by JD Hawkins
I think over and over again about what I should have done differently. How I should have had ‘the talk’ with Wyatt way sooner, or how when we did finally talk we should have been more clear about what the relationship was supposed to mean, maybe agreed to take things slower. I regret letting myself get carried away, letting myself revert back into the teenage girl who crushed so hard on him. I regret believing Wyatt’s easy charm and casual assuredness would just make everything magically work.
If I’m honest, I guess I knew it was too good to be true. That the guy you spent your entire life denying you like doesn’t come back and sweep you off your feet that easily. That the old friend who understood you better than anyone doesn’t blossom magically into a serious relationship amid mind-blowing sex and romantic dinner promises. That’s not how life works—not my life, anyway.
And it’s not like I can even hate Wyatt—like I can turn him into the bad guy in all of this. Part of me even feels sorry for him, what with all the life changes he’s been going through, his parents getting back together and all the hurt that brings up for him. Wyatt is just Wyatt, same as he’s always been—a force of nature that not even he himself can control. A girl magnet who was never tied to anything, who spent his teenage years bragging about how he was going to get out of California as fast as he could and conquer the world.
There are moments when I wonder what the hell I’m doing, cutting myself off from him like this. Moments—especially when I go to bed, alone—that I feel stupid for not just reaching out to him, trying to find some strength and maturity so we can fix things and move forward as friends.
But each time that happens I realize I’d only be hanging onto our friendship in hopes that he’d come around, change his mind about the future we almost had together. And I remember what he said about ‘happily ever afters’ and not believing in them. I remember the angry sincerity and primal conviction as he said it, and think that even if we did get back together by some chance, it would never last. I’d only be setting myself up for this kind of agonizing heartbreak all over again.
I look down, away from the TV screen showing some colorful but banal gameshow, and into my ice cream container. It’s nearly empty, and I groan at the thought of having to put anything more public than my pajamas on and go outside. I already feel like a vampire, a hundred years old and spending all my time alone, so the sunlight might just kill me.
Eventually I’ll have to go back out into the world though, if only to finish off my last days at work, and to figure out what I’m gonna do next. Without my job, there’s no way I’ll cover rent—maybe even next month, living paycheck to paycheck as I do. I hate asking my parents for money, and that would pretty much just be a delaying tactic. But my hopes of finding something else anytime soon are slim to none, going by how long it took me to find the job at MESS. I guess I could always crash at Winnie’s or Becca’s temporarily, but they’d never let me get away with sitting around in my grubbiest pajamas wolfing down Ben and Jerry’s all day, which is the only future I can conceivably imagine for myself now.
The doorbell rings, sending a rattle through my body with its ferocious proximity. It’s been so long since I heard anything but the mild sound of the TV on low volume that I suddenly feel like something’s invading my privacy.
I mute the TV and sit as still as possible, eyes toward the hallway. Maybe if I don’t move, whoever it is will just go away.
The doorbell rings again, then there’s the sound of a fist rapping on the door.
“Meli!” I hear faintly. “You in there?”
It’s Winnie.
I let out a sigh and reluctantly put the ice cream tub down, not so much walking to the door as slumping there on heavy feet.
“Meli?”
“I’m coming!” I call back, defeated.
I open the door and brace myself.
“Hey!” Winnie says, a wide smile that shows the whites of her eyes and teeth. She’s carrying a paper bag, and opens her other arm wide for a hug.
The smile fades quickly, however, and the arm slumps to her side when she sees just how awful I look.
“Wow…” she murmurs, softly now. “You’re taking this hard, huh?”
I step aside without answering and gesture her inside, though it probably comes across more as a gesture of surrender.
“You should have told me you were coming,” I say. “I would’ve…showered.”
“I did. I sent you about a dozen messages on a dozen different apps.”
“Oh. I guess I wasn’t really paying attention to my phone.”
“I figured… Anyway, I got you some stuff,” Winnie says, as she bounds inside.
Her flouncy dress, glowing skin, and shiny, voluminous hair makes everything in my apartment—including me—seem even more dingy and grey than it did.
I move back into the living room and drop into my default position on the couch. Winnie dumps the paper bag on the counter separating the living room from the kitchen and starts pulling things out of it. Berries and apples from a farmers market, a bakery baguette, bottles of my favorite sparkling water, tons of fresh veggies and a couple of deli soups.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” I say, glaring suspiciously at all the goodies. “How come you’re here anyway? Bringing me all this stuff? I don’t need all these groceries.” Which is a total lie.
She shoots me a skeptical look. “Because I heard that you hadn’t made it to work in a few days, and I may have also heard that you’re soon to be looking for new employment. Plus, I know you. I know exactly how you are when you’re upset about something. I knew you’d just lock yourself away and wallow in self-pity.”
I slouch in self-defense. “Why would I show up to a job I don’t even have anymore?”
“You still have until the end of the month, Meli. Don’t forget you’ll need them as a reference.”
Of course she’s right. I get up and walk toward her, distracting myself by rolling an apple across the counter from one hand to the other.
“It’s not just the job.”
“No?”
I look up at her. She’s gazing at me with a mixture of pity and love, a big sister’s look. I wonder if she already knows, if she put two and two together at the barbecue.
I take a deep breath.
“Wyatt and I broke up.”
Winnie stares blankly for a second, then pulls back as if to take me all in, to check that I’m still who she thinks I am, saying the thing she thinks I did.
“I’m sorry, but what?”
I let out that deep breath in a sigh, shoulders slumping.
“We were dating. Kind of,” I begin. “When he came back home, and we found out we were working together, we ended up hanging out a lot and eventually…it was more. At first I figured it was just a one time ‘thing’ that happened, just me being single for so long, and Wyatt being…well…Wyatt. But then…” I shake my head, getting choked up.
“But then…?” Winnie repeats gently.
“Then…we kept seeing each other. We still had that old connection from when we were kids, and we worked great together in the office, and it was like…we just had fun, no matter what we were doing. It was so clear there was something more there.
“So a couple of days before the Labor Day party we had this talk, and decided to just go for it and make it official. We were going to tell everyone at the Buchanans’. But…”
I trail off, unable to say it out loud as the pain stabs at my chest afresh.
“That thing with his parents happened and he totally flipped out,” Winnie finishes, digging a tissue out of her bag and handing it to me.
“Right…and I found out he’d been on that date just a few days before.”
“Oh, Meli—that blind date wasn’t anything! He didn’t even know it was a blind date. His mom surprised him with it. That thing I said about the girl not calling back—I’m sure Wyatt didn’t do anything—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, cutting her off. “What about all th
at stuff he said about not believing in happily ever afters, that big rant went off on? We got in a huge fight before he left, and he told me it would never work. And Aiden said a bunch of stuff too, about how wild Wyatt was in New York, and how he wasn’t gonna settle down until he screwed his way through all the women in L.A… It took so long for him to even try to have a relationship that lasted, to commit, and I could just see it all going up in flames in an instant.”
“Maybe…I don’t know.” Winnie shakes her head and puts a hand on my shoulder.
After a minute, she pulls back and looks at me. She smiles and lets out a sadly-amused sigh.
“What’s funny?” I say through my sniffles, knowing that it’s probably how pathetic I look and sound right now.
Winnie looks at me as if I’m someone new.
“I always thought you and Wyatt would have made a great couple. Better than he and I would. The way you used to have all those inside jokes and run off to play by yourselves.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“Was I?”
I frown at her when I realize she’s being serious, and this isn’t just something she’s saying as some empty, soothing platitude.
“What do you mean?” I ask, finally. “‘A great couple’? You were the one meant to end up with Wyatt. Only now I don’t think either one of us is going to get him.”
Winnie laughs gently.
“Wyatt never needed a girl like me, that was just something everyone around us was saying so much we thought we’d try it out. I mean, sure, he’s cute and funny and we got along great—but we were too much alike. We never surprised each other.”
“Never needed a girl like you?” I repeat, incredulous. “What? Super gorgeous and confident and talented and popular like him?”
Winnie really laughs now.
“Like I said, we were too similar. It always felt like we were brother and sister. There was never any kind of spark there. But look, Wyatt’s Wyatt, right? He’s been there, done that. So if he said he wanted a relationship with you, he meant it. He doesn’t need to chase women anymore—god, I think he was done with that by the time he was seventeen.”
“Doesn’t sound like he was done with it, hearing what he got up to in New York.”
“Wyatt takes a long time to figure stuff out. Or maybe he just had to get it out of his system. You know how dumb guys can be in their twenties. But he’s grown up a lot.”
I sigh, unconvinced.
“Look,” Winnie continues, “believe whatever you want to, but I’m telling you: you were always the one who had what Wyatt needed, what he wanted. I could tell—even back then—that you two had something special between you. That he looked at you differently than the way he looked at other girls.”
“Come on, Winnie,” I say, appreciative of the pep talk, but not buying any of it. “What could I possibly have that other women don’t?”
“Passion,” she answers quickly, and I know she’s thought about this before. “A focused, genuine talent. I don’t care about anything the way you care about photography. I mean, I get pretty excited about Margiela dresses—” she stops as I laugh a little, “but it’s hardly an artistic ambition. And I know the family ribs you about it, but the truth is you’re the only one of us kids who decided to something because she loves it. I respect the hell out of that. He does too.”
“I guess,” I say. “Not like it’s gotten me far.”
“You expected success overnight?” Winnie rolls her eyes. “Look, all these…failures—” Winnie winces as she says the word, not wanting to lay it out so bluntly, but being too honest to avoid it, “are just a part of the work it takes to build an amazing career making art. You picked a hard path, but Meli—you’re really going for it.. We all see it and we love that about you. The whole family. Wyatt especially.”
I look up at her and smile, struggling to find words to convey the ball of warmth she just created inside of me.
“Thanks, Winnie.”
“I’m not just saying this because I’m your big sister. I’m saying it because it’s true. You and Wyatt…I always knew. He doesn’t need another girl to just look good on his arm, or even just to have a good time with—Wyatt needs someone who will inspire him. Challenge him. Put some color and vibrancy into his life, give everything a bigger sense of meaning. You’re the only one who’s ever done that for him.”
I think about the desert photo he kept in his bedroom, and suddenly remember the day we spent taking all those Divinity photographs—Wyatt so eager and happy to help me, so genuinely interested in my work. It all makes a kind of sense, a pattern appearing in the fog of my thoughts. I blink a little and shake my head, still struggling to put it all together.
“Even if all of this is true, he still dumped me. And whatever we had…it’s over now.”
“It’s not over. God, sometimes that boy is his own worst enemy.” Winnie folds her arms and leans back on the counter, looking into the living room like she’s about to lay down a lesson. “You know what Wyatt’s problem is? He spends so much time charming everyone that he doesn’t even realize when he’s charming himself, laying it on so thick he can’t see what’s right under his nose. Deep down, though,” she says, her voice getting a little more thoughtful, “He knows what he wants. And it’s you. I think that’s why he came back. He finally figured it out.”
There’s a silence when Winnie stops speaking, both of us pondering her words.
“Well,” I say eventually, “whether he’s figured it out or not, it doesn’t mean he’ll want to get back together. And that thing with his parents is going to really mess him up for a while. Maybe it’s best if I just give him some space. Reach out in a few weeks, once things have blown over. If I try to talk to him now, it’ll just push him further away.”
Winnie nods. “Knowing him, that’s probably a good idea. But I’m telling you, he’s already regretting what happened.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “Meanwhile I still have to figure out how to make rent. I’ll probably end up waiting tables or folding shirts somewhere. So much for ‘following your dreams.’”
Winnie looks at me and laughs affectionately, as if I’ve just said something way too silly to be true.
Sarcastically, I say, “I’m glad the sound of me giving up is funny.”
Quickly, Winnie moves close to grab me in a tight hug, squashing my face against her sun-drenched skin.
“I love you,” she says. “I’m always here if you ever need to talk. And I bet Wyatt’ll come around, just wait and see. Either way, you’re gonna come out of this ok.”
I close my eyes and press my face against her shoulder. “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” she says, voice cracking a little with emotion. “Because no matter what happens, you’re strong. And I know you won’t give up. You don’t know how.”
20
Wyatt
My mom lives in a 1960’s era, two-story house in Thousand Oaks that sits at the end of a cul-de-sac. It’s the same house Cody and I grew up in, and it’s hardly changed at all over the years, even through all the ups and downs our family has gone through.
The large shed still sits in the back yard, used as a workshop when my dad was doing construction, then as parts storage when he worked as a mechanic, and then—when my brother was the man of the house—a spot for Cody to work on his motorcycles, until it was finally forgotten left to cobwebs and dust when he moved out. The refinished attic room was once a hangout for us kids, where we’d invite Aiden and the girls to come up and play video games, or have sleepovers when there was a thunderstorm so we could listen to the rain, drumming so loud on the Spanish tile roof that it felt like the world was ending around us. My mom converted it into an office when I left, then a storage space when Cody and my dad left and she could use any room in the house for her work.
Once, before the divorce, we stripped the peeling, yellowing paint from the outside and repainted it a white so bright it was blinding in the midda
y sun. It took only a few months for the paint to go a warm yellow again, almost as if the house itself resisted the change.
I slow the car as I pull up to it now, as if needing a little time to take it all in again. It isn’t what changes that shocks you, but what stays the same. Approaching the house, exactly the same as I did a thousand times when coming home from school, home from hanging out, home from college, it still looks the same from the outside, with the huge magnolia tree, the crooked path leading up to the door. I half expect to hear my mom calling out to Cody, or the shed doors to open and reveal my dad standing there with a wrench in his hand and a welcoming smile on his face.
I park the car at the curb and get out. The driveway’s full. Cody’s bike standing, gracefully mean, near the garage doors in the shade. My mom’s Toyota in front of it. And in front of that, a Volkswagen. Not the ’71 Corvette Stingray my dad bought to fix up and fill his time with during the divorce, but a well-kept, classic, reliable Volkswagen. Already I feel the tightening in my chest, remembering how much my dad loved them, how he could talk your ear off about ‘German engineering’ and how they built cars that were ‘as solid as the Japanese but as good to drive as the Italians.’
I step toward the car and peer inside to confirm my suspicions. The dangling Elvis my dad put on every car he ever owned hanging there on the rearview mirror, the aftermarket CD player he probably installed himself—maybe the last guy in California to still use one—and the fact that it’s a stick shift all clear evidence that it’s definitely his vehicle.
All these familiar things, these blasts from a past that seems so long ago. But it’ll take a lot more than Dad switching his Corvette for a Volkswagen to convince me that this time it’ll last.
I walk up to the front door, and as soon as I get near I can hear voices from inside. Laughter. I push the door open and it creaks, the way it always did. The laughter dies quickly, and I step into the living room feeling like a teacher stepping into a classroom.