The Museum of Us

by Tara Wilson Redd

  “A little,” Sadie said. She turned back to the screen. It had been Henry all along.

  “Celebration?” Henry asked. “My dad bought all this for me the last time I went to see him. We went out all night in Tokyo and no one even stopped me when we went into bars. He called it learning sin to overcome sin. It’s like a macho family thing. His dad did it and his dad before him….”

  “Your dad bought you alcohol?” Henry had gone to Japan for two weeks that summer, texting her every day. He hadn’t said anything about nights on the town. Every picture had been anime and temples and Harajuku Girls. He’d mentioned they’d had some man-to-man talks, whatever those were. His dad was the one thing Henry kept secret, outside of veneration in swashbuckling anecdotes. Henry with his dad was an alternate universe Sadie couldn’t even imagine.

  “He drank it with me. He made me swear I would drink it at home and that I wouldn’t drive. It’s supposed to be really good Japanese whiskey. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “And your mom lets you drink in your room?”

  “She doesn’t know,” he said with a grin. Sadie doubted that. Nothing got by Mrs. Vaughn: not a spelling mistake in class, not a missed practice for cross-country. Sadie’s hair was dripping onto the floor. She wondered what Mrs. Vaughn would deduce from that and reminded herself to wipe it up before she left.

  “How will you drive me home if we drink it?” Sadie asked. Henry reached out and put his arms over her shoulders. She could feel the heavy bottle on her back.

  “I was thinking maybe…would it be okay if I didn’t? My mom is gone for the night.”

  Sadie blushed.

  “I don’t mean…,” Henry trailed off, pulling away. “I mean, we don’t have to…”

  He sighed. “I just want to spend time with you. I miss you. Don’t you ever miss me?”

  She stared at him for a long time, standing there with a bottle of whiskey and cigarettes, all of him soaking wet. His black shirt was dripping. His eyeliner made him look like he’d been crying. Sadie’s heart beat hard in her chest, pounding against the moment of a decision. She could feel the vibrations in the track, standing at a crossroads between two out-of-control trains. She felt like the girl tied to the track between them.

  “Yes, I miss you,” Sadie said. She took the bottle and poured two glasses, neat, handing one to Henry.

  “Na zdorovie,” she said, clinking his glass. He took a sip and winced. Sadie took a gulp and choked, dribbling her drink on the floor. Henry laughed.

  “It’s an acquired taste,” he said.

  Sadie thought of all the dream cocktails she’d drunk, all the sips stolen from George. This did not live up to those drinks. It was horrible. Nothing dignified, woody, or rich about it. Just burning and choking. Real whiskey was nothing like what she’d read about.

  When she looked at Henry, he was still laughing, but catching her eye, he stopped.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “You have the bluest eyes of any girl in the world. When you look at me, it’s like I can’t look away.”

  * * *

  Sadie woke with a gasp. Her vision was spinning, careening painfully. She grabbed her phone. It was one in the morning. She’d barely dozed off.

  She pulled the grimy covers up under her chin. They smelled like sweat. They smelled like clean laundry under which dirty laundry was hiding: like Febreze couldn’t quite get out the smell.

  Henry lay next to her, sleeping. His chest rose and fell, his ripped T-shirt hanging open to reveal a few random long hairs.

  Sadie extracted herself from the bed with surgical precision. Henry stirred, awakened by her movement.

  “Are you leaving?” he whispered.

  “Your mom will be home,” she whispered back.

  “No, she’s out for the night. She’s staying at her boyfriend’s house. I promise.”

  “Well, my parents are home,” Sadie countered. He put his hand on her arm.

  “Hey,” he said. The bottle of whiskey had fallen over and she could see the remaining droplets congregating in one corner. Even thinking of it turned her stomach. The muddy remains of the tea-light candles had gone out, and his iPhone had died. The speakers it was attached to continued to buzz. A square foil wrapper sat crumpled in a ball on top of the piles of CDs that covered his bedside table.

  She looked at him, hoping to get lost in his eyes. His eyes were so black that he looked like a deer. There was nothing to get lost in, just darkness.

  “Hey,” he said again, and she managed to focus. It wasn’t like in a movie or a book, him lying there. He didn’t look cool. He looked confused. His faux ’hawk was all mussed across his head, and he had glitter on half his face from her makeup and the concert. She was smeared all over him.

  “Hey,” she said back finally.

  They sat awkwardly in the silence for a minute. Then he kissed her. His kisses tasted like sour ash after half a cigarette. It didn’t smell wonderful and sophisticated like George’s cigarettes. It was nothing like how she had imagined it. The stench lingered in the air and deep in Henry’s throat. How could smoking taste so bad?

  She stood up. She felt nauseous and unsteady, but she put her hair back coolly, focusing on containing everything in one controlled little knot.

  “Was it okay?” His hand brushed her leg. Everything was perfect. What was wrong with her?

  “Yeah,” she said after a moment, stepping away from him. “I just have to go. My parents are home.”

  “Can’t you stay the night?”

  “No.” She wanted to hold him. She wanted to run away. Everything was a muddle.

  “We have ice cream,” he said desperately.

  “I have to go,” she said. Her heart was pounding so hard that she was shaking. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Can I walk you home?”

  “No, I’ll be fine,” Sadie said.

  She grabbed her bag, and she went to the door. She hesitated, and she went back, and she kissed his wonderful bewildered face one more time, missing his mouth entirely. Then she marched through the house and out his so-familiar front door into the night. And then she could finally breathe.

  * * *

  The street was cool and empty, glittering with the memory of rain.

  Sadie walked slowly, her bag digging into her shoulder. She felt sore and damp and uncomfortable. She felt disgusting. She wished it would start raining again so she would feel clean.

  “We could go to the Star Palace,” George said, walking beside her.

  “Not now.” She felt sick.

  “Come on, Sadie.” He started walking backward in front of her. She looked at him, and he was so gleeful she wanted to hit him.

  “Now, now. Real’s not much fun, is it?” he teased. She watched the pavement pass by and her feet come into view, one after the other. In the corner of her vision George’s shiny black shoes kept distracting her.

  “I’m sorry. Cheer up, darling. I just missed you. That’s all. I know you’ll go your own way eventually. I just thought we’d have more time.”

  “Go away, George,” Sadie said, and he vanished.

  She focused on walking. She counted her steps: one two, one two. Against her will she watched the scene unfold with Henry over and over in her mind. Her head hurt from drinking. She couldn’t quite get it clear. But then it had all been over so quickly, so strangely.

  She imagined Henry’s face, and her heart filled with the kind of ache she’d dreamed of: wanting to touch him, wanting to be near him. He kept her in the present like an anchor. How could he be any more perfect? She didn’t deserve him. He was a rock star grown out of books.

  So why did she feel so awful?

  She wiped her face clean, which only managed to further streak her eyeliner. She straightened out her clothes, but there was no salvaging it. Ther
e was no way to make herself look put together.

  She walked slowly up the driveway, in no hurry to get home. She passed George sitting solemnly on the front step tossing pebbles into the air and letting them fall to the earth. She didn’t even look at him.

  “You’re home late,” her mom said as Sadie came inside.

  “I texted you asking if I could stay out,” Sadie said, hovering near the door so her parents couldn’t smell the reek of alcohol and cigarettes and whatever other sins were emanating off her.

  “Yeah, and when the answer to the text is no, you’re supposed to come home,” her mom replied, an obvious glimmer of suspicion crossing her face.

  Her parents were in the kitchen, her dad staring intently into a battered old four-slot toaster without a spark of life left in it. Her mom was changing the record, inspecting album covers. They’d been listening to a lot of classical music, nerding out about this or that concerto. They even went to the symphony sometimes. Sadie could barely tell all the songs apart.

  “Henry dropped me off,” Sadie said, kicking off her shoes.

  Her dad looked at his watch. “It’s two in the morning,” he said.

  “The show went late. Really late.”

  Her parents exchanged a glance. Sadie realized: they never stayed up this late. They’d been waiting.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just…it was important. To Henry. It was a big deal.”

  “Okay, well, next time not so late,” her mom said. “How was it?”

  “What?”

  “Henry’s show. How was it?”

  “It was…perfect,” Sadie replied.

  Her parents smiled. Her dad went back to his toaster and her mom changed the record. The speakers swept into a waltz. Their massive speaker system filled the whole house with music. She’d be able to hear it even in the basement.

  Sadie felt her phone vibrate and she looked at it. It was a text from Henry. “I love you,” it said. She put her phone back into her pocket and marched toward the back door.

  “Sadie?” her mom called after her.

  “Where are you going?” her dad asked.

  “Outside for some air,” she mumbled.

  “It’s two in the morning,” her mom said.

  “I’m just going out back.”

  She let the screen door slam behind her. She ran barefoot out to Old Charlotte, yanked open her door, and closed herself in.

  It didn’t feel like another world inside like it usually did.

  It felt like a violated world, a broken one.

  Henry always felt like he was a step behind, but Sadie knew that she was the one running to catch up. Tomorrow she would be happy. Tomorrow she would text him that she loved him. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, she would kiss him and touch him and be touched by him. But tonight she was lost.

  The backseat was cold and empty and there was nothing for her to blow her nose on. She tried to stop crying, tried focusing on anything else. A spell. A palace. A mystery. Anything. An old favorite: just a hand to hold. Anything. Anything but this emptiness.

  “Don’t cry,” George said. As though she were under one of his magic spells, she found that she had stopped. The night grew completely quiet. Nothing existed outside Old Charlotte’s foggy windows.

  George leaned in hesitantly, as though she still had the power to stop him. His face was almost touching hers, electric. He took shallow nervous breaths, and she could feel each one light up the space between them with static begging to connect skin to skin, lips to lips. She stayed perfectly still staring into his blue eyes. Destiny, gravity, force. Something brought them together. His lips were soft but not wet, his skin smooth and dry.

  “Did you like it?” he asked when he pulled away. She nodded. She turned away from him, and he pulled her face toward his and kissed her again. He leaned in close to whisper in her ear.

  “The untold want—”

  “I don’t need poetry,” Sadie said, searching those eyes for an answer. “I just need you.”

  And then she kissed him back. She kissed him hard. Not sloppy and wet and fumbling as before, but confident. It was like they could read each other’s minds. His arms wrapped around her and hers found their way around his neck, and she felt the same things she had felt before: the strange automatic motion of him, manifested into something more. His fingers laced their way easily around buttons, and his hand took its place on her back, tempting her toward him. He lifted her up and suddenly she was on top of him—

  Just then Sadie heard a door slam and the whole thing vanished in a wave of panic. She peeked out the window. No one was there, and all the lights had gone off. Her parents had gone to bed. It was dark, and she was alone. Completely alone.

  She leaned back in the truck and lay down in the seat, putting her earbuds in. Her jeans had bunched themselves up in a strange way and she reached down to the sore wetness that remained of Henry, her only recollection of the main event warped by this disgusting mess it had made and the smell he’d left on her.

  Sadie let her hands feel that hard seam of her jeans that held everything together, zipping her in. It divided her in two. She leaned back into the seat and listened to the music from her phone, all the old songs she used to love. A loose spring was sharp against her shoulder. It grounded her. She put her bare feet on the old hand crank of the window, where they fit perfectly. As she pulled at the seam, she imagined how it might have been with George, and what his hands would have felt like, and how magic and different it all could have been and never would be.

  Something was over and something had started with Henry. And she cried, because it had felt strange, and it had felt right, but nothing had been magical at all.

  I sit up bolt-straight, sweating. A nightmare. The sudden movement hurts everything inside me all at once: my broken leg, my horrible knotty stitches, and all the wounds that no one can see.

  My dreams have become no more than harsher and harsher elaborations on my days here. I close my eyes in the hospital, and dream of the hospital, and wake up in the hospital. There’s no escape.

  I was supposed to go home two days ago.

  I haven’t been alone since the second that razor hit my skin. There are eyes on me all the time. In a way I’m glad. I’m afraid.

  I don’t know who that person was who cut herself. I mean, it was me, but it was like watching a movie. Even now I feel like a shadow watching myself.

  I look at my leg and try to settle down, but my thoughts are like a hurricane. It still doesn’t seem real. I touch the tiny cut. It feels far away.

  I’m so tired and so anxious.

  My parents are completely freaked out, and I can’t even be upset with them because who wouldn’t be? I’m terrified that everyone at school is going to find out and think I’m like suicidal or something.

  I told Dr. Roberts that it was an accident. I said it over and over, but even I can’t explain this one away. I mean, how could I? There’s no lie I can tell that would explain how cutting myself with a razor I wasn’t even supposed to have was an accident. What I want to say is “It wasn’t me,” because it wasn’t, in a way. But I can’t explain that either.

  I keep replaying it in my head.

  “We’re very concerned,” Dr. Roberts said once they got me all cleaned up. “Where did you get that razor blade?”

  I could still hear the nurses shouting and everyone yelling and everything just felt like noise. I just shook my head. My default setting is silence. Tell no one anything and you’re always safe from what they might think. You never know what you might give away by accident.

  “Did Eleanor give it to you?” Dr. Roberts asked.

  I thought yes and said no. Eleanor trusted me. But I’ve been drifting, drifting away. I can’t remember, having repeated the story to myself so many times, if I said yes or no. I fear I’ve b
etrayed yet another friend.

  If I betray them all, I’ll be alone forever.

  And that is exactly what I deserve.

  * * *

  I’ve had months that felt like this before: I fade in and out of sleep, all day long. Sometimes I don’t even get out of bed except to put on a show for the world. If you don’t put your mask on, you endure one afternoon a week with a psychiatrist. That’s the deal. So I get up and perform when I have to, because that’s what keeps George safe. Even when I want nothing more than to sleep, I make sure no one can see how empty I am inside.

  What do I care now? I’m already in a hospital. I might as well sleep. I could sleep forever.

  But today I open my eyes and Henry is standing in the doorway, leaning there in his Levi’s jacket with all the patches from all the bands I had to look up on the Internet. I smile. But he is so still, like a ghost watching over me, and I fall back asleep because I’m dreaming, I think, and it is so strange to be dreaming at all, let alone dreaming of him.

  When I wake up again, he’s next to my bed reading. I open my eyes and it takes so long for him to notice me. I can see that it is taking all of his strength to look at the book and not at me, like he is counting the seconds until he can check on me again. When our eyes meet he comes alive.

  “Hey, stranger,” he says. He puts his hand on my hand. I don’t say anything. God, what could I have said in my sleep? My heart starts to flutter.

  “I wanted to come sooner, but they said you were too sick. And then I called and you—”

  “It was just a misunderstanding,” I say.

  “Your parents said I could come. I would have come anyway, but I did ask.”

  “You didn’t have to ask.”

  “I wanted to make sure you weren’t too…that you wanted to see me,” he says. “I’ve been thinking of you. Every day.”

  “I’ve been thinking of you too. Thank you for the iPod.”