by Katie Henry
I don’t even have to wait to hear the inner voice. It boils up from the pit of my stomach and is out of my mouth before I can choose my words.
“I’m a burden to them because I’m anxious, and weird, and obsessive, and strange. I’m a burden because they have to drive more slowly on mountain roads, because my mom can’t brag about me to her friends, because they have to spend their time talking about me and worrying about me, because they have to pay money for me to see you, because I’m sixteen and can’t drive. Because I’m sixteen and can’t handle anything. I’m a burden because I’m me.”
We sit in silence. I blink back tears, because I am absolutely, positively not going to cry twice in the space of twenty minutes.
“Do you know,” Martha asks, “the etymology of the word ‘burden’?”
It’s not Latin or Greek, so I’d guess proto-Germanic. Maybe something about farming. I shake my head.
“It’s a great relief,” Martha says with a sly smile, “to know just one word you don’t. I hope you won’t hold that against me.”
“We all have our pride,” I say, and she laughs.
“I’m not sure what language it comes from. I don’t know what year you can trace it back to. But the word ‘burden’—” Martha takes a breath. “The word for a burden is the same as the word for a child.”
Burden and child are synonyms. Or they were, for someone, somewhere. Words can be revelations, and this is another one.
“A good parent would want to carry you. And if they couldn’t, sometimes, it’s because they’re human. Humans are clumsy. Fragile things can break. It doesn’t mean we mean to break them. Sometimes, we don’t even know we’ve done it.”
Something warm and hot is building behind my eyes. I look up at the ceiling. Martha keeps going.
“They were meant to carry you. Not just when it’s convenient. Not just when you were small. For your entire life. You were brought into the world to be loved, and guided, and carried. That’s the deal they made, the day you were born.”
Without closing my eyes this time, I picture my family, again. All together, again.
My dad, in his white coat, saying that maybe he needed me more.
My mom, standing straight and tall, telling me my hair looked nice.
My sister, all charm and poise and goodness, teaching me how to spot the wall.
Martha gets up from her chair and sits next to me on the couch. She doesn’t try to hug me. She doesn’t even touch me. She wants me to know she’s here, walking beside me.
“Are you a burden? I guess it depends on how you interpret the word. But if you’re a burden, then every child is a burden. And Ellis. Please believe me. You are a worthy burden to carry.”
Everyone just wants to be believed.
I want to believe Martha.
And as I collapse into tears yet again, I think I just might.
Twenty-One
I’VE NEVER BEEN alone under Hannah’s tree before. I’ve spent a lot of time alone in my life, but in places that were suited for it. My room. The library. And maybe it’s just the power of association, but Hannah’s tree is an odd place to be alone.
I lie on the grass and tilt my face up at the sun. The closer we get to the end of the world, the more I seem to seek out warmth. Like a cat, following sunbeams. Or a person with an in-depth knowledge of what a mini Ice Age entails. One day far in the future, the sun will explode. One day, maybe even just a few weeks from now, there might not be sunlight. So I’ll soak it up now. I breathe in deep, and sigh it out.
“Are you okay?” says a voice above me. When I open my eyes, there’s Tal, looking down at me, his head titled. I sit up a little on my elbows.
“Yeah. Where is everyone?”
“Sam and Theo were hungry—they’re going to Thai Temple. Hannah had someone to meet. Didn’t say who or where.”
I bet I know who, and where. “And you?”
He shrugs. “I don’t mind being alone.”
“Oh.” I start to push myself off the ground. “I can—”
But he’s already sitting next me on the grass, a hand on my leg to stop me from getting up. “You should stay.” Then, he quickly adds, “If you want to. Only if you want to.”
“Okay,” I say, and my palms are sweating. Am I nervous? I can’t tell. My heartbeat’s too fast and my stomach’s twisted into a soft pretzel, but it doesn’t feel like it usually does, like I’ve been backed into a corner or dangled outside an airplane window. For once, I’m not looking for an escape route. If I’m nervous, it’s only because he seems so nervous.
“Cool,” he says, and we both realize at the same time that his hand is still on my leg. I take a sharp breath in through my nose. He pulls his hand away like he’s touched a mousetrap. I wish he’d put it back.
“What were you doing, when I came over?” he says.
I could lie in this situation. I probably should. I don’t. “Thinking about the apocalypse.”
He laughs. “You looked happy, though.”
“I was thinking about the things I’d miss,” I say. “Sunlight. Ice cream. Hanging out with you guys under Hannah’s tree.”
He goes quiet. “You’d really miss us?”
“Of course I’d miss you,” I say, then look away.
After a moment of silence, Tal clears his throat. “Here’s what I don’t understand. How are you so sure it’ll—?”
“Well, the world’s already a disaster, sea levels are rising every day, it’s in the Bible—”
“You interrupted me.”
“You interrupted me!”
“You did it first!” He puts his head in his hand. “God, okay. I was going to say, how are you so sure it’ll be a literal apocalypse?”
I roll my eyes. “Who believes in a metaphorical apocalypse?”
“Lots of people. Lots of religions. I went to this other church—”
“You went other places?” I ask, surprised. I’d assumed if you leave the church, it’s because you’re done with religion entirely.
“Sure. My dad goes to this Methodist church now. It’s cool. The pastor’s a nice lady. It’s not for me, but . . .” He shrugs. “Anyway, she said they don’t believe in a literal apocalypse. That the story is more like a metaphor for how tough and shitty the world can be.”
“The Book of Revelation is pretty clear,” I say. “There’s going to be a period of tribulation. With floods, and war, and disease—”
“But we’ve had those things,” Tal says. “A thousand times over. What if this is the worst it gets? What if this world, the one right now, is that tribulation?”
A lady pastor. Scripture that’s all metaphor. A universe that’s already weathered the worst, and survived. It’s so different than my world, but it doesn’t seem like a bad world.
“Does your dad like it?” I ask. “The new church?”
“For now. He’s always trying to find somewhere that fits and it never quite works. He was raised Catholic, but everyone in Brazil is. And then he came here for college, and just happened to meet two missionaries, and—” He shrugs. “They gave him what he needed. A community. Somewhere to belong. It was good for him. But then he needed new things. I used to think, if he’d had access to everything I do, no way he would have converted. But now I think he still would have, because he needed it.”
“What do you mean, access to everything?” I ask.
“The internet.” Then, off my look, “I’m serious. You don’t have to think the info’s accurate, that’s up to you, but we do have a lot more information than our ancestors did. And infinitely more access to it. I mean, the temple ceremonies are on YouTube, what else is left?”
My mouth drops open. Those ceremonies are sacred. There are some things even my parents can’t tell me about their temple wedding, but it’s on the internet? “You didn’t watch one, did you?”
For a single second, he looks guilty. “I did.”
“Tal!”
“I’m not saying you should.” He sha
kes his head. “It doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to you. My point is, we have more choices than anyone else in history. Whichever ones we make, we had more options. That can’t be a bad thing.”
I get why he thinks so, but even the idea makes my heart palpitate. If every choice in the world is open to you, how would you ever know which one is best? How could you ever really choose? It’s simpler when things are laid out for you. Choices are good, of course, but choices are scary, too. Maybe good and scary aren’t antonyms.
“If your dad hadn’t converted,” I point out, “he probably wouldn’t have married your mom. You wouldn’t even exist.”
Tal picks at a blade of grass. “That might’ve been for the best.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m not saying they don’t love me,” Tal says. “They do. But my dad would have a lot easier time dating without me around. And my mom . . .” He sighs. “She’s got her new family. They all look perfect together. And then there’s me, lurking in the corner, some reminder of the less-perfect family she used to have. I’m there, but it would be a nicer picture if I weren’t. I’m like a . . .” He searches for a word.
And I know how it feels to search for something, anything, to make sense out of a painful thing. “Vestigial organ.”
He raises his eyebrow. “A what?”
“Something in the body that used to serve a function but doesn’t anymore. Like wisdom teeth. Or an appendix.”
It’s a weird, potentially offensive analogy, but Tal grins. “I’m the appendix of my family. That’s perfect. I’m keeping that.”
Is there anything that makes your heart jump more, than someone wanting to keep your words?
“You’re welcome,” I say. “Nice to be useful to someone, for once.”
He fixes me with a look. “Oh, what total bullshit.”
My face gets hot. “Excuse me?”
“You’re great,” he says. “Don’t you get that you’re great?”
Now it’s my turn to call BS. “I’m not.”
“Girl, would you learn to take a compliment?”
“Well, I’m not that smart—”
“You’re plenty smart.”
“And I’m not that pretty—”
“I think you’re pretty,” he says quietly.
My breath catches. We stare at each other for a moment. I wait for him to say something else, to do something else. He doesn’t. Maybe he’s waiting for me, too.
“I’m not . . . sweet.” I pull at the fibers in my coat sleeve. “You can’t argue with me on that. I’m not even sweet enough to be a ‘sweet spirit.’”
Tal sighs and looks off in the distance. There’s a power in that, in not having to explain things. Tal is from my world, so he knows that “sweet spirit” is what church ladies call girls who are not quite attractive enough, not quite charming enough, not quite enough.
Tal focuses back on me. He moves a little closer. “Do you remember our freshman science class?”
“We weren’t in the same class,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, we were. I sat right behind you.” He flicks a piece of grass off my shoe. “Next to Hannah.”
Something lurches in the pit of my stomach. “Hannah?”
Both his eyebrows are raised now. “Uh, yeah, that’s how she and I met.”
I don’t remember that. I don’t remember seeing her before that day in the waiting room. Hannah said we’d never met before. Maybe she doesn’t remember either.
“You’re sure we were in the same class?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, I swear. Freshman science. Third period with Mr. Spooner. You wore your hair in a French braid every single day.”
Yikes. Accurate.
“It was probably around this time of the year,” Tal continues. “Like, way too early for Mr. Spooner to have been so checked out, but he was. He had us doing some experiment. And Jessica Ritter—that was the year she was in the car accident, remember? She had that giant gash on her cheek, which it wasn’t so bad with the bandage on it, but when it had to come off . . .”
I do remember that. It was noticeable, and not pretty, and her friends started avoiding her. This group of boys would bark at her when she walked in the room. Like she was a dog. They used to like her. But the second she wasn’t something shiny in a store window, she was worthless to them.
“That day, during lab,” Tal says, “Jessica asked Max Kleinfelter for some iodine, and he said he would if she’d blow him. She told him he was a jerk, and then he said, ‘You’re going to have to get good at giving head, with a face like that.’ And she dropped the iodine, and ran out of the room. No one followed her. No one did anything. But you . . .”
Me?
“You ripped a piece of paper out your notebook.”
Oh. That’s right.
“You ripped out a page and you wrote on it, saying you thought she was beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful than any of her friends, inside and out, and that you hoped a flaming piano would fall on Max Kleinfelter. You folded it up, and stuck it in her textbook, and just sat back down.”
It comes back in a flood—the half-ripped paper, scribbling with the pen that bled blue ink all over my fingers, the fury I felt for stupid Max Kleinfelter and his stupid smug face, the anger I felt for Mr. Spooner not even noticing, the shame I felt for myself, because all I did was write a note. It’s so odd to hear someone tell a story you didn’t know they were part of. So odd to hear about yourself through someone else’s eyes.
“Was your note sweet?” Tal says. “No, not really, you cursed someone with death by piano.”
“He wouldn’t necessarily have died,” I point out.
“So it wasn’t sweet. So what? It was compassionate, it was righteous. It was good. Good is different than sweet. Good is so much better.”
Sweet and good are not synonyms. It’s a revelation. A small one. An important one. Small and important are not antonyms.
“I sort of figured . . .” Tal hesitates. “That’s why Hannah found you, when she needed help. Because she knew you were the kind of person who would.”
Hannah found me because she saw me. Not in some science lab, but in a dream, in the snow. Didn’t she? I shake my head.
“I can’t believe you remember that. I can’t believe you saw that,” I say.
“You’re a lot less invisible than you think.”
It’s baffling, really, to think anyone would see me. Not as their daughter, or sister, or silent classmate in the corner. But see me, just as I am. See me, better than I see myself.
“Tal.”
“Yes?”
“I—”
Survive for something. Want something. Want something, Ellis.
“Do you know the etymology of the word ‘pupil’?” I blurt out.
He blinks at me. “No.”
“Can I tell you?”
“Okay,” he says.
“I swear it’s relevant.”
“Okay,” he says.
“‘Pupil’ comes from Latin, pupilla. It means a little girl, a little doll. It’s the same in Greek, with the word kore. They gave the same word to a little doll and the center of the eye, because when you look into another person’s pupil, you see a version of yourself, in miniature. But you have to be close, to do that, to see a person in a pupil. You have to get so close.”
I want to be close. I want, I want—
I grab Tal’s hand and pull myself closer. My knee is touching his, touching bare skin through the rip in his pants, my heart is catapulting itself into my ribs, and there she is, in the center of his pupil, brown and green and unblinking. There I am. What a strange thing, to see yourself reflected in another person’s eyes. What an amazing thing, to see yourself like they see you.
I want to keep seeing myself, I want to keep holding his hand, I want, I want—
“Ellis.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know the etymology of the word ‘kiss’?”
&
nbsp; I do. Or I used to. “I don’t remember.”
His mouth quirks. “Can I kiss you anyway?”
Want something, Ellis. Want something. Let yourself want something.
I breathe in. Release.
I want to kiss him.
“Yes,” I say, once, then again. “Yes.”
He was the one who asked, so maybe I should have let him lean in, but I don’t. I kiss him, terrified and overjoyed all once. When he kisses me back, the terror part melts away. I’m not supposed to be doing this, it’s not like I don’t know I’m not supposed to be doing this, it’s just that I don’t care. I feel like I’ve taken off a dress that’s too tight. I feel like I’ve finally let myself breathe deep.
Tal breaks away. Oh no. Did he not want to? Or did he want to, but I was so bad at it he changed his mind?
“Are you . . .” He hesitates. “I only want you to do this if you want to do this. Not because you feel like you have to prove anything.”
I don’t understand what I’d have to prove. That I like him?
“I like you,” I tell him. “I like you a lot, and I have for a while. I like you, and I liked kissing you, and I would like to kiss you again if that’s mutually beneficial.”
He barely suppresses a laugh. “Mutually beneficial?”
“Shut up, I know I’m bad at this!” I cover my face with my hands, but he pulls them away.
“You’re not bad at this,” he says. “It’s just new.”
I kiss him again, this time without hesitation. No hesitation, no terror, no fear. Not forever. Just for this one singular moment.
Words matter. Words are important, their definitions and histories are important, they mean something. Words tell every story that has ever been told, by fires in caves and castles and by prairie campfires. Under blue skies, under blankets of stars, in mountains and valleys and forests and deserts. Thousands of years, thousands of words, thousands of people who have loved each other, needed each other, grasped for each other in the dark of the world. But as I search for words, as I search for the etymology of kiss and joy and fear and rapture, nothing stays, nothing holds.
Some things are beyond words.
Twenty-Two
