Chapter 43.
43.
Perspective (n.)
the viewpoint from which judgment of a communication is administered
worth gaining
W e break for the day, having not achieved much beyond appointing Xavier as foreperson, taking a preliminary vote to determine we disagree, and choosing a banana as our spirit/talking stick.
I plan to avoid Damon at dinner. It’s not that I’m mad at him. How could I be? That would be childish and unreasonable. I’m just trying to wrap my mind around all of this. And I need space, to ensure nothing clouds my judgment about the case. That is, until he doesn’t show up. Then I can do nothing but question his whereabouts and the reason for his absence. I glance at the empty chair beside me when I sit at “our” table with Tamra and Cam, pondering how quickly something can become habit, and how quickly we can grow to miss something we’ve just barely had.
I eat quickly and head to my room, his absence tugging at the hairs on the back of my neck. I lie in my bed, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. Do Damon’s views on the case change how I feel about him? I know they shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean they don’t. Being on opposite sides of something again, something so massive—it triggers all the remnants of disappointment I’ve carried all these years.
It’s not yet curfew, so technically I can roam. And I can’t help but think, despite our scolding from Judge Gillespy, that the fraternization rules are not as imperative now that we have reached deliberations. I let out a weary breath and push myself up out of bed. I throw on a cream zip-up hoodie and painstakingly open my hotel room door. I peek my head out, looking right, then left. It’s empty. Most of the jury is still at dinner, and I’m not even sure there’s a bailiff at the post around the corner by the elevators yet.
I plod carefully to Damon’s door and put my ear to it. Silence. I knock gently, then instinctively look to the right to see if George peeks his head around the corner. Nope. I tap my knuckles against it again, slightly stronger. Still nothing. Dejected, I turn and lean against his door.
Eventually, I give up. But I can’t seem to go back to my room. I stare at my door, envisioning another night of rolling around restlessly, of staring at the inoperative TV. Instead, I take a chance and head to the stairwell.
On the second floor, the door to the presidential suite is slightly ajar. I step inside, closing the door behind me. The lights are off, though there is still a bit of daylight insisting its way in through the sheer curtains. My eyes catch on the patio door, also open. Shit. What if the maid is on her break again? My hand instinctively curls around the door handle, ready to make a stealthy escape. But then I realize there is no maid cart to be found and there is no smoke billowing across the glass. I take a cautious step forward, then another, then another, until I’m squeezing through the opening of the sliding door and onto the terrace. There sits Damon, staring out at the strip mall below. He looks incredibly sexy and invitingly cozy in his black sweatshirt and dark jeans.
He looks up at me, as if my eventual appearance were inevitable. “Hey,” he says.
We silently stare at each other, neither inviting nor retreating.
“Sit,” he says, finally. It’s not a demand, rather a calm invitation.
I sink into the Adirondack chair beside him, attempt to find a comfortable position in the too-low seat, the cold of the splintered wood further jolting my adrenaline. We both watch as two employees exit the back of the Verizon store, laughing over something on one of their phones.
The silence lingers, and I recognize that just last night, less than twenty-four hours ago, we were one. The thought sends my heart racing in an emotion I can’t quite decipher.
“You didn’t eat,” I say finally.
He shrugs. “Wasn’t hungry.”
We are quiet again, our attention on the alleyway below as if immersed in a theater show.
I have things to say. Of course I do. But part of me feels too deflated to try.
“Two things can be true, you know.” His words break into my thoughts as he stares steadfastly in the direction of the alleyway. “She—Margot—she can be who you think she is, who you needed her to be. She can be the strong, independent woman, the symbol of the healthy relationship you needed over the years. And she can also be guilty.”
I look at Damon. I don’t know if he’s talking about his mom or Margot, but I have to believe it’s both. He is not reckless with his emotions or words. I know this to be true. As true as how he makes me feel.
Two things can be true.
We can have summer rain, the smell of jasmine, Kara’s laugh, him and me. But, perhaps, only in the suspended state of our memories.
I can crave him more than anything I’ve ever wanted but also know too much complication exists between us to work.
“There’s a lot I regret about us, Syd.” He exhales as if he can no longer hold any of it in. He shifts to face me, and his elbow unintentionally bumps mine. I feel its friction run through me. His blue-green eyes look more green than blue, the way they do when he grows more intense or worried. “I wish we had more time back then. Leaving town, starting over, and never seeing you again was the hardest thing that had happened to me up until that point.”
The pressure in my chest grows as he speaks.
“And even now, I wish...” He looks from me to the alleyway and back. “I wish I knew how this all ends.”
We stare forward again. The Verizon workers head back inside, and there’s no longer any activity to focus our attention on. His statement is cryptic at best. How what ends? How the case ends? How we end? Does there have to be an end? Do I want there to be more? Is more even possible? When I went to his room last night, he tried to tell me. I can’t give you... I hadn’t let him finish. But I know what he intended to say. I can’t give you more than right now.
We watch the final splinters of sunlight disappear behind the strip mall’s tile roof.
“You abandoned me,” I say, releasing my full feelings on him. He shifts his body to face me. “When everything happened you just... abandoned me. We were best friends.” I thought when we had this conversation it would require several minutes of explanation and unloading. Turns out it’s pretty straightforward.
He hangs his head, then forces himself to look at me again.
“I get we were young and there weren’t many other options than for you to go, but... you could have stayed in touch. You could have called. You could have...” I stop myself because this list of things he could have done to show me he cared back then and over the last ten years is too long to be impactful.
“It’s one of my biggest regrets, Syd,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck.
I can’t help but catch on his choice of words. One of his biggest regrets. I egotistically want it to be his sole, biggest regret.
“I’ve thought about you every day for the last ten years. There are so many times when...” He pauses, looks out to the alley again as if it’s the corridor to his memories. “When I wanted to reach out. When I got so close. But I figured the more time that went by, the more you hated me. And by the time I felt strong enough after Kara, so much time had passed.” His eyes look so pained I have to force myself to stay focused on him.
“I understand,” I tell him, because I do. I don’t like any of it, but now that I know what happened after, I understand it. Two things can be true after all.
“No, you don’t,” he says, and I’m surprised by his response. “If I’m being completely honest, I couldn’t separate you from your dad. As much as I wanted to, as much as I knew his actions had nothing to do with you, I... I just couldn’t separate it. What happened, it robbed my family of so much. That last year of Kara’s life was so consumed by it. I was afraid I’d look at you and only feel anger. And I couldn’t bear that. I was a coward.”
“I suppose I was, too,” I say, because I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve rarely claimed my own responsibility in all of it. “I could have reached out, I could have told you how I felt at any point, but I put it all on you.”
He shakes his head, and I can see he’s about to tell me I have no reason to blame myself, or something similar, so I speak again before he can.
“What was it like?” I ask, my voice coming out like a delicate vibration.
We face each other.
“What was it like, having parents who cared about you so much?” I feel silly for even asking. I’m in my mid-twenties, it shouldn’t matter. But, being back with him, I know it does.
His lips part, and I see my brokenness reflected in his face. He swallows hard and doesn’t break eye contact. “I’m grateful for it. But also, I took it for granted. The way we do when things are good, I suppose. And then after what happened with your dad, it all felt fake. Punitive. And after Kara, none of it mattered anymore. I had to forgive my mom. It took a long time before I saw it for what it was, a mistake she will regret for the rest of her life.”
He turns to the strip mall again, and I continue to evaluate his face. Something has shifted. Something subtle. Like one candle in a sea of a hundred flickered out. It’s all too clear. The last year of Kara’s life was marred by the remnants of our parents’ affair. And I am a biological reminder of that fact, no matter how many years later, for him and his family.
“How come you never mentioned your baby sister before today?” The anguish in his face makes me see how betrayed he feels as a result of my omission.
“I don’t know,” I say. I bite the inside of my lip when he turns to me. We’ve shared so much. He’s shared so much about his life with me. Any time I’m not fully honest with him, it feels unfair. “I guess because I don’t view her as my sister fully. I mean, she’s my mother’s daughter, but the life my mom has now is so far removed from me and the life we once had together. I guess I just don’t feel particularly close to her.”
Even as the words emerge, I hate myself for saying them. They are honest, yes. But I am complaining about my sister, a baby, when Damon beside me would give anything to have his back. I try to tell Damon all my regrets through a look of wide-eyed sadness. That I’m sorry for what happened to him and his family, and that I regret my own separation from the family I still have.
“We can’t seem to stop hurting each other,” he says. It’s not a statement or a plea. It’s a realization that I can see him mentally calculating—a supporting argument for why we can’t be together.
I desperately want to argue the point, but the lingering thought that we are on opposing sides of this jury, it nags at me like a persistent itch I can’t quite reach. He’s right. We do keep hurting each other. And after ten years, there’s no room left on my body for the scar tissue of him.
Even if we can’t be together, in this moment I care only about his heart and our now connected hands atop the arm of his burgundy Adirondack chair.
“All the lonely Starbucks lovers,” I say quietly, and he huffs in some semblance of a quiet laugh. I squeeze his hand.
We sit in silence, watching the day fade, our fingers firmly intertwined. I came to find him today, largely to ask about the trial, to try to understand how he could believe Margot is guilty.
But now, I can’t seem to make any of it matter.