"Moving Day" => A Tale of Where We're Going PT 3

River’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. She leaned forward and kissed Missy on the lips, then pulled back and scratched her chin, a giggle bubbling out of her mouth. “I know, I know, I’m with Henry and you’re with Zoe. I just…really needed to do that. It felt right. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Of course not!” Missy replied, smoothing River’s hair back. “This is just between us. We’re in girl talk mode here, sis.”

“I really appreciate you calling me that, sister,” River said, so softly that she wasn’t even sure the words made enough noise to be heard. 

“Consider yourself adopted!” Missy said, laughing. She wrapped River in a tight hug. “So, basically, you were…in circumstances. So I get, thrifting stuff and getting stuff as cheap as possible, and making it last as long as it can, and in some cases, wayyy past their prime. I get it. Did you like those boots I let you borrow for karaoke night?”

“Oh yeah, it was fun! I was a little scared that I might hurt my ankle, but hey, good thing those boots weren’t taller.”

“It takes practice. Try wearing them in the pit at an Eric Church concert.”

“Oh dear God, I would never!!” River replied, already appalled at the idea.

“Why don’t you keep them, the boots? Give you something new to treasure. I’m not gonna be so audacious as to say I’m going to style up your clothes and shoes. That’s a whole other project, and I don’t want to force that on you. So I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I gotta apologize for blowing this up into a huge deal. I know better now. Besides your clothes, what are some other things that you cherish? Maybe they helped you cope, or empowered you, you know, after?”

River knew what she was driving at, and was grateful that Missy didn’t press her for the name of her ex (boyfriend or girlfriend M didn’t know and at this point, she didn’t want to know.) 

“Well, there’s my new laptop, which I got last Black Friday. I did have an old laptop that I brought with me for school, but it didn’t really count because I needed a newer machine. So I managed to get a Chromebook.”

“Hey, that’s a good model,” Missy said, smiling. 

“But yeah, I came here to study filmmaking, and my characters articulate better than I can.” 

“So, is that what drew you to filmmaking? What do you write your screenplays about?” 

“I’ve been drawn to making movies about fictional people with problems I can solve for them. Because for the longest time, I wasn’t able to do it for me, or my mom, or other people I knew.”

“I saw your books and DVDs when Zoe and Jenna were here with us. You’ve got a lot of Nicholas Sparks stuff, huh?” 

“And sappy romcoms in general. But yeah, I mean in them, two people love each other so fiercely that their problems and obstacles and flaws aren’t as insurmountable and they get, well, mostly happy endings.” 

“I get it,” Missy said. “That’s why I love stuff like that, too. It’s so…hopeful. As in, full of hope.”

“I’m a little surprised that Henry likes it, too.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Well, at face value he doesn’t seem like the type. But he said himself he’s a hopeless romantic. Or he was, before me.” 

“He’s a writer, he can’t help it.” 

“Did he ever actually date anyone before me?” River asked her, “Or was it always just…near misses?” 

“You could say that. Sometimes they were by just-this-much, other times they were spectacular embarrassments. I met him through Marc in seventh grade, and I always had a soft spot for him. Not in any romantic sense, but I could see how sensitive a soul he was. Soul of a poet. And I could see how much he was hurting and confused and couldn’t understand why he was so awkward and uncoordinated all that other bullshit middle schoolers care about.” 

Missy took a breath, a muscle in her jaw beginning to pulse. “He got crushes, easily, back then. They weren’t right for him. None of them were or are. He always thought it was the other way around, though. That’s why you’re so special to him. And part of why the two of you are so special to the rest of us. Just one of many dimensions. Obviously, I was aware of girls that he tried to get with in college but there were three girls in particular across middle school and high school that captivated him the most…and crushed him the deepest.”

“Who were they?”

An uncomfortable look swept across Missy’s face. She had to dip back into the past, a shared past that she honestly thought would be better for Henry to share with River. But, at least, Missy had the luxury of being an external observer. And having a different frame of mind than Henry did when they were that age. 

“There was this one girl, Cassie, I think her name was. She was new in town, from New Mexico, probably. And she looked a lot like me. Whatever, that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she was cute, quiet, and shy. The hat trick for our dear idiot. Other than that, I’m not sure why, especially in the fullness of time, that he went so bonkers for her otherwise. No wait, it was shallow, but like in an insubstantial way, not an insincere or superficial way. He thought she had the prettiest smile, and the most beautiful hair, and she had brown eyes and pale skin, just like him.”

“Okay, doesn’t sound so unusual to me, so far. I knew guys like that in middle school.” 

“Yeah, but not like Henry. He’s…something else. One of a kind. That tag gets thrown around a lot, but for him, it’s spot on. He couldn’t help falling for her. But here’s the thing, it sticks in my mind to this day. And when I heard it, I had to stop myself from gouging that bitch’s eyes out.”  

“What did she do? Or what did she say?” River asked, startled. Missy locked eyes with her, extra serious for a moment. 

“Henry hasn’t told you?”

“No, I think once we found each other he wanted to throw stuff like this in the bonebox of fuck-up of the past or something weird like that. God, I love him.” Missy snorted and started coughing as laughter overtook her. 

“Sorry. She told him that she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t like him back the way he liked her, for the simple reason that ‘you run like a duck.’ Like, what the fuck. Who says shit like that? In our middle school days, we’re all awkward and lonely and stupid and hormonal. But like, being different is a mortal sin.”

“You were one of the lucky ones, I bet,” River said softly. “Probably one of the pretty girls, right?”

Missy smiled but it was laced with rue. “Yeah, something like that. But this story isn’t about me. It’s about him. We were frogs trying to leap over each other for the next lilypad in the pond while deep down below, we’re unaware that there’s a bigger fish hiding in wait.” 

River felt a deep-core wound, not on her heart, but as if someone was trying to scratch their initials into one of her ribs with a nail file. River could 1000% relate to the reservoir of seething fury Missy held for that awful excuse of a person who could say something so mean-spirited to a boy just because she didn’t find him attractive. Poor Henry.

“Okay, who was the second girl?” She asked, half-wondering if she’d regret finding out more. 

“Her name was Kat, and you’re not going to believe this, but she was one of Cassie’s friends.”

“What????”

“Yeah, typical Degrassi shit. Stick with me here. She actually went after him, for once. I guess she knew what Cassie did and wanted to either teach her a lesson or…I don’t fucking know, one-up her? Or maybe she just genuinely liked him. This was ten years ago so I’m surprised I can remember so much detail.”

“No, I get it. Some things are just seared into your memory.” River knew that sensation far too well.

“Yeah, exactly. So, it turns out that she had an ulterior motive that none of us were expecting. She was using him to get to Edgar, their mutual friend. He wasn’t really friends with the rest of us, though. I found him kind of creepy so I don’t know why he and Henry connected in the first place. But before we knew all of this, Henry had given her a note in which he basically asked her out. She took the note, saying she’d think about it, but in like, maybe a more positive way. I guess it was false hope all along. But again, we didn’t know that at the time. When he got home later that day, he was home alone. So he blasted ‘First Date’ by Blink 182 and danced to it. You know, in his way.” 

“Yeahhh, that totally sounds like him,” River said, smiling fondly. 

“That came to nothing. She said her mom didn’t want her to start dating until she was fourteen. This was in 8th grade, mind you.”

“Wait, if you and Marc are a year younger than Henry, and I guess Edo, how come you were all in the same year?”

Missy grinned. “Marc and I are fucking superstars, didn’t you know? We were always able to be a grade higher than our actual age. Yeah, I know Marc doesn’t seem like the booksmart type, but he is. Just not like me. Anyway, back to the emotional warfare of middle school. He made her a mix CD and showed her Anberlin’s music for the first time. She swooned over ‘Paperthin Hymn’. As you do.”

“He kissed her on the cheek then, didn’t he?”

“Shit, how did you know?”

“I mean, it seems like it’s his idiom.”

“Good point. That he did, and it was a friendly thing. And of course, things went south.”

“He was better off, honestly. If she was using him the whole time.”

“Exactly! Let her be someone else’s problem. Actually, she did become someone else’s problem. She had gone out with another of their mutual friends. I don’t remember his name now. Maybe it was Giorgios? Whatever, not the point. Point is, she was fucking calculating. Henry just wasn’t the answer to the equation.”

“Shit,” River said. “How did any of you guys get out of the labyrinth?”

“I guess we aged out,” Missy replied, shrugging. 

“And you said there was a third girl?” River prompted. “I’m on the fence about asking for more info. I feel sick. Urgh, I wish I knew how to use the word nauseous correctly.”

“Yeah, in high school. And Katrina, that was her name, she was even worse than the others.”

“How?!” 

“He bonded with her extremely quickly. Probably because she was Asian. Like Zoe, actually: Half-white, half-Japanese. Not very common in our school. Still, he was cognizant that in this case, he couldn’t blame her for his own folly. His word, not mine. I use a lot of words, but not that one. She thought of him as a brother, and he couldn’t-not think of her as a little sister. Still, it was a flimsy defense, because even I thought she was hot. She had cool piercings and she wore corsets and tight jeans and rocked them. It led him to think of her as a bombshell and himself as a dud.”

“I take it that it didn’t end well.”