This Is What I Want to Tell You

by Heather Duffy Stone

  Nole, she said. We pushed through the double doors onto the back fields.

  Yeah?

  I had the feeling she was going to say something big. One of us had to say it. What happened to us? Where are we going? It was like this silence between us was frozen and we were both feeling our way around it. How is it that two people can need each other so absolutely and then, in moments, not even know how to be next to each other and just be quiet? I snuck a look at Keeley. She was staring toward the track but her eyes were glass, like inside she was staring at something completely other. Her hair covered half of her face, a shiny, perfect gold curtain. She was wearing her boots again, and some weird long sweater over thick tights. On top of it all was an old faded navy-blue hoodie, and she had her fists clenched up inside the sleeves.

  Is that my brother’s sweatshirt?

  Her face froze. Then she broke into weird high breathy laughter.

  I was cold in English. It looks ridiculous, doesn’t it?

  Yeah, I said. I tried to laugh with her. It does look ridiculous. But I couldn’t, quite.

  Keeley stopped and looked at me now, her eyes serious.

  Seriously, Noelle. Do you ever feel—

  Just then Jessica Marino crashed through the double doors behind us.

  Noelle! She was breathless. I just ditched Pre-Calc. I swear that woman is going to kill me. Let’s get outta here. I gotta smoke a joint and eat a cheeseburger. I’m having such a craving.

  She pulled on my arm. It was quite possible she didn’t even see Keeley.

  I’m sorry, I said to Keeley. I was talking to her over my shoulder. Jessica was already pulling me away.

  Keeley shrugged. She’d pulled her sleeves up in front of her mouth.

  We’ll hang out, I said.

  Keeley stood there. She never said a word.

  When she walked into the room, I could tell Keeley had been crying. Classroom lights are unforgiving. Her eyes were swollen. She had her sleeves pulled over her fists, and she kept bringing them up to rub her eyes. She was late and Matthew Levitt was talking about the Human Rights committee and they were slacking and needed their resolutions by today to submit—

  He was still talking as I stood up, walked to the back of the room, and edged Keeley back out into the hallway.

  What happened? I asked her.

  She was staring at her toes. She was silent for a while.

  She is so mad at me, she said.

  Noelle?

  She looked up. She stared at me like I was suddenly unrecognizable, her eyes blank and furious at once.

  It’s like, it’s not even about you and me. Do you think she even knows? And it’s not even like she’s mean. She’s just outright cold, like we were never even inseparable friends for our whole lives. It’s like she’s mad at me for everything that’s wrong in the world. It’s like she’s mad at me for breathing. And there’s nothing I can even say. I’m trying so hard to keep our friendship. What happened to it? Where is she all the time?

  Keeley kept talking and her voice sounded like gasping. I knew none of her questions wanted answers.

  I felt myself sighing. I knew my sister. I didn’t have to know what had happened. Probably nothing happened. Probably Noelle just froze Keeley out. Made her feel like she was barely there.

  What decides the kind of people we are? Really. Noelle and I were born at the exact same time. Almost. One mother. No father. One house. Everything about the way we grew up was exactly the same. What made us so different? Even before we started school—before we watched other kids from other families and learned how to “be”—even then Noelle could turn rock hard when she was upset. I’d run around trying to make her or Lace feel better and tell jokes or find cookies or whatever, and Noelle would set her lips in this thin hard line and narrow her eyes and that was that. Until she was ready to stop being mad.

  Look, I said. I put my hand on Keeley’s arm.

  She’s so mean to me, Keeley said. She took a deep breath.

  Keeley. I said her name and then I didn’t want to keep talking. But she was staring at me, waiting. You can do things, have things … I stopped. I shouldn’t go on. Keeley was staring at me.

  Look, I said again. We live in your gatehouse, Keeley. Gatehouses used to be for servants. I know it’s not that way now, but look—Noelle worked at an ice cream stand while you went to Oxford …

  Keeley pulled her arm away.

  Oh fuck, she said.

  I don’t mean …

  Jesus. She backed up.

  Keeley, I’m not saying I feel this way. I’m just saying, I’m just trying to say what my sister is. I mean, I think Noelle is jealous. That makes people mean. I don’t know what’s going on with her, but …

  I have to go, Keeley said, turning.

  Look, she’s mad at me too, I said. But Keeley was running down the hall. She pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over her head as she pushed out through the front door of the school.

  I don’t go back into the room. I slide my back down the wall and sit on the floor of the empty hallway.

  Fuck, I answer Keeley.

  Dear Dario;

  How could she know? When do we start to feel the differences between us? When do we stop being kids who just want each other’s company and start being complicated by all these other things? When do we wake up and have to be aware of how much money one of us has? Or who is going to feel like running away to escape this life? How could any of us know that one of these days it was going to be impossible to just be perfectly three together? Three never works.

  But you wouldn’t know any of this. Only one worked for you.

  I started going to Parker’s house after school. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Jessica would drive me into the city, or I could catch a bus in front of the post office. But the bus felt weird—no one I knew took the bus and if anyone saw me standing there, waiting, I’d have to explain where I was going. I couldn’t explain it—it was a secret journey made all the better because only I knew about it.

  Nadio and I would be getting our licenses soon, but for now I needed a ride. I snuck on the bus, I rode my bike.

  From the main road, I had to cut through a parking lot, which was always empty and I could enter the apartment through the garage downstairs, which was always open. The garage was called Sammy’s, and the only cars in there looked like they’d been crushed by a huge truck or a wrecking ball. There were no small repairs at Sammy’s.

  Sammy was nice to me. He waved and let me up the back staircase, so I didn’t have to climb the rickety metal staircase winding up the side of the building that was Parker’s main entrance. Sometimes he gave me mail or even a cup of coffee to bring up to Parker. He always told me to be careful, but he didn’t mean it like there was anything dangerous. He seemed to mean it the way a dad would, like reminding me to just look after myself.

  Because he lived above a garage, Parker’s apartment always smelled a little bit like burning rubber and gasoline. There was something about it that was toxic and addictive. I loved that smell.

  Sometimes Parker would be sleeping on his couch. Sometimes he would be reading and smoking a cigarette on his bed. Sometimes he wouldn’t be there at all and I’d just wait for him. The thing about him: he made me feel like I could be noticed. Like someone noticed me. And that I was worth it. No one had ever made me feel that way before.

  And sometimes he made me feel invisible.

  After I left Keeley standing by the back field, after Jessica and I smoked a joint and she ate a cheeseburger with one hand and held a cigarette in the other and drove at the same time, after that I asked her to bring me to Parker’s.

  Jesus, I hope you’re sleeping with him by now.

  She licked her finger and crumpled the empty foil cheeseburger wrapper into a tiny bal
l.

  No, I said.

  I wasn’t. Despite his best efforts.

  Okay, said Jessica. She pulled the car over and turned to look at me, dropping cigarette ash onto her lap as she did.

  Parker seems to like you, Noelle, but baby, listen, you’re not going to hang on to him this way. Just get it over with! After the first few times you’ll start to have fun. Believe me.

  I believed her. Sort of. How could I explain how terrified I was? How could I tell Jessica Marino how I was afraid I’d do everything wrong, how most of all I wanted Parker to be there, not just with anyone, but I wanted him to want to be there with me.

  Sometimes when I was with him I felt like I could be just about anyone who was almost naked.

  But I couldn’t tell Jessica this.

  You’re so right, I said. Listen, I’m gonna walk from here. I got out of the car and leaned in. Thanks, I said.

  Good luck, baby, she called after me.

  I didn’t feel any better. I could see Keeley standing alone on the field. I could see Jessica shaking her head as I walked away. I could see Parker, the crescents of his hip bones just above the waist of his jeans, the wiry muscles in his arms moving slowly under the inked designs as he pushed my jacket back off my shoulders and slipped the buttons of my shirt open.

  Sammy handed me two cups of coffee as I came in.

  Good to see you, sweetie, he said.

  When I opened the door to Parker’s apartment, he was sitting at the table, leaning over a book with his head in one hand, a cigarette burning in the other.

  Hey, he said, looking up.

  He pushed his chair back from the table. The book fell closed. I glanced toward the cover, trying to look like I wasn’t looking. A painting, thin strokes, the title in fragile white letters: The Birth of Tragedy.

  He looked at my eyes on the cover of the book. I felt him and I looked up. He seemed to smile at me.

  Hi. I put the coffee down on the table and let my bag slip off my shoulder.

  He took a drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out. He nodded at the book.

  Read it? he asked.

  No, I said.

  Com’ere.

  I walked over to him. My heart was racing all the way into my throat. He pulled me into him so his cheek was against my stomach. Then he pushed my shirt up and kissed my stomach. I felt all at once like I never wanted to be anywhere else other than that gasoline-smelling apartment, and like I wanted to throw up.

  Let’s do something, I said, putting my hand on top of his head, trying to push it back as gently as I could.

  He tucked his finger into the waist of my jeans, not looking up.

  Mm-hmm.

  Like, go somewhere. I took his hand and held it.

  He finally looked up.

  Where d’you wanna go?

  I suddenly wished I hadn’t said anything. I felt my face flush.

  I don’t know. We always—we’re just here. We could go, like, eat something.

  Eat something? He smiled slowly.

  What I wanted to say was, we never talk about anything. We just kiss. Then you take my pants off. Then my throat closes and my heart rushes and I push you away and you say what’s wrong and I say I don’t know. What I wanted to say was, I want to feel like you want to be with me as a real live couple. Then I’ll be ready to sleep with you.

  Instead I said, Never mind. I don’t know.

  And he pulled me down onto his lap.

  Wait, I wanted to say. Wait. I could feel him kissing my neck but it wasn’t my neck now, it was my neck the first time he kissed me, before anyone (who wasn’t related to me) had ever kissed any part of me, neck or otherwise.

  And I couldn’t say anything. The ridges of his fingers felt coarse along my stomach. I shivered. I didn’t want to say anything.

  Wait, I said.

  He sighed.

  I couldn’t concentrate.

  Last year it was easy. Run, study, ace tests, work at the food pantry, Model U.N. I had a routine. It was every minute. I knew the things I wanted to do. This year I quit the food pantry. I actually really liked being there, Molly or no Molly—there was something therapeutic about stacking can after can of green beans, box after box of Stove Top, and something comforting about packing boxes for distribution … one of everything, knowing that meals that would come out of that box would be so much more important than any meal I ever ate.

  But I just couldn’t do it this year. If I wasn’t at school, I wanted to be with Keeley.

  After the night she came to my kitchen door it was like we just became a couple. Keeley didn’t want to talk about it, which worked for me. But everything we did, the way we looked for each other, the way I decided everything I would do with her in mind, that must be what being a couple is like. We were just a couple who couldn’t quite tell the public truth.

  I was at lunch, returning my tray to the dish window, when Keeley grabbed my arm.

  Come on, she whispered.

  And I realized in the buzzing crowd and anonymous noise of high school lunch time, we could sneak out in the middle of hundreds of people.

  Without talking, Keeley pulled my hand down the nearly empty hallway, up the cold concrete stairwell to the second floor and, turning a corner, she pushed open the door of the boys’ handicapped bathroom. White-gray tile floors, a crooked urinal, a toilet. A fingerprint-streaked silver bar ran the length of the room to the sink that Keeley was leaning up against. I could see myself in the mirror above her head, her blonde hair at my chin. My eyes surprised me—to see myself there surprised me. I looked exactly like me but something in my eyes looked stretched, looked tense, looked almost desperate.

  I moved toward Keeley.

  Hi, she said.

  I didn’t say anything. I kissed her. I put my hands at the base of her neck to pull her closer to me. Her mouth was warm and slow. She slid her hands up my back. Everything about her felt slow and soft. I could feel the tumbling beat of her heart through my shirt. Her tongue pressed against mine and then back. I tried to pull her closer. I brought my hand down her neck, her side; and under her T-shirt the skin of her stomach was hot. Her back folded against the sink. Then she stopped. Her whole body stopped.

  Wait, she said.

  I felt like I’d been running too fast to stop myself, like I’d tumbled forward head first.

  She pushed against my chest.

  Just hang on, she said. She rubbed her hand over her eyes, pushed her hair back.

  Okay, I said. I was picking myself up, breathing like the sprint was over. I stood with a foot between us.

  Are you okay, I asked, counting my breaths, trying to slow them.

  Yeah, she said. She lifted her head and looked at me. She tried to smile. Sometimes it’s just really fast.

  But you, I wanted to say, you pulled me up here. I didn’t say anything. I watched her. Sometimes I didn’t get it—I didn’t get her. She was holding on to something.

  Yeah, I said to her. It is. It’s okay.

  Her smiled was relieved now.

  I mean, she said, I love kissing you. I don’t want you to think I don’t.

  But I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want us to say why or why not or explain through all of it.

  Hey, I said. We still have some time before next period. Want an iced tea or something?

  Okay.

  Keeley moved forward. She leaned up and kissed my cheek.

  You’re kind of amazing, she said. She looked almost sad. Let me walk out first. I’ll meet you outside the cafeteria in five minutes.

  Okay, I said. I’ll be right behind you.

  It was like this a lot with me and Keeley. We found all of these hiding places—her attic, groves in the orchard, even that second floor
handicapped boys’ bathroom. We had to find hiding places because neither one of us was ready to tell Noelle. And the truth was, what would we tell Noelle anyway?

  Sometimes Keeley and I couldn’t get enough and she leaned into me when I slid my hand up her stomach and under her bra, and she tried to pull me closer to her and even sometimes she bit at the skin on my neck under my left ear. But then sometimes she froze and stopped and turned off and pushed me away.

  There was no way of knowing how it would go when we were together. And those times when she pushed me away, she looked so sad that I couldn’t do a thing. That I swallowed that sharp ball of frustration and sometimes even anger. I thought I knew where the anger was coming from, though, and it wasn’t just her.

  * * *

  I finished Walden, I told Lace after dinner one night. I was helping her do the dishes. Noelle had just left, claiming she was going to Jessica’s to study. I could see that her backpack was empty as she walked out the door. Lace shook her head.

  Be careful, she called out. But Noelle didn’t look back.

  What did you think? Lace asked.

  Well …

  Dario, he … your dad. He said he loved America when he read that book. He said, for him, he didn’t even know what solitude felt like. He said Italians smother each other. The only way you get to know anything about yourself or the world you live in is through the eyes of your family.

  She was looking down while she talked, scrubbing one spot on the plate in her hands over and over.

  Ironic, huh? She smiled at me.

  Mom? Why don’t we ever talk about him?

  She stopped washing. Noelle and I hardly ever called her Mom. Ever since we could talk, we’d reveled in the sound of her name.

  Do you want to?

  Kind of.

  She wiped her hands on a dish towel and sat down at the kitchen table. I sat across from her.

  I know, I said, because she seemed nervous. I know you were seventeen. I know you were traveling in Italy. I know that for a whole year you were in love and then, when you were pregnant, he disappeared. I know this part, Mom, and I hate him for this part. But I feel like I need to know who he was.