Page 77 of Exchanged

I can’t believe he’s serious, can’t believe he thinks it’s important to go back to the banquet and pretend everything is okay. But he is already standing and walking away, his hands stuffed casually in his pockets, an easy smile forcing its way onto his lips.

TWENTY-THREE

A week passes. Aunt Liz turns her excitement about Burton-Clark into excitement about Michigan, and Dad pretends he isn’t relieved about me staying in state. Garrett and I talk, but not about Ellison or his parents, not about what really matters. I try to bring it up twice, but he plasters a one-third grin on his face and pretends everything is fine.

“Did you know,” I ask Dad on Friday night, “the real reason Garrett’s parents sent him here?”

He looks up from closing out the cash register. “What do you mean?”

“He told me that they sent him here to turn him straight.”

Dad closes his eyes. “I thought it might be something like that all year, but I was never sure. When I spoke with Garrett’s parents after he arrived, they didn’t say anything about his sexuality. Not in as many words, at least. But I could tell something was off, as if they didn’t want their own son at home.”

“If you knew they were forcing him away from home,” I ask, “why did you agree to let him stay here?”

Dad lifts his shoulders. “His parents seemed to recognize that the GYA Domestic Exchange Program is stupid—maybe the one thing I agree with them on—but they were adamant that he stay someplace away from his friends, someplace that would ‘set him on the right track.’ I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I got the sense that maybe Garrett could use a break from them, too. We’d only just met him, but I could tell he was a great kid. I figured if they wanted him away from Atlanta, our home would be as good as any. At least we’d appreciate him for who he is.”

The grandfather clock ticks seven times in the silence that follows this explanation.

Then I pull Dad into a hug. “Thank you. Thanks for doing that for him.”

Dad takes a step back and looks at me with concern. “Why? Is everything all right?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so.”

The following evening, we Paint the Rock.

For as long as anyone can remember, it’s been a senior tradition to choose a night in late April and, as a class, drive down to Superior, wade out to the Rock—a boulder twenty feet off the coast—and spray-paint it with our graduation year. I pick up Katrina, Trevor, and a couple of other band friends, and we drive to a stretch of road outside Blue Harbor that winds along the lake. We park on the shoulder and make our way through tall grass to a section of beach. Most people are already here. The night is warm for April, and everyone wears sweatshirts with shorts, since the water will only get up to our knees.

The lake is calm, lapping softly against the shore, underlying the hushed voices of the seniors who showed up. While this has been a tradition for decades, no one is sure if it’s technically legal, and the cops pretend it doesn’t happen so long as the seniors keep it quiet and party somewhere else afterward. The night holds a feeling of barely tempered excitement.

Already, a couple of basketball players have waded into the water, swearing furiously about its temperature. The ice finished melting just last week, so the water sits dangerously close to freezing. Several cheerleaders follow the basketball players, and one of them screams. Another clamps her hand over the screamer’s mouth, and they all giggle. They run, hoping to make the pain quick, and soon they have reached the Rock and are scrambling onto it.

We near the water and begin taking off our shoes and socks. Down the shoreline, I notice Garrett sitting on the beach with Tyler, the two of them talking and gazing out at the black lake. Tyler’s friend group has been fractured since Evan and Garrett’s fight, with a bunch of the guys deciding they’re done with Evan. Tyler chose Garrett.

“Things still weird between you two?” Katrina asks, rolling up the legs of her sweatpants.

I nod. Now that Garrett has told me the full truth of his past and future, he seems to be building a wall to hide behind.

“That’s probably why you shouldn’t hide your college choice from your boyfriend,” Katrina says.

“It’s not that,” I say. “Garrett just has a lot going on at home.”

Trevor frowns. “I never would’ve guessed.”

I should have guessed. I should have seen how he had different versions of himself for everyone in his life. I should have seen how conversations with his parents created fissures in the confident, easygoing facade he presented for everyone in Irontown. The pieces were there all year, and I never put them together.

We approach the lake. The water pulses languidly against the shore, but when we step in, the cold stabs into the bones of our feet. We follow the cheerleaders’ example and make the trek to the Rock quickly, Trevor swearing under his breath the whole time.

The Rock is filled with people holding cans of spray paint as they cover the digits of last year. It’s a job that doesn’t require several dozen people, but we pass the paint around until it’s finished. We all grow quiet when it’s done, a sense of closeness falling over us at the completion of another senior-year milestone. Then Dana Hendricks says something about a party at her place, people splash back into the water, and the spell is broken.

On the beach, everyone pulls sweatpants over reddened, freezing legs and heads back to their cars. I take my time, watching Garrett sitting with Tyler, the two of them having stayed in their spot while everyone else went out to the Rock. They stand and pull each other into a dab that turns into a half hug, then Tyler heads up the path toward the road, leaving Garrett to stare at the water as it shifts between silvers and blacks.

“We can get a ride with Ryan,” Katrina tells me, watching me watch Garrett. Then she and Trevor follow Ryan up the path.

I stand there, gazing at Garrett. He’s wearing his football sweatshirt, his hair feathering in the wind, and he looks like a beautiful high school version of some tragic hero. I could stand here watching him forever, frozen in this second before he notices me. We could be eighteen-year-olds on a chilly spring night for eternity, graduation always just around the corner. That would be enough for me.

I walk toward him, and he hears the crunch of my feet on the stones.