Willow

by Julia Hoban

  “Then what? If I go, then what?” Guy’s voice is angry, angry enough so that Willow almost backs down from what she is going to say.

  “Go on. Tell me, if I go, then what?” Guy says once again.

  There are many answers that Willow can give to this question. She can tell him that if he goes she might be better off. She won’t be afraid of experiencing the things that so overwhelmed her in the stacks, that are starting to overwhelm her even as she sits there with him now. She won’t worry that there is someone who is intent on weaning her off of her extracurricular activities. She won’t have to worry about protecting someone else’s feelings. But she will have no one to talk to, no one who knows her, no one who understands. Willow looks at him, and the only answer that she can give, the truest answer is simply:

  “If you go, then I’ll miss you . . . terribly.”

  “Oh,” Guy says. He gets up from the bed, crosses over to where she is, and lowers himself until he is sitting on his heels in front of her. Willow wonders if he is aware of how closely he is mimicking her posture from yesterday. “You’re not my project,” he says finally. “You’re not my project,” he says again more forcefully. “And I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

  Willow is speechless. She had no idea, she really had no idea that anybody would ever look at her in that way.

  She leans forward, until her forehead is brushing his. The most natural thing right now would be for them to kiss each other once again, but Willow knows that she can’t do that, she simply can’t risk it. She wonders why he wants to stay. He can get so much more somewhere, anywhereelse, without all of her added complications.

  “I . . . I don’t want you to go anywhere else either,” she says finally.

  “Then what do you want?” Guy asks.

  Willow isn’t sure if she has the energy to answer this. She’s bone weary. Exhausted. Trying to take care of Isabelle wore her out. The scene they just had wore her out. Just telling him the truth wore her out. Her life is wearing her out. But all of that fades away as she looks at Guy. She thinks that he’s beautiful. And as she remembers the way that he looked on the bed, so calm, so strong, so right,there is only one thing she wants to do. It may not be the answer that he was looking for, but it is the only one that she can give him.

  “I want to go to sleep,” she says finally. “Just to sleep, for a long time, and not wake up until I’m ready.”

  Guy doesn’t say anything. He just nods as if this is not only the most natural response she could give, but the only one.

  “Okay.” He gets to his feet, pulls her up off the chair, and walks her to the bed. Guy lies back down in his former position, but Willow just sits on the edge and looks at him. She wonders if he can possibly feel her secret stash hidden under the mattress. She offers him a shy smile, because as much as she wants this, it is still difficult for her. He doesn’t appear to be having any difficulties, however. He just smiles back at her and holds out a hand.

  Willow kicks off her shoes and, grasping his hand, crawls across the bed toward him. She has moved far beyond exhaustion and his chest is the best pillow she could ever imagine. But for all that, she’s trembling. What she has told him has left her naked; she feels as if she has ripped off a layer of her skin. Willow feels things, good things, to be sure, even wonderful things, but she is used to being deadened, anesthetized, and she knows of only one way to process this.

  Guy is asleep within moments. But it is not so easy for Willow. She stares up at the ceiling. She tries to mimic his calm easy breathing. But she can’t quite do it, her breath remains a little panicky. She tries to focus instead on how wonderful his arms feel. She even laughs a little as she remembers Chloe’s comments about rowers. But still, she can’t stop trembling. Her hand strays to the edge of the mattress, goes underneath, feels for her supplies.

  You can handle this, can’t you? It’s not so difficult.

  It occurs to Willow that she has handled far worse. Whatever it was that happened downstairs with David just now, however savage, was survivable. The realization makes her bolt upright. How is that she managed to endure that pain without any recourse to her trusty equipment?

  Willow knows that she should find this comforting, but in fact it scares her more than almost anything. She breaks into a cold sweat. The idea, however fleeting, that she could possibly survive without her constant companion of the past seven months is simply too unsettling. She searches under the mattress more frantically. When her hand finally closes around the razor she squeezes it tightly. She has no need of more right now, but she does need to know that more is possible.

  Guy shifts in his sleep, moving both of them, and somehow manages to dislodge her grip. The razor falls to the floor with a faint metallic ping.

  Willow gets out of bed to retrieve it, and as she does so her gaze falls upon Guy’s backpack. An idea occurs to her. She checks to make certain that he really is asleep and when she is sure that he is, walks over to her desk and gets a pen. She pauses for a moment, looking at the box of still unused watercolors. It would be wonderful to do some kind of illustration, something that would go along with what she’s about to write, but it would take too long to dry, and besides, she’s in too much of a hurry to get back in bed with him. She goes over to his bag, unzips it as quietly as possible, and takes out the copy of The Tempest.

  She doesn’t even have to think twice:For Guy,

  Oh brave new world that has such a person in it . . .

  She smiles a little as she imagines his reaction when he finds it, and she wonders when that will be—tonight, tomorrow?

  Willow gets back into bed, still clutching her razor, but it doesn’t matter, because she finds that this time her breathing does match Guy’s, and she too sleeps.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  At first Willow thinks that it is a nightmare that has woken her up so suddenly. Then she is sure it must be the sounds of the late-night traffic that filter through the window. But as she looks out onto the moonlit street, she sees that there are no cars, that the road is completely empty.

  Willow is used to waking up in the middle of the night with a start, but this time seems different. There is no reason that she should be sitting bolt upright in bed at three in the morning. There are no hideous images that permeate her dreams, no sounds that recall the accident.

  Is it just that she is overwrought by the events of the past few days? The stacks, her nap with Guy, the pain she felt as she watched David with Isabelle. Especiallythe pain she felt watching the two of them. These are disturbing things, but are they enough to startle her awake in the middle of the night?

  Willow hugs her legs to her chest, rests her chin on her knees and thinks. Should she—

  What’s that?

  She raises her head at a noise, faint but unmistakable.

  Oh.

  Now Willow knows exactly what it is that has woken her up so abruptly. It is nothing that would rouse anyone else, being barely audible, but the sound goes straight to her heart. Once again her brother is weeping.

  She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and reaches for her bathrobe. She has no conscious plan, no thought that she is going to help her brother, and indeed, not only would she not know how to do such a thing, but she knows that her appearance would be a profound invasion. Still, though, she cannot stay in bed when her brother is crying, and when she herself has caused his tears.

  She creeps down the stairs, pausing on every step, determined not to make any noise that will alert him to her presence.

  The sound of his crying is even more painful than the sounds she remembers from the accident.

  Willow sinks down on the steps, careful to position herself so that David cannot see her if he were to look up. Although it seems unlikely that he would do such a thing. His head is buried on his arms, which are folded on the table, and his glasses lie off to one side.

  Willow doesn’t think that she has ever seen anyone weep with such total abandon. It is a punishment to
watch, and she knows that she cannot witness his grief, she cannot see such naked emotion, without succumbing to her crutch, her remedy, her razor.

  She reaches in her bathrobe pocket for the blade she keeps there, but stops just before she sinks the razor into her flesh.

  It occurs to her that finally, there is something that she can do for her brother. She cannot bring their parents back, her attempts to help him in even the most superficial ways have failed completely, but here, now, there is something that she can do.

  She can sit and watch him, bear witness to his pain. She can force herself to sit through this, live through every sob with him, without resorting to the one thing that has protected her from feeling such pain herself.

  He will never know what this will cost her, the entire act will go unacknowledged, but Willow will feel as if she has finally done something for David.

  Willow remembers the last time that she saw him cry, how shocked she had been, frightened almost, to see him reduced to such a state. She is not so much scared now as awed. Impressed, as she had not been that other time, by how strong he must be in order to withstand such misery. She knows better than anyone what kind of inner fortitude it must take to let oneself be so overcome.

  It is something that she will never be able to do. Even to watch it without allowing herself the luxury of cutting is almost more that she can bear.

  His sobs wound her far more than anything she can inflict on herself, but it is not only pain that she feels as she watches him. She takes a bittersweet comfort in the fact that her brother is capable of feeling such grief. That he will never have to resort to the kind of remedy that she does, that he has an endless reservoir of strength that allows him to weep in such a fashion.

  No, she herself is far from being that strong. But she will sit there and watch him, watch every tear, until he is spent.

  It takes a long time, a very long time, but finally, David stops crying. He sits at the table resting his chin in his hands and stares at the wall for a few moments before he gets up and walks out of the room.

  Willow gets up too. She walks back up the stairs as silently as she came down them, crawls into her bed, and stares at the ceiling. She is still awake when the sky starts to lighten outside her window. She is still awake when the sun comes up. She never falls back asleep. She just lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, until the rest of the household wakens and Cathy calls her for breakfast.

  The image of David crying stays with Willow throughout the day. She is so tired that she can barely keep her eyes open, but every time that sleep threatens to overtake her, she manages to jerk herself awake by remembering the way he looked seated at the kitchen table. Willow is able to make it through her classes by doing this, but she is absolutely exhausted by the time she gets to the library.

  “Hey, Carlos.” Willow can barely get the words out, she’s yawning so hard. “I’m sorry!” She covers her mouth. “I barely got any sleep last night.”

  “Well, this is your lucky day then,” Carlos says as he takes in the dark circles under her eyes. “Because I’m in charge this afternoon. Maybe you should just stick with shelving today, okay? It’s probably easiest.”

  “Whatever you think,” Willow says, stowing her bag underneath the circulation desk. She knows that Carlos is trying to be kind, and shelving isoften easier than dealing with people and their questions, but she would rather not be up alone in the stacks right now with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company.

  “You’ve got more than enough to last your whole shift.” Carlos waves his hand at the pile of battered metal carts overflowing with books that are blocking the entrance to the elevator.

  “What did you do, save them all for me?” Willow grumbles as she grabs the first cart and wheels it into the elevator.

  But to Willow’s relief, shelving so many books proves to be more than distraction enough to blot out all thoughts of the previous night. Certainly it is more pleasant than torturing herself with memories of her brother’s misery. The time passes quickly and uneventfully, and Willow is grateful that Carlos gave her the job, until she sees the last batch of books, destined for the eleventh floor.

  As she gets off the elevator she can’t help but think of all the things that have happened there between her and Guy. From the first conversation that she had with him to their kiss the other day, she feels as if these walls have witnessed the most important events in her life since her parents died.

  Willow leaves the cart and walks over to the area near the windows. She kneels down and touches the floor where they sat. She knows she’s being fanciful, but it seems strange to her that the concrete is so cold and raw, when the heat they generated was so intense.

  She closes her eyes and allows the memory of their embrace to wash over her, but jumps up with a start as she hears the whirr of the elevator. Having other people up in the stacks while she’s working makes her uncomfortable enough, but she would die of shame if anyone were to walk in on her communing with the floor.

  She races back to the cart, grabs it, and is in position in front of one of the bookcases with a volume in her hand, when the elevator doors open. Willow glances over her shoulder, mildly curious to see who it is.

  “Oh!” She is startled to see that it is Guywho is getting off the elevator, and for a brief moment she thinks that he is just a vision conjured up by her intense longing.

  “Hello,” she says after a second. “I didn’t know that you’d be up here today.”

  “Hi.” He walks over to her. “That guy downstairs at the circulation desk said you’d be on eleven.”

  “Carlos?”

  “Yeah, sorry, I forgot his name. Anyway, I brought you something.”

  “Really?” Willow puts the book she’s holding back on the cart and looks at Guy. “That was nice of you. What?”

  “Contraband.” Guy takes his hands out from behind his back. He’s holding a brown paper bag, from which he removes a container of iced coffee.

  “Oh my God!” Willow laughs. “That is the sweetest thing! It’s just what I needed too! How did you know? And how did you manage to sneak it up here?” She pushes the cart out of the way and moves closer to him.

  “Umm, Carlos said you were really tired, and I got the feeling that he wouldn’t care if I brought you this.”

  “Oh, it’s perfect.” Willow takes the coffee from him and sits down with her back against the wall. She closes her eyes and takes a sip. “You even put the right amount of sweetener in.”

  “I’m observant.” Guy sits down next to her.

  “You’re not kidding.” Willow shifts so that their legs are touching. “Want some?”

  “No thanks.” Guy shakes his head. “Too sweet for me. So how come you’re so tired? I thought maybe we could do something together after work, but if you’re not up for it . . .” He trails off.

  “Oh no, I’m not too tired. I mean, I am.” Willow yawns between sips. “But I’d really like to do something, and besides”—she gestures with the coffee—“this is helping.”

  “Were you up all night working on your paper or something?”

  “Not exactly.” Willow sighs. “I haven’t even started on that. I just . . .” She pauses for a moment. “Well, I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.” She wonders why, when she’s told him so many important things, she is hesitant about letting him know the real reason she stayed up all night. “That was amazing,” Willow says as she drinks the last of the coffee. “Thank you so much.” She smiles at Guy for a second, then stands up reluctantly.

  “Hey, you know what?” Guy gets up too. “I finally finished reading The Tempest.”

  “Really?” This perks Willow up even more than the coffee. “What did you think? Did you love it? Admit it, it’s his best play, isn’t it?” She takes a handful of books and starts sorting through them.

  “Yeah, I really did like it. Okay,” he amends quickly as he sees her smile fade. “I loved it, no seriously, I did. Is it his best play? I don’t know ’
cause I haven’t read them all, but I’ll tell you what, I like imaginary places too. And I’ll tell you something else.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you what my favorite part of the whole thing was.”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess.” Willow stops shelving and leans against the stacks as she considers this. “Umm, one of Prospero’s really great speeches because—”

  “Nope.” Guy shakes his head. “Not even close.”

  “No?” Willow is surprised. “Okay, you’re not going to tell me you liked Caliban better? You like categories so much, that would be a really weird one. I mean, people who think he’s a better character than Prospero?!”

  “Forget Caliban,” Guy says. “You’re still about a million miles away.” He folds his arms, rests them on the edge of the metal cart, leans forward, and smiles. “Want to try third time lucky, or should I just tell you?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Okay. My favorite part was the dedication.”

  “The dedication?” Willow frowns. “Shakespeare didn’t write a dedication for The Tempest. I don’t think he did for any play, did he?”

  “I’m not talking about any dedication that Shakespeare wrote.”

  “Oh.” Willow bites her lower lip as the meaning of his words sinks in. “Okay.” She smiles and starts shelving again.

  “You know what?” Guy says slowly. “You’re—”

  “I am not!” she protests.

  “How do you know what I was going to say?”

  “You’re going to say that I’m blushing, and I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are.” Guy leans even closer.

  Willow is dismally aware of how perfectly romantic the moment is, and of where the moment should lead. She wishes more than anything that she could lean in toward him, let things develop the way they ought to, but she can’t, she knows what the consequences would be.