Even if I’m an idiot.
It’s not like I decided to leave all at once. This may sound strange, but I don’t think I really decided I was leaving until I was actually doing it. It hit me about fifteen miles from home. I looked out at the highway and I thought, Huh. Look at you being the change you want to see. I almost stopped the bus then, got off, turned back. But I didn’t.
Franco is worried about me, I can tell. I asked him if I could help out at the store. I said, “You don’t even need to pay me,” even though I need the money.
He said, “Hmm.”
I said, “I can stock shelves and keep things clean and help out with customers.” He looked at my hair. My shoes. “Or organize the stockroom where no one will see me.”
“Hmm,” he said again.
I took this as a yes. I need to keep busy or I’m going to lose it. As in my mind. So I went straight to the back room, where he has piles of boxes just waiting to be unpacked. Where there are cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. Where there is a stack of old photos of the store through the years—1933, 1945, 1960, 1978—edges curled yellow, just waiting to be framed. He followed me and watched as I scrounged through the mess for an old yellow step stool, which creaked when I unfolded it, as I uncovered a broom, leaning behind the bathroom door, as I climbed onto the step stool and knocked out the first cobweb.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
He held up his hands like do I have a choice?
“Great,” I said. And then I hopped off the stool and held out my hand. He glanced down at it and the edges of his mouth twitched, threatening to turn upward. He put his hand in mine and we shook on it.
So it appears I have a job. Fifteen dollars an hour to start, six hours a day, six days per week. I’ll be rich by summer.
Franco just poked his head in here and shouted a dinner invitation, and I know it’s because I look thin and I’ve got crap hair and crap shoes and a crap life. I won’t go because it’s better not to depend on anyone, but for one horrible second I thought I was going to cry right in his face. He hates everyone except his wife.
I won’t go back home. Not after everything that’s happened. I don’t want to go back anyway. I think the part of me that’s still breathing would die and then that would be it, the end.
But what the hell am I going to do here?
Bea
p.s. Don’t try to look up MG online. You won’t find him on my Twitter profile because I deleted it. Sorry, Ez.
Subject: MG take two
From: Bea
To: Ezra
Date: Tues 16 Apr 17:21 CST
I’m writing from the library, where I’m sitting at a table stacked with books. Calculus. Physics. Anthropology. This probably sounds Boring, Boring, and Boring, to you, or maybe—overachieving younger brother that you are—it sounds like the ideal way to spend a Tuesday.
I worked all day at Franco’s, and while it feels good to move around and keep my hands busy, my brain needs something to focus on. Otherwise all I do is fret and worry and ask myself what I did to scare Mystery Guy away. Or, alternatively, I sit in a fury and think of all the things I wish would happen to him.
So I am studying for no reason other than that I need a distraction and this library is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen and these books were literally sitting here on this table when I sat down.
Did you know:
Human penises rely on blood flow to create an erection but other mammals actually have a penis bone?
Neanderthals were redheads?
If the sun were made of bananas, it would be just as hot as it is now, made of gas?
Events in the future can change what happens in the past?
Think about that last one, Ez. Events in the future can change what happens in the past.
What if all the things we do tomorrow—every choice we make, big and small—could somehow change our shitty, messed-up past? Would we suddenly become different people? Would we be somewhere else with some other family? Would Mom have stayed with our dad?
Or would we make our past worse than it was? Like, would Darren have been our actual father?
I’m not sure I like this idea. I want to, but it puts a shitload of pressure on tomorrow.
Subject: MG take three
From: Bea
To: Ezra
Date: Tues 16 Apr 18:04 CST
Okay.
Right after I sent that last email this came in. From Mystery Guy:
Something came up. Sorry. Let me make it up to you?
I want to say no, Ez, but I won’t. I’ve come too far.
I wrote back: Sure.
One word, when what I really want is to write fifty-four of them: Don’t break my heart again. It’s already been broken more than it can handle, so if you’re planning to catfish me or stand me up again, just do me a favor and don’t do it. Tell me now that this ends with poor Bea and her poor shattered heart so I can be prepared.
At the same time I’m like: Stupid Bea. Stupid trusting Bea. Go home. Finish school. Beg Joe to take you back. Be there for your brother. Don’t turn your back on your mom. Admit you were wrong. Tell everyone you’re sorry. Even Darren.
At the same time I’m like: Please, please, please let him be real.
Subject: RE: MG take three
From: Ezra
To: Bea
Date: Tues 16 Apr 19:21 EST
What I really don’t understand is why he called you Gandhi. Are you sure he really knows you?
Subject: RE: MG take three
From: Ezra
To: Bea
Date: Tues 16 Apr 19:23 EST
I know, I know—lame. I was just trying to get you to laugh. Right?
Subject: The view from here
From: Ezra
To: Bea
Date: Tues 16 Apr 19:29 EST
I don’t know why you’d take any advice from me…but please be careful. The knight in shining armor might be great for a joust, and may have opened the gate to get you out of the castle—but he could be a complete fuckup once you get him off his horse. I don’t want to be too down on him just in case he ends up being decent. But it’s much easier to support someone with a tweet or a message. It’s a lot harder to support them in person.
* * *
—
Meanwhile, Mom wants her purse back.
This time I wasn’t called to the office. Southerly found me in the halls.
“Your mother called,” he said. “She wants her purse back.”
I actually snorted laughter.
“I take that to mean you still have it?” Southerly followed up. “She says she’s canceled the credit cards, but it would make things easier for her to have her driver’s license back.”
“Clearly, I exist to make her life easier.”
I had thought that Southerly might appreciate the humor of the situation, but he was stern when he said, “Watch it, Mr. Ahern. She is accusing you of theft.”
“If that’s the case, why don’t you ask her what she did with the money my grandmother left my sister and me? I’m pretty sure that when my dying Meemaw decided to leave us something for college, she didn’t think that meant paying off my stepfather’s college debts. Or his bail, for that matter. Tell my mother if she wants to play accusation poker, I’ve got plenty of good cards in my deck.”
Vice Principal Southerly, bless his heart, didn’t have a thing to say to that.
“I’ll return the purse and the license,” I assured him.
I didn’t add that I’d probably break into my own house i
n order to do it.
First, I need a lot of people to go to sleep.
Subject: Please tell me this isn’t how love works
From: Ezra
To: Bea
Date: Tues 16 Apr 23:14 EST
Oh, man. Joe lost his shit tonight.
I guess I should have seen it coming. When something circles in the air long enough, you have to know it’s going to run out of fuel and crash right into you.
When I got into his room he was just sitting on his bed, staring. Not in a Zen way either—more like shock. I tried to tiptoe past him, to the top bunk, but before I could get to the ladder, he said, “She never loved me, did she?”
“What do you mean?” I replied. “Of course she loved you.”
“Not really. Not the way I wanted her to.”
It didn’t seem like the right time to give him a hug or a kiss from you.
He went on. “It’s been three weeks, Ezra. Three weeks. Not a single word. If she loved me at all, she would have said something by now.”
“She must have her reasons….”
The look he gave me was poisoned. “Yeah—and the reason is that she doesn’t give a shit about me. I never should have proposed. I fucking knew it would scare her—and that’s exactly what it did.”
I couldn’t help it. I said, “Proposed?”
(I mean, really, Bea.)
“I didn’t have a ring or anything. But I wanted us to promise to be together forever. I felt like we should do that. After everything we’d been through. Of course, you don’t know about it—of course she didn’t tell anybody about it. I think she was embarrassed. I was so upset that night, Ezra—the night of the accident, I mean. Not the night I proposed. The night of the accident, I really thought we were over, and I didn’t mean to hurt myself, but I wasn’t paying attention—and then when I woke up in the hospital, I thought, You asshole. You almost killed yourself when all you want is to live with her. I told her that—and for maybe ten seconds I thought she felt the same way. But she was never going to feel the same way. I get it. She didn’t want to break up with the guy in traction. I probably knew that too. I went along with it, though, because it meant we were still together. Sloane warned me. She said Bea was using me. She said I was going to ruin my life over someone who wouldn’t even look back at the wreckage once she was gone. This was before Bea actually left. But Sloane was right, wasn’t she? Three weeks and no word. Three weeks.”
I tried. I said, “I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to feel like this. I’m sure this isn’t about you.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked. Then he gave me a long, hard look. “You haven’t heard from her, have you?”
“No,” I said, knee-jerk.
That’s when I saw he didn’t completely believe me.
“You wouldn’t tell me if you did, would you?” he pressed. “The two of you were always thick together. You helped her, didn’t you?”
“No!” I said emphatically. “I didn’t know she was leaving any more than you knew she was leaving.”
(True.)
“But she’s gotten hold of you, hasn’t she? All those texts.”
“Those are with Terrence.”
(True. But only because he said texts.)
“Then give me your phone. Let me see.”
I was glad my phone was in my pocket, because I swear at that moment if it had been anywhere else in the room, we would have both lunged for it.
I shook my head. “No. You can’t.”
“Why not, if you have nothing to hide? I’ve been your friend, haven’t I, Ezra? How ’bout you be my friend now?”
I started to back away.
“My texts with Terrence are private,” I said. “I can’t let you read them.”
“I’m not going to read your texts from Terrence. I want to see your texts from her.”
The thing is—I always delete the history from my phone after I use it to email you, just like I do at school. But maybe he could trace it some other way—what the hell do I know about phones?
“There’s nothing to see,” I told him. “Nothing at all.”
“I should have known you’d take her side! It doesn’t matter how nice I am, how much I love her—there’s no way of breaking through to either of you. Not even her. Not after all we’ve been through.”
This statement pissed me off. “You went through one accident, Joe,” I pointed out. “One accident that was your fault! She and I went through much more than that. You know that.”
Even as I was saying it, I knew it was the wrong thing. It was mean. Technically right but emotionally wrong.
But I finished saying it anyway.
Fuck, Bea—what if we really are our two parents’ bad qualities rearranged into new people? What if that ends up being the best we can be?
He rushed at me then. And I guess I felt I deserved it, because I didn’t move. I let him take me down. Let him gasp out, “Don’t say that!” Let him shove me to the floor. Let him cry all over me because he couldn’t wipe his eyes and hold me down at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m so sorry.”
And the pathetic thing?
I made sure to roll so that all my weight was on the pocket that had my phone.
He didn’t go for it, though. Or at least not that I could tell. No, it’s even worse. He just stood up and yelled, “FUUUUCK!” as loud as he could. Which was exactly what I wanted to do.
His father appeared in the doorway about a minute later. It wasn’t that late, but he was already in his pajamas.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
Luckily I’d already pulled myself into a sitting position.
“Doofus stubbed his toe,” I answered, gesturing to Joe’s bare foot.
His father winced. “Well, that’s never fun. But next time, maybe you could manage to say ‘Fudge’ for your mother’s sake. Or, Ezra, give him a pillow to scream into.”
“Will do, sir.”
After his dad left, Joe just shook his head at me.
“You guys are so good at that,” he said. “I hope you get some satisfaction out of fooling the rest of us.”
“It’s not like that,” I told him.
“Then what’s it like?”
“It’s like survival,” I said. “It’s exactly like survival.”
* * *
—
Now that I think about it, though—who did we learn it from?
If anybody asks, just tell them you fell off your bike and skinned your knees.
And I said, But we don’t have bikes.
And she said, They’re not going to question that.
* * *
—
I’m not going to think about that now. Joe’s asleep—Mom and Darren will also be asleep.
It’s time to break into our house.
There are things I need.
Subject: This is not how love works
From: Bea
To: Ezra
Date: Wed 17 Apr 00:13 CST
I don’t feel good about this, Ez. Just throw the purse on the lawn. Don’t go in there.
If you do go, PLEASE BE CAREFUL.
PLEASE DO NOT LET THEM CATCH YOU. But if they do, pretend you were sleepwalking. Remember how I used to do that? Until Darren tried to install a lock on my door—one that locked me in? Just say it runs in the family. That it’s your turn now. Or, worse comes to worst, start screaming like Joe!
And speaking of Joe. I’m sorry I never mentioned the proposal, but to be fair, it made me feel enormously shitty. I mean, what kind of person tries to love someone and fails over and over again? Not just Joe, Mom, Darren, Sloane. But you. T
he only person I actually love in this world, and look what I’ve done to you. Turned you into an arsonist and a thief.
Which is why I hope this time it’s going to be different. With Mystery Guy. I need it to be, Ez. I need to believe I’m not some feeling-less monster. Joe was wrong. I wasn’t using him. I was trying to love him. There’s a difference. The thing about me no one knows—even after all we’ve been through, I still believe, like truly, deeply, inexplicably believe, in love.
Subject: Thick as a thief
From: Ezra
To: Bea
Date: Wed 17 Apr 01:19 EST
First off, let me calm all your worries with a simple statement: THE PURSE HAS BEEN RETURNED. I’m sure you were deeply concerned about that.
Second, allow me to reassure you that a black Sharpie was taken to all forms of our mother’s identification, and Darren’s last name was crossed out on each and every one of them.
The photo of him she keeps in her wallet may also have been defaced. It’s hard to draw a small penis and have it come across as a small penis and not, say, a dot, so I made sure to label it as a small penis.
As for the photos of us that she keeps in her wallet—well, I’m sure the reason I didn’t find any there is because she would prefer to keep all photos of us close to her heart. That must be it.
Third off, I did not tamper with her pillbox or her feminine hygiene products. Because I am a gentleman.
Oh, and fourth—I didn’t get caught.
I mean, all that aside—it was weird to be back in the house. I guess it would be the same for you coming back now too. It’s not that anything’s really different. (Though the scorch marks in the kitchen are a thing of beauty, if I do say so myself.) It’s like you go back to the place and it’s the same but you realize you’re different. It was like walking through the past, not the present. And it’s only been a few days.
Take Me With You When You Go Page 8