by Lisa De Jong
“I don’t expect anything less.”
Everyone looks at us as we walk up to the fire. It’s always been like that. We’re “the couple.” I think they’re all waiting for us to fall on our ass or get married. I’d go as far as to bet there’s a wager going on. I hate the attention; it only brings pressure.
“I’m going to get something to drink. Don’t go too far, okay?”
“I’ll wait here for you.”
“Good girl,” he whispers, kissing me one last time.
That’s how this one ends, with him walking away from me. There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach because deep inside, I know that was our last kiss.
I toss the sheets off the bed and stumble to the bathroom, needing to fully wake up from this dream. I turn on the dim light above the shower, which is just enough to see my reflection in the mirror without bothering my tired eyes. Cold water … that’s what I need to escape this.
Turning the faucet on to the coldest setting, I fill my joined hands with water. I wait until it’s to the top and splash it across my face. I feel more alive, but it’s still not enough. I place my hands under the cool water again, and repeat the whole process multiple times. When I finally stop, my hands are numb from the water’s temperature.
This recollection reminds me how much Cory and I had grown apart. We used to be salt and pepper. Popcorn and butter. Ice cream and hot fudge. Things shifted slowly until I wasn’t so much afraid to lose him but rather the idea of him. No one should hold onto an idea that long; it either needs to become a reality or be abandoned, because ideas are just thoughts without effort or belief behind them.
For the first time I realize that if I could turn back the clock, I wouldn’t just go back to the night of the accident. I’d go back to the first semester of college and let go of the idea.
NORMAL FEELS GOOD. I wear it like a designer coat as I step into Ms. Peters’ shop. Two days spent moping around the house, drowning in my own guilt is all it took for this to feel like a corner of heaven.
“Hey Rachel, how was your weekend?” Ms. Peters smiles, having spotted me while stepping out of the cooler.
“It was okay,” I lie.
“Isn’t that how they all are? I wonder if I’ve already had my best or if it’s yet to come.”
I think about it. She makes a good point, but she also gets the wheels in my head turning again. Are my best days already behind me? Are guilt and anger all I have left?
“What do we have going today?” I ask, tying my apron. I need a distraction now.
“Well, I have a few deliveries ready for you in the cooler. I think there’s two for the hospital and one office delivery.”
“Do you want me to run those now or wait?”
She looks up at the clock. “Why don’t you take them now. If anything else comes up, you can take it later.”
“I’ll do anything to keep myself busy,” I say, heading to the cooler. On the second shelf are three beautiful arrangements with the Peters’s touch. One is a huge bouquet of red roses. It’s probably for the office delivery. I’d guess an anniversary. The other two are brighter, a mixture of fall yellows, oranges, and reds with a hint of green and white—an elegant mixture of roses, carnations, and daisies.
I place them all in a box, careful not to damage the delicate petals. After loading them into my backseat, I grab the delivery tickets and start toward the hospital. It’s not my favorite place. It’s never going to be.
Today, I make it through the lobby without running into anyone. The delivery is quick—in and out in less than two minutes. Back in the car, I turn the key back, and out of all songs, “What Hurts the Most” by Rascal Flatts plays on the radio. I’m frozen in place, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel. My mom listened to this song all the time when I was younger. It was literally always on when you turned on the radio one summer. But now, after living through so much, the song holds the key to unleashing my heartache. The words sink into the pores of my soul, freeing the emotions I’d tried to lock up. Pouring rain would be the only thing that could increase the sensations of this moment.
‘And having so much to say’ repeats over and over. Every time I think of what I would say to Cory if he were here right now. If he were sitting in this car next to me, I’d set him free. I’d let him go. Tell him that I love him, that I want the best for him, but that I think he’d have better luck finding what’s best without me. He is an important part of what I’ve become, and for that I’ll never forget him.
I thought by holding on to him, the mad, deep, consuming love would come back. I thought our relationship had encountered a bump. Now, though, I know what it feels like to fall out of love. There’s a difference between being in love and loving someone because they’ve played such a big part in your life.
I swipe away the warm tears as I listen to the last verse. The song ends. A new revelation begins.
I should have let him go. I felt the distance growing in my heart, and Cory … I think he felt it, too. Our relationship became too comfortable until it wasn’t comfortable at all.
This doesn’t necessarily make me feel better or worse about what happened, but it fills in holes. When I compare how we were in my older memories of us to the final ones, the difference is a glaring red light. If only I’d seen it five months sooner.
I pull a travel-size package of Kleenex from the glove compartment and dab it lightly under each eye. By now, the makeup I applied this morning has washed away. The best I can do is clean myself up—make myself presentable enough to walk into an office where everyone is probably dressed in suits and drop off a vase of roses.
Checking the address, I recognize it as the car dealership on the outskirts of town, not too far from my house. I roll down my window, hoping the cold air will help remedy my blotchy, red face.
As I pull back on the street, I press the power button on the radio. One musical therapy session is enough for today. While I head across town, the wind blows through my blond hair, whipping it across my face. I push it behind my ears while I attempt to keep my mind free.
A few minutes later, I’m pulling onto the short frontage road that leads to the one and only new car dealership in town. It’s nothing like the massive ones in the city, but they stay busy with farmers buying trucks for their farms, and the town’s elite trading in for a new model every year or two.
I glance at my reflection in the rearview mirror, taking a few seconds to slide my tissue-covered finger under my eyes again. Waterproof mascara is wonderful until you try to clean it from your skin.
I get lucky on this one. The young lady who greets me at the door is also who the flowers belong to. I recognize her. She was a couple years ahead of me in high school. Turns out, she’s married and has a kid on the way. It’s interesting how our lives fork in different directions.
As my car starts back down the road, I see Sam’s property in the distance. That stirs something else inside of me. Something more like slow burning anger. The flashback started it, but when he didn’t even try to contact me, it spread. Slowly, taking little pieces of hope right along with it. I didn’t want to talk to him. I wouldn’t have answered, but I wanted to know he was thinking about me. I wanted to hear the pain in his voice as he begged me to give him another chance. I basically wanted to know he felt as shitty as I did—still do. I’ve never been a vengeful person, but these last few months are testing that. Maybe this is just the world’s way of getting revenge on me. I just didn’t think he’d let me go that easily.
I pull in front of the flower shop and slowly count to ten, inhaling a deep, refreshing breath after each number. One … two … three… Cars pass by as I hold on to the top of the steering wheel like it’s my lifeline. I attempt to read the expressions on the faces of the passersby. Are they having a good day, bad day, or just indifferent? We encounter people every day without giving much thought to what’s going on inside their heads. It’s a full, yet lonely, world.
After I-don’t-know-how-much t
ime passes, I climb from the car, taking a few extra seconds to soak in the fresh air. Cool and refreshing … it’s exactly what I need. This has definitely been an emotionally taxing few days.
As soon as I open the door to the shop, I’m halted in my tracks. I haven’t seen her in months. She hasn’t called or stopped by to see me. All contact ceased after she visited me in the hospital, but now she’s just a few feet in front of me going through a catalogue of floral arrangements with Ms. Peters. She’s got the same shoulder-length brown hair with caramel highlights. I’d recognize her anywhere.
I quietly walk up behind her. I’m afraid she might just run away if she sees me, because that’s what she has been doing. I never really tried to chase after her, because she obviously didn’t want to be a part of my life. Rejection fucking sucks.
Ms. Peters says something I can’t quite hear and pats Madison’s shoulder, disappearing into the backroom. Madison’s back is to me. It has been since I walked in, but now that Ms. Peters isn’t holding her attention, her eyes scan the display of balloons around the shop before landing on me. They actually shoot a little ways past me before snapping back.
“Rachel,” she mouths, crossing her arms over her stomach. What I couldn’t see from the way she stood before was her swollen stomach. Not as in ate-too-many-cookies swollen, but more there’s-a-real-live-baby-in-there big. All I can do is stare at her, not her face, but how the rest of her has filled out. There’s this horrible black hole in the middle of my chest. Why would she want to go through something like this without even telling me? That’s probably the worst part. She was my best friend, and I thought I was hers. Sisters. We were like sisters.
“What are you doing here?” she finally asks, regaining her composure. The black hole grows larger. There’s no ‘How are you?’ or ‘What have you been up to?’ She’s nothing but a stranger with a familiar face.
“I work here,” I choke.
“Oh, I didn’t know.” She’s acting like it’s the worst thing that we’re here together in the same room.
“I tried to call you a couple times. You never called back.” My mom would say that a nice Midwestern girl should just let it go, smile, and move on. But Madison hurt me. I was sick and sad and helpless, and she just left me to heal on my own. That’s not a best friend. That’s not a friend at all.
She takes a step back until her back hits against the counter. “I didn’t know what to say, Rachel. What do you want me to say?”
“I didn’t need you to say anything. I just needed you to be there for me. That’s what friends do, you know?”
Her eyes cast downward, and when they come back up to mine, they’re full of unshed tears. The blood of the soul. “I’m sorry for everything,” she cries. “There are things we all wish we could take back, and for me, what I did to you will always be one of them.”
“What are you talking about? Help me understand because, right now, I don’t. How hard is it to pick up the phone?” My face looks like hers now, tears streaming down. I swear someone took a spikey ball and inserted it in my chest. Every time I turn, it cuts deep into my heart. Each time it hurts a little more. There’s not much more that can go wrong in my life. There’s not much left inside me to shred.
“I don’t want you to hate me. Besides, I heard you’re with Sam now,” she says softly, smoothing her hand over her stomach. “You deserve to be happy.”
The painful ball in my chest just moved a little bit more. A deep, excruciating cut. “I was with Sam. Turns out some people aren’t what they seem.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes narrow on me. I’m noticing how much talking they truly do for a person.
“Do you even care?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. I sound like a bitch, but I think I’ve earned it.
A single tear slips down her cheek. “God, I care more than you’ll ever know. Don’t you get it, Rachel? That’s why I stayed away. Because I care.”
I’m so freaking confused. Someone spun me around and around then turned me loose here. This whole day just needs to evaporate. “He lied to me, okay? He was there the night of the accident and didn’t tell me.”
Her eyes widen. “You remember?”
“Just parts. I remember driving to the party. I remember running through a field and straight into Sam. Cory found us. That’s why he was so upset with me that night.”
She swallows visibly, bracing her hands against the counter. “You don’t remember why you were running?”
After everything I told her, that was the last bit I expected her to focus on. “No, I don’t remember that part. I don’t know that it really matters anyway.”
She looks toward the window. Her whole body trembles. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Streams of tears fall from her eyes. It saddens me, even after everything. “I should probably get going. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”
I nod, coming around the counter to set my delivery tickets in the drawer. “When are you due?”
There’s a pause—a long but audible pause. “February.”
“I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”
“I wasn’t really.” She laughs, but yet she cries. It’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. It almost makes me want to forgive her for everything that happened, or didn’t happen, the last few months. I have my shit, and she has hers. I just don’t know who’s buried deeper.
As I come back around the counter to where she stands, I spot Ms. Peters peeking through the small window between the showroom and backroom. I wonder how much of this she can hear, or if she’s just waiting for us to clear out. It doesn’t matter. I think she already knows my life is a hair below the level of normal.
“For what it’s worth, it was good to see you. I only wish we could have done it sooner,” I say.
“Yeah, me too.”
Months ago, if we’d had this conversation, I would have hugged her. That doesn’t feel like the right move anymore. I’m not sure what’s right.
“I’ll let you get going. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
“I really have to get going,” she cries, walking past me to the door.
I’m speechless. Another person gone. Another disappointment. Another dark cloud of memories covering my sky.
THE FIRE CRACKLES FROM across the room as I pull my favorite fleece blanket up to cover my legs. Mom’s already gone up to bed, and the house is quiet. This hasn’t always been my ideal Friday night, but it’s my new Friday night.
The only way to escape to a guaranteed happy place is get lost in a book. If I want to laugh, it’s easy to find a book to make me do just that. In the instances I want a good cry, I can find a book to make me do that, too. A well-written book is as powerful as a hug at the end of a long day. My mom swears by a book and a glass of wine before bed. No wonder she always looks well rested.
I made it through the week without any more surprise visitors. Madison and I haven’t spoke since Monday, not that I expected our confrontation to change anything. Our friendship is too far-gone. The trust is gone. The feeling that we’ll be there for the other no matter what sailed a long time ago. It’s better this way.
And Sam … still radio silence there. Some of the anger has faded away, but where that’s gone, loneliness seeps in. When I told him I didn’t think I meant anything to him, I didn’t mean it literally. I was trying to hurt him like he’d hurt me, but now it’s more of a belief. If our relationship was more than just another fling for him, wouldn’t he be fighting, even if he thinks there’s no chance I’ll take him back?
That’s the part I don’t get. Why he isn’t coming at me with gloves on. Cory never fought for me either. Maybe there’s nothing about me worth fighting for.
This is when I feel the most alone. When I think way too much. This is when I know it’s time to open a book and fall right into the drama of someone else’s life. It’s always better as an observer.
My phone buzzes on top the c
offee table. Besides Mom and Ms. Peters, it barely rings anymore.
“Hello,” I answer, folding my book over my leg.
“Did I wake you?”
I straighten at the sound of Kate’s voice. “Oh, no, I was just reading a book.”
She laughs. “Control yourself on a Friday night, Rachel.”
I can’t help but relax. She has that power over me. “There’s not much to do here this time of year. Actually makes me wish I could return to school right now.”
“Aw, don’t talk like that, or I’m going to have to come up there and get you. Are you at least cuddled up to Sam?”
Hearing his name sends my heart plummeting. A long, steep fall. “We broke up. Actually, I don’t know if we really even broke up, because I’m not sure we were ever really together.”
“Oh my God, what happened?”
“I’ve been remembering little bits and pieces of the accident. Anyway, he was there. He was at the party that night, and he’s the whole reason Cory and I fought.”
She gasps loud enough I hear it over the phone. “What? You’re kidding right? Why wouldn’t he tell you that?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Wow. I don’t know what to say.” Her voice is quiet, almost too low to hear clearly.
“I’m trying not to think about it right now.”
“He’s not an ‘it,’ so I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”
She’s right. I know she is, but the only way I get through each day is to tell myself that this is just another bump I have to get over. I have to believe there’s still something or someone out there for me. That loneliness isn’t my destiny.
“I know. I thought if I pretended everything was okay, it just would be. You know?”
“Oh, I know, but things don’t really work that way. You can face them, or you can bury them. But let me tell you, when they come to the surface, and they will, they’re so much angrier. So much louder.”
It would sound ridiculous coming from anyone else, but Kate’s like the encyclopedia of devastation. She’s lived through so much, and to see her now, you’d never know it.
