Life After Juliet

by Shannon Lee Alexander

  Max chuckles as he empties the dustpan into the trash. “You’re right. What was I thinking?”

  “Ice cream is essential,” I say, holding a finger into the air like I’m making an official proclamation.

  “Victor is not.”

  We finish up and grab our bags. Max takes my hand on the way out. “So Friday? Just you and me?”

  I nod before I remember. “No.”

  Max freezes mid-step. “What?”

  “We’re going to see Charlie this weekend. It’s family weekend at MIT.” I tug on Max’s hand and turn so I can rest my forehead on his shoulder. “I can’t this weekend.” Looking up at his face, into his bottomless dark eyes, I smile. “But my birthday is next weekend.”

  “It is?” His smile is perfectly devilish. “What would you be wishing for?”

  I glance at his lips. He leans forward and gently brushes a kiss across mine. Behind my closed lids I see a kaleidoscope of possibility when we touch.

  Scene Seven

  [Boston]

  Dad and Mom take turns driving Friday evening. We go north through big cities like Washington, D.C. And past rural towns with cow pastures that butt up to car lots. We get to our hotel after midnight and fall into our beds exhausted.

  “Tell your brother we made it safely,” Mom says, before pulling the covers up around her chin. Dad is already softly snoring.

  Me: We made it. See you in the AM.

  Charlie: I have a surprise for you.

  My stomach flutters.

  Charlie greets us in the morning with a huge smile. His hair is shaggy and he’s wearing a T-shirt I’ve never seen before. There’s a picture of a blue bicycle and a quote, written in German and attributed to his personal god, Einstein.

  “What’s that mean?” I ask, pointing at his chest and stopping him mid-hug.

  He smiles. “Life is like riding a bike. In order to keep your balance, you have to keep moving.”

  He smells of foreign laundry detergent when he hugs me.

  His school is enormous. There are people everywhere. He shows us some of his labs and the projects he’s working on. We meet professors and lab partners and roommates. We see dining halls and study halls and really big lecture halls.

  Charlie fits perfectly here. He’s surrounded by people very much like him—driven and determined—and I wonder what would have happened if Charlotte hadn’t died. He still would have come to MIT. Charlotte would have made him. But his attention would have been divided between here and her.

  Suddenly, my whole body feels heavy, and I struggle to keep up. We’re forgetting her too often. Our lives are going on without her, and I know that’s how it’s supposed to be, but it feels wrong. It feels like betrayal.

  “Becca?” Charlie looks at me over his shoulder. I’ve stopped walking, and he doubles back to me. “You okay?”

  I shake my head and stare at the blue bicycle on his shirt.

  Charlie waves Mom and Dad on, telling them we’ll meet them in the student union. “What’s going on?”

  I open my mouth to answer, but close it soundlessly. Standing is suddenly too much work, so I sit on the sidewalk in the middle of a busy quad. It’s much colder here than home. November in New England is a different creature than down south, but the cement is warm from the sun. I close my eyes and will my legs to drink in the warmth, wick it up through my bones, and thaw me out.

  “Becca, you can’t just sit in the—” But Charlie cuts himself off. He sits down beside me. After a few minutes, I open my eyes and look at him. “Feeling better?” he asks.

  My face pinches in thought, and I sigh, “Not sure.” I point at his shirt. “I want to keep moving, but then just when I build up momentum, I feel like I’m abandoning Charlotte, and I panic, which makes everything screech to a halt.”

  Charlie takes a look at the shirt he’s wearing, pulling at the hem to straighten out the wrinkles. “It doesn’t say anything about life being a sprint, Bec. It just says keep moving.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll get too far away from Charlotte. I’m afraid I’ll lose her.”

  Charlie smiles a wistful half smile. “See, that’s funny, because I’m afraid of the opposite. I’m afraid I’ll never get over her.” His eyes fill up, and he shields them, pretending it’s the wind that’s making them water. “I’m afraid I’ll be alone forever without her.”

  That would break Charlotte’s heart. If it weren’t already stopped cold in the ground.

  …

  After lunch, Mom and Dad decide to attend a seminar on financial aid. Charlie has scholarships and a grant, but “every little bit helps,” says Mom. Charlie drags me to the T, Boston’s public transit train system, to show me the surprise he’d promised last night.

  Two trains later, we get off at Boston Public Garden. We grab two coffees from a vendor and sip them as we walk through the fallen leaves on the pathways.

  “Look,” Charlie says, pointing ahead of us. There, frozen in bronze, are Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings, characters from a beautiful children’s book Gram used to read to us, Make Way for Ducklings.

  I jog up the path to get a closer look, patting each of their little heads. “Is this my surprise?”

  Charlie shakes his head. “Nope.”

  Charlie takes my picture with the ducklings, and I text it to Max. I add, “Making friends in Boston,” after the photo.

  Soon we’re headed out of the park into the busy streets of Boston. I do a lot of looking up and gaping. We come to another park, this one much smaller. There’s an old church with a plaque dating it to the 1870s butted up against a modern glass skyscraper. The two are such unlikely neighbors, but something about it works, the old and the new, the past and the present living and working together in this city.

  “It’s amazing,” I tell Charlie, but he doesn’t stop walking.

  “It gets even better.” He tugs my hand, pulling me across the square to a giant stone building with a red tiled roof.

  “This is your surprise,” he says, holding out his hands to the imposing building.

  Etched into the facade just under the roofline, I read, “Boston Public Library Built by the People and Dedicated to the Advancement of Learning.”

  “A library?”

  Charlie walks toward it with long strides. “You’re gonna flip out when you see inside.”

  But I can’t make my feet move. “You brought me to a library?”

  Charlie stops and fists his hands on his hips. “Not just any library. According to the nice research librarian who helped me, this library has the second largest collection of books in the entire United States.”

  “Even bigger than New York?”

  “Library of Congress is the only one bigger.” Charlie’s grin is so wide the corners of his eyes wrinkle. “Aren’t you surprised?”

  “That you know all this? Yes.”

  He chuckles and walks behind me to shove me forward a little. “Come on.”

  He’s impatient to get inside the library. My brother, who until last year refused to read anything that wasn’t in comic book form or covered in numbers and scientific notations, is rushing me to get to a library. Not just any library. A giant library.

  What a strange world.

  We step inside and everything roiling inside me—doubt, anxiety, insecurity—stills to a peaceful hush. It’s a feeling a little like kissing Max, and I’m glad the lobby is cool and dim so Charlie won’t notice me blush. But seriously, this library is so beautiful I’d like to make out with it a little.

  We climb the marble staircase, passing between twin lion statues on pedestals. Each gallery is more beautiful than the last. Stepping into the reading room, long and wide with high arched ceilings and windows that capture all the light of the city, makes me weak in the knees. And the smell! Paper, leather, wood, and ink—sweet and smoldering scents that blend together to make the best smell on earth. Holy crap. I think I’m in love with a building.

  Charlie is grinning beside me, bouncing on t
he balls of his feet. “You like it, huh?” He nudges me. “I did good, right?”

  I nod, and he wraps an arm around my shoulders. “How did you know?” And I’m thinking about The List of Places You’ll Go that Charlotte and I made. I don’t think Charlie’s ever seen that list.

  This isn’t the New York Public Library. It’s bigger, though, according to Charlie and his research librarian friend. And it’s more than I could have dreamed a library could be.

  “You like books,” he answers with shrug. “I haven’t even shown you the books yet.” With that, he tugs on my hand again and pulls me along to see the rest of the library. As we wind through the stacks, I begin to wonder if there isn’t a way for me to be a little more like this big city, marrying the past me with a present me. One that reads and gets lost in stories, but who also lives to write her own? Maybe that’s a thing I could do. Maybe that’s the start of my very own dream—my future.

  Scene Eight

  [An MIT banquet hall]

  When we get back to campus, we meet up with Mom and Dad for a special dinner and lecture the university has organized. I texted Max on the T, telling him about the amazing library, but I haven’t heard anything back from him. When my phone rings at dinner, I excuse myself, thinking it’s him. But when I get out into the hallway and glance at the phone, it’s Victor.

  “Hey,” I say, answering. “What’s up?” I’m trying to keep breathing normally. There are plenty of reasons for Victor to call me. Just because I can’t think of one isn’t proof they don’t exist.

  “Um, hey, Becca.” Victor’s voice is too deep, too calm. “Are you somewhere where you can talk?”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything will be okay, but there’s been an accident.”

  My vision goes splotchy, and I lean back on a column in the corridor outside the banquet hall. It feels irredeemably cold now that the sun has gone down. I think Victor is waiting for me to say something, but my throat is too swollen with fear to speak.

  “Max was in an accident. He’s kind of beat up, concussion, broken bones and stuff, but nothing too serious.” He pauses, again, to give me a chance to say something, but remembering how to breathe is taking too much effort. Words escape me. “So, I just wanted to let you know. He’s at Memorial if you want to see him when you get back in town. I’ll text you the room number and stuff.”

  Charlie finds me sitting on the ground with my head between my knees sometime later. I think maybe I said good-bye to Victor. I can’t be sure.

  “What’s up?” Charlie asks, sliding down the wall to sit beside me.

  “There was an accident,” I say to my heels.

  “Is everyone okay?”

  I pick up my head, and it feels like heaving a boulder up a hill. And since my boulder head is solid, there’s no way to process thoughts and make words and say all the heavy things weighing me down.

  “Jesus, Bec,” Charlie says, grabbing my arm. “Did someone—” But he can’t say the word because we don’t say that word. We know how much that one hurts, how much it costs to say it out loud and make it real. That word we walk around like someone else’s garbage on the street.

  I hand him my phone with the text message from Victor telling me where Max is.

  Charlie mutters a “thank God” as he flicks to my contacts and pulls up Max’s number. “Call him,” he says, thrusting the phone at me. “Maybe he can talk. Or at least you can leave him a message.”

  I nod and take the phone, but the voice that picks up isn’t Max.

  “Victor?”

  “Hey, Becca. Again.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  “I should have told you. I’ve got his phone, at least until he, you know, wakes up.”

  I nod into the phone, which is dumb, but it’s all I can do. Charlie gently takes the phone from me and introduces himself to Victor. He asks lots of questions about the accident and Max’s status at the hospital. He asks all the things I should have asked, but don’t want to know.

  I don’t want to know how another truck ran a red light and T-boned Max. I don’t want to think about the sound of metal crunching or the bones in Max’s arm, either. But I can hear Victor’s voice over the phone as he explains it all—the swelling in Max’s brain, the medicine to make him sleep while it subsides, the cast on his arm.

  I can’t hold my ginormous rock head up anymore. I rest it on my knees and look away from Charlie, who is thanking Victor and exchanging numbers with him in case of emergency. I close my eyes and think what a strange world it is when Charlie and Victor become emergency buddies.

  When he’s done, Charlie places my phone beside me. “I’m going to go talk to Mom and Dad. Will you be okay out here by yourself?”

  I turn my head so I’m facing him. “Yes.” I watch his face relax with the one little word. Such powerful things—words. Powerful, but deceptive.

  Yes, I’ll be okay by myself. Of this I’m sure. It’s the letting people in part that gets tricky. I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay again if I lose one more person I love.

  Scene Nine

  [A hospital room]

  Max is sleeping. That’s what they call it. Sleeping. The euphemism makes me want to vomit. He’s not sleeping. He’s drugged. The left side of his body is made of plaster and bandages. There are machines to monitor his vitals. With my eyes, I trace the tubes from the IV pole to the blue-black vein of his arm. I wonder if I scream, would he wake up?

  Outside, the waiting room is filled with people. Dezi is napping in a corner. Greg, Kelli, and Victor are spread out on the floor with Javi playing a board game. Miles is reading. Esperanza is buzzing about in her scrubs. Every once in a while she whispers prayers in Spanish. Prayers the stupid Mary statue on the now-mangled dashboard of Max’s truck obviously didn’t hear.

  Inside, Max’s room is dim and smells like sweat and industrial cleaner. I peek around and read the whiteboard on the wall with a nurse’s name and some cryptic code I can’t decipher. The blinds are drawn so only slivers of the evening light filter in, striping the floor with shadows. We left first thing Sunday morning, cutting short our weekend with Charlie, so I could see Max.

  I step closer to the bed, rest my hand on the side rail, consider reaching out and touching Max’s face, but I’m standing on his left where the cuts and bruises are the worst. Victor said Max was lucky—said they had to cut him out of the truck. Looking at him, so still in this bed, I know I should feel lucky, too.

  He’s alive. He’ll be okay. He’s alive.

  But, instead, I feel a clawing inside of me, talons of fear scraping along my throat.

  I close my eyes, feeling the tears burn.

  I’ve been here before—maybe not this room, but one that looked like it, one full with machines and gray light and the stench of tears and bleach. I’ve looked over a bed rail at my best friend, held her hand, wanting to stay with her forever, while she told me to leave.

  “Please,” she’d begged. “Go. Take your brother and get out of here.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want you here.” Her voice was like a dull razor being dragged across my wrists. I tried to hide the tears that slipped down my cheeks. “Not like this, Becca. You can’t see me like this. I don’t want you to remember this.”

  But I do. I remember. I’ll never forget. Just like I’ll never forget the way Max looks now.

  Irresistible force. The phrase just keeps playing on repeat in my brain. I can hear Max so clearly, from that day in the barn. “He wanted to see what would happen when an irresistible force met with an immovable object.” Life is an irresistible force, and we’re stuck in its path. Anything can happen at any time. There is no future. It’s all an illusion.

  I lean over the railing, pressing a kiss on Max’s forehead. His skin is warm on my lips and, under the assaulting smells of antiseptic and plaster, I can barely make out the smell of his soap, honey and cedarwood.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice is sandpaper.

/>   If I leave, he won’t be alone. He’ll still be surrounded by loved ones. But I can’t stay. I must resist the irresistible force that is trying to take my heart again.

  Scene Ten

  [The theater]

  I avoid everyone at school the next day. I skip lunch and hide in the library. I even dare Mrs. Jonah to say one word to me about reading in her stupid literature class. I read two hundred forty-two pages. I hide in the back row of the theater waiting for Owens to call me to the stage, fully expecting Victor and the gang to pelt me with rotten vegetables when I do. I deserve it.

  But without Max, everything is running slowly. Owens is even more erratic and high-strung than normal. I swear he thinks Max got in a car accident just to screw with his play schedule. He’s been muttering to himself in the dark since the first missed sound cue.

  Darby finds me and flops down in the seat beside me. My muscles instinctively tense. “I’m sorry to hear about Max. He okay?”

  I grab a lock of hair and twist. “I don’t know.”

  Darby blinks. “Why don’t you know?”

  “I couldn’t stay at the hospital. I—” I break off and gnaw on the inside of my cheek.

  “You left him?”

  “He wasn’t alone.” My voice is too high, frantic. “Victor and everyone, they were there. Ask them. But I couldn’t be there. He seemed—” I’ve been searching for the word since I left the hospital. Beautiful, brilliant Max, so full of life and warmth, with the smile like springtime, looked—and suddenly it’s there. The word I’ve been searching for. “Fragile.”

  I’d come to think of Max as a rock, but even rocks can be worn away, or toppled in an earthquake. Nothing lasts.

  Darby swears under her breath. “So you bailed?”

  I nod. “But he wasn’t alone. It won’t matter if I’m not around.”

  “Wow,” she says, sitting back in her seat. “I knew you were damaged, but this”—she waves a hand in my direction—“this is more like destroyed. Open your eyes, woman. You’re not some invisible nonentity. You’ve jumped with both feet into the middle of a pond, and you’re making lots of ripples. You’ve got to get your shit together.”