least that was when I remember understanding about religion. Mrs. Sneed, my Sunday School teacher, had brought the Bible alive in the form of felt characters on a board. In the brightly colored room, stuffed with books, puzzles, and a play kitchen, these stories filled my mind. I still wasn’t sure of all the logistics but I knew God was real. No explanation of why was needed. I felt Him in my heart. And I knew Dad was in Heaven with Him.
A nudge on my arm, breaking into my daydreaming. Tommy stared at me expectantly.
“Don’t be mad at me.”
I sighed. “Okay, I’m not mad. But don’t drag me to some creepy place in the middle of the night again.”
Tommy held up his right hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Boy Scout?”
“Nope. I’m not a group person. More of a loner.”
“A loner.” I rolled the word around in my mouth. “I’m kind of a loner, too.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Two peas in a pod.”
Chapter Eleven
“Peas in a pod, huh?” I smiled at Tommy. “So what are we peas going to do today?”
“Hang out at the clubhouse?”
“Maybe. Aunt Holly is taking me to the pool later. You can come, too.”
“Nah. No thanks.”
“You take this loner thing pretty seriously, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer at first. Leaning his head back, his dirty-blond hair falling perfectly into place, he simply stared at the sky. “It’s not that, Emily. Just that a lot of people don’t see me the way you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“People see what they want to. Sometimes it’s not what’s really in front of them.”
“Like…” I wondered where he was going with this thought.
“Like my mother, for example. Every time she meets a new guy, she thinks he’s the love of her life.” Tommy sighed. “Nothing else matters but this guy. Nine times out of ten some jerk who’s going to treat her like garbage. But she’s blind to it. She sees potential. Potential for her to have a happy life. She doesn’t realize she can have a happy life without a guy. She just can’t see it.”
“Why can’t she see it? If every relationship she has turns bad, she should recognize a pattern.”
“She should, but she doesn’t. All she sees is what she wishes was true. She’s been doing it my whole life.”
“Maybe she’s an eternal optimist.” I’d heard Dad say that term often about himself, always looking on the positive side of things. The hopeful circumstances.
“Yeah, right,” he said, still gazing upward. “There’s no such thing as an eternal optimist, at least here on Earth. You either see what’s real or you don’t.”
“There’s nothing wrong with hoping for good things in your life.”
“No, that’s true.” His gaze shifted to me. “As long as you can see the truth and not be blinded by what you want to see.”
“It’s all about perception.” I’d learned this concept recently. Partly because of my addiction to talk shows and partly because I was smart. I say this in a non-condescending way. I didn’t think I was better than anybody in any kind of way. But it was a fact, I was intelligent. I would never be one of those girls who downplayed the intelligence they possessed. I loved learning and sharing my knowledge.
“See, Emily,” Tommy winked at me, “I don’t have to explain this to
