Say What You Will

by Cammie McGovern

  He hesitated and then he told Beth this, as best he could.

  “That’s great, Matthew. That’s a start.”

  It wasn’t great. He sounded stupid. He wished Beth had different hair so he could concentrate better. Not red. And not so curly. An image flashed in his brain while they were sitting there: Beth naked, wearing only her hair and her Birkenstock sandals. He started to sweat. “I’m afraid of bodies,” he told her. She wrote it down. “I’m afraid of what happens when bodies lose control.”

  Beth nodded. It looked like she was writing a short story. He’d said two things and she was writing five. “That’s pretty common, actually, especially in adolescence. Your body is changing in ways you have no control over. Your brain starts worrying about everything else it can’t control.”

  Every time Beth said something like this, it felt like she missed his point. His point was—he was scared of other people’s bodies. He was scared of what they might do. Standing in Amy’s bathroom, he understood what he couldn’t say, even to Beth: he was scared of Amy’s body. He could touch her when it felt clinical or necessary. He could even carry her into the pool and float her in the water, because she needed help to swim and he could give her that help.

  But touching . . . just for touching?

  How could he do that? Sex produced sweat and terrible, embarrassing stains. Once, washing his sheets, his mother said to him, “You’re worse than your father.”

  He knew what she meant. There were stains on his sheets. He was worse than his father.

  Why did Amy think he could handle this when he obviously couldn’t? What did she want from him? She kept saying he was better, but he wasn’t. Maybe he could have handled a kiss. He was gearing up for a kiss. He had his mind so focused on the chance of a real kiss that he thought he could do it. He could taste her lips. He wouldn’t be scared.

  And then—before any of that could happen—she started talking about sex? About wanting it and practicing for it and doing it, so she’d be ready for it?

  Of course he left her house.

  How could he stay? In the car driving home, he went over his choices and decided he had none. If he kissed her it would be almost the same thing as kissing Sanjay. His germs would still be there. His traces. Sex was only one part of everything Amy would soon be more experienced at than he was: making new friends, going to parties.

  Why had she pushed this their last night together? What had she said when he was in her bathroom? “I’VE WANTED THIS ALL SUMMER! I HAD TO SAY SOMETHING!”

  She wanted to move ahead of him. She wanted him to see: Look, I’m an adult now, with experiences you can’t even imagine! Soon I’ll have hundreds of them and I’ll completely forget you and this year we’ve just spent pretending to be friends. He didn’t call her that night or answer her texts.

  How could he?

  She was moving on without him. She’d made that much perfectly clear. The next day, he let her drive away with her parents without so much as a good-bye message on her phone from him.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EMAILS WRITTEN BUT never sent:Z

  Dear Matthew,

  It wasn’t fair of you to walk out of my house without saying good-bye. In fact, I think it was horribly cruel. It wasn’t easy to tell you what I did. I could have said nothing, because as you know, not talking is a specialty of mine. I told you because it was a hard secret. I’d been keeping it all summer and I didn’t want to do it anymore. I told you because we know each other, Matthew, in ways that are wonderful and also sometimes hard. I might wish some things about you were different, just like you might wish there were some things different about me—

  Dear Matthew—

  That wasn’t fair. Like, not at all. Be mad at me, fine, but at least have the decency to stick around and talk about it. I feel like you hide behind your OCD sometimes. You say, “I have no choice, my brain makes me stand in the bathroom for an hour,” but you do have a choice. You were making a different choice all summer long. Hanging out with me, going to work. As long as no one challenges you or behaves in any unexpected ways, oh, guess what! OCD cured! But if someone is a person, who admits to having made a mistake—you don’t stick around for thirty seconds and talk about it? Suddenly you’re all, where’s the nearest bathroom? My hands, my hands. I’ve got to wash my hands. I’m not trying to be mean—I’m telling you that’s what it feels like to be around you sometimes. Sarah said you did the same thing in Taco Bell. That she started talking about her dad and you didn’t like it and all of a sudden you had to use the bathroom for twenty minutes. If you’d come back to my room like any decent human being to at least say good-bye, I would have told you that I like Sanjay fine but I never want to have sex with him again, and that should be enough for you and me to stay friends. If you’re going to rule out being friends with anyone who’s ever had sex, your world is going to get pretty small. I’ll tell you that much right now.

  You should consider—long and hard—the self-indulgence of your illness and think about someone else for a change. Seriously.

  Dear Matthew—It’s been two weeks and I’m just writing to say I’m sorry things ended so badly between us. That’s not how I wanted it to go at all.

  Dear Matthew,

  I saw this kid at school today who reminded me of you. He was walking on his tiptoes tapping and flinching. Maybe he just has Tourette’s, and it’s not like that’s what you really look like. I guess I’m forgetting what you looked like so I’m filling in gaps by staring at crazy people and wondering if that’s what you look like these days.

  Don’t take this the wrong way, of course.

  Matthew—

  I’ve been here for a month and it’s not going so well. I’m more isolated here than I ever imagined I’d be. I live in the only room that could accommodate my scooter, a handicapped-accessible apartment beside the infirmary where an RN is on call all night long. I’m three buildings away from all the other freshmen, close enough to hear the noise of their parties but too far away to roll over and be invited to any of it.

  Here is the truth I can’t tell my parents, so I’m writing you a letter that I know I won’t send: I’m lonelier than I’ve ever been in my life, Matthew. It’s worse than before I got my peer helpers. Back then, at least I had teachers and therapists who knew me well. Right now I have a handful of administrators who’ve met me once and check in sometimes. I also have a student affairs liaison who is supposed to help with logistics if I “want to go to a sporting event or a concert.” She actually said that. “A sporting event or a concert.” How about if I want to hang out and meet people? How about the logistics of adding one or two people to my friends list, which is, at present, zero names long?

  One thing that I have now learned about college—there’s way too much free time. You’re hardly ever in classes, especially if you’re only taking three because your mother was worried about putting too much pressure on you. Having three classes means on Tuesdays and Thursdays I only have one hour of my day filled. Ten to eleven, I’m all set. The rest of the time I’m rolling around campus wondering, If I got a service dog, would more people talk to me?

  I spend about half my days completely alone. Of course, I have a PCA to help me get dressed and eat breakfast, but she leaves by eight o’clock and I don’t see her again until nine at night. There are plenty of days when she’s the only person I’ve talked to.

  Now that I’m telling you this, I know I won’t send this letter so I might as well say it all. I’ve never felt this alone before. I don’t know how much of it is my housing situation, how much is the way I left things with you, and how much is the reality I’ve learned since I got here: people don’t like talking to a girl who uses a machine to answer. I don’t know why it’s never occurred to me before because it’s pretty fucking obvious. A voice-generating
device is weird. It’s awkward and slow. I’m the person people glance at their watches while talking to. I’m the bore on the park bench who might be crazy, but you should still be nice to for a minute or two. That’s how I feel. Some days I’m convinced that I am that crazy person on the park bench. Like I’d avoid me if I could.

  The other day I stayed after class hoping to talk to my American Lit teacher. He’s blond and smart and in his lectures it’s clear he has some of the same feelings I do about Huckleberry Finn. (Spoiler alert: they’re mixed!) I planned what I wanted to say. I even typed it in during class, so there’d be no awkward pauses. It was a little joke about something he’d said that day. Before you came along, my best friends were always teachers and I thought maybe I could do that again. Make friends with a professor. This one seemed young and pretty funny. I don’t know. Maybe I was too eager. I hadn’t had a real conversation with anyone in days. My hand was twitching to type. I rolled up to the front of the class, where a few students were talking to the teacher. I waited. I got my joke ready. Then before I could press Play, the professor looked at me and said, “Why don’t we make an office-hours appointment?”

  Before I could answer, he gave me a time two weeks away.

  Do you see what I’m getting at? I’d wanted to make a joke. I’d wanted to do it in front of other students so they knew: Ha! Surprise! The rolling girl is funny! I’d wanted to be casual like everyone else. But no. Obviously that teacher will need some time to ready himself. He’ll need to tell his wife, “I’m meeting with that girl today.”

  Nobody knows me here. Nobody knows I’m not usually as sad as I must look these days. Nobody knows that I was happy all summer. I shouldn’t even write these letters I don’t send. It doesn’t help. I don’t know what I’m hoping to accomplish with them.

  I suppose I want to keep them, so I have a record of this time. So I remember exactly how hard it was. So I don’t sugarcoat it or pretend, Oh yeah—it wasn’t that bad. It was and it is. That bad.

  Note to future self (and pretend Matthew): this is bad.

  Dear Matthew—

  There’s one more thing I didn’t get to tell you that night in my bedroom. Here it is: I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been for a long time. This might seem like a strange thing for me to say given the fact that we aren’t speaking to each other. But I’ve decided that it’s possible to love someone for entirely selfless reasons, for all of their flaws and weaknesses, and still not succeed in having them love you back. It’s sad, perhaps, but not tragic, unless you dwell forever in the pursuit of their elusive affections.

  So let me not become Miss Havisham dining for twenty years on the wedding cake my true love never showed up to eat. Please, God, no. How many young women have I watched weep their days away over disinterested men? To all of them, I want to say, Look up. Get a life, because he has.

  I’ve written you about a dozen different times, trying to get it right, but when I read over the letters, I realize this is what I’m always trying to say: I loved you. I always did, even when I joked and teased and pretended not to. You are the fantasy man I’ve given myself in my wildest dreams of a happy adulthood—smart and funny and challenged in some ways as seriously as I am. But we tried for a year to let our fears rest and trust our instincts and it never really worked. I’m crying as I write this because I’m having to admit that if it was meant to happen, it should have by now. And maybe I’m not as generous as I pretend to be, because in this instance, I can’t seem to say, Friends is enough or Let’s be whatever you want us to be. It’s not what I want.

  Suddenly I’m afraid of things that never scared me before. I’m scared of going home after this lonely, horrible semester and seeing you again, so much better than you used to be. I’m scared of you telling me you’ve started dating someone and you’ve fallen in love. I’m terrified of one day getting an invitation to a wedding where I’ll have to go and watch you marry somebody else. Surely you can see the problem in all this, Matthew. I don’t have the same choices and it’s not really fair. You were angry at me for being with someone else, but surely you understand: you have the chance of getting better.

  Soon you will be better, and then you’ll have half the world to choose from.

  I had a tiny window of opportunity. For a little while I seemed like a celebrity—that article and being on TV gave me a short time where my accomplishments momentarily erased the body I’m attached to. It’s not that I want to deny the reality of my body or the way people see me. This is me; these are my twisted legs; these are my thumbs that will never voluntarily unfold from my palm. I could hate all these quirks, but what would be the point? Where would it get me? Better to look in a mirror and see the truth: I won’t have too many propositions in my life. If I get one that’s even a little tempting, I’d better consider it. What happened with Sanjay wasn’t too much more than that. I thought, Here’s my chance! I know I don’t love him. I may not even like him all that much, but how many chances am I going to get? I wanted to try it. I’m sorry, but I did. I wanted to see if my body could manage it. Yes, I wanted to try it with someone other than you so I’d know what to expect if it happened with you. I thought one of us should figure this out, so we don’t both panic. That’s what I meant when I said I was thinking of you.

  Part of me has always admired people who can be casual with their bodies. The girls who can bump hips with boys and not even think about it. Or walk with their hand in their boyfriend’s pocket. Or talk about sex like it can be a big deal, but doesn’t have to be.

  Sarah is like that. She seems a little older than the rest of us because she is, in a way. Not having a mom means she takes care of her dad, but she also takes care of herself. She’s funny about sex. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I have to tell you so you understand what I was thinking. She says she likes having sex as long as she’s in charge, which means usually she is. She tells the boy exactly what he can and can’t do. No, she doesn’t always love the person, or even like him all that much, but she says for the time being, that’s okay. She’ll know what she’s doing when she gets to college, where she plans to meet someone she will fall in love with. That’s what she said. That’s what was in my head. (And, yes, I’ll admit, maybe I wondered if she was having sex with you. Maybe I wanted to preemptively hurt her, just in case she was.) I don’t know, Matthew. To me the idea of getting some experience made sense. I didn’t want to be so innocent. That’s all. Now I worry that you’ll never understand this or find a way to forgive me. I know if I don’t find my way with you, it’s very unlikely I’ll meet someone else who will look at me the way you have, or will not be put off by this body of mine. I know the reasons you left my room that night are complicated and not solely about your fear of my body.

  I do give you credit for that much, Matthew.

  More credit than you probably realize.

  Because even as I say this will never work out, part of me still hopes that it will. Part of this whole plan of mine, in fact, has to do with you, with taking a stand. I want to say, Let’s don’t wait forever for our lives to start. Let’s begin them ourselves. Let’s be fearless for once and say, we can do this. I don’t know if I’ll have the courage to send this. I hope I do someday.

  Dear Matthew—

  I have written you quite a few notes and sent none of them. All of them were written in various states of despair. Mostly I’m relieved that I never sent them, but now I’ve got a new problem and I need to talk about it with someone. I’d rather talk to you, if we can find our way back to our old friendship and good conversations. I don’t know. Can we?

  Oh, Matthew, I miss you. All the time. Constantly.

  Is that saying too much? It probably is.

  I can’t seem to write you without conveying some version of the truth, and then I lose my nerve because the truth is too painful for you to know right now. Or something like that.

  TEXT SENT, OCTOBER 30

  Hi, Matthew, can we talk sometime? I have a pr
oblem I need your help with. Lots to catch up on.

  xo Amy

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  WORKING AT THE LA Tierra Theater had taught Matthew a lot about joining a group of misfits. After six months on medication and five months on the job, he felt as if he had joined such a group for the first time, or sort of anyway. Sometimes it seemed as if they were all touched by misfortune, biding their time. Chloe with her incarcerated boyfriend, who (thank heavens!) she’d finally broken up with; Hannah helping her single mother support three kids; Carlton starting his fifth year of community college. Matthew stood out among them only because he was the quietest and the most thorough cleaner. Every shift he gave the nacho-cheese dispenser a scrubbing while other people took their breaks and went outside to smoke. He regularly dusted the slow-selling candy boxes and Windexed the candy glass where customers pointed. In between their busy times, his coworkers sat on the floor behind the counter and asked if he folded his underwear, too. “It depends, I suppose,” he said. “Sometimes.”

  Gradually they started talking to him more. The girls first. They told him the gossip among the staff and funny stories about Carlton’s band, which was called Caribou and had made the mistake of making Hawaiian shirts and leis their signature wardrobe, so now they were stuck at every gig looking like middle-aged men on beach vacations.

  One night Hannah invited him to stay after work with the others. “How many people think Matthew should get high with us behind the screen tonight?” she announced to the group. On the night shift, only two people stayed to clean and close after the last show. The others went home or, lately, retreated to a set of beanbag chairs behind the screen on the stage that used to be a real theater where live shows were performed. There, it was possible to watch the movie backward through the gritty screen. Though the story was confusing and hard to hear, apparently that didn’t matter. Chloe raised her hand, as did Carlton and Sue, who wasn’t supposed to leave the ticket booth but always did to lean over Matthew’s freshly sprayed counter to grab handfuls of popcorn. “Oh, I do, I do,” Sue said chewing. “Matthew high would be fabulous. We’d let you bring your Windex but no paper towels, ’kay? You’d have to just be with us. In the beanbags.”