Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The crowd erupts outside and Antony pats me on the back.
That’s it, that’s the end of the show.
Experimental as hell to dissolve into metaphor for the entire second act, but it was powerful.
Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Hopefully the critic sees it as daring and not…
a complete disaster.
Which it sort of was, but also it was kind of daring.
“Bruv,” Antony says, holding his hands up, “that was amazing. So weird! You were on fire.”
I hold my own hands out, and let him smack them.
“Thanks, you too.”
Suddenly there are arms around me, and I know it’s Aimee before I turn to look.
“You were so good!” she says, pulling back and holding me at arm’s length to look at me.
“Curtain call!” the stage manager yells, then gestures like a furious crossing guard for us to go, go, go.
Antony goes out, the audience doing a general, ambient round of applause for him.
I go out for my bow.
People start to stand and cheer.
I look back for Aimee, stretching my hand out toward her and stepping out of the center so she can bow as director, writer, and star.
The crowd roars for her.
When we do the final bow together, I look down in front and see Cillian.
He’s beaming at me, clapping hard and loud.
He stops and puts two fingers between his lips and whistles loudly.
Of course he can do that.
Who knew I was so into hot boy whistles?
The curtains close eventually.
Antony steps off into the wings, making exhausted sounds, as if tonight was a lot for him , and I’m left alone onstage with Aimee.
“I meant what I said,” she says.
“The dream was so vivid.”
“I never told you it was raining.”
“I know. I know. I saw it all. It came out of nowhere but I swear I remembered or knew or… something. Like how you know that none of this is your imagination.” She shrugs, at a loss.
“This is a lot.”
“It’s a lot. And I’m sorry, Meg. I’ve been such a bitch. It’s, you know, we haven’t talked much, and then you suddenly start telling me I’m dead , I mean, this is all such unknown territory. I believe you, but believing you means accepting something really, really hard and scary.”
“I know, I know. There’s no right way to do this. I’m so sorry, so mad at myself that I never let you be with the person you loved without complaining. It’s not my business. It’s not.”
“No, but that’s what friends are for! And it did help. I mean, when you left and I was alone with him in Florida, I knew he wasn’t getting his life together. It was your voice in my head that told me to choose myself. It was sort of an If you love something, let it go situation. I did, and it worked out. I couldn’t have done that if you’d been blindly supportive.”
“But I was jealous, too, in a lot of ways. You were right. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay! It’s okay, Meg. I’m here. I know I’m… gone… in your world. But I’m here. And I’m not going to spend even a second taking that for granted again. Here, I have my k-kids, and…” A wave of heavy tears flows through her and she covers her face.
“I… I love them so much. I’m so in love with my life. There’s no life for me but the one I have now. I belong here. No other world would be right for me.”
I breathe deeply and I swear, it may be the first real, satisfying breath I’ve taken in eleven years.
Since arriving in Avalon, I’ve remembered more and more about Aimee.
But I’ve also remembered more about myself.
Like how I used to be loud and obnoxious and annoying, like I was in that cringey video of me bothering Aimee at school, and how I’m glad I’m not anymore, but how maybe it’s a shame—and perhaps even more annoying—to tiptoe all the time.
I remember now that I really loved the crap junk food my mom let me have every once in a while.
I remember lying on the tile floor of my house in the thick of summer, unconcerned with the fact that it may be dirty, Aimee and me both with our tanned legs in the air, matching anklets on our matching bug-bitten ankles and chipping pink nail polish on our toes, a Fruit by the Foot in each of our mouths, turning our teeth purple.
I remember borrowing her T-shirts for sleepovers and asking her mom if she had anything for a stomachache.
I remember flumping down in the recliner in the living room at my house and begging my parents to let me invite Aimee over.
We used to ask our parents for the privilege of washing the cars so we could play in soap and hose water on a sweltering afternoon.
We would hop from foot to foot on the hot blacktop as we waited in line for Good Humor bars from the ice cream man.
I would lie down on school nights on top of my sheets with my blue plastic fan blowing on me until I fell into a humid sleep.
I used to do my homework in the backyard.
I used to spray I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!
on already-buttered microwave popcorn.
I constantly begged for gum at the checkout line at Publix.
I used to read time-travel romances in the hammock in the backyard.
I used to watch General Hospital with my mom.
I used to write down the lyrics to my favorite songs and slide them into the plastic cover of my binder for school.
I didn’t just block out Aimee when I hid from the memories of my past.
I blocked out myself.
I let my old self die with her.
But I didn’t need to.
I shouldn’t have let her.
No wonder I’m unhappy in my life in LA.
I have no idea if it aligns with who I am, because I abolished all the versions of me that existed before I ran away and started pretending.
Literally.
For a living .
I feel awash suddenly with all the things I’d forgotten how to feel.
Warm hose water on my feet and the metallic smell of damp concrete where the water leaked at the faucet, sunburn on my shoulders, the sting of sour Skittles on my tongue, the pinch of the chain from the swings at the playground, the scald of bare thighs on the hot back seat of a Toyota Sienna that had been baking all day in the sun.
Being told to be quiet for singing too loudly by myself in my room and feeling embarrassed.
The delight at getting to pick out some kind of treat on a boring errand with one of my parents.
Something like Reese’s Cups at Home Depot.
The ecstasy of seeing my name at the top of a cast list on a bulletin board.
Being happy and moving instantly into a jumping hug with my best friend, no self-consciousness.
The achy pain of the mono that got me out of school for three weeks in sophomore year of high school (not all bad).
The devastation of not being cast in a show.
The furious boredom of a grounded Friday night.
The biting flies that swarmed in the late afternoon at the community pool where we sometimes went to hang out with friends.
The searing truth of a torn-open, skinned knee from crashing my bicycle into a parked car.
Yes.
A parked car.
That’s not the point.
The point is, I’m clearly having a significant breakthrough.
I knew, of course, that I had blocked Aimee out and that it wasn’t healthy.
But I hadn’t understood or considered exactly why.
It hadn’t occurred to me that I had hidden more than the death and grief from myself.
I didn’t want to remember who Aimee or I had been back then, because we had both been doomed.
It was too painful to remember them as they were, those happy, sometimes sunburned kids with devastation lying in wait for them.
But pretending changed nothing.
It gave me even less of what I missed.
“Let’s go join the party,” says Aimee.
“I’m alive. Might as well have some fun.”
I laugh, tears still brimming my eyes.
“Right.”
We walk together offstage, hand tightly in hand, and then out into the empty hallway beside the entrance to the auditorium.
“I’ll be right in,” I say, riding my instincts, having a strong compulsion to take a moment to breathe before going in to see everyone.
She smiles warmly at me.
“Okay. I’ll see you in there, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I just need a sec. I’ll be right there.”
She nods, gives my hand a last squeeze, and then we let go at the same time.
She opens the door, releasing an audial waft of festive fun.
I don’t know why I want to be alone.
Right now, everything is as it should be.
I have a deep sense of order inside me, an optimism about the future.
An assuredness that things will never be as hard as they once were.
I guess I sort of want to be alone with that for a second.
I sigh, basking in the bone-deep relaxation I feel.
I’ve never felt this way.
I’ve been a live wire of denial and gilded, hidden emotion for years and years.
For as long as I can remember.
I breathe in deeply, then exhale.
That’s when I notice the silence.
It’s absolute.
Unyielding.
Empty.
I strain my ears, listening for the laughter on the other side of the door.
Listening for the yearning vocals of Nat King Cole’s “You Stepped Out of a Dream” through the wall, as I’d been able to hear a moment ago.
But there’s nothing.
I move toward the door and press my ear to it, unwilling to open it quite yet.
It takes everything I have to open that door.
When I do, I’m met with darkness.
The theater is empty.