Again Again

by E. Lockhart

  ripped us all apart, Toby.

  I don’t think you can have any idea how it

  ripped me apart. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I only told my roommate. Not because I was

  ashamed. I wasn’t

  ashamed. But because I was so

  desperate, so

  overwhelmingly worried and

  ruined over it, and so

  angry that it was impossible to let it out in any way whatsoever, because it felt like if I let it out I might literally

  trash a classroom or

  hurt someone or

  set something on fire, so I just

  shut my mouth, and now

  you’re complaining about my freaking texts being shallow? Can you even hear yourself?”

  She stopped to take a breath. Her wrist hurt, her heart hurt, and her brother was standing there in front of her, taking her rage.

  “I know I got to have you as a sister because up to a point, I was a decent brother,” Toby said after a minute. “And you could love me when I was like that. It wasn’t fair that I turned into an effing werewolf.”

  Adelaide smiled. In spite of herself.

  “It’s almost impossible to love a werewolf,” Toby went on. “I hate that I am one, I really do hate it with all my guts, but I have to just live with it, you know? I have to live with knowing I am capable of all that badness, and just figure out how not to do it again, and it would be so much easier— No, I don’t want to say that. It’s not your job to keep me sober. I just mean, it would be— I would be so much happier— No, it’s not your job to make me happy, either. I just. I want to be your brother again. Adelaide, you are the only person I really like spending time with who knows all the terrible stuff about me there is to know. With everyone else I have to hide it or explain myself. Confess. Then put them at ease. Which is almost impossible. And—I just want you to try hanging out with me on this trip. For a short time. If that’s okay. Please. Would you?”

  Adelaide looked at Toby. He was crying. He did it like he used to do it when he was small, contorting his mouth and not covering his face, snorting the snot back up his nose. It was disgusting and Adelaide loved it about him.

  “Okay,” she said. “I can do that.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’ll play a freaking card game with you, you little dweeb.”

  “Okay. Okay, good.”

  Toby wiped his face. He got his bag from the backseat. He and Adelaide went inside and helped Rebecca make brownies.

  Then they all watched a cooking show.

  Rebecca knitted. Toby put his feet on the coffee table. When the show was over, Levi and Toby went out to pick up Chinese food. Adelaide and her mother walked the dogs.

  The four of them ate noodles and chicken with garlic sauce, sitting outside on the porch and watching the sun set over the Alabaster campus.

  Toby and Adelaide played Unstable Unicorns.

  * * *

  —

  Mikey Double L texted late that night.

  Hi. Thinking about you.

  Adelaide thought awhile before answering. She had hidden her pain from Mikey Double L from day one of their relationship, and still he had sensed it and pulled away from it.

  She might as well lay the truth out for him. There was nothing to lose.

  Recovering from a pit-bull mauling. Hospital. Whole bit.

  And my ex-junkie brother is here. First time I have seen him since his relapse. Intense day.

  Sorry I never told you about Toby. But it has been a thing. All year.

  …

  …

  Whoa. That’s good he is recovering, though.

  Are you okay?

  I’m okay.

  I love him and I’m furious and I don’t trust him.

  But I can tell he loves me.

  So, y’know. We are figuring it out.

  What happened with the pit bull?

  …

  …

  Adelaide started to compose the story.

  But then, she didn’t want to tell Mikey about meeting Jack.

  So she rewrote the story, leaving Jack out of it.

  And then she realized: I don’t have to tell this story to Mikey, at all. He is not my Mikey Double L anymore.

  I don’t owe him an explanation. For anything.

  So she didn’t write an answer.

  She turned her phone off and went to sleep.

  “This is my lover’s house,” said Kaspian-Lee as the philosophers milled around the kitchen, pouring themselves wine and saying words like hermeneutical, etiology, and supervenience. “I am entitled to go into the freezer. I’m not being rude.” She took out some ice and dragged Adelaide to the cheese plate, where she made rude remarks about the partygoers and pushed Adelaide to try the Morbier.

  Then she turned abruptly to a tall, heavy young man, only about seventeen, wearing a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He had curling dark hair, dramatic eyebrows, huge brown eyes, tan skin, and dimpled cheeks. His nose was prominent and had a bump in it. “Will you play?” Kaspian-Lee asked him. There was lipstick on the rim of her plastic cup.

  The young man shrugged. “If you want.”

  “I do want,” she said. “Adelaide, this is Oscar. He’s here to play the piano.”

  “Hi, Adelaide.”

  “Hi, Oscar.”

  “What happened to your wrist?” he asked.

  “An argument with a pit bull.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I like pit bulls,” he said. “Can I still like pit bulls?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It was only a misunderstanding.”

  Oscar headed toward the piano but got waylaid by a short, sweaty philosopher who asked whether he thought hell existed. Adelaide stole the Brie and scuttled off with it to a corner by the bookshelf.

  She was

  conscious

  of herself in the room, as if

  she were looking down on the party from above.

  She was

  conscious

  of her short dress and

  of her youth, which felt like it oozed out of her pores.

  She watched Oscar. He held his hands behind his back as he spoke, leaning down to hear the short philosopher. When he extricated himself, he still didn’t play the piano right away. Instead, he ate some grapes and came over to where Adelaide was standing.

  “Is that the Brie you’re holding?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Adelaide felt her face heat up.

  “You took the entire official Martin Schlegel Brie?”

  “Yes.”

  “God, that is so brave.”

  “Do you want some?”

  “I do.”

  “Here.”

  “Do I just— Oh, ah, oh. Yeah. That is a serious cheese.”

  “Don’t eat it all,” said Adelaide.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.

  “This is a strange party,” Oscar said, leaning against the bookshelf and looking out. “I don’t think I’ve been to a party full of academics before.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “This college student I met by the vending machines invited me. Perla. Why did you come?”

  “Kaspian-Lee is friends with my mother. She heard me at a concert last year and asked if I’d come play piano. She’s paying me.”

  “Are all adult parties like this?” Adelaide asked. “Are we doomed to a life of terrible parties when we grow up?”

  “Possibly. But I think we will throw better parties.”

  “Let’s pretend we’re on safari. Imagine we’re looking at t
he philosophers through binoculars and they’re not philosophers, they’re meerkats.”

  Oscar held his hands up to his eyes like binoculars.

  “No!” Adelaide grabbed his fingers. “You can’t let them see your binoculars. Philosophers frighten easily.”

  They leaned against the kitchen counter and looked. There were philosophers in the kitchen, and beyond that, in the dining room and living room. Some were in the hallway, waiting for the bathroom.

  “Look,” said Oscar. “They cross their legs when they’re nervous.”

  “They look each other in the eye a lot. It’s probably a dominance behavior.”

  “Yes, yes. That one just cowed the other one, do you see them on the couch? He made her look away.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Look how they chew their food. It’s so cute.”

  “I wish I could have one for a pet.”

  “You’d have to get two. They get lonely if they’re solo.”

  “I do this all the time,” she told him.

  “Pretend you’re on safari?”

  “In line at the coffee shop or in a boring class. In the supermarket I pretend I’m observing animals in the wild and that I’m lucky to get to look at them. Like it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

  “I like that, Adelaide,” he said.

  Kaspian-Lee appeared next to them. “Now is a good time,” she said authoritatively.

  Oscar took a suit jacket off the piano bench and put it on, despite the heat. He sat down and began to play.

  Adelaide had never thought about the piano in her life. She had never listened to classical music. But he rained on the keys with an enormous concentration.

  The music was turbulent. It made her feel as if the sky were about to break open, and as if

  Mikey not loving her and

  Toby being an addict

  were being pushed through the music

  into the sky, and as if somehow Oscar

  knew how she felt,

  knew the storm that was in her.

  The philosophers gathered round, their conversation hushed.

  B-Cake flopped on the rug with her belly up.

  Oscar, this magical Oscar, made music. The whole room listened. He seemed like he couldn’t see anything but the piano. Once the piece began, his hands led the way.

  The song ended.

  Someone said it was a sonata. Adelaide felt dizzy.

  She went to Oscar’s side. “Would you want to take a walk with me?” she said. “I’m not consenting to anything.”

  “I’d love to,” said Oscar. “I’m not consenting to anything either.”

  “What’s the best party you ever went to?” asked Oscar as they walked. “Since that was obviously the worst.”

  Adelaide thought. “A party on a roof in Boston. Someone was projecting movies onto the wall of the building opposite, and there were paper lanterns strung across. I met a boy and I felt magical and, I don’t know, sophisticated. What about you?”

  “A party at music camp,” he said, “last summer when I was a counselor in training. We took beer out into this field in the back of camp. Someone drove a pickup truck out there and left it running with the doors open so we had music. Everybody danced in the field in the dark. We knew we’d get in huge trouble if we got caught, because of the alcohol, but we blasted the music anyway.”

  “You went to music summer camp?”

  “Seven years.”

  “How come you’re not there now?”

  “Junior counselor only pays a hundred dollars a week. I wanted to make more money. I have a job at Uncle Benny’s Fine Sandwiches. Hey, are you any good at cards?”

  “I’m amazing.”

  “Are you really?”

  “I’ve played a lot. My little brother used to be a huge gamer. We’d bring a deck of cards with us to restaurants.”

  “Then come on.”

  They were in town now, and Oscar veered into a juice bar Adelaide had never gone into before. Its lights were on and there was a woman behind the counter, but there wasn’t a lot of juicing going on at ten p.m. Oscar waved to the woman and pushed through a door at the back.

  They walked into a coffee shop, dark and lined with old couches. It smelled of espresso and dust. There was a small counter, and a menu that featured homemade marshmallows and eighteen kinds of tea.

  “Let me buy you a marshmallow,” said Oscar.

  “If I can buy you a tea.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  They found a pair of low armchairs with a glass coffee table between them and surveyed a shelf of worn board games.

  “Let’s just play cards,” said Adelaide. “That’s what we planned on.”

  They sat opposite one another and played Crazy Eights.

  Oscar kept claiming he knew rules that didn’t exist. “I’m setting down my eight,” he said, “but then I’m invoking the revoking clause, so I take it up again, and then, fish, fish, turkey, striped turkey, and there—I only have one card left, and it’s my eight, so I’m going to win.”

  “You are not going to win.”

  “I am. I have an eight left and I can definitely play an eight, so I’m going to win.”

  “I’m invoking British Policeman.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Come on. You don’t know the British Policeman rule?” Adelaide put down the king of diamonds. “I play the British Policeman, and you have to take up all the cards you played on the last play.” Oscar took them up and she put down a two. “Now this is Cutlery Ping Ping, which means because it’s a two, you have to draw two additional cards from the pile.”

  “Nope! ‘Cause I’m playing Flippity Flop, then Freudian Bitch.”

  “Then I’ll do Citibike. And Double Citibike.”

  “Anglerfish. Dog. Fight! Fight!”

  “Disco Is Dead.”

  “Snake in the Grass.”

  “Four snakes. It’s a Swamp.”

  “Malibu Dancer.”

  “No, no. You have to draw,” she said. “You can’t play Malibu Dancer after a Swamp.”

  Oscar stood up and came over to her armchair then. He squashed himself in next to her. “I have to kiss you now,” he said. “If that’s okay. Because nobody has ever taught me British Policeman before. I’m going to be such a better Crazy Eights player after this.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  And they kissed right there in the café, and Oscar’s lips were soft and questioning and he one hundred percent knew what he was doing.

  And in this universe, Adelaide Buchwald fell slowly and gently in love with Oscar Moretti. She loved him far from perfectly. There isn’t a perfect way to love anyway. But she did not hide the misery in the center of her chest, and she did not fixate on what they meant to one another. Oscar made it easy. He wasn’t trying to be anything he wasn’t, like an ideal boyfriend; and he wasn’t trying to escape anything, like grief.

  She told him about Toby. She told him about her academic probation. She let him see her ugly beige bra and it was all fine.

  She began to build her design for Fool for Love, a solid gold motel room with a giant bed on the wall and skeletons entwined in the dirt underneath.

  She texted her brother. Since his visit, something had cleared between them.

  Every day, Adelaide walked the dogs. Even Rabbit, who wore her muzzle.

  She had her dog bites disinfected.

  One night, someone stole her bike from in front of the Factory. Jack,

  the boy she’d met that one time in the dog run,

  the boy from the rooftop party back in Boston,

  the boy who’d punched Rabbit in the face and stanched her wounds by going shirtless,

  drove by and picked her up in his car.

&nb
sp; He was still beautiful to the point that he made her dizzy, but Adelaide didn’t kiss him.

  She just looked at him a lot, thanked him for the ride, and got out of the car.

  He wasn’t that interesting to talk to anyway.

  Oscar was waiting for her on the steps of her dad’s house. He came upstairs and stayed until two in the morning. They held each other and loved each other in the dark, and then they turned on the lights and watched a movie together, eating sandy shortbread cookies straight out of the box.

  Adelaide worked on the model some more.

  She texted her brother some more too.

  She hung out with Terrance and Oscar some days, and when Stacey came to visit, the four of them went swimming at Dodson’s Hole, then stayed up late playing pinball at Luigi’s. One night she brought Oscar to the film series the philosophers had organized. Terrance agreed to come too. They brought bags of Doritos and sodas from the vending machines. Adelaide and Oscar held hands. Walking out of the auditorium, they ran into Perla and her friend Yael. They all sat around on the edge of the entryway fountain, talking about Catherine Deneuve and Roman Polanski, sharing the giant bag of peanut M&M’s Perla had brought to the movie.

  Adelaide met Oscar’s parents, who ran an antiques store together. They had her over for a dinner of cold pasta and two weird salads. Oscar’s room was chaotic. He did his own laundry and draped his clothes into piles when they were clean. There were piles of towels and bed linens too, many of them sitting on his bed. His curtains flapped in the breeze. Some nights, when his parents were out, Oscar made Adelaide bowls of pasta with red sauce and shook hot pepper flakes onto it. They ate on the couch, watching videos.

  One day, Oscar came to Kaspian-Lee’s classroom. He looked at the model Adelaide was working on. “It’s so meticulous,” he said, quite serious.

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been obsessed.”

  “I’m awestruck. It’s so strange and beautiful. And you’re a miniaturist.”

  Then he kissed her, and it was like he was kissing her brain.

  She kissed his brain back. The next day she made him a Lego diorama with a piano in it. The person playing the piano was Lego Batman.