Jessica Martinez - The Vow

She puts her feet on the dash, then tips her head to her knees and sighs. She looks small and tired, all bent like that, like a crunched question mark. “The difference is it’s almost ten after. If I’m not home in the next ten minutes, there will be a police car in the driveway when I do get home.”

That’s not a difference, but the Berniers’ post-Lena issues aren’t exactly an appropriate topic for arguing semantics. “Fine. New plan. We go to your house, but I stay in the car while you go inside and go up to bed. Then you sneak out with a six-pack and we get drunk.”

“You don’t drink.”

“Not with that attitude, I don’t. This is my one and only opportunity to be a part of the American underage binge-drinking epidemic—do you really want to take that away from me?”

“You and me splitting a six-pack is not binge drinking. And I don’t want you breaking your Muslim commandments or whatever on my watch.”

“Since when are you an expert on Islam?”

“I’m just trying to be a good friend. You don’t want to get drunk.”

“I think I do.” Maybe I was half-kidding when I suggested it, but I’m serious now. I want to know what it feels like to get plastered. Mom’s wrapped up in misery, and Dad’s brain is already halfway across the world. I bet neither of them would even notice.

Annie sighs. “I’m tired.”

If Annie isn’t on board, I’m screwed. I’m getting dropped off at my home, where the only alcohol is in Nyquil, and I have no car. The whole world hates me.

We drive the rest of the way without speaking, and I get out at my house with a simple “Later.” She slides over into the driver’s seat, waves without looking at me, and backs out, giving the dented mailbox a good six-foot clearance. I watch her drive away. It’s thirty seconds at least until I can’t hear the labored chug of the truck’s engine.

Behind me the house is waiting. I turn and take note: The kitchen and living room are dark, but the bedrooms and Dad’s office are lit. The animals have already retreated to their caves.

I can’t make myself go inside. The stars are pulsing in tandem with the blood in my fingertips, and the post-rain air is cool. I can’t go lie in bed and spend another night thinking miserable thoughts.

I dial the code into the garage keypad, find my basketball, and start dribbling. That sound—the ball smacking the pavement—is so hard and bright, like the crack of a fist colliding with a jaw. I love it. It’s the same sound Bryce’s knuckles made when he hit that kid from Taylorsville for calling me a towelhead.

I should’ve been the one to hit him.

I find the free throw line (measured and marked with a dot of gray paint two years ago, small enough that my dad still hasn’t noticed it) and hold the ball up to shoot. I force myself to relax as my elbow sinks, then let my muscles contract to shoot the ball. It rolls off the pads of my fingertips, spinning backward but flying forward in a perfect arc. I wait for the sound—the gasp of the ball sliding through the net—and let every thought wash away with it, leaving nothing but the feel of the pebbled leather in my hands.

I do it again and again. Then layups. Jump shots. By the time I decide to find my three-point-line gray dot farther down the driveway, I’m drenched with sweat and my pulse is thundering in my ears. I sink the first one. And the second. But there’s too much force behind the third one, and the ball ricochets off the rim, careens left, and smashes the light on the side of the garage door.

I look up to the house and wait, but nobody comes rushing to a window.

Glass crunches beneath my feet as I make my way over, and all my thoughts come rushing back for me.

What am I even practicing for? Basketball is over.

I find a broom in the garage, pull a box from the recycling bin for the shards. My heart is still pounding, but I’m soaked through with sweat and shivering as I crouch over the glass. I watch my fingers pick glittering chunks off the pavement like they belong to somebody else, while thoughts scream through my brain in a mixed-up order: Dad will kill me if he gets a flat tire. Basketball is over. I hope he does get a flat. I’m losing Annie. Maya Lawless never even happened. We’re leaving. We’re leaving. We’re leaving. We’re leaving. We’re leaving. We’re leaving.

“What happened?”

Sarina’s voice startles me, and I drop the box. Luckily it doesn’t spill. She’s standing on the porch in her pajamas and monkey slippers. Glasses again.

“I broke the light.”

“You need help?”

“No.” I want to be alone.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Go inside.”

She hesitates, shifts her weight from leg to leg. I can tell she wants to talk again, but I’m done, all talked out after last night. I keep my head down, and eventually she goes back inside.

I sweep up the shards that are too tiny to pick up and survey the area. It’s hard to tell, but I think I got it all.

I’m a lousy brother. And I was a jerk to Annie tonight too. I should just lock myself in a room for the next two weeks.

My hands are still shaking a little, but I don’t even know why. It’s just a broken lightbulb. Except with the thousands of hours I’ve spent shooting hoops out here, how has it never happened before? And why tonight, when the only thing I have left to want is basketball? Annie believes in a random, unfeeling universe, but that’s crap. Everything means something.

It takes a bowl of reheated lamb stew from last night and ten minutes in a scalding shower before I’m calm. No, more than calm. I’m so exhausted I’m not sure I can get myself dried and dressed. Last night’s sleeplessness, then today’s anger and worry and fear—it feels vaguely like the week after I got my wisdom teeth pulled and was allowed to dabble in the world of heavy pain meds.

I manage to drag myself into bed where my thoughts become blurrier and blurrier until I lose myself to dreams of driving Annie’s truck. At first I’m speeding down the road from Mr. Twister, but then I come around a bend and suddenly I’m in Jordan, outside of Amman, where the landscape is dusty orange and wide open. I panic because I’m actually there, but for just a moment, because I hear Annie laugh and realize she’s beside me in the truck. I laugh too, out of relief because she’s there, even if I kind of still know it’s a dream. But then she holds up her arm and I see the blood trickling down her finger, down her forearm, over her knobby elbow, and I stop laughing. She points to her lap. It’s glittering. I feel sick because I knew and I didn’t tell her and it’s my fault—there are shards of glass everywhere. Her fingers are full of them, and now she’s trying to pull them out, but there’s too much blood. She turns and stares at me with her huge, sad eyes, and I’m suddenly drowning in guilt. It is my fault. It’s my dream. I should have warned her it was full of broken glass.

Annie

It breaks through my dream like a fist shattering glass and pulls me out. The idea is that strong. It is hands reaching for me, gripping my arms and lifting me up. Now I’m sitting in bed, panting in the dark, staring at where the moonlight splashes over the waves on my walls. I feel just a little like I might throw up—the idea is that good. My hair and T-shirt are soaked with sweat and my heart is racing because the idea is better than good. It’s amazing. So amazing I can’t believe my brain came up with it.

My alarm clock says 2:36. I grab my phone from the nightstand and dial Mo.

The first call goes to voice mail, so I call again. Second call, voice mail. This is ridiculous. He’s a light sleeper. Third call, he picks up on the fourth ring.

“Are you kidding me?” He’s groggy and angry, but whispering, which is good since his parents’ room is right above his.

“Mo, I have an idea.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Mo, seriously, wake up. I have an idea.”

“Are you kidding me?” Still groggy, but angrier now.

“Wake up. I have to ask you something, and if you ask me if I’m kidding you one more time I’m going to assume you’re still asleep and start singing that Shania Twain song.”

“I’m awake.”

“Good.”

“Your question,” he mumbles.

I take a shaky breath, suddenly nervous. But this is our salvation. I knew the minute it reached into my dream and grabbed me that it was meant to be. This is not the time for nerves.

“Mo, will you marry me?”

Heartbeats. His. Mine. Nothing but blood pulsing between us as I wait for him to speak.

Say something. This silence feels dangerous, like we’re lying in a bed of broken glass, afraid to move or even breathe. Mo is never speechless.

“What are you talking about?” he asks finally.

“I’m talking about you staying here.”

“But like getting married married?”

“They can’t deport you if you’re my husband,” I say.

“Are you crazy?”

My mind is spinning too quickly to cringe at the word. “Mo, think about it. You could stay.”

He lets another long pause go by, and I can feel the weight of the idea pushing down on me. No, on both of us now. “It can’t be that easy,” he says.

“I think it is. I mean, I don’t really know, but it’s something people do, right? I haven’t researched it or anything, but . . . I mean, Mo . . .” A nervous laugh comes out. It doesn’t even sound like me. “You could stay.”

“I could stay,” he repeats robotically.

I want to melt his shock, snap him out of his daze so he can hear what I’m saying. “You could stay.”