Forever & Always by Jasinda Wilder

  Eden's gaze reflected her own conflict. She wanted to hold on to the argument because it was easier to snipe and bicker than to admit how scared she was. I could see that in her and feel it in myself. Our identical green eyes met, and understanding was achieved. Nothing was said out loud, but after a moment, I hugged Eden and we both sniffled. We'd never been apart before, not more than an hour or two a day in our entire lives.

  "You better not let Michael make you skinnier than me," I said.

  "Like that'll ever happen." She groaned. "He's gonna try to kill me, not that it'll make a difference."

  Eden was slightly heavier than I was, not by much pounds-wise, but enough so that it resulted in a much curvier shape, and she was sensitive about it. Being mercilessly teased all of eighth grade hadn't helped much, so she was determined to get fit over the summer and show everyone in ninth grade how different she was. I had argued that the other girls were just jealous because Eden had tits and an ass and they didn't, but it had fallen on deaf ears. She'd convinced our father to hire her a personal trainer for the summer. Never mind that she was only fourteen and far too young to worry about bullshit like slimming down, but neither Dad nor I had been able to change Eden's mind.

  It was part of Eden's grief, I knew. I painted and drew and took pictures, Eden played the cello. But it was deeper than that for Eden. We were nearly identical images of our mother, dark hair, green eyes, fair skin, fine features, beautiful. I was closer to looking like Mom, slim and willowy, while Eden had gotten more of Daddy's genetics--he was short and stocky, naturally muscular. Eden wanted to remember Mom, to be more like her. She'd even taken to bleaching her hair, the way Mom had.

  "We'll miss you, Ev," Dad said, twisting in the seat to meet my eyes. "It'll be too quiet around the house without you."

  Like you'd notice, I wanted to say, but didn't. "I'll miss you too, Dad."

  "Don't be a hooligan," Eden said, an inside joke of ours, referring to our maternal grandfather's favorite phrase.

  "You either. And seriously, don't go too crazy with this Michael dude. You're not--"

  Eden stuck her fingers in her ears. "LA-LA-LA-LA...I'm not listening!" she sing-songed. Removing her fingers, she said, "And seriously yourself, don't start."

  I sighed. "Fine. Love you, ass-head."

  "You too, butt-face."

  Dad frowned at us. "Really? Are you two teenage girls or teenage boys?"

  We both rolled our eyes, and then embraced one more time. I leaned forward and hugged Dad from between the seats, smelling the coffee on his breath. Then I was out of the car and opening the trunk hatch, and trying to juggle my purse and suitcase while closing the hatch. With a final backward wave, Dad and Eden were gone and I was alone, completely alone for the first time in my life.

  A few feet away, a boy my own age was standing in the swirling, left-behind dust. He had a huge black duffel slung over one shoulder, and he was standing with his spine as straight as the pine tree trunks rising all around. One hand was shoved into his hip pocket, and he was toying with the strap of his bag with the other hand. One boot-clad toe was digging in the dirt, twisting and scuffing as he peered at the rows of cabins.

  I couldn't help sneaking a second look at him. He wasn't like any boy I'd ever seen before. He looked to be about my own age, fourteen or fifteen, but he was tall, already almost six feet, and he was muscled more like an adult than a teenager. He had shaggy black hair that needed cutting, and the fuzzy scruff of a teenage boy hoping to grow a beard.

  Until that moment, I'd never really had a crush before. Eden talked about boys all the time, and our friends were always going on about this boy or that boy, gushing about first kisses and first dates, but I had never really gotten too into all of that. I noticed cute boys at school, of course, because I wasn't dead or blind. But painting took up most of my time. Or, more accurately, waking up each day and not missing Mom took up most of my time, and painting helped that. I didn't have much brain space left for thinking about boys.

  But this boy, the one standing six feet away from me, looking as nervous and out of place as I felt. There was something different about him.

  Before I knew what was happening, my traitorous legs had carried me over to stand in front of him, and my traitorous voice was saying, "Hi...I'm Ever Eliot."

  He turned his eyes to mine, and I almost gasped out loud. His eyes were pure amber, rich and complex and piercing. "Um. Hi. Caden Monroe." His voice was deep, although it broke on the last syllable. "Ever? That's your name?"

  "Yeah." I'd never been self-conscious about my name before, but I wanted Caden to like my name as much as I liked his.

  "It's a cool name. I've never known anyone with a name like that before."

  "Yeah, it's unique, I guess. Caden is cool, too."

  "It's Irish. My dad's name is Aidan, and my Gramps's name is Connor, and Great-Gramps's name was Paddy. Patrick. Irish names all the way back to my more-greats-than-I-can-remember Gramps, Daniel."

  "Was he, like, an immigrant?" I flinched at the way I had unconsciously used "like" as a filler. So much for sounding smart.

  "Well, all of our families were immigrants at some point, right? Unless you're Indian, that is. Native American, I mean." He rubbed the back of his neck, and his cheeks flushed red. Which was sinfully adorable. "But yeah, Daniel Monroe was the first Monroe to come to America. He came over in 1841."

  I racked my brain for the significance of that date. I'd learned about it in my world history class last year. "Wasn't there this big thing in the 1840s? With Irish people coming to America?"

  Caden set his duffel on the ground. "I think it was something about potatoes. A famine, or something."

  "Yeah."

  A long, awkward silence stretched out between us.

  Caden broke it first. "So. Ever. What do you...do?"

  "Do?"

  He shrugged, then waved at the cabins and the campus in general. "Art-wise, I mean. Are you a musician, or...?"

  "Oh. No, I'm an artist. I guess they'd call it a visual artist. Painting, mostly. For now, at least. I like all sorts of stuff. I want to get into sculpture. What about you?"

  "Same, although I draw more than anything."

  "What do you draw? Comic books?" I regretted that last part as soon as it came out of my mouth. It sounded judgmental, and he didn't seem like the comic book type. "I mean, or--animals?" That was even worse. I felt myself blushing and wishing I could start over.

  Caden just looked confused. "What? No, I don't draw any one thing. I mean, I do, just...it's whatever I'm working on. Right now I'm trying to figure out hands. I can't seem to draw hands right. Before that it was eyes, but I got those down."

  "Sorry, I didn't mean--I'm an idiot sometimes, I just--" I was only making it worse now. I grabbed my suitcase by the handle and lugged it around, facing away from him. "I should go. Find my cabin."

  A sun-browned hand took the suitcase from me and lifted it easily, which was ridiculous, since it weighed at least fifty pounds and I could barely move it. He had his duffel bag on his shoulder and my suitcase in one hand. "What number are you?"

  I reached into my purse and unfolded my registration printout, even though I knew the cabin number by heart already; I didn't want to seem too eager. "Number ten."

  Caden glanced at the numbers on the nearest cabins. "This way, then," he said. "I'm in twenty, and these are four, five, and six."

  I cut my eyes to the side, watching the way his bicep tensed as he walked with the heavy suitcase. "Isn't my suitcase heavy?"

  He shrugged, which made his duffel bag slip, and he hiked it higher. "A little. Not too bad."

  After a too-short walk, we came to cabin number ten. I couldn't figure out how to delay him without sounding clingy or desperate, so I let him set my suitcase just inside the squeaky screen door, then waved as he shouldered his bag and strode off, rubbing the back of his neck in a way that made his bicep stand out.

  I watched him go, and then realized several girls we
re clustered around the screen door as well, ogling him. "He's hot!" one of them said. They asked me who he was.

  I wondered if the strangely possessive feeling in my gut was jealousy, and what I was supposed to do about it. "His name is Caden."

  For the first time in a long time, my mind was occupied with something other than painting.

  That afternoon there was a get-to-know-you thing, which was stupid, and then dinner and some free time, all of which passed in a blur. I didn't see Caden again that day, and as I slid into the thin, uncomfortable bunk bed, I wondered if he was thinking about me like I was him.

  Somewhere out there, maybe a boy was thinking about me. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean, but it felt nice to imagine.

  goodbye is not forever

  Caden

  Between art classes and the requisite camp activities--which were stupid bullshit--the first week of camp passed in a blur.

  It was Monday afternoon, all-camp free time, so most everyone was gone somewhere--into downtown Traverse City, to Sleeping Bear Dunes, canoeing on one of the two lakes, swimming at Peterson Beach. There were a few students on campus, most of them doing the same as I was, finding a solitary place to play an instrument, paint, draw, or dance. I had found the perfect spot overlooking Green Lake, sitting with my back to a pine tree, sketchbook on my knees, trying to capture the way a duck's wings curved for landing as they floated over the rippling surface of the water.

  I'd been there for over an hour already, the bark scratching my back through my T-shirt, earbuds in and playing my current favorite album, Surfing With the Alien by Joe Satriani. I'd drawn the same picture six times, each one a quick, rough sketch, capturing the outlines, the curves, the angle of the bird's body and the delicate arch of its neck. None of them were right, though. Like with my work on human hands, one particular detail was eluding me. This time, it was the pattern of the pinfeathers as the duck fluttered its wings, the way each feather rounded into the next, layered yet separate, while its green head and yellow beak thrust forward, the wings creating a bonnet around its body. I'd stuffed each failed sketch under my foot, using the last as reference for the next. My pencil went still as another duck approached the water. Its wings curved to slow its descent, orange feet outstretched, and then at the very last moment it reared back and flared its wings, braking to a stop and settling on the water with barely a sound or splash. I watched intently, my eyes and mind capturing the moment of wing-flare, watching the tips of its wings, then I glanced down and erased frantically, redrawing, pencil moving furiously now, line overlaying line, adjusting the curve and angles.

  "You're really good," a voice said behind me.

  I knew without turning who it was. "Thanks, Ever." Had I really remembered her voice after that one conversation?

  I wished I didn't feel so self-conscious all of a sudden. Would she think I was stupid for drawing ducks? Watching them land had been fascinating when I was alone, and drawing them had captivated my focus for the last couple of hours, but now that a pretty girl was standing behind me...I was pretty sure it was the nerdiest thing ever.

  I closed the sketchbook and set it on top of the pile of discarded sketches, standing up and brushing off the seat of my shorts. When I finally turned my gaze to Ever, I had to blink several times. I hadn't seen her since the day we arrived, despite looking for her in the visual arts classes and at meals. She'd been pretty then, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt. But now...she was so beautiful it made my stomach flip and tighten.

  She was wearing a pair of khaki shorts that barely made it to mid-thigh, and a rib-hugging green tank top that matched the emerald of her eyes perfectly. Her hair hung in loose spirals around her shoulders, and she had a bulky easel under one arm, a canvas under the other arm, and a wooden carrying case for paints in her hand. A smudge of red paint stood out on her forehead, matching a similar smudge on her left wrist, and green paint was smeared near her right cheek and earlobe.

  I felt an absurd compulsion to wipe away the paint with my thumb. Instead, I reached for the easel and took it from her. "Were you just setting up? Or heading back?" I asked.

  She shrugged, and the strap of her tank top slipped over the round of her shoulder, revealing the white strap of her bra. "Neither. I was kinda just...walking around. Looking for something to paint."

  "Oh. I was just...sketching. Ducks. Obviously." I felt myself blushing as I mumbled, forcing my gaze away from the overlapping green and white straps and the hint of pale skin as she brushed the strap back in place. "I don't really like ducks, I just...I thought the way they looked when they landed was kinda cool, and I--do you want me to carry your easel?" I felt like a spazz, shifting tracks so suddenly and blurting like an idiot.

  Ever shrugged again, and the damn strap of her shirt slipped again. I wished she would stop shrugging so much, because it was wreaking hell on my ability to not stare at her. It wasn't just the strap, though, it was her chest, the way it lifted and settled along with her shoulders. I felt my cheeks burn and wondered if my thoughts were visible somehow, like I had a digital marquee on my forehead, announcing the fact that I was staring at her boobs.

  "Sure," Ever said, and I had to refocus to remember what we were talking about. "It is kinda heavy."

  Oh. The easel. Right. I leaned down and scooped up my sketchbook and papers, then adjusted the easel under my armpit more securely. "Where to?"

  I was sensing a pattern now, and managed to avert my gaze before she did the shrug.

  "I dunno. I was thinking somewhere on that side over there." She pointed to a not-too-distant portion of the Green Lake shoreline.

  We traipsed through the woods along the shoreline, chatting about our art classes, comparing notes and complaints. Every once in a while, Ever would move ahead of me, and the way her shorts clung to her backside was so distracting I almost dropped the easel a few times.

  This was new territory for me. Girls were just girls. There'd never been one who had grabbed my attention like this before, and I didn't know how to handle it. Of course, there were hot girls at school, and I looked at them, 'cause duh, I'm a guy. But this was different. Ever was someone I could see becoming a friend, and it was tricky having a friend you couldn't stop staring at like some wonderstruck moron. I felt like she had this power of reducing me to a mouth-breathing caveman.

  Ook. Me Caden. You woman.

  I trotted up to walk next to her, which was only nominally better. The problem was that anywhere I looked, there was something I shouldn't be staring at.

  Eventually, she came a stop on a little knoll surrounded by trees with a stunning view of the lake. "This is good," she said. "I could paint this." I set the easel down and unfolded it, then moved away and watched her arrange her canvas on the easel, open her paint case and select a pencil. "You can't watch over my shoulder. That's weird and creepy, and I won't be able to think." She gestured off to one side. "Find your own spot, and we'll critique each other's work when we're done."

  "So we're both drawing the same basic landscape scene?" I asked.

  She nodded. "Well, I'll paint it. You draw it."

  I found a place off to Ever's left, framing the lake between two huge jack pines. I set my pad on my crossed legs and started sketching, and pretty soon disappeared into capturing the scene before me. I didn't entirely forget about Ever, because she was hot even while painting--especially while painting, really. She was messy. She had a tendency to use her fingers as much as the brushes. She would swipe her bangs out of her face and get paint on her forehead and cheeks and nose. Even as I tried to force my attention back to the sketch in my book, she scratched her wrist with one hand, smearing orange paint on her wrist, and then rubbed her jaw with the same wrist.

  I must have laughed out loud, because she glanced over at me. "What?" she asked.

  "It's just...you have paint all over your face."

  "I do?" She wiped at her cheek with one hand, which of course only smeared it worse.

  I set my
pad and pencils down and moved to stand next to her. "Yeah, it's...everywhere." I hesitated, then dragged my thumb lightly across her forehead and showed her the paint on my thumb.

  She frowned, and then lifted the bottom edge of her shirt to wipe her face. At the sight of her stomach and the hint of white bra, I turned away. "Is that better?" she asked.

  I turned back around. She had paint all over her shirt, but her face was clean. "Yeah, you got it off your face. Except..." I took a strand of her hair between my finger and thumb, and it came away green. "You have it in your hair, too."

  "I'm a messy painter, I guess. I like to use my hands. At home, I don't even use brushes. But the teachers here want me to try and expand my 'vocabulary as an artist' or some bullshit like that." She put air quotes around the phrase, mocking it. "Mom was the same way."

  Something in her eyes and voice when she mentioned her mother, along with the fact that she'd used past tense, had me on alert. "She's a messy painter?" I didn't want to ask, or assume anything.

  "Was." Ever turned away from me and focused on her canvas, dabbing her brush into a glop of green on her palette, darkening the shade closer to the green of the pine needles.

  "Why 'was'?"

  "Because she's dead." She said it calmly, matter-of-factly, but too much so. "Car accident. Not quite a year and a half ago."

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I mean...yeah. I'm sorry for your loss." That was a phrase I'd heard before, but it sounded awkward when I said it. Fake and empty.

  Ever glanced at me. "Thanks." She wrinkled her nose. "We don't have to talk about it. It happened, and that's it. No point in getting all weepy about it."

  I felt like she was putting on a brave face, but I didn't know how to tell her she didn't have to do that. If she wanted a brave face, what business was it of mine to say she shouldn't? I took a few deep breaths and then changed the subject. "I like your painting. It's not quite realistic, but not quite abstract, either."

  It was an interesting piece. The trees were thick, blurry, smeared representations of trees, browns and greens that barely seemed like anything at all, but the lake beyond and between them was intensely realistic, each ripple detailed and perfect, glinting and reflecting the sunlight.