Sasha sighs. “I didn’t say—”
“I shouldn’t have even asked you to the Snow Ball,” I say. “I shouldn’t have started any of this.”
He settles back on his heels. “Wow.”
This is all happening too fast. “I just… I think this might have been a mistake.”
“That was the point, remember?” he says. “Making a mistake.”
“Garfinkels don’t make mistakes! They make decisions.”
He laughs and takes a few steps away from me, his hands in his hair. For a second, I lose him in a flood of people leaving the station.
“Why…why are you laughing at me?”
He turns around. “I’m not,” he starts, and then he runs his hand over his mouth and comes back toward me. “Honey, I’m sorry, but you don’t…you don’t make shit!”
“What?”
“You don’t decide anything without asking everyone you can find. I still don’t know if we’d be together right now if most of the people you asked hadn’t said yes. Would we?”
I don’t say anything.
“I never know how you actually feel about anything because you’re too busy overthinking everything to death,” he says. “How do you feel? What do you actually want?”
I swallow and try to keep my voice measured. “This isn’t about you—”
“I know very well this isn’t about me, Isabel! Or about you. It’s about your mom and your friends and literally everyone else who isn’t in this relationship. You have been looking around waiting for us to fail since we got together.”
“That’s not true.”
“I see it all the time,” he says. “Every time I do something you don’t like, you’re calculating. Trying to figure out if the positives still outweigh the negatives.”
“Everybody does that,” I say.
“No. They don’t. People commit. So I am asking you. Do you want to be in this relationship? Not do you think you should. Not do you think we’re going to last forever. Not…not do you think anything, do you want to be in this relationship? That’s it. That’s all that matters.”
I say, “Just because you think it sounds nice doesn’t mean that’s all that matters.”
He puts his hand on his chest. “Do you want me to go first? I’ll go first. Yes, I want to be in this relationship.” He holds his hands out to me, waiting.
I say, “I just don’t know if—”
“Yes or no, Isabel.”
“It’s not that simple, I just think—”
“Yes or no!”
I say, “If you would just let me explain—”
“There is no explanation that is more important than just telling your boyfriend whether or not you want to be with him! Explain after, I don’t…” He’s breathing hard. “If the next word out of your mouth isn’t either yes or no I swear to God I’m walking out of here.”
“Yes or no,” I whisper.
“Exactly. If you want to be with me, Ibby, we will figure it out. We can get through all the bullshit, but you have to want it. And it’s…fuck, it is not right that we’ve been together for three months without me feeling like you actually want to be with me. So…please. Just stop crowdsourcing your life and tell me. Yes or no, or I’m walking out of here.”
So many thoughts are competing for attention in my head.
Remember when he told me this wouldn’t mess up our friendship?
If he walked away, I could just go home and not have to worry about anyone but me ever again.
If he walked away, it would feel like ripping out my stomach and I might curl up and die right here in the subway station.
I can’t believe we’re doing this in front of people.
Why won’t he just let me explain how complicated this is for me?
Maybe I’m just not doing it right.
Maybe I’m not doing anything right.
He’s really not breathing well.
But he just needs to listen, and then he’ll understand.
Except I don’t even know what I’m going to say.
I don’t know isn’t yes or no.
Can you give me some time to think about it isn’t yes or no.
Can I call someone and ask isn’t yes or no.
I don’t even know who I’d call anymore.
“Isabel, come on,” he whispers.
I take a deep breath. He watches me.
I say, “There are a lot of things about you that—”
He drops my backpack at my feet and disappears up the stairs.
What’s the worst thing
you’ve ever said?
—column postponed—
Chapter Twenty
I don’t sleep. I don’t write my column. I don’t go to school. I wait in my bed until my dad’s left for work, and then I go downstairs and eat peanut butter cups, standing over the sink and staring out our tiny window.
So I’m just supposed to believe that people fall in love and stay in love and don’t hurt each other? That’s some trajectory that supposedly happens?
I’m going to be the first woman in my family not to slaughter the person she loves?
I’m going to be the first person on this planet to be happy?
Sure.
This is exactly where I was standing two years ago, washing plates after dinner, when my dad stood behind me and screamed at my mother that she could disappear from this family and no one would even notice.
She stuck around for two years after that.
Let’s not act like everything Sasha said was wrong just because he hasn’t called.
…
Oh look, the couch.
This is where I was sitting when my mom told me she thought all the time about how she didn’t have a life since she’d had me, and no offense, but she just wondered every day what her life would have been like if she’d run away to Europe when she was twenty-six instead of settling down and marrying my father.
Cool, cool, no problems here.
…
Now let’s sit on the stairs, where I was standing when I screamed at my mom that if she was that unhappy, she should just leave instead of constantly beating us over the head with how unhappy we made her.
That was years ago, so it’s not why she left, and I’ve been kicking myself over it for months, and I’m done now.
…
This is where my father announced his promotion and told us he’d be home more.
This is where she made Passover dinner alone.
This is where she stroked my hair until three a.m. when I had a fever, even though she had work in the morning.
This is where she left the note for my dad and not for me.
This is where this is where this is where this is where
Sasha hasn’t called.
…
My dad comes home at six, which feels like some kind of personal attack. The one day I want to be alone, all of a sudden he’s coming home at a reasonable hour?
He frowns at me sitting on the stairs, still in my pajamas. “Did you stay home today?” he says.
I wish I had a cigarette, which is a weird thing to wish for because I’ve never smoked one, but I think it would make me look bored and nonchalant instead of pouty and unshowered. “Yes.”
He’s so uncomfortable. This might turn into talking about feelings, so he’s unprepared. “Are you sick?” he says.
Am I sick.
“I’ll be at school tomorrow,” I say.
“All right…”
I get up and go upstairs.
“Isabel,” he says.
“I have homework.”
I eat an old bag of chips I find under my bed for dinner and stare at my phone.
…
My boyfriend, who I love, asked
if I wanted to be with him and left before I could give my answer.
Which was: there are a lot of things about you I really like.
That’s it. That’s what I was going to say.
To my boyfriend. Who I love.
There are a lot of things about you I really like.
Thank God he walked out, honestly.
…
I go to school the next day like I’m supposed to, but on the subway I dream about confronting my father. I play the imaginary conversation over and over in my head and perfect what I would say to him.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I would say. “And I’ve decided it’s your fault. You lied to her. You belittled her. You chased her away. The only thing you did better than her is stick with me, and you don’t even know me. And that’s your fault, too. I’m a mess because of you. I have to be perfect because I have to prove to you that I’m not like her, and it will never work because I’m always going to be half her. But that’s not even my actual problem, which is that I’m half you.”
I don’t know what he would say. I’ve never confronted my dad about anything before.
It’s not as if I’m going to do it now.
But it’s nice to think about.
…
I barely listen in class. I write Sasha’s name in my notebook like an eight-year-old with a crush.
“Would we be Sverdlov-Deckler-Garfinkel or Garfinkel-Sverdlov-Deckler? I’m fine with either,” he said.
“Can you please be serious right now.”
I slam my notebook closed.
…
“Please remember the elevators are for maintenance staff and wheelchair users only,” says a prerecorded voice over the PA system. I’ve heard it a hundred times. “There will be no exceptions.”
…
“I’m sorry. I’m going to do better. It’s not charming anymore,” he said.
And I stood there while he promised to change and owned up to everything he’d done wrong, and I said, “Just not to me.”
…
My friends try to get my attention all through lunch, and I try to remember to smile and look like I’m listening. I guess it doesn’t work, because while we’re changing after gym—just me and Ashley and Maura; Luna and Siobhan have a different gym period—they start talking about how great Sasha is, which is a reasonable thing to expect would cheer me up, except nothing about me is reasonable right now.
The locker room’s just about empty, except for the three of us. They always take forever. I usually don’t mind. I sit on one of the benches and watch Ashley spin her combination lock. She locks it in between taking out her real clothes and putting her gym uniform back in. Why does she do that?
Maura puts on lip balm in her locker mirror. “He just has such a great attitude. He’s always, like…bouncy.”
That first day after he broke his arm, when he saw me in the hospital: Hitting the call button. Asking for something.
He must have been so nervous to do that.
“And he’s cute,” Maura says. “That’s very important.” She laughs a little at herself.
Ashley’s brushing her hair. “Do you think he ever thought he’d date someone like you?”
I look up at her.
“Um, yeah,” I say. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he?”
“Oh, you know.” She tugs at a tangle. “You’re a catch. It’s a compliment.”
If it’s a compliment, then why won’t she look at me?
“So’s Sasha,” I say.
She doesn’t say anything.
“Sasha’s great,” Maura says, but even she sounds like she feels the tension.
“You flirt with him all the time,” I say to Ashley. “Outside the school that time. At the skating party.”
“That was before you guys were together,” she says.
“That’s not my point. I’m not jealous. I’m just… You were flirting with him as what, a sport?”
She puts her brush back in her locker. “Would you rather hear that I was seriously hitting on the guy you liked?”
“Yeah, I would.”
She sighs and closes her locker. “I don’t know, I just didn’t see him as like…a serious dating contender. I guess I thought he might like being flirted with. I thought maybe it didn’t happen to him very often. Sue me for trying to do something nice.”
I stare at her. Maura’s behind her, chewing on her nail.
“What?” she says.
“That’s a fucking horrible thing to say.” And the worst part isn’t even that she said it, it’s that she said it like it was nothing.
She shrugs. “I was trying to give you a compliment. Won’t try that again.”
I grab my bag and stand up. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” I say on my way out of the locker room.
It’s the first thing I’ve done that I’ve felt good about in a long time.
…
I lie on my back on my bed, eating the crumbs out of the bottom of that bag of potato chips.
He still hasn’t called. Then again, neither have I. Everything he said in that subway station plays over and over in my head and I can’t make it stop.
I think he needs me to be someone that I’m not.
And that’s the kiss of death for a relationship, right? Imagine, changing for a boy. I always told myself if I ever got in a relationship, this would be me, take it or leave it. And now a guy wants me to…think less? That’s horrible. If a girl was asking me this question for my column, I would tell her to dump him, no questions asked.
Not that I ever answer questions for my column. I’m not going to do that. What if I’m wrong?
Goddamn it, I am so fucked up.
When Sasha agreed to change for me, I stood there in the hospital lobby and thought less of him for it. He was doing something nice for me, and I judged him for it.
If I make an exception for Sasha, where does it stop? I start changing every time someone wants me to?
And why? Because he loves me?
Because he wants me to be able to say what I want?
Because he sees me curling up inside myself instead of saying something that might not be the right thing to say?
Because he wants me to be able to enjoy something?
Because I’m literally going to ruin my life before it’s even started if I keep pretending that everything is fine and that nothing will ever be great?
I bite down on the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
His smile when we played Monopoly in his hospital room. The soft rasp of his voice telling me I didn’t have to go skiing. His soft hands when he fastened the brace around my wrist or when he led me away from the roller rink or when he took me to Times Square and I looked up and just for a second…
Imagine. Changing for a boy.
Imagine. Someone who wants me to be happy.
Imagine being happy.
I can’t keep this up. The most perfect people I know are a workaholic who drove his wife away and an ableist jerk in a locker room. That’s what happens when you’re trying to be perfect. You end up not accepting anyone who doesn’t fit the plan. Like a floppy-haired, green-eyed, emotionally stunted goofball with a debilitating chronic illness.
Or like me.
Goddamn.
I think I need me to be someone that I’m not.
…
Maura plunks her cafeteria tray down across from mine. I don’t look up.
I’m sitting alone at one of the tiny tables. Luna, Siobhan, and Maura sent me a bunch of texts last night, but I didn’t even look at them, and today I just came and found my own table without pausing at our regular one.
It’s fine. I need to think, anyway. I have a pen and a blank piece of paper in front of me, so clearly I’m making a lot of progress.
�
��I told Ashley I’m not sitting with her until she apologizes to you,” Maura says.
“I don’t care if she apologizes,” I say. “That’s not the point.”
“I know,” Maura says quietly.
I stab my mashed potatoes with my fork.
“She’s got some shitty ideas,” Maura says. “You know Ashley, she…she takes something and runs with it and doesn’t know when to…stop running with it.”
“It’s not just Ashley,” I say.
“What?”
I look up. “You say shitty stuff, too. And Luna and Siobhan, and fucking everybody. How about what you said at the New Year’s Eve party, about how I was dating Sasha like it was some kind of act of charity?”
“Okay, I was, like, blackout drunk. I don’t remember, but—”
“Were you blackout drunk when you said I shouldn’t date him because I shouldn’t settle for someone sick just because I think I can’t do better?”
“I just don’t want you to feel like you’re not worthy of anyone you want, whether or not they’re sick, just because you have, like, a condition.”
“Being sick is not a bad thing,” I say. “And you guys don’t get that. You will never get that.”
“Okay,” she says. “Maybe we’ll never get that. But also…have you really given us a chance to?”
“I’ve had RA for nine years,” I say.
“Yeah, you have, and you’ve wanted to talk about it for like, what, the last two months? It’s a pretty quick adjustment. If I’d asked you a year ago, I’m pretty sure you’d say being sick was a bad thing.” Maura stirs her soup, shaking her head. “You used to say you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, well, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I mean, you can feel however you want to feel about it, who am I to judge? But it seems like Sasha’s really, like, opened your eyes to feeling positive about this thing you have, and that’s great! I’m super happy for you. But you can’t just…you can’t make this big shift and not even tell us about it and then dump us because we’re not adjusting when you didn’t even give us a chance to adjust.”
Sick Kids In Love Page 20
