by Charlee Fam
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His mother’s soft footsteps padded over the carpeting upstairs. I avoided her. I never knew what to say to her. Adam never talked about Max then. We’d known each other nearly five months—together, officially, for two. It was just before winter break of freshman year, and I could tell he was bummed about the holidays, like he didn’t even know how to bring it up with his parents, didn’t know the protocol of celebrating. When I’d asked him to come Christmas shopping with me, he’d changed the subject and made up some half-assed excuse, like he had to cook or catch up on his English homework. But like I said, I’d never seen him open a book.
“What about Vermont?” Adam asked, his voice cutting into the silence, except for those footsteps overhead. He was sprawled out over his black leather couch in a pair of flannel pajama pants. “Vermont’s nice, right?”
“Sure, I guess it’s okay. Why?” I asked without looking up.
“I mean for college. Would you go with me?” I felt my eyes flicker, but I caught myself and focused on the textbook open across my lap: Mon frère monte le train.
“Ad, that’s like four years away.”
“Yeah, so?” He reached down and twirled a strand of my hair. The floorboards creaked under his mother’s footsteps, and the television cut to commercial. I tried to swallow.
“What makes you so sure you won’t dump me by then?” I wished I’d sounded more sure of myself.
“That won’t happen,” he said. I stared down at the same line: Mon frère monte le train. “But you can’t tell me you don’t think about college, Mademoiselle, with your AP French.” I snapped the book shut and faced him.
“Are you calling me uptight?”
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“I’m calling you slightly, tightly wound,” he said, his face stretching into a slow smile. “But I can fix that.” He rolled off the couch, and fell into place beside me.
I felt his breath on the back of my neck as he kneaded his hands into my lower back and pressed his cool lips against my shoulder. I twisted around to kiss him.
“Or Canada,” he said. I pulled back and looked into his gray eyes. “Anywhere I can live quietly. Just you, me, and the snow.”
“I hate the snow,” I said, stretching out again and resting my head against his crotch. “I’m more of a beach girl.”
“Are you now? Well, that’s disappointing.” His voice stayed flat, the way it always did when he teased me. Adam had one tone—pure deadpan.
“Yup. I’m a beach girl, so I guess we were doomed from the start, then.” I nestled my head into the crook of his stomach, feeling his body rise and fall with each breath. “But my dream school is Brown, so I may have to deal with the snow anyway.” We stayed like that for minutes, but I could feel him thinking, his blood pumping in rhythm with that brain of his. And then he spoke.
“Brown, huh? Why does that not surprise me?” He paused and I felt his body relax. “Do you believe in heaven?”
“Sure, I guess so,” I said, without realizing the context of the question. “I mean I’d like to think there’s something after all of this. Not just worms and dirt, you know?” I regretted the imagery as soon as the words left my mouth. “I didn’t mean that,” I stuttered. “I don’t think that’s—”
“It’s okay,” he cut in. “You don’t have to be like that with me.”
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“Be like what?”
“Like I have a dead brother.” I turned to face him, but kept my eyes fixed on his gray cotton T-shirt. He twirled the same strand of my hair around his finger. “Max was a Catholic school dropout, and I was a good boy—or at least that’s what my mom would say. ‘The good boy,’” Adam scoffed, like the thought of him and the word “good” in the same breath was just the most preposterous thing. “So that’s why I decided to go to Seaport. I didn’t want to be the good boy anymore.” His face fell into a weak smile. “But now I’m just the dead kid’s brother.”
“No,” I said, still focused on his shirt. “Nobody thinks that.” There were nine hundred things I could have said—I should have said—but I’d never been good in these types of situations, and as if he’d read my mind, Adam just smiled.
“I know this must be excruciating for you,” he said.
“Why?”
He just shook his head and smiled.
“Are you calling me unemotional?” I asked, a poor attempt to grasp any levity left in the conversation.
“I’m calling you slightly detached.” He stared at me, blank-faced, and in one swift motion grabbed at my sides until I collapsed against him, my body convulsing as his fingers prodded against my only weak spot. “And I’m also calling you ridiculously ticklish.” He let out a dry, raspy cackle.
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“Stop making me laugh during serious conversations, Sullivan,” I said.
“Stop being so fucking cute.”
“Stop making me want to puke.” He let go, and we both sprawled out over the floor again. We sat in silence, breathing. Adam cleared his throat.
“No, but seriously,” he said. “I didn’t cry at Max’s funeral. How fucked up is that? I didn’t even cry at my own brother’s funeral.”
I shrugged, a knot twisting in my stomach. He furrowed his brow, deep in thought, desperate for validation.
“Crying is overrated,” I said, and I meant it. I’d never cried at a funeral—not that I ever had a comparable loss—but I couldn’t imagine how I would even react if I found out Marc or Eli were dead. I mean, in a perfect world, I’d cry, I’d mourn, I’d act like a normal, feeling human being—like people expected me to act. But I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I would burst into tears at the news and throw myself into Karen’s arms. Maybe I’d tear up a day or two later when I was alone in bed, or driving, and it really sank in, but I couldn’t picture myself sobbing at their funerals, showing weakness in front of literally every person I ever knew. I couldn’t even imagine consoling my own mother. Now how fucked up was that.
“Yeah,” he said. “But how could I be sad knowing that I never would have met you if he hadn’t done it.” The words hung between us, sticky and hot, like I could reach out, pluck at them, and shove them under the couch.
“You don’t mean that,” I said. Even though I’d thought that too.
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“My mom used to talk about heaven a lot, you know,” he said. “She’d be all like, ‘Anyone worth knowing again, you’ll see them in heaven, Adam.’ But I haven’t heard her say that since Max.” He stopped, sighed, and sat up, pulling his knees into his chest. “I guess she just stopped believing—doesn’t want to get her hopes up or something.”
Adam cleared his throat again, and I could still hear his mother’s footsteps pacing overhead.
“If there’s a heaven, I can’t picture it,” he said. “I just imagine white space. Nothing but this huge white space, and all the Catholics I’d ever known standing around in a circle dressed in their Easter best. You know what I’m talking about?” He grunted, half laugh, half embarrassment, and I nodded. “But if that’s where being a good Catholic boy would get me, well, I don’t really want to be a part of that.” I shook my head, more in understanding than agreement. I never really knew what I believed in. I once read that religion is where your love is, so I guess I believed in Adam—as much as anyone could have believed in another person.
With anyone else, I would have felt my tongue get thick, mumbled something, and changed the subject. But with Adam, I felt like I could handle it. Like I wasn’t stiff and awkward talking about feelings. “What would your heaven be like?” I asked. And I wanted to know. I really wanted to know.
“Snow,” he said. “Just snow falling like stardust into an endless dark place.”
Adam looked at me with that crooked smile, that sad and beautiful, crooked smile.
“That sounds perfect,” I said. I put my arms around his neck, looked into his gray eyes, and kissed him on the lips, firm and quick. “But I’m still more of a beach girl.”
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HE WALKED ME home that night, still in his pajama bottoms, his pea coat pulled over his chest. We were fourteen—fourteen and dumb, as if we’d reached the end of our little fairy tale with happily-ever-after spread out before us into an endless dark space. We walked up my driveway, past the hay-colored grass—all brittle and stiff—past the plastic snowmen sprouting out of the snowless earth. White Christmas lights dangled from my porch awning. He grabbed my hands and pulled me into his arms. We stood like that for what could have been a full minute. My porch light went on, and I saw Karen’s face peering out from behind the front window.
“Guess I should go,” I said. “Warden is watching.” He turned toward the window and waved. She waved back with the enthusiasm only a middle-school cheerleading coach could pull off.
She knew there was someone I’d been sneaking off to see, but I’d managed to keep Adam a secret, and I wasn’t quite ready for him to meet my mother. It had to be planned, and it had to be formal. Karen was like a cold bath; you had to jump right in, because if you tried to ease into a relationship with her, you’d never stick around.
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A few months earlier, Marc had brought a girl home late one night after a party. I think her name was Lilly or Layla or Lucy. Karen was supposed to be asleep, so he came in through the back door and led the girl down into the basement, where he’d promised they could watch a movie, and no one would ever know. But ten minutes into their little rendezvous, Karen came barreling down the basement stairs and then asked to speak with Marc upstairs—privately. And as if that wasn’t humiliating enough for the poor girl, Karen—very audibly—began to voice her dismay with the situation, starting with, “What kind of girl would just show up at a strange boy’s house in the middle of the night? With his family asleep upstairs?” Marc had grumbled something about keeping her voice down just before she sent him up to his room and showed Lilly/Layla/Lucy to the front door.
“I look forward to seeing you again,” Karen had said as the girl scampered down the path to her car.
Needless to say, no one ever saw Lilly/Layla/Lucy again. Not that Karen hadn’t asked about the girl for months. Whatever happened to—Lexi. Her name was Lexi—whatever happened to Lexi? She seemed like such a nice girl!
I started to walk up toward my house, leaving Adam with a brisk pat on the shoulder. The sky was navy and I could see my breath in front of me.
“Hey,” Adam called. He grabbed my elbow and spun me back to face him. He grinned hard, puffing icy breaths between his perfect teeth. “I didn’t want to do this in front of your mom.” He nodded his head at the window, where she hid stealthily behind the curtains. “But, I love you, Aubrey.” The words left his mouth and I swore I could see them suspended between us. “So fucking much,” he said. “I just thought you should know that.”
I stood facing him, a huge grin splayed out over his face, even as I mumbled, “Thanks” and stumbled back up toward my house.
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“HE DROPPED THE L-bomb,” I said to Rachel. It had been two days since he told me he loved me, and I hadn’t told anyone yet.
“What?” Rachel stopped in her tracks and dropped her Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bag onto the mall floor. We were supposed to be Christmas shopping, but so far she’d only bought clothes for herself. Karen had dropped us off two hours earlier and promised to be back for us by six. I clutched my own bags—a Yankee Candle for Karen, a sweater for my dad, cologne for my brothers. I still didn’t know what to get Adam.
“Are you that shocked?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, her mouth gaping, eyes wide in that Rachel way. “I just didn’t think you guys were like that serious.”
“We are,” I said, too defensively.
“Well, I didn’t know,” she snapped. “I guess I just didn’t think he was that into you. And like, you could sort of do better if you actually tried.”
“Well, he is, and we’re fine.”
“Well, did you say it back?”
“I said ‘thanks,’” I deadpanned, and she sputtered in a raspy, exaggerated laugh. “Whatever, I was nervous,” I said.
“Well, do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Love him?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. I think so.” I could feel myself start to smile, but stopped. Showing any form of weakness would just leave an opening for Rachel’s cruelty It had to be casual. It always had to be casual.
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“Okay,” she said, grabbing her bag off the ground and walking away. I was meant to follow.
IT WAS MORNING a few days later—Saturday, maybe Sunday. And I’d been in my bed reading The Great Gatsby. It was for school, but I was kind of into it. I think I just liked that it was set on Long Island. I was in my robe and a pair of shorts, with a steaming mug of coffee on my nightstand. It had to be before ten when I heard something rattle my window. It was one of those icy winter mornings, so I assumed it was just the wind, and then I heard another rattle, and another.
Obviously my initial instinct was Rachel just being Rachel and finding weird shit to do on a random Saturday—or Sunday—morning, but when I pulled aside the curtain, I saw Adam standing on my lawn.
I came down and pulled my robe closed over my chest.
“I wanted to give you your Christmas present,” he said, with a Cheshire grin. His hair was falling in front of his eyes. He was holding a box with both arms and tossed his head to the side, shaking the hair out of his face.
“You got me a Christmas present?” I still hadn’t decided on a gift for him.
I never had trouble with breathing back then. It always came easy for me. I didn’t even have to think about it. But that was before Adam and all the shit that came after him. I stood on my porch, with my robe wrapped around me. The icy air between us. I should have invited him in. A normal person would have invited him in, but I just stood there and watched him, and his arms wrapped around that big, white box.
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He wore a soft gray-and-black plaid shirt. He looked taller.
“Here.” He handed me the box. “I have to go, though, so why don’t you open it inside.” He thrust the box into my arms. It was heavier than it looked, and I nearly dropped it before I caught it from the bottom.
“Thanks,” I said. He was already walking away, his lanky legs and arms swinging in sync.
“No problem,” he said, without turning around.
When I got the package up to my room, I tore it open with a pair of those awful awkward, left-handed scissors—safety scissors. They must have belonged to Eli.
I pulled the flaps back and removed a layer of Styrofoam. And there, stacked side by side in absolute glass perfection, were ten mason jars.
IT WAS JANUARY when he met my mother, officially. New Year’s Day. Karen invited him for dinner, and I think that was really the first time I ever considered us a couple—even though he’d told me he loved me. Maybe it was just Rachel’s voice in my head that made me doubt the validity of our relationship. But either way, now it was real, and I was nervous for him to meet my mom. So was he, I could tell.
“These are for your mom,” he said when I opened the door. He held pink and yellow carnations, tied together with a cheap, red lacy bow. I could tell he had just picked them up from Pathmark on his way over. I stifled a smile. Karen hated carnations.
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But before I could even let Adam in the house, Karen was hip-checking me out of the way and cupping his hands in hers. The flowers hung limp to one side.
“You must be Adam,” she said. “I was so sorry to hear about your brother.” Her eyes lingered on him, all sad and somber, and I felt a swell of panic in my chest. Seriously, Karen, I was dying to scream. You had to bring that up now. But Adam just did what he always did when people brought up Max—smiled politely and nodded a gracious thank-you. This was around the time I stopped calling Karen “Mom.” It was a smooth transition, effortless, and it just sort of happened one day when she
asked me to take out the trash. Okay, Karen, I said. I’d been testing it out, and when she didn’t make a fuss, I just went with it.
I thought about what it would be like to meet my girlfriend’s mother for the first time, and all she could do was feel sorry for me. It must have really fucking sucked.
I cleared my throat, and Karen averted her lingering eyes from Adam.
“Those are for you,” I said, annoyed that she hadn’t acknowledged the bundle of cheap carnations in his hand.
“Oh my goodness,” Karen said, feigning surprise. “That is so sweet. Thank you.” She took them from Adam and stuffed them into a turquoise vase already filled with water in the middle of the set dining room table. I could tell she was disappointed.
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Dinner was one of those stiff, formal kind of meetings. Karen kept asking questions about his family, his classes, all that icebreaker kind of shit. I sort of wished he’d ask questions, too. I wished he’d ask those probing, nosy questions that would make Karen cringe—like why she wasn’t married to my father anymore, and if she realized her son was blazed out of his mind, or whether or not any of her students ever talked about suicide, and if so, what she did to change their mind.
I twirled spaghetti around my fork.
I’d already warned him. My mother was a talker.
“She’s going to try and shrink you,” I’d said on the phone the night before. I was sprawled out over my own bed, the cordless phone propped between my neck and shoulder.
“Well, she can give it her best shot,” he said. “I’m unshrinkable.” It was true, I later learned. His mother had sent him to a shrink once when he was twelve, or so he said.
“I got in a fight once, you know,” he began. I could feel him smirking over the phone.
I’d tried not to laugh. “Oh yeah? How’d that work for you, tough guy?”
