Chapter 35
Graham
The airport was crowded when I got home, but my usual apprehension that came with big crowds was softened by the sense of calm I’d inherited from traveling, therapy, and doing some really tough reality checks with myself over the past two weeks.
I wasn’t bothered by the couple fighting in front of me, as we all waited in line for a cab while the rain poured down.
Nor did I care about the cacophony of noise as travelers made their way in and out of the state.
Something in me felt lighter. As if I’d unpacked my crap overseas and left it behind.
There was still work to do. Still thoughts to shed that had become habitual and harmful to my enjoyment of life and trust in myself.
But I was getting there, and that’s what I’d been telling myself like a mantra every night.
A cab pulled up and I climbed in. The drive through town made me smile.
The trees had shed their leaves, their skeletal bodies exposed and glistening with the rain streaming down them.
The streets were littered with brown mounds of fallen foliage that one would track inside their house on their shoes for weeks and months on end.
And despite it all, people milled about, hurrying to catch up with friends, catch a train, or hurry home from work.
“You been somewhere nice?” the cabbie asked as we sat at a red light.
“The Netherlands.”
“Never been. Was it nice?”
“It was lovely.”
Traffic moved along at a snail’s pace but I found I didn’t mind.
I loved New York in the fall and, thanks to my trip abroad, therapy, and texts with Marley, I felt my time here was coming to a close.
I no longer felt the fear that had been clinging to me.
Or rather, the fear I’d been clinging to with both hands for years.
I didn’t feel as tentative or stuck. There was an openness inside me that was palpable, and that I couldn’t remember ever feeling before.
It was freeing. Comforting. And it made me curious.
“Hey,” I said, leaning forward, and then proceeded to give the driver directions that would take me past Lior’s house on the way to mine.
Perhaps it was a bad idea. But I tried to think of it in a different light, as Novi had been teaching me to do.
“See how a situation can serve you,” she’d said one day after I’d come back from a couple days visiting The Hague. “Don’t count it all as bad. Count it as learning something about yourself.”
“And if it makes me feel like shit?”
“Then don’t do it again,” she’d said with an uncharacteristic wink.
It had been weeks since I’d seen Lior and, while I didn’t plan to stop, I just wanted to drive by. I wanted to see how it would feel. Was she home? Were the lights on? Would it look as though she had company? How would I feel if she did? How would I react? Would I be angry? Sad? Resigned?
My pulse sped up as we rounded the corner onto her street and I mentally braced myself for what I would see – and then physically braced myself as the driver swerved around a garbage bin that had fallen over into the street.
“It’s been windy while you were gone,” he said. “You’re lucky you were out of town. Me and the missus lost power a couple of times this past week. You’ll probably have blinking clocks all over your house when you get in.”
I nodded, barely listening, because Lior’s house was four away… three… two…
All the lights were off, aside from the porch light. And then I saw it.
“What the fuck is that?” I said.
“What’s what?” the driver asked, hitting the brakes.
“Don’t stop!” I said, moving away from the window in case she was home and somehow saw me in a small cab window through the rain. But then I leaned forward again, my eyes glued to the sign posted on the column at the bottom of the stairs leading to her front door.
A ‘For Sale’ sign.
Lior was moving.
All the air expelled from my lungs. I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. I had no idea where she was going. Seattle? Somewhere else? Europe? But I wasn’t privy to that information because I’d let her go. And she… she was moving on.
I paid the driver and dragged my suitcase up the front steps to my house.
The stormy weather had knocked two of the three potted plants onto one another, and there was a small pile of wet newspapers shoved into the corner – the newspaper boy’s attempt at keeping them out of the elements. I’d deal with them later.
For the next week I wandered my house feeling more than ever like I didn’t belong in it. With Bronte gone and Lior not around to soften the bright white and hard edges with her warmth and laughter, everything felt off kilter. Even more now than when I’d first lost them.
“You look terrible,” Marley said. We were doing a video call so she could show me the clothes she’d picked out for a job interview.
She didn’t need to work, our dad and her mom were able to provide for anything she might need, but she’d never had a job and thought it might be fun to earn a paycheck.
Mostly, I was pretty sure, because some of her roommates had jobs and she said the responsibility of it made them seem more mature.
“Don’t be in a rush to grow up,” I’d told her. “Take advantage of this time to just learn.”
But Marley had gotten it in her head that a job equaled fun. Who was I to burst that bubble?
“Are you sick?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Are you sad because of Lior?” I’d finally told her we were no longer speaking. She’d said she’d suspected as much, but didn’t say why. I wondered if the two of them still talked, but I never asked.
“No. And yes. But… Look, I’m just sad, okay? It’s been a rough few weeks and I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“I thought you said the vacation was cathartic.”
“It was. And then I came home and nothing here has changed. Bronte is still gone and—”
“And?”
I knew she was fishing for me to talk about Lior, but I would not satisfy her need.
“And it’s a lot,” I said.
“I’m sorry, G.”
“Thanks, Mars.”
“You could move here. Then you wouldn’t have to be in that house anymore.”
“I mean, I could move down the street if I was just trying to escape the house.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. And I am thinking about it.”
“Really? Like for real real?”
I laughed.
“Yes,” I said. “For real real. Now, can we get back to the reason for this call?” I pointed to the two outfits lying across her dorm room bed.
“Oh right.” She stood and picked up two hangers with dresses hanging from them. “Sensible? Mature? Classic?”
My mind suddenly went to Lior. Had she already moved? Was it on her social media account and Marley wasn’t mentioning it to spare my feelings?
“G!” Marley shouted to get my attention again.
“Shit. Sorry.” I glanced at the clothes she was holding up. “Very nice.”
She rolled her eyes, tossed the outfits back on the bed and sat down again.
“Graham?” she said, her big blue eyes staring through the camera at me.
I was in for it now. I prepared myself for the lecture that was coming.
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you just call her?”
I’d thought the same thing a hundred times. Probably more. I’d thought it moments after she’d hung up on me, that entire evening, and every day since.
The problem now was, I’d waited too long, and she was clearly moving on.
She was moving god knows where and there was the potential that she wasn’t going alone.
She could’ve met someone, had a whirlwind romance, and was now moving in with the guy.
I’d fucked up. I couldn’t call her now. It would be selfish, and cruel to both of us.
I didn’t say all that to my sister though.
“I think I missed my window,” I said. “And now I have to accept that, and move on as well.”
Marley was quiet for a minute.
“Whatever happened to your friend, Cooper,” she asked.
“Nadia happened.”
“Of course.” She shook her head. “Do you still have his number?”
“If he hasn’t changed it, then yes.”
“You should call him.”
“And say what? Sorry I ghosted you for a horrible woman not worth a tenth of you?”
“For starters, yes.” She sat down on her bed and looked at me with eyes too wise for an eighteen-year-old. “You need friends, G. I mean, I love that we’re close and can talk about stuff, but you need people your own age, with a little more life experience, to give you advice.”
Truly. The psychology course she was taking was already paying for itself.
“Yeah well… I’m not sure he’d be excited to hear from me at this point. It’s been a long time.”
“I think you should give yourself more credit and give him the chance to make his own decisions.”
“I thought you were supposed to get less annoying the older you got,” I said, running a hand over my face.
“Once again, you were wrong.” She gave me a toothy grin and I laughed.
“Call him. Apologize. And then put your stupid house up for sale and move here. You don’t have to stay forever.
It might just be good for you to have a change of scenery for a while.
You can decide what you want to do next after that. ”
There was a burst of noise on her end as her roommate and two other young women came into the room.
“I have to go,” Marley said, leaning closer to the microphone. “I love you, G. Call Cooper!” she yelled, and then she was gone.
Before I had a chance to overthink it or talk myself out of it, I was scrolling through my contacts to Cooper’s number. I hesitated for only a second before I hit the call button. He answered on the second ring.