The Oak Tree Chronicles, Chapter 2

I didn’t really care where we were going. The lyrics to the song flooded my memory:

Caught your eye on the boardwalk

Followed me into the record shop

Finally got the nerve to say hello

Who knew how this thing would go?

And then the night came and our very first kiss

Lit up the sky so now tell me this

Will you stay a little while?

Will you teach me how to smile again?

“You’re new,” he glanced at me. His eyes were a slate gray, and they glinted when they caught the sunlight. I shot him a look that said Obviously. “What’s your name?”

“Genevieve,” I rushed past formalities. “Do you like them? The band that sings that song, I mean—Rapt.”

“Nice to meet you, Genevieve,” he reached over to shake my hand. “I’m Calvin.”

I shook his hand but didn’t speak. I wanted an answer. We were at a large oak tree now, and Calvin sat down against its trunk.

“You want to talk about that song or what?” he pulled a small, leather-bound Bible from his breast pocket. From the spine of the book, he produced a cigarette and a lighter. I watched him balance the cigarette on his lips. He paused before lighting it to hear my answer.

I fought back the urge to stamp my foot and took up the spot next to him.

You held my hand, kept my secrets close

We got tangled up in the path we chose

He lit his cigarette and took a drag before saying, “I do like them. Rapt, I mean.”

I waited for more. I don’t know what I’d been expecting by way of an answer. The sound of one of Luke’s melodies had caught me off guard. Somehow I thought that this conversation would connect me with Luke again. I shook my head and stared at the grass around the tree.

“You don’t?”

“No, it’s just—” I choked on my words. “I sort of…know them.”

Calvin looked me over. His brow furrowed. “Not in a fan club way, then,” was what he settled on.

I shook my head and looked back down at the ground.

“So you know that the bassist’s brother—”

“Yeah,” my throat was closing on me even now. “I was there when they found him.” Gun in his hand, brains blown in, and a suicide note in his jeans pocket. I gulped and attempted to push the vision out of my head. I hadn’t just lost Paul that night. I lost his brother Luke, too. Grief and alcohol consumed Luke until he was only a shell of the boy I fell in love with. But I just couldn’t get his melodies out of my head.

Then the day came when my world fell apart

I wished ten thousand times

We could go back to the start

Calvin took a drag of his cigarette and narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re either a really good liar or all torn up.”

I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t care. At the very mention of Paul’s death, my heart tore open again. I felt like my soul was raw and bleeding, right in front of this boy I didn’t even know. I swallowed back the tears welling in my eyes, but the change in my expression couldn’t be helped.

Back to the start, back to the start

Back to that very first night and the very first kiss

That lit up the sky and please, tell me this

Will you stay just for a little awhile?

Will you teach me how to smile again?

“Torn up it is,” Calvin muttered. “I’m sorry.”

I just shook my head and buried my face in my hands. Bottle it up; keep it down where it doesn’t hurt. I took in a couple of sharp breaths.

“The path into the light seems dark,” Calvin spoke so low it was almost a whisper. Its intensity chased the melody out of my head.

“What is that?” I was still fighting to keep myself together. “A fortune cookie?”

“Close,” he smiled, “a Taoist proverb.”

What might have been a sob came out as a burst of laughter. I covered my mouth in surprise. Calvin chuckled again, cigarette between his lips. “So, Genevieve, you’re new. What form are you?”

“Form?” I wrinkled my nose in confusion. I settled into my spot, letting my body and mind relax. I nestled against the tree trunk, my shoulder now pressed up against his.

“What grade are you in?” he translated after blowing another plume of smoke away from me.

“Eleventh.”

“Sixth form, then,” he informed me. “Sixth grade is first, seventh grade is second, and so on. I’m a seventh form. So you’re clearly not a boarding school transfer. Where are you from? California?”

“San Diego,” I answered, figuring he already knew the answer to that based on our conversation about the song.

“So what brought you to this hell hole?”

I shrugged, “My mom’s a photographer who got a deal with National Geographic and my dad’s a doctor. They wanted to travel so much they gave up their tenure at the university.”

“Mom wants to see the world, Dad wants to save it,” Calvin boiled it down to its roots. He didn’t ask what event specifically brought me here, and I was grateful.

“What about you?”

“Adopted by a company CEO and his dainty wife,” he took one last drag of his cigarette before tamping it out in the grass. “Don’t let that get around though.”

Adopted? I thought these kids were born into privilege. I twisted a blade of grass between my fingers before saying out loud, “Why tell me, then?”

“I don’t know,” he waited until I looked him in the eye again before completing his thought, “because you asked, I guess.”

I reached out and shook his hand again, “It’s nice to meet you, Calvin. You can call me Gen.” He gave me a smile that made me feel like I was a secret he would keep.