Letter Nineteen #2
I tore my eyes from yours to study the swirling colors of the painting before me. Baby blue. Flash of red. Tawny brown. Bright yellow.
But I could still feel your gaze, like hot coal, raking over my face.
“It feels like I’ve lost you,” you said wretchedly. “Even when it’s just us at the house—even when you’re sat right across from me—it feels like you’re gone. Like you’re unreachable.”
It felt like you were trying to reach me right then—trying to tug me back to you in that art gallery—while we were semi-alone for the first time all day, and there was nowhere for me to escape.
But I couldn’t voice the myriad ways I’d been hurt—by you, by my dad and John, by Michael—over the last few months without crying and humiliating myself all over again, so I didn’t say anything at all.
“Like now,” you added with a snort, “I know you’re not fine. But you won’t talk to me about it.”
How could I stay mad when you were saying things like “It feels like I’ve lost you” and “come back to me”?
So I said, “I’m pissed about the clothes.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was something. Clothes shopping with my dad always pissed me off.
“The dresses were nice,” you said. “You looked great in them.”
“But how many girls do you know whose dads have to approve their entire wardrobe? He buys me those dresses because they hide my figure in a way that normal clothes don’t. You saw how he instantly vetoed the tighter one, even though it was up to my neck.”
“I offered my full support on that one,” you said.
“Which I appreciated, but it only validated his decision to say no.”
“What would you rather wear?”
“If he’d let me? Leggings and jeans like all the other girls in my school wear. But God forbid that someone should be able to see the shape of my ass.”
“Um”—little throat clear here—“the dresses you wear don’t hide that nearly as well as you think they do.”
Were you admitting that you had noticed my ass, Casey?
“Whatever,” I said. “The point is, no one dresses up at my school.”
“Tinsley does.”
“She does it for me—so I’m not the only one.”
“I actually love your outfits. Especially the one you’re wearing right now,” you said, gaze drifting down my body.
I wore a long camel sweater coat over a silky cream blouse, a cropped sweater in a lighter shade of camel, and a high-waisted plaid skirt with knee-high cognac boots.
“Your style’s very…Blair Waldorf. Right down to the patterned tights you wear every winter. ”
I lifted my eyebrows, fighting back a smile. “You’ve watched that show?”
“Claire used to be obsessed with it. I watched with her sometimes.”
I nodded, unable to hold it back any longer—my laugh.
You drew back. “Why are you laughing?”
“Michael wouldn’t be caught dead watching Gossip Girl. I bet you secretly loved it.” The fashion. The pretty girls. The cute boys, too.
“Well, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever watched,” you said with an eye roll.
“Blair or Serena?”
“Easy,” you said. “Blair.”
“She’s a scheming bitch, though.”
“On the surface, yeah. But, deep down, she’s quite soft and sentimental, whereas Serena’s a bit fickle, isn’t she?”
“Chuck or Nate?”
“Nate.” This, too, you said without a moment’s hesitation.
“Really? I figured you’d go with Chuck.”
“For a good time, maybe—but Nate’s better boyfriend material by far. He’s the one you want to settle down with. Blair should’ve ended up with him.”
“What about Dan?”
Your eyebrows knitted together. “Fuck Dan.”
I grinned. “Don’t lie. You were highly invested in this show.”
You wrinkled your nose, grinning, too. “When Claire and I moved out together—soon after our mum died—it gave us something to do. Something different to talk about, you know? It helped us forget that our lives had just fallen apart, even if it was only for a couple of hours.”
I could picture it: you and Claire, sitting side by side on a sofa somewhere in the past, doing something so mundane together. A bright spot in the midst of unimaginable grief.
So, in that gallery—surrounded by the faces of people, real or imagined, who had (one way or another) let go—I let go, too, and slipped my hand into yours. No more shutting out. No more taking. Life without you was far too bleak, anyway.
You glanced down at our joined hands, then squeezed mine.
“You know, if you want, I’d be up for watching Gossip Girl again,” I said. “I only made it through the first four seasons with Tinsley.”
“Wait, so you don’t know who Gossip Girl is?” you asked. Then quickly backtracked, saying, “I mean, yeah. That’s cool. If you really want to.”
I laughed loudly, prompting a little old lady, who had just walked in, to toss me a stern look. My dad, too, from the next room. You pulled me against you, laughing into my hair.
Back in Boston, we went back to taking those long strolls on the days you picked me up from school.
I felt reinvigorated by the pops of green, the buttercups sprouting along Comm Ave, the cherry blossoms in the Garden, the great wisteria vine on the house, already beginning to bud.
Those giant purple blooms were my favorite, often sprouting at the end of April or in early May, bringing me cheer the last few hectic weeks of school before summer break.
That spring, Michael rarely came by the house outside of brunch, but he started popping up again the closer it drew to your birthday. We found him waiting in the kitchen one rainy day when we tumbled in through the back door, dripping wet, having been caught in a downpour without an umbrella.
You greeted him with a smile, then disappeared to the basement to grab us some towels and a change of clothes from the stack of laundry that had recently been folded by Henriette.
Michael stood with both hands jammed in his pockets and softly asked, “How have you been?”
I turned my head. Clasped my hands to the damp arms of my cardigan. Shivered. “What do you care?”
“Elliot.” The pleading tone of his voice squeezed my heart. “Don’t be like that.”
I finally met his gaze. “I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“I see you at brunch every Sunday.”
“Yeah, and you act like I don’t exist. I don’t remember anyone ever saying you couldn’t talk to me at all.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, his expression torn.
“Sure I do,” I said, making my voice venomous. “You’re Mr. Perfect, Mr. Yes Sir, Mr. How High?”
His eyes drifted closed. “Okay—”
“Can’t ever defy mom and dad. Can’t ever do what you really want. Can’t ever think for yourself.” I cocked my head to the side. “Even the girls you date, have you ever noticed how they all sort of look like your mom?”
Naturally, Michael decided not to comment on this. But his jaw twitched, which let me know he’d definitely taken offense to it—and I was glad. “Elliot, he’s threatening to take away my apartment and make me move back home.”
“Don’t worry about it. Your dad was right about me, anyway—and so were you. Guilt made me go back to your room that night at the beach. Pity made me kiss you back a couple of weeks ago. None of what we shared meant anything to me.”
Michael flinched, blue eyes shimmering. “I know you don’t mean that, okay? Someday, when you finally get out of this house—when your dad doesn’t have so much control—”
“I won’t be calling you.”
“Elliot, come on. I don’t want this—”
But he didn’t get to finish, because your footsteps sounded on the basement stairs. You reentered the kitchen, dark hair slicked back, handing me a towel and dry clothes. I grabbed my stuff and disappeared upstairs, leaving a trail of wet footprints in my wake.
The week leading up to your birthday, you seemed fine.
The night before, you’d engaged in some boring conversation about stocks with my dad, then chilled with me and Garland before bed.
The morning of the nineteenth, you scrambled eggs for my breakfast like you normally did and quietly prepared coffee.
But when I rounded the island for a hug, you stood there, completely stiff, waiting for it to be over.
Determined, I held on tight, listening to the steady beat of your heart beneath my ear, trying to say I’m here without saying the words out loud.
You pried my arms from your body, pushing me back by the shoulders. “Better get a move on,” you said, eyes vacant of their usual sparkle. “Or you’ll be late.”
“Casey,” I whispered, reaching for your face.
But you caught my wrist midair. “Don’t.”
Jaw clenched tight, you turned and briskly walked off to collect my things. You thrust my water bottle and backpack at me, then practically shoved me out the back door.
I was hurt by that, Casey. I understood not liking your birthday, but I’d let you hug me on mine, and there you were, pushing me away on yours.
That whole day, I struggled to pay attention in class, choosing to focus instead on what we could do to take your mind off the birthday stuff.
Playing a card game, maybe. Trying a new recipe.
Maybe even having Hal take us across town to try that new coffee place you’d mentioned.
But when I got out, you weren’t waiting outside to pick me up.
So I made my way home without calling Hal, expecting to find you in the kitchen, likely brooding as you prepared our tea.
When I walked through the front door and had to disable the alarm, however, I knew instantly: you weren’t home.
In the entry hall, I stood still, met with complete silence, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock upstairs.
And honestly? It freaked me out. My heart raced as a strange, sobering, sick reality hit me: I’d never, not one time—in my eighteen years and nine months on this earth—ever stood in my house all alone.
Stupidly, I called out to you, anyway.
I climbed the stairs, thinking I’d run up and change, then text to ask where you were.
But as I reached the second-floor landing, the grandfather clock chimed three, the eerie echo of that sound causing me to pause.
I peered into the room across the hall from my dad’s room.
The creepy room that used to be my room. My old nursery.