Chapter 48.
48.
Post-Trial Disclosure (n., phrase)
after the trial, parties involved in the case may communicate about the outcome of the trial, potential next steps, or other related matters
emotional catharsis
“ C ome in, tell me everything !” Mel squeals as she embraces me at our apartment door before I’ve stepped inside, nearly knocking me over with enthusiasm.
“Well, hello,” I say, sliding past her when she releases, noting it’s the most excited anyone has ever been at my arrival.
I peel out of my jacket and throw it over the back of the couch, looking around our little apartment. Mel has tidied up, her usual collection of shipping boxes noticeably missing from beside the door and the typically full kitchen sink bare.
“You cleaned,” I say.
“Yes, I cleaned. I wanted you to have a welcoming return. Did it work?” She takes me by the wrist and leads me to the couch.
“It looks great,” I tell her, truly appreciative.
She stares at me with her gummy smile and throws her hand into dizzying circles in the air when I don’t immediately begin speaking. “Well?” she says, eyebrows raised, the familiar movement rumpling her forehead like that of a bulldog.
“Look,” I say, smiling back at her, placing my hands on her knees in an attempt at a loving gesture. “I promise, I will tell you everything. I will.”
I stand, and she follows suit, frowning.
“But first, I really, more than anything, need a bath. The hotel had a standing shower only, and I wouldn’t have soaked in a tub at that hotel anyway. So give me an hour, and I’ll be all yours. Deal?”
Mel presses her bottom lip into her top one, a poor attempt at hiding her dismay. I smile, having missed her face, even this particular discontented grin. I wrap myself around her before she can argue, squeezing her in both because I’ve missed her and in a preemptive strike. She sighs, and I know I’ve won this mini-battle.
Alone in the bathroom, I unpack my toiletries as the tub fills. I eye the corner of the folded note Damon handed me at my hotel room door, sticking out of the front pocket of my tote. He gave it to me only two hours ago, but already the last two weeks have begun to recede into a dreamlike memory. I’m crestfallen by its breakneck transformation.
I sit on the tub’s edge, running my fingers along the warm water, finding its temperature inviting. Drying my hand on the towel I have already rolled up to place under my neck, I pick up the folded paper again. It is inevitable that I will unfold his note, that I will read whatever parting words he chose to record and subsequently feel a range of emotions that all succumb to one. Disappointment. Because no matter what he wrote, I already know how our story ends. The story of us is a ghost roaming the halls of the Singer Suites, unsuitable for the real world.
The truth is I could have been convinced. I could have been convinced that despite our parents, despite our shallowly buried feelings about the past, despite how we both have and have not fully moved on, despite our fears of hurting or being hurt by the other again, we could have found a way to be together.
I sigh, carefully unfolding the paper, bracing for the impact of his handwritten words. At first, I simply stare at the shapes on the page, not yet interpreting any meaning. The too-sharp curves of his S ’s and the barely there tail of his y ’s that dip well below the line. Each letter, each word, slanted slightly backward, as if afraid to offend if upright. Eventually, I allow myself to go there.
SYD , it begins, and I immediately hear his strikingly deep voice in my head, see the peacock-feather blue green of his eyes and the vortex of his chin dimple, as if he is speaking the words—his words—directly to me.
BEFORE THE TRIAL, I HOPED FOR A QUICK END SO I COULD GET OUT AND MOVE ON. BUT SLOWLY—NO, THAT’S NOT TRUE. IT WAS QUICKLY... FAR TOO QUICKLY—I FOUND MYSELF WISHING FOR IT TO CONTINUE. TO DRAG ON DAY AFTER DAY SO I’D GET TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH YOU. THE FACT THAT WE WERE THROWN TOGETHER AGAIN—I HAD TO BELIEVE IT MEANT SOMETHING.
AS THE TRIAL WOUND DOWN, THERE WAS AN UNSETTLEDNESS IN ME I HADN’T FELT IN A REALLY LONG TIME. IT’S SIMILAR TO THE FEELING I HAD AFTER KARA DIED. LIKE MY SKIN WAS MORE ALERT AND EVEN THE AIR HURT. IT’S NOT PAIN EXACTLY, BUT LIKE AN OVEREXPOSURE. I’LL BE HONEST WITH YOU, SYD. I DON’T LIKE THAT FEELING. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT.
BUT THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE I NEED TO TELL YOU. I WASN’T HONEST WITH YOU ABOUT HOW KARA DIED.
I stop reading, stare down at the now full tub. Something in me stills, instantly knowing what comes next is a threadbare glimpse at his soul. I don’t know if I can handle it. I read on anyway, knowing that if he wrote these words, I owe it to him—to whatever we had—to read them.
WHEN I FIRST TOLD YOU ABOUT KARA, I DID WHAT I ALWAYS DO. I TRIED ON A DIFFERENT VERSION OF EVENTS TO SEE IF THEY FIT IN A WAY THAT MIGHT ABSOLVE ME. TO SEE IF PRETENDING HER DEATH HAPPENED UNDER DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES, AWAY FROM ME, WOULD MAKE THE ACHE OF IT LESS. IT NEVER WORKS, THOUGH. THE TRUTH IS, I AM THE REASON SHE’S NOT HERE. IT’S MY FAULT.
I stop again, regard my breath, follow it down to my lungs, then back up and out. Regardless of what admission comes next, I know he’s carried this guilt around all this time. It’s a burden far greater than the one I’ve held about our parents. He’s had so much more pain, more challenge, more self-hatred.
I never knew.
And regardless of what comes next, I know it’s not his fault. How could it be when he loved her so dearly?
I look down at the page, letting the words take form again.
I TOOK HER TO THE BEACH. THERE WAS THIS GIRL, LAUREN. I WANTED TO IMPRESS HER, AND I ASKED KARA TO COME ALONG, KNOWING LAUREN WOULD FIND MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY LITTLE SISTER ENDEARING. I WAS USING KARA TO GET SOMETHING I WANTED.
I WASN’T WATCHING HER.
I wince, and a tear hits the page. I smear it away quickly, not wanting to hurt the ink.
FOR FOUR DAYS, WE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO HER. WHETHER SHE HAD BEEN TAKEN, WHETHER SHE HAD DROWNED IN THE PACIFIC. FOUR DAYS, AND I COULDN’T EVEN TELL MY PARENTS ANYTHING OTHER THAN SHE WAS JUST GONE.
I DIDN’T GO HOME FOR THREE OF THOSE DAYS. I SEARCHED. I SAT ON THE BEACH AND CRIED. MY PARENTS HELD OUT HOPE THAT THERE WAS SOME REASONABLE EXPLANATION, BUT I COULDN’T IMAGINE ONE.
FOUR DAYS LATER, WE GOT THE CALL. HER BODY WAS FOUND BY FISHERMEN NEARLY THIRTY MILES FROM WHERE WE WERE THAT DAY ON THE BEACH. SHE HAD DROWNED SO QUIETLY AND QUICKLY THAT NOT EVEN THE LIFEGUARDS SAW HER.
I KNOW I CAN NEVER MAKE IT UP TO MY PARENTS, BUT I’VE TRIED—IN BIG WAYS AND SMALL—EVERY DAY SINCE.
I’VE HAD ONE RELATIONSHIP SINCE THEN. AND, LOOKING BACK, IT WASN’T A REAL ONE. NOT BECAUSE I DIDN’T CARE ABOUT HER OR BECAUSE I WASN’T COMMITTED. BUT BECAUSE I COULDN’T LET HER IN. I DECIDED IT WAS BEST TO GO IT ALONE, TO AVOID, WELL, EVERYTHING. YOU’RE THE FIRST PERSON WHO MADE ME WANT TO ABANDON THAT WAY OF THINKING. TO JUST... JUMP. YOU CRACKED ME WIDE OPEN, SYD, AND IT HURTS—THAT CRACK. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO IT. I JUST DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE A GOOD PARTNER TO SOMEONE. LOOK AT OUR PARENTS. IT’S NOT LIKE THESE THINGS WERE MODELED FOR US.
SO, I GUESS THIS LETTER IS MOSTLY TO SAY THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR OPENING ME UP AGAIN, EVEN IF JUST TEMPORARILY. FOR ALLOWING ME FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS TO CONSIDER SOMETHING ELSE. SOMETHING MORE. I’LL ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL. AND WHO KNOWS, MAYBE EVENTUALLY, I WILL JUMP. AND WHEN I DO, I’LL MOST CERTAINLY THINK OF YOU.
DAMON
P.S. THIS LETTER IS:
?
?
SWEET
SAPPY
I wipe the tears from my cheeks and stare at his note, wondering where to store such a thing. If to store it at all. For now, I set it on the small shelf above the counter.
Not only has he been carrying Kara’s loss but the guilt of that loss with him all these years. I can’t imagine what that has done to him. Here, I thought our parents’ affair was the driving force of his hesitation, of his being bad at relationships . But it is so much more. His hesitation about building something with me in the real world becomes even clearer. How could he devastate his parents like that again, bringing me around, when he believes he already caused so much hurt by losing Kara?
I remain on the tub’s edge, regarding the URL he has handwritten on the bottom of the page, separate from the rest of the text. I grab my phone and, through tears, type it into the search bar. Up pops a page full of sugar-free gummy bear reviews. Even in heartache, tears blurring my vision, Damon manages to make me laugh.
When I exit the bathroom nearly an hour later, Mel sits up from her corner of the couch and scoots forward until her feet meet the ground. “Human again?” she asks, closing the book in her lap and tossing it to the cushion.
“Just barely,” I say, plopping down beside her. I take in Mel’s painting on the wall, towering evergreens transitioning to the outline of a stallion. I close my eyes. It reminds me of Damon. This notion cycles me through my multitude of emotions again. I look away so I don’t break.
Mel leans forward and pushes a mug on the coffee table toward me, light steam rising from the speckled ceramic. I pick it up and take a cautious sip, the heat warming my upper lip and nostrils. “Is there rum in this?” I ask, sniffing after I’ve swallowed.
Mel shrugs. “It’s a celebration, right? I mean, Margot is free! You did that!” She taps her black AMOM mug to mine.
“ We did,” I say, thinking of the eleven other faces around the courthouse table during deliberations.
“Then why do you seem melancholy?”
“Melancholy?” I repeat, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah. I’ve been reading too much Sylvia Plath with you gone, leave me alone.”
“There’s this guy...” I state cautiously.
“Yes!” Mel cries, slapping the back of my upper arm across the sensitive under-fat.
I pull my arm forward and rub it.
I tell her everything. Well, almost. I tell her about his face, his tattoos, his brooding build. I tell her of his tender care throughout the trial, always ensuring I was okay. I tell her about his sister and how the loss of her made him both more tender and guarded. I tell her about the rooftop and the mix of euphoria and lust and connection I felt in that instance that I’ve never experienced before and would be hard-pressed to believe I’ll ever feel again. That it was one of those rare experiences you know is defining as it happens rather than just in hindsight. I tell her about our history. That he was my best friend. In some ways, how he never stopped being my best friend. I even recount our parents and the abrupt end to our relationship back then.
“Wow,” Mel says when I’m finally done, her silence having stretched longer than it perhaps ever has as I relayed it all. She looks up to the ceiling and then shakes her head vehemently. “Tell me again why you can’t be together?”
I sigh, sip from my spiked mug again. “There’s just too much. How would it work? If we, say, got married, are we to expect our families to come together? His mom and my dad, sitting at Christmas dinner together while Mr. Bradburn looks on?”
“That’s twenty steps ahead.”
“Yeah, but why start something we know can’t be anything lasting? Besides, his letter makes it pretty clear he’s unavailable.”
“All the things you just described? The fact that life put you two together again? And under such intense circumstances? It all sounds like pretty compelling reasons to be together.”
“I don’t know. I think I just need to be alone for a bit. Process everything that just happened. With Damon. With the trial. Figure out how to be good on my own before jumping into something.” I think about Margot. How she met Joe as a relative newbie in L.A., barely an adult and, in many ways, not one at all. That one decision—being with Joe—how it changed the whole course of her life.
“What the actual fuck?” Mel says, slicing into my thoughts. I look over at her and then follow her stare to her phone.
“What is it?” I ask, curling myself behind her to look at her screen. There’s a picture of Margot with the word brEAKING across the top, spliced with someone else I recognize immediately. Below it, a caption that causes me to grip the back of the couch.
It reads: “Margot Kitsch has moved on with Authentic Moms cast member Tenley Storms’s ex-husband Harry Tucker.”
Though I can’t seem to make Margot’s dramatics matter after what Damon told me in that letter, I start scrolling through my own phone, reviewing the news. It’s a nice distraction from the feelings I’m not ready to face.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a flurry of opinions in the Authentic Moms world. Most of the other Moms have already commented, with opinions largely not in Margot’s favor. “Homewrecker,” reads one from Meredith Dixon. Tenley Storms goes for the jugular, posting a picture of a dumpster on fire, “No caption needed” written beneath it. Even Alizay’s post is cryptic at best. A picture of the ocean with an overlaid quote: “Instead of cleaning my house, I’m just going to move to another one.”
As if she didn’t have enough already, Margot Kitsch’s list of enemies has just grown tenfold.