SULLIVAN #2
He doesn’t answer the first time I try his number, but he does the second.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“You’re calling me? It’s late. Are you okay? What is this number?”
The sound of his voice causes the tears that dried up while I was pulling myself together with Chelsea to spill over. “Do you miss me?” I ask, my voice unable to hide the fact that I’m crying.
“Yeah. I do. Do you miss me?”
“Yeah.”
“What number is this?”
“I got a new phone.”
“And a new number?”
“I got another phone,” I say.
“Okay. Are you all right?” he asks again.
“Do you ever think you were a mistake?”
He’s silent. Not even a breath comes through. I check the phone to make sure the call is still connected. Then he says, “Sometimes.”
“Cause life would go on, right?”
“It’d be a hell of a lot less beautiful.”
“Without you?” I laugh shortly. “Maybe.”
“Without you,” he says. “Without your face. Without your music.”
“So much potential,” I whisper the words I’ve heard a thousand times before.
In a deeper, more serious tone, he says, “Do you need me to come get you?”
“No,” I tell him. “I’m okay.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I was just wondering if you could relate.”
“Yeah, I can relate. Of course I can, but as much as I hurt sometimes, I don’t want to hurt anyone else, either. Not like that.”
I suck in a breath and swipe at my tears. “How do you stay strong?”
“Fuck, I mean, I just hope for the best, I guess. I hope one day it’ll all be worth it. I hope I’ll at least make myself proud and bring a smile to someone’s face. Also, Sullivan?”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to remember that you have a gift.”
I snort. My “gift” is what got me into this mess in the first place. “Sometimes it feels like a curse.”
“It’s not.”
“Do you ever wish you sucked at football?” I ask him.
“Not really.”
I’ve spent maybe too much time lately wondering what Knight’s family is like. What group of people conspired to make him the wonderful way he is? Talented, secure, confident, kind. And not a fuck-up.
My father, however, the ultimate fuck-up, seems to have handed all his genes down to me.
My mom has her shit mostly together and all, but she’s one of the unhappiest people I’ve ever met.
She works hard. She meets her obligations.
I wouldn’t call her nurturing, but she’s not cruel.
She’s more stressed and tired than anything else, but she handles it.
She doesn’t give up even though life dealt her a tough hand.
I guess that does make me as ungrateful as Adrian said. Or weak. Worst of all, though, I’m scared. I’m afraid I’ll break. I’ve already been too close to breaking too many times. It’s getting harder and harder to find any light to reach for.
Knight’s voice in my ear is a flicker. “You’re gonna think this is dumb, and probably very gay, but can I share my favorite song with you?”
“Your favorite song?”
“One of my favorite songs. It makes me feel better when I’m having a rough time. Sorta pumps me up, you know?”
“What song?”
“I’m not telling you, but I’ll send it to you when we get off the phone, and you have to promise you won’t judge me and just listen to it, even if you’ve heard it a million times before.”
I roll my eyes even as a few more tears slips out. “Okay.” I take another deep breath. “How are things where you are?”
“They’re okay. The house by the lake is still a complete shambles. You’re missing out. They might bulldoze it by next year.”
“I hope not.” I’m remembering the shapes the dust motes mode and the sound of my cello echoing off the walls.
Remembering Knight’s moans and tears in the moonlight.
Something warm settles in the middle of my chest with the memory, and I miss him so much, I really do want to die.
“Can’t you nail some plywood to it and hold it together a little longer? ”
“Maybe. I can take the twins out there, see what they think. They like to fix things.”
“You should do that. Make it look like it can be fixed, then maybe whoever buys it won’t tear it down.”
“Would you buy it if you could?” he asks.
“Probably.”
“I picture you there a lot,” he says.
“You do?”
“When I came in that time and heard the music, I was pretty sure the place was fucking haunted. That creepy oboe scared the shit out of me.”
I laugh softly. “And there I was.”
“I couldn’t believe it.”
“Crazy coincidence.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he says.
“I mean, we were probably gonna run into each other at some point that summer.”
“I don’t know. We never had before.”
Our quiet conversation drifts from one thing or another about our hometown, then dips back down to Missouri and eventually sweeps up again to his plans for the week and the niece he’s expecting to be born any day now.
I marvel at how easy he is to talk to, how he laughs when I say anything even halfway funny or sarcastic.
“You should call me again tomorrow,” he says.
I nod to myself. “Yeah. Okay.”
“And listen to the song, all right?”
“Right. I thought you forgot.”
“No way. I’m gonna listen to it, too. You can tell me how stupid I am when we talk tomorrow, okay?”
I smile. “Okay.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
The song, when it comes through via a text, is “Titanium.”
I don’t laugh. I just do what he asked and listen to it. Over and over again, until I’m slumped against the closet wall, asleep.
It’s not until morning that I realize what he did by sending me that song and making me promise to call him back.
He kept me alive another day.