The House You Pass on the Way by Jacqueline Woodson Page A

Trout. But I’m Tyler too. The way you used to say about being both black and white—I’m both and all of it.
    I’m not writing to say everything’s changed. I don’t know what I’ll wake up feeling tomorrow. But I just needed to write and let you know what I’m feeling today. I just needed to write so I wouldn’t have to hide. I want to talk to you—to really talk to you—hear about your life and tell you about mine. I want us to be like we were last summer, close like that, even if we don’t have the girl thing in common anymore. And maybe you’ll call me tonight and I’ll answer and we’ll talk for a long, long time.
     
    Love,
Tyler
    That afternoon, Staggerlee folded the letter slowly and returned it to its envelope. She sat staring out at the snow, wanting to make sense of it all. She’d have to go back, she knew, if she wanted to remember. “Pull on your boots,” she whispered. “Take yourself down to the river.”

Chapter Nineteen
    SNOW FELL SOFTLY OUTSIDE HER WINDOW NOW. Staggerlee watched it, watched how quietly the flakes moved toward the ground. She swallowed. It had been a month since the letter arrived and still, each time she read it, the words on the page stung.
    It seemed like such a short while ago it was summer and she was laying her head against Trout’s shoulder. She remembered Trout’s voice—the way her mouth moved when she sang. Where was that part of Trout now? Did she still sing? When she was sitting alone with her boyfriend, did she stop to remember that rainy afternoon in the barn?
    Staggerlee held the letter in both hands and stared down at it. Downstairs, she could hear her mother moving around the kitchen. She had not told anyone about the letter. And staring at it, she wondered if she ever would. Telling someone would mean starting at the beginning and telling everything. And there was no one she wanted to tell everything to. Maybe one day there would be. Someone she could whisper her life to. Someone she could take to a party, walk off the edge of the world with. She folded the letter slowly and placed it back inside its envelope. How many times had she read it? Three, four—a hundred?
    And each time, the news about Matthew sliced through her. She closed her eyes and tried to wipe out the image of Trout with some boy. Rachel had won, hadn’t she? She had found Trout a boyfriend. Staggerlee pressed her head against the pane and stared out at the river. She had thought Trout was stronger than that. She had seemed so sure of herself last summer. But Trout was right—last summer did seem like a long, long time ago.
    Staggerlee sighed. Tomorrow was Monday. There was geometry and social science and choir practice to get ready for. There was Lilly in her French class, who giggled, and Abraham in home ec, who swore he made the best pies in all Sweet Gum. She had friends now, people she walked to classes with, people who searched her out in the cafeteria. And some afternoons, if the weather was nice, she biked into town and sat on a milk crate in a circle of Daddy’s friends, talking about nothing and laughing about everything.
    And Trout? What would she be doing tomorrow? The next day? Next week?
    Waiting, Staggerlee thought. They were both waiting. Waiting for this moment, this season, these years to pass. Who would they become? she wondered. Who would they become?