by R. K. Ryals
A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow past it. “I loved her, and I wish I’d had the chance to show her how much. Her name was Julia Gwen Lawson, and she was six months old when she died. My father was thirty.”
I stop the camera, turn it back on, and say, “My mother doesn’t know who I am. She calls me her jewel, and I hate her for it because I’m not my sister, and I didn’t die.”
Oh my God! This hurts so bad. Mom, why don’t you see me? I’m right here. Right here! Just look at me. See me. Please see me! Not Julia! Me!
The tears are sudden, a flash flood that ravages me. The anger pounds my insides, and it startles me how mad I am, how hurt.
My phone falls to the carpet.
“I am a terrible person,” I whisper because I feel like one.
The loneliness comes next, so hard and awful that I actually grab my stomach, groaning.
Flipping the phone over with my toe, I stare down at it. “Did you know that loneliness is a real pain. I mean, a very physical pain. A terrible, terrible pain so big, so huge I could really use a pain killer right now.”
My sobs kill the rest of the words.
Falling to the floor, I bring my phone to me, stop the video, and do something I can’t take back. I send it to Matthew’s phone, save his number under my contacts as ‘Keep it Real’.
Immediately, I regret it, but it’s too late.
Ten minutes later, my phone dings.
Keep it Real: Dude, you’ve really got to prepare people for shit like that.
My heart pounds, torn between giddily thumping and stopping altogether because I don’t know what he means by that.
I go twenty minutes asking myself a million questions that don’t matter. Did he hate it? Was it too much? Too real? Too hopeless or sad?
Three words: Boys are stupid.
Suddenly, my phone screen lights up followed by another message.
Keep it Real: *video attachment*
I stare, dumbfounded. He sent me a video?
My fingers tremble as I press play because, yeah, I’m scared.
Matthew Moretti appears on the screen, a little awkward, which is, hands down, the sexiest thing ever. This tall, confident guy reduced to mobile-sized vulnerability.
He grins, angles the phone so that it shows his torso, lifts his shirt, and flashes me his six pack abs. “Because you know you wanted to see that.”
I laugh and roll my eyes.
“You’re glaring … or something right now, but admit it, that did it for you, right?”
The phone is back on his face. He hasn’t shaved, the stubble sharp in the dim light thrown off by a lamp in his room. It’s late, maybe one o’clock in the morning. Aunt Trish and Uncle Bobby returned home hours ago.
The picture on the screen shakes, moves off his face, and then returns to it. “So, that video? Yeah. I was planning to be all funny, maybe strip for you, but as handsome as I know I am, I don’t really want a dick video of myself out there. Colleges aren’t really into that shit.”
Sitting on his bed, he gazes straight into the phone, and it’s crazy how intense he looks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your family. I knew you had lost your father. People don’t really talk about it, so I guess I never realized you lost, like, an entire family. Except your aunt and uncle, I mean. I have a sister, and I know how hard it was to be a girl while growing up in a house full of boys, but she still had Ma …” He shakes his head. “Boy, I really need to shut up. Anyway, since I kind of gave you this video idea and that shit just got really, and I mean really real, I thought maybe I could send you some moral support by doing videos, too. Not for the project, btw.” He grins. “Yes, I totally just abbreviated a word. Out loud.”
He grows quiet, glances at something I can’t see, and then faces me again. “I’m Matthew Moretti, and I’m an eighteen-year-old student and basketball player at Heart Bay High.”
The phone goes blurry, refocuses. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “Imagine me without words. That’s happening because that intro sounded way too intervention, like I’m about to announce I’m on drugs or something. Which I’m not!” He laughs. “It’s weird because there are all of these things I could say about myself, and then when it comes down to saying it, it seems stupid. So, I’m going to switch it up a little. Remember when you told me you prayed to your mother?”
I nod, realize I’m nodding at a video, and then laugh at myself.
“Well, I’m going to do that now. Except to you.” He inhales, and then exhales with, “Please make my brother, Christopher, quit hating me.”
My eyes widen. What?
“You heard me right. He hates me. I used to think it was because of the older brother thing or basketball. Hell, all of that makes sense, right? I even thought maybe girls? No,” he shakes his head, laughs shortly, “it’s because I’m mostly deaf. Crazy, huh? It’s true. I’ve heard him say it, which is ironic in itself.” He brings the phone close to his face, so close I can make out the pores in his skin, the freckles I didn’t realize dotted the bridge of his nose. “I hold him back because I’m too expensive. Too needy.”
He mimics his parents. “Matthew needs new hearing aids, so we’ll just wait to send Christopher to football camp. Matthew has a hearing problem, so it’s okay if he has girls in his room.”
Grimacing, Matthew blinks, keeps his eyes closed a minute, reopens them. “He’s right, and I either want new ears or I want to be completely deaf because being somewhere in between sucks.”
Even after the confession, he offers me a smile. “Btw—see, there it is again—I need to see your room. Like really see it because, unless I’m losing my sight on top of my hearing, there is some really cool shit in there. No lie, Lawson. Really cool shit. Did I see a dragon? Or do I just need sleep?”
Leaning back on his bed, he holds the phone out above him. “I know the videos you’re making aren’t for me, they’re for the project, and so I want to tell you how really awesome the first one was. Off the chain raw. So raw it kind of hurt to watch it, but it felt big. So, yeah, keep doing that.”
He pauses and points at the screen like he’s pointing at me. “A bit of advice: Quit trying to manipulate your face. It’s a face, not a can of Play-Doh. Smile as big as you want. That mouth on display is not a bad thing. When you pray to your mom, think about mentioning me. I wouldn’t mind another trip to wherever, and she may forget me otherwise. Oh,” he winks, “keep it real.”
The video ends. My heart doesn’t. It grows and grows and grows until I think I’m all heart, the beating organ swallowing the rest of me.
FIFTEEN
My mother’s world
When everything goes wrong
SATURDAY HAS ALWAYS been my favorite day of the week. It has it all—no school, sleeping in, and loungewear—but my love for this particular Saturday is huge. Through the stratosphere huge, mainly because my chances of seeing Matthew have been reduced to fifty/fifty. Which are odds my emotionally exhausted heart and brain can handle better than the overall eighty/twenty chance I have at school.
I’m ashamed to admit I re-watched the video he sent me a dozen times, noticing something new each re-play. A filling I glimpse at the back of his mouth mid-conversation. A stack of crime novels, which tells me he’s either really into whodunit mysteries or is planning to pull off the ultimate misdeed. A scar on his neck just under his ear. The way he squints when he gets upset.
Fine. Aunt Trish wins. I have it bad, and the only thing worse than having it bad for someone who probably texts/calls a list of girls every day—remember Amber—is feeling guilty about having it bad.
I find Mom in her room sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, an empty bowl resting next to her. She has a thing for cereal, especially Corn Pops.
She looks up when I enter and smiles. “My jewel!”
Settling across from her, I place my hands on her cotton-covered knees, offer her a smile, and breathe, “Hey, Mama.”
“You’re going to need a horse un
less you plan to hike.” Familiar excitement sets Mom’s eyes on fire, and it calls to me.
“I think I prefer a horse,” I reply, leaning forward to pull my cell phone out of my pocket. “Mama?”
“The skies above us are clear and blue with white, fluffy clouds rolling through the expanse, and if you close your eyes and listen hard enough, you can hear history calling,” Mom whispers, lost to her delusions.
“Mom?”
She doesn’t hear me. “Yellow-green grass waves at us, our horses plodding through it, as if they were swimming through green seafoam. Dirt flies up beneath the hooves.” She inhales. “The air is ancient—”
“Can I take a video of this, Mama? Of us seeing the world?”
She pauses, her relaxed features scrunching, confused.
I show her my phone, turning it over so she can see the camera and how it works. “Kind of like our own Travel Channel.”
At first she doesn’t speak, just stares at the device for so long I think she’s fallen asleep sitting up, eyes open. It’s happened before.
“Okay,” Mom breathes suddenly, one long breath that goes on forever.
“I don’t have to,” I rush to tell her, but she’s already gone, stolen away by a world where the grass is seafoam green and the air smells like history.
“We are on the peak of the Undur Shireet, away from where we came from. Away from everything. The sun bleeds on us. The wind spits in our faces.” She stands, pretends to fly.
Rising to stand with her, I press record.
“There’s a monastery on this peak, so old it’s filled with ghosts. We are nomads, tied down to no man, the land breathing beneath our feet, smelling of soil, rich and deep,” Mom murmurs, reaching for me. Seeing the phone, she frowns, and tries to take it away. “Come see, my jewel. Come fly with me.”
“Tell me about it, Mama,” I urge instead, voice gentle, my phone capturing all of it. I can see the peak we’re riding across, feel the wind in my face, and smell the sweet richness of the earth.
Mom reaches for my hand again. Grows agitated. “Come fly!”
The phone hinders her from pulling me into her embrace the way she wants, hands entwined so our arms can fly in tandem. A noise emerges from her lips, sad and stricken. A whimper.
I immediately pocket the phone without stopping the video. “Never mind. It’s okay, Mama, I don’t have to do this.”
It’s too late.
Mom sinks in a heap to the floor, her sobs growing, tears raining down her face. A drizzle turned downpour turned thunderstorm. No advance warning, and it’s ugly.
There is a first time for everything—first step, first car, first kiss—and in this moment, I have a first: Mom’s first tears. She’s crying. She never cries—aside from weather related screams—and I did this to her.
For the first time I look at my mother, really look at her. All of her. The way her hair—so much like mine except for the lighter color—clings to her tear-stained cheeks. The way her nose turns up at the end, as if she’s always sniffing the air, and the way she cries. It’s like she’s losing someone she loves for the first time, over and over again. On repeat. It’s that devastating.
Drawn in by the wails, Aunt Trish enters the scene, assesses the situation, and takes over.
“It’s okay, Reagan,” Trish soothes, throwing me a reassuring look before turning to my mother.
I don’t hear her. I stand frozen in place, helpless and numb. Another first for me. I have no soothing words in me, no wisdom to share, and nothing left to give.
My phone records it all.
SIXTEEN
The real world
The video
I’m lying on my bed staring at nothing. The ceiling fan above me rotates, spinning, and I follow the blades with my eyes, feeling the breeze it throws off kiss my desert dry cheeks. I am a dried up river, the earth cracked and desperate for water.
I never found out where my mother took me, what part of the world we were riding horses in. Afterwards, I Googled the peak she mentioned, but I couldn’t get the spelling right, and I kept getting weird responses. The majority of the sites tried selling me soft fiber sheets. Others promised me the time of my life under the sheets.
I wonder what Matthew is doing right now, and then berate myself for my curiosity.
Covering my face with my hands, I scream into them.
I never want to see another romantic movie or read another romantic book in my life because crushing on someone is the most terrible feeling in the world. It isn’t like the images the media shoves down society’s throat. No giddiness or girly giggles. Just me climbing my bedroom walls wishing for something I don’t quite know how to label.
Sleep would be nice, but it eludes me, leaving me stuck in my head. I want to go to the Morettis’, but I don’t because I don’t want to care.
Dropping my hands, I glance at my bedroom wall. Mom is sleeping, having cried so much her body couldn’t keep up.
Unable to take Mom’s hysterical breakdown earlier, I’d rushed from the room, Aunt Trish on my heels. In the hall, she took me by the arm, locked gazes with me, and asked, “Do you need to talk?”
I didn’t.
I still don’t.
Did I?
Feeling for my phone in the sheets, I grasp it, find the camera, click it on, and then turn it so that it films the fan above me.
“My head is a weird place,” I say, my voice rough from lack of sleep and cracked emotions. “Like this fan. Things just keep going around and around, as if I’m on a merry-go-round I can’t get off of.”
The fan disappears, replaced by my face, by hair fanned out around me on the bed, dark circles dusting my eyes, the hot flush of unshed tears staining my cheeks, and the fear I pretend isn’t lurking in my gaze.
“She’s leaving.”
It’s the first time I say the words out loud, the first time I put weight and reality behind them, and surprisingly, it doesn’t destroy me.
Still filming, I shut my eyes, and I talk, taking courage in not being able to see myself. “She’s leaving. My mom. I don’t know what to do with that. Deep down, I understand why. My head gets it, it does, but my heart doesn’t give a damn. It doesn’t care about my head. She’s my mom.”
My voice breaks, but I don’t cry. I won’t. “She’s my mom, and … I guess …”
Raking my free hand through my hair, I leave it on my forehead. My eyes remain shut. “I wasn’t home the night Dad and Julia died, but Mom was. Sometimes I wonder what it must have been like, how terrible it had to have been. It was dark, and the weather was awful. Warning after warning played on the radio. On the television, too, which isn’t an abnormal thing for here, you know?”
I pause, inhale, forge ahead, “The tornado came out of nowhere, took the house, the car … everything. There wasn’t time to hide. She couldn’t have done anything more than she did.”
It’s me, talking, and I know there’s the distinct possibility no one will understand what I’m saying, but I do. I know exactly what I’m saying. Speaking about it is like doing origami. All of this complicated folding and unfolding that will, hopefully, make sense in the end.
“Afterwards, when the rescue crews found them, Julia and Dad were already gone. Mom was in bad shape. A head injury.”
I don’t go into detail because, truth is, I don’t know all of the details. No one does. Except Mom.
Removing my hand from my forehead, I open my eyes. “Mom wasn’t always like this. Even after the head injury and the deaths. She was different—sad, quiet, and distant—but she was still herself. That changed later. After the breakdown.”
My gaze goes off camera, to the wall. “When I was younger, I was forced to see a counselor. It was a good thing, I guess. There was this one guy.” I laugh, remembering. “Well, anyway, he was odd. He used to dress up in costumes when we’d meet, as if me talking to a dog, cat, or some random television character was supposed to make it easier to say things. I guess it was. I mean, how
can you take someone seriously when they bark at you? Anyway, he told me once that one day I’d understand what love is. That there are all of these different kinds. The most powerful being the love a parent has for a child. Bigger than any number, bigger than the universe, and bigger than life.”
My forehead creases. “So, I guess maybe losing a child … well, that kind of heartbreak must be much harder to come back from. Maybe it’s easier to pretend the child never left at all? Because that’s where my mom is right now.”
