Twenty-Five
My leg jiggles under the desk. I dig my fingers into my knee and will myself to stop. To find a way to stim that doesn’t include parts of my body violently shaking and alerting my classmates, my parents, the local media that I am stressed.
Ash glances over, and I don’t blame him for the less-than-enthusiastic greeting. “What happened to letting me know the night before what we were doing?”
“Didn’t you get my email?” I ask, eyebrows so high they’re in another time zone. I blink until he looks away, stone-faced and counting down the minutes until he is free of me.
I was going to send it; I was going to make a straightforward Victoria sponge cake. I was going to bring in samples and review the highs and lows of cake during the 1840s. I’d had weeks of poor mug-cake outcomes and practice, and it would be a nice little end to all of this. A bow to tie everything up with.
But no. I couldn’t have just texted Ash a picture of rows of mini sponges and promised him an enthusiastic class response and a bland but comprehensive history of yeast in baked goods.
I had to go searching for references to food in the book. I’d sat there in the kitchen, surrounded by genoise, and gotten swept up in Emily Bront?’s prose, and all I could think about was how Cathy and Heathcliff poisoned everything around them.
“Class, let’s give a big round of applause for Poppy and Billy as they present a wood carving from the final scene in Cyrano de Bergerac.” Ms. Chris claps enthusiastically. Poppy smiles blandly in a yellow dress impersonating a tablecloth and a headband with plastic ants glued to it. She makes no effort to contribute as Billy rattles away about Cyrano’s great love and unmatched wit. His enthusiasm has her face souring a little, but his carving is objectively skilled.
“Please tell me you have something prepared.”
I blink. Ash’s lack of faith is surprising me. My love life may have fully descended into chaos, but I’ve never just not done an assignment. My skin pebbles at the sheer audacity. “Ash, of course I do.”
He exhales in a rush and his words spill out. “I think I have cause to be a little concerned because you never texted me back.”
I try not to wear every single thought on my face, but it takes considerable work. The truth is his impersonal and solitary? felt foreign and ugly in our chat, so I just ignored it. I hadn’t decided what to do at that point, and wasn’t certain I’d fully given up on the sponges.
But sitting there with all my notes and knowing the slant we were taking on toxic love as a theme, I’d wanted to do something more.
I’d wanted to take Cathy’s and Heathcliff’s hearts, twisted with selfishness, bitterness, and regret, and fix them.
So, I did.
Odette and Tiffany move to the front to present Robinson Crusoe, each trying her best to pretend the other one isn’t there.
I lean in, Ash’s heady smell wrapping around me like a vise. “I rewrote one of the scenes to something that wasn’t… toxic.”
His eyes sharpen on my face, zeroing in on my poor attempt at casual. “Which one?”
“The souls one.”
He nods, thoughtful. “It’s a good companion to our paper.” His shoulders relax an inch. “I assume I’m Nelly?”
“You can be Cathy if you prefer.”
“No, that’s you. The great romantic.” The words aren’t unkind, but it still feels like the gentlest kiss of a knife.
“Thank you, Odette and Tiffany,” Ms. Chris says weakly, as they wrap up and head back to their seats. “Next up, we have Ashton and Marlowe.”
Odette whoops loudly and my face feels hot. This was fine when I was scribbling in my kitchen to the soothing hum of my parents’ wine fridge, but here on display, it feels like I didn’t think this all the way through.
I busy myself moving two chairs front and center. Facing each other. I hand Ash his script and we take our seats, knees brushing.
“Our project was on Wuthering Heights,” I say, “and our paper focused on themes of destructive love. Toxic love.” I almost look at Josh, but don’t. “For our presentation, we have adapted one of the more famous scenes to something more modern and healthier.”
Ash nods at me and the little nudge helps push me over the edge.
“Nelly, I was hoping to talk to you about something,” I begin.
He leans in, like we’re a couple of girlfriends out for coffee.
“It won’t take too long, but it’s a bit serious.”
“Not really the vibe I’m looking for,” he recites, raising an eyebrow over his script.
Low laughter ripples through the class, and my next words have more power behind them. “I was talking about Heathcliff to my therapist, and how it was a miracle that I’d found him. How being with him was like heaven on earth.” I take a deep breath. “But then I realized I don’t think I know anything about heaven.”
“Probably because you’re not fit to go there.” His tone is teasing, and he’s reading the cues perfectly. The class laughs again, and my brain is shouting This is actually going well!
“Very funny. I dreamed about it once. Heaven,” I say, clarifying. “What it would be like. Who would be there, and it’s different. It’s different than what has developed between me and Heathcliff.”
“Ugh, I hate analyzing dreams. Now if you want to talk enneagrams, I might reconsider.” He reads my direction and moves to stand up, but my hand shoots out, his wrist burning my fingertips. I’m supposed to let go, but I don’t. I look him right in the face and I don’t think I even need my paper for this part.
“Please stay.”
He frowns. I’m not reading from the script anymore.
“It’s important to me that you know this. That you realize that I’ve realized this. I thought Heathcliff was heaven because he’d been there from the beginning. He’d been as formative to my foundation as orthodontia, and he found me when I was young and clueless and easily swayed by long mysterious hair, moody moors, and pretty words about love.”
The class laughs again, and someone whistles that sexy sound. That high-low when something is about to get good.
“But I was wrong.” My hand tightens on him. “Just because something has been present for a long time doesn’t mean it has earned the right to stay forever—strangling any hope of growth or happiness. I thought I had no right to look at anyone else, because Heathcliff had brought me so low with his weaponized attention. His whispers that I’m not enough. That I don’t deserve actual heaven.”
I do release him this time, but it doesn’t matter. He’s frozen in his seat, paper dangling from his hands.
“Heathcliff knew I loved him, and he was right that I wasn’t good at it. I let him tell me what I felt and what it meant to be with somebody, but his demands and rules and standards were poisonous. I wasn’t myself, and he was never going to help me be anything more than a shadow of that.”
I take a deep breath, and it’s shaky but grateful all the same. “Whatever our souls are made of, mine is my own. I am not a shared existence—always half and lacking without the other. I’m an entire galaxy, and I need nothing or nobody to orbit.”
The silence stretches between us, and Ash flips frantically through his script at my gentle cough. “I’m going to need the name of your therapist.”
I laugh, because he sounds more lost than I’ve ever heard. “Sure, mental health is important. So are books. And friends who are there to remind you what’s important.” I grin at the back row and my people, looking at me like I’ve done more than just survive.
And then I turn back to Ash.
“Thank you for helping me, Nelly. I thought I lost myself for a while there, but you helped light the way back.”
He nods, his throat bobbing.
I stand and give the class a small bow. “Thanks for your attention.”
Ms. Chris is beaming. “Thank God someone said the quiet part out loud. I have never forgiven Heathcliff for that puppy.” She clasps her hands. “Class? Any questions, comments, cries of protest?”
Josh raises his hand, and I stiffen.
“It was cool, I guess, but I don’t know. The original speech has some of the most romantic lines ever written. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” He leans back, perfectly confident to share his opinion on anything and anyone. “Kind of sad not to acknowledge that.”
I want to tell him that of course he would like the idea that things are fated, and that soul mates exist and it’s your duty to sit there and get trampled for love. But I know better now. I know a beautiful package, beautiful words can sometimes blind you, so you don’t see the rot underneath. And I’m pretty sure Emily Bront? would agree.
“You’re incorrect,” I say simply, and fold my hands in front of me, waiting to be dismissed.
“Excuse me?”
I can taste the indignation radiating off him, and it bursts through me like sunshine and sweet tea.
“You’re incorrect,” I say again, slower, like he’s embarrassed us both by his inability to grasp this. This time I don’t wait for the invitation and return to my seat.
Ash folds back into his desk, dwarfing our corner of the room, and I’m too chickenshit to glance his way. To ask him what he saw on my face when I looked at him.
My blood roars in my ears, and I float through five more presentations before the bell releases us.
Ash is transferring papers into his bag, and I hover at his elbow until he faces me. I just want to talk about everything with him. The weather, the presentation, or how Josh is an empty room where I have shut off the lights, and nothing on this planet could power it up again.
I jump in before I lose this moment. “I gave him the last letter, but it’s not what you think.” I have his attention, and I barrel forward. “It was a goodbye, Ash. A collection of what I should have known all along.” I wait until he meets my eyes, and they darken until I feel like every inch of me is scorched.
I bolt for the door and second period, my courage finally abandoning me. My calves burn and I only allow myself to slow down when my next classroom comes into focus.
It wasn’t a grand gesture, but it was a start.