by Julia Hoban
“Willow.” David grabs both her hands above the wrists, grabs them and holds them tight. He does not roll up her sleeves. Why should he? “You’re trembling! You’re just shaking all over! Was I wrong to tell you? Should I—”
“No! No! You were right, and don’t stop talking to me, because—don’t stop. . . .” She cannot talk anymore. She is too tired, she is crying too hard, and anyway, her brother is hugging her much too closely for anything she says to make much sense, because all her words are muffled in his shirtfront, and in any case, she has started to hiccup.
“Ssh.” David tries to hush her much the way he would Isabelle if she were weeping so disconsolately. “Ssh, try and calm down. Willow, just try and . . . Goddammit, I hear the baby.” He pulls away for a second. “Cathy needs to sleep, she’s been up every night with Isabelle over this ear infection. . . . I . . . I should go downstairs. Are you going to be okay for now?” He holds her at arm’s length and studies her face carefully. “Can we keep talking about this later?”
“Uh-huh.” Willow swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. And as she watches him go, go to his daughter,she is once again struck by the fact that she will never again be anybody’s child, and that although some things in her life will improve, her relationship with David most certainly among them, that fact will never change.
Willow walks out of the school building surrounded by dozens of other students. The day is over, and she could not be more thankful, not just because she is exhausted emotionally and physically, but because she is longing to see Guy. And since they don’t have any classes together, the only time that she can be sure to find him is right after school.
She looks around a little worriedly. He’s nowhere to be seen. But then she catches sight of him over near the gates. And as she walks toward Guy, she can’t stop thinking about the fact that she, alone among all the girls there, knows him, really knows him, in every possible way.
Willow wants to run up and grab him, run up and hold him, see if he feels as wonderful as he did the day before, but she’s too shy, so she just walks over to where he’s standing, and waits to see what he will do.
He grabs her,he holds her,and she realizes that he feels even better than he did the day before.
“Hey, you know what?” He holds her as closely as possible and looks deep into her eyes. “I really want to talk to you.”
“Well, of course.” Willow frowns. “I mean, what else? I don’t get—”
“No, I mean, I need to talk to you about—”
“Hey Guy,” Laurie calls from across the courtyard. “Take Adrian with you wherever you’re going. You guys do something together, Willow can come with us.” She starts walking over to them, Adrian and Chloe in tow.
Willow steps back from Guy reluctantly and stands at his side as she watches their approach.
“Seriously,” Laurie continues. “Don’t you and Adrian need to talk about rowing or something?”
“Adrian isn’t on the team.” Guy looks at Laurie in confusion.
“Yeah, I know,” Adrian says in a wry voice. “And Laurie does too, she just wants to get rid of me,” he explains needlessly.
“That’s right.” Laurie nods. “Chloe and I are going to a cafe. You too, Willow, if you want—we need to make a list of all the eligible—”
“Shut up, Laurie,” Chloe interrupts her good-naturedly.
“Uh, sorry, Laurie,” Guy says. “I wanted to be with—”
“You look different, Willow,” Laurie says suddenly.
“Whaaa?” Willow jumps about four feet in the air. Out of the corner of her eye she can see that Guy is trying very hard not to laugh, and she knows that he knows exactly what she’s thinking.
“What . . .What do you mean different?” Willow reaches for Laurie’s hand and pulls her away from the rest of the group. “How different? What do you mean exactly?”
“Oh, I just . . . Well.” Laurie lowers her voice a little. “You look like maybe you’ve been crying. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything when everyone else was around, I just . . . Are you okay?” She squeezes her hand.
“Oh! Oh, sure!” Willow laughs. She gives Laurie’s hand a return squeeze before letting go and moving back to Guy’s side. “I’m fine. I was just up all night doing a paper for that class you liked so much. You know, the Bulfinchthing, but thanks for asking.”
“Okay, so listen.” Laurie turns her attention back to Guy. “Could you—”
“Forget it, Laurie.” Guy shakes his head. “You’ll have to drag him along with you. I feel like being alone with Willow, we’re going down to the river. Besides, he probably has much better ideas than you do about who to fix Chloe up with.”
“Yeah, I have no interest in this at all,” Adrian protests.
“Deal with it.” Laurie loops an arm around him. “C’mon. Maybe it’s better this way anyway. Now you can pay.”
“Did you really get your paper done?” Guy asks her as the others walk away. “I know I said I’d help you and I never did. . . .”
“Well, don’t repeat this, because it’s embarrassing and probably illegal, but my brother really did most of it.”
“Really?” Guy looks at her in surprise as they walk out of the gates and down the street. “Does that mean that you, well, that you talkedto him?”
“I did actually.” Willow nods.
“So you’re . . . I don’t know, I mean you kind of worked things out? That sounds really stupid, but you know what I mean. You were so convinced that there was no way things could be okay between you. But you think that you can talk to him again, for real?”
“Umm-hmm.” Willow feels that she owes Guy a fuller explanation of what exactly did transpire between her and David, but she can’t give it to him, because she is laughing too hard.
“What’s so funny?” He looks at her suspiciously.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Willow walks backward in front of him. “I just think that, maybe even though I’m more comfortable talking to him right now, you might not be.”
“What, what do you mean, exactly?”
“I just have this feeling that you wouldn’t be so comfortable around him right now, that’s all.” She falls back into step beside him as they cross the street and head into the park.
“Willow.” Guy stops in his tracks. “You didn’t . . . You didn’t tellhim that we slept together or anything like that, did you?”
“Oh, no!” Willow shakes her head vehemently. “I would neverhave told him that.”
“Good.” Guy looks vastly relieved.
“That’s not to say he didn’t figure it out on his own, though.”
“Oh no!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, my God!”
“What do you care? Guy, I was joking about you not wanting to run into him, he doesn’t have any problem with us doing—I mean, are you embarrassed about what we did? Or ashamed or something?” She looks stricken.
“You don’t get it at all.” Guy pulls her close to him. “It’s not that, it’s just . . . I do not want to know about this kind of thing with Rebecca, okay?”
“She’s twelve!”
“Yeah, well, whenever it happens, I don’t want to know about it. Oh, my God.” He shakes his head. “How am I ever going to take another class with him?”
“I don’t know.” Willow starts laughing again. “But you know what? You’reblushing!”
“Yeah, okay, I don’t blush, all right?”
“You are!”
“Look, I’m not a girl.”
“Oh, you don’t have to tell methat! I mean if I ever had any doubts about that, they’re gone after yesterday!”
“Thanks,” Guy says dryly. “Listen, can we just sit here and talk.”
“I don’t like that wall.” Willow bites her lip as they approach the water. “I really don’t feel like falling in.”
“You’re not going to fall in,” Guy says patiently. “I mean, unless you keep talking the way you have
been, in which case I’ll push you. C’mon.” He gets up on the wall and helps her up beside him. “See, totally safe.” They both sit down and swing their legs out over the water.
“So, what did you want to talk about so urgently?” Willow smiles at him.
Guy regards her steadily for a moment without saying anything. He leans in closer, and Willow thinks that he’s going to kiss her, and she is disappointed when he reaches for her bag instead.
He opens it up and rifles through it until he finds the box of blades. “I was hoping that these would be gone.” He looks back up at her. “I was really hoping, and you know what? I was halfway to being sure that they would be.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?” She stares at him in surprise, but he is no longer looking at her, he is gazing out at the water instead. “You wanted to talk about me cutting?”
“That’s right.”
“But why?” Willow shakes her head at how stupid that sounds. “I mean, why now,this is nothing new, you’ve known about this, you’ve—”
“I thought things had changed.”
“I see,” Willow says slowly. “You thought it was just going to be that simple. That all it would take is me crying a little . . . and maybe us having . . .” She bites her lip. She can’t, she absolutely can’t bring herself to say anything that will cheapen what happened between them. “I guess, I guess you like happy endings, don’t you?” she says after a moment.
“Everybody does.” He puts the box of razors down between them on the parapet and turns back to look at her. “I don’t believe that there are two categories for that—people who like sad endings and people who like happy ones. Everybodylikes a happy ending.”
“Well then, let me tell you something about happy endings,” Willow says angrily. “I told you I talked to my brother. That’s true. We did talk. We talked like we haven’t since my parents died. Is thatwhat you mean by a happy ending? ’Cause guess what? He still doesn’t know about these.” She gestures toward the small package of blades. “Even though we talked about everything else, I couldn’t tell him about this. I can’t tell him yet. It would just be too much for him. But maybe one day I will tell him. I’ll tell him because I won’t be able to keep having this secret between us, this wall. I’ll tell him because enough time will have passed since the accident that maybe he’ll be able to handle something like this. Does that sound happy to you? Does that sound good? Because, you know what? No matter whenI tell him, it will hurt him so much. . . . It will be so painful for him. It might make me feel a little better, but it will make him feel so much worse. And you know what else? Maybe I haven’t lost my brother like I thought I did, but my parents are dead. Gone. No matter how much I talk with my brother, no matter how much I tell him, from now until the end of time, nothing will change that. Is that what you mean by a happy ending?”
“No. Of course not. But you know what? You can’t change that.” He rolls up her right sleeve. “You can change this.”
Willow looks down at her arm. The cuts on this side have faded considerably. More white than red, they look somewhat . . . innocent, like she might well have gotten them from scratching herself too hard, or coming into contact with an enthusiastic kitten. She starts to cover herself up again, but Guy stops her. She feels terribly exposed, but something else too: She has forgotten the sensation of sunlight against bare skin, and she makes no move to resist him.
“You said, that day in the library,” Guy continues after a moment. “You said that if things were different, you would want to give them, it, the whole thing, up. Well, things are different now. Don’t you wantto stop?”
“I don’t know!” she cries in genuine anguish, appalled to find herself bursting into tears once more. “I thought that I would, but it’s not that simple. It’s just not that simple!”
“Oh Willow, the last thing I wanted to do was make you cry again.” Guy is genuinely upset. He moves closer to her and tries to put his arms around her. “I didn’t—”
“You shouldwant me to cry!” Willow pushes him away so that she can look him in the face. “You should! Because every time that I do, it’s like . . . it’s like . . .”
How can she explain to him that every tear takes her further and further away from the box of razors that lies between them. How can she explain that she is terrified of such a thing happening. That although she thought she wanted freedom from her implements, she doesn’t know if she can handle what she’s experiencing now. That she wants to know that she is still in charge of her grief. That her blades have always done her bidding.
“It’s like what?” Guy says. He grasps her upper arms. “Every time you cry it’s like what?”
“I . . . I don’t know if I can take this,” she says between tears. “You think cutting hurts? You don’t know anything!” Willow picks up the packet of razor blades and presses it against her breasts. “These have saved me from this. From feeling like this! Yes! I thought . . . I did think that if I could cry like this, feel like this, I could let them go. But I’m not so sure now. . . .”
“Willow.” Guy bites his lip. “I’m your lover now.” Even in the depths of her misery the words give her a thrill, but he’s not done talking. “That box of blades can’t be your lover anymore, no matter how much they’ve been there for you in the past.”
“You knew about this from the beginning,” Willow says. “You’ve seen me do it. Heard me do it. What’s so different now?”
“You have to ask me that after yesterday?” Guy looks at her incredulously. “All right, then. I’ll tell you. Everything’s different. Just everything.”
Willow knows what he’s talking about. They are no longer the two people they were yesterday. Her cutting and its consequences no longer affect her alone, if indeed they ever really did.
Her brother’s words about responsibility come back to her, about what it must necessarily mean to love someone. And she knows that that responsibility must start with her, and that if in the past, cutting was the best way she knew of to take care of herself, there is a different way open to her now. And then, after that, she must extend that responsibility to Guy as well, because she cannot do everything to shield herself from pain while she forces the person she loves to endure even worse.
Willow looks down at the box and thinks about her other lovers nestled inside, about the pain that she exacts from them, so different from the pleasure that her flesh-and-blood lover gives her, and she knows that their lure is a pitiful thing against all that Guy has to offer. And that not only would renouncing that box of blades be the most responsible action, but it would also be the most beautiful, the most gratifying, the most rewarding thing that she could do.
And she knows these things, stronger than she has ever known anything, but still . . .
“I know I should get rid of them,” she says finally when her tears have subsided just enough for her to talk more coherently. “I know I should, but I just can’t do it. I can’t. I thought I would. I thought I could. I thought about it when I was with Markie. I thought about it last night. I thought about it when I was talking with my brother . . . but I can’t!”
“That’s it, then?” Guy grabs the box from her. “That’s it, then, you’ve chosen? You’re going to be faithful to them?”
“I . . . I don’t want to be!”
“Then get rid of them! Do it! Here, throw them in the water! I’ll help you. Full fathom five, like it says in The Tempest !”
“You think that’s all it would take?” Willow starts to cry again. “You think I couldn’t go out and buy some more tomorrow, go to one of those all-night stores if I had to, improvise with a screwdriver if that’s all there was around?”
“I know that,” Guy says. He takes her hand and closes it over his as he clutches the box. “I know all about it, okay? Maybe you will get some more tomorrow, or maybe even tonight, but at least for right now, for right now, you would be free of them.”
“All right!” Willow presses her face into
his chest. She cannot stop weeping and she knows that her words are practically incoherent. “All right! I’ll do it,” she says against his shirtfront.
“What did you say?” Guy disengages himself and holds her at arm’s length. He looks at her in amazement as if he cannot quite believe what he has heard. “Willow, what did you say? It’s very hard to understand you when—”
“I’ll do it, I will! You just . . . Give me a second. . . .”
An hour, a month, a year. . . .
“Look,” Guy says. “I’m going to help you, okay? It’s going to be easy. C’mon. I’ll just hold our hands out over the water and count to three, and . . .”
But Willow doesn’t even wait until three. She knows as she watches the box drift down to its watery grave, that although she can indeed go out and buy more anytime, that that part of her life is most probably over. The curtain is drawing closed over the past seven months, and her brave new world with Guy beside her is beckoning. And that if this is not a happy ending, it is perhaps a happy beginning.
Acknowledgments
I am very happy to thank the following people, who helped so much and in so many ways:
Andrea Haring, for her unfailing support and faith. David Damrosch, for his time, energy, and suggestions, each one of which made the book better; and Jenny Davidson, who answered many eleventh-hour queries with grace and enthusiasm.
At Dial Lauri Hornik not only bought Willowbut teamed me up with the extraordinary Kate Harrison. Kristin Smith provided a beautiful and inspired cover, and Regina Castillo caught countless embarrassing inconsistencies.
And finally to the wonderful Erin Malone, of the William Morris agency, to whom no thanks could ever be great enough.
