I knew this better than anyone. At the end of the day, I was the one married to her best friend. Our grudges were linked together so that neither of us could forgive. When she starts asking questions about the team and football and Juliana, I think I’ve had about enough. The small talk eats away at me, and I want to stand up and leave. Only I want her to follow me and try to stop me, to try to fight for me, to make sense of all of this. We were supposed to survive everything. She was supposed to feel me in every breath she took. How could this have happened to us?
The crackling fire is the only sound I hear. She doesn’t have answers, so she tells me again, “I’m really sorry.”
I give up and tell her what she wants to know. “The team is undefeated. I’m teaching ninth-grade world history. My daughter’s sixteen. She’s a handful, like most teenagers. Touchy and cross one minute, a real charmer the next. She said you bought a painting of the lake.”
This prompts her to head through the kitchen toward the mud room. The house is wide open with high ceilings, so I continue talking to her, even though she has turned a corner. I ask her about her parents, and she replies with one word. She emerges with a large package sealed in brown paper. I know it’s the painting by the size and shape, and I move across the room to help her with it. We lean it against the large armoire and begin to rip at the paper.
Before the entire picture is uncovered, I know it’s us.
She says, “We had no way of knowing. Meline, the painter, was sitting in her car behind us. That’s why you can’t see our faces. It should’ve been a happy day for us, but it turned into the saddest day of my life. I had no idea six months would turn into forever. Saying good-bye to you.”
The admission pulls us apart, and she stands up. “I’m going to put up some coffee. Do you still take yours black?”
The day Lauren left the mountain, it had been raining on and off all morning. We had finished brunch with her parents when the skies cleared up and we decided to get some air. The house was stifling us with the mixture of emotions. We would regularly take walks around the circular path of the lake and on the wooden footbridge. Lauren always slid on the green moss where the trees canopied the planks underfoot and moisture collected. Sometimes we’d sit on the benches overlooking the water without anything to say. She once told me how she could say nothing at all when she was with me, and I’d always understand. Then there were those who hear you speak a thousand words and can’t understand you at all. “That will never be us,” she said, leaning her body in to mine.
Lauren was in the bright orange sweater. I was wearing blue, an extension of my emotions. I was a wreck that afternoon. We had only a few hours before her flight to New York and then her connecting flight overseas. The minutes ticked loudly on the clock, and the steady prompt preoccupied me. Savoring her and those last few moments was impossible. Instead, we clung to each other and let the quiet define us. When the miles separated us, we would have to draw on that silence to bind us.
At no time was I ever more certain about anything than that day at the lake. Lauren would photograph waterfalls, she would return, and we would start a life together. The permanent kind. I know those thoughts were going through her head. I could tell by the way she clung to me and how every part of her fit so neatly into me. When you’re young and in love, it doesn’t occur to you that things happen. People change, curves are thrown at you. You think you’re invincible. We were invincible.
I loved her so much I wanted her to be happy. I loved her so much I believed we would weather any storm. And when the skies opened up again, drenching us in rain, we held on to each other, and I made a promise to Lauren that I wasn’t able to keep: “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.” Then I reached into my pocket. “With this,” I said, holding up the silver ring with the tiny diamond. She cried out, “Oh, my God,” and covered her face in her hands. Then she sank deeper and deeper into me, while I held her in my arms and we played with the ring on her finger. We were so happy that we were oblivious to the wet cold. We didn’t need a ring to unite us. We were already tightly stitched.
She takes a seat next to me on the bench, and we study Lake Coffey. Her mug rests on the table in front of us, along with some fresh bread and jam. My eyes fix on her hand. I think of the ring that meant she was mine. Its absence goads me. To think it would be there is foolish. I turn away and it occurs to me how hungry I am. It is not the hunger that follows a lengthy practice. It is a mounting hunger that hinges upon desperation. The sensation inhabits my whole body—my fingers, my toes, my stomach, my chest. I want to feel again. I see the two of us in the strokes of the brush, and I know I want to feel that again.
“We were so young,” she says.
My words are a whisper. “That’s not what I wanted to be.”
“We had our whole lives ahead of us.”
I hear the crack in her voice and mine splinters too. “It never felt like enough.”
“I’m really sorry about your dad,” she says, her hand coming close, but not enough to touch me. “He was a good man. It’s got to give you some comfort knowing he’s with your mom.”
“I miss him,” I say. “Every single day. Driving home from practices, we’d always talk on the phone. We had some of our best conversations. The quiet on the way home kills me.”
“I’m sorry. For you. And your pain.”
I turn to her. Those eyes drain me of any fight. I let my fingers dig into my pants, though they want to touch something else. “It never goes away.”
“Does she know you’re here, that I’m back?”
The question brings Abby to the forefront, and I forget the illicit thoughts that send me somewhere forbidden. “Abby had to go away. The anxiety thing got out of control. She checked into a facility.”
I let that admission grab her before saying anything more. She takes a sip of the coffee, and I feel as though I’m watching junior-year Lauren studying for an econ exam.
“I’d like to go see her,” she says.
I want to touch her hair and her cheek. I want to give her all the answers. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. She’s already having a hard time.”
“Maybe it’ll be good for her,” Lauren says, pausing, searching the room, meeting my eyes again. “Abby and I have a lot to talk about.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JULIANA
Daddy says I have to go back to Cold Creek for another session with Jeannie, but I don’t want to. “And you need to spend some time with your mama,” he says, but I want to do that even less. We’ve had the discussion no fewer than ten times since Jeannie called about my next scheduled visit. Daddy kept putting her off with excuses about the drive and school, though the truth was that I refused to go. Daddy doesn’t realize that I try to block out that part of my life. It’s like Alice’s Wonderland. I take careful steps not to fall through the rabbit hole and land on the other side. Instead, I call Mama every Sunday. It fills in the gaps, and I save my neediness and impatience for our awkward conversations.
I vacillate. One day I miss her to infinity, and the next I feel nothing at all. I told her this on our last phone call, and she told me not to be hard on myself. “I’ve been swinging from the same pendulum, Jules. Do yourself a favor: accept that you’re unsure about your feelings.”
Her wisdom should have appeased me, but it had the opposite effect. “Don’t compare me to you,” I hissed through the phone.
“I won’t be spoken to like that. When you’re ready to treat me with respect, then I’ll be happy to finish this conversation.” And she hung up.
I went out for a jog after that. It was freezing outside, but I had to get away from the invasion of feelings. I don’t know how to respond to this woman who claims to be my mother. Her absence marked so much of my childhood that I got used to it, and missing her was impossible because it was something I never had. This strange, assertive woman wants me to be her daughter, but we are too far apart. How can I trust her when our seams have always c
ome undone? I know she means well. I know she is working on getting better. But I am angry at the time we lost.
My mind pushes my limbs to a speed that is unnatural. The peaking sensation floods my bloodstream and I gasp for air. Mama said this is what her attacks feel like. A small part of me feels sorry for her, sorry for my anger. Which makes me feel angry all over again.
This is why I am lying in my bed under a thick blanket of blue, positive I won’t be visiting Cold Creek with Daddy today. The house is quiet, and I know E.J. is breathing just a few doors away. He’s been broken up about Ruby and what his arrest has done to her. She calls daily and comes by the house when she can, but it’s not the same as having him in the apartment. Their separation is taking a toll on both of them. Football was always his stress-relieving outlet, and while he’s banned from playing, it’s left to me to distract him from a sadness he didn’t want me to see. I haven’t slept very well since he moved in, though my head is crowded with dreams.
It’s also been left to me to take chances in the pathways connecting our rooms. E.J., with the charges piling up against him, and respecting my dad in a way only a player can, is less interested in being risky. That’s why I jump when I hear a faint knock on my door, and E.J.’s head pokes through.
“Have you gone crazy, too?” I ask.
“He already left,” he says, nudging me over and sliding under the covers. “Guess he knew you weren’t going.”
E.J. is wearing a pair of white gym shorts and a black tank top. He smells of morning and the organic soaps my mom buys from Whole Foods because she’s convinced that manufacturers are trying to kill us with their ingredients.
“I feel bad,” I say.
“You should go see your mama. We only get one of them.”
I watch E.J. get comfortable under my sheets. And I feel his every limb against my shorts and top. I nuzzle into him and let the covers fasten us together. Soon his lips are on mine. “Morning breath,” I say, getting up from the bed and filing over to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
I return to find him staring at the picture next to my bed of the three of us: Mama, Daddy, and me. It’s their wedding day, but most people don’t know that. She’s not wearing a white dress, and he’s in khakis and a pale green shirt that makes his eyes shine. He’s holding me in one arm with the other wrapped around Mama. It was just the three of us, since Mama barely speaks to her side of the family, and Daddy’s sisters, my aunts, moved to another state. An unconventional ceremony for an unconventional family.
“What’s it like to live with parents who like each other?” he asks.
I shrug my shoulders. E.J. knows our house is certifiably nutso. He has his serious face on, and I’m more in the mood to touch him than talk. I sneak under the covers beside him, and I force him to look away from our picture and instead to look at me. His eyes are the clearest blue. I can see deep inside.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he says, as I run my hands up and down his back. I love his body. I love the smooth brown of it. I love the feel of it against my fingers and feet. I love the way his legs get tangled in mine and how he thinks I don’t feel his hands prying my knees apart.
“Then why are you?”
He says it’s because he can’t be so close without touching me.
My fingers and hands are stroking E.J. until he abruptly sits up and swats me away. “I’m serious, Jules. I can’t do this.” The covers have shifted off my body, revealing a small, stubborn remnant of my fall. I like that it hasn’t faded. He touches it with his fingers. “I did this to you.”
“It was an accident.”
“I didn’t want my family’s troubles to interfere with you.”
“Then Ruby shouldn’t have made you so darn cute.”
“It’s not funny. Ellis is mad. Real mad. Devon was supposed to bring him that bag. He expects that money. It’s not just the police after me; he’s going to come, too.”
I am used to living in fear and things not being stable at home, but the fear E.J. lives in is of another kind. People in his world shoot and kill each other. Anger turns to violence. Sometimes I am able to forget where E.J. came from. He isn’t like his brothers, and he is nothing like his father. The few times I’ve met Ruby, I could tell at once she is the reason E.J. is who he is, maybe why he’s even alive today. And yet, I wonder, how can he risk everything to protect them?
“I’m not scared of him, E.J.”
“Jules, he’s dangerous. He doesn’t care who he hurts.”
“You’ll tell him the truth. You did it to protect them.”
“He doesn’t think like that, babe. He’s different from you and me. We’re not people. We’re things that can be replaced.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should stop seeing each other.”
E.J. is my heartbeat. Those words bring it to a halt. “Why would you say something like that? You have to stay here. The courts said it was the only way they’d release you. How can we not see each other?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what?”
“Maybe we should take a break.”
“I love you, E.J. You love me. We don’t take breaks. You told me to open the door and let you in and I did. You told me I was your ever!”
He’s touching the tender spot along my back. “Look how I hurt you. I should’ve been able to save you.”
“You’re hurting me now,” I shout at him. “You think this doesn’t hurt? You think you don’t have the ability to crush me?” I get up from the bed and begin to pace the room.
“Ruby’s coming today. We’re going to petition the court to let me stay with her. She quit one of her jobs and she’ll be home after school. Things will be tight, but she needs me.”
“I need you! I thought you loved me. I thought you couldn’t live without me.”
“I can’t,” he says, hiding his face in his hands. “That’s why we need to end this. I don’t want you getting hurt. I don’t want my problems touching you or your family.”
“Please don’t do this,” I beg him. I am on my knees on the floor while he is under my protective covers. “You can’t just come in here and lie down next to me like that, and then, two seconds later, tell me we’re breaking up.”
“Jules, I love you. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
“I was ready to have sex with you!”
“You’ll have to save it for somebody else.”
“I don’t want anyone else.”
He is resting on his side, and his face is staring up at me. The whole scene is crooked and wrong. I should be under the covers with him, and we should be out of breath from a thousand kisses. I shouldn’t be on the floor, begging this boy in my bed not to leave me.
“Come here,” he says, pulling me up alongside him and covering me with the sheets and blanket. I collapse into his body, bare and needy. He curls around me, and I know I will never be whole again.
“Please don’t do this,” I say again. He is kissing my hair and my damp cheeks, and it’s making it worse. “It doesn’t make sense.” He pulls me tighter to him as if force will make my pain go away. It won’t. E.J. is decisive. He’s made up his mind, and I hate the falseness of his body against mine.
Deep, heavy sobs fill the air between us. His arms contain me, and I hate him and love him all at once. The wound fills my lungs. My arms fight to break away, but he is stronger than I will ever be.
His cell phone is next to the wedding picture, and it is vibrating in tune with my sobs. The glass screen lights up, and it distracts E.J. from protecting me.
“I have to get that,” he says.
I am too numb to speak. Lifeless, I let him reach across me and take the phone into his hands. He doesn’t say hello to the voice on the other end of the line. He just listens. After a few seconds, he hangs up. He lies back on the pillows while I remain turned to the side, studying my closet of clothes like I’ve never studied it before
. My back is to him so I don’t see the message that comes up on the screen, but I can make out the reflection of something in the mirror. The text is a warning. The picture on his phone is of me, and the call was from Ellis Whittaker.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ABBY
Nonfamily visitors are allowed at Cold Creek, but they first have to obtain proper clearance from the patient and his or her lead counselor.
Jeannie and I are about to begin today’s session when she informs me that a Ms. Lauren Sheppard has put in a request for admission. “This is Lauren, the best friend Lauren, right? Ryan’s ex?”
The way she says it simplifies it rather nicely, though the way my heart pounds inside my chest means there is nothing simple about traveling down this road.
“Have you been in touch with her?” she asks. “Did you know she wanted to see you?”
“I’m the last person Lauren has wanted to hear from.”
“The decision is yours, Abby. I can reject her request rather easily. You’re my patient and your well-being is paramount. Say the word and I’ll do it, but this is an important discussion for us to have.”
I’m sitting in my favorite chair in her office. Jeannie and I have talked about this, how patients assume the same spots over time. It’s so proprietary I am convinced that this is truly my chair and no other person has ever sat in it. Which is kind of what happens in the patient-therapist relationship. The sessions are so personal you can’t believe they happen with anyone else.
“It would be so easy for me to have you do that. The thought of her coming here petrifies me.”
“Talk to me about it.”
Jeannie has mastered getting me to divulge the most painful parts of myself. Lauren breezes in between us, and I see her right before my eyes. “It’s always her face,” I say. “It’s staring at me. Lauren’s a pretty girl with these damaged but persistent eyes. I can’t free myself from the glare.”
Sophomore year, Lauren and I moved from Belk Hall to a two-bedroom walk-up on Larimer Street. By then, Ryan was our third roommate with his own drawer, and our toothbrushes would commingle in the bathroom the three of us shared. I pretended not to notice when he’d walk past me freshly showered. Images had a way of piling up inside me and making it difficult for me to concentrate.
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