Chapter 14
Thirteen Past Two, Thinking of You
Aria
Tonight my room turned into two hundred fifty square feet of chaos.
I’m usually pretty organized. I usually make sure to pick up the socks that made their way under my bed and throw my yogurt cups into the trash.
But not today. Today everything is different. Today I’m wearing his sweatshirt and don’t want to ever take it off. I don’t want to shower anymore; I just want to lie in bed and pretend that everything is just like it was before.
Last night is my fantasy. And it never needs to become day again.
I’ve been sitting cross-legged for hours, surrounded by my notes, packs of Skittles, cans of Diet Coke, and dates. No idea why I chose dates, but they were there, and for some reason I wanted them.
I’ve been trying to beat all my notes on the musculoskeletal system into my brain. Actually, it’s not all that difficult. It’s just a lot. And I don’t have time for a lot. Or the head.
My earbuds are playing Taylor Swift on repeat.
My eyes have narrowed into tiny slits while staring at the bright screen of my iPad.
It’s hard for me to make out the tiny letters.
I curse Knox for not having brought me back my laptop yet.
And because it annoys me so much, I grab my phone, open our chat, and write exactly that.
I curse you for not having brought me back my laptop yet.
Annoyed, I toss my smartphone back onto the pillows.
It slides between the cracks and sinks beneath my teddy bear.
I reach for the can of baked beans that’s on my nightstand, and for the next few minutes it’s a steady rhythm.
Baked beans, writing, dates, writing, writing, baked beans, a few Skittles in between, writing.
After two more pages, I put my pen to the side and shake my hand. With a sigh, I fall back onto my mattress. The tips of my hair tickle the carpet while my eyes wander up through the window.
Darkness. There’s a storm. Pine needles scrape the glass.
I close my eyes and listen. Sometimes I think the quiet is speaking to me.
If I listen really hard, I can hear a whisper.
My gut feeling is that, when we concentrate, when we don’t focus on anything in particular and listen to what’s not there, so to speak, we can hear ourselves.
Because that’s the thing, right? There’s really no such thing as nothing.
If there’s someone there that we’re listening to, then it’s us.
I mean ourselves. Our inner voice. The one that usually holds back as it’s far too soft to be heard.
These moments we can talk with our souls are precious.
And when we’re granted the privilege, when our souls come to tell us what we need to know, we should listen, and I mean listen well, for everything they tell us is true.
And right now mine’s saying, Wyatt. That bugs me. It only shows up rarely, and when it does, I want more.
Today the quiet is disappointing. Today we’re not buds. Maybe tomorrow.
I roll onto my stomach, stand up, and close the curtains. My limbs are heavy. I’m tired. My head is tired. From all these thoughts, from all this living.
I sluggishly make my way across the room.
I dodge the dark folder with all my Brown stuff.
My guitar. A potato peeler (how’d that get in here?).
And, last but not least, a section of string lights I wanted to untwist before I got sidetracked.
It’s been lying on the floor ever since.
Could be my twin, with the only difference that it gives off light, and I don’t.
I climb down the ladder and sneak down the hall. If I’m not careful, the boards creak. It’s the middle of the night, 2:13 a.m., to be exact, and I don’t want to wake Mom up.
I push the swing door open and step into our kitchen.
It’s small, and the ceiling slopes down to the windows, which are hung with white lace curtains.
On the walls there are pictures and pans and cups and all sorts of things, a real hodgepodge, but it’s just so cozy, I hardly know of a more comfortable place.
Wyatt and I spent hundreds of hours here.
We’d sit together at the wooden table in the corner, on the bench, me with my back against the wall, my legs stretched out over his, while Mom would be at the gas range, cooking caldo verde, a Portuguese soup made of cabbage, chorizo, and potatoes.
Wyatt’s mother, who was Portuguese, had given her the recipe.
Whenever there was a good song on the radio, all three of us would sing.
Beautiful memories. I wish they weren’t.
The more beautiful they are, the more painful.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
I look up and see Mom in the warm light of the glass chandelier above us. She’s stirring a pot. The heat of the flames is making her hair stand on end.
“Why are you awake?”
Orange-colored dots sprinkle the kitchen counter as my mother taps off the end of the wooden spoon against the side of the pot.
“I had a nightmare,” she says, puts the top on the pot, and turns toward me.
Mom is wearing a pink onesie that Patricia knitted for her.
I’d love to have one, too. “Vaughn won the soup cook-off tomorrow.”
“Vaughn?” Frowning, I take the cocoa out of the cupboard and heat some almond milk in the microwave. “Why’s he part of the soup cook-off?”
“He’s competed before already. And because…
it was a premonition,” she mumbles, which is suspicious, because Mom doesn’t think much of what gets mumbled.
I stir the mix into my drink and raise my eyebrows.
Noticing my skeptical look, she clicks her tongue and raises her arms. “Fine. William let it slip.”
“Will?” I shake some mini marshmallows into my drink. At least half of them land on the long, woven runner. That’s how things go with me. Whenever I try to hit the bulls-eye, things fall to the side. “He let slip the names of the people who signed up for the event?”
She shrugs. “No big deal, right?”
“Umm. Hello? Earth to Mom? Which part of ‘he let slip who had signed up for the event’ demands that kind of answer?”
My mother throws a raisin at me from a ceramic bowl that’s next to the stove. One of them lands between my toes, and I accidentally crush it. Gross.
“You want some tea?” she asks.
“No. Look. I’m drinking hot chocolate.”
“Oh, right.”
“You’re confused because William likes you.”
The teapot begins to whistle. My mother flinches, but I can’t say if it’s because of my words or the sudden noise.
“That’s nonsense, Aria.”
“That’s the truth and nothing but the truth. I mean…” A marshmallow melts on my tongue. I savor the moment. “He showed you the list of participants! That’s forbidden. It’s even written in the rules. I could get him in trouble.”
“He wrote the rules, Aria.”
“Even worse, no? He’s deceiving us all. Who can we even trust anymore?”
Instead of reacting to my words, Mom just puts a teabag into her cup, which is labeled DEAR SANTA, I CAN EXPLAIN, and pours water over it. Her steps are heavy as she makes her way over to the table and sits down across from me. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re up.”
I can’t tell my mother that the B&B is taking up too much of my day and that I have to study at night. I wrap my hands around my cup and watch the floating marshmallows. “It’s a full moon.”
“Ah ha.” Mom strokes the swollen outer surface of her hand with stiff fingers. “And does the full moon have some kind of strange power over you that I should know about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your sweatshirt, Aria. Aspen Snowdogs?”
“Oh, that.” I lean back. “It’s Wyatt’s.”
“No kidding.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Of course not.”
“Hey, Mom?” I nudge her upper thigh with my raisin toe. “You still haven’t told me anything about the naturopath.”
She takes a sip of her tea and looks at me over the edge of her cup. Green eyes. Like mine. Tired and weak. Like mine. Hardly any hope left. Like mine.
“We’re trying out a few natural remedies. Drops and injections that are supposed to help with my joint pain.”
I pluck at a stitch on the crocheted tablecloth. “At Brown a student group a year or two ahead of me conducted a study on rheumatism. The results of those patients who consulted a naturopath were significantly better than those who had used cortisone.”
My mother smiles. “We’ll see.”
She’s losing her faith. That hurts to see. Mom was always strong-willed. Nothing could get her off track. Nothing, aside from this fucking illness that crept in and decided to suck the life out of her.
A copy of today’s local paper is lying on the table. The large picture of a young man with red-blond hair smiles back at me.
Mom follows my glance. She pulls the paper to her and sighs. “The Frazers placed a memorial announcement. For their son.”
I put my cup down and run a finger across the letters. “I’m still so sorry that I couldn’t be here for the funeral. Jake was…” I shake my head. “He was simply Jake.”
“Yeah.” Mom puts the paper to the side with a sad look on her face, grabs her cup, and stares at her tea. “He was a good kid, through and through. He used to look after you when your dad and I would go out.”
“I remember. That was a long time ago. How old was I?”
“Eight, nine. Something like that. You always played hockey here inside, and every time your father would lose his cool because you always managed to break something.”
“Sounds like me.”
Mom gives a faint smile. “Life is precious, Aria. A real gift. We never know how long we’ve got. You should enjoy every second and always do exactly what you want to do. Do what makes you happy.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Sometimes I think you’ve forgotten. Especially when it’s got to do with you and Wyatt.” She finishes her tea, caresses my cheek, and slowly gets up. “Don’t stay up too long, sweetheart.”
“I won’t.”
“Goodnight.”
“Night.”
“I love you.”
“Love you more, Mom.”
She puts her cup in the sink, smiles weakly at me, and leaves. Ten seconds later I hear her bedroom door close.
I pull up my legs, pull Wyatt’s hoodie over them, and close my eyes.
Breathe in. Exhale only when it’s time to breathe in again. And again. And once more.
Wyatt’s scent. The one I smelled every time I’d wake up next to him. Every time he’d wrap his arms around me from behind when we were on the couch watching hockey on ESPN.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, breathing in and forgetting to breathe back out.
I play with the drawstrings, make a knot, and undo it again.
The feeling of wearing Wyatt’s hoodie is doing something to me.
It’s weird. Something unreal. In my head a voice is telling me that I’m not allowed. That it’s destroying me.
I’m already destroyed, I think, but the voice just laughs. Even worse, it says. Much, much worse.
That’s how it is between Wyatt and me. We’re destroyed, both of us, and he’s the one who wanted it this way.
All the same, I can’t stop my nerves from pulsating when I take in his scent.
I can’t stop my heart from thumping when I imagine him wearing this very sweatshirt.
The one that’s against my skin and makes me feel like I’m touching him.
Touching him without touching him. While he’s touching me without touching me.
It doesn’t make any sense, and yet it does.
It makes sense because my dumb, dumb heart still loves him. Wild, right?
I don’t know if there’s any way to stop this.
If it’s possible for my heart to forget.
I’ve heard that forgetting’s not that easy.
Some people say it doesn’t work at all. And that’s what I’m really afraid of.
I mean, I’m sitting here pressing my nose into his hoodie in order to suck up the last little bits of scent that are still there.
I finish my hot chocolate, put my cup in the dishwasher, and sneak back up to my room.
Crashing onto my bed and digging about for my phone I manage to wrinkle all my notes. Knox has written back. And I curse you for waking me up in the middle of the night, you Gollum, you. But that isn’t important anymore.
With trembling fingers I click on Paxton’s name. His profile is a snow dog with a hockey stick in its mouth—the Aspen Snowdogs logo. I take a deep breath and begin to type a message.
Hi. It’s Aria. It’s past two in the morning, and, theoretically, I’m really, really late, but maybe you’ll let me get away with it, because I’d really, really like to get to know you.
My thumbs hover over the display, then I erase a “really.” Sounds too desperate. Two seconds, take a deep breath. Send.
Hard to believe I did it. I’m proud of myself.
Super-duper proud. With a slight smile, I put my phone on airplane mode and bury my face into my pillows.
Between the crannies, the snarled patch of string lights shines into my eyes.
How they shine, I think. How they shine and show me that they can. Just like that.
I think about Paxton and don’t feel a thing. I think about Wyatt and feel everything.
I fall asleep and keep on thinking.