Are You Mine?

by N. K. Smith

  Days move fast when important events are speeding toward you. The day before I leave, I realize Saige will come to regret her decisions and actions, but I can’t live my life hoping she’ll choose me. She doesn’t direct her life. She’s just a bystander waiting for life to lead her, and if she can’t step outside her comfort zone for one second to tell me I matter to her, then I can’t hang around waiting for life to make up Saige’s mind for her.

  My heart is broken, but at least I made the choice to try. I’ve never been one to linger on all the things that bring me down, and I won’t be doing that this time either. I finish the painting on canvas I’ve been working on for over a month, then turn it to the wall so I don’t have to look at it as I pack my bags.

  I barely sleep the night before my early flight. Pop is up when I drag my suitcase and the painting up the stairs.

  “Sure you don’t want me to drive you to the airport? It’d save some money on parking.” He hands me a cup of coffee when I set everything down.

  “No, Pop. I’m going to do this all on my own. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  “I’ll worry about you whether your car is at the airport or here.” Pop’s expression is long, like he’s saying goodbye forever, so I give him a one-armed hug and he thumps my back with his hand. “Can’t believe you’re grown up enough to go to a whole other country by yourself. Seems like just yesterday your mom and I brought you home from the hospital.”

  I pull away and take a sip of the coffee. Just the smell of it wakes me up a bit. “Don’t get mushy. I’m just going to England, not the moon.”

  Pop gets into his wallet and pulls out some cash. He thrusts it toward me as he says, “Bring me back a Liverpool banner, will you?”

  “Put the money away, old man. I’ve got a budget, and I’ll do much better than a banner. I’m going to get you a jersey, and I’m not going to leave Anfield until all the players sign it.”

  This makes him laugh. “Knowing you, I think you could pull that off.” With two steps, he’s next to me. Pop pushes the money into my hands. “I know you’ve been saving for this since you were a kid, but I’ve been saving too. Take the money, Fox.”

  “You’re awesome, you know?”

  He smiles at me before returning to the table and leaning against it. “Not half as awesome as you.” Pop looks down at the canvas. “Taking this across the pond, are you?”

  “No. Dropping it off before I go.”

  With the tip of his finger, he touches my signature at the bottom. “I’m proud of you, and if she can’t—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. She’ll either be here with a new perspective when I get back or she won’t.”

  “It’s okay to be sad about—”

  I cut Pop off again. “I’m fine. My heart’s a little tender at the moment, but life goes on, right? I’m a better person for having known Saige. Not everything’s meant to be, and if she can’t see how stupid she’s being, then there’s nothing I can do. The ball’s in her court. It has been this whole time. Like you said, I’m awesome. Ma said I was a prize, but awesome prizes need to be earned, they need to be won, and if she’s not going to work for it or compromise just a little, then she’s not the one for me.”

  I give my dad a smile and hope it’s more confident than I feel. I don’t believe my words yet, but I know in time they’ll be the truth. “And who knows, maybe there’s a beautiful girl waiting for me in the stands of Anfield. Maybe sitting in the seat next to mine, or maybe we’ll bump into each other on the way to our seats, and I won’t be able to look at anything else. Maybe we’ll sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” together, and maybe this girl will get the meaning of the song.”

  Pop taps me lightly on the cheek and says, “You’ll be late. Go have fun.”

  That’s how we say goodbye. I finish my coffee, grab my things, give him a nod, and walk out the door. I only make one stop on my way to the airport, and I make sure it’s quick. It’s not until I’m waiting in line to board the plane that I take out my phone and type a slow message to Saige.

  I wont bother u agin but I left something outside ur door. I love u saige.

  Without rereading it, I know there are probably a lot of errors, but I don’t care. I just want to get the point across without having to listen to her voicemail message in order to leave mine. From the flight to Chicago with Saige, I know I have to power down my cell phone before takeoff, so I do before I board. I may never get over Saige, but I’m not going to delay my plans or my life to wallow in the sadness I know will fade with time.

  When it’s my turn to board, I step up to the lady, hand the boarding pass to her, close my eyes, and take a moment to just breathe. Once I get on this plane, my whole life changes. It might only change a little, but maybe everything will change.

  “Have a good day,” the woman says to me.

  I open my eyes. “You too.”

  Each step I take toward the plane sends a shiver of adrenaline through me because this is the beginning of my life.

  Chapter 23

  Saige

  Ending a relationship to avoid future pain does not hurt any less than I imagine the future pain would, but it’s done now. Fox has just left my apartment after telling me to throw away the graphic novel we’ve been working on. Even though he’s been working on it for years, he doesn’t even care about it anymore.

  I think it was my refusal to tell him I loved him and my inability to choose him that pushed him over the edge. Fox can take a lot of emotional crap, but he’s not a doormat, so he left.

  After he leaves—after I push him out, I cry and cry. I don’t remember the last time I cried like this. Probably my father’s funeral, but unlike with my dad or with my mom, I did this to myself.

  It’s not like letting Fox follow his dreams meant we couldn’t be together. They aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s too late to change it now. I spend the rest of the night as a sobbing mess and ignore everything beyond the small, miserable world of my sofa. My phone rings, but I don’t even bother to see who is calling.

  In the morning, I roll off my sofa, shuffle into the kitchen, turn the coffeepot on, and return to the same spot once I have a steaming cup in my hands. I don’t know what to do with myself. It seems like since I did all this, I should at least be able to control my mind enough to get over the self-inflicted wound quickly.

  Writing always helped me process heavy emotions in the past, so I write and write and write until I’m on the other side of thirty thousand words. When I reread what I’ve written, I find Fox. So I switch from prose to poetry, and at the end, I find Fox again. So I open another blank document and write some more.

  By three in the afternoon, I’ve written more than I have in the past few years, and everything’s about Fox.

  Always Fox.

  My phone rings but because it’s Fox calling, I let it go to voicemail. It rings again, and I still don’t pick it up. I’m a horrible person, but what am I supposed to do? Try to get him to forgive me and forget I did all of this? It won’t stop him from leaving. It won’t stop me from hurting and feeling like. . .like what exactly?

  Why am I so afraid to feel anything beyond quiet comfort?

  Music plays when I check my voicemails; it doesn’t surprise me. Fox uses jokes to cut tension and music and art to convey his feelings. These songs are particularly painful. They speak of our situation as if the lyrics had been written for us. In them, he’s telling me all I have to do is ask him to not go again, and he’ll stay. He’ll change his goals for me because I’m more important to him than something he’s worked for years to accomplish. The second song is about how sad he’ll feel if I don’t ask him to stay again; how sad he’ll be if I let him leave like this.

  And it hits me; what Myka said was true. I am the one doing the abandoning now. I’m the one making someone else feel the way I hate to feel. Even though he’s the one taking the flight to England, I’m the one leaving him.

  But I’m too
used to inaction to do anything, so I don’t call Fox back. I just listen to those two songs on my voicemail over and over again until it’s one day closer to the day he leaves.

  ***

  “It’s like the lottery, Saige,” Myka says the day before Fox is scheduled to leave the country. “People don’t play because they’re absolutely certain they’re going to win the next drawing. Hell, most people play and expect not to win. It’s the hope that keeps them in it. That little ticket gives them hope that something better, something more is out there. But you had something more, something better, and you’re letting him go. There’s no hope in that.”

  I’ve been lying on this sofa for hours. I only got up to let Myka in, and my only reason for wanting to get up now is to let her out. “There is hope for him.”

  “How very selfless of you,” she says.

  “It is selfless, thank you. Now he can move on to someone who isn’t so toxic and won’t—”

  “Saige, I love you and all, but you’ve got to get rid of this toxicity thing. I know a ton of people who are more noxious than you. You’re a little abrasive, self-defeating, and lack skills in the ways of social interaction, but if I had to guess, those are some of the reasons Fox likes you so much. He doesn’t want perfection. He wants you, flaws and all.”

  “I know you’re doing what a best friend should do, but can you just stop?”

  “When you stop wallowing in self-pity and take action, I’ll stop.”

  “I am acting,” I say as I sit up and wave my hands at my body. “This is me taking action.”

  “Failing to act isn’t action. It’s—”

  “Myka, seriously, just—”

  “Fine, I’ll leave you alone, but after I leave, you’ll never get an ounce of sympathy about this situation from me. You did this, and you won’t fix it.”

  She’s right. I know she’s right. I close my eyes and dig my fingers into them as if the pressure will take away the sharp teeth eating me away from within. “I don’t know how to fix it,” I say.

  “Try sharing that poem you wrote with him.” When I open my eyes, I see Myka pointing to my laptop. She looks at me for a long moment before tilting her head to the side. “You always deny yourself happiness for the stupidest reasons. He likes you. You like him. Just let yourself have a little joy.”

  Of course I have nothing to say to that. Happiness is a risk, and I’m not sure I want to give up the comfort I have, miserable or not, for just the chance of happiness.

  Myka glances at her watch. “I have to go. Val and I are going into the city. Now that he’s going to go to NYU with us, he’ll need a place to stay, so we’re apartment shopping for him. I’m hoping we don’t find anything and we’ll just live together.”

  “Aren’t you scared?” I ask.

  “Of what? I’ve been to the city a million times.”

  “Not of the city. Of being happy with Val and then one day having it all just disappear.”

  Myka comes and sits down next to me. It feels awkward when she takes my hands in hers, but I like the connection, so I don’t pull away. “Happiness doesn’t just disappear, Saige. Sometimes it fades from view or diminishes when you’re not actively grateful for it, but it doesn’t just go away.”

  She’s wrong, but then she still has both parents. She can still go home and laugh with them. They’re not just washed-out old memories of a life that once was.

  I don’t voice any of this to her, but she guesses. “I know you don’t believe me. I’ve not lived the life you have, but I know if you boil away all the pain you let coat your existence, you’ll be left with the happiness and love you’ve been given your whole life. Change your mind. Decide to focus on all the happiness your parents gave you instead of what you’ve lost.”

  “They haven’t—”

  “Sure they have,” Myka says. “You just have to remember it.”

  After she leaves, I remain on the couch. I don’t even bother to get up and lock the door. Instead, I try my best to do as she said. I attempt to remember the happiness my parents gave me. I supposed if someone asked if I would rather never have had parents, the answer would be no. I guess I’m glad I knew them and knew they loved me. Does having five years of a mother’s love outweigh the void her death caused for thirteen years? Does my memory of my father’s smile and the way he hugged me mute the pain of having that damn flag on my shelf?

  When I was a little girl, I was always so excited to get a letter from my dad. My stomach would flutter and my heart would race. As soon as my grandmother told me I’d gotten a letter, I’d run around the house looking for it. I suppose it was a game I played with myself. I mean, I always knew it would be lying on the kitchen counter, but I always ran to my bedroom first, then scanned the living room, then the kitchen table.

  Even now I can remember the sensation of ripping open that envelope and pulling out the folded piece of paper. The expectation was overwhelming. He’d always write me a letter, but whenever he could, he’d send me a drawing. I never knew if the envelope contained a little piece of creativity; a little piece of who my father was beyond words written on a page, sanitized for the eyes of a young girl.

  Once, he drew a picture of children, another time, it was of his bunk, but my favorite of all was a sketch he did of our family. At the time, even though I was young, I knew it was a representation of how he still thought of us. I was lying on the ground, with the biggest smile ever, while my mother held my shirt with one hand and tickled my belly with the other. My dad drew himself at my feet, holding one foot by the ankle and tickling it.

  When I saw it, I laughed and cried at the same time, then ran to my room to tuck the drawing under my pillow.

  I don’t remember what happened to that picture. I don’t think it was lost or ruined, but I can’t remember what I did with it when I moved out of Gramma’s.

  I look around, thinking of all the places it could be. All of the sudden, I’m up on my feet, moving fast through my apartment, opening cabinets and drawers and pulling out the contents. It takes a half hour to find a stack of old notebooks at the bottom of the blue trunk that had belonged to my mother. Sandwiched between two notebooks is the picture my father drew.

  The tears come, but just like when I was a child, they’re followed by laughter as I imagine myself being tickled by my parents. We had been a family. They had loved me, and we’d been happy together. I wouldn’t trade that knowledge for anything.

  I sit there at the base of my closet with paper, old toys, and clothes all around me until I hear, “Saige?” My grandmother stands in the doorway. “I knocked, but—” Her eyes grow large as she takes in my room. I’m sure the living room is in the same state of disarray. “What’s going on?”

  So I tell her. I tell her about breaking up with Fox and Myka’s words about happiness and deciding to focus on that, and when I’m finished, Gramma carefully makes her way to me by stepping over items. She holds out a hand and helps me up.

  I show her the drawing, and she gets this expression on her face that’s only part smile. The other part is sadness.

  “How do you balance it?” I ask when I’m standing straight.

  “Balance what?”

  “The love and the pain. The happiness and the sorrow.”

  “It was hard in the beginning, but one day I just woke up and decided every time I felt horrible for not having your mother any more, I would remember how lucky I was to have her in the first place. So many people don’t even get the years with their children I was given. Your question is the answer. You balance the pain and sorrow with the love and happiness. When it hurts, you remember, purposefully remember, the good times.”

  My grandmother has tears in her eyes. I’ve never felt closer to her. She squeezes my hand. “I’ve brought something for you.” Gramma leads me out into the kitchen and lying on the counter is a journal. “I found it,” she says.

  I take the small book and sit down at the table. The cover is a soft fabric, but before I can open i
t, my grandmother’s voice stops me. “Did I ever tell you about how your dad proposed to your mom?”

  “No,” I say.

  “She broke up with him their senior year of college. He’d already signed the papers to join the Marines and loving a military man frightened your mother. Like I’ve said, she was a free spirit. She decided to spend the summer in Italy in a cultural program she’d wanted to participate in since she was in high school, so she arranged to get her finals out of the way early to begin her time there as soon as possible. Your dad was always a by-the-books kind of man. He was an artist, but he drew inside the lines, if you understand what I mean, but despite knowing he had finals in a week and knowing that a poor performance on those tests could adversely affect his future, he borrowed money from friends, bought a ticket to Italy, and proposed to your mother on the beaches of the Mediterranean.”

  I don’t know what I feel as my mind supplies images of what their proposal must’ve looked like, but as I think about the depth of love my father must have felt to risk everything and change his straight and narrow ways to find her, a little tickle within my belly starts to rise. Soon, my whole body shakes with excitement, anticipation, and nervousness. “Wow,” I say in a whisper.

  “Toward the end of the journal, she writes about it,” Gramma says as she takes a step toward the hall. “It’s late, Saige. I should go, and you look as though you need some sleep.” She stops, then walks to me and gives me a kiss on the top of my head. “Your mother ran away from the idea of loving a man who could be sent anywhere in the world at any time, but this man, who she thought would never bend his own rules of conduct, chased her across the world, declared his love for her, and didn’t let her get away. You’re a bit of your mother and a bit of your father. Perhaps if you love Fox, you won’t let him get away either.”

  I spend hours after my grandmother leaves hesitating about opening the cover of my mom’s journal. Finally, when it’s the early hours of the next day, I lift the fabric cover and scan through the first page. I don’t read anything yet. I just soak in the handwriting. It looks like mine, but there are more loops and bigger flourishes. Even without reading the words, I can tell my mother was a happy person.