The Cardigan in Question #3
“Then you owe me a kiss for every question you skip.”
“Let me get this right. You’re holding my cardigan hostage—”
“Am not. You’re wearing it right now, aren’t you?”
“Well, only because you’re holding me hostage instead.”
“Don’t be dramatic. You offered me monetary compensation, and I simply said no thank you and instead named my preferred reward. You agreed.”
“And now you want me to play a game of questions that in no way benefits me?”
She gives a fluttering sigh. “I’m happy to sit quietly in a tree with a pretty girl.
But I thought we could pass the time getting to know each other.
If you’re that hell-bent on getting this over with, then fine.
I just…” Her voice takes on a disappointed quality.
“I stupidly thought that maybe—” She shakes her head.
“I have a habit of crushing on the wrong people. And even worse, I find it impossible to be subtle.”
For a quiet moment, we sit in her vulnerability, and I realize that such forward bravery does come at a cost. “I get questions, too,” I counter, because she’s met me more than halfway.
In fact, for every step I’ve taken, she’s taken twenty, and it’s the most effort anyone has made to be my friend since Jamie.
“For every question I answer, I ask you a question, too.”
“Fine,” she says. “If I refuse to answer, do I get to kiss you?”
I laugh, and it’s a little too loud for a game of hide-and-seek, but no one seems to have ventured this far out just yet. “No, I don’t think I can trust you not to take advantage of that.”
She sighs. “You’re right. First question: Has the cardigan always belonged to you?”
“Not technically.”
“What do you mean—”
“No way. My turn now. How did you find the cardigan?”
“I watched you leave it on your chair at Brew Beginnings.” I can’t make out the color of her cheeks, but her voice sounds like she’s blushing.
My mouth drops open at her response, another question forming.
She giggles, her tongue darting out over her bottom lip. “Who did the cardigan belong to before you?”
“My best friend, Jamie.” A gust of wind sweeps through the branches of the tree, sending a few leaves fluttering down to the ground below. It’s getting colder, and I know my birthmark is deepening from pink to red to purple in response.
“Did she give it to you?”
I shake my head. “No. And now I get two questions.”
My vision has adjusted enough that I can see when she rolls her eyes. “You know, we could just have this thing called a conversation.”
The darkness we’re cloaked in gives me a false sense of bravery, and I ask, “But then how would you collect your kisses?”
She leans toward me, our noses nearly brushing and her voice a little husky. “Well, go on, then. Give me your question.”
“Why didn’t you just stop me from leaving the sweater behind?”
“Because I wanted a reason to talk to you the next time I saw you.”
“Next time you saw me?”
“Is that your second question?” she asks, but she answers before I can confirm. “Because I’ve been watching you drink caramel apple oat milk lattes for a month and I was tired of being a spectator. Why do you have the cardigan if Jamie didn’t give it to you?”
“Because she’s too dead to wear it.” It’s one of the few times I’ve actually referred to Jamie as dead out loud, and I hate the sound of it. The finality of it.
“Oh.” She clears her throat. “That fucking sucks. I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty, but I’m so sorry.” Her fingers cover mine where they’re wrapped around the branch, and she squeezes.
“Thanks,” I whisper. “Why didn’t you just come talk to me before then? You’re far from shy.”
Her thumb rubs circles over the top of my hand. “I thought you would startle easily. How did Jamie die?”
I inhale sharply, and my breath stammers on the exhale. “She drove off a cliff. We were best friends our whole lives and had only admitted our feelings for each other a few months beforehand. We’d gone out on a real date for my birthday. She dropped me off and then took a turn too hard.”
“Fuck,” she mutters.
“Yeah. Pretty dramatic way to go.” A sad little smile settles on my lips. “I wouldn’t expect anything less, honestly.”
“Are you in love with her?”
I don’t know if I’m losing track of our little game or if I’m just so ready to get it off my chest. To tell this story to someone who didn’t know her and can just hear this sob story and think of me, and me alone.
The quiet one. The awkward one. The one with the disfigured face.
Because to everyone who knew us, the wrong one died.
August’s question is one I know the answer to but don’t want to say out loud.
Because yes, I was. But no, I’m not anymore.
At least not actively. Two years later, with time slipping by, the feeling of her growing further away only becomes more and more real.
And with that comes guilt. Every morning when she isn’t the first thing I think of, I mentally punish myself.
“I was,” I tell her finally. “But now I picture my future and she’s not there anymore. I see myself getting a job and buying a house and falling in love, and my brain doesn’t automatically slot her in anymore. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No,” August says quietly. “Not at all. You can’t stand still your whole life.”
“I think I’m tired of that,” I admit. “Standing still. Waiting.”
It’s quiet for long enough that August begins to tentatively lean toward me. I move just a fraction of an inch forward. Because I’m scared. Of falling out of this tree. Of kissing someone who isn’t Jamie. Of liking it more or less than I did with her.
Her hand finds my jaw, and her thumb strokes the tender spot behind my ear. Our foreheads touch, and she’s studying me so intently that I have to close my eyes because the attention is a slow, burning heat that quickly becomes unbearable.
August’s lips catch on mine, parting them. It’s slow and exploratory as she scatters kisses along the corner of my mouth and then over my nose before revisiting my lips. This time, there’s a purpose. A fervor. Never in my life have I felt the weight of such undivided attention.
I sigh into her mouth as her tongue brushes against mine, the kiss deepening as it becomes urgent and dizzying.
It is everything I feared it would be. Our mouths are hot and greedy, and my fingers are digging into her shoulder and her waist as I let go of the tree limb so that August is the only thing I’m holding on to.
She is the only security I have up here, at least nine feet off the ground.
And rather than my fear of heights ripping through the moment and destroying it, I find that I am leaning into her. She is as steady as the branch itself.
I am swept up in the moment, and I can’t understand why I waited so long to kiss her. Or anyone else. But especially her.
Her hand trails down the length of my neck and under the collar of my cardigan and—
Jamie.
Shit.
I pull back too quickly and nearly fall right on my head. “I—I have to go.”
“The game isn’t over,” she says, her voice a little lost. Confused.
I don’t know if she means hide-and-seek or this little game of questions that quickly devolved into what might very well be the best kiss I have had or ever will have. A kiss so consuming that the memory of kissing Jamie becomes even more distant, and I hate myself for it.
I have to love her forever. Isn’t that the whole point of being the one who was left behind?
That I just live in memoriam of her. That I wear her favorite cardigan—the one we thrifted in middle school—and just haunt this world in all the ways she can’t.
It’s not the dead who become ghosts, but the living they leave behind. That’s my penance.
I scramble out of the tree and over the retaining wall, and if I weren’t so overwhelmed, I might be impressed by how little care I take not to fall.
My hands are clawing at the cardigan, trying to take it off as quickly as I can, but the stupid hide-and-seek bib gets in the way.
I can’t do these dates, and I’d rather just let August have it.
Besides, this feels like such a betrayal to Jamie, and maybe I don’t even deserve to wear it.
“Here,” I say in a panic. “Just take it. It’s yours. ”
August is right behind me, stepping out of the tree. “Where are you going?” she asks as I shove the cardigan into her chest.
She shakes her head when I don’t answer. “No. I’m not taking your cardigan, Betty. I wanted to go out with you, okay? I like you. A lot. But it was never about the stupid cardigan.” She forces it back into my arms.
My cheeks are wet with tears, and I want to explain everything to her, but it’s too neurotic, and this is already embarrassing enough.
I can’t imagine saying any of this out loud and her looking at me like I’m anything less than out of my mind.
Which I am. I so am. Just ask the four therapists my mom sent me to over the last two years.
Because it’s all I have and it’s all I ever will have, I take the cardigan and step out from the protection of the tree into the drizzle as I stumble to my dorm.
When I make it back, Lyra is under the covers with her boyfriend, and I don’t even apologize or excuse myself.
I strip out of my wet clothes and wrap myself in the cardigan with my headphones on.
I sink into my bed and beg the grief to come and assuage the guilt, but when I close my eyes, the only thing I see is August’s intense gaze in the seconds before I closed my eyes and let her kiss me.
I stay in bed on Sunday and then skip class on Monday and Tuesday. I stake my claim so fervently in the dorm that Lyra disappears somewhere with her boyfriend and I am alone.
On Wednesday morning, I pry myself out of bed and finally take a shower. When I return, there’s a note slid under my door.
B—