Bookishly Ever After

by Sarah Monzon

  Why wouldn’t Tate come to the table? We were all friends.

  Landon stood, took a step toward me, then leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I’ll take care of the check at the front. Thank you for having dinner with me. I’d say maybe we could do it again sometime, but under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  What? I turned, my lips circling to form the word, but Landon was already walking away. Swinging back around, I sat there, confused. The amplifier thumped as Tate unplugged his guitar. I scooted my bottom backward until it hit the backrest of the chair. Pushed my shoulders back. Watched as Tate put his guitar in the case and closed the lid. Swung the instrument onto his back. And then stormed past me, thunder in his face.

  I wilted, wondering what had happened. Too scared to acknowledge that maybe I knew more than I was letting myself admit.

  Nine

  The bus was late which got me home late which made me irritable. The whole ride back to downtown all I could think about was Tate, the expression on his face when he played tonight, the stricken look in his eyes as he breezed past me toward the exit. Not a word. Not a glance.

  He’d been upset, but that umbrella covered a variety of emotions. Anger, frustration, hurt, sadness. No matter how much I waded through the evening, his body language, his choice of songs, I couldn’t decipher the root of his upset. Was it me? Was it his sister? Sydney? Something else entirely?

  Whatever it was, I had to make sure he was okay. Which was why my glare shot daggers into the back of the bus driver’s head. Didn’t do much good. He still maintained the speed limit, and I still got home after dark.

  Whatever. I was here now.

  My hand froze on the entrance door, and I cocked my head to better hear the music floating on the night air. In a city of nearly a million people, it was crazy to think I could even hear the slow strums of a guitar. But the music was mournful, sad. And my heart pricked, as if the musician was playing it instead of the Gibson in his hands.

  Pulling the door open, I mounted the steps to my floor and let myself into my apartment. Purse and keys got deposited on the coffee table as I passed, then I used my weight to shove open my window and climbed out onto the fire escape. The music was louder, just above my head. Metal groaned as I moved to the side and gripped the railing, climbing to the next floor up.

  Tate didn’t lift his head as I sat in the rusted patio chair beside him, but his hand stopped stroking the guitar strings.

  I placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in. “You okay? Everything all right with your sister?”

  He looked at me then, confusion pulling his forehead low. “My sister?”

  My body shifted back, but I didn’t let my hand slide. “I thought…I mean tonight…with you…I thought…”

  His chin dipped toward my hand for a second. Then he stood, and my fingers fell limply to my lap. Leaning inside his window, he settled his guitar into its stand before turning back around toward me. “My sister is fine.”

  Praise God. I didn’t have any family members battling cancer, but I could imagine how difficult it could be. But if not his sister… “Tate, are you okay? You seemed upset earlier.”

  An I can’t believe you’re asking snort escaped his throat as he shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, gripping the ends at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m fine. That’s what you’d say, right?”

  Me? When had this turned to me? My concern drained away in the face of his sarcasm, the tone of his voice flicking a switch on my brain that caused my vision to focus on a single object and block everything else out. Slowly my muscles constricted, and I could feel my emotions seeping away from me until I sat in a trancelike state. The walls, visible to me alone, climbed high around me. The stench of old cigarettes that clung to the plaster made my stomach curdle, and the bunny wallpaper that bordered the top of my girlhood room only intensified the flight mode my body had shifted me into.

  His words had been innocuous, but it was the tone. An octave of derision that reeked of the sneer it had been served with. That tone triggered the floodgates of unwanted memories, seizing control of my body and transforming me into the little girl I used to be.

  I blinked hard and forced myself to stand. To walk away. We both needed time. Him to get his emotions under control. Me…well, nothing a few chapters of a good book couldn’t fix.

  I stared at the crisscross pattern of the iron at my feet. “As long as you’re okay.” I turned to grab the railing, but Tate wrapped his fingers around my arm.

  “No.”

  No what? He wasn’t okay? Obviously. But I couldn’t sit there and be his verbal punching bag either. Even if the only punch he’d thrown was a weak snarky jab. Experience taught me that was just the warm-up. I didn’t need to stick around for the full three-round fight.

  Tate pulled on my arm—it didn’t hurt—until the back of my knees ran into the rusted deck chair I’d just vacated. Pressure pushed me back onto the seat. He pulled the other chair up and sat so close our knees touched.

  My hands folded in my lap, and I stared at them. Stared at how my fingers looked stacked against each other. Stared at the tear in the cuticle of my thumb. Stared at how the color drained when I squeezed and flooded back when I released. Fixated, I couldn’t look up. Wanted to, but couldn’t.

  Their arguments had always started this way. Benign words but with a bite meant to inflict pain. My dad caging my mom into a corner, no room for her to escape. Searching for the farthest corner of the house, I’d stumble up the stairs and past walls and closed doors, their loud shouts muffled until I couldn’t hear the words. But the tone? The anger that laced each pointed barb? They landed with full force, no matter how far back in my closet I shoved myself, how small I curled into myself. They never missed their mark.

  Tate covered my clasped fingers with his palms. “Emory.”

  I ignored him, kept staring at our hands. Thoughts refused to surface. Shut down. I’d been here before. So many times. Too many times.

  A loud crash shook the foundation of the house, the sound of shattered glass ripping tears into my security. Later, when silence permeated my hiding spot and I finally crawled out from under my hanging clothes, I tiptoed down the stairs. Mom…tears streaming down her face as she swept up the remaining pieces of a vase, the flowers I’d picked for her from a field that morning scattered across the linoleum floor. Over her shoulder, a hole the size of a fist planted in the wall above where I kept my toys.

  “Emory.” He said my name with more force, shook our hands against my thighs. The movement worked, and I blinked past the trance, the long-buried memories. A tear slid down my cheek, but I wasn’t sure why. Yes, my chest clenched and my heart pounded in my ears. The sensitive spot behind my eyes burned, but I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t anything. Numb.

  I looked up but regretted the action immediately. Tate’s own eyes were backlit. With hurt, concern…determination.

  I shook my head. He was asking too much of me, even if he hadn’t voiced a question. But I could see it there in his eyes.

  “What happened on the ferry? Why won’t you tell me?”

  I shook my head again. It was the only thing my body would allow me to do. That and cry. Silent tears that didn’t have a voice.

  “I’m not accepting that. Not anymore.”

  I wanted to leave. To stand up and march down the fire escape steps back to my apartment. But Tate’s legs rested on the sides of mine, boxing me in. My hand fell away from under his and slid down. The tips of my fingers brushed a corded seam. Latching on to the discarded throw pillow, I brought it up to my stomach, pressed it tight, and rolled my body around it like a vertical fetal position.

  Tate didn’t move, and neither did I. I didn’t stare at my hands anymore but traced the pattern of the fire escape floor with my eyes. Even without looking at him, I knew Tate was watching me. I could feel his concern, and it burned like shame in my gut.

  I couldn’t hide it. Not anymor
e. Not from him. He’d thought I was the pathetic bookworm before, but what must he think of me now? Seeing me like this. A woman dissolved into a child, huddled into a ball, unable to speak.

  But not unable to hear, and unfortunately the voices of my memory were loudest of all. The recording of my parents’ arguments on a station set to repeat. Over and over. Louder. Angrier.

  I hugged the pillow tighter and buried my nose in the fabric.

  Tate leaned forward, placing his face in my line of sight. He didn’t touch me but made sure I knew he was there.

  Even like this I couldn’t forget something like that. Someone like him.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Em. However long it takes, I’ll be here.”

  His words both comforted and caused my heart to race with anxiety. I couldn’t do this. Wanted to, but couldn’t. How many times had I tried before? Always the results were the same. My lips were a fortress that words could not pass.

  I licked my lips. Opened my mouth. But just as I’d predicted, no words. Just a squeak that sounded a lot like a little mouse.

  Tate stood, but the evacuation of his presence in my personal space didn’t lessen the tightness in my chest. Didn’t allow me to breathe more easily.

  Metal on metal scraped as he dragged his chair beside mine. Then he sat back down, reached an arm behind my back, and tugged me to his side. My body shifted even though it didn’t uncurl from around the pillow. My head landed on his chest, his armpit curling around the back of my neck. He didn’t say anything but started stroking swirls on the exposed skin under the hem of my sleeve.

  I swallowed. Squeezed my eyes shut. Dug deep past the ghost of a scared little girl to the capable woman I knew was still in there somewhere, though my brain had tried to relegate her to a corner, and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Another tear escaped, but this time I knew where it came from. Not sadness, but embarrassment. Its twin tracked my other cheek, its name shame.

  Tate didn’t respond. Not immediately. He just kept drawing those lazy swirls on my arm. Finally, when he spoke, his voice was deep, tender. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  This time a bark of a laugh escaped. A self-deprecating, self-condemning scoff. I sniffed and swallowed, but my muscles loosened a fraction. The pillow no longer suffered from my severe death grip. “Yeah right.”

  “I’m serious. You don’t have to apologize. Not to me.”

  I wanted to scoot away from him. Not to put space between us, but to look into his eyes. But I was only now gaining control over my mind, my body. I was afraid any movement would send me back to the little girl huddled in her bedroom closet with her hands covering her ears.

  “Especially to you. This is all my fault.” That humorless laugh again echoed around my chest. “If I weren’t so screwed up—”

  He shimmied his shoulder, which jostled my head. “Hey. We’re all screwed up.”

  I could hear the smile in his voice and was surprised when my own lips curved at the sound.

  His lips pressed a kiss into my hair, and a few seconds of silence followed. “What happened?”

  Same words, different question.

  I wanted to tell him, but could I? Would my body cooperate? Would my mouth form words? My tongue spit them out?

  I focused on a chip in the mason work on the side of our brick building. Maybe if I didn’t look at him. Maybe I could do it. Say it. Finally.

  I pressed my lips together. Bit them. Clenched my teeth, then released. “I don’t do conflict.” It was a start. I tightened my grip on the pillow again, dug my nails into the fabric. “Whenever there is a hint of friction, I hightail it out of there as fast as I can. Ignore it. Bury it. Do everything I can to erase it.”

  “Read.” His voice held a note of enlightenment.

  “Sometimes.” Most times. Although reading wasn’t just my escape from arguments. I read for enjoyment, to de-stress, to learn. But yes, also to escape.

  The sound of traffic from the roads below filled the silence that stretched between us. A silence not taut with tension but heavy with the patience rolling off Tate in comforting waves. He waited, and I knew he’d told the truth. No matter how long it would take me, he’d be here. Not rushing, not cajoling, not supplying the words for me. Just being…present.

  “My parents argued a lot when I was young. A lot.” I shrugged, maybe to try to make light of it, maybe just to prove to myself I could? A lot of kids grew up with parents who fought. All a part of relationships, right? All a part of divorce. But I’d never known anyone who completely shut down at the slightest hint of contention. I was embarrassed by my actions, wanted to minimize the impression they’d made on Tate. “I don’t know. Like I said, I’m screwed up.”

  He pulled me closer. “You’re not screwed up, but I get it.”

  Off the hook. Tate was letting me off the hook. He wasn’t going to ask me to wade through all the muck and mire, to put words to all my thoughts and feelings. I could kiss him for his kindness. It had taken everything to push past the walls and verbalize what little I had. My brain and emotions felt like they had after taking the SATs in high school. Total and utterly drained. Spent. Exhausted.

  I reached across my body and patted his hand on my arm. “Thank you.” Then even though his chest was more comfortable than my plush pillow and I wanted nothing more than to snuggle down, close my eyes, and drift off to sleep with the scent of his aftershave hovering around me, I pushed off his chest and met his eyes for the first time that night. “I should probably head to bed.”

  Tate nodded but didn’t let his hand—which had gone from around my shoulder to the small of my back with my movements—drop. Instead it brushed against my hip as he moved to cup my elbow.

  “I’m probably a jerk for asking this, after everything.”

  After my mental breakdown, physical paralysis, and constipation of the mouth? After the way you sat there in complete support, never once even sending a glance of judgment my way? After looking at me the way you’re doing right now, a mixture of hope and vulnerability? No, Tate, I’d never think you’re a jerk.

  It was good to hear my thoughts running through my head at full speed again. Insert sarcasm here.

  “But, Em, why were you at the restaurant with Landon? Do you like him?”

  Do I like him? Did he want me to like him? Ugh. This was all so middle school, and I was over it. “Wasn’t that your plan all along? The whole reason for our little bet?”

  “What?” His head shook so hard his curls bounced against his temple. “No! No. That wasn’t my plan at all.”

  “It wasn’t?” Somehow I managed to keep the groan inside.

  He shook his head again, this time without the same amount of vehemence. “No. Why would you even think that? Nothing could be farther from the truth.”

  “Oh.” It was a fallback word, but I was falling fast. Tate hadn’t thought I was a pathetic bookworm incapable of getting her own dates. And if I’d just talked to him like a normal person instead of hiding everything inside to try and keep our friendship safe, I would have known that and could have spared us both all this trouble.

  I needed his coffee table to bang my head against again. So, so stupid!

  Tate’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “So do you? Like him, I mean?”

  Like Landon? “Only as a friend. You know, like you and I are friends.”

  His eyes hooded, but not before I saw the hurt.

  Why’d I say that? Landon and I weren’t friends like Tate and I were. No one could be friends like Tate and I were because I was finally admitting to myself something I’d known for a while now—Tate and I weren’t just friends.

  Ten

  I woke that morning needing to get some perspective. Get out of my head and my pinhole view and my woe is me pity party that I’d be sulking in and see a bigger picture. Something outside me and my problems. Luckily, I knew the best place to do that, and it wasn’t far from home.

  Reaching into my closet, I flipped the switch and
turned on the light. Pushed the dresses hanging in the corner to the side and exposed an old blue duffel bag. The thing bulged, always ready to be taken out. Not knowing when I’d need the contents, or rather, when someone else would need them, I never let it sit empty.

  I grabbed the handle and pulled the duffel toward me. Unzipped the top and ruffled around inside, the two-dozen two-gallon ziplock bags crinkling as I moved them around. Left dozen for men, right dozen for women. Soap, deodorant, feminine hygiene products, sunglasses, and nonperishable food were only a few of the items I’d filled each love bag with. That was what I called them. Love bags. I hoped my small token of generosity made the person I gave a bag to feel loved.

  I slung the strap of the duffel over my head and paused at the kitchen countertop, where two cup carriers held to-go cups of hot coffee. Too often I’d seen homeless people in the city waffling through the city trash cans looking for the last dregs inside a Starbucks cup. Today at least they’d have a full, fresh twelve ounces all to themselves.

  Gripping the cup carriers in either hand, I pulled the front door shut behind me with my foot, then placed one carrier on top of the other, balancing precariously as I locked the door. Nothing spilled, and I shifted them back to two hands.

  Seattle’s homeless population was on the rise with sickening numbers. So much so the city was calling it a crisis. In King County alone, almost twelve thousand people didn’t have a place they called home. Within the city itself, almost four thousand people spent each night unsheltered. It was impossible to drive without seeing the tent towns pitched under overpasses or walk without stumbling past a person sleeping along the sidewalk. It broke my heart and strengthened my resolve to raise awareness to the problem and funds to help.

  Five minutes was all it took for me to walk from my comfortable apartment and reach a tent encampment. Blue tarps hung at angles from cement pillars, offering what protection they could, but by no means could these be called cozy homes. Domed tents, some so threadbare I could see through the seams, packed together, and over it all a cloud of hopelessness and despair. The stench of unwashed bodies and open-air bathroom facilities (I use the term facilities loosely) hit me like a wall, and it took all I had not to cover my nose with the neck of my shirt. This wasn’t my first trip to this particular camp, and a lot of these residents had become my friends.