Love in Real Life

by Seth King

  Here – look at this! You made this! You did this! What do you have to say for yourself?

  But she would never come back. There was nothing I could do. And I would never get the apology, or even an acknowledgement. George was right – I had to accept that. Or die trying.

  I didn’t even cry that much as we walked to her ashes. Okay, maybe a little, but I hid it as much as I could. I had to drop this fear, take a deep breath and let it go. I was never going to wake up one day and magically be my mother. All I could do was hope I’d fallen far enough from the tree to end up okay – but that also didn’t mean I couldn’t love that tree and acknowledge that it had grown me up…

  “Just open yourself,” he said as we got closer. “Accept the love she gave you, way back when.”

  Accept the love she gave, I thought. That was my issue from day one. The truth was that I’d probably loved George since the first time I’d put eyes on him. I’d just run from that love with everything in me.

  “And do you want to do this alone?” he asked as the vaults came into view.

  “No. I want you to stay.”

  I took out my phone and took the deepest breath of my life.

  Teddy Martin

  “Hey,” I said in front of her little box in the tomb-like structure along the fence. THEODORA PHANNOPOLOUS MARTIN, it read. MOTHER, SISTER AND WIFE. Being here in front of her…bones, or whatever you called a person’s cremated remains, was so emotional it gave me a rushing sound in my ears. I didn’t know if she was out there, or anywhere at all, really. But I did know she was in me, as awfully cheesy as that sounded. As a survivor of her, and all the mess she’d left behind, I was now obligated to figure out what she meant to me, and figure out how to work all that into my life. Finally. I couldn’t run away anymore. Being in front of her made that feel so real.

  “You probably don’t remember me, but I’m your son,” I began. “I guess you made a mess of me a long time ago, and to be honest I’m still cleaning myself up. But I didn’t come to your grave to think about that. I just want you to know that it’s okay. I’m okay.” I took a breath. “The angry little boy you knew is gone, and I’ll never be him again. I am new now. I’m turning into an adult, and even though you weren’t around to watch who I became, I’m starting to notice that I feel proud whenever I notice a trait of yours I retained. I have your wobbly walk and your hesitant eyes and your taste for cinnamon cookies, and I scream just like you whenever I’m watching a scary movie. You remember – that high-pitched thing that could scare the skin off a snake? It’s pretty embarrassing, but it reminds that you were here once, and that once there was a time when I had a mom who loved me enough to be strong for me.”

  Another breath. “And even though I’ll never understand your decisions at the end, I know that you tried very hard for me, in your own way. You were broken and I need to stop blaming you. And I need to remember all of that, because you can’t deal with what you won’t feel. Now that I’m learning there is no clear road to absolution, no obvious path to the right thing, I feel like I know you a little better, even if it’s in the rearview. And I won’t just remember the bad things, Mom. I will never forget how beautiful you were when you were young, when you were the way you were born to be, and I will never let go of how special I felt when you would let me sleep in your bed on those nights when you were sober.” I swallowed, breathed. “So, yeah, I’m gonna keep you around, and I’m going to try to not be angry anymore. You tried to love me, and that is enough. You tried, Mom. You gave me love in the only way you knew how, and now I will accept that love. There will be a place for you in my memories now.” Another swallow. “I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ll end up, but I would be honored if it somehow involved you in some way. Your new adult, Teddybear.”

  For a while, only the crickets sang.

  “That was beautiful,” he finally said. “Gorgeous. Really.”

  “Well you wrote it.”

  “Psh. You contributed.”

  “Yeah, probably three words.” I rolled my eyes, then stopped. “Wait.” I took off an old bracelet and laid it down. “She can have this.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s hers. Why do you think I wear the ugly thing everywhere? I thought it was the only piece of her I had left, but now I’m going to believe she’s everywhere. I don’t need it anymore. She’s gonna be with me now. Thanks to you, I guess.”

  I stood back and thought over this insane little road trip. In some ways I’d probably acted like a total maniac and scared George away forever, but at least he knew what he was getting into now. These were my colors, and now he was acquainted with all the shades of Teddy, even if he ran for the hill because of it. And now my mother’s ghost was on the way out. Now I could let George’s love flow into the vacancy – or do everything I could to try, at least.

  “George?” I asked soon.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think I’ve been depressed all this time? Do you think that’s what was wrong with me?”

  “Honestly, yes,” he said without hesitation. “Fish don’t know they’re in water. You don’t know your world is dark until it all lights up. Depression can be like a summer thunderstorm – sometimes you don’t even know it’s coming until you’re already trapped in it.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “I can help. I mean, I’m better than anyone, probably. I know the tools. I owe it to you, anyway, after dragging you to this place that obviously triggered you. God, I owe you, like, the biggest gift ever now.”

  “No presents,” I smiled. “No gifts. You can build me a really big bookshelf, though.”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Ugh,” I sighed soon. “What must you think about me, after this? I must seem like such a wreck.”

  “I don’t think about you. I feel you. You are in my skin. I feel you everywhere, see you everywhere, hear you with every heartbeat. There aren’t any words for that. Trust me, I’ve read a lot of books, and I’ve never seen this conveyed perfectly accurately.”

  “These authors need to get better at writing, then,” I smiled.

  “Or they just need to meet you.” I nuzzled him, and he let out a sigh that seemed a hundred years in the making.

  “Wanna know something crazy?” he laughed soon.

  “What?”

  “I quit school.”

  “What?”

  “I was signed up to leave next month and go to school in New York, but I withdrew. Sorry I never told you. My mom is going to kill me, but I don’t care. I’m enrolling at University of North Florida in Jacksonville, and I’m staying. And before you start in on how I’m ruining my life for you and all that, this is what I want. I was dreading New York, anyway. All those crowds? Come on. I’m not that healed.”

  I just stared at him. “You gave up New York? For me?”

  “And I would do it again.” He breathed. “So what now?”

  That was such a complicated question. What now? What was I going to do? Who was I going to become? Where did I want my life to go?

  I had no idea. But the for the first time, I liked it. Loved it, even. George was making me more comfortable with the silence inside myself, with the hurt within my bones.

  “What now? The bookworm actually fell for someone,” I said, still a little in disbelief. “The nerd actually found someone. Who would’ve thought?”

  “No,” he corrected. “The bookworms. Plural. Don’t forget that I’m a hopeless nerd, too.” He laughed. “It’s funny. You know this whole bookstore tour was just a ruse for me to hang out with you more, right?”

  “I suspect that now. But you had me at the beginning, George. You never needed an excuse at all.”

  “It’s interesting, what we see in hindsight. And hey, it’s gonna be nine soon!” he said, pulling me in by the shoulder, bringing me home. “How about it? How about finally finding Miss Judy Blume and finishing our tour, once and for all?”

  I took his hand, breathed him in. “
Oh, George. No more books for a second. Let’s write our own story now.”

  “Really?”

  I stood up and got ready to greet the rest of my life. “Yes. Let’s go see how alive we can be.”

  The Florida Times-Union

  November 26

  Local Bookstore Reports Booming Business as Social Media Fans Flock to Take “Selfies” at Popular Spots

  By Susan Mischler-Shaw, Staff Writer

  Recently local Jacksonville Beach residents have reported something they haven’t seen in a while in this quiet (and, some would argue, past-its-prime) locale: crowds.

  “It’s just wild,” says Maureen Lintz of Fourth Avenue South as she stared out from her porch on a recent morning. “These kids with their books and their cell phones, they line up outside the store at eight or nine AM every morning, and it just keeps getting bigger. I had a Volvo back over my flower bed last week, and I would’ve been furious if I didn’t know the business was helping our town.”

  And indeed, that business is proving a massive boon to local interests: in three months, the Bookworm, the whimsical bookstore and event space owned by Nelson Martin and his son, Theodore, has claimed nearly forty thousand visitors. From its popular café, the Meow – watch out for the roaming cats – to its many rooms full of artsy book displays to its new rooftop lounge, the Pageturner, fans are flocking to Jacksonville Beach to take selfies at their favorite spots they see on the Bookworm’s Instagram profile, which boasts over one hundred thousand followers and counting.

  “It’s so cool!” says fourteen-year-old Chelsea Hellstrom, who came from Orange Park, Florida with her father to buy a new book from her favorite YouTube makeup blogger. “I feel like I’m famous, getting to take pictures with the cats and the sculptures and all the stuff I’ve seen on Snapchat!”

  Mr. Martin, the owner, says his most recent hit is the Pageturner, a sunset bar overlooking the ocean that serves author-inspired cocktails like Poe’s Whiskey Sour and Hemingway’s Mojito. “We opened for two nights a week,” said Mr. Martin, “and we’ve already increased our revenue by twenty percent. We’ve even bought the lot next door and we’re designing the expansion as we speak. People are driving in from Orlando and Savannah just to see the shop and pet the cats and take selfies in the courtyard – it’s just ridiculous.”

  A new series of community events, called The Bookworm Presents, is launching next week with The Bookworm Presents: An Intimate Evening with Sam J.D. Hunt, a traveling bestselling author. Mr. Martin and his son were also recently given keys to the city of Jacksonville Beach by Mayor Alvin Brown, who said their business had boosted local tourism by nearly twenty percent in one year. A party to honor the pair, and to celebrate a new memorial commemorating Mr. Martin’s late wife, will be held this weekend at the Bookworm. As always, more details can be found at this publication’s website.

  Books Love in Real Life

  Final Update

  (for now)

  So, I’ve been thinking: when will any of us ever believe that we deserve love?

  I mean, on a basic level I am aware that I deserve a few love-ish things simply because I am human: I deserve for my great-aunt to smile when she sees me, for my best friend to hold me when I’m scared sometimes, for my dad to go crazy on me occasionally when I’m being an idiot because he loves me and wants the best for me. But beyond that: when will we actually get it through our heads that we deserve romantic, butterfly-infested, firework-exploding love? The kind that’s supposed to redeem you, the kind that makes you wake up happier, the kind you only read about in books, and then see in the less-effective movie versions of those books? When will we stop recoiling from anything that may potentially make us happy down to our bones, make us smile the kind of smile that makes your face hurt?

  My whole life up until a few months ago was one pathetic pursuit of unhappiness. I am old enough to admit that, and young enough to still not fully comprehend it. When I was a kid I was dumb and unfortunate enough to let a few very dumb people in my life convince me of the lie that I was essentially unlovable, and since a child will believe that they are whatever the world tells them, my adolescence became one long quest to fulfill that prophecy. The world told me I was garbage and I sought out to become that garbage, to ensure that the front porch matched the inside rooms.

  As time marched on I isolated myself with books and depression and attitude and by burying my perma-scowl into a never-ending train of trashy scandal novels, and I chained myself to misery by chasing after any guy who had a removed distance in his eyes and a propensity for slipping out casual insults at my expense. The boy who was mistreated looked for other people who would mistreat him, too, and that’s what my life became: one giant mess. A silent scream. A state of quiet rage.

  But a few months ago someone new appeared right in my bookstore, almost like he was supposed to be there all along. After years of desolation, he was like a wish I’d forgotten I’d made: poof, here he is. Here’s the boy. He was wearing a smile that made me believe in him, and he had straight teeth and sad eyes and he was good and right and kind and broken and hilarious. And he treated me like nobody had ever hurt me, like I’d never set my heart on unhappiness, like I was still unruined. And he had pretty eyes.

  Anyway, look at me, running away with my love for this remarkable dude. I still don’t really know the exact answer to why humans are all such a bunch of self-defeating morons intent on maintaining our own misery, but now I think I’m a little closer to thinking that happiness is a possibility for me. Because he’s making me want to believe I deserve it.

  So, in other, more lighthearted news: I’m taking some time away from the blog. As some of you have seen, I have a new costar in my updates. He has brown hair and a warm smile and I almost shut him out of my life when he didn’t deserve it. Frankly, he’s awesomesauce. I’m sure I’ll see you guys eventually, but until then I’ll be stepping back to live in real life. (And you can’t be mad. I practically assaulted you guys with way too many unsolicited updates for years back when I didn’t have much going on, so I deserve it.)

  Basically a very long time ago I sort of removed myself from real life, and I told myself I was fine with living my life in books. But that was stupid. Don’t get me wrong – books are still an essential part of my life, and always will be. But I won’t be burying my nose forever anymore to escape what I can’t face. For now, I found something better than fantasy, and I’m not going to mess this up for myself again. Not this time (hopefully). I deserve this, and I am going to keep telling myself that until I believe it. For the both of us.

  Say it with me now, Teddy: I deserve this…I deserve this…I deserve this…

  Anyway, time to stop being psychotic. I love you all, but it’s time for me to go live now, in real life.

  Love always,

  Teddy

  (Bookworm on Hiatus)

  George Charles

  The craziest thing was that for so long, I could smell my anxiety. When it came on, it was tangy and metallic, and it would hit me in waves, just drift into me in wafts and layers like when you’d open up your childhood drawer and smell your own past. On other occasions the fear would just slam into me sometimes; grab me and hold on tight. Sometimes I’d start to wake up in the morning and break into the light and then fight as hard as I could to remain asleep, to stay where it was easy. But I always woke up anyway.

  And then it all started changing. And he was such a big part of that change. He wasn’t a sky full of stars – he was a cloudless sky during a new moon, bright enough to give off his own quiet, elegant light.

  Sometimes, in the past, I thought I would never be anywhere close to okay, and I was okay with that. I was okay with not being okay. I got myself to half-okay, and that was fine at the time. But starting this spring, something funny started happening in my horrible anxiety dreams. They started ending as soon as I wanted them to. Soon I would wake up without fear, without dread. Finally I had something stronger than fear. I was loved now, and T
eddy’s faith in me made me so brave. Not perfect, but forty perfect there, maybe. I knew I would never be “normal.” But I didn’t care anymore. Not next to him. Because he accepted me, exactly as I was.

  All I had to do now was find a way to hold onto him forever.

  THE GREAT CHARLES/MARTIN BOOKSTORE TOUR

  FINAL STOP: THE BOOKWORM

  JACKSONVILLE BEACH, FL

  DECEMBER

  George gave me a promise ring on a windy Sunday in September. I only hesitated for a moment before taking it and throwing a hug over his shoulders. The prince of hesitation wasn’t quite so hesitant anymore.

  At first I thought the gift wasn’t very “us,” and that it didn’t really fit our whole dynamic. But then I looked on the inside and noticed that he’d had something engraved: G and T. Adventurers in literature and life. Pain can give you wings.

  I only lost it twice after that, and found it deep in my drain both times.

  The Bookworm was getting busier than ever, if that was even possible, and we were unveiling new features all the time. I’d had the idea for the Bookswing, a swinging bench in a corner of the courtyard surrounded by vines and flowers, and I was now posting weekly book reviews, too. But George’s ideas were better – after paying a small fortune for a liquor license, we’d turned a section of the rooftop into the Pageturner. I was grateful, though, because it meant my dad had something to keep him occupied while he slowly recovered back to full health.

  In October I took a shot of vodka in a parking lot and then walked into a counseling class for sexual assault survivors. The first class in the little community annex was awkward, sweaty, and panicky, but as I walked out into the brisk air, I felt lighter than I had my whole life. Pre-George, I would never have even admitted the term “assault survivor” out loud, and this was another gift from him: he’d made me comfortable with my pain. Comfortable enough to admit it, at least. Because you couldn’t outrun pain. All you could do was stop, turn around, and let it hit you. Then the rebuilding could begin.