Every Last Promise by Kristin Halbrook

Author:Kristin Halbrook
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

SPRING

CALEB FOUND ME DURING my free period on Thursday, sitting on the hill and doodling in an old notebook.

“What are you doing here?” I said to him. Yesterday was the last day for seniors, and the way he’d been dismantling everything in his bedroom and talking nonstop about the summer camp counselor job he’d scored made it clear to our entire family that he couldn’t wait to get out of town.

“You should ditch the last couple of periods and hike Point Fellows with me,” Caleb said. He motioned to my sneakers. “You look ready to go.”

“There’s a party in my French class next period,” I said. “Madame Lechat said she was bringing cheese and pastries.”

“So? I’m leaving soon. You would turn down time spent with your favorite brother for cheese? I’m hurt.”

“You’re my only brother,” I said.

But I squinted in the general direction of Point Fellows. The air had that soft spring afternoon quality to it, when the rays of the sun were blurred into a watercolor painting by dust and dampness. The sunset, when it came, would be layer upon layer of lavender and pink and orange. Caleb headed out in a week. Our moments together were limited.

I closed my notebook and stood. “Okay.”

I followed Caleb to his truck, tossing my backpack in before climbing up. He’d scrubbed the truck spotless a few days ago and it smelled almost sickly sweet inside; a purple deodorizer hung from the rearview mirror. A swift pain struck my chest. Caleb was a notorious slob. Cleaning his truck was a statement of change.

I watched Caleb as we sat behind a tractor that had backed up cars five deep on the road to Point Fellows. It looked like he’d gone several days without handling a razor and months since getting a haircut. Still, his jaw looked sharper, and he’d taken to wrinkling his forehead so that a couple of lines emerged across it. Looking at my brother ready to head off into the world made me feel oddly young.

The tractor finally pulled to the shoulder of the road and all the cars behind it zoomed by. We raced down a road that hardly saw any other traffic, and when we pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead, knew we would have time to kill before sunset. I ambled behind Caleb for the first few hundred yards, kicking pebbles at the heels of his shoes, then we slowed as the incline grew steeper.

At the clearing at the end of the trail, I picked the first opened dandelions of the season and sat next to Caleb on the edge of the bluff, our feet dangling over, and blew the wispy seeds out over the river and valley below.

He took several long, deep breaths like he was filtering all of home through his lungs, holding on to what he loved and letting go of what he couldn’t keep, and said, “I’m going to miss you, Kayla Koala.” I smiled briefly at the nickname only he called me.

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