The Chaos of Standing Still

by Jessica Brody

  And through it all, I was right there beside her. She needed me just as much as I needed her. I was the planet to her sun. I lit up because I was near her. I spent so many years trying to catch a fragment of her light that I failed to realize I could shine on my own.

  And Lottie. She needed someone to orbit around her.

  In the end, we both lost. And we both won.

  Xander is suddenly behind me. I turn around and grab his shirt and pull him to me. I keep pulling and pulling until I can feel him everywhere.

  “Are you crazy?” he yells, wrapping his arms around my waist.

  I release a wild, uninhibited laugh. “Yes!” I scream, and then I press my lips to his.

  What if life is unpredictable?

  What if people leave for no reason?

  What if losing is just another part of living?

  What if the universe can’t be controlled?

  What if chaos is good?

  What if some questions can never be answered?

  What if that’s okay?

  I think that’s okay.

  The Clearing of Things

  Kissing Xander is like waking up. Not a blaring, intrusive alarm clock that rips you bitterly from sweet dreams or gratefully from restless nightmares. Not a bucket of ice-cold water thrown in your face. Not even a rough shake from your mother when you’re running late for school.

  Kissing Xander is like waking up the right way. The natural way.

  With the sun.

  With light.

  It breaks through with slow determination. It eases you out of the darkness gradually. It rouses you with warmth, reminding you that the day is new, and living is good, and anything can happen.

  I kiss him harder.

  The snow swirls around us like a dance. He wraps his arms tighter around my waist and pulls me in closer, pressing his entire body against me, lifting me right off the ground.

  When we break apart, we don’t go far. Our lips hover inches from each other, inhaling and exhaling the same air. The same oxygen. The same universe.

  Xander presses his mouth to my cheek. “It’s freezing out here,” he says into my skin.

  “I know.”

  He leans back to look at me. Really look at me. As though he’s finally seeing me for the first time. As though I’m finally letting him. “You are fucking crazy.”

  I nod. “I am fucking crazy.”

  He laughs as he sets me back down on solid ground. “Should we go inside?” he asks, and I notice a shiver run through his body. Neither of us has jackets or coats. We’re both dressed for warmer weather. We’re both completely ill prepared for a snowstorm of this proportion.

  Maybe that’s the whole point.

  I shake my head. “I’m not ready to go back inside.”

  Xander nods, as though he expected this to be my answer. “Okay, then. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  He disappears into the building, and I’m alone. So utterly alone in the biggest, messiest blizzard Denver has seen in over a hundred years.

  And yet, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t feel alone.

  A billion unique snowflakes keep me company.

  The wind whispers reassuringly in my ear.

  The soft flurries beneath my feet will cushion me should I fall.

  For the first time in as long as I can remember, I know that the universe, in its vast, unpredictable, chaotic wisdom, is watching out for me.

  I tip my head back, open my mouth, and let the tiny soft flecks of frozen rain fall in. They taste like tears.

  Xander returns a few minutes later. He’s carrying one of the airport issued blankets. He smiles and pulls me close to him again. He wraps the blanket around us, cocooning our bodies inside.

  Shielding us from the storm.

  Shielding us from the cold.

  Although, to be honest, I don’t really feel it anymore.

  “It’s called Survivor’s guilt,” Dr. Judy said to me four months ago. It was right after my mother got a phone call from my school principal to tell her I had spent two hours locked in a supply closet after seeing 10:05 a.m. on a clock.

  “It’s when someone perceives themselves to have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not.”

  I stared down at my phone, refusing to answer. I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to put a label on me. She was trying to locate me in one of those giant tomes she kept on her shelf and drop a bookmark at the right page.

  Here lies Ryn.

  She survived. Her best friend did not.

  Case closed.

  I didn’t want her labels. I didn’t want to fit into one of her little boxes. I didn’t want to be just another sad case of [insert textbook psychological disorder here].

  Because if I were that easy to define, then I would be that easy to fix.

  And I didn’t want to be fixed.

  “You feel like maybe you shouldn’t be happy?” Dr. Judy went on, continuing her quest for classification. “You feel like if you were to move on and enjoy your life, it might be a betrayal of Lottie?”

  I stroked my phone case, trying to drown out the sound of her voice.

  Dr. Judy tried a third time. “You feel like she should be the one alive. Not you.”

  I noticed there was no question mark at the end of that sentence. She wasn’t asking me if this were how I felt. She wasn’t trying to get me to confirm her expert opinion.

  She was reading my mind. She was seeing it scrawled across my forehead. She was pegging me just as easily as Lottie had always pegged me. As easily as Siri had pegged me. As easily as Xander had pegged me.

  Because, apparently, I’m not that hard to understand.

  Apparently, I’m an open book.

  I just couldn’t read the pages.

  Until now.

  Until the guilt melts away with the snow.

  I don’t know how long Xander and I stand there, warmed by our own heat, strengthened by the touch of each other’s lips. But eventually, the snowplow arrives to clear the road, and we’re chased back inside.

  My cheeks and fingers and toes sting at the rush of heat that crashes into me the moment I cross the threshold. We watch from the window, in silent fascination, as the massive yellow truck drives back and forth over the white sea, clearing snow to the side in giant misshapen mountains, slowly turning the road back into a road.

  Slowly turning the Denver airport back into the Denver airport.

  Soon cars will drive here again.

  Soon passengers will be dropped off.

  Soon gates will open, flights will board, and planes will leap into the sky, taking people far, far away.

  The snow is falling with less enthusiasm now. Dripping tentatively from the sky instead of heaving down in buckets.

  When the job is done and the snowplow moves on, Xander and I step away from the window. We don’t talk. We don’t smile. We just hold hands and silently think the same thing at the same time.

  Soon we’ll have no more reason to stay here.

  “I’m sorry, entrance is restricted to paying club members only,” the woman guarding the first-class lounge says to us as she eyes our messy state with a look of disapproval.

  I pull the black and gold card from my pocket and slide it across the counter. “We’re friends of Marcus Winslow,” I say confidently. “He said it would be all right.”

  The woman scowls at the Million Mile VIP guest card that Marcus gave me as her shoulders slouch in surrender. “The bathrooms are to the left. And the Wi-Fi password is flydenver. All lowercase.”

  “Thanks!” I chirp, and grab Xander’s hand, pulling him inside the plush, well appointed first-class lounge.

  We disappear into our respective restrooms to freshen up. I eye the shower stall and in a split-second decision, start peeling off my clothes. I turn the knob to scalding hot, grab a towel from a nearby shelf, and step inside.

  The water and steam feel amazing, washing away all
the dust and grime and doubt of the past twenty-four hours. After drying my body and brushing out my hair, I put my clothes back on and leave the bathroom.

  I find Xander by the buffet. His hair is wet too, causing me to smile. He’s already made us cappuccinos from a fancy coffee machine and is now loading up two tiny plates with fruit and cheese and hard-boiled eggs. We find a seat by the window and stuff ourselves senseless. Once I’ve had my fill, I turn and stare outside, watching the snowplows work on the tarmac.

  Back and forth they go, relentlessly pushing snow aside, clearing an open path.

  Setting things right again.

  “What did she look like?” I hear Xander ask, and it’s only then I realize he hasn’t been sharing my fascination with the snowplows. He’s been watching me instead.

  “Who?” I ask, even though I already know. We both do.

  But he says it anyway. “Lottie.”

  I turn back to the window, falling quiet. I’ve never talked about what Lottie looked like. Not even with Dr. Judy. Obviously, I have pictures on my phone, but I don’t dare show them to anyone. I’ve barely been able to bring myself to look at them. It’s almost as though all this time, I’ve been protecting her memory in my mind. Keeping her to myself. Convinced that no one would ever see her the way I saw her, so why bother trying?

  “She . . . ,” I begin hesitantly, keeping my eyes trained on one specific snowplow. It’s been tasked with freeing the airplane that’s currently held captive at gate A4. “She had this amazing red hair. It looked like gold set on fire. And she had this adorable freckle below her left eye that—”

  I stop and close my eyes. I conjure up the memory of her face, holding it tight in my mind. Trying to remember exactly where that freckle was. Down to the millimeter.

  “I’m sorry,” Xander rushes to say. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  “No,” I tell him. “It’s okay. I just . . .” I bite my lip.

  How do you explain to someone how important a freckle is?

  How do you make them see that it was never just a freckle? That it was a piece of her? That it was a seemingly insignificant fragment that made up a beautiful whole?

  You can’t.

  You don’t.

  The English language has over one million words in it, and none of them are good enough for Lottie. None of them will capture what I saw when I looked at her. What I see now when I remember her. How she will forever look through my filtered view of the world.

  I stare down at my hands. They’re empty but no longer shaking. They feel cold but no longer worthless.

  They’re ready.

  I launch out of my seat and run to the bar at the far side of the lounge. I find an abandoned receipt and a pen and dash back over to the table.

  I don’t say a word to Xander as I slip into my chair and turn over the receipt. I grip the pen tightly in my fingers and start moving it across the page.

  But this isn’t drawing. At least not like any drawing I’ve ever done before. This is an outpouring. This is a release. These are all the lines and all the shadows and all the shapes that have been trapped inside me for almost a year. That have been following me around wherever I go. Waiting to be made real.

  This is like something moving through me, piloting my hand, emptying my mind until everything around me disappears. The room. The snow. The people.

  Even Xander.

  This is trying to catch water from a pitcher in a thimble.

  This is a year’s worth of demons channeled into a fragile piece of paper.

  This is me finally breathing life back into Lottie.

  When I’m finished, I lean back and look at my creation for the first time. A small gasp escapes my lips.

  The left eye is bigger than the right.

  The freckle is smeared.

  Her chin is too wide.

  Her cheeks are too sallow.

  Her hair is too flat.

  Her smile is crooked.

  But it’s her. Not perfect. Yet still radiant.

  I turn the receipt around so Xander can see. He studies me with fascination for a long time before finally dropping his gaze to my drawing. Then he sucks in a sharp breath.

  “Wow,” he says, running his fingertip over her face. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Yes,” I say quietly. “She was.”

  And I feel lucky.

  That the world finally looks real to me.

  A Tale of Two Other Cities

  Thirty minutes later, after we’ve finished another plate of food and another round of free cappuccinos, a news report comes on a nearby TV screen, announcing that the storm is lifting and the first flights out of Denver are scheduled to depart in less than two hours.

  I look over at Xander. He’s watching the television with pinched eyebrows. Something tells me that he would happily stay in this airport for another week, if he could.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  He blinks and focuses on me. “I guess I’m going to Miami to talk to my parents. And then I’m going home to L.A. to figure out what comes next.”

  “What are you going to tell them?”

  He sighs wearily. “I’m going to tell them the truth. That it was me who leaked the story of my expulsion to the press. And then I’m going to deal with the aftermath.”

  I know, as soon as he says it, that it’s what I have to do too. I have to tell my mother the truth. That the contraband in Lottie’s tree house wasn’t mine. That I wasn’t in the car with Lottie that day. That the reason no one came to my eighteenth birthday party was because I didn’t invite anyone.

  And so many other truths that I haven’t been able to admit until now.

  I have to open that door.

  I have to let her in.

  I reach out and rub Xander’s arm. “Maybe it will be okay.”

  He cups my cheek and kisses me gently on the lips. “Maybe it will.”

  When we emerge from the lounge an hour later, the snow has stopped.

  Just like that.

  Outside the sun is shining, chasing away gray skies, making room for blue.

  Everything is white and clean and beautiful.

  “Are you ready?” Xander asks, slipping his fingers into mine.

  I squeeze his hand and nod. “Yes.”

  Together, we walk over to the bank of information screens. They’re all blank. Dark. Like someone has cut the power.

  We look to each other in confusion. Then we wait.

  Less than a minute later the monitors blink to life and slowly start to fill. The data repopulates with new flights. New departure times. New gate assignments.

  There are no more cancelations. No more delays.

  Just leaving.

  I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I drop Xander’s hand and pull it out, swiping on the screen. A new text message has come through. It’s from the airline.

  I’ve been given a seat on the next flight to San Francisco. It leaves in an hour.

  I check the board for confirmation. There it is. Cheap-O Airlines flight 319 to San Francisco. Gate A28. Departing at 1:32 p.m.

  I glance over at Xander and see that he’s looking at his phone too.

  “What time do you leave?” I ask.

  “In an hour,” he says, his voice muted and colorless.

  “Me too.”

  “How long is the flight to San Francisco?” he asks.

  “Two hours. Miami?”

  “A little over three.” He pauses, reaches into his messenger bag, and pulls out the copy of A Tale of Two Cities that I bought him. “I thought maybe I’d read a book to pass the time. This one is supposed to be good.”

  “It’s very good.”

  “So which two cities are we talking about here?”

  I giggle. “Paris and London.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment flashes over his face. “That’s too bad. I really have no interest in those two cities. I’m much more interested in two other cities.”

  “And which
cities are those?”

  He grins. “Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

  I nod, playing along, hiding my smile. “Those are two good cities.”

  “They’re not that far apart either.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Less than an hour flight,” he adds.

  My smile finally breaks free. “I know.”

  He cocks an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

  I shrug. “I may have already asked Google.”

  Xander and I walk to his gate in silence. A19. Mine is just a short ways down the terminal. We pass gate A5, where Troy Benson sits with a new sign hanging around his neck that says, UNACCOMPANIED MINOR. At least it’s spelled correctly this time.

  I give him a wave, and he gives me a small salute in response. I wonder if he’ll ever come to a finite conclusion about the Denver airport conspiracy. I wonder if anyone will. Probably not. I suppose some theories aren’t meant to be proved or disproved.

  We pass gate A9, where the kissing couple from the train are sitting, waiting to board their flight. Her head is resting against his shoulder and his hand is on her leg. They look peaceful. I wonder how long that will last. I glance at the screen hanging above the gate. Their destination is Honolulu—a seven hour flight from here.

  That doesn’t give me a lot of hope.

  At gate A11, Siri leaps out at us, scaring the crap out of me. She pulls me into a long hug. “Mopey Girl! I’m going to miss you so much.”

  I scowl at the unwelcome nickname. She laughs and musses my still-damp hair. “Relax. It’s just a name. It doesn’t mean anything. Besides, I already lost at bingo.”

  “What? Did Jimmy find a Couple on the Verge of a Breakup?” I ask, thinking back to the two people waiting to board their flight to Hawaii.

  “No,” Jimmy says, appearing next to me, seemingly out of nowhere. His voice shifts to mimic a boisterous sports announcer. “In a dramatic, last-minute, at-the-buzzer upset, I snagged the bottom left corner to complete a momentous diagonal-across victory.”

  “What was the space?” I ask, glancing between Siri and Jimmy.

  Siri rolls her eyes. “When I wrote it on his card, I never, in a million years, thought he would actually find it.”