There it goes.
I grab a handful of toilet paper, wiping my mouth and blowing my nose.
“Luci?” A voice calls.
Shit. I sniffle, trying to hold back my loud whimpers and tears.
“Luci?”
Maybe if I don’t answer she will just go away.
“I know it’s you.”
I see legs squatting, a hand on the floor, and Gracie’s head poking under the stall door.
“Oh my God!” She starts crawling under. “Are you okay?”
Why is it when an upset person hears the phrase ‘are you okay?’ does it make everything even worse?
Because I’m not okay. I’m galaxies away from okay.
“Last time I met you in the bathroom it was me who was upset,” she tries to lighten the mood unsuccessfully. “Luci, you have to breathe.”
“Go away,” I shake my head, but I can’t actually see through the tears if she’s listened.
“Talk to me.” her voice is worried. Nope, that’s my sister, not listening.
“I… can’t.”
“It’s just, things were getting better between us,” she says. “You promised we would change. So talk. Please.”
“Gracie, I’m sorry. Just go.”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong! I’ve never seen you like this. Not even when grandma died.”
I grab my stomach. It hurts. Everything hurts, like I’m shattering into a million little pieces.
“You promised,” she reminds me. “I freaking crawled on the bathroom floor, so if you think I’m leaving you’re very wrong.”
“How did you even know I was in here?” I change the subject, willing for her to just disappear.
“I didn’t, I was just going to the bathroom. Then I heard you blow your nose.” I give her a look, because that doesn’t really explain anything. It could’ve been anyone. “I’ve lived with you for fifteen years. I know what you sound like.”
The bell rings and we’re quiet.
“Get to class,” I whisper.
“It’s obviously a guy.”
“It’s complicated.”
I grab more toilet paper and blow my nose again loudly.
We hear voices.
Girls enter the bathroom.
They talk.
Toilets flush.
The sink.
They leave.
Gracie still here, waiting expectantly. The late bell rings, and the next thing I know she leans down and hugs me, letting me cry on her shoulder.
And I do.
Because I can’t control it.
“He’s with someone else and I didn’t know… he’s…” It comes out almost as a question, because I can’t believe it. My body shakes, and I’m not able to finish my sentence.
“Gosh, I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend. I mean, I thought you were just too in love with Mr. Harrington to even notice anybody else,” she jokes.
I pull back from her, covering my face with my hands, the tears gushing at the sound of his name.
“Oh gosh,” realization dawns on her. “And I mean, Oh. My. God.”
“I’m so stupid,” I wipe my eyes.
“Luci,” she pauses. “Did he, like… force himself on you?”
“No, God no. Kind of the opposite.” I’m embarrassed, but hell, it feels so good to talk about it.
“I knew you were both into each other. I saw it,” she says proudly. “But… wow.”
I cry harder, her words aren’t helping.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I mean, like, when did it start?”
“It started getting, um, physical, in January.”
“Six months!? How did I not know about this? Did you, like, go out on dates and stuff?”
“Irrelevant.”
“Sorry,” she shakes her head. “I’m just trying to picture how this would work.”
“It can’t,” I’m so angry. “That’s the point. It can’t work. It never could work,” I throw my head in my hands, the tears soaking the top of my shirt. “I knew it was stupid. I tried to stop seeing him. To stay away, and I couldn’t. Gracie, what’s wrong with me?”
“Shh,” she hugs me again.
“She came in today,” I hiccup.
“Who?”
“His wife.”
“Whoa!” She pulled back, furious. “Wait a minute, he’s married?”
“And she’s pregnant.”
Gracie hands me more toilet paper and I blow my nose again. “She knew who I was, yet I had no idea about her. That she even existed,” I sigh.
“Oh, Luci,” she hugs me again. “Come on, let’s sneak out of here and go home.”
Gracie wants to sit with me when we get home, but I tell her I just want to be alone. I change into his oversized MTHS sweatshirt that I never gave back. It still smells like him, and I sit on the floor, rocking myself.
I’m okay as long as this is wrapped around me, like some stupid safety blanket that proves what happened between us was real.
I finally take medicine until I’m asleep.
An unwelcomed brightness hits me. Mom and Dad are in my doorway, and Gracie is lingering behind them. At first, I think she told them, and my waterworks start all over again, but she shakes her hair, letting me she has no idea what this is about.
I do, though. Can this day get any worse?
“Gracie, let us talk to Luci alone,” Dad’s stern voice slaps me.
“What’s going on?” Mom asks me, and I wipe my red and puffy eyes. I don’t say anything as she sits on the bed. Dad is still standing, with his arms crossed, a disappointed and worried look in his eye.
“The jig is up, so you mine as well tell us the truth.” I look at Mom questioningly as she continues, the water still building in my eyes. “Not one single college letter. And I never see you go out with your friends anymore. All you do is sit in your room,” her eyes start watering too. “Are you doing drugs?”
“What?! No!” I shout. “Of course not.”
“The only thing that’s saving you right now is that your grades haven’t slipped,” Dad yells. “What do you plan on doing next year?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“Do you need to see someone? A therapist?” Mom asks.
“Of course she doesn’t!” Dad retorts.
“Maybe she needs help, Jay.”
“I don’t need to see anyone,” I stop their bickering.
“Then what is it? You need to do better than this. I need answers!” Dad shouts. “Gracie, get in here!”
She pokes her head through the door, clearly listening just outside.
“What’s going on with your sister?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “What’s going on?”
“She hasn’t applied to college! She lied to us. None of her application checks were cashed!” Dad yells and I cower. “Are you ashamed, Luci? Because you should be!”
“Jay, don’t be so harsh!” Mom yells.
“Sue, what else am I supposed to do? She’s been lying to us!”
“Okay,” Mom throws her hands up. “Everyone out!”
Dad and Gracie leave and I take a deep, shaky breath.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Your father is just upset,” she defends.
“I know,” I wipe my face and she hands me a tissue, registering them all over my floor and bed.
“You’re upset from even before we came in here?”
“Bad day.” I sob. “Very, very bad day.”
“I’m worried.” She wraps her arms around me and my head falls into her lap.
“I messed up,” I confess.
“Does this have to do with a boy?” She asks like she’s afraid to know. “Are you pregnant?”
“No!” I shout. “Why do you always assume the worst? And no,” I lie. “It doesn’t have to do with a boy.”
Because he’s a man. A grown up, 27 year old chemistry teacher.
“So what then?” She brushes her fingers thr
ough my hair.
“I don’t even know what I want to do anymore, Mom.” It’s not a lie, because I have no idea. And I know she assumes I’m talking about college.
“It’s okay,” she soothes.
“I need to get away,” I weep.
“We’ll work out something.”
Sometimes, when bad things happen, you wake up and realize it was all a nightmare. On the not so lucky occasions, you register it was real. So the next morning, I’m excited for school, like I usually am, until it hits me all over again. Everything that happened actually happened.
The only thing that was ever real was that there was no possibility for us, because he lied. This entire time was one big lie!
I don’t know what Gracie told Mom, but she leaves me alone and lets me stay home today without question.
The phone rings at lunchtime. I know who it is, but I don’t answer, and the next time I look up I see Gracie.
Shit is it 3:00 already?
“You haven’t moved all day,” she says, and something about seeing me has her frightened. She hesitates before stepping further into my room.
“I almost threw it out,” she sighs. “I wasn’t even going to say anything, but I didn’t know if that would be wrong or not,” she holds up a piece of paper. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“You had the right idea.” My lip quivers.
What’s done is done, why does he have to make it worse? I never pegged him to be this kind of asshole.
“Right.” She looks at me, nodding her head like she wants to say more, but doesn’t.
She leaves my room with the note from him in her hand. Hopefully she puts it where it belongs - in the trash.
By the following week I’m still a zombie, going through the motions of what I’m supposed to be doing, but inside, I’m dead.
GOODBYE, MTHS
I stay home, in the same position on the floor, wearing the same sweatshirt that doesn’t belong to me, the entire last week of school. I just have to go in next week for finals, and then I’m done.
I’m okay, I’m constantly chanting, like some mental patient, thinking that maybe if I tell myself this over and over again it might come true.
Gracie sits with me most nights, rocking me lightly as I cry.
I don’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes all I see is him. And when I’m lucky, and my eyes finally get heavy enough to drift close on their own, I wake with a wetness that sticks them together, causing me to have to pry them open.
That Friday, I go to school, at the very end of the day, on the very last day before Monday’s finals begin I sneak in through the basement door and find my way to the rehearsal room.
I move my hands over the keys without pressing down. Tears stream down my face as I remember the time we were on this very bench. When I finally admitted my true feelings, and how none of that mattered in the end.
I’m still here when the final bell rings, ending senior year, my mind racing, never slowing down, still replaying the last moments I saw him.
Fuck, this whole time he was married?!
He was with someone else. I was the someone else.
It was still real though, right?
Right?
Because on this bench, it still feels like it was.
I cry because I miss him, I weep because I shouldn’t, and by the time I calm down, it’s dark outside, and the room is now pitch black. I’m heaving heavily from my sobs as I walk back out and into the hallway. I should head home.
I don’t know exactly what time it is, but my legs are suddenly walking down the wrong hallway. The right hallway. This is not the exit.
His classroom door is shut, the lights are out, and the only glow in the entire area is at the other end of the hallway, coming from his closed office door.
I make my way to it, stopping just outside. My body falls forward, my forehead resting on the cold surface, watching his footsteps move on the other side, making the light alter brightness and shapes in the hall.
It’s late, why is he even still here, other than, of course, to unknowingly toy with my heart.
My eyes become a blur through the wetness again. When will the crying stop? Surely I have to reach a limit at some point, where my body can’t physical produce any more tears because I’ve run out. When will that happen?
“Hello?” He calls out and the knob starts to jiggle.
I run, tripping over myself, not stopping until I’m at my car.
I wish I could want to turn back time and change things. But deep down I know, if given the opportunity, I still wouldn’t. I wouldn’t alter a thing that happened between us.
I know he followed me, because he knew it was me on the other side of his door, just as I know if I look in my rearview mirror I’ll see him, standing outside of the school, watching me as I pull away. And maybe that’s why I don’t look, because I still can’t bare to see his face.
Chemistry is my last final, and I don’t worry about it because proctors monitor all exams, therefore I won’t have to see him.
The issue is, he wanted to see me.
As I leave the classroom my eyes find his. He’s been waiting, his right leg propped up as he leans against the wall with his hands in his pockets.
It’s feels like forever, yet no time at all since I’ve seen him, and his obvious suffering should make me feel better, but it doesn’t.
“Are we ever going to talk?” He croaks, but I keep on walking.
“Luci, please,” he begs, following me.
I close my eyes at the sound of my name. The memory that bombards me this time is of our first kiss. It replays over and over again - his hands, his words, his touch, the feeling of it finally happening. Suddenly, our last kiss pushes its way through, up to the very front. I wish I knew then to treasure it, because it would be our final. I bend over in pain. I need the sweatshirt. Why didn’t I bring the sweatshirt?
“Luci!” He reaches out, but I back away.
“What’s there to say?” I grasp onto myself tightly, trying to control the pain and tears.
“At least let me explain.” How dare he look so hurt, after what he’s done!
“Is there something to explain?” I prop myself against a nearby locker, righting my stance. “I mean, it seems pretty self explanatory. You’re married and your wife is about to have a baby.”
“Please, not out here.” His looks around, begging for me to follow him somewhere private, but I start walking the opposite way.
“I also have your report card,” he calls after me and I stop. “They did an eighth period hand out this year. You weren’t here when I gave them out.”
“I’m sure you can mail it.”
“I know I don’t deserve this, but please, let me just say what I have to,” he implores. “Then never have to talk to me ever again if you don’t want to.”
I hesitate at the never ever, the finality of things.
The next step I take is towards his office.
“Thank you,” he breathes.
“You have five minutes,” I spit. “That’s all.”
I focus on the floor as he rustles through the papers on his desk. This room has too many memories, and I’ve already been hit with enough for today. There is a pile of yearbooks in the corner, waiting to be signed. One lays open, full of well wishes from his or her friends. I’ll always remember senior year!, someone writes.
I’ll try to forget.
Hopefully one day I will.
Maybe one day I’ll live again, because right now I’m only existing, and existing is looking in the eyes of your soul mate as he hands you your report card.
“You lied,” I take paper from him. “After everything.”
“It’s complicated,” he shakes his head.
“Why?” I put my hands up. “It’s seems straight forward. You have a wife. You’re about to become a Dad. Does anything else matter?”
“None of that changes how I feel about you.”
How can he say
that? How dare he say that!
“You’re a cheater,” I accuse. “You used me.”
“I’m not, and I didn’t,” he swears. “I filed for divorce at the end of last summer-”
“I don’t believe you,” I interrupt.
“Sit down,” he pleads, pulling out a chair.
I take a different seat, standing by my five minutes, wanting to just look at him one more time, in this very room. He falters, not believing I’d actually sit without hassle.
“I met with a lawyer in August and I can prove it if you’d like.”
I roll my eyes. Of course, he has a whole story, like I’m supposed to believe anything he says now.
“Luci, when you walked through my door in September I felt like the sickest person alive,” his face is full of disgust. “The way I wanted you, one of my students!”
“Sorry to be such a burden,” I mumble.
“I started seeing her again, because I felt so twisted. I had to do something to take my mind off you,” he sighs. “Yes, it was wrong of me to lead her on, and she knew damn well I was filing for divorce, but shit, I was desperate to try anything. I had to get you out of my head. I thought if I tried to refocus on her I could stop the feelings I had for you.”
“I even had the paperwork to transfer you into another class all ready to go,” he shakes his head. “But I couldn’t do it. I’d rather torture myself seeing you everyday than never see you again, to never look or talk to you again.” His eyes water as he looks into mine. “You were everywhere, my own, personal, beautiful torment.”
I look away as he continues.
“I’ll never forget the look on your face when you saw me, and I’ll always remember the day I realized you wanted me too. I couldn’t believe it, and it destroyed me,” he swallows. “So I started fucking her again. I needed something other than my own hand to make you feel real. It wasn’t ever her I was with; it was you. Always you. I’d close my eyes and see your face.”
A single tear runs down my cheek as I open my mouth to stop him, not wanting to hear anymore, but nothing except air comes out.
“When you and I kissed, I thought maybe if I just got it out of my system I could get past it,” he says, as wetness forms along the rims of his red eyes. “I knew it was just an excuse. I was done from the moment I saw you, and destroyed the minute we touched. That night, I called her. Told her we were over, for real this time. Nothing could compare to you,” he pauses, offering me a sad smile. “A few weeks later, she called, said she’s pregnant-”
Beautiful Torment Page 19
