43. Lenni
FORTY-THREE
lenni
It feels good to walk into the newsroom Monday after classes. True, I have a shit-ton of work to make up, and with a new issue going out tomorrow morning, I’m up against the clock, but this room is the one place where I always feel like life is moving forward. In here, I can ignore the fact that in three days I’ll be in the Student Health Center laying out my life story for a new therapist; I hate telling my story. In here I can put off thoughts of Cam and what I need to say to him and the biggest question of all: whether I’ve lost him for good.
I haven’t heard from him. I don’t know where we stand. But with my mom in the relative safety of rehab, I think my head is clear enough to figure out my next move. Maybe I can’t get him back, but I’ll find a way to tell him how much I wish I’d done better.
Darren approaches my desk after I set to work. “Everything okay at home?” he asks carefully. He knows I had a family emergency but not the details.
“Yeah, things are okay. Thanks.”
“Your story on the student-athlete balancing act turned out really well. You didn’t have to come through on that one; I was ready to put someone else on it when I heard you had to rush home.”
“It was no problem. Against all odds, I think I’m actually starting to enjoy sports writing. Now that I’ve got the rules of volleyball down, all that’s left is for me to learn the other thirty sports at Shafer.”
He chuckles and sits down on the edge of my desk. “Funny you should mention that. I’ve been thinking about asking if you might like to join our side permanently; in addition to Arts and Lifestyle, not instead of.”
I look at him. “Seriously?”
“Why not? Jude graduates in a few weeks, so we need another sportswriter. You’ve got the writing chops, you’re just not a sports nerd yet. Think about it?”
I grin. “No need. I’m in.”
“Awesome.” He claps his hands together. “Just don’t take this as a sign you get to grab the football story and run with it.”
“I know, I know. Conflict of interest, Mr. Editor.”
“That and our tips have dried up. We’re putting it on hold for now.”
I nod slowly.
“Wait, you’re not going to smash your computer or anything? I’ve been bracing myself all day for this conversation.”
I shrug. “I have it on good authority the woman in question doesn’t want to talk. She doesn’t want the story out there at all.”
“Okay, but don’t you think that was always the case? Considering she never came forward?”
“That we know of,” I can’t help saying.
“That we know of. And it seems you’ve made your peace with that.”
Peace? Maybe. I’ve made peace with the fact that I don’t know the right thing to do. Expose the person who committed a crime? Or let the whole thing stay buried the way Sasha wants it? For now, I’m at peace with having no answers. “I guess I’ve remembered what I already knew,” I tell Darren. “That naming names doesn’t magically fix everything.”
He pauses. “As a journalist, I’d really like to argue on that lest I find myself obsolete.”
“Definitely a bitter pill to swallow. Tell me how this one sits with you: What we call justice rarely changes anything for the survivors.”
He pretends to plug his ears. “La la la, I can’t hear you.”
I smile. “Okay, I’ll stop. But I have a different idea I want to run by you.”
“I don’t know, Lenni, I don’t really care for this defeatist attitude of yours. Aren’t we supposed to be at least twenty-five before we give up our ideals like this?”
“There’ll be a seed of hope in this story, I promise.”
“Let me hear it.”
“Sexual assault on campus,” I say bluntly, watching Darren’s face move from neutral to trying-to-appear-neutral. “And don’t say anything yet. This isn’t about naming names or bringing down a team. It’s about the girls walking around college campuses with stories to tell, and the girls who are hoping they never have one. Guys too; they’re out there. It would be about trying to break down the stigma of being a survivor. Humanizing them.”
Darren’s expression is unreadable.
“I know it’s not the most original idea in the world. But I’m hoping that would be the beauty of it—giving voice to thoughts and experiences at least half the student population lives with all the time.”
“Quite a pivot from the first idea you proposed. What happened to the fire you had burning in you to see someone punished?”
I know the real answer. It fizzled out when I realized I couldn’t think of anything but revenge, that what I wanted for Sasha—to see someone punished—hadn’t saved me and wouldn’t save her either. That I’m angry and have been for years, and I need to look that anger in the eye instead of trying to find it on another woman’s face. And that Cam was right when he said hurting his team wouldn’t fix what’s wrong with me. But that’s all a little TMI for Darren. “I guess it went up in smoke when I realized I was focused on the wrong people.”
Darren cocks his head. “Normally, this is the part where I’d ask two dozen questions and then sleep on it. But I think we’re better off if I let you run with it and see what you come up with.”
A ripple moves through me, excitement and doubt. It’s only a tiny seed of an idea, completely directionless. But at the root of it, I feel pure and simple hope.
The sun is setting by the time I finish my edits, the room still buzzing with activity. I say a few goodbyes, then head down the hall. I’m almost at the elevator when I hear Darren yelling my name.
“Come here,” he calls, gesturing excitedly for me to come back. “You’ve got to see this!”
I turn back, following his quick footsteps to the computer at the back of the newsroom displaying the layout for the next edition of the paper.
“Look at this.” Darren grins, indicating the template showing a page of ads. I have the uncomfortable feeling I’m about to be pranked.
“What am I even looking at here?”
“Are you blind? The biggest ad on the page!” He points to an ad in the center of the paper in big block letters:
HI, LENNI. I LOVE YOU. MEET ME TONIGHT WHERE WE MET.
-FORREST.
My jaw drops. I read it again, then again and once more, my heart throbbing. After the fourth time, I realize Darren is talking to me.
“Someone’s in love with you,” he says teasingly. “I wonder who.”
I open my mouth to argue and tell him the ad wasn’t meant for me, but there’s no room for doubt. I can’t tell if the blazing heat at the back of my neck is embarrassment, confusion, or joy.
“Where did—I mean, when did he place this? Who took the ad?”
“Beats me. Prisha usually handles that.”
“I can’t believe this,” I mutter.
“You two broke up, didn’t you?”
I glance at him. “Yeah.”
“You want me to pull the ad? I can pull it.”
Oh. Right. The paper hasn’t been printed yet. No one has seen this but me, Darren, and maybe Prisha. I look at the ad splayed across the computer screen. I could erase it with a click.
“No.” A sense of urgency washes over me. I head for the door. “No, don’t pull it,” I call back over my shoulder before charging out.
I have a hundred questions, but not the mental bandwidth to consider any of them for more than a fleeting second. I skip the elevator and run down the stairs and out into the night air. What did he mean by tonight ? Was I meant to see it tomorrow when the paper goes to print or today in the newsroom? Or—shit—yesterday? I feel panicked by the idea that he might not be there, that I might have missed him, that I’ll never get another chance.
Except, of course, phones exist. I slow down just long enough to pull mine from my bag and dial Cam, but he doesn’t answer. I probably look like a madwoman jogging across campus with my clunky bag bouncing against my hip. The November night is cool but I’m sweating under my jacket.
I stop when the garden comes into view. Landscape lights illuminate the stone steps leading into the sunken grounds, but a wall of trees and tall grasses hides everything beyond.
I remind myself that if he’s not there, it’s okay. It might mean I have the night wrong or that I’m early. He’ll call back eventually. I know where he lives. But no amount of reasoning can quiet my heart or the voice that keeps saying, Now or never.
I take the steps and freeze on the last one.
He’s sitting in the same spot he sat that first night, but I can’t see his face. His elbows rest on his knees, head in his hands.
“Cam?”
His head snaps up, and he blinks a few times like he’s trying to figure out if it’s really me. Then he stands. “You came.”
“You put that ad in the paper?” I ask dumbly.
He gives this sexy little half smile. “No, Forrest did.”
I let out a choked laugh. “Why?”
“Because I love you.”
I draw a deep breath, savoring the air in my lungs, trying to capture these words and this feeling so they never leave me. “You could have called. Or come to see me. Why did you do it like that?” My voice is raspy with emotion.
He walks over to me. “Because I wanted everyone to know I’m in love with you. The written word is forever, remember?”
I do. I remember those words from our interview all those months ago. A lifetime ago. “I’m in love with you too.” Tears prick my eyes. “And I’m sorry, Cam. You gave me your best and all I did was think the worst.” I feel myself start to crumble. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that.”
Cam breathes deep and leans closer. “I need you, Lenni, just the way you are. I’m sorry I ever let you think you weren’t the most important thing in my world. There’s nothing I won’t do for another chance to be with you.”
I let his words wash over me, feeling like I’m breathing for the first time in so long. “You were only protecting the people you love. I’m the one who let my past get in the way of us.”
He pulls me close when I start to cry. “You don’t have to apologize for that. Your past is part of you, and I’m in love with all of you.” I’m so glad my face is buried in his chest because I’m ugly crying now. I let him stroke my hair and press his lips to my forehead. “You don’t have to apologize for anything.”
I breathe into him until I can speak clearly. “Yes, I do. I asked you to make an impossible choice.”
“We do hard things for each other.” He looks at me and reaches out to brush the tears off my cheeks, but I take his hand and squeeze. All I can do is hold on to him, too overcome to find the words he deserves to hear. “And I want you to do something hard for me.” He swallows. “Take a leap of faith, Lenni. Trust me. I’ll always choose you.”
So here we are, in the same place, yet a million miles from where we started. The pieces of me that were buried and forgotten are alive again. A hundred mistakes and hurts lay in our wake, but here we are all the same, ready to face the next million miles. Together.