by Katia Rose
“How are you, son?”
I grunt instead of answering. He chuckles.
“Ah, I see. How did things go yesterday? With Paige?”
“Well...” I blow out a breath. “She is not yet my girlfriend.”
My dad’s eyes widen. “She said no?”
I shake my head, trying to figure out how to phrase this so it’s not too obvious why we were too busy for me to ask last night. “It just, um, didn’t seem like the right time.”
I wanted to wake up with her in my arms and do it in bed this morning, with her body warm and soft against mine. I wanted to hold her hand and tell her she’d changed so much for me, that every day I’m taking more steps to living on my own terms, and that going to LA and putting my doubts to rest is just one of them.
“Hey, Baba. Question for you. What are you supposed to do when a girl ‘needs space?’”
I put it in air quotes and everything.
My dad throws his head back and laughs for a long time before clapping his hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Youssef, you don’t know how many times your mother used that line on me back when we first met. I still don’t really know what ‘space’ means.” He does the air quotes too. “What I do know is that everybody needs different things to find their path, and if you can give a woman what she needs and be there waiting on the other side, and if she can do that for you, then your paths are meant to intertwine.”
“Wow, Baba. Pure poetry.”
He tightens his grip on my shoulder. “Don’t be smart.”
My Auntie Mariam comes over to join us then, chattering away in Arabic so fast I have trouble telling what she’s saying. My dad gives me an apologetic look as she grabs him by the arm and starts steering him over to one of my uncles.
I guess that’s all the advice I’ll be getting for today.
Two hours later, Paige and I are heading down the highway to Montreal. We’re just outside the city limits now, and we haven’t said much the whole trip. She did give me a one-armed hug in the hotel, and she put on a Sufjan Stevens album when I made her the official car DJ. Things can’t be all bad, but I can’t read where she’s at. It’s like we’re back to the early days of her broken arm, when she’d box me out every chance she got and I had to fight my way in.
I thought we were done with that.
“So, uh, any plans for the week?”
I sound so stupid I want to smack my head against the steering wheel, but I don’t know how to manoeuvre this conversation into telling her about LA. It really doesn’t seem like an ideal time, but I’m running out of any time. I leave the day after tomorrow, and I still haven’t confirmed with her that I’m going.
I was hoping to deliver the news in a far less tense atmosphere.
“Physio and getting approved to take this thing off.” She waves her splint-covered hand at me.
“Oh, right, right. That’s exciting.”
“Mhmm.”
Sufjan fills the awkward silence. I decide to just have at it. If she leaves this car without hearing what I have to say, I’m scared she won’t give me a chance to say it at all. I follow the curve of the highway and take a deep breath.
“So, uh, I have that trip to LA on Tuesday.”
Her head snaps to face me. “What?”
The temperature in the car drops a few degrees, the space between us icing over. It’s like I can feel all those walls of hers sliding back into place, and I don’t know how to stop them.
“Yeah, I know I haven’t mentioned it in a bit. I actually was pretty convinced I wasn’t going to go, but, um, now I am.”
“Oh. Okay. I...I didn’t realize it was so soon.”
I try to speak, but no words come out. My throat feels tight, constricted, like something’s choking me and holding back what I need to say. I want to tell her everything, but I don’t want it to be like this. I want her to hear it, not the girl burrowing into her hoodie and staring out the window so she doesn’t have to look at me anymore.
You don’t have to hide from me.
I don’t know how to bring her back. I didn’t even think this could happen. I stare at the highway in front of us and the looming skyline of Montreal.
“That’s probably a good thing. We could both use some time to ourselves.”
“I don’t want time to myself.” The sentence bursts out of me before I can stop it, and I know I sound harsh.
Paige is still looking out the window. “Well, I do.”
My hands squeeze the steering wheel hard. This is all going so wrong.
“Look, I know it seems like I’m jetting off to LA right after something big happened for us. I’m not running, okay? It’s bad timing, but I just need to see this one opportunity through before—”
“I get it,” she cuts me off, her voice cold and hollow. “I’m not some groupie you have to placate. I understand commitments. This is something you want to do, so you’re going to do it. Don’t make it about me resenting your career, because I don’t.”
“I never said that.”
I change lanes and steer the car over to our exit, narrowly avoiding hitting someone in my blind spot. My whole body has tensed up. We make it a few blocks towards Paige’s neighbourhood before I explode again.
“Why are you doing this?”
She stares at the dashboard. “Doing what?”
“That. Not looking at me. Talking that way. Shutting me out. I don’t get it, Paige.”
She still won’t fucking look at me.
“I told you, I just need some sp—”
“But why? I understand needing to go slow. I really do. I get that, but you’re acting like we barely even know each other, and it hurts.”
I pull up at a red light, my chest rising and falling with my panting breaths as I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles go pale. After forcing myself to let out a few long exhales, I glance over to see her finally turning her head.
She’s crying, one tear streaking down each side of her face. Something hard and heavy slams into my chest at the sight.
“Paige, I—”
She gives a slight shake of her head just as the light turns green. We’re almost at her building now, so I get us there as fast as I can and kill the engine once we’ve pulled up to the curb. She’s staring straight ahead out the windshield now, tears still streaking down her cheeks even though the rest of her is still.
“Paige, what is it?” I undo my seatbelt and lean in closer, not sure if I should touch her. “You can talk to me.”
“I just...” she whispers. “I just don’t think I know how to do this.”
“You do.” I cover my hand with hers where it’s resting on her thigh. “Paige, you’re everything I want. You don’t have to be anything other than what you are. That’s all I need.”
I don’t care if it’s too much or too early. It’s true, and she needs to know it.
“What if...” Her hand twitches under mine. “What if I can never trust you? What if I don’t know how to do that with people anymore?”
I ignore the way my stomach drops.
“We’ll figure it out. I know we will. Paige, please.”
I just wish she’d look at me. I could make her believe it if she’d look at me.
“I think...” She shifts her hand to lace her fingers through mine, and for a moment, I’m flooded with a sweet relief. “I think I should go inside now.”
A chaser of dread follows the hope down.
“I just really need to figure a couple things out. Can you give that to me?”
I finally catch her eye, and I see the truth there. She’s scared, terrified even, but she’s still the same Paige from last night, the same Paige I brought home from the hospital, the same Paige I saw standing at her locker all those years ago. She’s the girl I’ve known all along, the girl I feel like I always will know, the girl who can do this no matter how much she thinks she can’t.
I just hope to god she can see it too.
I nod and whisper, “I can.”
She stays a second longer before getting out of the car. She grabs her suitcase from the backseat, and then she’s heading inside her building without looking back.
I think about what my dad said, about giving her what she needs and being there waiting at the end. I wish I’d gotten a chance to ask him how I can be sure she’ll be there too.
Twenty-One
Paige
PEAK: The highest point to which an audio signal can be amplified
“Okay, you’re gonna have to run that one by me again. Straight people problems confuse me.”
I glare at Ingrid, but she just takes a sip of her beer and motions for me to go on. We’re indulging in yet another 4PM drinking session at Taverne Toulouse. I like being here when it isn’t crowded yet, and DeeDee usually works this shift, which means we get good deals.
“He’s in LA now,” I repeat, “and I know it’s stupid, but I just feel like...like I let him in, you know? I gave him everything, but I don’t even know where he’s at with all his career stuff, and now he’s on some trip that just a few days ago he was saying he probably wouldn’t go on, and I panicked. I realized how much...how much he means to me, and how easily he could fuck me over. I’ve spent so fucking long not being close to anyone. I don’t know how to go from zero to a hundred like this.”
Ingrid tips her beer at me. “And you didn’t tell him about these feelings because...?”
I scoff and sip my own beer. “That’s so clingy. I’m not going to let myself be clingy.”
“Paige.” Ingrid props her elbow on the bar and rests her chin on her hand. “It’s not clingy to, like, have emotions and express them to people you care about. It’s not clingy to be like, ‘Hey, I’m feeling kind of insecure about everything we have going on. Do you mind giving me some reassurance?’ You just spent half an hour telling me you don’t think you have it in you to trust somebody enough to maintain a relationship. The cure for that is usually talking about it.”
“How is it going, ladies?” DeeDee bounces over with a tray of dirty glasses in hand and interrupts our conversation before I can reply to Ingrid. “Have we fixed Paige’s problems yet, or would you guys like some tequila?”
“It is way too early for tequila,” Ingrid complains as DeeDee drops the glasses off and starts getting three shots ready.
“Pas vrai!” DeeDee holds up a finger. “It is never too early for tequila. Now lick those hands!”
She holds up a salt shaker and stares us down until Ingrid and I give in and lick the backs of our hands so she can sprinkle them with salt. She does the same to herself, and we all go through the salt, shot, lime routine. DeeDee whoops when we’re done.
“Now we can fix your problems!”
“Oh joy,” I deadpan.
My sarcasm just rolls right off her. She plants both palms on top of the bar and stares into my eyes like a coach pumping up one of her players. “You want to be with Youssef, right?”
“I mean, yeah. Yeah, I do.”
I’m surprised at how quick the answer comes, and how sure I sound.
“And you were kind of an asshole to him?”
“I was.”
That’s an easy answer too. Talking with Ingrid has been cathartic, but DeeDee’s interrogation-style assistance is getting us places much faster.
“So, you need to figure out why you were being an asshole, stop being an asshole, and then apologize and get on with your lives.”
Ingrid bangs her beer on its coaster. “Damn. Concise. I like it.”
‘Concise’ is not usually the first word that comes to mind when describing DeeDee, but her plan is surprisingly solid and doesn’t involve us dancing on tables or dyeing our hair, which are her usual problem-solvers.
“So, step one.” She’s still braced against the bar in front of me like she’s coaxing me to charge onto a football field. “Why were you an asshole?”
Ingrid cackles and then finishes off her beer as I blink at DeeDee and struggle for an answer.
“Um, well, I guess I was freaked out?”
DeeDee leans in closer. “Why were you freaked out?”
“I...um...” Her brown eyes are weirdly hypnotic. I wonder if this is one of her tactics for selling so many shots. “I want to trust him. I do. I want to be my whole self with him. I’m still discovering who my whole self is, but I know I want to be that person with him. It’s like...it’s like I was in the dark, and then all the lights came on, and I realized how much of my life was built around these shadows that weren’t even real, but I’m...I’m still scared of them.”
Back when I wrote ‘When the Lights Come On’ I was mostly imagining the way things could be. I was writing about dim possibilities I wasn’t sure I would ever have to face. I craved and feared those feelings all at the same time, and now they’re here. They’ve been growing and growing since I first set eyes on Youssef again, and I don’t know if they’re making me or breaking me.
“I really just want to let go,” I admit, my voice cracking.
“Hey, hey, hey.” DeeDee’s face softens, and she leans forward to grab my hand just as Ingrid grips the back of my bar stool.
I take a deep breath and just let myself feel something I’ve avoided for so long: support.
“You’ve got this,” Ingrid says, “and we’ve got you.”
“And tequila,” DeeDee adds.
We all laugh, and the mood shifts a little. A Flume song I love comes on the speakers, and DeeDee starts swaying as she reaches for the bottle again, shouting down Ingrid’s protests as she makes us all do another shot.
“Okay, okay, I have an idea for step two,” Ingrid announces once the alcohol has burnt its way down my throat. “DeeDee, do you have the day off tomorrow?”
“Uhhhhh, sure!”
We all laugh again.
“Okay, well I know Paige and I are free. I also know I have a shit tonne of Air Miles racked up from travelling with the band so much, and I’ve been saving them for something like this.”
I freeze. “You want to fly...to LA? Tomorrow?”
She shakes her head. “Not LA. I vote we take a trip to Toronto. You need to talk to your mom.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” I stare at the little car on the Uber app that’s getting closer and closer tour location. “I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m not doing this. I’m cancelling the ride.”
“No!” DeeDee snatches my phone out of my hands and holds it above her head. “You are doing it!”
We’re at the train station closest to my parent’s house in Brampton. Ingrid got us last minute tickets for an ungodly early flight, and we got into Toronto just after ten. The plan is for the two of them to hang around Brampton while I do whatever the hell it is I’m doing, and then we’ll take the train back into Toronto and possibly get a hotel.
It’s all happened so fast I’m still processing the fact that I’m here. We got drunk enough at Taverne Toulouse that I hazily agreed to the plan. I woke up at six with a headache and Ingrid pounding on my apartment door. She was not taking no for an answer, and after DeeDee stumbled out of Zach’s room and revived herself with coffee, the two of them full-on frog-marched me out of the building.
“You guys really didn’t have to come,” I say for probably the millionth time.
“Yes, we did,” Ingrid answers. “You think you would be here if we didn’t?”
I absolutely would not be here, and that seems pretty ideal at the moment.
“Look, I know friendship is kind of a new concept for you, but this is what friends do,” Ingrid continues, stepping in front of me so I’m forced to stop pacing the station. “It’s gonna be fine, Paige. You need this, and when it’s done, we’ll come get you, because that’s also what friends do.”
The world steadies itself just a little as I stand there staring at her.
“Right. Yeah.” I swallow. “Thanks.”
She gives me her signature half-smile. “Of course, you...um...I forget how to say ‘bitch’ in Vietnamese
.”
I grin. “I’ll give you another lesson sometime soon. You need to catch me up on my Dutch profanities too.”
“Monsieur Uber is here!” DeeDee calls out loud enough to turn a few heads.
Between Ingrid in all her sexy rock star glory, DeeDee with her Technicolor hair and is-she-on-speed-or-not exuberance, and me having a minor emotional crisis, we’re giving the train station its fair share of morning entertainment.
I close my eyes and take a breath. “Here we go.”
The ride to my house takes about fifteen minutes, and I fidget the whole way there. I get out of the passenger side after we pull up in front of the red brick bungalow. I left the backpack I brought with Ingrid and DeeDee, so it’s just me and my hoodie standing here in the driveway as the Uber pulls away.
My mom’s black Jetta is in the driveway, and my heart jumps into my throat when I realize who the new teal Mitsubishi next to it must belong to. My sister’s favourite colour is teal.
As if this encounter couldn’t get any more awkward. I had to show up at the same time Isabella is visiting. From the rare times I talk with my parents, I gather she’s here a lot, going over managerial stuff with my mom.
I don’t know if I can face Isabella and still say what I need to say. She was the hardest part about leaving this place for good. I know she didn’t want me around. I know that even back then, we’d grown so far apart we were really only sisters in name. I’d lost her before I even left, but that’s not enough to stop the regret or the doubt.
I don’t have room for regret or doubt today. I consider just walking away and strolling around the neighbourhood until she leaves, but if I do that, I’m going to go on strolling straight back to Toronto.
I have to do this now, or the modicum of nerve I’ve worked up is going to leave me.
I take another few deep breaths. I focus on the asphalt under my feet, on the distance between me and the front door, and as I get closer, my head gets clearer and clearer.
I’m angry. In fact, I’m furious, but there’s a purpose to the rage, a direction. I don’t want to live this way anymore. So much of who I’ve become is a reaction to the things that happened in this house. I built my whole life around the idea of not getting hurt again, but it’s making me hurt other people. It’s making me hurt myself.
