Chapter 7
I Am the Designer of My Own Catastrophe
Wyatt
October twenty-fifth. The third Sunday of the month.
Our traditional pumpkin-carving-and-games night.
Knox, Gwen, Harper, Aria, and I started in elementary school and just kept on going, but at some point, everything changed.
Knox’s mom died, and he developed that ice-skating phobia of his because she’d been a figure skater and had died making a jump.
He stopped coming because he didn’t want to hang around Harp and Gwen anymore, who were also figure skaters.
So, after that, it was just the four of us.
Until I made the biggest mistake of my life without even being able to remember it.
Aria took off. There were no more game nights. There wasn’t anything anymore. My life sucked; it still does, and I wish I was five years old again, going to school with my dalmatian backpack.
The neon light above me is flickering. I’m sitting in Kate’s with my head against the window, waiting on my fries.
Camila’s got to work, and it was depressingly quiet and empty at home.
I had to be around people to drown out the voices in my head.
They’re still there, but at least the jukebox here plays good tunes, people are talking, and I can pretend I’m not alone.
“Hey.” It’s Gwen. She’s woven ribbons into her braids and decorated them with little golden rings. The black bandanna around her wrist brushes my fingers as she pushes the plate onto the table. “Sorry that I’m the one bringing them over. Mom had to go around the corner.”
“No problem.”
I want to start eating, but Gwen doesn’t leave; she just keeps on standing there, next to my table, staring at my fries.
“You want some?”
She blinks. “What?”
“My fries. You want some?”
“No.”
“It looks like you do.”
“Why would I?”
“Because you’re staring at them.”
“No, I…” She sighs. “Can we talk, Wyatt?”
Her words form a stone in my stomach. A huge, sharp, painful stone.
I don’t have anything against Gwen. What happened between us wasn’t her fault, really.
I didn’t know what the hell was going on, and, according to others, I was giving her clear signals.
It’s not her fault, but ever since then I haven’t been able to look at her, and I can’t stop making her responsible for everything because that’s just the way I am.
And maybe that’s uncool, maybe that makes me uncool, but that’s the way it is, and sometimes you just can’t change things.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Gwen.”
She kneads her hands. “Yeah, I thought the same thing at first, too. But, to be real honest, Wyatt? That’s bullshit.
We’ve been friends all our lives. It was a mistake.
A big, fucked-up mistake. But do we have to avoid each other because of it?
Aren’t we old enough to be able to talk about it and let it go?
There is so much hate and misunderstanding in the world, so damn much. Let’s not add to it.”
For a few seconds I just dip my fry into my ketchup without saying a word. I know she’s right. We’re grown up and should put this behind us. But just her standing here next to me makes me feel bad. It’s like contact with her was forbidden or something.
At the thought I immediately look out the window to make sure no one is watching us.
The streetlights have come on and are illuminating the ugly-ass pumpkin on the other side of the street.
A couple of tourists stop to stare at the bits of mold before shaking their heads and moving on.
Other than them, I don’t see anyone I know.
“Don’t worry. They’re over at Aria’s.”
“What?”
“Knox, Paisley, and Harper are over at Aria’s. Today is the twenty-fifth. Pumpkin-carving-and-games night. Don’t you remember?”
“They’re over at Aria’s and didn’t invite us?”
“Umm.” She looks at me for a second, then she sits down in the red upholstered booth and leans forward, her eyes narrowed into slits. “You cheated on Aria with me, Wyatt. Why on earth would she invite us?”
“No idea. She shouldn’t. Of course she shouldn’t. But, you know, all the same…”
“I know.” Gwen sighs and leans back. She grabs the ends of her hair and observes them. “Strange feeling, huh?”
“Hmm.”
My eyes wander past her to the jukebox, which is playing some Coldplay song or other. The red-yellow colors start to blur. I toss one fry after the other into my mouth and grow more and more frustrated.
Gwen is tapping her foot on the tiles in a steady rhythm. I can’t stand it. It’s driving me mad. “Stop.”
She looks at me questioningly. “What?”
“That thing you’re doing with your foot.”
“Sorry.”
Sighing, I drop the fries back onto the plate and run a hand across my face. “Gwen, you’re right. Treating you like this isn’t fair. But…”
“It’s okay.” She stretches out her hand. At first I think she’s lost it and is moving to grab me, and I swear my heart stops. I grow so panicky I’m about to jump up and run out when I see her begin to trace the patterns on the tabletop and realize that I’m the one who has completely lost it.
Goddamn, Wyatt. Chill out, my man.
Gwen looks at her fingers. I can hear the wheels turning in her head as she considers what to say.
Eventually, she pulls her hand back and pulls the sleeves of her sweater over her fingertips.
She’s nervous. That’s how we are; that’s how life is.
It makes us nervous because we don’t know how things are supposed to go on after what it did to us.
“Wyatt, I’m sorry. I’m sorry Aria took off because of me. Ever since then, not a day has gone by that I don’t blame myself. I mean, if it hadn’t been for me… No idea. Maybe you all’d have kids or something.”
I laugh out loud. “We would definitely not have kids already, Gwen.”
She shrugs. “Maybe not. But you’d definitely be living together and ordering pizza at Don Giovanni’s in the evenings before playing Mario Kart on your Switch and going to bed far too late because you’re so happy and…”
“Stop.” I force myself to smile so Gwen doesn’t feel snubbed.
But it’s tough because what she’s saying is true, so damn true, and that just makes everything worse.
Que merda, I’m such a mess, and then I hear something like that, and all I want to do is puke and go to sleep so that I don’t have to hear anything else.
I push away my plate. Man, I don’t feel good.
“I mean… Yeah, Gwen. Maybe it’d be like that.
But thinking about what things would be like if nothing had happened between the two of us doesn’t help you or me a single bit.
Something did happen. And that’s my fault.
” I try to catch her eyes. They’re big, sad pieces of caramel. “Mine alone, okay?”
She nods. Gwen doesn’t believe me; that much I know. I don’t think she wants to keep on talking about it, either. The whole thing just depresses us.
“Can we leave it behind us?” Her voice is soft. Almost like she doesn’t trust herself to ask me. I mean, it’s a big deal. You can hardly leave something like that behind you.
I lean back and take a deep breath. “We can stop avoiding each other. I mean, you’re right. We’re grown-ups. What happened happened, and it sucks. But treating each other like shit won’t change that. That won’t bring Aria back.”
A weak smile appears on Gwen’s face. “I’d like that, Wyatt.”
“Yeah.” I sound relieved but a bit tired, too, a bit tired from life. “Me, too. You were always a good friend. This all just never should have happened.”
For a moment she scratches the tabletop with her nail. “I never had the chance to tell you how sorry I am about your mom.”
I nod. “Thanks, Gwen.”
“And about Aria.”
“Let’s not talk about her anymore.”
Gwen looks up. Her gaze rests on me for what feels like an eternity. “You still love her, right?”
What a question. I pull off my hat and put it back on, backward.
“Of course I love her. I broke her heart, then she broke mine, and then things were simply over. We’ve never really talked about it, never sat down and said, ‘Okay, we had our time. Now it’s over.
Let’s move on.’ It was just over from one day to the next.
After six years. Just like that.” My words are so harsh that Gwen flinches.
“Do you know how it all went down with my mom, Gwen?”
“No,” she whispers.
The bell above the door rings as a couple comes in.
They are laughing and talking about the pumpkin outside.
I watch them for a second. Watch their caresses, and I am jealous of what they have because I had it, too, and I want it back.
My eyes rest on the guy’s smile as he offers his girl a chair. Then I quickly turn away.
Gwen, wide-eyed, is waiting for me to go on.
I take another deep breath. “I’d just gotten home from the hospital. The doctors said it was fine for me to go. Mom still had some time. At least a week. I’d stroked her hand as she lay there, just skin and bones. Tubes everywhere. You know what she told me?”
“What?”
“‘Take care of your sister, Wyatt. Make sure she’s okay, and, above all, make sure that you’re okay. Be good to Aria so that I know she’ll take care of your heart when I can’t anymore.’”
Gwen’s face completely loses its color. “God. Wyatt, I…”
“That was her request. Her only one. I promised her. And it was the last thing she ever said to me. That night I got a call from the hospital. It was all over.”
Gwen’s lips are trembling. The skin on her chin creases, and her eyes grow damp. “That’s awful, Wyatt.”