Just Like You Said It Would Be

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  Darragh’s voice trailed off and I don’t think either of us really believed what he was saying. There wouldn’t be any way forward for us. How could there be? We lived three thousand miles apart and I was only seventeen.

  But life goes on. And in the end I forced myself to stop crying and pull away from him. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

  Darragh looked nearly as lost as I felt as he said, “What’s there to be sorry for? I’d rather have had these past few weeks with you than nothing.”

  “Me too.” I watched one of his hands rub at his red-rimmed eyes. “I’m sorry that I tried to run away on you. I knew I couldn’t handle this.” I couldn’t stand to see him so sad and I automatically reached out to touch him again, my fingers softly brushing against his. “But that’s no excuse. I feel like I’ve been acting crazy ever since I met you—it’s not me.”

  Darragh nodded slowly. “So who’s the real you?”

  “She’s really together, if you can believe it.”

  “I believe it.” Darragh shrugged, tucking both his hands snuggly into his armpits. “Don’t you think you’ve completely fucked me up this summer too?”

  “I hope so,” I said honestly.

  Darragh smiled wearily. “Shit, we’re those pathetic people saying goodbye at the airport.”

  “It sucks.”

  “Hey.” Darragh’s hand reached around me, his fingers moving rhythmically against my back. “Remember when you called me Mr. Smooth? And the time you said you didn’t want to see me because of the claustrophobic playing field.”

  Even now he couldn’t resist teasing me and I groaned. “Don’t think about those things when I’m gone. I was an idiot. Just remember the good things.”

  I remember precisely the set of Darragh’s mouth and the slope of his head when he peered down into my eyes and said, “I’m not going to forget any of it, Amira.”

  I leaned into him one last time, trying to memorize what it felt like to be close to him, although I knew I wasn’t in any danger of forgetting anything either. “Tell Zoey and my aunt and uncle I’m sorry I took off without saying goodbye.”

  Darragh nodded and watched me begin to break away from him. Neither of us said another word and I didn’t turn to look back at him when I walked away either. I followed the mess of ropes to the security screening area where I flashed my papers and walked through the scanner that reduced everyone to their naked essentials.

  Nothing beeped and no one stopped me. No matter how much of an emotional mess I looked, I wasn’t a security risk.

  NOW

  Chapter 21

  People must do it all the time.

  I press my nose against Yanna’s bedroom window to absorb the cold. Outside soft flakes hover in the air turning her neighbourhood a hazy shade of grey that makes it look like a Christmas card. Two kids across the street are shovelling in long crooked lines and I watch them for a minute before reaching into my knapsack for my toothbrush. Then I step gingerly over Kérane’s snoring form spread out in a sleeping bag on the floor, and head for the bathroom.

  My tongue tastes sour in my mouth and my forehead feels like it’s been screwed on too tight, but those things are nothing some toothpaste and Tylenol won’t cure. Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for the three texts I sent Darragh last night. Like Jocelyn said, anything else I could try would probably only make the situation worse.

  I meant every word of those texts. That’s the problem. I’d do just about anything to see Darragh again, but he doesn’t feel the same way. If he did, he’d have texted me back already and I checked my phone when I wriggled out of my sleeping bag two minutes ago. There wasn’t a single new message. So now, on top of feeling lovesick over someone three thousand miles away, I’m humiliated that I couldn’t stop myself from spilling my guts to someone who doesn’t care about me anymore.

  I mistook a summer thing for something more. It felt so real. Darragh said he was going to “be in bits” after I left. How long did that last or was it just something to say?

  I coat my toothbrush in Colgate, turn on the tap and attack the inside of my mouth, thinking that I need to get home. I know I won’t feel any better when I get there, but alone in my room I won’t have to pretend I’m okay.

  I tiptoe into Yanna’s bedroom and tug on my jeans, telling myself that no matter how I feel about him, I have to get over it. Clamp off my emotions at the root and force myself to stop. People must do it all the time. It’s not impossible.

  Back in my clothes and with my knapsack slung over one shoulder, I glide across the floor and ease Yanna’s bedroom door back open. Yanna rolls over in bed, making me wonder if she’s about to open her eyes and cross-examine me about what I’m doing, but it’s Kérane who looks up from the floor and murmurs, “Where are you going?”

  I put a finger to my lips and point to Yanna, signalling that I don’t want to wake her. I’ll text you, I mouth.

  Luckily Ker is too dog-tired to care that I’m leaving and I manage to make it out of the house—practically tiptoeing past the kitchen where I hear the clatter of lunch dishes over the sound of Mr. and Mrs. Flores talking—and into the street without having to explain myself. As I walk home giant flakes gather in my hair and on my wool coat. Snow doesn’t stay fresh long in the city, but for the moment the streets look magical. I feel oddly out of time and place, except for the Darragh ache that I’m still hauling around inside me like a diseased organ.

  When I reach my house I notice the driveway’s been freshly shovelled, but at the rate the snow’s coming down I’ll probably have to clear it again later. I wrestle my key out of my knapsack and a blast of heat embraces me when I step inside. Mom detests the cold. During the day we keep the temperature up higher than anyone I know, but Dad can’t sleep in the heat and throttles the thermostat down before bedtime.

  First, I hit the kitchen to chase acetaminophen down with peach juice. I eat half a blueberry muffin from the open package perched on top of the fridge. Fuelled and medicated, I zoom into the living room and peer at Rana’s mantelpiece photo. I bought my parent’s a digital frame for Christmas so now dozens of images of her rotate in slow succession. In the photo currently onscreen an eighteen-month-old Rana is making a squishy face at the spoon intruding into the frame with her. Her unimpressed expression makes me smile and I gaze at the image a few seconds longer; not wanting the new year to take hold without acknowledging my sister.

  Wahashtini, I think. I miss you. Just like Teta and Gedo used to say to me over the phone.

  Next I head for Mom’s home office, searching out her and my dad. I’m more than ready to go into hiding, but they need to know I’m home first. Finally I run into my mom on the staircase. “Habibiti,” she remarks pointedly, “your hair.”

  “I walked home from Yanna’s in the snow.” I fold my arms around my mother, who has smelled like a combination of coconut body lotion and Burberry London perfume for as long as I can remember. “Happy New Year.”

  “How was the party?” Mom asks, pulling away to look at me. The main reason I was allowed to go in the first place is because Yanna’s cousin was one of the people throwing it and my parents know that Yanna’s mom and dad—who think extremely highly of her near-genius cousin—are strict about those things. Approval by association.

  “Lots of science geek types,” I tell her. “Everyone was nice. We only stayed until one and then went back to Yanna’s house to watch a movie.” It was hell convincing Kérane to leave, but if we’d stayed any longer we would’ve had to carry her home. I don’t even know what happened to Lennox; he must’ve left before we did.

  “I’m going to climb back into bed for a while,” I add. Just then my phone beeps, alerting me that I have a new message. I hear it from within my knapsack and resist the urge to sprint the rest of the way upstairs.

  “Okay,” Mom says. “Don’t stay there too long or you’ll never get to sleep tonight.”

  I don’t waste my breath telling her how obvious that is. There was a monumen
tal disconnect between me and my parents when I got back from Dublin and I’m tired of reacting to things they say. At first there were sex ed lectures and solemn discussions about taking my life seriously and all I could do was be sorry. Then I tried to make them understand, hoping they’d surprise me and change their minds about Darragh. Mom listened to my stories about him, smiling in the right parts, but she never weakened. Being Irish himself, I thought Dad might prove a softer touch. Instead he told me I was too young to be trapped in a long distance relationship.

  Now I nod faintly at my mother, turning to go. “Hey, where’s Dad?” I glance over my shoulder at her, a melting snowflake slipping down my neck and making me shiver.

  “We were out of coffee filters,” she replies. Mom has more of a tea habit, but my father can’t function without continual access to dark roasted coffee beans. Since they’ve been back together, my parents seem to notice each other in a way they didn’t before. It’s a good thing, but they haven’t exactly made it easy for me to feel happy for them.

  At the top of the stairs I rummage through my knapsack and yank out my phone, my stomach plummeting because the text waiting for me isn’t from Darragh—it’s from Yanna. I text her that I’m hung over and needed my own bed. It’s waiting for me just as I left it, the purple sheets tucked in but the comforter askew and the pillows propped against the wall. I have a desk, but usually I end up doing everything—homework, laptop movie-watching, writing, Internet surfing—from that single spot in bed, my spine resting against the pillows and my legs stretched out in front of me.

  Dumping my knapsack on the floor, I collapse onto the bed and try to sleep. The persistent Darragh ache keeps me awake. I should be over him already and that makes it hurt more. This thing feels like quicksand, like there’s no bottom, only continual sinking.

  I switch on my laptop and continue watching a DVD from work that I started into before the party last night. The premise—that there’s a duplicate earth out there with carbon copies of all of us on it—is amazing and I watch the movie to the very end, and then try to write. I’ve been working on a sci-fi script these days, sort of District 9 meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in feel, but I can’t concentrate and every word I type seems wrong. Then my phone rings at about four-thirty and my heart jolts.

  This time it’s Jocelyn and because I haven’t been able to figure out what to do with myself, I pick up.

  “Happy New Year,” she says, like our conversation last night never happened.

  “You too.” I adjust my pillow.

  “Yanna and Ker stopped by a couple of hours ago. They said you went home early with a killer hangover.” Jocelyn pauses, waiting for me to fill her in.

  It only takes me two seconds to decide to come clean with her. “The hangover wasn’t all that bad. I just wanted to come home.”

  “Darragh hasn’t gotten in touch?” she guesses.

  “Nope.” Maybe Jocelyn won’t entirely understand what I’m going through, but she’s my best friend, she’ll try harder than anyone to get it. “I can’t sleep. I can’t focus on anything. And I know it probably seems insane because I haven’t seen him since summer, but him not texting back makes me feel like I never really had him in the first place.”

  “That’s not true. You know how you guys were together. He went to the airport to say goodbye to you when he thought you were leaving Ireland early to look for me, and then chased you through it the day you flew home. But maybe”—Joss’s voice softens—“maybe you have to accept that it was real, but life worked against you.”

  I have to accept it. That’s what I’ve been telling myself for months. I should never have texted him. I’ve set myself back, made the wound fresher.

  Zoey and I email and text occasionally, but neither of us mentions Darragh. Possibly because she figures I wouldn’t want to hear about his new girlfriend. The likelihood of that makes me feel so raw that I’m sure Joss can hear it in my silence.

  “Look, don’t sit there on your own feeling sad,” Joss urges. “Come over and hang out with me.”

  “I’d be crappy company.” Usually when I feel shitty talking to Jocelyn makes me feel guilty about not being content, like I don’t have the right to be messed up when her life has been more complicated than mine for months. But Ajay only has another six weeks left on his sentence and lately I can sense the difference, not just in Joss but in her parents and Ruby too. They’re quietly transferring from endurance to hope.

  “All the more reason,” Joss insists. “I feel like crap too. I think I might be coming down with something. My head is swimming.”

  “A perfect time to come over then,” I joke. “When you’re sick with the flu and can infect me.”

  Joss snickers. “Stop making excuses and get your ass over here. We can shut ourselves up in my room if you don’t want to be around anyone else.”

  I still don’t know if I want to leave my room, but Joss won’t give up on the idea and badgers me until I give in. Even then it’s a half hour before I work up to dragging myself into the shower and another thirty minutes until I’ve dried my hair and am ready to go.

  My dad’s in the living room with his feet up on the coffee table, reading The Globe and Mail to the background noise of the fireplace channel. I guess a lot of men in their late fifties still have plenty of hair, but my dad’s snow white hair is so thick that it looks like it should be starring in its own soap opera. It’s the first thing everyone notices about him.

  “Hi, Dad.” I balance myself on the couch’s arm. “Can I take your car? I want to go over to Joss’s for a bit.” Mom’s car is a stick shift, but I did most of my fall driving lessons on an automatic; I’m clumsy at changing gears.

  Dad bunches the paper together and peers at me over the top. “Not a problem. As long as you’re prepared to shovel the driveway first.” He raises his eyebrows as though he knows this isn’t an ideal answer.

  “Okay. Thanks.” I hop off the arm, my dad motioning me closer so that he can give me a hug.

  “Happy New Year,” he says. “It’s going to be a good one. The year you get into film school.”

  The comment gets me grinning. Sometimes my dad knows the perfect thing to say. I’ve been diligently working on applications to a bunch of universities (with York U’s Screenwriting program in the lead) and spending every spare moment perfecting my portfolio. Over the past few months my parents have gotten more or less acclimatized to the idea that I might turn into a starving artist one day, or maybe they’re just hoping I’ll change my mind by the time I graduate from university. My mom and dad aren’t totally unenlightened; they’re just the sort of people who value security and see interest in the opposite sex as a potentially harmful distraction, at least until I’m something like twenty-five.

  I kiss Dad on the cheek before going out to clear the driveway and then cruising over to Jocelyn’s house where she hurls both arms around me just inside the doorway, Bert at our feet wagging his tale in welcome and a splotch of pale blue on the back of one of Joss’s hands. “Ruby and I have been painting her room,” she says as she steps back and notices me focusing on her hand. “She wanted an accent wall and now she has one.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were painting today.”

  “That would’ve been another reason for you not to come over. Besides the first coat’s done. We have to wait for it to dry.”

  “Let me show you!” Ruby exclaims, jogging up behind Jocelyn and tugging on my arm just as I bend to take off my boots. I glance sideways at Joss, who interprets my look as a plea for help.

  “Another day, Ruby Tuesday,” Jocelyn declares, firm but apologetic. “Mir and I need to talk.”

  Normally I don’t mind Ruby hanging out with us. She’s like an honorary little sister and takes every word I say as gospel. It’s a huge compliment, which is what makes me reply—“It’s okay, I’ll have a look for a minute”—despite my deflated mood.

  After Ajay was sent to prison, Mr. and Mrs. Sandhu didn’t let
Jocelyn or Ruby wallow. Mr. Sandhu has Ruby delivering Meals on Wheels with him, and Jocelyn—on top of the part-time job she’s had since summer—joined the youth advisory group at the local library back in September. Her parents have her on a tight leash since running away and, with her family keeping her close, she wasn’t allowed out for New Year’s Eve. Instead the four of them plus Bert gathered in front of the TV for an Avengers marathon and then waited for the Times Square ball to drop.

  For Ajay’s part, the first month in prison was the toughest. From what I heard, the initial family visits only seemed to upset him more. Since then things have gradually improved, although no one wants to say that straight out and jinx things.

  Together Joss and I follow Ruby upstairs. When I first met Ruby her bedroom was populated by scores of teddy bears and other plush cuddly things, her shelves lined with brightly coloured unisex toys. None of those remain. At eleven and a half Ruby’s room has transformed into teen mode, a bulletin board tacked with photos and torn articles near the bed, and a black and white poster of the Eiffel tower next to one of Supernatural’s Sam, Dean, and Castiel on an adjacent wall.

  “Do you like the colour?” Ruby says as I survey the three off white walls and newly painted light blue one. It’s a soothing, fresh-looking shade that adds a layer of sophistication to the room, which is what I tell Ruby whose cheeks bunch chipmunk-style like it’s exactly what she was hoping to hear.

  “And it’ll be even better when we do the second coat tomorrow,” she say energetically, Joss nodding along as she begins to back out of the room.

  Ruby rolls her eyes at her sister’s rush to leave. “We’ll hang out soon,” I promise Ruby.