All We Could Have Been

by TE Carter

  “Have you thought about college yet? The college fair is coming up next week, right?”

  “It’s that big, huh?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of the guys at school … he mentioned it was a big deal. I didn’t realize everyone knew about it.”

  Aunt Susie nods, taking a bite of her chicken. “All the school reps usually come through the restaurant.”

  “I haven’t thought a whole lot about it. I probably should, since I don’t have much time, I guess, but Mom said I should try getting the basics taken care of online first. She figures once that’s out of the way, we can talk long-term. I’d kind of rather just go away, to be honest. Far away. Maybe Estonia or something.”

  My aunt laughs. “I don’t think they’ll let me take you on that campus visit.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think they’d let me go to Chicago, never mind another country. They’re convinced I’m broken.”

  I catch how she looks at my yellow skirt and yellow sweater, pretending she isn’t. She doesn’t comment on my clothes or on the scars that sneak out past the cuffs of my sleeves. She doesn’t need to. I know everyone thinks it. How could I possibly be trusted to go to college? What happens if everything follows me there, too?

  “I might try out for the drama club,” I say, changing the subject. I hate thinking about the future. Especially when, in my head, it’s just more of the same.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Why not? It’ll be good to be social, right?”

  “I don’t know. Your parents really want you to keep a low profile, and I’m not sure drama club is the way to do that. Maybe you can see what they think first?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’ll ask them.”

  And they’ll say no. And they’re right, but it’s still annoying. I don’t even want to join. Not really. But sitting here feeling like I can’t makes me want to fight for it. Even if I know better.

  “By the way,” I continue, already irritated and suddenly feeling argumentative, “I met Marcus Cotero. He’s really nice. And his mom thinks highly of you.”

  My aunt puts her fork down and takes a sip of water, forced casualness in her voice when she responds. “Oh? How’d you meet his mom?”

  “I went over there this afternoon.”

  “Huh. I thought I’d told you, but I guess I didn’t. Marcus Cotero is probably a bad idea. Dianne says he sells drugs, which may or may not be true. They say he’s likely to end up in trouble. You definitely don’t need to be wrapped up in that. At the very least, you don’t need people speculating about you, too.”

  “I don’t think he sells drugs,” I say, even though I have no idea if that could be true. “Who’s Dianne, anyway? Do I care what Dianne thinks? Why would Dianne think that?”

  “Dianne’s no one in particular, but she’s a person, and people talk.” My aunt sighs. “It doesn’t matter if what they say is true. All they need to do is say it, Lexi. All they need to do is put it out there. You don’t want to be the next person people come in talking about.”

  “Maybe people need to fuck off,” I snap.

  “You’re doing it again. Please don’t lash out at me. You know I’m only thinking about you.”

  I do lash out. Always at the wrong people, and always when they’re trying to help. Heath says it’s because I need a “safe rage receptacle.” I tried telling him how gross that phrase is, but he simply nodded and made notes about my rage.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I wish…” But I don’t finish. Because that’s not why I’m here. I’m not here to wish. I’m here to hide.

  My aunt nods, but she doesn’t say anything else. There’s nothing else to say.

  “I’m heading to bed,” she says after she finishes eating. “Do you mind cleaning up?”

  “No problem.”

  I get up and clear dinner, thinking of Marcus’s mom and his movie posters and the things he tried to say in the dirt this afternoon. Just 157 days, I tell myself.

  I don’t know why, but each year feels so much longer than the last one.

  Chapter Seven

  “Maybe you should start smaller,” my mom says. It’s Saturday and my aunt’s at work, so I called home. I decided to lead with drama because last night, I stayed up for hours thinking about it. The idea grew inside my head, an obsession, and I wanted to prove I could do it. I wanted to show them that I can make progress.

  “Heath would probably approve. He’d say it was a ‘shedding of the other self.’” That’s another of the bullshit phrases Heath likes to use. He always makes the things in my head sound so easy. And the solutions even easier. If it were up to Heath, I’d have taken up yoga and eaten lentils for six months, and I’d be perfectly well adjusted now.

  “It just seems … very attention-seeking.” There’s that phrase again. I hate how wanting to exist is the same as looking for attention.

  “But, come on, Mom. I’m an excellent actress. That’s all I’ve done for the last five years,” I say.

  “It feels like you’re trying to make a point, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to be making points, Alexia.”

  “Okay, well, drama club is a bad idea, and points are a bad idea. So why don’t you tell me what’s a good idea? Should I just come home and stare blankly at the bare walls in my room instead?” I ask.

  “Don’t do this. If it was something else … math club or something…”

  “Is that a thing?”

  “What I’m saying is that the theater is not a healthy place for you, with everything you’re dealing with, honey.”

  “Why? You made a career out of drama. Maybe I want a career, too.”

  “I don’t think you’re ready to be thinking about careers.”

  “Got it. Don’t think. Don’t make points. Don’t do anything. Sounds good, then.”

  She’s quiet for a minute. “What about costumes?”

  “They already asked me to make costumes, but I don’t know. I’m not really interested in that. I’m not much for sewing.”

  “No, I mean, what about what you’re supposed to wear? What if they give you blue on a Friday?”

  It’s low, and she knows it. She knows she shouldn’t use it as a weapon or an argument. For all the solutions Heath and Mom’s psychologist friends have had over the years, one that stuck was to avoid ridicule. To make sure I don’t feel ashamed of my fears.

  I hate her for a minute. Mostly because I know she’s right, and I hate that more.

  “I’m sure I can handle it,” I say. But I can’t. I know I can’t handle it. I can’t stand in front of people knowing everything is off. I can’t even make it to the bus if everything isn’t perfect.

  “What if they ask you to wear red?” my mom continues. “I just don’t want you to…”

  I imagine it. I imagine standing on the stage, eyes on me, while I’m covered in red.

  I don’t wear red.

  I remember the shirt the police officer had in his hands. The way the blood had soaked through it.

  I remember the photographs on the news and the ones they showed us later. I remember everyone saying it looked like paint. Like some kind of Halloween prank.

  I can see the leaves as I walked home that day, the shrapnel of fall along the gutters and sidewalks. I should have known right away that something was wrong. Mrs. Cabot was always home next door with Lucy and Miles, but they were only four and six, so she wouldn’t have had the music that loud. But it filled the fall air, and I should have noticed then. I should have noticed how heavy the autumn felt, even if it really only does now that I remember it.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Lexi.”

  I remember those words. And then I remember them fading under the sounds of the police scanner and all the crying and my mother saying that there had to be a mistake.

  She’s still talking in my ear, but I hang up. There’s nothing I can say in response, and now I can’t stop remembering.

  Chapter Eight


  I excel at making terrible life choices, which is probably obvious when I decide to audition for the play anyway, despite my mom’s best efforts. Sitting in the back of the auditorium, I watch people study the monologues they’ve prepared. They all chose Shakespeare or some classic or Our Town, but I didn’t know there were rules. So I picked something I memorized years ago.

  The monologue is from a play I saw with my parents during summer vacation between ninth and tenth grades. We had to go because one of my mom’s graduate students had written it. I didn’t know why that meant we had to go, but it did, and so we went.

  I’d always liked plays, but I hadn’t expected to enjoy this one, because we were only going out of obligation. But I did. And I thought afterward that the playwright was probably too good for a small town and a small university, especially when we were only a little ways from Boston. Then again, I don’t know what the process is for getting a play produced. I’m sure dreams are a lot more complicated than commuting distance.

  This particular monologue was at the end of the play. There was a girl onstage, alone, and she said something that sat in my head all night. And the rest of that weekend. And now, years later, I still remember the monologue, even though I saw the play only that one time. I remember it because the words were so honest and true for me.

  Nothing hurts more beautifully than memory.

  In those words, I was able to make sense of the pain that I still couldn’t speak.

  Memory tricks you. The past has talons, and they tear you apart. Whenever you think you’re safe, that the moment has passed, there’s the subtlest change in the air—a smell, a sound, a whisper, or a look—and everything falls to pieces again. That’s what seventeen years have been like.

  Or at least the last five. Since that fall when I was twelve.

  “L,” Ryan says, interrupting the way I’ve slipped into the past again. I feel the talons retract, and it falls off me, but it brushes against the back of my skull to remind me that it’s never very far.

  I look over at him. He’s sitting beside me, his personal copy of Romeo and Juliet already in tatters, open to a page filled with highlights and notes. “Queen Mab?” I ask, gesturing to the monologue he’s studying.

  “It’s only the best part.”

  “It’s not called Mercutio and Juliet.”

  “It should be.” He pauses. “Besides, there’s the whole Juliet part of being Romeo.”

  He glances toward the front row, where a contingent of girls sits, each hoping she’ll get to be the star. It doesn’t matter, because if Rory wants Juliet, she’s going to be Juliet. She stands off in the corner by the doors that lead back into the school, pacing with her own memories and fears. But she’s something beyond the rest of us, and we all know it.

  “Nothing really changes around here,” Ryan says. “It’s the same group of people for the same types of parts every year. It’s hard to fake certain things. I just don’t think I can pretend to feel like that about any of the girls here.”

  “You seem to have missed the memo on what drama club does.”

  “Yeah, it’s just … yeah. You’re right. But c’mon. Mercutio is pretty awesome, anyway.”

  “He is,” I agree.

  Lauren and Chloe arrive, bringing their own monologues with them. Lauren sits on the floor in front of us while Chloe sits in the seat next to Ryan and more than casually presses her leg against his.

  “What are you guys doing way back here?” Chloe asks. “Auditions are happening up front.”

  “I just needed some quiet to run over this monologue,” Ryan says.

  She leans across him and gives me a death stare. “What about you? What part are you going for?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”

  As she leans back, she brushes her hand against Ryan’s knee. I catch how he looks down, how he tries to move his leg away.

  “Rory is getting Juliet,” she says. “Because, I mean, obviously. And usually the better parts go to people who’ve proven themselves, but I’m sure there’s, like, a servant or something you could play.”

  I don’t generally have the same competitive nature a lot of people do. But I do not do well with assumptions. I don’t like being written off any more than I like my mother suggesting I can’t handle being onstage.

  “You never know. Maybe I’m secretly a star,” I say.

  No one says anything in reply, and the silence starts to creep into the space between us. Seconds pass and it grows slowly, expanding until it’s all that exists. Suddenly the entire world is the awkward silence, and I repeat in my head the two sentences I spoke. I repeat them over and over until they’re not even words anymore.

  I try to rationalize. I tell myself it wasn’t much of a comment, that everyone else is just wrapped up in themselves, that no one even heard me over their own worries. But that doesn’t quiet the sounds in my head. It doesn’t make me stop repeating the words, and it doesn’t make the silence stop growing. The sounds in the auditorium grow dim under the agitated pleas in my brain.

  Why did you say that? That wasn’t even funny, and now they think you’re arrogant. You say the dumbest shit. Something is seriously wrong with you. Why can’t you keep your mouth shut? You’re absolutely incapable of not fucking up, aren’t you?

  I want to leave. I want to run away from the auditorium, from auditions, from Westbrook High School. I want to disappear and pretend I never was, which is what Heath calls my “defensive response to stress.” Run, hide, and ignore.

  It’s easy to blame Scott and the past and my parents and the things people have said for all that I am, but I thrive on the disappearing, too. I love starting over and shedding myself year after year because I don’t have to face remembering. I don’t have to be me.

  Sometimes I think I’m glad it all happened. It gave me an excuse to be a mess.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I say, but grab my stuff. I don’t owe these people anything. I don’t need to audition. I want to, but only because I want to prove something to myself. To my parents. I don’t need to be here, and I tell myself as I walk out of the auditorium, toward the bathroom, that I’ll keep walking. Who cares? So what if I let Ryan down? If everyone in drama expected me to audition? They may as well get used to it.

  “Hey, Lexi. Wait up,” Lauren says. “I’ll walk with you. I needed to get out of there. It’s too much sometimes.”

  “I thought you loved it?”

  She shakes her head, pulling her ponytail loose from the elastic and redoing it quickly so it’s more of a messy twist now. “I like everyone in drama, but I hate being onstage. I mean, at first, I guess. And auditions are the worst. I can’t stand how excited everyone gets. Something’s wrong with me, I swear. I’ve been doing it for three years, and I still feel like I’m going to puke every time I walk onto the stage.”

  “So why do you do it? Why go through that?”

  “Well, I do kind of love it, too. I just really hate it and I love it. I can’t explain,” she says. “I kind of hate it. I mean, I do hate it. A lot. But then I don’t. I hate auditions and feeling like I’m not good enough. I hate worrying about learning lines, because every time, I wonder if my brain will run out of space for them. I hate being onstage and having people look at me. But then something happens. After the curtain goes up and the show starts, it all disappears, and there’s just me and the words and the lights, and it’s … kind of everything.”

  What she says makes me wish I was excited. That I wasn’t here only to make some kind of point. I wish I felt that way about anything, because I love the purity of what Lauren’s saying.

  “Oh. Well, I was thinking of just doing crew instead. I don’t think I’m cut out for acting.”

  “Really?” she asks. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with crew, but why?”

  There’s a series of excuses I could give. I could tell her I’m nervous. I could pretend I’m worried I’ll get a crappy role, and pretend I’m th
e kind of person who cares about that. I could tell her my parents or my aunt wouldn’t approve, which is mostly true. I could say a lot of things, but I open my mouth and the truth comes out. I hate when it does that.

  “I’m afraid of getting a part and then, the day before or the morning of or ten minutes before the show starts, I realize I can’t do it,” I admit. “Because that’s sort of something I do. I flake on everyone.”

  We’ve reached the front of the school, and Lauren holds the door open, gesturing toward the bench at the front of the building. I appreciate how she doesn’t mention she knew I was running away, not just using the bathroom. It’s late in the afternoon, and detention has ended, so a few students wait for rides. Teachers stroll past us all, not stopping, not acknowledging us. Everyone walks out of this place leaving something of themselves behind every day.

  “You should still try out, you know,” Lauren says. “It’s really not a big deal. We’ll survive if you change your mind. Why not at least see what happens?”

  How do I explain this feeling to someone? I don’t even know how to make sense of it to myself. Heath says it’s a side effect of what happened. That the trauma broke something in me, and now I handle stress poorly. He says my anxiety is how I work through everything, but I don’t know. I feel like it’s just something embedded inside me. Like there’s blood and muscle and bone and this. That the way I overthink everything is the same as the way my heart beats—a natural physical response. The moods and the way I panic are like oxygen for me.

  I know what’s going to happen if I audition and get a part. Right now, sitting in the fading sunlight with Lauren, thinking of my parents and how there are only just over 150 days left and how no one thinks I can do this, I want it so badly. I want to walk on that stage and not panic. I want to see my name on a cast list. I tell myself over and over that, yes, this time I can do it. I can wear brown on Friday or wear red or even mix colors, and it will all be okay. I can even see it. I can envision standing up there with all those people looking at me, confident and sure and different.