The Tension of Opposites Read Online Free PDF Page B

fountain splashes water toward our bare feet, which dangle in the cool water. We’re both laughing hysterically at something. Noelle’s head is thrown back, her face tipped to the sky. Her eyes are squeezed tightly against the sun, and the fingers of both hands curl around long green grass that sprouts from under her legs. And me, I’m looking right at her, my mouth open wide as laughter pours from me. This is one of my favorite pictures from the summer I turned fourteen. Sitting there next to her, I had no idea it would be our last summer together.
    Noelle had never seen the image, which had been taken a few weeks before she went missing. Every time I looked at it, I wondered if we’d both known, on some instinctive level, what was drawing near. With Noelle gripping the ground like she didn’t want to be torn away, and me staring like I was trying to memorize every aspect of her that I could, it wasn’t so hard for me to believe that we’d heard a whisper carried on the wind. If only the message had been a shout, if only we could have prepared, everything in my world might have remained right side up.
    Lying on my bed, clutching the photograph, I glanced at the television on my dresser. I’d muted the sound when I flopped down in the middle of my bed, deciding as I waited for the interview to start that it was finally time to prepare the gift I’d held on to for years.
    I slid the picture into a frame and secured the back in place, then dropped it into a slender box and sighed. Noelle had been home for over a week, and every time I gathered the nerve to call, one of her parents or Coop told me she wasn’t ready to talk. So far, this interview was the best shot I had at getting any new information about her. And this gift was the best plan I’d come up with to see her face-to-face.
    â€œAn act of denial,” my therapist had said when I told him about the picture and how I planned to give it to her one day. During that session, he made me choose a date when I would admit she was gone, acknowledge that she was never coming home. The date became a big deal to him, and when it arrived, I lied, telling him I had put the framed picture in a box, wrapped it, and buried it in the woods behind the park.
    For effect, I added that I had played our theme song, “One Step at a Time” by Jordin Sparks, on my iPod while mounding damp dirt on top of the entombed box, pressing it deeper into the ground as the melody swept through the swaying treetops. He steepled his fingers under his chin and nodded slowly, then said he thought I no longer needed to see him on a regular basis. When I walked out his door for the last time, I wondered if he was calling me cured and almost laughed.
    I folded a piece of cream-colored card stock and opened it before pulling the cap off a purple gel pen.
    Forever friends, I wrote.
    And then, Love you. Tessa.
    I stuffed a few pieces of white tissue paper into a gift bag and gently placed the box inside, then tucked the handmade card beside it and pushed everything away from me, pressing my face into my patchwork comforter. Part of me wanted to call Dr. Anderson and tell him how very wrong he had been. Noelle was home. If I had actually buried the picture, I wondered, would the box still be there, waiting for me to dig my fingers into the soft soil and pull it into the sunlight?
    I looked up to see Noelle’s parents seated at a table behind a line of microphones. I hit the volume button and heard the rustle of paper and the rush of hushing voices.
    Mr. Pendelton looked at the scene before him, wiped his scruffy cheek with one hand, and then started speaking. “First of all, we want to express our gratitude to all the people who have helped from the very beginning.”
    Mrs. Pendelton nodded. “There is no way to thank you enough. All the long hours of searching, following up on leads, the prayers—they all played a part in Noelle’s safe