Someone: That’s how life can feel to me when I’m at my worst. Diversion can be fine for a while. Sights and sounds. Trippy. But I guess what I learned—and it wasn’t easy—is that in order to live, you have to believe that life is real.
M: My real and your real are not the same.
Someone: I think they are. Even if our perceptions skew us, we all share the same real.
M: I’m not sure I can get there.
Someone: You can.
A
Day 6102
I should be crashing. It’s been a long day in Joanie Kennedy’s body. School. An intense chemistry lab. Skateboarding with her friends after school. Dinner with Mom and Dad and Brother.
And also, in the middle, the forty-five minutes in study hall when she wrote an email she’ll never remember, never know about.
She has been checking her phone ever since. Between every period. During the chem lab, to the annoyance of her lab partner. She tried to take the phone along when she ran track during gym, but the coach spotted it from a kilometer away, and it went into the locker. But even when she took it out of the locker—nothing. At the skate park, she kept looking at her phone and looking out into the distance, mind elsewhere. Her friends noticed but didn’t say anything. (They also didn’t say anything about how bad her skating was when she did try.) Not before dinner or after dinner or when she went to the bathroom to check her phone during the middle of dinner.
Of course, Joanie wouldn’t care.
But I can’t think of anything else.
Certainty and doom are keeping close company in my mind. I am sure I said too much. I am sure I said the wrong things. I am sure I scared her away. I am sure I broke a promise. I am sure I made things worse.
But I won’t be totally sure until I hear back from her.
If I hear back from her.
After dinner, I listlessly work on Joanie’s history homework. It’s already nine o’clock in Maryland. Ten o’clock. Eleven. Rhiannon must have checked her email.
Midnight.
I am more alone than I’ve ever been. My life has always been full of small abandonments. This is my first big one.
I’m not taking it well.
12:01 her time. If I were there, I’d be asleep. If I were there, I’d be nowhere. I’d be inside someone’s sleep, unknown and unknowable until that person’s body woke up.
10:08 here. I check the phone. There’s an email from her.
A,
Now that I know how to reach you, I’m not sure what to say.
You didn’t ask any questions in your email. So I am not sure which answers you want and which you don’t.
Or maybe it’s all one big question. Is it possible that’s what we’ve always been for each other: a question? Never an answer. You have never been an answer for me. I have never been an answer for you. It felt like an answer, maybe. But when it came time to make it real, to say it out loud—we lost the ability to answer. The questions took control again.
You say you thought the best thing would be for us to be separate, to have our own lives. Maybe you found your own life. But you didn’t leave me with my own life. You left me with a boyfriend who feels like he was found for me, which is a shitty way to start a relationship. You left me with friends who will never in a million years understand what I’ve been through, or what I’m thinking or feeling. And, more than anything else, you left me with questions.
You say you want me to be happy. But you don’t ask me if I’m happy. Which makes me wonder if you really want me to be happy or if you just want to feel less guilty about leaving. If you want me to say it was all for the best…Nope. Sorry. You made it worse. This whole time, you could find me. And you knew I could never find you. Did you honestly think that would make me happy?
Sometimes you’re a memory that I’m not really sure happened. There are hours when I forget I ever knew you. But there are many more hours when I remember.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: I’ve missed you. But you coming back only makes me realize how mad I am.
R
I don’t have much time to respond. I don’t know what to say—I never thought it out this far, never planned how to answer her understandable anger. All I can do it push right into it.
Dear Rhiannon,
I am so sorry. I’m sorry I left you with so many questions. I’m sorry I don’t have any of the answers.
I can’t pretend to know how to do this. Any of it.
I’m not like you. I’ve never been in love before. I’ve never been in a relationship before. You’ve learned things I haven’t learned. I didn’t want to break up with you, but I knew I had to. I didn’t want you chained to the impossible. I left the way I left because I believed it was the best way to leave you. I’m sorry if it wasn’t. I didn’t know how to do it, and the only person I could have talked to about it was you—but that seemed wrong. I should have talked it over more with you. Even if it meant having the same conversation over and over again until we hated each other’s guts—at least it wouldn’t have felt so sudden.
I don’t want to ask you questions because I don’t want you to feel obligated to give me answers. But I guess I will say that only to ignore it, because of course the biggest question I have is: What do you want to do now? I will do whatever you want me to do. I made the decision last time. You get to make the decision now.
A
A
Day 6103
A,
Sorry. Fell asleep last night. Have to get to school soon. So this will have to be quick.
I guess I understand that while this specific situation is (very) new to me, the whole relationship field is new to you. Welcome! It sucks! (Except when it’s amazing.)
So, keeping in mind that you have no idea what you’re doing, I’ll educate you when I say: You can’t make it my decision. I understand what you mean, but this isn’t the kind of thing where we take turns. The point is that we should always be making the decisions together.
It feels wrong to type that. It feels wrong to say that there’s a “we.” There is no “we.” You took apart that “we.” And I’m not going to put it back together as easily as typing a sentence with that two-letter word in it.
I don’t even know what our options are. All I know is that absolute silence is not the way to go. We tried that. It didn’t work. At least not when it comes to moving on.
Gotta go now. Promised Preston a coffee run.
R
R,
I don’t know what our options are. I’m frightened by how excited I am, just talking to you.
A
A,
There’s a part of me that’s like: This isn’t happening. Not again. Don’t do this again.
That’s the smarter part.
But the other part of me is welcoming it. Even as the smarter part tells me to shut up, don’t type that—well, I guess I just overruled any sense I have.
This doesn’t mean that I’m over being mad at you. I am still mad at you. But I’m also on the cusp of finding out what the next part is.
Who are you today?
R
R,
I’m myself. I’m always myself.
But I know what you mean.
Today I’m Christopher Mowrer. He has a pug named Gertrude that sleeps in his bed. It was hard for me to leave this morning.
That said…if there were any way for me to walk over there right now, I would.
Which is probably why it’s best I can’t.
Who are you today?
A
A,
I’m a girl caught in her own confusion. I can’t even tell if I’m its prisoner or if it’s the only thing keeping me going.
Preston tried to help. He thinks I’m having problems with Alexander. He gav
e me the all-relationships-have-rough-patches speech, like he’s been married for forty years instead of dating someone for two months. I played along, because I could tell he was enjoying how useful he was being, and because he was reminding me that I have a boyfriend who treats me well and who is, if I step outside of the confusion and see him for who he is, a pretty awesome guy. I wish I had met him another way.
But that’s not what happened. And it’s easy to pretend that he could have gotten my attention even when I was with Justin, and that he could have gotten me away from Justin. Except…that doesn’t feel true. You were the one who did that. Because you were the only one who saw me and understood what I needed. At least at first.
What happened to us?
R
R,
What happened is that I started to not be myself. I started to see myself through your eyes instead of through my own. And I imagined a judgment there that I couldn’t escape. I’m not saying that you were judging—you weren’t. But there are some people you want to kiss more than others. There are some people you can imagine being with and some you can’t. That’s human. It’s not the way it should be, but it’s the way it is. And I kept worrying each day when I woke up that I wouldn’t be good enough for you. And, even worse, I couldn’t get out from under the burden of knowing I would always be leaving you.
So I left for good. To stop leaving you day after day. And to preserve myself before I started taking my frustration and insecurity out on the bodies I was in. I see people harming their bodies all the time. I didn’t want to become one of them.
Again: These are not things that you did to me. They are things that are part of what my life is. And there is no way to change them. No real way.
A
A,
But we didn’t really try, did we?
(I can’t believe I’m saying that.)
R
R,
What do you mean?
A
A,
I mean, we gave it a couple of weeks. YOU gave it a couple of weeks. You were never too far away. And even when you were too far away—if we had known that there’d be a next day, and a day after that, it wouldn’t have mattered as much.
Here’s the weird part (okay, there are lots of weird parts): The whole time, I thought we were talking to each other, being honest. But now I’m seeing there were all these things we weren’t talking about—like how you were afraid of how I might see the body you were in. And how we needed to figure out that a relationship could work even if we weren’t seeing each other every single day. But instead of having those conversations, we stopped having conversations altogether.
Until now.
R
R,
So are you saying you’d want to try again? It’s still impossible.
A
A,
I don’t know what I’m saying, to be honest. I’m not saying things in order to lead up to something. I’m saying things in order to find out where I’m going.
I was supposed to be hanging out with Alexander now. But I couldn’t. I told him I wasn’t feeling well. When what I meant was that I’m feeling uneasy. Uncertain. Calling everything into question and wanting to bend it into the answer I want. I don’t think that in itself is love. But it can definitely be a side effect.
What the hell am I doing?
R
R,
I don’t want you to have to lie to Alexander. Or anyone.
A
A,
What’s the alternative, exactly? Telling the truth?
The only person I could possibly tell is Nathan. Remember Nathan? Basement party? Thought he was possessed by the devil? He found me. We talked. And even though he’s about as romantically clueless as you are, it’s incredible to be able to tell the truth out loud without setting off any alarms.
But I haven’t texted Nathan to tell him about all of this. He listened when I missed you, but I’m not sure if he’ll listen now that I’ve found you. I think he’d give me the same advice any friend would give if I could tell them what the story was. I can hear Rebecca’s voice in my head (remember Rebecca?): You got what you wanted. You got your apology. You know A’s alive. Don’t push it.
But I’m going to push it.
Where are you?
R
A
Day 6104
R,
Denver.
Specifically, at a debate tournament at Littleton High School, a little south of Denver.
More specifically, competing as Bernardo Garrido. Luckily, his category is Extemporaneous Speech.
Good morning.
A
A,
Good afternoon.
Denver is far. Very far.
And I can’t spend all day writing to you and thinking about what to write to you and wondering about what you’re doing. I can’t.
R
R,
What if I were closer?
A
A,
But you’re not.
R
R,
But what if I were?
A
X
I haven’t answered his phone. I haven’t checked his mail. I haven’t picked up his dry cleaning. I have been separating him as much as possible from his life.
But still, I’ve been careless.
I’m just back from a run, so I’m taking a shower. I don’t hear anyone come into the place. I don’t even sense something’s not right as I’m toweling off. It’s only after I’m out of the bathroom, heading to the bedroom in the guy’s silk robe, that I see her sitting in the den, waiting for me.
“Will you look at that?” she says. “You’re alive.”
Ex-wife or sister? I ask myself—her tone is one or the other.
Sister, the response comes.
She goes on. “Showering in the middle of the day? What a life you lead, Pat.”
“I was out for a run,” I explain.
“So I heard. Ran away from your office. Ran away from your friends. Even ran away from your reading group.”
“I have a reading group?”
“Yeah. You do. And just like Donna from your office, and Ralph and Jack and some other friends of yours, the woman in charge of your reading group—Elsa? Elisa?—called me to ask where you’d gotten to, and if you were okay. Said it wasn’t like you to skip, especially for a month when you chose the book.”
“What book did I choose?”
“That’s not my point, Pat. My point is that I’ve tried to call you, and I’ve tried to email you, and finally I had to come over here to see if you died in your sleep.”
“I didn’t.”
“A pity. If you were already dead, I wouldn’t feel such a pressing need to kill you.”
Her delivery’s good, and I almost laugh. But I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of a positive response.
“Now that you’ve seen proof that I’m alive, can you show yourself out?” I say instead. “I have things to do.”
“Like what? Is there a support group for people like you who want to disappear? Is it called Anonymous Anonymous?”
I go into my bedroom and close the door. I take my time putting on clothes. I know I’m not getting rid of her easily, but I can sure as hell make her wait.
I also try to grab hold of some of the memories he has left. This is his only sibling. Their parents are dead. She lives alone. It’s been a while since he’s seen her.
I take fifteen minutes before I go back to the den. She continues talking like it was only fifteen seconds.
“So are you in trouble? Is that it? If you are, you covered your tracks well, because nobody’s accusing you of anything besides disappearing. Although your friend from reading group did insinuate you
may have skipped because you didn’t read the book, after forcing them all to read it. Heathen.”
Now I laugh, and she looks at me like she’s scored a point.
“I did read the book,” I say to her.
“And which book was it again?”
“The one with all the words.”
“That must’ve been hard for you.”
“Do you want me to get you something to drink?” I offer. “There’s plenty of rat poison under the sink.”
“Too much caffeine,” she replies.
I don’t want to be enjoying her company. I feel the urge to yank her out of the chair, dislocate her shoulder, push her down the front steps. I was just getting into my routine, and this is disrupting the routine. It is essential that I not have anyone else around.
She stands up. I notice she’s had her keys in her hand this whole time.
“Look,” she says, coming a little closer, “I don’t know if this is a life crisis or a religious epiphany or if you just woke up one morning and said, Fuck it, I want a new life. If that’s the case, hooray for you. But you still have to return the calls of the people who care about you. That’s Human Being 101. And while you were never a great student in that particular class, you always managed to pass.”
“It’s easier without anybody,” I tell her. “You don’t know how easy it can be.”
“You don’t believe that.”
I look her right in the eye and say, “I do.”
She sees something then—something in her brother that scares her. She blinks it back, but I catch the moment before the blink, the slip of the composure.
“Let’s get dinner,” she says.
“I don’t want dinner,” I tell her.
“You’ve got to eat.”
“Yeah. But I don’t have to eat with you.”
She tries to smile it off with a sarcastic reply. She says, “I forgot how much I love this side of you.”
Someday Page 14
