Chapter 24 A Minnesota Goodbye
24
A Minnesota Goodbye
Dr.Lewis diagnoses me with a “fairly generic” panic attack. I could live without the color commentary, but I’m in no position to take offense. Despite the foot focus of his medical expertise, he remembers enough from his emergency rotation to talk me down until the panic subsides.
In the privacy of the Lewises’ office, it comes out all at once.
“Sam meant so much to me,” I start, because despite all of the lies, this feels like the most important truth. “But we were never very serious. I didn’t know he hadn’t told you about the breakup until I was at the funeral.”
The Lewis family speaks on top of each other. All at once, I hear:
“You’re not his girlfriend?”
“I thought Sam wanted it this way.”
“What kind of person does something like that?”
With the simple raise of his hand, Adam stops the cacophony. “She broke up with Sam a while ago, but at the funeral, Rachel asked her to go along with the whole girlfriend thing.”
“He broke up with me, actually,” I say, correcting him. “Right before Labor Day.”
I turn to Adam to watch the moment he realizes I wasn’t enough for Sam, but he’s staring at the door with a faraway look.
“You knew?” Mrs.Lewis asks Adam. He nods, never looking away from the door.
It’s then she notices that he’s still holding my hand. He grabbed it when I started panicking and hasn’t let it go since. She clutches the silver pendant in her palm. “You two are together.” Her voice isn’t angry or betrayed, just tired. Of me. Of this. Of today, maybe. Of missing her son who’s not coming back, no matter how many necklaces she gives away.
Adam drops my hand.
Rachel cops to her part of the ruse. How she never imagined I’d become this entangled in everyone’s lives. How she was only trying to help the family heal from this terrible loss.
I want to tell them that Sam and I were just becoming friends again and how I still feel stunned by the permanent loss of him. I want to apologize and beg their forgiveness. Instead, all I say is, “I only wanted to help.”
The Lewises look back at me, faces depleted.
Adam walks out. I mumble more useless sorry s at the family and chase him to the front door. His legs are longer, but my boots don’t have laces, and I manage to catch him before he makes it off the porch.
“Adam. Adam. Where are you going?” I start to grab his hand, but I stop myself.
“I need some air.” Adam already sounds miles away from me.
“What’s going on?”
“This isn’t the right time for this, Alison. You just—” He cuts himself off and faces me. “Are you okay?” he asks, concern carving ruts in his face. Hope billows through me. “Does that happen a lot? The panic attacks?” he asks.
“No, but it’s happened before.” When my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I was diagnosed with brCA and suddenly our insides were lying in wait to attack. I’ve been seeing a therapist on and off ever since.
Adam doesn’t speak again. Silence fills the space between us on the snow-covered porch, choking out any conversation before it starts, like suffocating fumes. I feel the pressure of what he’s not saying pressing against my lungs. Every so often, he twitches as if about to speak but no sound comes out. His mouth doesn’t move.
Apprehension is flooding my heart, and I want to be more like Adam right now—capable of sitting in silence until it forces the other person to reveal themself—but I’ve never been like that. I’m always yapping my every thought, giving the Adams of the world emotional ammunition.
“What’s going on? Please talk to me. Is this because he broke up with me?” My voice is quiet, as if it’s the volume and not the content that’s bothering him. “Is it making you second-guess—”
“What? No. I don’t care that he broke up with you. I care that your relationship with him is clearly unresolved.”
“What are you talking about? It’s resolved.”
“That’s not what it looks like.” He forces his words out like sawdust in his throat. “I spent hours lying to everyone, acting like I hardly knew you, and then I watched his parents give you a fucking family heirloom like their daughter-in-law. And I just stood there.”
“Are you mad at me about that?”
“I’m mad at myself for pretending this was even possible.”
My throat dries up. “This? You mean us? Of course this is possible.”
“No, it’s not. You and Sam? We’ll never be past it. Relationships shouldn’t be this complicated.”
“Everyone knows the truth now. We won’t need to pretend anymore.”
A breeze slices between us, and at his shiver, I tug the collar of his jacket closed to keep him warm like he’s done countless times for me.
His eyelids droop closed. “Why did you agree to go along with Rachel in the first place?”
I let my hands drift down to his chest. “I wanted to make things easier for them. What was I supposed to do?”
“What about Patagonia?” he asks, shaking my hands off and patting the envelope from Rachel in his pocket. “Why did you ever agree to that trip? Why are you still entertaining it now, even though Sam uninvited you? Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
I stuff my hands in my coat pockets. “Why would I tell you that Sam dumped me and switched my ticket because I wasn’t enough for him?”
“Because I thought you were enough. I thought you were more than enough.” His voice shakes, and my heart clambers up my throat at how we’ve already become past tense. “And for some reason you don’t. But I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you at his fucking funeral. That’s what I was thinking when I first saw you, Alison. I’d been so awful to him, assuming I’d have a chance to make it right. But he was gone, and I wasn’t sure I’d feel anything else again until I was at the front of the church. Until I saw you.”
He rubs his hand on his face and keeps going, barely pausing to breathe. “I’d never felt that way before. Then, a second later, I recognized you, and thought, That’s Sam’s girlfriend. I’m such an asshole. That’s what I was thinking. My best friend died, and the first thing I did was go after his girlfriend. What kind of person does that? What best friend does that? God, did you see the look on his mom’s face?” Guilt and heartache carve his face into tormented lines. “And now I can’t even think about him without feeling like trash over how I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
His words are a blow to my gut. I want to fix this, but a toxic combination of defeat and frustration drowns my system. Because despite his words on this porch, we didn’t fall apart today. He never gave us a real chance.
Guests spill out the door, and we turn away from each other like strangers. I sniff, pretending my heart isn’t breaking until the family backs out of the driveway.
I finally let out my breath. “You’ve been looking for a reason to bolt all day—since the moment you met me, really. If it hadn’t been this, you would’ve found some other excuse to give up. It’s what you’ve done this whole time. One step forward, two steps back.”
“How am I the problem here?” he says, dumbfounded.
“Are you ever going to leave construction? Move to Minneapolis? Start your own business? Choose one table leg? Finish my stupid shelf?” Tears stream down my face. When our eyes finally meet, his are red rimmed too.
“You want me to finish your shelf so you can stare at your climbing gear and your trekking poles and whatever other crap you never want to use? You spend all your time doing things you hate and hiding what you actually like under your bed. And you think I was looking for a reason to give up? How am I going to be with you if you’re so busy trying to be someone else?”
I wipe at my wet face, smudging my makeup. “I’m just trying to be a better person.”
His laugh doesn’t have a shred of humor in it. “Better how? What does that even mean? I don’t care what’s in those books. Going trail running won’t make you better or more deserving. You know what might? Being honest with yourself.”
My stomach bottoms out at his words. He rakes a hand through his hair. I want to touch it. I barely got a chance to touch it.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue with you,” he pleads. “It’s just that…do you know that I hardly let myself think about Sam? I felt so guilty over what I’d felt for you since his funeral that I’ve never let myself feel sad or angry about him.”
For the first time, possibly ever, I have no words. I don’t know what to say or how to fix this.
Minutes pass before Adam steps off the porch. On the last step, he turns back and reaches for me.
“It’s icy. Are you wearing good boots?”
My heart clenches. I accept his hand, my wellie-covered feet stepping down. Our faces meet inches apart, and for a moment, I wonder if we’ll kiss, but of course we don’t. Instead, Adam lets go of my hand and points at my hip.
“Someone’s calling,” he says to my buzzing pocket. I didn’t notice it. I’m basically a zombie.
“It’s my mom. Give me one…don’t go anywhere. Please.” He nods, and I take two steps away from him to answer.
“Alison, honey!” my mom yells cheerily through the receiver. “Did you book your flight for Christmas? I’ve been thinking about your oophorectomy.” My mom starts in with the ever-present brCA talk, picking it right back up from the last conversation.
Bitterness builds in the back of my throat. “Mom, I can’t discuss my ovaries right now, this isn’t a good time.”
She tuts. “It’ll only take a second, Alison. It’ll be tight, but my doctor said she can squeeze you in for the first week in January—”
“Mom!” I explode like an overinflated balloon. I shouldn’t have to make major fertility decisions on my ex’s front lawn with the source of my cracking heart just feet away from me. I should be able to have one conversation with her about anything else besides my genetic inability to suppress tumors. “I don’t care if Dr.Logan’s making time for me. You didn’t even ask or consider what I wanted. I can make a plan with my doctor, and it won’t involve an oophorectomy in January, because I’ll be in Patagonia—”
“Alison!”
“Love you. Bye.” I punch the end call button, nostalgic for the cathartic release of my high school flip phone.
I lean back against the porch railing. Adam’s staring down at the ground next to me.
“So you’re really going to go to Chile,” he says, his voice wrung out. I hate how my body responds with frayed sparks of electricity. “This isn’t you.”
“But I want it to be.” My tone is just as defeated.
“I like you, Alison. Sometimes I think I—” He stops himself. “I can’t do whatever this is with you.” Adam sighs. I turn to meet his gaze, and I’m struck by how beaten down he looks.
“So this is it? You don’t even want to try?” I grab for his hand, then think better of it.
He looks so wounded. I can’t imagine what he’s seeing looking back at him. He rubs his beard, his eyes focusing on a slush-covered garden gnome. “It shouldn’t be so complicated.”
“I want this. Us.” I wipe away the building tears with my glove. “There. I uncomplicated it for you.”
“I can’t be with you when you’re so determined to be someone else.”
This simple statement guts me.
“I’m always me when I’m with you.” It’s the closest I get to breaking through to him, but I watch his walls go up at the last second.
“I need some time to think.”
“How much time to think?” I ask, my voice pitiful.
“I honestly don’t know. But I’ll tell you as soon as I figure that out.”