Chapter 28 #2
My heart skips a beat, but then I catch sight of the clock. It’s break, after the first double period, but I’ve got PE after that, and I have to change.
E: I have to get to PE. After that?
Henry replies at once.
H: OK. I’ll come and meet you. Got a free period
And there Henry is, waiting for me. We’re on the running track, doing athletics assessments. I spot him sitting on a bench as I line up with Grace, Olive, and Salome for a sprint race, almost at the end of the session. I bend down and position my feet on the blocks.
Mr. Cormack counts us down, I make a good start. Grace is about level with me, the others are dropping back, but I hold on and cross the line first.
“Very good!” Mr. Cormack’s voice rings out across the track.
My chest is heaving, I have my hands on my sides, only letting go for a moment to high-five Grace. Her eyes meet mine, then wander over to Henry on the bench.
“Grace?” I hesitate, but I’ve been putting this off way too long already. “I wanted to thank you.”
She looks surprised. “What for?”
“For telling me. About Maeve. It was really kind of you.”
I can see that she’s fighting to keep her smile relaxed and not to look hurt. “There’s no need for thanks.”
“Yes, there is,” I say. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come between you.”
“You didn’t, Emma,” she says quietly. “Truly not. And I’m not angry with you. I miss Henry, but I want the best for us both. We weren’t the best for each other. That’s nothing to do with you. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel it was.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say. “I understand that.”
“We’re women,” Grace says, to my surprise. “It’s our job to stick together, not to chase after men and see each other as rivals.”
I’ve had nothing but respect for Grace ever since we met, but now it’s off the charts. Because she’s so right, and it feels like an invisible weight’s been lifted off my chest.
Mr. Cormack whistles and waves us over, as he always does just before the end of class. Grace smiles and I follow her to join the others. Olive looks skeptically at us, but at least she no longer seems to feel the need to throw accusations at my head.
Henry stands up as we finish and the others vanish into the changing rooms. He shoves his hands into his trouser pockets as I approach.
“Hi,” I murmur, bending down to retrieve my water bottle.
“I wanted to apologize,” he says, so abruptly that I pause in midmovement. “I think I acted like a dick to you yesterday.”
I straighten up again. “You were drunk.”
So he remembers. I can see it in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t mean any of what I said.”
“I know, Henry.”
“And I’m sorry for being like this,” he bursts out. “I wish it was different, but I can’t help it. I don’t know, I’m furious and powerless and . . . I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Henry.” He falls silent as I reach for his hand. “It’s fine. These are exceptional circumstances.”
Eventually, he shrugs his shoulders. “I didn’t want you to get into trouble for my sake either.”
“It was my own decision to go up onto that roof.”
“But you wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been there.”
I study him. “Just promise me you won’t do it again in the future.”
Henry’s jaw muscles tense but then he nods.
“Do you want to go for a run?” I ask, and not all that long ago, I’d have bet my life he’d say no. But I think he gets how it works now, that running can help when nothing else does any good.
“Yes, I . . . I think so.”
Henry
There’s a smell of rain as we set off after our last lesson that afternoon. The sky is gray and heavy with clouds, but that couldn’t interest me less.
Emma and I don’t speak. She lets me set our route and our pace, so I just run at random.
Past the sports grounds and greenhouses, down the path that winds along the edge of the woods for a while, then I turn off among the trees.
It’s tiring, my legs are heavy, I still have a headache, but I can’t stop.
I have to run until I hit the state where everything gets a little more bearable.
I don’t know what I’ll do if it doesn’t work.
This is the final straw I’m clinging to, and I’m praying it won’t snap.
There’s so much I ought to talk to Emma about. About last night, about my jumbled thoughts and the paralyzing fear that she won’t go along with it forever. That this thing between us is too new and fresh to stand up to me. That I’m afraid of it. That I can’t lose her too. But I say nothing.
The sweat stings my eyes and mingles with the first raindrops as they land on us.
Emma doesn’t ask if we should turn back.
My lungs are burning. Past-Henry would want to stop now.
But I can’t, any more than I can go back to the time when I never had any real problems. To the way I blubbed after I split up with Grace and thought that that was real, horrible pain.
It was horrible, yes, but it was fun and games compared to what I’ve been feeling lately.
I stumble over a root and bite back a curse.
It makes me angry. Everything’s making me angry, and I hate it.
I hate Maeve being dead and that you can’t yell at people who’re dead because you’re pissed off with them for not being around anymore.
I want to go back in time and cancel Maeve’s flight.
I want to drag her singlehandedly off that plane and chain her up somewhere so she can’t go anywhere she might die.
I want to scream at her, ask her why she wanted to be the savior of the world but forgot to look after herself. Why she’s doing this to me. Huh, Maeve?
My heart’s pumping.
Why. Weren’t. You. More. Careful?
Just a little.
I want it to stop. I don’t want to feel like this. The constant cycling between this endless emptiness and the hot seething in my chest. I want my old life back. I want it so badly, but I’m gradually starting to fear that I’m never going to get it.
I had no idea how much energy it took to gather yourself up every day and pull yourself out of the darkness.
Every bloody day. Every bloody second. Every time I think of some new thing I’d like to tell her about.
Like the stuff with Grace, which we never even got to Skype about.
Because she was too busy and I plain forgot.
Because I was so happy with Emma. Because I thought we had so much time.
Maeve, it’s not fair, do you get that? You wanted to go off on an adventure and help people, and then you died because of some fucking little mosquito, and I can’t take it in.
I feel guilty if I forget it for a moment.
I think about you all and every bloody day, and it feels like someone’s crushing my ribcage.
And all night too. When I dream about that hospital, about Nairobi, and wake up dripping with sweat, that’s when it’s worst of all.
The moment when they switched the machines off repeats itself in my head.
I’ve lost a person I thought would be in my life forever.
I was so bloody sure. I never even dreamed that one day I might be on my own.
The hole that Maeve’s left behind seems massive to me.
She was the bridge between Theo and me. I don’t know how we’re meant to manage without her.
They say it’ll get easier with time, but I’m not sure that’s true.
I feel worse than I did at the very beginning.
I cry more often, but only in secret. I feel alone more often, even though Emma and the others are there and do so much for me.
I’m afraid I’m getting on their nerves. That I just bring the mood down, that I’m no longer the Henry they want to be friends with, even though I know that’s nonsense.
I know they’re worried for me and want to help.
It feels like everything’s shifted.
The ground is muddy from the rain. I slip slightly, but I keep running.
If I go fast enough, maybe my heart will just stop beating.
I hear Emma’s voice, I notice her dropping back behind me, but I don’t care.
Her shitty theory doesn’t work. It’s not getting better: Everything’s just getting more intense.
I’m running. I’m feeling the rain like pinpricks on my face.
I can’t take in as much air as I need. I’m running.
I’m slipping. I land on my knees. The ground is muddy and wet.
My fists pound on the sodding mud. A sound escapes me, one I’ve never heard myself make before, and then everything bursts out of me.
Emma
“Henry!” I call his name, but I don’t tell him to stop because I know he can’t.
I just run and ignore the cold rain on my face.
I’m running, and this time, I’m having trouble keeping up.
Henry is faster, I’m breathing wrongly, and after just a couple of lousy kilometers, I feel a stabbing in my chest. Maybe it’s also because I can see Henry’s clenched jaw when I finally catch up.
His clenched fists, his face fixed grimly ahead.
His curls are plastered damply to his brow. He’s not listening to me.
The path through the trees is more reminiscent of a slide after all the rain over the last few days.
Henry trips, lands on his knees. For a second, he’s frozen there.
Has he hurt himself? I hope not, but then I see him punch the ground with his fists.
Once, twice. Henry’s back shakes, rises and falls as he breathes rapidly.
I get goose bumps as a hoarse sob escapes him. He curls up, and I kneel beside him.
He’s crying differently this time. It’s louder and more desperate.
Furious, involving his whole body. I wrap both arms around him and hold him tighter than I’ve ever held anyone before.
I shut my eyes and press my face into his shoulder, because I can feel his pain as if it were my own.
It’s unbearable, but I can’t do a thing.
I don’t know if I’ve ever cried like Henry’s crying.
I’ve never had reason to. The business with my dad is a different pain.
A slow, dull pain that’s crept into my heart and made a nest there.
I’ve learned to live with it. But Henry’s been knocked off his feet without any warning, and since then, he’s been falling.
Deeper and deeper. I think we might have hit the bottom.