Away From Here_A Young Adult Novel

by Christopher Harlan

  I drove Anna back to that place she was willing to skip the country to escape. We weren’t going to drag this out any longer than necessary, we both agreed. We broke up then and there, and it wasn’t until I saw her walking away from me that I cried. I felt it coming like a sudden pressure, and then my tear ducts did their thing, and I felt like I might never be okay again. I sat there for a few minutes in front of her house because I didn’t want to drive while I was like that, but then I decided that I looked crazy and needed to continue my break down in a more private place, like my room.

  That night I wrote. There were no more love letters or sweet sentiments left in me, at least there wouldn’t be for good long while, but I still had my thoughts. I’d always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was a little kid. Anna had woken up that dormant dream in me by being my muse, my inspiration, my focus for the feelings coursing through my body when I was with her. But just as quickly she’d shut them down, and I was left with an all new Bleh—a mutant one that blended sadness, anger, confusion, resentment and, strangest of all, understanding and acceptance. It was the last part that was the weirdest to deal with. I should have just been heartbroken and pissed off—and I was—but that selfless love let me understand that maybe this was the best thing for her.

  And then I had a weird thought. What if someone could have saved mom from her abusive house when she was a teen? What if she could have flown to Puerto Rico and gone to college there? I mean, yeah, I wouldn’t exist, but that hypothetical kept echoing in my mind. Anna was just like Mom, only she had time. And once I had that thought, my anger melted away temporarily, and all I felt was that love. It didn’t matter what I wanted because I needed Annalise to be happy, even if that happiness didn’t include me.

  Maybe deep down I knew this would end badly, but how could I resist her? How could anyone resist her? Long jet black hair, the most beautiful brown eyes you've ever seen in your damn life! It was great for that short while in which things are allowed to be great, what you might stereotypically call the ‘honeymoon phase’, and then everything soured. The reasons don't even matter, do they? I should have known that I was going to lose the best thing that's ever happened to me, and there wasn't a damn thing in this world I could have done to slow the momentum of her loss. I saw it play out, like a short film in high definition, played in fast forward and slow motion at the same time. The saddened narrator, some James Earl Jones type character, spoke in my mind while images of me and her played before my eyes while I sat in my room. The narrator said,

  You’ll lose her to There, wherever There might be. She'll go, not because she doesn’t love you, and not because she wants to cause you pain, but because Here is where all the hurt resides; it lives like an invisible tenant in her crowded house, like a guest who never pays rent but is always on time for dinner. Here is where the pain gets remembered, the walls of that shitty little place a mental tapestry of past injustices and traumas. Here is where she becomes just another girl who stays too long and works down the avenue, maybe serving coffee for a few years longer than a girl should serve coffee. Here is where that old mirror, the one she got for her birthday that hangs behind her door, reflects a face that's still undeniably beautiful, but getting too old to be appreciated by any man who matters anymore.

  Her husband, who she hasn't met yet, will be the one to tell her she's beautiful, something she hears all the time from the assholes she pours coffee for, but she never believes because she knows that even if she were a straight up dog with two moles and yellow teeth they'd all still try to get with her. But this man, the nice man, he's different. He means it when he says she's beautiful, and she knows that because the last time someone told her that sincerely she was a young girl with a bright future, and pretty girls with bright futures can take compliments for granted, because they know that more will surely come from an endless parade of boys. Then the boys become men, creepy men with bad intentions, and the falsehood of those same words that all the handsome boys used to throw at her is perceptible, but it doesn't stop her from pretending they're real. Maybe she needs to pretend, needs to believe in their sincerity. Maybe she needs that so bad she lets the least creepy ones get on top of her from time to time, like she knows they want to, and as he's on top of her, thrusting downward in a clumsy and rough way, she thinks that maybe the smell of him is worth it, even if only for an evening of feeling loved.

  At least someone still wants her, even if it's just for a body tight enough to make the men feel like they're with a young woman. Even if they appreciate what's between her legs more than they recognize the glimmer you saw in her big brown eyes. Well, so what? What's so wrong with that? Who decided long ago that the world has to be a fair place anyway? Suckers, that's who. Suckers who believe in hope because that's who hope is for; the dumb, romantic ones who were raised by happy parents who read them fairy tales before tucking them into their warm beds. Those same people wouldn't dare drive through this neighborhood or stop in to eat at her diner. You see, those people don’t live Here; they don't send their kids to these schools, or allow them to hang out on these cold streets, so who gives a shit about their romantic notions, anyhow?

  And then, in some weird psychedelic moment, like a vision of the future that I saw so vividly that it scared me, I heard the rest of the story in Anna’s voice. Only it wasn’t the same Anna. She was old, worn, inexorably distorted, but it was still her. In this vision I saw an alternative life, as though she’d stayed in her neighborhood instead of going to Peru, and I was listening to her voice as if she was whispering in my ear. I’ve never had a moment like that since that one, but it was so real that I can hear her like she was next to me. She said,

  I may not get all that I want, or even all that I deserve, but I'll live. People talk about surviving all the time, but I say I'll live instead. It's not the life I saw myself having, but it's a life like my mother before me, and maybe my daughter after me. I met this nice man, he always tells me how pretty I am, and he means it. I can tell the difference, you know, I've had my share of bad guys, but this one isn't like the others, he means it when he says I'm beautiful. He'll make all the difference. He'll have a decent job, and he'll smell nice, and he may be friends with some of those assholes at the diner, but he won't be one of them. He'll be. . .different. And he'll make me different because when he gets on top of me he'll say that he loves me first, he'll remind me how beautiful he thinks I am. He'll say sweet things.

  Maybe I won't even mind because maybe it'll actually feel good for once; feel clean, feel like I'm not just a warm body to be used, lying on my back and staring at the ceiling, counting the minutes until it's over so I can go into the bathroom and clean myself up. I don't want babies but I don't believe in birth control—better not to mess with God's plan, like my Mom always told me. But this nice man, he says he loves me, and that I'm beautiful, and that it feels too good to stop, and not to worry because if he were to plant a baby inside of me, we'd get married and he'd stay forever.

  That's what happens Here. Here is where all this goes down, like a storm nobody’s got the power to stop. I'm living Here, and I'll live here until I'm not living any more. It's okay. It's okay. Bad things happen to good people, right? That's what my mom used to tell me. I'd tell her to stop being negative, but now I know she's right—moms are always right, even when they're wrong. I'll tell Mariela—that'll be my baby girl’s name one day—I'll tell her the same, maybe even sooner. She should know that bad things happen early, this way she won't be disappointed later with all that hope bullshit, ‘cause hope is for suckers, and I’m not raising any suckers. She'll live Here too, but she'll do better than I did, I know she will. I'll raise her better than I was raised—with or without her father, that nice man who meant it when he called me beautiful—the one who actually felt good on top of me, and promised to come back from his business trip a month ago. I know he'll be back, because he was so nice, so sincere. I'm late on my period but I’m not worried, I've got the baby of a good man inside
me and a promise that he’ll be back soon.

  I may be ordinary, but her father is different, and maybe some of that difference can pass to her, and she can be at least half different from the other girls—from me—and then maybe she can get away, she can live over There, somewhere. But if not then she can live Here too, until she stops living at all, and has a daughter of her own. We are living. We’re living Here, until we don't live anymore.

  I opened my eyes and tears rolled down my face, and I knew that I’d done the right thing, the selfless thing, by not fighting Anna. I needed her, but as it turned out, she needed me even more. Life was funny in that way. And in the same way that our relationship began by email and text, so too did it end that way. I knew that I probably shouldn’t have, but I texted her after my vision because I needed some sense of closure.

  “You know I’ll never love anyone the way I love you.”

  “I’m sorry that I’m so screwed up,” she wrote back. “I’m sorry if I screwed you up, too, because you don’t deserve that. I know you’re dealing with a lot already. I wish things were different.”

  “Maybe these are some of the last words we say. I don’t know. But if they are, don’t ever apologize for how you feel, and don’t worry about me. I’ll miss you like a part of me has been amputated, but I understand.”

  “Potato,” she wrote.

  “Ditto,” I wrote back. It was my way around her rule. It was clever, if I do say so myself.

  What I did next shocked me more than Annalise breaking up with me. To those reading this who come from happy homes it might not seem a big deal, but it was something revolutionary. In the short span of a few years I’d gotten used to being an emotional orphan. The people who were my parents still lived and breathed, but for all emotional intents and purposes they both died when I was fifteen. I couldn’t talk to them, I couldn’t confide in them, I couldn’t even get yelled at or punished by them. I was alone, and I’d gotten used to that condition. But despite how well I thought I handled having my heart ripped out, Aztec-sacrifice style, I was feeling a type of pain that I didn’t know existed. I wasn’t anxious and I wasn’t depressed, I was hurt like that kid who falls off the top of the turtle statue in the park and hits his head. I needed comfort.

  I put my phone down because I didn’t want to see it for a while, and I opened the door to my room. I knew Mom would be downstairs in her chair because that’s always where she was. Only I wasn’t going down to check on her like I normally did, I was going down because I needed her. The chair she used to sit in was huge, bigger than her ninety pound body could fit, and usually those gaps between her and the end of the chair got filled with blankets, or sometimes pillows from our couch, but that day I did the job. I didn’t say a word, because sometimes words just got in the way. I passed in front of our TV, nuzzled myself next to my mom like I was a little boy, even though I was twice her size, and cried.

  For once my tears weren’t for anyone else. I wasn’t crying for my mom or dad, for my hatred of school, or for things I wish I had. I was crying because I was sad and I needed my mom, and for the first time in a long time our roles were put back into their natural order, and she became my parent again. She didn’t say much, because she also knew when words got in the way. I let her comfort me because in that moment it was okay to be selfish, and the feeling of having my pain understood was enough to take away some of its power. “It’s okay, baby,” she said to me. “Whatever it is. It’ll be okay.”

  “I know,” I said softly. “And ditto, Mom. Ditto.”

  Twelve

  Where I have lunch with my best friend one more time.

  The diner was our spot. It was every kid’s spot, so saying that it was our spot was hardly original, but this is my story, so I can say it was ours. That was the place we met to be best friends, and so that’s where I wanted to go the day after Annalise broke my heart. I was having a better day than I thought I would, all things considered. I mean, by all media accounts I should have been devastated—and I was—but I wasn’t depressed-in-bed devastated. Maybe that’s because I saw it coming for a while, even though I wouldn’t allow myself to consciously admit it. I called Pete last night after I sat with Mom for a while, and he told me he’d take me out for lunch. That was a very Pete thing to do. He was weirdly comforting like that.

  I got there first and got the booth we usually sat in. I hadn’t brought my phone. We were fighting. That shit needed to stay face down on my nightstand where I left it. Any messages or notifications could wait until I was back to my normal existence. It was weird to sit and exist without scrolling through a phone. That must have been what it was like when my parents were kids. Crazy. Pete wasn’t too late. And by not too late I mean only like ten or fifteen minutes, but I was estimating because who could tell without a phone? “Hey,” he said. He was looking at me like someone had just died.

  “Hey. I ordered you a Coke.”

  “Thanks, man, you’re the best.”

  “Welcome.”

  “Do you know that I’ve never peed in the shower?”

  “What? Jesus, that was the most random thing you’ve ever said to me. What are you talking about?”

  “Am I strange?”

  “For saying shit like that out of the blue? Yeah, very.”

  “No, seriously,” he reiterated. “Do you pee in the shower?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Apparently. Talk about the things no one tells you. I peed in the shower for the first time before I came here. It was a transformative experience.”

  “I think you peed out your last brain cells. What’s your obsession with shower peeing?”

  “It started at the hotel in the city. I’m sorry for bringing that up, but you asked.”

  “It’s okay. Go on.”

  “Well Lindsey and I obviously don’t live together.”

  “Obviously.”

  “So we never shared a bathroom or shower before. When we were staying over she told me that she pees in the shower. I have to be honest, man, it changed the way I look at her.”

  “You’re insane. Lindsey’s the best thing that ever happened to you. You’re going to marry that girl one day, trust me. You can’t look at her different because she does something everyone in the world does. She should have looked at you different.”

  “Well I thought I was the weird one, so I decided to try it this morning. I have to tell you, it’s over rated. I could have waited until I got out. It freaked me out a little.”

  “I’m sorry you had that experience.”

  “Shit. I know, I’m being selfish and insensitive, aren’t I?”

  “It’s actually really amusing, so if you have any other random or weird shit to say I’m all ears. It would be a welcome respite from talking about last night.”

  Pete got serious when I said that. For all his silliness he was about as solid as a friend got; a rock when I needed just that. “I feel like I keep telling you that I’m sorry, and I know that doesn’t mean anything right now.”

  “It means more than you think.”

  “Well, then, I’m sorry. You don’t deserve any more pain. Are you mad?”

  “Actually, strangely, I’m not. Or maybe I’m just in denial and I’ll be really pissed and bitter in a little while, but for right now I’m okay. I can’t bring myself to be mad at her.”

  “Well that’s nice of you. I’d be pissed as hell.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” I said, reflecting back. “She didn’t do anything wrong and neither did I. It just. . .”

  “Wasn’t meant to be?”

  “No,” I said. “It was totally meant to be. But not everything that’s meant to be is meant to last. Everything ends. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Look at you.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “A relationship virgin no more. Your first heartbreak and you’re handling it like the old soul that Mom always called you.”

  “Wh
o would’ve guessed? I thought I’d be catatonic after something like this.”

  “You’re strong. You always have been. Whether you wanted to be or not, it’s the truth. You’ll be fine.”

  “I’ve heard that somewhere before,” I said.

  “So I hate to ask, but what’s her deal?”

  “Anna?”

  “Yeah. Is it going to be weird seeing her every day?”

  “I’m not going to be seeing her,” I said. “She’s moving, like ASAP.”

  “Moving? Where?”

  “Peru. She has family there.”

  “Yeah, I remember. Why?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that question. It was a good question, one that a best friend should ask, but I didn’t want to betray any of the private things Annalise and I had shared, even though we weren’t together anymore. The real answer was too long and too complex to exchange over a plate of mozzarella fries, even if I had been inclined to get into it. She needed an escape; she needed a new start. . .

  “She needed to get away from here, I guess.”

  “Well who doesn’t?”

  “That’s a great question my friend. I wish I had an answer for you.”

  “You know what I wish?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I wish I knew why people liked peeing in the shower.”

  “Not sure,” I said. “But if you even think of throwing one of those fries at me I’m gonna start punching you. I’m not sure when I’ll stop.”