The Impossible

Kelly

As I stare at the door where Crash just left my house, Tommy reaches for me, but I jerk away.

"I-I need to get my keys and stuff."

"Two minutes!" Amber calls from outside, before closing the door behind her without so much as a goodbye.

Good riddance.

"Go get your stuff," Tommy says. "I'll wait."

My legs feel shaky on the stairs, but I get up to my room and grab my school bag, dumping the contents on the bed so I can throw in a sweater, my wallet, the laptop, and my phone. Which shows several missed calls.

I scroll through the notifications screen. Dan called three times. But between his, there were two calls from Lacie, and another from a number I don't know.

Lacie's brother must have taken a photo before we noticed him.

If I were a swearer, I'd burn the walls down right now. I inch to the other side of the room until I can peer out the window to see the sidewalk and driveway out front.

Sure enough, there are four or five kids from my school—including Lacie's little brother—out there and a couple cars parked on the curb with more bodies moving inside.

Just because Tommy stood at my front door?

My hands shake as I grab a couple books and a change of clothes, just in case, always careful to remain out of sight of the people outside. Downstairs with my bag over my shoulder, I'm grateful that we thought to close the blinds in the living room so I don't have to pass in front of all those eyes on my way to the kitchen.

Tommy's standing next to the door, phone in hand. But he puts it away when I walk in. I speak before he can.

"This whole afternoon is another explanation you owe me."

He chuckles darkly and I have to fight not to grin back at him. Instead, I keep my eyes on my feet and duck once I'm on the grass at the back to stay below the level of our fence so the people on the street won't see me.

"Just keep a log," Tommy whispers as we sneak through the backyards of three of my neighbors. "We can tick them off one by one."

*****

I'm resting my forehead on the passenger window of Tommy's ridiculous Porsche (when did my ex-best friend become a dick?) while I try to keep from clinging to my shoulder bag sitting on my lap. The seats in this car cradle you like a baby. I have to work to keep hating it.

"Kel? You okay, babe?"

"Don't call me babe."

Tommy's silent for another minute, then he shifts gears, along with his weight in the seat. "I know this is a lot—"

"No, actually, Tommy. You don't. You don't have a frigging clue how much of a lot this is. Not even a little bit. Because you haven't been here. At all."

His hands grip the steering wheel until his knuckles stand proud. "Fucking Crash."

"Bull!" I burst out, slapping his arm so hard the back of my hand stings. "That's bull, Tommy! You could have called! You could have texted! You could have freaking emailed me. One single note—do you realize that? A couple lines and I would have told you he broke up with me and I wouldn't have"—I swallow convulsively—"wouldn't have lost both of you."

"I'm so sorry, Kel. I mean it."

"Stop apologizing. It doesn't give me the time back and it doesn't make me feel better." Embarrassed at my outburst, I'm fighting the pinch of tears.

"Shit, Kelly." Tommy's big paw of a hand lands on my shoulder. He squeezes gently. It pisses me off. He knows I love to be touched, and he's using it against me. But telling him to stop would hurt too much because I'm desperate.

My grief comes in a wave, an ugly thing that's been nudging at my heart ever since I opened the door this afternoon.

When it all boils down, and no one else is there to judge, I can admit it: If only one of them showed up, I would have wished it was Crash here, telling me sorry, stroking my back, and driving me to the hospital so we can be alone for a little while.

"Will he be okay?"

"I think so." Tommy's face goes tight and pale. He's blaming himself.

I resist the urge to take his hand and comfort him. Deflect with a less important question. "Tommy, why are you driving a Porche?"

Tommy chuckles, which, for anyone else, would be booming laughter. It's such a warm sound, I can't help smiling. But it fades quickly.

"It isn't mine," he says. "Mine's in the shop, so the label let me borrow this."

"This is your loaner?"

"Yeah." He looks sideways at me. "I know. But it's not as bad as you think." He digs his phone out of his back pocket and hands it to me. "The code's 7325. Check out the photo gallery."

"You're giving me the code to your phone?" I ask, skeptical, even as I tap it in.

"Of course. I'm so—I mean, um, I know there's a lot of lost time and I made a big mistake."

"Huge."

"Massive."

"Unforgivable."

He glances at me. "Yeah, that. Look, I'll find a way to make it up to you. But you're one of my people. So hell, yes, you'll have the code to my phone. And you can look through my photos. And you can hack into my apps and leave embarrassing messages, and whatever. Just give me a chance to help you forgive me." He turns to me, and a wave of longing and missing and aching rolls through my chest.

It's look away or cry, so I focus on the platinum iPhone in my hand. Of course it is. I tap the photo app and lines and lines of little squares populate. Even in the thumbnails, I can see how different his life has become.

Of the twenty or so photos on the first screen, all of them were taken during a concert. A crowd of thousands. Lights over a stage. Security guys backstage. The guitarist with his head thrown back.

Then. Oh.

My heart in my throat, I tap the icon and bite my lip when the photo pops up to fill the screen. The hazy background is black with bare pinpoints of light here and there. In the blurry foreground is a set of drums—clearly, Tommy's in his seat during a performance.

In the crystal focus in the middle of the image, Crash stands at a microphone with an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. He grips the microphone with one hand, keeping the guitar back with the other. His face is tipped up so the lights shine down directly on him. The expression on his face is pained the way it gets when he's hitting those incredible notes he's capable of.

"He was singing In the Dark," Tommy says.

Crash wrote that song for me.

Unwilling to dwell on that, I focus on the image. It's been filtered until it's almost black and white. The extra contrast and muted colors crystallize the moment.

"It's beautiful, Tommy."

"You can send it to yourself if you want."

I do. I want a lot. But as I tap the share icon, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I'm going to have a recent photo of Crash looking amazing and being adored and it'll gut me when I'm alone again.

But I'm greedy for him. I text it to myself then go back to Tommy's photos and find a cute one of him sitting on a couch, twirling his sticks.

"Can I have this one, too?"

Tommy glances at it and grins. "Yeah, of course. That's backstage. Crash took it."

I ignore that information and text that photo as well, pressing send before I can think about it.

"Hand me the phone?" Tommy says as we pull up to a red light. I watch his callused hands as he scrolls down, down, down, until he grins and hands the phone back to me, just in time for the light to turn green.

On the screen is Tommy, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles, leaning against the bed of a pristine vintage pick-up truck with his hair pulled back and a huge smile on his face.

"Her name's Bessie."

I grin, relieved. It's exactly what I would've thought he'd pick.

Tommy turns us into the tastefully lit parking lot of an unmarked building. It's three levels of sleek brown walls and tinted windows, with a circular driveway in front of the door, broad ramps on either side of a granite staircase, and is that a piano in the lobby?

It looks like a luxury conference center.

I don't have time to think about it, because Tommy pulls right up to the entrance, stopping in front of the stairs.