by Amanda Grace
“Did you always want to be a teacher?” I asked.
Silence ensued, and I wondered if I’d encroached, gone somewhere I shouldn’t have.
“Yes,” you finally said. “My dad … he’s a brilliant welder, but his brain works like my mom’s, kind of off the wall, scattered. I’d ask him for help with my homework, and even though he could build these huge custom gates for million-dollar homes, he couldn’t conjugate a verb or isolate x in a math equation. And every time I asked, I saw that it drove him crazy. He wanted to know those things, but he didn’t. And my mom … she’s just as talented, but … ”
“But neither of them are the book sort of smart,” I finished.
“Yeah. Drove me crazy. They’re like the Einstein sort of smart. Incredibly intelligent but barely functional. I mean, they’d have money in their bank account and bills smashed into the to-be-paid bin. I always craved more order, structure.”
I laughed a little under my breath.
“What?”
“I think my parents are as much the opposite of that as it’s possible to be. Meticulous.”
“Sounds amazing,” you said.
“It’s … ” I searched for the word, when there were so many options. “A challenge,” I finally said.
You squeezed my hand, turning toward me, and when I did the same, our faces were so close our noses were just a breath apart, and when our breaths came out in white misty clouds, it was like they washed over us. Even after everything that has happened with us, sometimes I still think that this moment on your lawn, in the chill autumn night, was our most intimate moment. The moment we saw each other. Not in a physical way, but in a soul-baring, emotional, bonding kind of way, a way that can never really be undone by other relationships, by time or distance. It was the kind of everlasting intimacy that I didn’t ever want to experience with someone else.
“You’re not like them, are you?” you finally said, your eyes boring into mine, knowing it was a statement not a question.
Moments passed, moments where your words echoed in my ears.
I’d never told a soul that I didn’t really want to be like my mom and dad. So many people would pat me on the head and call me a “mini-me” of whatever parent was present. So many teachers compared me to my brother, who they’d had in class just a few years prior.
To them I was a Hawkins. I would be the person they expected me to be, nothing more, nothing less. I would ace the tests, slam-dunk the finals, complete every piece of homework.
And you lay there, and you saw me as someone else.
“No. I don’t know what the hell I want,” I admitted, my heart lifting from the release of my confession.
“You’re not supposed to.”
“In my house, it never occurs to anyone that I’d even want to be anything else. It’s math or medicine. MIT or Harvard. It’s success … or you’re not a Hawkins.”
“Hard to imagine.”
“My dad lives every day thinking he’s a failure, and he’s made it his mission to ensure that I succeed. And then, on the opposite end, my mom’s so damn proud of how she worked her way up in the world—she grew up pretty poor—that now that I’ve been given all this opportunity, she just assumes I’ll seize it like my brother did. They always just assume … ”
“Sometimes not being seen at all is worse,” you said.
I blinked, just as you did, and I swear our lashes nearly touched. “Yeah. That’s how I feel. Like they all know I’m there, but I’m supposed to be this robot, following a course they mapped out a long time ago. Except they haven’t even thought to actually ask me how I feel, make sure … ”
I trail off. Make sure what? What do I want?
“That you want it? That you haven’t changed your mind in the last few years?”
“Yeah, basically. Like they are all so focused on these stupid … routines. What if I don’t want a freakin’ routine? What if I want to live it one day at a time?”
“They wouldn’t understand,” you said.
A strange warmth tingled through me.
You got it. You totally got it.
“Yeah. They’d freak out and think something was wrong. They’d ask a thousand questions. They’d tell me it was a phase I’d grow out of. Every time I even think of saying something, I realize it’s fruitless, so I just stand around mute all the time, watching time pass and nothing changing.”
“It’s no different from me thinking so methodically when my parents are anything but,” you said. “When someone thinks differently … they just … do. No way to change it.”
“It’s maddening,” I said, the despair creeping in. “Sometimes I have these weird dreams.”
You pulled me against you then, so that we weren’t staring into one another’s eyes anymore. Instead, you somehow tucked the blanket more closely around us and I was cradled against your body, my lips, my nose, tucked into the curve of your neck, one leg tangled up in yours, my body heat mingling with yours.
Someone could have happened upon us a thousand years later and I would have been happy to be in the same spot.
“It’s always the same,” I said, the dream creeping in again. “I’m standing at the front of a church.” I chewed on my bottom lip so hard it was uncomfortable and then forced myself to stop.
“And?” you prodded, when the silence had stretched out, my breath warm on your neck, my own nose suddenly growing cold from the frosty night.
“I’m standing there, in this horribly clichéd princess ball gown, all in white, and a veil is on top of my head.”
“And I’m standing across from you,” you said in a total deadpan.
Despite the intensity of the moment, I laughed, poking you. “No. There’s nobody there at all. The officiant keeps droning on and on and on … exchanging vows and talking about love … and not one person in the pews notices that I’m the only one standing there, that the groom hasn’t even shown up.”
You didn’t respond, but your hand kept stroking the small of my back in an intimate way, a way that made me want to roll over, lie on top of you, straddle you. It took all I had in me not to do exactly that.
“In the middle of the dream, I always rip the veil off and start screaming, but everyone just keeps on with the ceremony, marrying me to this guy who isn’t even there.”
“Classic dream,” you said, a long pause later.
“You think?”
“You want control but you don’t think you have it.”
“Really?”
“You haven’t even picked your groom in the dream. Everyone just expected you to show up in your white dress, and you did what they wanted.”
I raked in a deep breath. “That’s so … obvious, though.” I said.
“Because it’s the truth, right?”
“Or maybe it’s about love or whatever. It’s a wedding dream.”
“Who’s in it?”
“Huh?”
“Do you know any of the people in the dream?”
My teeth slid together, clenching as I pictured it. “My dad. And my mom. And weirdly … my brother is the officiant.”
“Why would your brother be in it?”
“I don’t know. He’s always been good at one-upping me. I guess if it’s my wedding, he’d want to be the one doing all the talking, somehow being in the limelight. Plus, I don’t know. He’s always so in control of everything.”
You chuckled then, and it was like everything I’d said was stupid, shortsighted. Yet you didn’t make me feel dumb for everything I’d said.
“You know … ” You turned into me, like I’d done to you, so that your arms wrapped around me and we were fully entangled, our breaths entwined in clouds of frosty white. “There comes a time where you decide to be yourself.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled into your skin.
“
It’s not. Easy, that is.” Your voice was soft and forgiving.
“Really?” I asked, surprised.
“It’s not easy for anyone to break away from what they’re used to,” you said. “But that’s where you find yourself.”
“Spoken like a man who knows it all,” I said, partly to push the topic away from myself, and partly because I wanted so much to learn more about you.
“Oh God, I wouldn’t say that.” You chuckled in a way that made your breath hot on my skin, such a stark contrast to the frosty night, the night that had grown so much darker while I’d been with you.
I should have left hours earlier. I should have been home right then, in my bed, or at the dinner table … or whatever was appropriate at that moment. I didn’t even know what time it was, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask you, to extract myself from your limbs, to walk across that yard and check my cell phone.
“You’ll come around,” you finally said. “I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted when I entered college either.”
But I knew you’d been eighteen, maybe nineteen then.
“It just takes some distance. Some perspective.”
“The ability to live outside of a ginormous shadow,” I said, but now I was murmuring, feeling sleepy as I spoke into your skin, nestling closer to you, feeling the soft, worn T-shirt, the all-too-rigid fabric of your jeans against my khakis.
“Exactly. It takes distance. No one works on a sculpture without stepping back and taking a look. Life is like that.”
“You’re way too smart for me,” I said under my breath, my eyes closed, welcoming the heat of your skin and the way it somehow permeated me, found its way under my clothes and pulled me against you.
“We really should get inside before we freeze to death,” you said after a long beat of silence.
“Mhmmm,” I said. I knew we couldn’t stay out there all night. We’d both be shaking within the hour, and there was no way in hell I could get away with just … disappearing for the night.
But when I was against you, my legs against yours, your arm around me, your hand sliding up and down the soft skin at the small of my back, your lips resting against the skin at the base of my neck—knowing, restraining from kissing me—oh God, it was impossible to think of December 13th, impossible to remember why we weren’t making out, why I couldn’t swing my weight over six inches, why I couldn’t lie against you, why I couldn’t part my lips and slip my head to the side to kiss you.
I wanted a lot of things that night, but I would have settled for a kiss.
A day later, after another two hours of Biology in which I listened to that perfect voice of yours, I floated through the front door and up the stairs, rounding the corner to head down the hall, and that’s when I slammed into my brother.
“Oh!” I said, stumbling back as he grabbed my coat to keep me from falling backward down the steps. “Sorry, I was spacing out.”
I started to step past him, then stopped, taking in his sweats and old T-shirt. “Why are you dressed like that? Didn’t you go to your fancy internship today?” I narrowed my eyes. “Wait—isn’t it in Seattle? How are you home already?”
“Um, no … ” he said, but the words trailed off, and it was more like he was asking me than telling me.
I pulled off my jacket because up there, next to the vaulted ceiling and overlooking the first floor, the heat from our wood stove was overwhelming. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“What makes you think I’m hiding something?” he asked, stepping back and then retreating to his room. I followed him, standing at his doorway while he flopped down on his bed.
“Do you not like it or something?” I asked, my eyes sweeping over his room, taking in the stack of Xbox games that had tipped over and slid all over his floor, the dirty pile of laundry and socks strewn about, and the half-eaten plate of nachos. We’d had nachos two nights before. Ugh.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, staring at the ceiling.
“Well, if you don’t know, shouldn’t you, like, be there right now figuring out what you think of it? Sometimes it’s just boring because of orientations and trainings and—”
“There was never an internship,” he interrupted, sitting up on his bed. “I made it up so I could avoid telling Mom and Dad that I was failing Harvard.”
My jaw dropped and I stared at him—my perfect brother with perfect grades, now surrounded by old dinners and dirty clothes and … “How is that possible?”
“I’m not smart like you,” he said, his voice both resigned and bitter.
I frowned. “You graduated high school with almost a perfect 4.0 every semester.”
“Yeah, almost perfect, not actually perfect like you, and my classes weren’t even AP. And do you have any idea how hard I had to work to get what I did? To prove I could? It’s not easy for me like it is for you. It’s like I’m a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, every second of every day. And it worked in high school, but Harvard is different. I bet I wouldn’t even have gotten in if Mom wasn’t an alum. I mean, when you’re there, you can’t fake your way through. You either have it or you don’t. And I don’t.”
“So, what, you’re just not going back?”
He shrugged, staring up at me with eyes so lost that I suddenly felt like I was the older sister, not four years his junior. “You’ve been there for two years already. Surely you’ve got what it takes,” I added.
He lay back on the bed again, his legs dangling over the edge. Long moments floated by, but neither of us spoke. I didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t want to say anything.
A car rolled by outside, the muffler banging and sputtering.
“Why do you do it?” I asked.
“Do what?”
“Keep trying to be someone you’re not.” I leaned against the door frame, waiting.
“Because it’s who I want to be.” He interlaced his fingers on his chest, his elbows resting on the bed beside him. “You know, successful, like Mom. I like math and engineering. It’s fascinating. I just can’t keep up with it.”
His words rang in my ears, and the horrible irony of everything crept up around me. And then I laughed, a little chuckle at first, and then long and loud, leaning over to clutch my sides. He lifted his head and gave me an odd look, then rolled his eyes and laid his head back down.
I slid down the wall, kicking a plastic 7-Eleven cup out of my way, and sat there until I regained my breath.
“So, let me get this straight. You want to be smart like me, so that you can become Mom.”
“Yeah. I never could have done Running Start like you are. You’re so far ahead of where I was.”
“And I don’t even want it,” I said, shocked by my own honesty.
He picked up his head again and stared, bewilderment laced into his features. “What? Why not?”
“I hate it. Remember that part in Titanic where Kate Winslet says she could see her whole life ahead of her, one boring party after another? It’s like that. Except swap party with test, with reports, designs, drawings. Math, long commutes … ”
“She designs freaking airplanes. There’s nothing cooler than that.”
“There has to be,” I said with conviction.
“Then what do you want?”
“Not a clue. I don’t get why everyone thinks a sixteen-year-old is supposed to have it all figured out. All I know is … something else. Something beyond this. Something that’s not been mapped out for a thousand years. A trail that wasn’t blazed by Mom, or … ”
“By me,” he said.
I nodded. “Stupid, right? I don’t even know which way to blaze. I just don’t want to follow you.”
“That’s not stupid,” he said, surprising me.
“It feels like it. A couple weeks ago, Dad wanted me to figure out what my major will be so that I can map out my coursew
ork for upcoming years. Now.”
“And you said?”
“Nothing.”
“Jeez, Madd, we don’t live in the 1950s. You have choices. Tell him what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want,” I said, my frustration boiling. “That’s the whole point. It’s just like when I told Mom I wanted to quit ballet, and she told me if it wasn’t ballet it had to be something else. Except I had no other ideas. So I did ballet for three more years before I decided violin sounded more fun.”
“And when you quit violin … ”
“She made me take up soccer even though I’m not at all athletic. You know her. The default setting has to be something, never nothing. So if I can’t decide what to do, why not just coast along with the status quo?”
“The status quo is high school. You’re in college.”
I rested the back of my head against the drywall, then stared at a broken Dorito on the carpet. “I know, but it’s all part of the master plan. Graduate with an associate’s degree, hit up the Ivy League for two years, have a bachelor’s by twenty and a master’s by twenty-two. Score an awesome job. Make Mom proud. It’s like watching paint dry. And not even an original painting, but a paint-by-number painting.”
“You’re really complaining that you have every option in the world at your feet and you want none of them,” he said, his voice suddenly changing.
I looked up, surprised, and saw he was sitting up again, no longer looking relaxed or distressed, just looking … annoyed.
“Well, I mean, it’s not really like that. I’m not trying to complain … ”
“You always were the chosen one,” he said, standing up so fast his bed creaked.
And then he was out the door and bounding down the stairs before I could figure out what had just happened, what I said to tick him off.
I spent four hours working on your birthday cake, and it was perfect.
