The Last to Let Go

by Amber Smith

  I keep thinking any minute she’s going to drag us out of our apartment, but as each day passes, I have a feeling Aaron didn’t tell her that he left. I’ve called him about a thousand times, but no answer.

  I’m only half here tonight, I can’t concentrate, I’m not paying attention. The line is suddenly out the door. People are impatient. I feel like I’m moving in slow motion. I’m supposed to be taking orders, manning the register, and Owen is supposed to be in the back, doing prep and dishes and whatever else needs to be done in the back. Weak spots in my head start to crackle, those old fault lines buckling under the weight of my thoughts.

  Owen must hear people complaining and making a fuss. That must be why he comes out of the kitchen, why he’s standing next to me now. “Chill,” I hear him tell me quietly, his voice smooth and cool. He reaches out and places his hand over mine. We both look down. My hands are trembling. “It’s okay. Just chill,” he repeats.

  He starts joking with the customers, turning on the O—O—Ohhh charm, getting drinks and to-go orders lined up, diffusing all the tension, somehow, in a matter of seconds. We don’t have to discuss it, it works—he takes care of the angry people, and all I have to do is focus on taking their money, no small talk, no chitchat, just business.

  Some of them got so pissed at how slow I was going that they left. And then a bunch of them leave their cash on the counter the second Owen gets their stuff, not willing to wait around any longer for me to ring them up. I have four different pockets in the front of my apron, and so I stuff four different piles of abandoned money into the separate pockets and try as best as I can to make a mental note of their corresponding orders.

  It seems like we get that whole line of people taken care of in no time at all. And when it’s just us again, he looks at me for too long, like he’s waiting for an explanation. When I don’t offer one, he says simply, “You good?”

  I say “Yes” even though I feel my head moving back and forth, not up and down.

  “So, what—is this about that punk-rock chick who came in here last night?”

  “Punk-rock chick,” I repeat, my stomach sinking slowly. “What punk-rock chick?”

  “Some girl. She asked for you. I told her you weren’t here. Then she asked if your mom was here.”

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing.” He shrugs. “Didn’t get a chance. Jackie came up and started talking to her—seemed like they knew each other. They sat over there”—he points with his chin toward the table in the corner by the windows—“and talked for a long time.”

  “Oh my God,” I repeat, my hand flying to my mouth. That’s why Jackie called—not to bust me, but to ask me why Dani thinks, or thought, she was my mom. Maybe that’s why she didn’t come to school today. Why she didn’t pick up when I called her.

  After work I take my time getting home. I cut through the park, which I know is probably not a great idea after dark, but I don’t even care. Under the trees it’s so still and quiet, everything sparkling under a fresh layer of snow. As I walk along the riverbank, I realize it’s actually too quiet. When I look down, it’s more like a picture of the river than the real thing—an image on pause. It’s finally frozen over. The whole world is in suspended animation. Maybe now I’ll have a chance to catch up.

  When I get home, I see Dani’s car parked outside. As I cross the street, she unrolls her window and sticks her head out. “Get in, okay?”

  I do. It’s warm in here, the heat on full blast, the radio playing softly. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she repeats. “Sorry I didn’t answer when you called.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I was so mad at you I didn’t know what to say.” She reaches over and takes my hand. She pulls my glove off and wraps her warm fingers around mine. “But I’m not now. I want to understand.”

  “I know you talked to Jackie. I assume she told you everything.” I pause, giving her a chance to respond, but she only nods. “I planned on telling you what was going on, but there was never a good time.”

  “Yeah, but how could you not tell me something so huge? You let me believe Jackie was your mother. You let me believe your father was killed while he was working, like it was some kind of accident.”

  “It was an accident.” I let go of her hand now. “What, like I know every last thing about you?”

  “No, but that’s only because you haven’t found certain things out yet, not because I’m keeping important things from you.”

  I look away, shaking my head. Dani will never understand. “Look, I am sorry I was so upset the other night. I snapped at you and I shouldn’t have. I know you were trying to help. But there’s all this stuff between me and Aaron that I couldn’t explain right then.”

  “Well, if you had told me before, you wouldn’t have had to explain it right then when you were upset. I would’ve already understood what was going on and I could’ve helped, instead of you flipping out on me.”

  “Yeah,” I tell her, “I know.”

  “Can you explain it to me now?”

  I shake my head. “This isn’t fair,” I mumble. “None of this is fair.”

  “No, it’s not fair—here I am thinking we’re getting close. Thinking I know you and you know me, and what we have is real,” she says, her words speeding as she continues. “I told you I love you.”

  “I have very little control over anything in my life right now, and you don’t get to dictate what I tell you about myself and when I tell you.”

  “You think withholding real stuff about yourself gives you some kind of power? That’s extremely messed up.”

  “No. You’re twisting what I’m saying, Dani! It’s not about us or you—it’s about me, my life. God, can’t anything just be about me?” I yell.

  “Sorry, but no, our relationship—if that’s what we’re even calling this—can’t just be about you.” She crosses her arms and stares out the window. “You deserve better. That’s all I came here to say, Brooke. I don’t want to fight. I just wanted to tell you that you deserve better than all this stuff you’ve had to deal with.”

  “Do I?” She reaches for me, but I pull my arm out of her grasp. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Why is that a bad thing to say?”

  “Because, don’t you see? I’m one of them!” I tell her, raising my voice. “So what you’re really saying is that you deserve better.”

  “I am not,” she argues.

  “We’re not even having the same conversation right now, do you know that?”

  “Well, what is the conversation you’re having?”

  “What I’m trying to say is that it’s like you have all this information now. But you don’t even know what any of it means—you say you understand, but you don’t. Because you went behind my back and talked to Jackie instead of me—”

  “I tried to talk to you!” she interrupts, but I keep going.

  “And you say you want to be close, and you want to know me, but . . .” I stop to catch my breath. “Honestly, I feel like you’ve never known me less than you do right now. So, congratulations.”

  “You’re right,” she says, smiling sadly. “I don’t know this person. Not at all.”

  “Then we’re in agreement.” I crack the door open. The cold rushes in, not just into the car but into me; it gets into my blood and organs, freezing over my insides just like the river. “Good-bye, I guess.”

  I shut the car door. Then up the stairs, one by one. I unlock the door. Callie’s asleep on the couch, TV blaring. I don’t bother turning it down or shutting it off. I go straight to my room and close the door behind me.

  As I start undressing, every layer feels like a piece of armor that has been weighing me down. I get lighter and lighter. I reach into my apron pockets, and when I pull my hands out, I’m holding a wrinkled ten-dollar bill in one and a five in the other. In the other two pockets, three singles and a twenty.

  Shit.

  But as I lay it down on
my desk next to the envelope with the rent money, it adds itself up in my mind, an involuntary reflex. I look for a moment. I can give it back—I will give it back. Just not yet. I flatten out the extra thirty-eight dollars and stick it in the envelope with the rest.

  CRYSTALLOGRAPHY

  IF YOU’RE ABSENT FROM school for more than three days in a row, you need a doctor’s note when you go back. I read that in the student handbook before I started at Jefferson. That’s why I knew I’d be okay if I stayed home the rest of the week. I told myself I was giving Dani space to be mad at me. Giving myself space to work things out in my head.

  The thing I didn’t count on while pretending to be sick was actually getting sick.

  Maybe it’s karma, or contrapasso, or whatever, coming back to bite me in the ass. For stealing, for skipping school, for lying, for being mean and crazy, or for any number of things. Maybe that’s why Callie leaves. I can’t put up a fight, or at least not much of one, not when I’m laid up on the couch, half-empty bottle of NyQuil nestled in the crook of my arm, a steady pounding in my head, alternating between chills and fever that turn my blood to ice, then fire, alternately.

  “Where are you going?” I croak, my throat raw from all the coughing I’ve been doing. I lift my head from the pillow to see her walk across the living room with her coat and scarf and backpack. At first I think maybe I’ve slept through the entire night out here, but no—I look around, the streetlights are shining in through the windows—it’s still nighttime.

  She turns toward me and states matter-of-factly, “It’s been a week. He’s not back. I’m not staying here anymore. I’m going to Jackie’s.”

  “What?” I struggle to sit upright. “Callie, he’ll be back. He said he’ll be back. We can manage until then.”

  She shakes her head. “I’d rather stay at Jackie’s.”

  “He’s coming back, though. He’ll be back and then things will be . . .” I stop short because I hear my voice, though it’s so sore it barely works; it’s close to pleading again, sounding just like Mom, the way she’d beg Dad not to leave.

  She squares herself, plants her feet into the floor, and stands in front of me. “I’m. Not. Staying.” Her words are so firm, her voice so commanding, as if it’s taking a lot of resolve, almost like she’s standing up to me. Then I realize that’s exactly what she’s doing.

  So I watch her leave. And though it takes all my strength, I manage to twist my body around on the couch, my muscles aching and strained from whatever illness has seized my body. I watch as she gets into Jackie’s car. I watch as the red taillights fade fast into the falling snow, like static. I turn the TV off and sit in the dark for a while—I don’t know how long—and I watch as the snow comes down faster and faster, the light from the street reflecting against the blanket of microscopic crystals, casting a cool blue glow inside the apartment, so that I don’t even need any lights to see.

  I get up to go to the bathroom and make myself some more honey lemon tea, in hopes of repairing the damage to my throat, in hopes that with enough of it I might get my voice back in time for work tomorrow afternoon—even with the extra cash I accidentally brought home, I can’t afford to miss a day of pay. I put my mug into the microwave and press start. And then I stand there in the kitchen and try not to think of all the terrible things that have happened in here.

  I find my feet moving away, taking me to my room. I turn on the light and look around. “What did I come in here for?” I whisper, my voice seeming to echo and bounce back at me. That’s when I spot the snowflake book—the gift from Caroline. It’s been sitting in the same place on my desk since I brought it home from the courthouse. I pick it up and it feels heavier than it should, but I know that’s just because I’m sick and weak and all drugged up. I hear the beep-beep-beep of the microwave—two minutes and thirty seconds have passed, yet all I did was walk to my bedroom and stare at the book.

  I shuffle back out in my slippers and pajamas and the blanket I have draped around my shoulders. By the time I reach the couch, carrying my tea in one hand and the book in the other, it feels like I’ve run a marathon.

  I open the book and see that faded blue ink in the top corner again: This book belongs to Caroline. I flip to a section: “Crystallography of the Snow Crystal.” All about the observation and classification and properties, the crystalline structure of snow, and temperature and humidity—who knew there was even such a thing as crystallography? My eyes strain to read in the dim glow of snow light. So I flip through page after page of black-and-white images of individual snowflakes. They look ghostly, otherworldly, beautiful. Some are like stars and flowers, others like shattered glass or spiderwebs, fossilized remains of something forgotten and extinct, some kind of organism in between plants and animals. Thousands of them, like Caroline said—they’re obsessive, mesmerizing, unsettling, all in this weirdly tame way.

  Maybe this Bentley guy had the right idea. I study the picture of him on the inside cover. Snow dusts his coat and hat and gloves—he’s cold but smiling, hunched over the camera. Yes, I think he was onto something. Living alone. Just him and his snowflakes and his obsession. Not hurting anyone. Simple. Maybe the Winters family was meant to be alone like that—isn’t that when we all seem to run into trouble, when there are other people involved?

  I close the book and turn my attention to the real snowflakes that get stuck to the outside window screen, like insects in a web. One by one they get caught. They stay there, frozen in place for a little while, before they begin melting and freezing all over again, the heat emanating through the window from inside the apartment, warping them. Watching it happen, over and over, lulls me into a state of peace, a rare calmness settling over me.

  Maybe I’ll be a crystallographer, I think as my eyes close. I’ll learn all about snow and microscopes and cameras—I’ll learn how to be cold, how to be alone. Someday.

  LANDLINE

  EVERY DAY IS CLOCKWORK: school, Jackie’s, pocket a little extra cash, have a coughing fit, get a massive headache, swallow some pills, study in the empty apartment. Pretend I’m doing okay. I’ve managed to keep it going for almost a whole month, all on my own.

  While Aaron has yet to return any of my calls, he did send some money for rent, so I guess that’s something. I don’t know how he knows I’m still here—he must have someone, somewhere, checking on me. Which means he must still care in some small way. Maybe it’s Carmen or Mrs. Allister from downstairs.

  But something feels different on the walk home from school today. In fact, the whole day has felt off.

  The landline is ringing.

  I can hear it as I walk up the endless stairs to our apartment, my lungs ragged and still not functioning at capacity due to this cold that doesn’t want to go away. I drop the keys on the floor, pick them back up, try the lock again. Finally I make it inside. I race to the phone.

  “Hello?” I say into the receiver.

  The connection is bad. Static. But on the other end I hear pieces of the words: “. . . a collect call from . . . inmate . . . correctional facility. . . . To refuse this call, hang up. To accept this call, press one now.”

  I press the one button. Then I press the receiver to my ear even closer. Don’t want to miss a word. The automated voice says, “Thank. You.” There’s a click on the line.

  Then, “Hello, hello? Brooke, are you there?”

  I feel tears stinging my eyes. I miss you. I love you. I need you. I hate you. I’m sorry. I keep opening my mouth to speak, but it’s like a hand is reaching up the back of my throat, strangling the words out of me.

  “I don’t have long,” she says, and pauses, the line crackling. “Say something. Please. I miss you.” And then I hear it: She’s crying. She sniffles loudly and coughs like she’s trying to catch her breath. “Brooke,” she whispers. “I love you.”

  I slam the receiver down. Hard. But then I pick it back up immediately and bring it to my ear. “Mom?”

  But it’s just the moaning, empty dial ton
e.

  My voice echoes back at me, spiraling through the kitchen. I hang up again, softly this time. I run my fingers over the gentle crater in the wall next to the phone—the spot where Dad’s fist once landed. I sink down the wall onto the linoleum floor. I think about the way Dad’s hand looked the day he died, his body sprawled out only a few feet from where I’m now sitting.

  The phone rings again. I look up at it, but it’s too late. I can’t reach it. Aaron was right. There’s no saving this. It’s too late for us. The phone rings and rings and rings. Ten times, twenty times, a thousand times. I cover my ears. I close my eyes. I can’t feel my insides. I’m cold now. Frozen solid.

  GLASS SHATTERS

  “WHERE’S YOUR BROTHER?” Jackie asks as I arrive at their house for Callie’s thirteenth birthday party. “How did you get here—I thought you said Carmen was going to drive you.”

  I forgot about that lie.

  “Plans changed. Aaron had to work,” I lie again. “I took a cab.”

  “He had to work on your sister’s birthday?” she asks in disbelief.

  Callie walks up and, miraculously, covers for me. “Yeah, he called this morning to say happy birthday—he told me he was sorry he was going to have to work tonight.”

  I don’t know why she did that, but I’m thankful. I give her a small smile and she nods. Maybe Aaron’s talking to her. Maybe she’s the one keeping him in the loop.

  Being here is like walking directly into a tornado, twisting me back in time. I keep pulling my birthday sweater around me, tighter and tighter, trying to shield myself against the tornado’s pull. I want to ask Callie why she lied for me. But I can’t get a second alone with her.