The sex was pretty good. Not great. Not earth-shattering. But satisfying. I’d been out there dating post-Brendan for eighteen years by the time we met, so I’d had plenty of disappointing encounters, believe me. And sex is important. I told myself for a long time that it wasn’t, but it is. So that part of our relationship was okay.
But not good enough.
And that was the last relationship I’d had. The closest I’d come, so far, to forever.
“Can you get me another beer?” Tanya’s voice interrupted my thoughts, and I was back in the past.
Teenage Me probably would have done it.
Real Me knew she didn’t need more beer and so Real Me wasn’t going to contribute to that.
“How about I get you some water?” I suggested, sounding noticeably parental.
“Not quite what I asked for.”
I put a finger to my chin and pretended to think. “Yet exactly what you need.”
She got it. She smiled. “Fine, fine.” She waved an airy hand at me, and sat heavily on the stone wall. “I’ll be here.”
“Okay.” I headed into the house to find the kitchen and hoped she wouldn’t start puking before she started to sober up.
“Ramie.”
I stopped and turned back to her. “You’re not going to puke, are you?”
No me wanted to deal with that.
She shook her head. Then stopped and looked as if she were reconsidering.
My nerves strung tight.
“No,” she said finally. “I’m think I’m okay. But can you try and find, like, a cracker or a piece of bread or something? A graham cracker would be perfect.”
“I’ll look but don’t count on it.” I left her and went into the house, which was far, far bigger than my own. Where mine was just a foyer and three rooms, including kitchen, on the first floor, this one seemed to have dens, parlors, family rooms, living rooms, everything but a bowling alley. I took a few wrong turns on what I had thought would be a simple mission. And one of those wrong turns took me to the entrance to a small, dark room where a girl was crying, hanging on some guy, her arms draped over his shoulders.
I froze.
I’d been here before.
I knew how this night had ended, obviously. But the truth was, at the time I’d been a bit more tipsy than I was now—I hadn’t had the close call with my parents because of the vodka so I’d arrived earlier—and also I hadn’t registered all of the things leading up to The Event. After all, it was only The Event that ended up mattering, and the only things that had been left to my memory were a blur of tears, betrayal, and anger. And more betrayal. It was the betrayal that had ended it for us.
“Why can’t you just tell her it’s over?” the girl whined, followed by a dramatic sob as she buried her face in his shoulder.
A shoulder I knew well, by the way. A shoulder I had just been clinging to, naked, in the backseat of a car a few nights earlier. Past me and present me both felt the sting of jealousy. Anger rose in one of us, and I had to stop myself from lunging at both of them and ripping them away from each other.
It was clear that I wasn’t just inhabiting my old (young) body; I was commingling with all of those old emotions. And even though I knew where this would lead, and I’d intended to go into it with a more adult head on my shoulders, the rage took over and all but obliterated every other thought I had.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Anna.” Brendan’s voice. Though of course I hadn’t needed to wait to hear it because I knew it was him. I’d have known it was him even if I didn’t recognize the light blue T-shirt he was wearing, or the belt he always wore that I’d unbuckled countless times, or the hair I’d run my fingers through a million times.
And of course I knew it was her. I’d been expecting this.
Still, my stomach clenched.
A rage that felt like it was not my own built in me like some sped-up version of Tetris, anger on top of anger on top of anger.
This was not my reaction. Or, rather, this was not my present self’s reaction. How could it be? I’d been building up to this all night. My intention had been to let it float on past and see what was on the other side of it.
Wrong.
This was bleed-through of the old me; I was feeling some of what I’d felt before, when this had originally happened. Just as I’d been getting nudges of the old me’s emotions for days, I was feeling the impulses of my genuine eighteen-year-old self popping up against my better judgment, and those impulses included screaming, running in and ripping the hair off that girl’s head, and running away.
The part of me that was me felt detached, interested in where this was going, in finding out what it was. He’d always said it was nothing, that I was wrong to take it so hard. But the part of me that was emotional, the part of me that was eighteen, suddenly won my whole psyche, for the first time since I’d been in this predicament.
I turned on my heel in fury and left the room, forgetting all about my mission to find bread and water for Tanya.
Fuck him! rang clear in my head.
Fuck him! Asshole!
Of all the “old” feelings I’d experienced hints of since I’d been here, these were by far the strongest. Earlier feelings I might have just characterized as memory, but this reaction was clearly outside of my present self’s realm. I could almost view my emotions objectively except that I was feeling them all too, which was seriously disconcerting.
Why was I so mad? I hadn’t even stayed long enough to find out the truth, when that had been my whole plan! I hadn’t heard his response to her obvious overture. I just ran away, while part of my intellect was a child, dragging behind, saying, But wait …
My body was retreating rapidly, ready to go out and take Tanya’s keys, and car, and of course Tanya herself, and just go home. Let him wonder what had become of me. Let him wonder if I’d seen his little tryst with Anna.
But that was stupid. I was leaping—with great energy, it seemed—to conclusions. And that could only hurt me. Hurt him. Hurt anyone who wasn’t getting a fair shake.
So I forced myself to slow down and think. My old mind receded faster than I expected, the pounding rage of jealousy dimming into the light beep of my heartbeat, like that damn alarm clock that clawed me out of bed in the mornings.
I recognized this. Not only the immature hormonal rush of jealousy, and the almost insane hotheadedness, but this situation in particular. I remembered this happening. I remembered this being a real cog in the wheel of our eventual breakup.
But I also remembered wondering later, as I suffered in his absence, if I’d done the wrong thing. If I should have listened, and given him another chance. If I’d be happier if I had.
This was my main question since I’d gotten here.
I had to fight my old impulses, fight the reaction of the eighteen-year-old hothead inside of me, and go back to undo the past.
Maybe create a whole new future.
Or, rather, present.
And future.
Maybe.
It was my only chance to try. This was the first shot at Fort Sumter, a thing that could have been resolved but wasn’t, and it was leading to the civil war that was going to be our end if I didn’t stop it.
So, I asked myself now, what if I reversed my reaction? What if I went back and just asked him, right to his face, in the moment, what was going on, why this was happening?
“Hi, Ramie.”
I’d been so lost in thought that I hadn’t watched where I was going and I nearly ran into Jer Norton, the guy from the pizza joint who sold me the Zima.
“Hey, Jer.” I couldn’t force cheer into my voice, so it sounded hostile. My mind was racing. “How are you doing?” I added, hoping he’d missed my previous tone.
He hadn’t. “Whoa, what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
He put his hands up, the universal sign for surrender. “Okay, okay, whatever you say. Don’t bite.”
I gave a small la
ugh that fooled no one. “Sorry, I’m just … dealing with something.”
“Something you want to talk about?”
“No. Thanks.” I started to walk away, but he stopped me, catching my arm.
“Wait, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
The last thing I needed right now. “What?”
He hesitated, then said, “Ramie, I know there was nothing really behind … that night. You and me. Whatever. But I really like you, so if you’d ever like to hang out…”
Ugh. It was excruciating watching him struggle. Especially since I was feeling such unkindness toward him for picking now to do it. “Oh, thanks, Jer. Seriously. But I have a boyfriend.”
His face colored. “Oh, yeah, right, I know. I just meant, you know, as friends.”
“I know, it’s just, he can be jealous, so … I don’t know.” I needed to get off this hook. “But, yeah, maybe sometime. That would be nice.” Just let me go!
Some of the shame left his expression and his face brightened ever so slightly. “Cool.”
Now I felt bad. It hadn’t been necessary to hurt his feelings. “I’ll look for you at Bambino’s, right?” I asked, avoiding the awkward next step of exchanging phone numbers when I had so much else on my mind.
“Sure, yeah. Almost every day.”
I smiled, but I was desperate to get back to Brendan. “Cool. Thanks!” I turned to go back.
“Weren’t you going this way?” he asked, puzzled.
“I left something behind.” I looked at him. He really did have a nice face. I felt just awful for having been short with him.
So, a nice little lift for the ego, on the heels of what had begun as a big blow.
It was interesting how easy it was to fall back into the rhythms of my former life. I could even talk like I used to, though the laziness of teen-speak sometimes made me cringe. But it was fun, like playing a game or being in a play. A play I still didn’t know the end of.
I made my way back through the rooms, thinking how annoyed I’d be today if a bunch of teenagers were wandering around my house like this, uninvited, unwelcome. I wasn’t going to steal any of the tchotchkes I saw and knew to be valuable, but I wasn’t sure the same could be said for every drunk kid there.
Nerves thrummed inside of me as I got closer to Brendan. I recognized, once again, old me coexisting inside with my own consciousness. I really had to fight off her anger. It was crazy. How could one spirit and one set of memories be divided so distinctly and travel the same trajectory at the same time? There was probably some “easy” quantum mechanical explanation for it—something Mr. Giuliani would have been happy to talk about with me—but all I knew was that it felt really odd.
I walked, half wishing I’d left a trail of bread crumbs so I could find my way back to the room in the maze of Potomac extravagance.
With another few wrong turns, I did find my way back to it.
They were still there. But this time they were sitting on a sofa, their silhouettes clear from my vantage point, and they were facing each other from a decent distance. Not a huge one, within an arm’s reach, but at least not an intimate one.
“I know you feel the same like I do,” Anna was saying. Slurring, rather. I hadn’t noticed that the first time, though it wasn’t really a surprise. But still—had I realized that Once Upon a Time? Had I known she was drunk? Or had I been so concentrated on the fact that she was a bitch that I didn’t care?
The show wasn’t for me, so it wasn’t like she was ever going to come and offer apologies or explanations, but context would have been helpful for me.
“I’m sorry,” said Brendan.
I could see in her eyes the same confusion I felt myself. Sorry he hadn’t axed me long ago, or sorry he’d led her on?
Looked like neither of us knew, though it was clear which she was hoping for.
I couldn’t remember exactly when he and I had broken up. The date hadn’t stuck with me, but I did know it was sometime before the end of summer, because I remembered thinking I needed to get used to being unattached while I was still in the safety of my home and family. I was ambitious and determined, but not without heart by any means, so when I’d broken up with Brendan, I’d forced myself to stay away by reminding myself that this would be a lot harder the longer I waited.
Though, honestly, even that was in doubt. Would we have gone to opposite sides of the country? Had we? I wasn’t even sure I could remember what his college plans had been. Maybe we would have been close enough to stay together and maybe we would have done exactly that. Until … what?
There was a long silence in the room before me, and I was nervous that my own pounding heart would call their attention to where I stood watching them.
“Don’t be sorry,” she wailed, and reached for him, clumsily taking a fistful of his shirt and trying to pull him toward her. “Do it. Please. Just fix it.”
He didn’t budge. “Anna,” Brendan said. “There’s nothing to fix. I’m not the guy for you.”
“You are!” She moved toward him and pressed her open mouth against his.
And for a moment, just a moment, I saw him respond. Saw the telltale movement of his jaw and tightening of his throat that came from the movement of his tongue into her mouth.
The rage resurged in me, a new one, because eighteen-year-old me had not stuck around long enough to see this and it was new. Yet thirty-eight-year-old me found it a fascinating study in sociology, if nothing else. He’d just been with me, we’d had steaming hot sex in his car two days ago, and I knew—I knew—young Brendan had believed himself to be truly in love with me. One thing I had felt all my life was that no one else had ever loved me as much as Brendan had.
So what was he doing, making out with this other girl, when he was at this party with me? I’d been right all along—he’d told me I’d run off before I could see nothing had happened, but that wasn’t true.
My heart sank, not because an eighteen-year-old was cheating on me, but because there didn’t seem to be any consistency in men at all. Was it really so hard to just stay loyal and honest with your one person? Even if it was one person at a time, as it almost inevitably was in high school? Could he really be tempted by this drunken slop-tart, even while he knew—he had to have known—that I could have walked in on him at any moment and seen all of this (and did!)?
I started to turn and walk away, calm but resigned, when he pushed her away. Not hard, not ungentlemanly, but he pushed her away. He didn’t know I could see him, but he did the right thing.
I froze, riveted.
“Anna, no,” he said firmly. “I’m not doing this.”
“But you want me.” She leaned back into him, hoping, clearly, to repeat the moment they’d just had.
“No”—his voice was getting firmer—“I don’t. I love Ramie, and you know that. How many fucking times do I have to tell you?”
“But you just kissed me!” Her words echoed my own thoughts. “I know you want me, I could feel it in your kiss.”
“What, this?” He pulled her in and kissed her, hard, seemingly passionately. Then he released her. “That’s easy. That doesn’t mean anything, apart from the guilt it’s made me feel about Ramie.”
I was stunned by the gesture. It seemed so … adult. So on point. Yet also, so damn harsh.
She looked hurt, and for a moment I shared that with her, on her behalf. It seemed mean of him to do that, even though it would have satisfied my immature self tremendously to have seen it back when it first happened.
But no, I’d taken the small piece I’d seen and run with it, fiercely holding it against him and including it in a long tally of undoubtedly petty offenses that had led to my excuse for breaking up.
I watched as his expression softened toward her. “Anna, look, we’ve known each other since we were kids. Our parents are great friends. Obviously I don’t want to hurt you. But you need to get that guys will use you and throw you aside afterwards if you come on to them the way you c
ame on to me tonight. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to hurt you. But, man, you have to get this. You’re drunk, we’ve known each other a long time but you know we are never going to be more than friends. You’re just lonely and reaching out. If this had happened with someone else, who knows how far he would have taken it?”
She shrank back, suddenly looking like a wounded child, where I had only seen a stupid slut a moment before. There was no more look of seduction on her face, only the timid expression of a kid who had been caught being naughty in some way, shape, or form. “I’m not lonely,” she said in a small voice, as if that were the most salient point.
“Okay.” I knew Brendan well enough to recognize that he was humoring her. She was desperate for a boyfriend. “Whatever’s going on, just take care of yourself. Don’t give yourself away just because you’re impatient. You’re better than that.”
She was crying then, and I almost was myself.
How had this eighteen-year-old boy gained so much wisdom? How did he have the control to check his physical impulses and back up, then say something so nice, and so wise, on top of that?
“I didn’t mean to throw myself at you.” This girl I had thought was such a bitch a moment ago now just looked pitiful. How on earth had I imagined I was so much more mature and worldly than Brendan was? I’d been too blind to see his truth. At least some of it.
“Hey, you didn’t. Forget it.” He put a hand on her shoulder in a pointedly platonic way. He leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then stood up before she could get her clutches on him again, which I thought I could see she was gearing up to do. “I’ve got to go find Ramie.”
“Go.” She pushed a wobbly arm against the air, I guess to dismiss him. “Ramie Ramie Ramie. Whatever.”
I saw a smile tug at his mouth. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Ramie Ramie Ramie.”
And at that moment, I realized I’d learned something huge by going back and seeing the scene through, rather than just following my angry impulse to take what I thought I’d seen and run.
If I Could Turn Back Time Page 16
