by Kit Frick
He ran his fingers through his hair, considering. He looked too tired to put up much of a fight. Then he stepped aside, making a sweeping gesture toward the living room. “Behold. The Cole habitat in all its glory.”
The carpet was worn and stained in spots. Cordelia’s toys were all over, and the coffee table was a landing zone for mugs and stacks of mail. In the middle of it all sat the couch, the room’s bizarre focal point. Upholstered in a loud red and green plaid, it looked like a giant, forgotten Christmas gift, still waiting to be unwrapped.
The room was a little dusty, and a little dark. The heavy brown drapes and wood-paneled walls weren’t doing it any favors. But it wasn’t like it was a hoarder house or filled with trash or anything.
“It just needs a little light,” I said.
“Or something. We’ve been meaning to replace the couch.” He lifted the bag from my shoulder and set it down on the floor. “What’s this?”
“I thought I’d stay over.”
He didn’t respond right away. It was as if he hadn’t heard me, was somewhere else entirely. After a minute, he said, “I went to this amazing show last night. I stayed out really late, walking along the river, and the music just stayed with me.”
I recognized the look on his face—it was how I felt in the shop sometimes, totally lost in creating. I imagined that was how music made Matthias feel.
“Anyway, I just got home a few hours ago. I guess I fell asleep.”
Right. So that explained the unshowered look. Matthias coughed again and rubbed at his eyes. He looked hungover.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “We could order Rosa’s.”
“I need to write, while the show’s still fresh. I guess you can hang out, but I’m not going to be the best company.” His palms were open, take it or leave it.
In retrospect, just thinking about the whole pathetic scene makes me cringe. I should have turned around, walked back out to the car. But staying was so easy to justify, when going home meant giving up. I still thought we had something to fight for.
“You write, I’ll be down here. I have eight chapters of Faulkner to get through by Monday.”
He reached behind me to close the front door. “Just don’t go in the TV room, okay? Or the kitchen.” He looked torn between apologizing and running away.
“Scout’s honor. I will stick to the living room.”
It was six. I resolved to make myself scarce and actually get some homework done. We had all night. Things would turn around.
But when Matthias still hadn’t emerged by eight, I put Faulkner down and stood up to stretch. My stomach was growling, and the lumpy Christmas couch was starting to leave permanent plaid imprints on my butt. Being alone down here was getting weirder by the minute. It had been two hours; how long could it possibly take to write a blog post? I passed the TV room on the way to the stairs. I didn’t have to go in to see that it was Ricky Cole’s territory, a disaster zone. The stale booze smell wafted out into the hall. I headed up to Matthias’s room.
“Hey.” I stood in the open doorway, waiting for him to notice me.
Matthias glanced up from the wooden workbench that served as a desk, where he was hunched over his laptop. His bed was half made in a hasty, spread-up kind of way. Otherwise, the room was neat, almost spartan. No clothes on the floor. No piles of records. He had exactly two posters on display, both framed, both hung perfectly straight. Next to his laptop stood a single framed picture of Matthias hanging out with Dave and the Smurf by the Franklins’ pool.
This was not the bedroom I had imagined. Dark and poster plastered. Cluttered, messy.
What else had I been getting wrong?
“I need to ask you something, about Ret and Dave.”
His eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Did you tell her what you told me, about the stuff with your dad?” Last week, I’d found them all together in the woods by school. Drinking, hanging out. Doing whatever they were doing without me. I kept seeing Ret, collapsing in giggles into Dave’s lap, liquid sloshing out of her cup and into the pine needles. She was still keeping him close, her little secret. I hated the thought of them together, but Ret did what she wanted.
“No one knows about that except you,” he said. “And you’ll keep it that way?”
“Of course,” I said. And I meant it. Telling Ret the truth would only make Dave more appealing, his dark side even darker. I could see that now. It was better if she didn’t know.
I stared at my boyfriend for a long moment. Then I took a step into the room, and another. Things had been terrible for weeks, but it didn’t have to be that way. Fighting for us did not mean sitting downstairs with a book. It meant reminding him of the way we used to be. The way we could be again. I slid into his lap and pressed my lips against his. I could feel my throat tighten with need—I need you, Matthias. I need us to be okay.
“Ellory, stop.” His voice was edged with something rough. He leaned all the way back in his chair, away from me. He looked at me like he didn’t even know me, and suddenly, it was perfectly, terribly clear. I’d been fooling myself all night. There was nothing to fight for when he didn’t want me here. Not at all. Not downstairs reading and definitely not in his room, not kissing him.
I felt sick. If I didn’t get out of there immediately, I might actually throw up. Somehow, I was moving, pushing myself up from the chair, onto my feet. Everything was unsteady, my legs were wobbling, but I was standing, backing away toward the door.
“Ellory, I’m sorry.” Something I couldn’t quite place crossed his face like a shadow. For a second, it was like he saw me as a vase teetering on the edge of a shelf, and if he reached out fast enough, he could still keep me from falling. But then the moment passed. He turned his head, his eyes latching back onto the computer screen. He might want to save me, salvage this moment, but more than that, he wanted to get back to his blog post. He wanted me gone.
“Ret texted me,” I said, a lie, an excuse. “She needs a ride to Jenni’s.” It may as well have been true. Everyone was probably already there, or would be soon. I’d get in the car, and in ten minutes, I’d be there too. I’d just go join my friends like everything was normal, and then it would be. I felt a sick twist of pride. If there was one thing I’d mastered over the last few months, it was faking normal.
“We should talk. . . .” His voice trailed off. This time, I understood his words for what they were. A thin offering he hoped I wouldn’t take. They were the words you said when you were trying to be polite, but you didn’t mean it. I should have understood that two hours ago. So naive, Ellory. So fucking naive.
“No.” I just wanted to get out of there and forget I’d ever come. When I got to the doorway, I stopped, just for a second. “You’re busy. We’ll talk later.”
I didn’t wait for him to say anything. I took the stairs two at a time and grabbed my stuff, and I couldn’t get outside fast enough. It wasn’t until the door clicked shut behind me and the early spring air whipped against my face like a chilly sheet that I finally let myself breathe. I gasped, leaning forward, clutching the Coles’ porch railing, sucking in gulp after gulp of air.
When I could move again, I hurried down to the driveway and unlocked the Subaru. I didn’t look up to Matthias’s window. I didn’t check to see if he was watching me. I’d never felt so glad to slide into the driver’s seat, to feel the cool cushion press against my back and legs. I started the car and switched on the lights and backed down the drive, not stopping to pull over until I was three blocks away and the house was completely out of sight. Gone. Like tonight had never happened. Then, I texted Ret.
What are you up to?
At Jenni’s. Obviously. You with Matty?
Change of plans. On my way.
We’re about to order pizza. You in?
Absolutely.
My fingers trembled against the screen. Ret had no idea how messed up I felt. No one did. I resolved to keep it that way.
34
MAY �
� JUNE, SENIOR YEAR
(NOW)
Ret hasn’t been in English all week, the last week of senior year. The days until graduation tick by fast, and now that I need her, she’s gone.
On Friday, Mr. Michaels helps me load my sculptures and bins of materials into the back of the Subaru. There’s a lot to carry. Ever since January, I’ve been on fire, completing piece after piece, the last few months more than making up for my lackluster fall. I promise to look for him tomorrow in the stands, then I start up the car and drive to the break in the guardrail. I haven’t been here in months, not since that day over winter break when I came back to clean up our trash, alone. Now it’s warm, bright. The sun is like a soft blanket against my bare arms as I slip between the metal ties, scramble down the bank.
Even before I reach the rough tangle of weeds that conceals our usual spot, I know she’s not here. Hasn’t been in months. The grass is thick and undisturbed in the places our feet used to tamp it down, and the few pieces of litter I step over belong to a stranger. The straw from a juice box. Car ads in a faded newspaper. One purple shoelace.
I push through the weeds, and our spot is just as I left it in December, except greener, filled with dandelions and thick, uncut grass. I sink back into the empty hollow in the bank, Ret’s hollow, and let my head fall softly against the weeds and dirt at my back. There’s no flask to pass back and forth, no memories to unearth and hold up to the light. No stories to tell each other, to make ourselves feel better about the girls we were. The girls who tore each other apart.
Instead, I dig my fingers into the damp earth near the shoreline and uncover a handful of pebbles. I rinse them off, then lean back and toss each tiny stone into the river. I watch the water swallow them, one by one, and my mind drifts back to Wednesday, to my last school-mandated session with Dr. Marsha. We talked about Portland, about all the good progress I’ve made with my list.
Then I said the first truly honest thing I’ve said to her in months.
“I just don’t know how to resolve things with Ret. Not without a time machine. Without a total redo.”
I waited for her to contradict me, to tell me I’d find a way. It was the last time we’d meet in that gray and navy room. Maybe she’d even hand me the answer, a parting gift.
“Sometimes,” she said, “life gives us problems that resist easy solution. This isn’t one you get to fix, Ellory. Your job is to keep moving forward.”
Of all the possibilities, I’d never imagined a free pass: You don’t have to find a solution because there isn’t one. Let the sheer impossibility set you free.
I toss the last pebble into the water and watch it disappear. If I’d been telling her the whole truth all along, not parceling out bite-sized morsels week by week, she wouldn’t have let me off the hook so easy. Sorry, Dr. Marsha. I didn’t like lying to you. But what choice did I have, when I knew what you’d say? You would have called my behavior unhealthy. Drinking, sneaking around, living inside the past—Ret & Ellory against the world, one more time.
And you would have been right.
I look around the deserted bank, my only company a mama duck and her seven ducklings bathing in the shallows beneath the bridge. Now that I’m here, Ret’s nowhere to be found.
I stand up, dust the dirt off the back of my jeans. Suddenly, I know what I have to do. There’s one place Ret and I can be alone, one place I know she’ll meet me. If I’m honest, I’ve known it all along. The answer wasn’t in therapy, it wasn’t at Pine Brook, and it’s not here at the river either. Graduation is tomorrow, and after that, I’ll finally be ready.
35
APRIL, JUNIOR YEAR
(THEN)
It was remarkably easy to avoid someone at Pine Brook when the only period you had together was lunch. I knew the halls Matthias took between classes. I took a different route. I had no idea I was developing skills that would get me through senior year, skills I’d come to live by. I just needed to get through the week.
On Monday and Tuesday, I skipped the sky dome and clocked extra hours in the metal shop, working on a new sculpture. This one was different than any I’d attempted before. Bigger. Angrier. Sometimes I heated piece after piece of steel scrap and twisted until it threatened to snap. Sometimes the metal broke and I threw it away. Kept going. Twist, coil, twist, coil. Figure out later how the pieces fit.
On Tuesday night, Matthias texted me.
You sick? Haven’t seen you in school. Was hoping we could talk.
I waited an hour to text him back. My fingers were heavy typing out the words.
Not sick, just need some time. Talk later, OK?
OK. Let me know.
On Wednesday, I braved lunch. Matthias waved at me from across the sky dome, and I lifted my hand in response, barely waving back. He didn’t push back his chair to come over. Good. I let my arm drop back down into my lap. It weighed a thousand pounds.
“What’s going on with you this week?” Jenni asked. “You’ve been kind of quiet.”
Jenni had been kind of quiet herself, ever since Ret and Jonathan had split. I wasn’t sure if she was actually into him, or if she was just letting Ret burrow deep under her skin. If I hadn’t been so entirely absorbed in my own problems, I might have thought to ask. But I stayed silent, and Ret wouldn’t let it go. Remember that time when Jenni liked Jonathan? Remember that time when Jenni thought she had a shot? It was Ret’s favorite new joke.
“It’s nothing,” I said. Everyone was looking at me from around our little table. Three pairs of concerned eyes passed over my tray of barely touched tacos and rested on my face. “I was thinking about this new project I’m working on. I must have zoned out.”
Bex turned to Jenni. “You have to let the artiste work. You have seen Frida, right?”
Jenni shook her head, no.
“Basquiat?” Another no from Jenni.
Bex sighed. “We have films to watch.”
The tortured artist act seemed to satisfy Jenni, at least for the moment. I picked up a taco and took a big, deliberate bite. I could feel Ret’s eyes still burning into my face long after the others had moved on to discussing Lizza Kendrick’s new pixie cut. (Daring, but all wrong for her face.) I knew Ret wasn’t buying what I was selling, but she didn’t press. For some reason, she was letting me off the hook.
The week dragged. I ducked into the bathroom on Thursday after French. When I came out, Ret, Dave, Matthias, and the Smurf were standing together, leaning against Dave’s locker and laughing at some joke I told myself I didn’t want to know. Ellory. Hey, Ellory. I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept my head down. I pretended not to hear his voice. Talking meant admitting that Saturday had actually happened. That it had really been that bad. My mind looped back and back and back to that moment. My weak, rubber band legs. The look on his face: how he wanted me gone. Every time I saw him across the sky dome or leaving class or closing his locker door, that look was all I could see. Every time, I felt sick all over again.
On Friday, I forced myself to wait at his locker after school, my stomach churning, my boots like lead weights against the hall floor while droves of Pine Brookians ran toward the stairwell. It was the last day of school before spring break, and eighth period had officially let out. The halls were filled with shouts and high fives and hands banging against locker doors. I had never felt so uncelebratory.
But I couldn’t put this off any longer. I needed to talk to him today, right now. I’d waited until the last possible moment, and I couldn’t let this silence drag out into break. Not talking was starting to feel worse than talking. By three fifteen, the building was clearing out. Still no Matthias. I fiddled with my phone, pretending to check Instagram.
“He skipped last period.” My head jerked up. The Smurf was standing in front of me. “He’s downtown, I think. Preparty supply run.”
“Hey, Steve.” I shoved my phone into my bag and forced a smile. “I must have forgot. Thanks.”
“No big. See you at Franklin’s?”
Shit. Dave Franklin’s spring break kick-off party. I had completely forgotten. If things were normal, I’d be going with Matthias. We’d make it a throwback to last June, spend the entire night on the living room couch. But things were far from normal.
I pushed open the big doors at the front of the school and the bright afternoon sunlight wrapped itself around my skin. It felt pretty, soothing. It felt totally wrong.
* * *
Five hours later, the dinner table was clear, and Dad and I were loading the last of the dishes into the dishwasher.
“Important call?” He glanced at my phone, and I slipped it back into my pocket. “You’ve been looking at that thing every five seconds.”
“Sorry.” I lifted the big pot, the one we always loaded on top, and fit it snugly over the tumblers. “I thought I might go out, but now I’m not so sure.”
“To Jenni’s?” Dad dried off his hands with the dish towel and folded it back over the bar on the stove door.
“Yeah, Jenni’s,” I lied. “I’m just not feeling so hot.” Truth.
“You know your mom and I would be happy to have you stay in for a movie night. She just raided the video store that was closing on Market.”
“The Rent-a-Flick is closing?”
“It’s official. We are the last family in America to still collect DVDs. She brought home two shopping bags, you should pick something out.”
“I might still go out. I’ll decide soon, okay?”
I gave my dad a kiss on the cheek and headed to my room, Bruiser emerging from nowhere to follow me down the hall. I needed to turn off, chill out. My room meant no need for big smiles. No pretending everything was just super. I closed the door and flopped across my bed, and Bruiser settled in a ball at my feet. The comforter was soft and cool beneath my skin. I pressed my face into it and exhaled.
A minute later, I checked my phone, again. Nothing. After this week’s vow of silence, what would I say? Want to meet me at Dave’s party, start over? By the way, about last Saturday. Can we pretend that never happened?
