24 The Cracks in Lucy Peterson
The Cracks in Lucy Peterson
Lucy’s nose and eyes were red, her light hair was pulled back badly in a bun, and she had a wrinkly Kleenex in her hand she wouldn’t stop playing with.
When I entered the room and saw her there, the first thing I thought was the test results had been catastrophic and she was over it, over coming and going to and from the hospital hoping fate had decided in her favor.
But no. What was happening with Lucy was something that happened to every ordinary human being.
She was caught up in the same day-to-day things and had let someone break her heart.
“It’s over,” she sputtered.
“What?” I sat down beside her.
“It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”
“I want to know. I care about you.”
I stroked her back, and she breathed out and seemed to deflate like a balloon. She started tearing the Kleenex into tiny pieces that fell onto the bed like snowflakes.
“He left me. I thought what we had was deep, special, but that was stupid. That idea of love they sell us, with two people capable of overcoming all odds, it doesn’t exist. Everything is superficial.
We should stop watching movies, Greta. We’d be better off spending our time crocheting or taking a baking class… ”
We Peterson sisters were always the type to go off on tangents and get lost, so I interrupted her, “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
“His name’s Kevin. I met him playing chess online. We started chatting during one of the games.” She blew her nose and shook her head. “There was this immediate connection and soon we were talking about any and everything, sending each other DMs, especially at night. That went on for months.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend?”
She looked up, and there was something in her face that threw me off: suppressed anger, a choppy sea, feelings deep under the surface.
“Greta, could you stop thinking of yourself for once and focus on what’s important?
I know it surprises you that I don’t tell you absolutely everything, but you know what?
I’m tired. I’m tired of every detail of my life being public.
There’s a goddamn piece of paper that notes down how many times a day I go to the bathroom.
Does it really surprise you that I want to keep one thing just to myself? ”
That was Lucy, the Lucy I knew, but it was someone else too, with that messy hair, those swollen eyes, that trembling lower lip.
All of us have two faces, I guess, and veiled longings and upsets we keep under lock and key.
Can you ever completely know a person? I guess not.
Your wounds are your own. You can share them, but they remain yours.
The cracks in your heart are shaped in such a way that only the person who was there when they arose knows how to peek inside them. And emotions meander off into infinity.
“I understand,” I said.
She grabbed a new Kleenex. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What happened?”
“We were talking all the time, but I never told him I was sick. I left it out because I wanted to be sure what we had was real. And I think…” She looked off into space.
“I think I just felt like being normal for once, just a girl getting to know a guy. But time passed, and I decided I needed to tell him about my…condition. So I did. I told him about the complications in the last couple of years and how much time I’m in the hospital… ”
“And?” I asked. My heart hurt before I even heard the answer. In my mind, I shouted, No, no, Kevin, you idiot, whoever you are, don’t do this to my sister. You can’t. You need to fix this!
“He never wrote me back.”