The Re-do #3
I lifted my gaze to the drop ceiling, trying to remember the last time I spoke to Cat in person.
The lighthouse, when we all got together to celebrate Ben.
I couldn’t believe I’d let it go so long.
She was the best of us, and she’d been handed the shittiest hand in the world, and I sure as hell hadn’t made it easier.
“Fuck,” I exhaled. “Fine.”
“You’re gonna do it?” Phoebe sounded awestruck. When I looked at her, her eyes were the size of planets. “You’re going to give her the letter? In person?”
“I think I have to.”
“You definitely do,” she agreed with a cautious smile. “When are you gonna do it?”
“As soon as possible.” I tugged a hand through my hair, considering my options.
It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to fly; I’d knock myself out for the duration of the flight like I did for the Santorini trip, or London, or Sydney.
The problem was when Ambien failed and I ended up spending hours in the throes of a panic attack and then vomiting, passing out, and waking up with a paramedic taking my vitals because my pulse was so erratic, it seemed like a serious medical emergency.
Who was I kidding? I wasn’t flying.
I’d always liked driving; it gave me something steady to focus on and helped quiet my brain down.
The only problem was driving to Oregon would provide plenty of opportunities to talk myself out of it.
I needed to do this, but I had a shitty track record when it came to doing things that needed to be done.
“You look like you’re thinking hard about something,” Phoebe said, snapping me out of my head. I nodded through another roll of thunder. “You kind of look like you’re in pain.”
“I have to do this,” I said. “Doesn’t mean I want to.”
She pursed her lips, considering this. Then she said, “I think we should go with you.”
“Who should go with me where?”
“Me and Violet. We should go with you to see Catalina.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re a part of this.”
“You are not.”
“Dude, I’m the one talking you into this. You might not like it, but I’m a part of it.”
I resisted an eye roll at the return of her arrogance, borderlining on delusion. This kid was on another level. She probably thought she could talk at me for an hour and wear me down.
“All right,” I said, lacing my fingers behind my head. “Let’s say this wasn’t a half-baked absurdity that popped into a preteen’s brain thirty seconds ago.”
She scrunched up her face, annoyed. “I’m fourteen, you dick.”
“How would it work?”
She pushed herself up so she could fold her legs under herself in the chair.
“Well, Catalina is in Oregon,” she said, pausing to gauge my reaction to this.
I kept my expression neutral, trying not to think about Cat withdrawing from grad school and moving across the country.
She’d claimed she wanted to be closer to her dad, but we all knew it helped to be as far from the scene of the crime as possible.
I’d felt the same way until I walked into Sequest.
“Yes,” I finally said when Phoebe refused to continue. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t question it.
“So, we get a cheap flight and hotel and spend the weekend in Oregon. Quick and painless.” She winced. “Well. Quick.”
A rush of wind and rain clawed at the window. I crossed my arms and said, “I don’t do planes.”
Her face fell. “Oh. Wait, then how are you getting there? You’re gonna drop everything and drive across the country?”
“You should go,” I said. Another beat of thunder struck, and I tried to ignore the pang of guilt manifesting in my gut at the crestfallen look on Phoebe’s face. “Do you have a ride? You shouldn’t be walking in this rain. Or with a blister.”
“We are so not done here,” she said.
“You sure about that?”
“Your job is helping kids, right?” She stood, staring me down fiercely.
“So help me. I’m fucking miserable, Dex.
Everything sucks and I keep trying to look on the bright side, but there isn’t one.
Or at least there wasn’t until that letter showed up.
It’s the first thing that has made me feel anything other than depressed in nine months. I just… I need this.”
“This has nothing to do with you,” I reminded her.
“I don’t care.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “I need this, Dex. And I think my sister needs it too.”
Immediately, I thought of Violet standing in the lobby in that red dress. I like to look nice. It makes me feel good.
I shook the memory from my head. “I find it hard to believe your sister would be on board with this.”
“Violet won’t care. She’ll do whatever I want.”
I scoffed. I didn’t doubt this was true, but the fact that Phoebe was willing to exploit it so carelessly meant trouble. Those two were deep in the trenches, together, and yet they couldn’t have been further apart.
I couldn’t afford to care about this.
“I know that sounds bad,” Phoebe said, backtracking.
“But I’m not kidding when I say she needs this.
Probably as much as we do. She’s not happy.
Violet literally used to be sunshine, and now she’s just sad.
All the time. And she can’t even try to move on and be a normal twenty-six-year-old because she has me.
She hasn’t done a single thing for herself in months. ”
A flash of Violet breaking down, head in her hands. I don’t know what to do anymore, she’d cried. I don’t know what I’m doing and it’s ruining her.
“This,” I said, gritting my teeth, “has nothing to do with her, either. What are you expecting? That a week on the road will fix your problems? I promise you, it won’t.”
“I’m not stupid,” she snapped. “I know it won’t fix anything. I’m not looking for a fix. If anything, I’m looking for a Band-Aid.”
“Then look somewhere else. Join a club, read a book, learn how to play an instrument. The world is full of interesting shit to focus on. Find something you like and keep at it until life doesn’t feel so impossible anymore.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
I didn’t like the look she gave me, like she could see through to my most broken parts. Like she could see through my facade just as well as I could see through hers.
“It’s what everyone’s doing,” I said. Phoebe’s shoulders slumped and she sank down in the chair.
“I found my dad’s polaroid camera,” she mentioned. I tried not to think about the collection of cameras Ben had lined up on our shared dresser growing up. The walls surrounding his bed were covered in photos, most of them of us.
“That’s a good start,” I said quietly.
“But I don’t have anything to take pictures of. Violet won’t let me ride the bus alone. So, what am I supposed to do? Take pictures of our apartment? Of Violet not smiling? These aren’t things I want to remember, Dex.”
“You know it’s not going to be like this forever, right?”
She sniffed. “But it’s like this now. It’s been like this for nine months. So, like, maybe it is going to be like this forever, if it’s been this way for so long already.”
“Unfortunately, in order to move on, you have to start moving,” I said. She glowered at me.
“I’m trying. You’re not letting me.”
“And what happens if I agree to this and at the end, you feel exactly the same?” She dropped her gaze to her lap, gnawing her lip. “It’s a fantasy. You’re dreaming up an easy way out. There is no easy here, Phoebe.”
She turned away, quickly wiping a tear from her cheek. I’d let her down, unaware she’d held me to the sort of esteem that warranted hope or disappointment. I hadn’t realized just how invested she had become in that letter, in Catalina, in Benji.
“I miss feeling normal,” she said softly.
“You are normal,” I responded. “It is really fucking normal to lose someone. In fact, it’s boring.”
She let out a wet laugh, wiping her eyes again. “Oh, yeah. It’s been so boring.”
At first, Phoebe reminded me a bit of Benji; that chaotic energy, always on the move, passionate to a fault.
Now, though, the closer I looked, the more I recognized pieces of myself I’d lost. A younger sibling who wants to terrorize and save their older sibling in equal measure, a little bit selfish, impatient, stubborn as all holy hell.
She reminded me of the me I was twenty years ago, ten, three.
The me I was when my brother was a phone call away.
“You look like you’re about to tell me it gets better,” Phoebe said. I reached into one of the lower desk drawers where I kept a few multipacks of snacks. Kids were crankier after school, and I’d figured out snacks helped roughly 80 percent of the time. I tossed her a small bag of chips.
“Do I look like an optimist to you?” I replied. She tore open the bag and popped a chip in her mouth, considering me.
“No. But you did tell me it wasn’t gonna be like this forever, which is pretty optimistic.”
“It’s realistic,” I argued. “You might be sad forever. But it won’t always feel like it has its hands around your throat.”
She smiled wryly. “And you say you’re not an optimist.”