Chapter Twelve #2
Not gone-gone—I wish I were, but I had nowhere to go.
I wouldn’t want to get Maurice in trouble, or drag my brothers into my mess.
I felt too ashamed to face Addison’s mom and dad, or Priya’s.
So I went to my room. I sat on the floor with my back against the door, and I sobbed.
I wished I could have done the thing you see in the horror movies when the girl or woman, always a girl or woman, is being chased—they put the dresser against the door.
I just put my body there instead, the thing that was causing all this trouble. I hated myself, but I hated him more.
Can you imagine getting a call from some stranger telling you your daughter is fucking her son in her own house? he’d yelled.
Shame filled every millimeter of my body. It pressed outward to the point that I wanted to vomit. I cried, and tears flowed, and my nose ran, but the shame was the thing that pressed and pressed.
Anger and injustice boiled inside me, too. I maybe hated Janite. In some ways I understood—she was being a parent, right? Telling my father something she thought he needed to know? But it also seemed like she was just trying to wreck us. It was the maroon flag that had shouted from the beginning.
I checked my phone. No text from you.
It was late. I went to bed, but couldn’t sleep.
There was a light knock on my door. It’s hard to explain, but my heart filled with relief and hope, like maybe I wasn’t banished after all, or banished forever. “Margaret?” It was Mom, not Dad.
This is also hard to explain, but I almost didn’t answer. Finally, though, I gave her a reluctant “What?”
“Can I come in?”
“I guess.”
There she was. She looked like she’d been crying.
Her face—I don’t know. I just saw a coward’s face.
I was judging things I didn’t understand, probably, but all I knew was the way she’d looked down at her hands and kept her mouth shut while he railed.
It was easy to speak now, wasn’t it? Just to me?
“Are you okay?”
I shrugged.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The stuff he said—it wasn’t right. I hope…” Her eye caught the round, bright moon visible through my window, and she gazed at it, as if she wished she could travel there, and maybe stay. “I hope you could come to me and talk about these things.”
It was the last thing I thought I could do, honestly. “Okay,” I said. But only because I felt exhausted.
We sat there in an uncomfortable silence until she sighed and said, “Okay. Good night.” I wasn’t sure she knew what to do with me. Now, or maybe ever.
In the morning, there it was. Your text, finally.
We should talk.
We decided to meet on the steps of Denny Hall on the UW campus, where we both hoped to go after we graduated.
It was the oldest structure there, built in 1895 to house the entire campus then, an old mini palace with turrets, if a palace had chipped tile floors and nondescript classrooms and a bell tower that only played recorded chimes.
It was a beautiful spot, though. A long walkway spilled from the steps like a bridal veil, surrounded by huge, old maple trees that had seen some things, plenty of breakups, likely, and the ancient stone benches that lined either side likely did, too.
How many conversations were they a part of?
How much gossip, and hope, and heartache, over almost a hundred and fifty years?
You were already there when I arrived. You sat on a step, spinning a leaf by its stem.
“Hey,” you said.
“Hey.” My stomach felt sick. I was trying not to panic.
“Look at this.” You held out the leaf.
“It’s enormous.”
I took it. I realized they were all around me, and I looked up at the trees changing. It always seemed weird that people celebrated this season, that they drove for miles sometimes, to see something dying. That’s what those leaves were doing. It was beautiful, though, for sure.
“Are you doing okay?” you asked. But your voice wobbled.
I shrugged. I couldn’t speak.
“My mom thinks…”
I tightened my jaw. My teeth actually gritted together. I didn’t care what your mom thought. A bunch of words, arguments, arguments for us, burbled to the surface, but I kept quiet.
“That things are getting too intense between us, you know. That we should maybe cool it down. Like, take a break, or whatever.”
“You mean break up.”
“Or whatever.” You stared down at your hands. It reminded me of Mom. I felt furious all of a sudden. It would be nice, you know, if someone fought for me for once.
“What do you think?”
“I think only about you, and how much I love you, and want to be with you, and so maybe she’s right. Especially with school starting and stuff. Like, maybe we should put the focus back on what we should be focusing on. Our priorities right now.”
I could see that you’d made up your mind. I was shocked, mostly. And I didn’t want to make some argument for myself. I started to cry. You started to cry. We held each other on the steps, and I could feel your sobs against my body, as you likely felt mine, one body of grief and goodbye.
“I love you,” you said, intensely.
“I love you,” I said, intensely.
We stared into each other’s eyes, intensely. This is what you looked like when you were devastated. There was still so much to find out about you.
It seemed ridiculous, really, to break up, when there was so much feeling between us.
To break up because there was so much feeling.
When the Fates had put us together like that, too, over and over again.
When our story had barely begun. When we weren’t finished yet.
I could feel how we weren’t done, no way.
“I can’t…” You trailed off. “I’m just going to say goodbye now. Fast. Okay? I’m just going to—”
“Go,” I said.
It felt all dramatic. But also, it was all dramatic.
We weren’t ready for this. We didn’t want it, either, so why do it?
We understood that it was required, but why?
In some ways, I didn’t even believe it would stick, that this was it, forever.
At the same time, my insides were collapsing, because this was it.
You started walking down those steps, away.
When you got to the bottom, you held your hands up, linked your fingers over your shoulder.
Infinity.
I did it back, but you didn’t turn around.
You walked in the direction of the Jacobsen Observatory, the second oldest building on campus, the sandstone tower that held your future. Or so I thought. I walked—well, nowhere. I didn’t know where or what my future was, aside from home. Loneliness and anger were my future there.
I still held that leaf. I looked down at its impossible, shocking beauty. Its veins, you know, echoing ours. I felt stunned. I sat on one of the ancient stone benches. When I realized I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Frank, I began to cry again.
What had been mine the day before—it was yanked away. Gone. Breaking up—it was grief for the past, sure, but grief for the future even more.
My heart ached. It was a novice ache. Beginner angst. I thought I was at the end point of grief, maximum capacity, a red zone. But I knew nothing about grief, not really.