Rikki

by Abigail Strom

  The next class was the same, and the one after that. By that time I was a lot calmer, because I knew that Sam was doing everything in his power to make things easier for me. He’d taken himself out of my life as completely as he could.

  Because he thought that’s what I wanted.

  And it was… at first.

  But no matter how much I struggled to keep the anger alive in my heart, it began to fade. And once that hot fire was out, it exposed what I’d been trying desperately not to see—the hole in my life where Sam had been.

  I missed him. I missed his friendship. I missed his voice, his smile, and the way I felt when I was with him.

  And though we’d only been more than friends for one night, I missed that most of all.

  But I could never, ever let him know that. I could never humble myself that way to Sam Payne. I could never tell him that I thought about him every night, that I wanted to call him every hour, that I tortured myself by imagining him with other girls.

  And so November lurched into December.

  I was in the library studying for finals, looking up every so often to watch the snow flurries drifting down from a slate-gray sky. I had a good groove going, and when I saw Tamsin coming toward me with a determined look on her face I was fully prepared to tell her that whatever pre-finals tension relief she had planned would have to proceed without me.

  She spoke without preamble. “There’s something you need to see.”

  “I’m studying.”

  “So take a break.”

  “I don’t want to take a break.”

  “You’re coming with me right now.”

  “Tamsin—”

  In the end, of course, I went with her.

  She marched me across campus without telling me where we were going, but as we approached the art building I started to have an inkling.

  I stopped walking. “No. No way. I haven’t talked to Sam in weeks and I don’t want our first conversation to be at his art show.”

  “He’s not there. The event ended a little while ago. The gallery is still open, but Sam went to an off-campus party with the other students who showed work. I promise you won’t see him.”

  A few minutes later we entered the exhibit hall. My heart started to thump against my ribs as Tamsin led me past paintings and installation pieces and sculpture until—

  There it was.

  My heart stopped. It felt like everything stopped.

  The girl Sam had made from clay was so beautiful she didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. And yet…

  Her arms were my arms. Her legs were my legs. Her hips, her torso… all that was mine. My contours had been shaped so lovingly that I could feel myself back in the studio with Sam’s caress down my arm.

  But her face…

  I tried to think of how to define the expression Sam had given me. Knowledge? Understanding? It was more dynamic than that. Enthusiasm? Exhilaration? That wasn’t quite right, either. It was emotional and intellectual at the same time, sort of like…

  Then I remembered one of our conversations.

  I’ve seen you look like that before. You get this flash of illumination.

  That was what he had captured. Illumination.

  It’s a humbling experience to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. But the most unexpected thing of all was the cushion Sam had given me: not the one I’d used from the cabinet, but a tiger.

  The tiger was sleeping like a big cat, its chin on its paws, and I lay with my head against its side.

  “Do I really look like that?” I whispered.

  Tamsin put her arm around my waist. “Yes,” she said. “You do.” She paused. “Well, except for the tiger.”

  I started to laugh—and at the same time, I felt my eyes well up with tears. “Why did you make me come here?”

  “Because if someone made a statue like that of me I’d want to see it. Why don’t you talk to him, Rikki? I know you miss him.”

  I shook my head. “It’s too late.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s never too late.”

  I didn’t really mean that it was too late. I meant that it was too messy, too scary, too hard.

  But I knew I could never explain that to Tamsin. She was a lot braver than I was.

  * * *

  A week later I was in the middle of finals. Today was English comp, and I was sitting on a hard wooden bench outside the exam room when my phone buzzed. I took it out of my pocket, planning to mute it for the duration of the test. Then I saw the name on the screen.

  Charlotte.

  We’d talked a few times since I’d asked her about the affair, and the conversations hadn’t gone well. The last few times I’d seen her name pop up on my phone I’d let it go to voicemail.

  I’m not sure why I answered this time. The final was starting in a few minutes and my mind was already in exam mode.

  But I did answer it. I got up off the bench, went a few paces away, and leaned against the wall.

  “What is it, mom?”

  A few minutes later I went back to the bench on rubbery legs. I tried to sit down again, but my butt missed the seat by a few inches and I went down on the ground. I landed on my tail bone and it hurt like hell.

  “Rikki!”

  I looked up into Sam’s face. He was crouched on the ground beside me and he looked totally freaked out.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  I tried to breathe around the weight on my chest. “It’s Beth. She’s in the hospital. She hurt her head and she’s unconscious.” I fumbled for my phone. “I’ve got to get back home,” I muttered, wondering who to call. I couldn’t ask someone to drive me—not during finals week. But maybe I could borrow someone’s car.

  “Come on,” Sam said, pulling me to my feet. “Let’s go.”

  I stared at him. “Go where?”

  “I’ve got Andre’s car this week. I’ll drive you to the hospital. St. Nicholas, right?”

  “But… you can’t. You have to take your final exam. Professor Timms might let me make it up when I tell her what happened but she won’t let you. You know how strict she is.”

  “I don’t care about that. Let’s go.”

  “No.” I shook my head vigorously. “You’re not going to tank your grade because of me.”

  Even as I argued with him, Sam started walking toward the building exit—and because he had my hand in his I came along with him.

  “You could just lend me the car,” I said as he pushed the doors open and we stepped outside. “That way I can get to the hospital and you can still take the test.”

  Sam shook his head as he steered me toward the campus parking lot. “There’s no way I’m letting you drive. You couldn’t even sit without falling down.”

  Maybe he was right. “But—”

  “It’s settled,” Sam said firmly, and as we came in sight of Andre’s car I felt myself give in.

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  We drove the first few minutes in silence. Once we were out of Drake and on the highway Sam asked, “Do you know what happened? Was it a car accident?”

  “No. Charlotte said…” I was still trying to wrap my mind around what Charlotte had said. “I guess Beth was in some kind of… fight. In a bar.”

  “Your mom was in a bar fight?” Sam’s voice sounded incredulous.

  “I know. It sounds insane. Maybe I didn’t understand what she was saying. The connection wasn’t great and she was really upset.” My eyes filled up with tears. “Okay, so… you know the thing where we want to blame ourselves for bad stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s not even a stretch this time. I’ve been horrible to my moms ever since they told me they were splitting up. I mean, I’ve been worse to Charlotte, but I haven’t really been there for Beth either. I’ve just kind of… avoided the whole situation. Because it was easier.”

  As I said that, I felt a kind of self-loathing rise up in me that was stronger than anything I’d ever felt befor
e. “I’m a coward and a terrible person and—”

  “Rikki.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out. Then I turned my head to look at Sam, who had his eyes on the road and both hands on the steering wheel.

  He glanced at me briefly before turning his eyes back to the road. “Even if you were a terrible person, which you’re not, what does that have to do with Beth getting into a bar fight?”

  “Maybe if I’d been more supportive she wouldn’t have felt so sad and lonely and desperate that she—”

  “Are you serious?” Sam shook his head. “Beth’s an adult. She makes her own decisions. End of story.”

  Silence fell. I stared out the passenger window at the countryside whizzing by.

  After we’d put several more miles behind us I turned to look at Sam again.

  “I miss being friends with you,” I said.

  He kept his eyes on the road. “I miss that, too.”

  “I’m sorry I—”

  “Don’t apologize for anything that happened between us. Okay?”

  “But I—”

  “I’m serious, Rikki. I’m the one who fucked up. So don’t pretend anything was your fault.”

  Maybe he had fucked up. But I’d fucked up, too, by not even trying to talk to him about it. By cutting him out of my life.

  But when I thought about trying to explain that to Sam, I didn’t know where to start.

  “I’m better at friendships than relationships,” I said finally. “I wish we’d never crossed that line. Do you think…” I hesitated. “Do you think we could be friends again?”

  There was a long silence after I asked that question. I kept sneaking glances at Sam, wondering what he was thinking.

  And then, finally, he told me.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  My heart plummeted. “Oh. Okay. Well…”

  “Because I’m in love with you.”

  By brain stuttered to a halt. Then, slowly, it tried to make sense of what it had just heard.

  A part of me felt like singing.

  Sam Payne is in love with me!

  But this was one more line we could never cross back over. One more thing that would pull me out of my old life, the life I understood, and into the unknown.

  “It was okay before we got together,” he said. “I mean, it was hard, but I was used to it. Hiding the way I felt about you.” He took a deep breath. “But I couldn’t go back to that now. Not after…” He shook his head. “There’s just no way. I’d always be wanting something you couldn’t give me, and that would make both of us feel like shit.” He paused. “I don’t mean I can’t ever see you again. I’ll always care about you and I’ll always be here for you if you need me. I just mean it can’t be like it was before.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. A part of me wanted to tell him I loved him, too. But the bigger part of me was afraid—afraid of being a fool, of getting hurt, of going crazy again the way I had that night.

  I was very, very attached to my mind, and losing it was not a good look for me.

  So I didn’t say anything. For the next hour we drove in silence, my thoughts ricocheting between Sam and Beth and Charlotte and my own stunted heart.

  Finally we pulled up in front of the hospital.

  “Thank you for getting me here,” I said. “If Professor Timms won’t let you make up the exam I’ll talk to her, okay? Maybe she’ll accept a note from my parents explaining why you had to drive me.” I paused. “So… I guess I’ll see you back at Hart.”

  “I can stay, if you want. To give you a ride back.”

  The thought of spending another silent two hours in a car with Sam, thinking about everything I’d lost and everything I regretted, was unendurable.

  “No. Now that I’m here I’ll be able to figure out a ride back. I’ll be fine.”

  “But if you—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I repeated. “Thanks again, Sam.”

  I got out of the car and hurried away before I could beg him to come and hold my hand.

  * * *

  A woman at the information desk told me where to go, and I texted Charlotte on my way to the fourth floor. She was standing in the waiting room when I got there, and when she reached out for me we sort of fell on each other, like a mother lion and her cub.

  “She’s awake,” Charlotte said, after we’d hugged and cried all over each other for a few minutes. “Along with the cut on her head and a mild concussion she’s got a sprained wrist and a bruised rib cage. They’re going to keep her overnight for observation, but the doctors say she’ll be fine. You can go in and talk to her if you want.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “I was just in there. I don’t want to overwhelm her, so… why don’t you go in alone first. I’ll get something to eat and join you in a little bit.”

  Beth was sitting up when I opened her door.

  “Hey,” she said. “Don’t you have a final today?”

  I’d always thought of Beth as the strongest member of our family, but in that hospital bed with an IV in her arm and bandages on her head she looked small and fragile and vulnerable.

  I went over and sat in the chair next to the bed. “How do you feel?”

  Beth shrugged and then winced. “Not too bad, all things considered. Apparently, though, I’m too old to get into bar fights. Or at least, I’m too old to get into a bar fight and win.”

  I’d forgotten to ask Charlotte what that was all about. “You mean there really was a bar fight? What happened?”

  “I drank more than was good for me at the pub downtown, and when I saw Charlotte come in with her girlfriend I snapped. I took a swing at her—the other woman, not Charlotte—and she hit me over the head with a bar stool.”

  I blinked. “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  I tried to imagine the scene and failed. “But… I don’t understand how you could lose control like that. You’ve been telling me to use my words since I was three.”

  Beth smiled a little. “Well, it turns out that even the most cerebral and nonviolent among us have their breaking point.”

  “What did Charlotte do?”

  “She broke up the fight and got me to the hospital.”

  “Was her girlfriend hurt?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  “Oh.” I wanted to ask more, but I remembered what she’d said at the restaurant about privacy… and I didn’t want to tire her out with questions.

  “It’s okay,” Beth said gently. “You can ask me whatever you want.”

  And so I did.

  We talked about Charlotte and their marriage and the separation. And while I’d started hoping that Beth’s attempt to punch out Charlotte’s lover would somehow bring them back together again, after we’d talked for a while I knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

  “But your mother knows now that I’m willing to fight for her. And more importantly, I know I’m willing to fight for her. Not that I’m advocating violence as a solution to problems,” she added—a mom and a psychologist to the end.

  After a while Beth said she was tired of talking and wanted to hear about my life. I started talking at random, telling her about classes and Tamsin and Bracton, and before I realized it I was telling her all about Sam—and the night that blew us apart.

  “I always thought if I fell in love it would be like it is with you and mom,” I said. My feet were up on the bed and my hands were clasped on my knees. “Or the way it was between you and mom. Rational, you know? Civilized. But I didn’t even recognize the person who dumped that tray of food on Sam and ran off into the night. I didn’t know love could make me so…”

  “Crazy?”

  “Yes.”

  Beth laughed. “You and me both. Listen, sweetie… I still believe love is about shared values and respect and compromise. It’s about forging a connection with another human being that grows deeper and deeper over time. But love is also raw and passionate and i
rrational and primitive, and if you’re too afraid of that part of yourself it has a way of popping up at the worst possible moments.”

  “Like in a bar?”

  “Exactly.” She sighed. “I was working so hard to be reasonable that I never let myself feel what I was actually feeling. Then, when the feelings finally came out—” She shook her head. “Let’s just say they came out with a vengeance.”

  When I spoke it was almost more to myself than to Beth. “So the only way to be safe from all that is to stay out of it.”

  “What? No!”

  I looked at her, startled.

  Beth put her hand on my arm. “If your only goal is to be safe you’ll miss out on everything that makes life worth living. Passion can be scary, but without it we’re just going through the motions. It’s like a tiger. If you try to ignore it or scare it away it’s liable to claw you to pieces. But if you acknowledge and respect it, it’s possible to live in peace side by side. And then you find out one day that the wildness you were so afraid of was living inside you all along.”

  I thought about Sam’s sculpture and my skin prickled.

  “I feel like I understand when you put it like that,” I said after a moment. “So why does it still seem so scary?”

  “Because we want to feel in control… of our lives, our emotions, our selves. But the tiger is always there, reminding us that the deepest things can never be completely tamed.”

  Just then, Charlotte stuck her head in the room.

  “Hey, there. How are you guys doing?”

  “Good,” Beth answered with a smile. “I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”

  “I wanted to give you some time to chat by yourselves. But it’s getting late, and you should get some rest—and Rikki should be getting back to Hart. There’s snow in the forecast for tonight.”

  I looked at the clock and saw that ninety minutes had gone by.

  “Can I borrow a car? Otherwise I’ll have to—”

  “What about the boy you came with? Sam?”

  I shook my head. “I told him to go back to Hart.”

  Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “You may have told him that, but he didn’t go.”

  I blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “He showed up in the waiting room a few minutes after you came in here. He’s been out there ever since.”