Sideswiped

1

TALIA

September

Our California bungalow sits empty, a headstone for a ghost family. The rooms are tomb quiet, devoid of any comforting, familiar clutter. All our stuff, tangible proof the Stolfi family once existed, rots in a long-term storage unit. When the movers hauled off the last cardboard boxes, they took more than precious memories. They snatched my breadcrumb trail. The last stupid, irrational hope that Mom, Dad, and I could somehow find a way back together.

These bare walls reflect the stark truth. We're over. My family's done. A cashed-up Silicon Valley couple craving a beach town escape will snag the house by the weekend.

I pause near the front window and chew the inside of my cheek. Dad's Realtor drives a FOR SALE sign into the front yard. The invisible dumbbell lodged in my sternum increases in weight with every hammer strike. Seriously? Do I need to witness this final nail in the coffin?

If fate exists, she's one evil bitch.

I turn and trace my finger over the hip-high door leading to the under-the-stairs closet. Inside is the crawl space where my older sister, Pippa, and I once played castle. Now I'm the only one left, a princess with a broken crown, my home a shattered kingdom.

Pippa is gone. The result of a stupid, preventable car accident followed by a grueling year where she lay suspended in a vegetative half-life while Dad, Mom, and I clung to a single, destructive lie: She will get better.

I learned my lesson. Things don't always work out for the best. False hope destroys quicker than despair.

Mom checked out, filed for divorce, and hides in her parents' Hawaiian compound where she dabbles in New Age quackery while nursing a discreet alcohol addiction. Dad recently crawled from the rubble, brushed clear the cobwebs, and returned to the business of life. He quit his cushy job with the U.S. Geological Survey and hit the road on his own midlife escapade, giving expedition cruise ship lectures.

The day we turned off Pippa's life support, our family died with her.

Breathe.

Terrible things happen if I allow myself to key up.

Come on—in and out. Good girl.

Better to say that Mom, Dad, and I stumbled to the other side, battered like characters at the end of a cheesy post-apocalyptic flick. I wouldn't go so far as to say life is easy but there's less falling shrapnel. These days, when I brave a glance to the horizon, the coast is actually clear—or maybe I'm just kidding myself.

I check my watch—still no sign of Sunny or Beth. I love my girls, hard. They rallied, stepped up, and closed ranks when I crawled home from Australia in June, heartsick and dazed from the fallout with one Brandon Lockhart. Even after Bran flew in unannounced to commence the world's most epic grovel, they remain suspicious.

Bran.

My heart kicks into fifth gear, like it always does, responding to the mere thought of his name. Tingles zing through my spine as I cover my mouth to hide my secret smile. Tonight, at 31,000 feet, I'll cross the International Date Line. Bran waits for me in Tomorrowland. Here's my golden opportunity to rebuild a life nearly torn from the hinges by stupid fucking obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I'm getting better and I'll only grow stronger. The next few months are organized around two major goals: (1) Give Bran every ounce of my giddy, dizzy love and (2) finish my senior thesis and graduate. My UCSC advisor approved my oral history project and a professor at the University of Tasmania agreed to supervise. Once that baby's done and dusted, our future waits, ready to shine.

"Everything's going to be okay," I whisper to Pippa, as if she's listening.

Either way, the words taste sweet.

"Knock, knock. Hey, who's the creeper out front?" Sunny breezes into the hollow void, once upon a time a disorderly foyer brimming with Dad's surfboards. She stops short and stares. "Holy demolition, Batman."

"Your house!" Beth enters half a step behind and slides up her Ray-Bans. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I guess so." My throat squeezes, making the next words difficult. "Looks pretty crazy, though, right?" Change, even for the best reasons, is still effing scary. I'm a California girl, born and raised in Santa Cruz, except for last year's roller-coaster study abroad. When I cruise around town, people here know my name.

And all the hoary, gory details of my family's slow disintegration.

In Australia, any personal details I share will be of my choosing. There's a certain freedom in anonymity. How many people are given a blank canvas, the chance to paint a whole new life alongside the guy who rocks their world?

"Earth to Talia." Sunny waves an ink-stained hand in front of my face. "Want your good-bye gift?"

Beth rolls her eyes. "You're not really giving that to her, are you?"

"Shut your face." Sunny thrusts me a small wrapped package. "It's hilarious. Talia will appreciate it. She has a sense of humor."

"Careful," Beth stage whispers, nudging my hip. "Someone's a little edgy this morning. Last night, Bodhi tried to define their relationship."

"Ruh-roh. Not the DTR!" I rip the present's paper along the seam. Bodhi, Sunny's current booty call, works as a diver on an abalone farm north of town. "Isn't that a strictly friends with benefits arrangement?"

"Not even." Sunny readjusts her infinity scarf, brows knit in annoyance. "Friendship implies the capacity for rudimentary conversation. Bodhi sports lickable biceps—no doubt—but that guy's one fry short of a Happy Meal. He's hump buddy material, pure and simple."

"Was he crushed?"

"Like a grape. He cried into his can of Natty Ice."

"Ugh."

"Poor guy, don't mock him." Beth is a whopping whole year older and seems to find life purpose in playing the mature, responsible role. Pippa used to be the exact same way.

When our trio was a foursome.

"He made me hitch home at three a.m. I swear, I'm taking a guy break for a while." Sunny opens her baby blues extra wide as if to prove she really means this oft-repeated phrase.

"Yeah, right, until when? Next Tuesday?" Beth fires back.

These two bicker worse than an old married couple. But Beth has a point. Sunny breaks hearts up and down the coast. You could almost call it a hobby.

I crumple the wrapping paper into my fist. "Seriously?" Sunny's gift swings between my two fingers—a chef's apron with BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT embroidered across the chest. "Um, thanks?"

She giggles wickedly. "That's my prediction for you. By Christmas. Spring at the latest. Except you better add getting married into the equation. I don't want my pseudo-niece or nephew born into sin."

"Riiight, because living with a guy automatically translates into marriage and babies these days. Guys, I'm moving to Australia, not the 1950s."

My friends swap suspicious expressions. After we broke up, Bran flew to California in early July and begged for a second chance. I accepted and the subsequent week devolved into wild beach sex and mad plotting for our future. Beth and Sunny only caught glimpses of the guy who'd wrecking-balled my heart. They remain guarded, like two mother lionesses.

An adorable act if they weren't so annoying.

"Come on, living with a guy is a normal next step."

"Nothing about the Bran Situation is remotely normal," Sunny mutters.

Beth nods in rare agreement.

"I've always wanted to travel, haven't I?" I stuff the stupid apron into my duffel bag.

"This is hardly the Peace Corps." Beth throws my old dream in my face. The one I had before Pippa's accident, before my brains decided to double down on the crazy.

"Forget it." Sunny jumps to my defense and tosses a loose auburn wave over one shoulder. "I just need to get a grip… still can't believe you're leaving."

I force a smile. "You guys have so much going on you won't even notice I'm gone."

Beth's lined up a PR internship over the hill in Silicon Valley, and postgraduation Sunny is… well, the usual Sunny—cashiering at a natural foods store, never finishing her graphic novels, and hunting down her next conquest like a top predator on the African savannah. I hope my smile overrules the fizzy nervousness in my belly. "Don't forget, my visa is only for four months."

"So you keep saying." Beth hasn't dropped the concerned frown. "What comes after? Have you worked out a plan?"

"No, not exactly." I roll my shoulders. If there's one thing I hate in life, it's uncertainty. "Bran says we'll figure things out once I'm there. We have until December thirty-first to wrangle a solution."

The drop-dead date.

"And, what, he's some sort of immigration wizard?" Typical Beth, pushing to ensure every i is dotted, t crossed.

"Play nice." I sling my arm around her, getting perverse satisfaction from knuckle-mussing her perfectly straightened hair. "He's nervous enough that I might get cold feet and reconsider coming."

"Oh, you'll be coming, friend. Won't she, Bethanny?" Sunny can't resist the opportunity to tickle our girl.

"Get fucked, bitches." Beth squeals, breaking free. She's a gym rat, way stronger than she looks. "What are you guys, five-year-olds?"

"Don't be a poop."

Sunny's pouty descriptor rips startled laughter from my chest.

Beth is almost freakishly beautiful. She rocks her lululemon yoga wear better than a movie starlet. And right now she's not amused. "Sunny Letman, we've known each other since we were, what, zygotes?"

"At least embryos," I toss in my two cents through a giggle. We've been pals since our mothers introduced us in nursery co-op. Sunny and I drew the short straws, mothers who failed their daughters. Mine is lost in a fog of tropical denial while Sunny's mom shacks in a Nevada desert bunker with a wackadoo prepper awaiting Armageddon.

"Maybe it's time to grow up." Beth can front prim all she wants. But underneath that perfect ice-queen exterior, she's a weirdo too.

"Her first." I slap Sunny's butt.

Her response is an awkward twerk that cracks us all up.

I'm going to miss these two.

"Anyhoo." Sunny folds her arms and leans against the banister. "Can I please point out that you're committing a drastic error?"

Seriously?

"Call off the attack dogs, okay?" I say. "You guys really don't know him."

"Whoa, settle down, Miss Defensive. I'm talking about you bailing before October. The best time of year."

"Our time," Beth adds.

"Hmmm. You have a point." October is fantastic in Santa Cruz. The tourists vanish and each morning we wake to perfect bluebird skies, followed by afternoons warm enough for bikinis. The gloomy fog-locked summer retreats into a distant memory as the entire town descends to the beaches, surf breaks, and bike paths, reveling in the coastal goodness. "Still not enough to change my mind."

I love my girls but Bran is the only person with whom I've ever fully been myself. He noticed my OCD symptoms after five minutes and didn't laugh or run away screaming. Sunny and Beth might be my two best friends but even they don't know the real reason I didn't graduate on time. How my rituals and health anxiety spiraled so far out of control that I was placed on academic probation. Even now, I can't bring myself to tell them the truth. The awful facts are beyond embarrassing. Easier that they accepted my simple explanation that I "messed up." I mean, who challenges the dead girl's sister?

Bran's the only one who doesn't tiptoe on eggshells. He treats me like I've got strength, makes me believe I can face life.

Beth checks her phone. "Hey, we need to jet."

"That's all you're bringing?" Sunny points to my backpack and duffel bag.

"Yeah."

"Shut your face. Two bags?" She's a notorious pack rat, hovering on needing a hoarder intervention. Last week, I unearthed third-grade spelling tests from under her bed.

"I decided to pack Zen, practice unattachment."

"Uh-huh." Beth's not having it.

"Do I sound like my mom?"

"A little."

I cave. "Truth? Extra bag charges are a rip."

"Aha, there's the tight-ass girl I know." Sunny grabs my backpack.

"And love." Beth lifts the duffel.

"Oh wait." I grab a small moleskin journal from the stairs and unzip my backpack's top zipper, stowing the journal. The pages chronicle random happenings, unusual incidents, and amusing stories from while Bran and I were apart. Things I forgot to mention during our messenger chats or phone calls. I miss his voice, that surly accent, whispering to me in the dark. My nightly record-keeping allowed me to play make-believe, pretend Bran was nestled on the pillow beside me. The ritual became a precaution against the what-ifs slithering around the edge of my thoughts, ever vigilant, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

What if Bran meets someone else?

What if I say something so stupid he has no choice but to accept I'm an idiot? What if he decides I'm a freak? Okay, fine, he's never given cause for these thoughts, but what-ifs and worst-case scenarios are routine in my world. My brain is hardwired for catastrophic thinking.

Evil thoughts can go suck it.

My friends head out the front door and I need to follow suit.

"Are you okay to lock up?" I call to the Realtor.

"That's my job." Somewhere a tooth-whitening ad wants its smarmy smile back.

"Lucky you," I mutter under my breath while stomping down the front steps.

I shouldn't turn around. Or look at the dormer window where Pippa and I shared a room for nearly two decades. But I do. And I can't hold back the sudden tears.

Sunny pauses to rub my back, saying nothing. If she had her way, I'd cry every morning before breakfast. She thinks it's good for my soul. I find the whole enterprise draining and messy but better than the alternative—becoming an emotionless robot that shuts out the good along with the bad.

I had a great last summer, more or less. Now Bran waits to catch me at the bottom of the world.

"Going anyplace fun?" The Realtor wipes his forehead, perving on Sunny and Beth as they toss my two bags into Sunny's black Tacoma, the Batmobile. The gnarly old truck is a random vehicle choice for a fresh-faced redhead with a penchant for fairy tales.

Two pelicans crisscross overhead. In the distance, sea lions bark beneath the wharf, the site where I made the worst decision of my life.

Fuck clutching breadcrumbs.

Time to let go.

Embrace the art of getting lost.

What can go wrong, as long as I keep heading in the right direction?

The Realtor shifts his weight.

"Yeah," I say after an overlong pause. "I'm going somewhere great."