by Penny Reid
I was putting a stop to his joy-sucking right now and I was going to use the magic of food to do it.
I fished two crisp dollar bills from my wallet and had just claimed my lunch of champions when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I glanced at the owner, expecting to find a fellow student asking for change. Instead my eyes connected with Martin’s. I was surprised, but so completely numb at this point that I’m sure my expression betrayed nothing but indifference.
I did note that he looked great. Really, really great. Beautiful even. He glowed, like he always had. He was dressed in a black T-shirt, the graphic image on the front depicted some rowing scene, and dark jeans. I noted that he never wore skinny jeans; this was probably because his thighs were too muscular and skinny jeans were for skinny guys. He would never be skinny.
Granted, his expression wasn’t happy, but he didn’t look like he’d been suffering. He wasn’t fifteen pounds lighter and white as a sheet. His eyes weren’t bloodshot. His hands weren’t shaking. He appeared to be angry but nowhere near heartbroken, at least not the version I saw in the mirror every morning.
I felt like throwing up.
Averting my eyes, I tried to step around him, but he countered and halted my progress.
He moved as though he were going to grab my wrist so I stopped and yanked my arm out of his reach, rocking backward. Since I was basically trapped in the vending machine alcove, I turned my face to the side, inspected the wall, and gave him my profile.
At length he asked, “Will you look at me?”
I tensed. Hearing his voice did something terrible. It broke through this new barrier, the detachment I’d embraced. Therefore I didn’t want to look at him again. I was finally exhibiting control over my feelings and I couldn’t take the chance. I suspected looking at him now would hurt like a motherfucker.
And apparently, in addition to discovering that just seeing someone can cause physical pain and illness, I was discovering the cathartic and necessary nature of curse words. Despite my expansive vocabulary, there existed no other way to describe how much it would hurt to look at Martin.
In my peripheral vision I sensed movement and I flinched away before he could touch me. I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Goddammit,” he seethed. His anger and frustration settled over us, a dark, accusatory fog.
We stood like that for a minute and I imagined I was building an actual wall of bricks between us. I’d volunteered for three summers during high school with Habitat for Humanity and I could build a heckofa brick wall.
He broke the stalemate. “Talk to me, Parker.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes, pressing my lips together in a firm line. Despite the sounds of college life around us I could hear him breathe. He wasn’t breathing loudly, it’s just I could hear it. And it reminded me of the times he’d held me on the boat. I pushed that thought from my mind before it made me cry—because it would make me cry—and turned my attention back to the fictional brick wall.
“You look like shit,” he said.
Yeah, it was a crappy thing to say. But it was so Martin. So thoughtless and candid. I did look like shit. And I realized that Martin wasn’t a very nice person, not even to me. He was honest first and foremost; sometimes his honesty meant he said nice things to me. But he was never nice for the sake of being nice, or polite because he wanted to spare my feelings. Not once.
I wondered if it even occurred to him that I had feelings…
“Have you been eating?” He shuffled a step forward, his tone nonchalant, almost friendly. “You need a sandwich, let me buy you lunch.”
I opened my eyes, affixed them to the floor, but remained silent. Seeing him had satisfied some fundamental—and likely unhealthy—need to witness how he was dealing with the breakup. Was he as tortured and ruined as me? I had my answer and now I couldn’t wait to never see him again.
Unexpectedly he blurted, “If you don’t talk to me I’ll go crazy.”
His words were quiet but rough, as though torn from his chest. They certainly had the effect of tearing at my chest. Searing pain flared in my stomach and I had to count to ten before I could breathe again.
I said nothing. Had this happened before today, had he approached me even one hour earlier, I likely would have burst into tears and begged him to take me back. But, for better or for worse, seeing him moments ago looking so well had flipped my off switch. I’d finally accepted we were over—mostly due to the fact that we never truly were.
“I love you.” He exhaled the words and I almost believed him. He was so close I could feel the breath fall over my face, a whispered caress that pierced my heart and stomach, ripping and shredding. He repeated, “I love you.”
Then he touched me, his hands cupping my face.
“Don’t.” I tried to jerk my head away but he held me tighter, stepping into me and backing me against the wall.
I lifted my eyes but couldn’t raise them above his neck as he tilted my chin up and pressed his lips to mine. He kissed me. I didn’t kiss him back, holding onto my earlier resolve and numbness like a lifeline. His forehead fell against mine and he held me there, breathing my air.
“Please talk to me. Please.”
“There is nothing to say.” I was gratified by the hollow quality and steadiness of my voice.
“I need you.”
I shook my head in denial, because I knew he didn’t. If he needed me then he wouldn’t have let me go, he would have chosen us over revenge. If he needed me then he wouldn’t have been able to smile at pretty blondes and look exactly the same as he had three weeks ago after a vacation in the Caribbean.
“You need to leave me alone,” I responded through clenched teeth.
“I can’t.” He pressed his lips to mine again, taking another kiss, lingering there like he was afraid to move, like it would be the last time. He spoke against my mouth. “I can’t leave you alone. It’s been almost a month and you’re all I think about.”
“That’s a lie.”
“No, goddamn you, it isn’t! Haven’t you noticed me following you? Haven’t you seen me outside your dorm, waiting for you? Fucking hell, Parker, you never see me, you never have, but that doesn’t mean I’m not there.”
I gripped his wrists and pulled his hands from my face, twisting away and seeking to put distance between us. His words were confusing because I did see him, just moments ago, smiling at someone else and appearing completely fine. I didn’t want his words. I didn’t want anything from him.
Despite my certainty and earlier pledge, I felt the beginning of a chin wobble and a stinging moisture behind my eyes. “If I’m all you think about then are you ready to tell the world your father is an evil asshole and being with me is not an alliance between our families?”
This was met with silence and the silence fed my detachment.
I huffed a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“Kaitlyn, there is no reason why we can’t be together in secret, if you would only—”
It was the same argument; nothing had changed, so I interrupted him. “If we’re seen together then all of this has been pointless. My mother—”
“Fuck your mother,” he growled.
I winced, stared at the floor because I didn’t want to see him, and when I spoke my voice was unsteady. “This is pointless. You need to let me go.”
“What if I can’t? Hmm? What if I don’t? What if I call the Washington Post and tell the reporter that we’re still together, that our families are closer than ever?”
I finally lifted my eyes to his so he could see how serious I was, and that—in that moment—I hated him a little. I looked at him even though it hurt like a motherfucker.
Somehow I managed to say, “That’s blackmail.”
“If that’s what it takes.” He punctuated this with a belligerent shrug.
I shook my head, mostly at myself for thinking we were ever a team. “Martin, there’s a time to fight, and there is a time to bow
out gracefully.”
“You never fight,” he spat, his mouth twisted in an unattractive sneer, his eyes dark blue flames.
I fleetingly thought of how I’d fought for him in front of his father, how I’d fought for him and for us in his room three weeks ago. But what was the point? Arguing would get us nowhere. We didn’t exist.
Instead I said, “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to blackmail you? Issue threats? Call your father and tell him about your plan to sell his houses?”
He winced like I’d struck him, blinking several times in rapid succession. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“No. I wouldn’t. I respect your decision, even if I think it’s a mistake.”
“So you bow out gracefully, like a coward.”
“You’re wrong. You’re so wrong. I’m fighting for what I believe in, I’m going to do the right thing—”
“Self-sacrificing, martyring bullshit!’
“—and I’m not going to change my mind. So it’s time for you to find the self-control to bow out gracefully and let me go.”
Eyes flashing, Martin shifted on his feet, his stance telling me he was preparing to launch another verbal volley, so I quickly added, allowing a hint of pleading in my voice, letting it waver and shake, “If you ever had the slightest feeling for me, you will respect my decision. You will walk away right now and you will leave me alone. I need you to leave me alone. You are ruining me.”
His blue-green eyes were glassy and raw with pain as they searched mine. I recognized his hurt because it was an echo of the suffocating agony I’d been carrying with me every day.
After a long moment he nodded once, his mouth a flat line. His eyes fell away, searching but not looking at any one thing. I saw his chest rise and fall, heard the end of an unsteady exhale, before he turned and left.
His stride (as expected) was confident as always. Every step of his smooth gait just proved that Sam had been right. He was a universe of one and I wasn’t enough.
I watched him go, watched the back of his head until he turned a corner.
Then I ran home. I sat in my dark closet. And I cried.
Part 3: CAPTURE
Prologue
A Molecular Comparison of Gases, Liquids, and Solids
-Six months post-breakup-
“I don’t know how to do this, Kaitlyn. You’re going to have to help me.”
“Do what, Dad?”
The phone was silent for a beat before he said, “Talk to you about your mother.”
I grimaced and picked at an imperfection on the kitchen table. Four months ago, when Sam and I had moved off campus, we furnished our apartment with thrift store purchases. The shellac was peeling away from the Formica and I was making it worse.
“I don’t know what there is to say.” I shrugged, biting my lip to keep my chin from wobbling. The truth was that I missed her. My dad and I had been talking regularly over the phone, but I hadn’t been participating in our Sunday meetings for the last six months and I missed having a connection with my mother.
“I think she hurt you. Am I right?”
I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. Part of the reason I hadn’t contacted her was definitely because she seemed to be indifferent to my feelings about breaking up with Martin.
The other part was because of my fear she’d be disappointed in me. During my summer of discontent after my breakup with Martin, I’d decided to switch majors—from chemical engineering to music—and take the fall semester off school.
Taking a semester off school was the Parker family equivalent of giving up on life. I’d made the decision rather flippantly, and without consulting my parents. However, my determination to change majors had deeper roots and was the impetus behind my current gainful employment as the piano player in a special events band.
After a week of psyching myself up, I’d auditioned in July and was now officially a paid musician. The group played mostly weddings. They also performed at Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, swanky business receptions, and office parties anywhere between Boston and New York City. My evenings and weekend afternoons started filling up fast, especially when we’d have to travel into the city for a job.
Being around music almost daily—either as part of the band, or the time spent alone composing—made me realize I had to pursue it. I had to live it. It was my passion and ignoring what gave me happiness and peace was unacceptable.
Instead of admitting the whole truth about why I was avoiding my mother, I said, “I don’t even really understand why I’m so upset with her. She didn’t do anything. Not really. And I know she had good intentions. It’s just…I feel like she doesn’t care about me sometimes, I guess.”
“Well, you’re wrong. She does care about you. She loves you.”
“Then I don’t think I understand what love is. I thought I knew. I thought it was this great thing where two people support each other and work together to solve problems. I thought it was about trust and loyalty, being honest, kind, being a team. But now I have no idea. In fact, I’m doubting that love exists. Maybe, as a society, we made it up to explain and justify our unhealthy desire for co-dependence.”
He was silent for a moment and I knew he was thinking about what I’d said, processing it. One of the coolest things about my father was that he listened to understand, not to react.
“I actually agree with you to a certain extent, if I’m understanding your meaning correctly. We humans, most of us, are co-dependent and it’s often unhealthy. It’s up to the two people within the relationship to keep the co-dependence healthy. But, you are assuming there is only one kind of love, Kaitlyn. I can tell you there are as many kinds of love in the world as there are stars in the sky.”
“That was very poetic, Dad.”
“I bet you didn’t know I used to write poetry for your mother.”
This made me start and I sat up straighter in my chair. “You did?”
“Yes. And it was pretty good, for a medical student who was infatuated with an unobtainable ice queen. It made her melt…a little.”
I heard the smile in his voice and it made me nostalgic for his sweet sappiness.
“What happened?”
“I asked her to marry me, not expecting that she would say yes, but she did. So we got married, and I was in very deep infatuation-love with her. She was so…good. So driven. She was talented at inspiring people and surprising them with how smart she was—because she is, she’s brilliant. And she’s very charismatic.”
I thought about this for a second, mildly horrified that I was attracted to guys who were like my mother.
He continued. “But then I became disillusioned because she belonged to the world just as much as she belonged to me. And I didn’t like that.”
I considered this for a moment, thinking about my father being jealous of the world. I couldn’t imagine my father being jealous at all. He was so…nice. Even tempered. Sweet.
“What did you do?”
“I told her I wanted a divorce. I told her I couldn’t be with someone who was always putting me second and that I’d made a mistake.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Why did I not know about this?”
“It happened before you were born.”
“What did she do?”
My father sighed, as though he were releasing memories from long ago. “She begged me to stay, which shocked the hell out of me, but she did. She offered to leave politics and even went so far as to drop out of her commissioner’s race without telling me. She tried to make herself into a different person, because she didn’t want me to go. She didn’t want to lose me.”
“That seems…very unlike her.”
“It was. It is. But love—the kind of love she felt for me—makes people do crazy things. It twists them up and can make them question their own choices.”
“So, you stayed, obviously. But then how did she get back into politics?”
“I realized I was ruining her with my jealousy. She tried to change for
me, and not for the better. The parts of her I loved the most—her brilliance, charisma, goodness, fierce desire to correct injustice—these were not compatible with my jealousy. And I also realized that she didn’t belong to the world, and she didn’t belong to me. She belongs to herself. We all belong to ourselves, until we have children. Then our children lease us for as long as they want.”
I exhaled a laugh and shook my head.
“Never doubt that your mother loves you, Kaitlyn.”
Feeling ashamed as I contemplated my father’s wise words, I forced myself to stop picking at the Formica.
My father continued, “But she does everything in the extreme. In your case, she respects you and trusts you in the extreme, so she trusts that you’ll come to her when you’re ready. Meanwhile she’s bitten off all her fingernails.”
I thought about this for a stretch, feeling a bit of panic at the thought of facing her and being a disappointment.
“What if I’m never ready?”
“Then that would make you stupid, and you’re not stupid. You’re stubborn, but you’re not stupid.”
“I don’t know how to do this, Dad. How do I make things right?”
“Come home for Thanksgiving. Talk to your mother. Or yell at her. Just do something with her. You two need each other and I can’t take another Sunday call without you, so call in for the next one. Just…be brave.”
***
-Seven months post-breakup-
“Between you and me and the tree, I think we should have our own Thanksgiving before you leave.” Sam was folding our clean laundry while I sorted through my desk, purging it of old classwork and notes. I’d decided to go home for Thanksgiving and was leaving in three weeks for the long weekend. I had an abundance of restless energy. I used the energy to clean my room.
My father was correct. It was time for me to make things right with my mother.
I’d rejoined the Sunday calls at the beginning of October, yet none of us had broached the subject of my months-long absence.
