Trust the Focus
Trust the Focus
Megan Erickson
InterMix Books, New York
INTERMIX BOOKS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
TRUST THE FOCUS
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
InterMix eBook edition / March 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Megan Erickson.
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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19462-5
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group
and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,
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To every Justin and every Landry. May you always trust your focus.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter One
More than a thousand graduation caps flew into the air behind me, but I was already walking down the aisle between the concrete bleachers. My sneakers scraped the macadam as I unzipped my graduation gown and slid it off my arms. I fisted it into a ball.
Landry’s lighter steps echoed off the bleachers behind me. He didn’t call to me, or ask me to wait for my mom. He knew better.
When I reached the entry gate, I stopped and turned, holding my gown between my hands. Then I went through my windup and pitched the gown—curveball grip—into the trash can.
I wanted to spit on it. Then scrub my skin raw to wash off the stink of four years of undergraduate work in a major I detested while my mother’s stiletto heel threatened to crush my windpipe.
Landry stopped next to me and peered into the bin. My crumpled navy-blue gown lay among ketchup-covered French fries, dirty napkins, and a broken noisemaker. My right index finger twitched and I longed for the comforting grip of my camera. I’d take a picture of my gown in the trash can and label it “Justin’s Feelings About His Undergraduate Degree.”
“Well, I was going to ask if you were sure you wanted to throw it out, but now I don’t care, because I’m not digging in that trash can just so you have a souvenir.” Lan grimaced and then gave himself a little shake in disgust. If he were stranded on a deserted island with only ketchup to eat, he’d starve. He hadn’t touched it since he came down with a stomach flu in sixth grade while we were at the town fair. He’d thrown up a lot of hot dogs and a lot of ketchup. Sometimes the red stuff even made me queasy now.
“Gown’s right where I want it.”
“Jus—”
“Let’s just go, please?”
I waited, because Lan had a habit of arguing every little point until I wanted to strangle him, but once I saw him nod, lips pursed, I knew I’d won this one. I should mark it on a calendar.
The stadium was turning into chaos as relatives and students were finding each other. Laughing. Taking pictures. Congratulations hung in the air around me and I wanted to swat the words away.
A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to grab Landry’s arm and pull him after me. Because we’d been best friends then. I guess we still were, sort of, but my hesitation showed the strain our relationship had taken toward the end of college. So instead, with a longing in my gut, I jerked my chin in the direction of the parking lot. He followed, his long strides matching mine as we cut through the swelling crowd and burst out into the parking lot.
And that’s when the freedom bubbled inside me, rumbling and growling and boiling, until I had to release the steam. So I did, right there in the middle of the stadium parking lot at Brackett University in California. I fisted my hands at my sides, arms straight, and screamed at the Saturday afternoon sun. I’m sure I looked like a lunatic. I felt like a lunatic. And I didn’t care. Because I was a free lunatic.
At least for the summer. I didn’t want to think about the fall yet.
Lan was smiling at me, the smile I liked, the big one that showed his crooked bottom-right incisor. The smile that brought out the deep creases around his mouth and wrinkled his forehead and made his dark-blue eyes glint.
The smile I hadn’t seen turned in my direction in way too long.
The smile that socked me in the gut and brought me to my knees because he didn’t know how badly I wanted that kiss I’d never taken.
And probably never would.
I smiled back just so he knew I wasn’t possessed, and with that, he turned with a laugh and continued walking.
His steps were sure and strong. I faced the ground but looked up through my lashes, fascinated by the confidence of his stride, his unzipped graduation gown billowing behind him. It’d been a long time since it was just the two of us. Our last years at school, I’d felt him slipping through my fingers. He’d inked his skin and pierced his ears. His clear eyes, which used to fill with humor, had darkened with cynicism.
I wanted him back. I wanted our friendship back. This trip was the beginning of that, and I already started to see some of the old Landry.
He stopped abruptly, and since I wasn’t paying attention, I nearly smacked into him. He rolled his eyes and then pointed to something front of us.
The camper sat in the corner of the back lot, which we reached after about a half-mile trek through several parking lots teeming with visiting cars.
It was a 1972 Winnebago Brave. A red stylized W by the driver’s-side window stretched into a stripe down th
e side, ending with the word BRAVE. That and a blue cracked rail along the bottom were the only colors on the stained, once-white paneling.
The eighteen-foot camper was the possession with the most monetary value awarded to me in my father’s will. But the nondescript silver canister inside held the most worth to me.
It was why I stood there, in front of a vintage Winnebago, itching to hold the hand of my best friend before we took a road trip across the country to visit twelve important sites from my father’s life. For the first time, I stood up to my mother, demanding to let the only pieces of my father left rest in the locations he held sacred.
The May breeze ruffled Lan’s blond curls, the sun highlighting the streaks of red. “You sure you don’t want to go talk to your parents?”
He shook his head. “They understand that it’s important to us to get going as soon as we can.”
Important to us. Would he ever know how much I wanted to grab his words and rub them into my skin like a balm?
When I didn’t answer, he turned to me with raised eyebrows. “Well? Get in, asshole. You need an invitation?”
I shoved him with a mock glare and he laughed as I sprinted around to the other side of Sally, my dad’s name for his camper. My dad had wanted a Mustang, but he and his camera equipment couldn’t live out of a Mustang as he crisscrossed North America, taking pictures of beautiful locales for luxury travel magazines.
We clambered into Sally, already stocked with food, supplies, and luggage. Landry removed his gown and stuffed it into his bag. I sank into the blue polyester–covered seat, the cinnamon-candy smell of my dad surrounding me, and rubbed my fingers over the stains his hands left forever ago on the leather-bound steering wheel.
Barefoot now, Landry flopped down beside me, wearing the cargo shorts and black tank top he’d had on under his gown. He buckled the large, silver clasp around his lap with a snap and then propped his feet up on the dash, crossed at the ankles. His feet were perfect, long and thin with a high arch. Mine were calloused, my left big toenail always infected after an ill-timed slide and collide with a second baseman this year.
One-inch black gauges hung in his ears, and the sun reflected off the colorful tattoos on his left arm as he raised it to scratch his head. They made him even hotter, but they were also a reminder of when he began slipping away from me. Not needing me anymore, which made me realize how much I needed him back.
He slid a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses over his face and rooted under his seat before coming up with a bag of white cheddar popcorn.
I didn’t hide my gazing at him. He had a boyfriend. And he thought I liked tits and pussy.
Landry threw his head back to toss a handful of popcorn into his mouth. After he swallowed, he turned to me. “Let’s fire up the old bitch, Justin.”
I laughed, stuck the key in the ignition, and turned it. Sally roared to life. Well, she grumbled to life, sighed when I coaxed her with a pat on the dashboard, and then offered her grudging acquiescence.
“Lan?”
“Yeah?” he said around another mouthful of popcorn.
“Thank you.” My voice cracked on the “you,” but I kept my eyes on his. I’d cried in front of him before, so it was no big deal.
It was a horrible, ridiculous fact that he was the one person I needed to make this trip with and also the one person I shouldn’t be around if I was going to stay on track to a future already mapped out for me.
But right now, I focused on his lips and that smile—that one smile—and the tip of his tongue as it peeked out the corner of his mouth.
“Of course, Justin.” His voice was low, the honest emotion behind it sending my head whirling.
I gunned the engine and put Sally in drive.
***
We left Redding at two in the afternoon, hopping on Interstate 5. Lan bade farewell to the Sacramento River by belting Coheed and Cambria at the top of his lungs. He trilled along in that high falsetto he had, the one I pretended to hate, just to tease him. So I furrowed my brow and rolled my eyes appropriately, but meanwhile, his voice fuzzed my head like the first pint of a good, hoppy beer.
Traffic was light and the finicky air-conditioning unit in the roof wafted in the scent of sun-baked asphalt and the dead grass lining the road. We had Lan’s GPS, which he dubbed “Simon” because of the voice—a man with an English accent—that he had paid extra to download because, “the guy sounds hot, Jus.”
I sort of agreed.
My dad’s atlases were stacked in the cabinets above our heads, all of them dog-eared and coffee-stained. My father insisted on using them, meticulously taking note of landmarks he wanted to photograph, the best routes, where to get the best angle for his shot.
Lan had been there when I found them, tears streaming down my face as I read notes like, “Tell Justin I saw a tailless squirrel” and “Bring Justin to see this waterfall.”
He drew doodles in the margins, circled 69 anywhere he could, and wrote a “Ha-ha” next to it.
God, I loved him.
The grief rose up in my throat, cutting off my air. My tongue dried and thickened like cotton. I gripped the steering wheel, wishing my hands could turn into his, that he’d appear and crush on his candies with his molars, his husky laugh and the click of his camera shutter in my ear. His salt-and- pepper hair flopping onto his forehead, his furry forearms sticking out from the rolled-up sleeves of his ugly plaid flannel shirts.
But instead, all I saw were my hands, all I smelled was the stale cinnamon.
Then Landry’s voice, clear and high like Freddie Mercury on helium, cut into my thoughts, belting about how he believes in a thing called love, and the mist over my eyes cleared. The grief receded into the pit of my stomach and I took a deep breath. It’d come again when I didn’t expect it, but for now Landry beat it back.
I smiled at him and he threw back his head and laughed, the pale skin of his throat bared. He gestured toward his iPod and the speaker dock. “Want me to turn it down?”
I shook my head. And pretended to cringe as he sang on.
***
Two hours later, we passed the green sign welcoming us to Oregon.
“We should stop at the stable and purchase new oxen.” Landry said, his voice hoarse from all his screeching.
“What?”
“Well, if they die, then we’re stranded.”
“Oh my God, are you making Oregon Trail references?” Lan was a graphic artist and had a vice for old computer games. Because of him, I must have died of dysentery and drowned in high waters five hundred times in my life.
“How long are we going to be in Oregon?”
I ran my hand over the top of my head. My friend Mia insisted I get my dark-brown hair cut before the trip, since it was staring to curl around my ears. I was glad I listened. It was too hot for that. “I want to make it into Washington before we stop tonight. So I dunno, another five hours or so?”
He grinned. “So I have five hours to talk about covered wagons. Excellent.”
I groaned. “You’re cruel.”
“You hungry yet?” He slapped my stomach with the back of his hand—an easy touch for him, but torture for me. “I need to fatten you up. Get a little padding on those abs.”
He stood up and I heard him rummaging around in our “kitchen,” likely making instant mac and cheese in our microwave, which was powered by our generator.
I stared out the windshield, feeling the mark of his hand and the sear of his eyes on my skin through my T-shirt.
He made off-the-cuff references to my body all the time, telling me how the girls talked about my ass in the pants of my baseball uniform, the curve of my biceps, the shape of my back. He probably thought I wanted to hear it, to build up my confidence to ask one of them out on a date.
But I hated it because it reminded me of the lie I lived with every day, the
one thing I kept from him.
I didn’t want those girls. I didn’t even want other guys. I wanted Landry. His skin and his freckles and his soft curls between my fingers. His lips on mine, saying my name in passion instead of teasing me.
Fuck.
My cell rang, drowning out Lan’s humming and the whir of the microwave behind me. I glanced at the caller ID and then turned my eyes back to the road. I didn’t want to answer it, but if I didn’t, she’d keep calling, like an alarm clock that never shut up.
“Hey,” I said.
“Justin.” My mom’s voice was forced warmth and starch and severe powdered blush. “You’re on the road, then?”
“Just passed into Oregon.”
There was a hum in response, a muffled instruction, and then a rustle of papers. I imagined her sitting in her mayoral office after hours, pretending to be busy while lording over the janitorial staff, telling them they “missed a spot” while vacuuming. I should ask her how work was. I should ask her if she was excited to announce her campaign for Senate in the fall.
But I didn’t. Because I was still pretending the fall would never come.
Landry stumbled between our seats, Sally’s rocking making him unsteady on his feet. He set a cup of mac and cheese next to me on the console and then sat down in his seat. He started to eat, but I shot him a look and he made a show of buckling his seat belt before taking his first bite. I smiled.
“Justin?”
My smile dropped instantly. “Yeah?”
“I asked if you still plan to be on the road until August.”
We’d been over this. Many times. “August or beginning of September.”
More papers rustling. Would that be my life come September? I looked over at Lan. He slurped his noodles and hooked his fingers on the top of his head like devil’s horns, sticking his tongue out—the silent symbol for my mother. I laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing.”
“Is—” She cleared her throat, “—Landry there?”
Like she didn’t know he was coming. “Yep, right here. Just made us some gourmet mac and cheese in a cup in the microwave. Living the high life.” I kept one hand on the wheel and braced the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could fork some food into my mouth.