Free Anywhere but Here by Tanya Lloyd Kyi Page A

Lauren’s door, I’m confused for a moment. For more than two years, I walked in without knocking. That doesn’t seem right anymore, so I kind of knock and let myself in at the same time. Pepper, Lauren’s little black poodle, goes crazy as soon as I enter, as if I’m his prodigal owner. When I scoop him up, he wiggles ecstatically in my arms.
    â€œIn here,” Lauren calls, and I follow her voice to the living room. The curtains are pulled and the lamps are off, making it cavelike. Above the recliner hangs a giant cross-stitch, which reads: BE NOT FORGETFUL TO ENTERTAIN STRANGERS: FOR THEREBY SOME HAVE ENTERTAINED ANGELS UNAWARES. Above the words, there’s a dour portrait of the Virgin Mary. Her righteous eyes follow mewhen I move. She’s never seemed particularly hospitable, and tonight she’s downright hostile.
    I force myself to break the stare.
    Lauren’s curled in a corner of the couch with a cushion crushed against her chest. As soon as I put Pepper down, he runs to lie on Lauren’s bare feet.
    â€œWhat’s up?” I admit, I’m tempted to copy the poodle. It’s impossible to date someone for that long and not want to hug her when she’s upset, maybe put my hand in her hair and tell her everything’s going to be okay. It must be some sort of programmed male instinct. Or I was a poodle in a past life.
    I resist. I stay standing and remind myself of who’s waiting for me outside. Lauren and I are over. She’s about to tell me that she wants to get back together, and I’m going to tell her—as nicely as I can because I do care for Lauren—that we can’t have the Princess Bride ending. It’s just not going to happen. Her life is going to be a fairy tale and my life . . . well, lately it’s more like a Martin Scorsese film. The two just don’t mix.
    â€œI need to talk to you about . . .” She starts, stumbles, and starts again. “First of all, I wanted to say that I miss you. Do you ever feel that way?”
    â€œSometimes,” I hedge.
    â€œDo you remember our last afternoon together, when I came by your house?” she says.
    â€œYeah.” Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to sleep together that day, but it was a damn good hangover cure.
    â€œWhy are you staring like that?”
    I forgot how well she knows me. “I was just thinking . . . that was a nice dress.”
    Lauren half grins, and I smirk. My shoulders relax. Even though I still don’t know exactly why I’m here, at least I’m seeing the real Lauren. My Lauren. I have to admit, I’ve missed her.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    Lauren’s family moved from Alberta when we were in second grade, and we grew up one block apart. She lived on Juniper Street and I lived on Pine.
    I remember when I met her. I was in the playground with Greg before school (friends don’t change much in a town like Webster), and a scrawny little girl was swinging on our monkey bars.
    â€œHey, we’re playing here,” I said, or something to that effect.
    Greg elbowed me. “Be nice to her or she’ll tell Mr. Green. She’s in our class.”
    â€œShe is not in our class. She’s too little,” I said.
    Greg just shrugged, the same don’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you type of shrug he would still be giving me a decade later.
    I don’t know who ended up playing on the monkey bars, but I know that Greg was right about Lauren being in our class. There she was in the center row when I walked in.
    I ignored her for the rest of that year and the year after that, pretty much right up until Trisha Bernard’s seventh-grade birthday party, when the bottle spun and pointed to me. Lauren and I were shoved into a dark closet together. I kissed her, the fastest kiss in the history of the world, and then I ignored her for another two years until I saw her at the ninth-grade Christmas