All We Could Have Been

by TE Carter

  My parents go in after me, but we don’t talk, and I have the guard walk me outside so I can sit in the car. It’s started to snow again, and this time it’s sticking. The car is covered with white, and the sky’s turned nearly black.

  I open the door, crawl into the backseat, and go to sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Nothing changes after Thanksgiving. My parents try to talk me into staying behind, but I can’t. I don’t want to be there. Not with their holiday-themed towels and the worry and the always-remembering-something-that-isn’t-real-anymore.

  There’s no sudden freedom after seeing Scott, but there is relief at having said all those things aloud. At moving the voices from my head onto the person who earned them.

  On his birthday I sit in the apartment, thinking about him. He’s officially an adult now. I try to feel something about it. Try remembering in a way that doesn’t hurt. A way that doesn’t suffocate where we are now with some distorted nostalgia. But instead all I can think of are the realities that could have been. All the ways today could have gone if he’d only made a different choice.

  I call Marcus and we go back to the bowling alley, walking the entire way in silence. It’s a new silence, though. It’s the quiet of knowing there are things that can’t be said but are still understood.

  The bowling alley is one of those places that should be depressing, but it’s kind of comforting in how sad it is. I figure at least it’s not another chain store. It’s not anything, but it’s better than being just another of something.

  “It’s Scott’s birthday,” I tell him when we get inside.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  “My dad’s birthday is the week after Christmas. It’s unfair, isn’t it?” he asks.

  “What is?”

  “We both fill Decembers with the memories of people who disappointed us. The holidays will never be like a Christmas card for us because either right before or right after, there’s just the reminder of them.”

  We sit in one of the lanes this time. If I lean back, I’ll end up in the gutter. I tell myself not to analyze that. It’s not a symbol, I repeat in my head. It’s just a bowling alley.

  “I…” I realize I don’t want to talk about Scott anymore. I don’t want anything but to try to be here. To be now. I promised myself I’d make a conscious effort to be present instead of always seeing the world through the fabric of the past.

  “Do you ever wonder if people change?” I ask.

  Marcus shakes his head, the motion in silhouette thanks to the camping lantern behind him. “Not really. No. I don’t think they do.”

  “So you don’t think there’s a chance? You don’t think people like Rory grow up?”

  “Some do, I guess. But I don’t know. Most of them, I’d say no. I think people are who they are. I think everyone has a person they wish they were, and they try to convince everyone else that’s who they are, but most people are just themselves.”

  “And after high school? It’s more of the same?”

  “Well, I don’t think there’s this high school version of people and then suddenly, they graduate and they change. Yeah, I think a lot of people appear to change. Probably for a lot of reasons. Maybe it’s not really anything different, but you’re in a different place, and so you don’t see it the same way. I think maybe you don’t have to deal with Rory every day, so later you don’t feel the same when you do see her, but that’s not a difference in her.”

  “That’s pretty cynical,” I tell him. I don’t mean to be critical. I don’t mind his cynicism. I’m curious about it. Despite everything, I guess I’ve always clung to this idea that it was all temporary. But maybe he’s right.

  “Probably,” he says. “I don’t know. I guess I feel like I’ve seen enough of people to know you can’t count on them to be anything but themselves.”

  The bowling alley is shadows and flashes of light from the lantern and the cars passing outside. I have no idea what’s waiting on the other side of the glass doors. The world could be falling down around us, but in here it’s fine. A little cold, but fine.

  Marcus notices my shivering and takes out a blanket from a bag he brought. He wraps the blanket around me and tries to cover both of us with the ends of it, but it only reaches to his shoulders. His back is still out in the cold.

  “I think some people can change,” he says finally. “I know you want to hope for Scott, and I don’t want you to think—”

  “It’s not that,” I admit. “I think he’s probably beyond that point. I don’t know if I’ll ever really forgive him, no matter who or what he becomes. Even if change is possible. But I guess I want to think that maybe someday people will remember me and feel sorry they said the things they did. It’s selfish, I know. It just … it really fucking hurts. And I guess I like hoping that maybe someday someone will feel bad for making me feel like this.”

  Marcus pulls me closer, but still the blanket doesn’t reach around him. “It’s probably possible. I’m sorry I’m a cynic.”

  “I’m sorry I’m not. Sometimes I wish I listened to the voices in my head. You’d think after years of being hurt like this, I’d know better. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I just don’t know how to stop hoping.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hoping. I just don’t think it’s worth expecting it. It’s not worth how much it hurts.”

  We both lie back, wrapping the blanket around us. The lane is cold on my back, but between Marcus and the blanket, I don’t mind it.

  “After my dad left,” he says, “for a while I lived in this fantasy. I told myself he’d come back. That he’d left the movies because they mattered to him. That they were some kind of code. That his note wasn’t saying it was permanent. He was saying someday he’d be there to watch them, too. That he wanted me to know he was coming back. But he didn’t. And eventually I kind of realized that’s just people. He should’ve been better. He should’ve at least tried. But people don’t do what they should. People disappoint you. You can hope they won’t, and you can imagine them making different choices, but in the end they sometimes let you down. For no reason at all.”

  “I think that’s what bugs me. The disappointment,” I say. “Because I keep hoping for more, and I’m always disappointed. And I hate how much it hurts, and yet I can’t stop thinking it might be different. This year was one of the worst.”

  “Why?” Marcus asks.

  “Probably because of Ryan. I mean, I get it. But he was better than the rest of them. With Rory, she’s not who I thought she was. That’s on me. I saw her as a different kind of person, but like you said, people disappoint you. Chloe and I weren’t friends, so it didn’t hurt with her. And she’s been … I don’t know. She surprises me. And then there’s Lauren, but we didn’t know each other well enough. She’s still friendly, too, so there’s no real absence there. But Ryan … he was my friend. My best friend here.”

  “I’ve never even met him. It’s weird we live in these different realities, even when we’re so close,” Marcus says.

  “It is. I wish you knew him. I wish I could explain. Because he’s … he’s honestly a good person. And that makes it harder. Because I understand. If I was him, if it was a year ago and we were in different situations, I would have done the same thing. I would’ve cut him out of my life, too.”

  “Really?”

  I don’t want to admit it. I want to tell Marcus I’m better than I am, but I imagine myself as Ryan. I imagine being in Maine last fall, becoming close to someone, and then having their secret lead people to mine. I imagine Ben having a secret that could have drawn attention to me, and I think about how I would have reacted.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Last year, if I’d been in the same place, I would’ve been scared. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, but I would have done the same thing.”

  “If you say so,” Marcus says.

  “I know you don’t understand, because you don’t know the whole story
, and I can’t tell you. I won’t do that to him. But trust me, it’s all the same, really. Sometimes it’s just about getting by.”

  “That’s why your aunt worried about me. Because she was worried I’d make it harder for you.”

  “She never believed them, you know. She always liked you. Still does. She just … worried.”

  “I know. And it wasn’t far from the truth. I mean, it was true. Once.”

  I turn onto my side and rest my arm across his body. “I think I’m gonna stay here,” I tell him. “Not just for this year. Like, until I figure shit out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like … as long as I need to stay here. College or whatever. My parents wanted me to go home and take classes online for a while. But I’m not going to. I’m gonna stay here. I’ll go to school locally somehow. I want to make this work.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod. “Yeah. I need to stop leaving everything behind just because it gets hard. I mean, it’s always gonna be tough, right? I can keep running away from it all, or I can start trying to live. I might as well start living.”

  Marcus sits up and lays the blanket across the lane, lying down on it and pulling me down beside him. We don’t touch except for our fingertips.

  “I want you to stay,” he says. “I want to know you’ll be here, but I don’t want you to stay because of me.”

  “I’m not. It’s a bonus. But I’m not. This is for me, I promise.”

  “I need to get a job. I want to go to school next year, too, but we can’t afford it. And there aren’t a lot of places excited about taking fuckups, especially on scholarship. I don’t even take real classes.”

  “You could take a year off and then go,” I say. “People do it all the time. And now I’ll be here to annoy you about it.”

  He links his fingers with mine. Our hands glow in the unnatural light. A red-and-black shadow. It feels solid and real to hold his hand, but it looks like a dream.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?” I ask.

  “What is?”

  “There’s an entire life waiting for us. Six months from now. A year from now. And I have no idea what that looks like. I don’t know how to imagine it.”

  “Do you know what you want to do in school?”

  “Not really. It’s kinda unfair they want us to decide now, isn’t it? I still don’t even know who I am. How can I decide now who future me should be?”

  “I get that,” he says.

  “What about you? Movies?”

  Marcus shakes his head, staring up at the pipes and loose tiles on the ceiling. “Nah. That’s just something I hold on to. For me. I don’t want that to define me. I don’t want … I think I need them to be something else. Something I don’t share with people.”

  “So what do you want to do, then?”

  “It’s between two things. Maybe there’s some happy medium in there between them both. I don’t know. Maybe. But I’ve kind of always known. At least since my mom got sick. When she got sick, I decided I wanted to go into nursing. I want to be there for people like her. Not that it’s going to be easy, since I only learn real things from the internet.”

  “That’s still pretty amazing,” I say. “What’s the other thing? Please don’t say, like, football star. That will really detract from this wonderful revelation that you have a deep heart.”

  “Hey, you didn’t already know that?” he asks, laughing.

  “I did, but don’t prove me wrong with some nonsense.”

  “Well, first of all, I don’t play football. I don’t play anything. But if I did, it would be hockey.”

  “Really? Hockey? I never would’ve guessed that.”

  “I’m full of secrets and surprises.”

  “Okay, so you want to be a nurse or a hockey player.”

  His laugh bounces off the wood of the lane and the hollow space where the pins would be if this place still existed for any purpose. I love the sound of it. A memory of life in a place that thought it had been forgotten.

  “No hockey,” Marcus says. “I just meant if I was going to pick some sports fantasy, it would be hockey.”

  “Are you going to tell me, then?”

  “I was, until you started with your twenty questions about my sports preferences.”

  “Go on,” I say.

  “I want to do something for people like my dad. Social work, maybe? I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s even a title, but I want to be the person who finds people like him. People who can’t handle the day-to-day shit of cancer. I want to help them handle it.”

  “That’s really sweet. And even more amazing.”

  He sighs. “Please don’t tell anyone I’m either of those things. I kind of like my total-fuckup image.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m done telling people anything.”

  * * *

  It’s the middle of the night when we leave the bowling alley. It’s also snowing and has been for a while. There’s at least two inches on the ground, and it’s not stopping anytime soon.

  “Maybe they’ll give us a snow day tomorrow,” I say.

  “I hope so, because functioning on two hours of sleep is probably unhealthy.”

  “I seem to remember there was some sleeping in there.”

  “There was, but there was also a great deal of … not sleeping,” Marcus says.

  He stops and turns in the snow, kissing me as the flakes bear down on us.

  “You know what?” I ask.

  “What’s that?”

  “I like this reality,” I tell him. “I’ve been trying so hard to find one I could stick to. There’s the version of my life from before Scott happened. And the multiple forms it took over the past five years. Even this year there have been a few sort-of-close-but-not-totally-me versions of me. But with you I feel like this is the right one. I really like this one. I like this.”

  “I like it, too.” He smiles, his eyes flickering. “You know what I think about a lot? Remember the first day of school? What if no one had put that dick on the knight?”

  “Right? What would we have talked about? Would we have talked?”

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

  “It’s weird,” I agree. “So I guess in a way we have to be thankful for that graffiti artist. It’s the best thing that’s happened to me this year.”

  “Smart guy,” he says.

  I look over at him. “You didn’t…?”

  He laughs. “No. First of all, I am god-awful at art, even spray-painted dicks. Secondly, I am not so amazing that I planned a night of wild graffiti chaos, all of which I foresaw would lead us here. I just think about it a lot. How weird things are. And how it’s kind of lucky they are.”

  Marcus smokes in silence as we trudge home through the snow. It’s impressive he can keep the cigarette lit in the storm, but I guess you can become an expert on slowly killing yourself.

  When we get to the complex, we take the long way back to my apartment. It’s late and we should hurry, but I don’t want to go home yet.

  “I’m really glad someone painted a dick on that sign,” I tell him.

  “I really am, too.”

  “It’s funny, because if you’d told me we’d be here tonight—that you would be the only person standing here after everything—I don’t know if I would’ve believed you.”

  “Why not?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Not because I didn’t want you to be, but for a while there I thought I had friends. I had drama. I didn’t see you much after the sign and the ice cream.”

  “I’m sorry I’m the only one here,” he says.

  “That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here. It’s just not how I would’ve expected things to go.”

  “Sometimes the people you expect to be there—the ones you trust the most—they’re the first to leave.” I know he’s thinking about his dad. I wish I’d known him. I wish I could know him now. Could tell him what he gave up. “It’s really too bad we couldn’t get some kind
of warranty on decency. Like, before we fall in love with someone, I wish we could we get a guarantee they’ll be there when it counts.”

  When we reach my apartment, I stop only a few yards from my door and face him. “I love you, you know. I don’t come with a guarantee, but I do love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Marcus says, kissing me under the security lights as they turn the snow into an explosion of starlight.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Just before winter break, Rory Winters reappears. I walk into school and find my locker covered with flyers. Some are for her victims’ group or whatever, welcoming me to another Monday morning with the faces of dead kids staring back at me. The rest are for drama auditions, which are today. I’m not welcome in drama anymore, so they were left simply as a reminder of how much she hates me.

  “Fuck you, Rory Winters,” I say, pulling the flyers off the locker and tossing them into the trash.

  “What’s that, Alexia Stewart? I got your name right, didn’t I? That’s your name?” she asks from behind me.

  I turn around to face her. “How petty can you be?”

  “I just wanted to remind you about auditions. You are auditioning, right? It would be such a shame for you to miss out. I mean, we aren’t doing Macbeth, so it might be hard for you to find a psycho-bitch character to relate to, but I’m sure you can figure something out. I’m sure you can pretend to be anyone you want to be, can’t you, Lexi?”

  I create an entire rant in my head about her use of the words psycho and bitch. About the irony of her self-righteousness. But words are wasted on someone like her, so I just smile.

  “Oh yeah. Thanks so much for reminding me. I almost forgot. Well, see you at auditions,” I say, walking away.

  I have no intention of going, but I love knowing she’ll spend all day wondering whether I was serious.

  Lauren comes up to me in class right after that, which is how I know it worked. “I heard you’re going to auditions?” she asks.

  “I was thinking about it.”

  “Oh. Well, I mean, there aren’t a ton of parts, but yeah … it would be nice to see you.”