Darling, We Are Definitely the Problem

"Mm-hmm, hmm-hmm, something something, da da DUM I remember you told Maayy..."

Knox walked down Calloway Street with his chin up and his hands in his hoodie pocket, giving the performance of his life to nobody.

"Every little thing I do, dee-dee-dee, something about tears. Yeah. Tears, and a you. And then the booty part."

Was there a booty part? Knox was pretty sure there was a booty part.

The song was "It's Gonna Be Me" by NSYNC, which Knox called the anthem of the love-boys. He knew the title. He knew the tune. He had sung it in the shower for six years, so obviously he knew the words. The words were more of a rumor.

"Na-na, na-na, mmm, when you finally get to loooove, and I'm right, and then you..."

The big note was coming. He could feel it, like a diver at the end of the board. He lifted his face to the sky, took a huge breath through a nose that was ninety percent snot, and went for it.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

His voice cracked in half. The note turned into a wheeze, the wheeze went down the wrong pipe, and Knox folded over in the middle of the pavement, coughing so hard his eyes watered. One hand was on his knee. The other waved around in front of him like I'm fine, I'm fine, nobody call anyone.

After a while the coughing stopped. He wiped his eyes and looked left. Then right.

The street was empty. The only witness was a crow on a lamppost, staring down at him with total judgment.

"Don't," Knox told it.

The crow said nothing, which was worse.

He fixed his hoodie, finger-combed his bangs, and kept walking with his head up, like nothing had happened. The song kept going, but only in his head now, his lips moving around words he didn't know. He was thinking about Aliza. Aliza at her table by the window. Aliza turning a page. Aliza maybe humming something too.

The wind was awful that day. It was so cold it hurt his teeth, and the trees were thrashing around like they wanted to leave. Nobody else was outside. Knox was, because it was Saturday, and Saturday meant the library, and the library meant her.

He had a mild flu, and he had decided to ignore it. His nose was bright red. He sneezed every few steps, a sound like a startled goose, and every few steps he dug out a tissue. He had packed three packs. He thought that made him responsible.

He had dressed for the occasion: black ripped skinny jeans, an expensive red shirt, and a black hoodie. The white tennis shoes were the killer. He had said so to his bedroom mirror, out loud, twice.

At the end of the street he turned into Mercer Alley, a dark little shortcut between a closed laundromat and the back of a fish market. It smelled like wet cardboard and old fish. Knox smiled the whole way through it, wide and unblinking, because his head was full of pictures. Aliza looking up. Aliza noticing the red shirt. Aliza saying hello back. This time. Probably.

He came out the other end sniffling and glowing, like a man leaving a very weird church.

After that it was just Dunmore Bridge and a short walk to the Ashford City Library on Linden Avenue. He sped up. He had never once been late, but today felt special, even though he did exactly the same thing every Saturday.

Then he stepped onto the bridge, and something was wrong.

Past the railing, on the thin stone ledge outside it, stood a girl. She looked about his age, sixteen or seventeen. She had short blonde hair that stopped at her neck, and a long white dress with nothing over it. The wind whipped the dress around her ankles. She was crying, quietly.

Knox's first thought was: She must be freezing.

His second thought hit a second later, like a brick. She wasn't out here for the view.

He stopped. The only sounds were the wind and the river grumbling far below. Knox's brain, which had spent the whole walk practicing "hello" in four different voices, threw all four away and went looking for something useful. He edged forward with his hands up, like he was approaching a nervous horse, and stopped a few steps away.

The library could wait. Aliza could wait. This was serious.

"Please don't," he said, as gently as he could. He didn't want to startle her. Startling her was the one thing he knew he must not do.

The girl cried harder but said nothing. Knox decided that was a good sign. He also had a very strong feeling that he knew exactly what to do. He stepped closer, wearing his bravest face.

"If you jump, I jump."

The crying stopped. It just stopped, like a tap turned off. In its place came a frown. Knox smiled to himself. She was listening. Listening was great. And he wasn't even close to done.

"I'm sorry, but I can't leave you here," he went on. "I'm too involved now. And honestly, I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you, but I don't have a choice. So I'm hoping you get me off the hook here. Give me your hand. You don't wanna do this. Come on."

He had no idea where any of it was coming from. It just poured out, like he'd been born for this moment. And it was working. The girl was staring at him, wide-eyed and frozen, like someone watching a car crash. Knox didn't care. He was in this to win it.

He took a breath to keep going.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?"

Knox yelped and fell over backward. He hit the pavement with a thud that rattled his teeth.

"Are you quoting Titanic at me?" the girl screamed, glaring down at him with bloodshot, murderous eyes. "Do you know what I'm going through? And you're reciting a MOVIE? I AM NOT ROSE, AND YOU SURE AS HELL AIN'T JACK!"

"It was a tribute, technically..."

Someone started laughing.

It came from behind them, loud and fake. Knox scrambled up and spun around, hair in his face, a tissue pack falling out of his pocket.

A tall blond boy stood a few yards back, a gym bag on his shoulder and a football jacket zipped to his chin.

"Axel?"

Axel kept laughing. Ha. Ha. Ha. It was flat and joyless, like a game show host at a funeral. Knox knew it was fake from the first ha. He knew Axel's fake laugh and his real laugh the way other people knew their own phone numbers. They had grown up together, basically raised as brothers by their moms, who were best friends too, until Knox's mom died when he was ten. Axel had shown up at Knox's door the day after the funeral with a bag of gummy worms and no words at all, and he had basically never left. It was the best thing anyone had ever done for him. It didn't make Knox any less mad right now.

"Cut it out, Axel! What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at football practice!"

Axel stopped laughing and gave him a look of deep, wounded accusation.

"Oh, right. I followed you."

"You followed me?" Knox's voice went high, with a little panic in it, which he squashed.

"Yeah, dude. You think I don't know about your library situation? Every Saturday you vanish like a cat with a secret. So I've been following you. For three weeks."

"Three weeks? Bro, that's dark."

"Not as dark as that outfit." Axel waved his whole arm at him. "You look like a ketchup packet that joined a goth band."

"Axel, I swear to God..."

"You swear what, Knox? Huh?" Axel's voice dropped lower, the way it did when he was about to be dramatic. "Want me to tell Aliza you stalk her at the library? And take pictures of her when she's not looking?"

"What is your deal, man? I told you I burned those pictures ages ago. Unless you went through my underwear drawer."

A beat of silence. The wind howled.

"Knox," Axel said quietly, "when did you start hiding things from me? We used to share everything. We shared a juice box in third grade, Knox. A JUICE BOX. And now you sneak off every weekend to watch a girl at the library, and you hide her pictures in your underwear drawer like a weirdo. And you smiled in Mercer Alley. Nobody smiles in Mercer Alley. Even the rats looked worried." He threw up his hands. "DUDE!"

Under all the shouting, there was a little worry in his eyes. Knox missed it completely.

"There's nothing wrong with my smile," he said stiffly. "Sometimes when I'm alone I just get into these badass, vibey moods. Okay?"

"Badass? Ten minutes ago you were singing NSYNC on Calloway Street."

Knox froze. "You heard that?"

"Everyone heard that. The crow heard that. And that note? I heard it from a block away. It sounded way worse than I had expected but points for trying I guess."

"That was my falsetto."

"That was a medical emergency."

"Okay, but I was in the zone..."

"And the words, dude." Axel pressed his fingers to his forehead. "Where did you get tears?"

"What tears?"

"You sang 'something about tears.' Out loud. There is no tears in that song."

"There might be"

"There is no tears, Knox."

"Then what about the booty part?"

"There's no booty part!"

Knox opened his mouth. Closed it. Something deep inside him cracked a little. "Then what have I been singing for six years?"

"Honestly? I've been scared to ask."

"Axel, I'll explain everything later," Knox said, with a long, defeated sigh. "But right now I'm in the middle of a life-and-death situation. Can I get one second?"

"With the Titanic crap?"

"It's not crap! That came from my heart!" Knox whisper-yelled, which is the worst kind of yelling, because it can't decide how loud to be.

"Dude, you took a three-hour movie and ruined it in thirty seconds. At least change the ship. And trust me, it hurt to watch. Almost as much as the Mary Poppins tattoo on your back."

"We said we'd never talk about that."

"I'm only saying, you have a lot of problems and no filter."

"You're the one who followed me for three weeks!" Knox snapped. "That's way more pathetic."

"You lied to me, Knox." Axel put a hand on his chest. "I'm emotionally wounded. I might cry in the car later."

"Can we please not do this in front of the lady?"

"I don't see her."

Axel said it so flatly, with his eyes drifting to a spot just over Knox's shoulder, that Knox's stomach dropped before he even turned around.

"What?"

He turned. The ledge was empty. The wind tugged at the rails and the river slid by below, brown and rude, and the girl in the white dress was gone.

Knox lunged at the railing and leaned out as far as he dared. He saw dirty water, a floating plastic bottle, and nothing else.

"So... did she jump, or...?" Axel strolled up beside him and peered over.

"I don't know," Knox said, frowning. "But we should've seen something. A splash. Ripples, at least."

"Maybe she jumped while you were yelling at me, and the ripples are gone."

"No. I'm pretty sure she didn't."

"That's just your guilt talking," Axel said, totally calm, "because I literally watched her jump."

Knox turned his head very slowly and glared at him with the force of every Saturday he had ever spent on this bridge.

Axel shrugged.

"You what?" Knox's voice cracked like he might explode. "You saw her jump and you didn't say anything?"

"If you hadn't noticed, we were kind of in the middle of something."

"Something more important than someone's life?"

Knox stared at him, shocked and heartbroken. He knew there was only one thing left to do.

"Let's do the right thing," he said at last.

"Yeah." Axel sighed and rolled his shoulders. "We should go in and save her."

"What? No. I meant we go home and pretend this never happened."

"Knox. That's not right."

"Did you forget neither of us can swim? Yeah. I thought so." He whisper-yelled it, glancing around as if the pigeons might hear his shameful secret.

Axel opened his mouth, shut it, and nodded in grim surrender.

"Fine. But I'm not letting you stalk Aliza anymore. This has to stop." He jabbed a finger into Knox's chest. "I mean it."

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it? You're not her dad. You're not even her friend. She doesn't know you exist."

"She doesn't know you exist either, and that's the whole problem!" Axel grabbed him by the shoulders. "Can't you see I'm doing this for you? That girl is living in your head rent-free!"

"Excuse me, young men."

They both went stiff.

A police officer stood a few steps away with his hands on his belt and his hat pulled low against the wind. He looked like a man who had been listening for a while. Neither of them had heard him walk up. How long had he been there? Long enough, Knox thought with a sinking feeling, to hear the words underwear drawer.

"Would either of you mind telling me where the owner of those shoes went?"

The boys blinked. They followed his eyes to the foot of the railing, where a pair of yellow pumps sat side by side on the stone. Knox had walked right past them. So had Axel. Neither of them had noticed.

For a long moment, nobody said anything.

"Sorry, officer," Knox said, lifting his chin with weird pride, like he'd just aced a test. "We haven't seen anyone."

"She jumped in the river," Axel announced at the exact same time, with huge enthusiasm. "I think she's dead now. And while you're here, officer, check this stalker guy's underwear drawer."

Knox's head snapped around. Something hot and familiar rose in his chest, and before he knew it his fist was already flying at Axel's smug, golden, traitor face.

But Axel saw it coming. He ducked, quick as a cat, and the punch hit nothing but air. Then he was gone, sprinting off the bridge with his gym bag bouncing on his hip and his blond hair flying, running like his life depended on it.

Knox stood frozen in the wind, one arm still out, nose running, tissues all over his shoes.

The officer looked at him. Then at Axel getting smaller in the distance. Then back at him.

"So," he said, flipping open a notebook. "Tell me about this underwear drawer."