Falling Under

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

  He looks down at his lap and you see his Adam’s apple bob down and up again.

  “Mara, you’re young and you’re brave, but you haven’t lived as long as I have. You don’t know how it feels to be alienated from your family and up against no money and no success while a bunch of talentless fucks are out there selling crap for six-thousand bucks a pop. You think you’re brave enough, but your heart can break more times than you realize.”

  “I do know that,” you whisper. “I know that already, that’s why we understand each other.”

  “Pack your stuff, Sixteen, and then I’m taking you home to your mother.”

  “No.”

  “Let me be clear, I don’t want this. I don’t know if it’s the right thing, or the wrong thing, but I don’t want the mess. All I want, and what I need, is to work every day without the distraction of you, and the baggage that comes with you. I’m sorry.”

  “Please.”

  “Better to have it hurt now and get it over.”

  He leaves you weeping on the bed and goes to pack your stuff. When your artwork, your toothbrush, your spare shorts, T-shirts, sandals and toiletries are collected by the door, he comes back to the bed with last night’s clothes and forces you to put them on, while you, snotty and blubbering, nonetheless make a final attempt to seduce him.

  He holds you tight and you feel him shaking.

  “You don’t want this,” you say. “You love me and I know it—you don’t want to do this.”

  “Shhh.”

  ***

  The sight of you, crumpled and miserable on her doorstep, brings out Mom’s softer side, and she gently helps you inside.

  “I know it hurts, sweetie, but you’ll get over it,” she says, running you a bath.

  “You never did,” you say.

  “Pardon me?”

  “From Dad.”

  “I certainly did.”

  “Sure. That’s why you still hate his guts. That’s why you never dated again.”

  Her face goes blank and she leaves you in the bathroom.

  You feel like dying. You don’t even have the heart to hate her for causing you to lose the only man you’ll ever love.

  ***

  Senior year is supposed to be a big deal, but when school starts you can hardly bring yourself to attend.

  A week in, you detour on your way home, and knock on Caleb’s door.

  He opens it and looks at you and you smile, trying to be brave and grown up and not a sniveling idiot like you were when he saw you last.

  He has dark circles under his eyes and he hasn’t shaved since you left.

  “Can we be friends?” you say. “I’d like to be friends.”

  He shrugs, gestures you inside and shuts the door behind you.

  “Can I hug you?” you say. “Friends hug. And you look like you need a hug.”

  You don’t wait for him to respond, but put your arms around him and pull him in.

  He says “Mm,” and hugs back.

  And after a few moments neither of you has let go. He presses himself closer and you think, “Yes.”

  And very soon you are without your pants and up against the door with his hands up your shirt and the door clattering rhythmically in its jam.

  September to November, you knock on his door in the late afternoons and every time you come together like it will be the last time.

  You never stay long. You never ask him to talk.

  You offer yourself and take what he gives and then go home.

  You spend your nights aching and wake up lonely in your mother’s house and go to school and grit your teeth and sneak away with Bernadette at recess and smoke and talk about the bullshit of it all.

  Your mid-term report card is not great.

  Your life is not great.

  But all you have to do is get through this year and create a portfolio and get into art school and then you’ll be eighteen. And he will still want you and finally let you move in with him and there will be nothing anyone can do or say. It’s not the best plan, but it’s the best you can come up with. You will wait it out.

  Only, one day he is not there.

  And when you try your key in the lock, it doesn’t work.

  And when you call from a pay phone, the number has been disconnected.

  You stand across from his building and stare up at his windows but dusk falls and no lights go on.

  At home, when you take your books out of your bag, you find an envelope with your name on it. Inside it is a note, a drawing of your face and a photo of Caleb that he used to have on his fridge.

  On the back, it says: Mara—you said you liked this picture. Keep it. C.

  And the note says:

  I’ve gone away, maybe for good, and a friend is subletting my place, so you won’t find me there.

  I’m sorry.

  Love, if that’s what it is, just doesn’t conquer all, Sixteen.

  Lust conquers even less.

  Work hard and become brilliant. Try to forget about me. C.W.

  Chapter 24

  Hugo pulls my hand into his coat pocket to keep it warm. The side streets of Cabbagetown are quiet and dim, people’s tiny yards perfectly manicured even at this time of year.

  We stroll toward Riverdale Park and Pollock does his business on the way. Once there, Hugo produces a glow-in-the-dark ball, unleashes Pollock and throws it. He shouts encouragement and the little dog dashes after the ball and then brings it back, tail wagging furiously, and waits for another throw. The game lasts until Pollock flops down a few feet away, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

  “Very cute,” I say.

  “Pollock?” Hugo beams. “Yeah, he’s not bad.”

  “And you,” I say. “The two of you together.”

  He smiles and ducks his head, which is also cute.

  “Thanks for giving me time to recover,” I say, and he nods like it was no big deal.

  We collect Pollock and start walking back toward Hugo’s.

  “So...” he says.

  “Yes?”

  “Was that, ah, good crying or bad crying?”

  I bump his hip with mine and he gives a surprised yelp.

  “Good then? Good-ish?” he says, bumping me back.

  “Yeah,” I say, “good-ish.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  “Hugo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can we sit down for a sec?” I gesture toward a bench at the edge of the park and we walk to it and sit. Pollock sniffs at the leaves under the bench, finds a stick, and deposits himself at Hugo’s feet to chew on it.

  Brave and beloved, he called me. I don’t feel so brave, but I have to try.

  “What’s up?” he asks, still holding my hand inside his pocket.

  “Uh, not to lay anything heavy on you but my last boyfriend...”

  “Yeah?”

  “He died.”

  Hugo gets very still for a moment and then goes: “Whoa.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, Mara!” he says. “Jeez. No wonder. My God.”

  “Sorry to...I know it’s...” I trail off, not sure what else to say.

  “Listen, don’t be sorry. I’m glad you told me,” he says. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”

  I am, though.

  “Ah...when did it...I mean, you don’t have to talk about it but...”

  “Five years ago. It was...there was an accident.”

  “Wow.”

  “His name was Lucas.”

  We sit and watch Orion rising up over the restored hundred-year-old row houses across the street. On the corner is an old-fashioned General Store and I wonder if Hugo and I might come here in the summer and buy ice cream cones, like normal, happy people who are in love. Then I wonder if Lucas can see me, if saying his name out loud brings him closer. I wonder what he would think of me now, sitting with Hugo and trying to envision a future. I wonder whether I will ever breathe air that is clear of his ghost.

  �
��So, your reticence about dating,” Hugo says, “your fear of getting involved...that’s the reason.”

  “I guess so. But it was a long time ago. I should be over it.”

  “The soul doesn’t experience time the same way the mind does,” he says. “Have you had grief counseling or anything?”

  “Um, sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “I’ve talked to people. Sort of.”

  “And...?”

  “And talking helps to a point and then it’s about time, I guess,” I say. “Time and moving forward. And I’m doing that.”

  “Hm.”

  “I’ll be honest, the counseling route didn’t work that well for me. It was pretty short-lived,” I admit.

  “Well, it’s not for everyone,” he says.

  “No.”

  Pollock is snuffling at our feet and looking bored, so we get up from the bench and stroll back to Hugo’s.

  Back inside, Hugo leads me to the couch. He takes my hands and rubs them between his to warm them.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He gives me a look.

  “What?”

  “I’m just digesting what you told me. You’re a survivor.”

  I humph and look away.

  “You are,” he says, and then grins. “You’re scrappy.”

  “Scrappy?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, that’s not the most romantic adjective ever,” I say.

  He makes a goofy face in response.

  I laugh and then reach out, pull one of his curls, and watch it spring back into place when I release it.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that,” I say.

  “My hair is yours to command,” he says.

  I start laughing. “Careful what you say, I do strange things with hair.”

  “Really.”

  “So,” I ask, seeing that he’s still looking at me as though he really, really likes me. “Was your last girlfriend the most boring woman in the world or something?”

  “What!”

  “Because I’m trying to figure out why you like me, and all I can figure is that you were bored to tears by someone in the past and are breaking out in the opposite direction.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to do this,” he says with a teasing look on his face.

  “Do what?”

  “I think you called it ‘the litany.’”

  “Oh, um...” I say, momentarily stymied.

  “Ha ha!” he says, “but now you’re curious. You want to know things about me.”

  “Don’t be smug.”

  “Don’t be surly,” he shoots back.

  “Well, hello!” I say, throwing my arms out, “You must be craving drama or something to still like me. It’s like: ‘screwed up, anti-social, crazy father, estranged mother, dead boyfriend—total package, wow, she’s for me!’ So I figure your last relationship must have been a snoozer.”

  “Not a snoozer, just not the right person.”

  “So you did have someone serious.”

  “I had the same girlfriend all the way through university and for a few years after. Things just stopped working. She wanted to travel, I was unhappy working in insurance and wanted to go back to school to become a vet. We both started making plans and they didn’t seem to include each other. It was sad, but it was just...over.”

  “And since then?”

  “Nobody serious since then,” he says. “Nobody that really intrigued me.”

  “And I intrigue you? Is that it?”

  “There’s that,” he says. “Plus you’re tough, smart, beautiful...”

  “Oh my.”

  “Sexy.”

  “Ah ha.”

  “But maybe it’s just because you make me laugh.”

  “Uh hunh.”

  “Or maybe it’s because I like making you laugh,” he says, and he reaches over to me and starts tickling me until I shriek for mercy.

  Then we neck on the couch, and even though we’re both hot and breathing fast, we don’t do anything else. I should probably feel fourteen again, except I skipped right past this part when I was fourteen. Now I wish I hadn’t.

  Chapter 25

  6 a.m.: painting.

  The bubble piece is turning out less-than-Zen and not very geometric.

  A small departure, I tell myself, and totally within reason. And besides, my mind is riffing on bubbles: Hugo and I in our own cozy, lust-filled bubble, Bernadette and Faith in theirs, my father who has lived in and burst more of them than I care to remember.

  Shut up and paint, Mara.

  I dip my brush into the white then start the next round shape. When I’m done, it looks like a cracked-open egg instead of a bubble.

  More departure.

  Oh, yes, I am cracking open, maybe cracking up, finding it impossible to live the way I’ve been living.

  I layer more color on, thankful that I’m using acrylics since they dry so fast, and fill in the egg thing, making it brighter and thicker. Creamy white and blue, a hint of metallic gold, it’s a strange, shimmery egg, a tactile egg that threatens to seep in between the perfectly rounded bubbles.

  What the hell is happening? I don’t like asymmetry. I like clean lines, definite shapes. Things that have a beginning, middle and end. I like to have control over my creativity and I don’t care if that’s contradictory.

  I leave the studio early for lunch.

  As part of my self-healing act-like-a-normal-person regime, I have decided that today I will go out for lunch.

  Wild stuff.

  I have a plan: I will walk along side streets, through the park, and then up to the Danforth again. I will buy a sub sandwich and an iced tea and a cookie. I will eat them in the shop. I will then take the same route home.

  Feeling like a better-adjusted, stronger person, I will call the man I have a crush on and talk to him before going back into the studio to work.

  People do these things every day, right? I used to do these things every day; at least, I assume I did.

  And today I have a secret weapon...

  I read somewhere that if you wear an elastic band around your wrist and snap it whenever you have a negative thought, you can break the pattern—kind of a low-tech biofeedback thing. It might have been a tool for quitting smoking—I can’t remember—but I figure it’ll work just as well for me.

  So out I go, a thick blue rubber band on my wrist. Crossing the street, I give the band an experimental snap. The sound and the twinge on my wrist are quite satisfying.

  I snap twice more and make it to the sub shop alive.

  I manage to eat lunch without getting food poisoning, although it could set in later on, and I could be puking my guts out and then dry heaving, rushed to the hospital for dehydration. That is, if I could make it to the telephone in my weakened state, and what if I forgot to pay my phone bill! I make it to the phone but my service is cut off, so I stagger to my computer, send out an SOS, and then lay dying on the floor. Alone and dead. Alone, alone, no one knowing where I am or what has happened. Dying, dying, dead, starting to decompose...

  Snap! Snap snap!

  Ow.

  On the way back, I make eye contact with two people, though one of them does say, “What?” Perhaps my gaze is too intense. Perhaps I shouldn’t look at strangers. I could look at someone the wrong way and they might decide to shoot me, to beat me up...

  Snap. Snap out of it.

  Walking home through the park, I attempt to enjoy the fresh air. I envision myself as outdoorsy: going on camping trips, kayaking, learning to do an Eskimo roll, and sitting around campfires with Hugo and Pollock, and singing songs or roasting marshmallows or whatever it is people do at campfires. I would not be afraid of bears or malaria or getting lost because I would be a new person. A healed, healthy, better person. A person who does not get lost.

  My wrist is rather pink by the time I close the front door behind me. But I am better. I must be getting better.

  Bernadette drops by aft
er work. She takes five minutes to vent about her boss and then says, “I’m in love with Faith.”

  I sigh. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “I’ve loved her since high school, Mar, I can’t help it.”

  She flops down on the couch and twirls a strand of hair around her finger.

  “You obviously think I’m crazy,” she says, and looks hard at me.

  I sit down. “She seems nice, I’m just—”

  “A mother hen?” Bernadette suggests, then softens the comment with a smile.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a tough girl.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I’m happy.” She sits up, leans toward me. “So, what about Hugo-boy-man-person? Is it still on?”

  I feel my face color.

  “Aha!” she says. “Very on!”

  “It’s going well. But I, uh, can’t help thinking about...you know.”

  “Have you told Hugo?”

  “Last night. He was sweet.”

  “That,” she says, and taps my knee, “is what I would expect from him. I like him.”

  “Me too.”

  “This might be the year,” she says.

  “Of what?”

  “Of us both finding happiness.”

  I make a humph-like sound.

  She laughs at me...and hums on her way out.

  ***

  And then there was Lucas.

  Second year, Art History, first row. White-blonde hair and the most infectious laugh.

  He is beyond beautiful. Everyone wants him—men and women alike.

  You take two months edging from the back of the class toward the front, until you are arriving early in order to get a seat right behind him. You see him in Technicolor, in shades of sunlight. You dream of him, look for him in the hallways, then turn your eyes away when your paths cross.

  You have no chance. And anyway, it’s better to love from a distance.

  One day he puts a hand on your arm and stops you as you walk by. “Mara, right?”

  Your mouth opens, but no words come out.

  “We’re in Art History together. I’m Lucas.”