by E. Lockhart
you don’t want me because your own heart is
cold. It’s just a
nothing little heart.”
“That’s not true, Adelaide,” said Jack.
“I think it is.”
“It’s not.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’m just not that into you,” he said.
* * *
Jack blew out a breath. “Thank you for your help with the dog. You’re exceptionally pretty and obviously very smart, Adelaide. But— you look at me like I’m an object, and you talk to me like you don’t see me at all. You have ideas about me that you made up. Do you hear me? You made them up. I’ve met a lot of girls who pity me and want to save me. Or they think I fit some idea they have of a tragic hero. I’m just— Ugh. I work in a sandwich shop and I’m trying to start over in a school I haven’t been at for two years, and I just lost my mother. I’m not in any shape to have a girlfriend. So I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“Multiple times,” she put in. “And all the other stuff.”
“I know. I’m not smart about these things sometimes.”
“You seemed like you wanted to. You took me swimming and brought me bacon.”
“I did want to, at the time. But I’m done. I can’t deal with your unhappiness on top of mine.”
Your unhappiness on top of mine. How did he see her so clearly? How did he know she was unhappy, when even Mikey hadn’t known, at least not consciously?
He turned and went back up the stairs to the sandwich shop kitchen.
“Jack, wait,” she called.
She thought maybe he would turn around and change his mind. Some force
bigger than them both would lead him to
run back to her,
fall into her,
wrap his arms around her and give her his
wounded but beautiful heart
and body.
But Jack just opened the screen door and went back to work.
* * *
Texts.
Jack, you have a girlfriend.
…
…
…
You should have told me you have a girlfriend.
She’s not exactly my girlfriend.
You should have told me you were seeing someone.
I just moved here. You and I only hung out a couple times.
We’re not exclusive, Adelaide.
I saw her leave a note on your car.
Sorry.
…
…
Okay, yeah, you and I only hung out a couple times.
But you came home with me, Jack. And so I thought—I thought maybe we—
I was surprised, is all. That you’d come home with me when you like someone else.
I should just shut up now.
I think she is my girlfriend, actually.
…
…
Got it.
But Adelaide! In some other universe,
some other time and place, it might have gone differently. It might have been you and me.
So I really am sorry. Really, really.
Texts.
Save me. I cannot tolerate our mother.
How so?
She is on tiptoe. ALL THE TIME.
Around you?
Around me. She is scared of me.
No.
Yes, she is.
I mean, she’s scared of the addict inside me. It is super annoying.
Are you scared of the addict inside you?
…
…
Yes.
Here’s the thing I have been thinking about.
I’m listening.
In meetings, you have to say, I am a narcotics addict.
And?
And…
I have said it a hundred times. Because you have to say it. But…
It’s true and it’s also not true.
It feels more like there’s an addict inside me but the addict isn’t me.
I mean
I am not the guy who did that stuff.
I know I am.
But also I’m not.
What stuff?
I AM NOT THE GUY WHO did narcotics and told the lies and took cash from your wallet and wouldn’t talk to you and acted terrible in therapy and was just a thunder-butt.
I mean, I did all that stuff. I just don’t want to walk around every day saying to myself, I am a complete and utter shit. I feel like a reasonably nice human.
I would rather say I used to be an addict.
But that is NOT what you are supposed to say.
You have to say, I am an addict.
If I could say I used to be an addict, there would be no reason for Mom to be scared.
But maybe she should be scared.
Some days are hard. I just want to go numb.
What do you do then?
I have a sponsor. I call him.
Hug.
I take a shower, play video games. Meditate. DON’T LAUGH.
I’m not laughing. I’m not.
I can relate to wanting to be numb. I mean, it’s not the same but maybe it’s similar. My boyfriend Mikey dumped me at the start of the summer and I have just NOT BEEN RIGHT since then.
Mom said it was a mutual decision. And very mature because you were too young to be spending all summer together anyway.
No.
He dropped me.
He ran away, basically.
I’m sorry.
And now I— Well. There has been a lot of DRAMA. Most of it inside my head. And even though the drama is over, it’s still going on in my head, if that makes sense. I can’t let it go or make it stop.
So I would like to go numb. All your sober-living numbing ideas much appreciated.
Plants vs. Zombies works pretty good.
Ha.
Seriously, it does.
You were saying about Mom?
Yeah. So the way it feels is
That there is an addict inside me but
I am not the addict.
And Mom is scared of the addict.
Justifiably scared,
Like it might take me over, like a werewolf changing at the full moon.
And she can’t trust the me that’s here because of the addict that’s inside
…
…
Adelaide?
Sorry.
?
I am crying.
Don’t cry.
It’s not your fault. I’m just
Don’t cry. I am ok. I am sober.
My lunch hour is over. I gotta go. But…
Your werewolf little brother is thinking of you even when he is at work.
Bye.
Hug.
Wait. What happened with Darcy?
You give good advice.
But my sponsor reminded me:
I’m not supposed to have any “relationships” for at least a year. It’s a sober thing. So, ugh. I fessed up. Told her I was a recovering addict. And that I like her but I can’t.
And?
She was skeeved out. She went home immediately. And wouldn’t look me in the eye for three days. But now she talks to me again. Just a litt
le. And we got food with a group of other junior counselors after work the other day. So it’s not the worst.
Oh blergh. Boo.
Yeah. Boo.
Adelaide ate dinner with her father in the evenings and when they’d finished cleaning up, he’d call Rebecca and retire to his bedroom to chat.
He’d say, “Oh, I’m glad to hear your voice,” or, “I was thinking of you today.” Adelaide said hi and talked to her mom when she needed to, but she hardly understood Levi’s enthusiasm. Her mother was either in a haze of unmedicated sciatica pain, through which she asked stilted questions about Adelaide’s well-being, or she was lively but mired in a puddle of worries. Some of the worries were semi-reasonable (Was it okay for Toby to go with friends to a party, or should she say no?) and some were agonizingly trivial (Was Adelaide still drinking diet soda? Because she’d read an article that details all the ways it’s poison). That was how Rebecca showed she cared: with agitation and questions about good nutrition, sleep, life balance, fresh air. Plus whale emojis.
In the mornings, Adelaide walked the dogs. Afterward, she lay on the couches in the owners’ living rooms, tired and hot. She napped that way in the late mornings, letting the dogs snarfle around and finally settle down in homes that were not their own. Over the days, she drank a case of seltzer in the house belonging to Pretzel’s owner, a divorced science teacher with two young kids.
She felt bad about drinking the seltzer and told herself she’d replace it.
She worked on her model of Fool for Love.
She cut cardboard with X-Acto knives.
She etched tiny
bricks into the walls and into the visible foundation of the motel.
She built a tiny ceiling fan and made miniature electrical sockets.
* * *
—
Stacey S came back for another overnight.
“You’re still in love with Mikey, that’s my evaluation,” she said, when she heard about the end of things with Jack. The two of them were shopping for non-ugly bras on a limited budget at a store called Henrietta’s Dancewear and Lingerie on the opposite end of town from Alabaster.
“I am not in love with Mikey.”
“You need to get out of love.”
“I did get out of love.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s still all about Mikey.”
“Don’t get psychological on me.”
“Okay, fine,” said Stacey, going into the tiny dressing room to try things on and speaking through the flowered curtain. “I just want you to be happy. Did I tell you Camilla went for coffee with her ex-girlfriend and supposedly forgot to tell me? I literally heard it from her mom, who was like, ‘Oh, she’s out to coffee with Jane.’ I called the house because she didn’t pick up her cell. And then Camilla was all, ‘Oh, I thought I told you about it, I would never not tell you,’ and also ‘It was just coffee, and I shouldn’t have to tell you everything.’ ”
“She’s a little bit bad news,” said Adelaide.
“No she’s not. She’s good news. This bra is terrible.”
“Secret ex-girlfriend activities are bad news to me.”
“No. It’s just this coffee thing, this one time. She seemed really insincere, is all. I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to go see Adelaide, then, and you can have coffee with Jane all freaking weekend if you want to, because whatever, I won’t even be here.’ ”
“Aw, you miss her!” said Adelaide.
“Damn it, that’s the truth,” said Stacey.
“Do you want to call her?”
“Kind of. Oh, this bra is good, you can look.” Adelaide peeked in. Stacey’s bra was electric green. “I’m getting it in this and the pink,” said Stacey.
“I think there’s yellow, too.”
“Okay. Are you going to try stuff on?”
“Yeah, I’ll try the weird brown one and this flower one while you go call Camilla.”
“You think I should?”
“Yes,” said Adelaide. “Give me the bras and you can step outside.”
* * *
—
Stacey S was still preoccupied with college applications. Adelaide found her shockingly ambitious. They had both taken the tests and written early drafts of the common application essay. Alabaster forced them to do all that. But Stacey, with her spreadsheets and bookmarked web pages, took on the college process with ferocity. She had brought a big book of colleges with her on the bus. The pages were marked with sticky notes in different colors.
“When it’s finished, you have to photograph the set model you’re building for your portfolio,” she told Adelaide later as they ate almond croissants in their favorite café.
Adelaide sighed. “My dad said the same thing. Especially given that my grades are bad. He said I need a portfolio of art to show my strengths. But it kind of makes me vomit.”
“No, don’t vomit,” said Stacey. “The model sounds amazing. You should photograph your Lego dioramas too.”
“Colleges don’t want to see Lego.”
“Maybe they do. I like the one you did for me.” Adelaide had made Stacey a Lego version of their dorm room.
“My Lego things are mostly back in Baltimore, actually.”
“Aren’t you going home this summer?”
“Not if I can help it.”
The college process made Adelaide feel overwhelmed and ashamed. She couldn’t really conceive of life beyond next year at Alabaster. She was just trying to get through the summer. She wasn’t a planner, even at her best, but at present she was consumed by her own thoughts, unable to focus her attention on the world beyond her.
Some mornings, listening to NPR podcasts with her father, Adelaide resolved to pay attention to the news. The country was going to hell, after all. There were rights to fight for; there were causes to learn about. She would plan to read a certain number of articles every day, but the resolve never lasted more than a single morning. The magnetic pull of her interior life was too strong.
* * *
—
Damn. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Adelaide bolted awake.
She was late to take the dogs out. Very late.
Stacey was still asleep next to her.
She threw herself into her clothes, grabbed her enormous ring of keys, and ran.
GG Pan was the most likely to poop on the floor, so Adelaide went to his place first.
Yes, he had done it.
She took him and Voldemort out, leaving the poop where it was because Voldie was so uncomfortable.
She planned to go back in and clean, but as soon as she got outdoors she realized she should go to EllaBella’s place right away.
EllaBella ran outside without waiting for Adelaide to clip her leash on.
Poor dog. It had been nineteen hours.
Adelaide brought the three of them to Pretzel’s place. Pretzel had made a big, foul-smelling puddle on the antique rug.
At Rabbit’s house, Rabbit trotted inside, looking over her shoulder. Adelaide followed with all the dogs, and Rabbit showed them a puddle with a pig poop next to it. I’m really sorry, said Rabbit.
Since this was the last dog, Adelaide decided to clean this one up now. She unclipped the leashes and looked for paper towels and cleaning supplies.
Big mistake. The loose dogs, curious about Rabbit’s mess, ran over to sniff it. They stepped in it, then trotted away, tracking poop and urine across rugs and floors, even up onto the couch.
Adelaide broke. She sat down on the floor and began to cry.
She thought, I deserve this.
It’s my fault for staying up late.
For forgetting to set the alarm on my phone.
These poor lonely dogs trusted me and I let them down for no good reason.
* * *
&
nbsp; Adelaide’s phone pinged.
It was a text from Mikey.
Hey there. How are you?
He had reached out now and again over the past couple of weeks, while he was in Puerto Rico. He still wanted to be friends.
Adelaide was glad he missed her.
She always composed her texts back to him six different ways before sending, trying to show him how happy she was without him. But right now, with the dog pee disaster unfolding around her, she wrote:
I have been texting with my brother a lot. I never told you this, but he’s in recovery.
She hoped Mikey’s heart would go out to her, now that she’d revealed the cause of the sadness she never mentioned to him that had nonetheless stopped him from loving her.
Now she would tell him about it.
Some part of his Mikey soul would reach out and remember how he loved her.
He texted back:
Whoa. That’s good he is recovering, though!
Except, you know, he didn’t love her.
* * *
She always composed her texts back to him six different ways before sending, trying to show him how happy she was without him. But right now, with the dog pee disaster unfolding around her, she wrote:
I have reached a level of despair where I am sitting in dog urine.