Just Visiting

by Dahlia Adler

  With one word it’s like he’s taken a Zippo to the icy armor I’ve taken all morning to coat myself in. I respond with a jerky nod and we walk outside, and it pisses me off to realize I’m waiting for a hand on the small of my back that will never come.

  “It’s not what you think. Not really.”

  This is exactly the conversation I don’t want to have, and I huff out a sigh to make that clear. “It’s fine—”

  “No, it isn’t. I care about you. Probably—no, definitely more than I should. I want us to be friends, and friends should be able to trust each other.”

  Friends. I don’t have balls, but I imagine that’s the feeling of someone kicking you in them. He cares about me as a friend. Sure, me too. That’s why even now I wish he’d envelop me in that hoodie while he’s still wearing it and I could see if he tastes like the spot of maple syrup that’s glistening on his lip.

  Instead, I bust out with an uber-intellectual “Yeah.”

  “I just…I know it’s not fair to let you think this was a one-sided thing.” He can’t even meet my eyes now, which is just as well. “Sara’s not my girlfriend, but she is a friend who’s liked me for a while, and she’s someone I don’t want to hurt without good cause. You and I aren’t even planning on going to the same school…Who even knows—”

  “If we’ll ever even see each other again,” I fill in. “I get it.” And I do, actually. Even if he shared my feelings exactly, what’s he supposed to do? Throw his life into upheaval so he can have a fling with me on a college visit and then return to spend the next eight months miserable at school and flirting with me via text message?

  “It’s weird when you put it that way,” he says.

  Tell me about it. “It’s the truth, isn’t it? No point pretending it isn’t.” I know, because I’ve been trying to ever since he first told me he was going to KU, and it’s gotten me absolutely nowhere.

  “No, I guess not.” His eyes meet mine then, and they look as trying-not-to-be-sad as I feel. “So, we’re cool?”

  “We’re cool.” It’s all I can get out around the lump in my throat.

  “So, waffles?”

  “Definitely.” We turn and walk back inside, but before we can get through the door, he stops and pulls me aside.

  “By the way,” he starts, furrowing his eyebrows, “what the hell happened between Vic and Jamie last night?”

  By the time breakfast is over, the awkwardness surrounding our little group seems to have broken. Even Max talks a little bit, since his Internet girlfriend apparently lives in Seattle and isn’t awake yet. I’m so stuffed full of waffles I can barely move, and I’m actually aching from laughing at all the stories we’ve been sharing and jokes we’ve been muttering to each other during the chipper closing speeches.

  Unfortunately, it’s the last event of the weekend, and there’s nothing left to do but go home, even though we’re finally having fun like we should be. “How far’s the drive for you guys?” I ask Jamie as we pile out of the hall.

  “Just a couple of hours. What about you guys?”

  “Three, if there’s no traffic. In the other direction,” I add unnecessarily, because it’s on my mind. Five hours. That’s the distance between me and Dev. Even if the idea of a relationship wasn’t already crazy, the fact that my job would mean never, ever hanging out unless he felt like driving ten hours just to spend the day sitting in Joe’s seals it. And speaking of my job, “We’ve really gotta head back or I’m gonna be late for work.”

  “You’re going to work now?” Dev’s thick eyebrows shoot all the way up.

  “Breakfast may be free but gas isn’t.” I turn to Max and Jamie. “It was really nice to meet you guys.” They echo the sentiment, and whatever happened between Jamie and Vic, it doesn’t seem to earn a special goodbye. I want to say something else to Dev, but nothing floating around in my head could possibly be said in front of his friends. I settle for an extra brief smile in his direction, and then Vic and I get into the car.

  Neither of us speaks until the guys are no longer visible in the rearview, and then at the same time, we both say, “Are you okay?”

  Just like that, we both dissolve into laughter. “God, we are pathetic,” I say, wiping a tear from my eye when I’ve finally composed myself. Fortunately, we got out of Barnaby quicker than most and there aren’t many cars on the road yet. “Give us a couple of boys and we turn into total messes.”

  “I know, right? What’s wrong with us?” She fishes her phone out of her bag and plugs it into the speakers. “Come on, even you can’t deny this ride home majorly requires some sappy heartbreak lyrics.”

  I roll my eyes. “Same ol’ Vic.”

  “Umm, not quite, actually,” she says as she searches through her music.

  I pull up to a red light and glance over at her. Her golden-brown cheeks are flaming red in a way they only get about one thing. “Are you telling me that you and Jamie…seriously?”

  “Not that,” she says, but she’s reddening like crazy. “But…other stuff.”

  I bite my lips to keep from laughing. Vic may make out with a lot more guys than I do, but she’s such a prude when it comes to talking about it. In fact, she’s so hush-hush on the subject of sex that she’s never asked whether or not I’m a virgin, and I know she just assumes I am. I often wonder how she’d react to the fact that I’m not, that I haven’t been one since I was fourteen, but there’s no chance I’m gonna be the one to open up that conversation.

  “Other stuff…that necessitated shirt removal?” I venture, hitting the gas as the light turns green and a warbling teen-girl voice fills the car.

  “Among other removals,” she mumbles.

  “Vic!” I nearly slam on the breaks, I’m so shocked. “Are we talking—?”

  “Just fingers,” she says quickly.

  “Well? How was?”

  “So good,” she blurts out, and I crack up laughing. Eventually, she joins in. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “Because we knew we’d never be able to keep you under control if you knew.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “So, if it was so good…”

  “He followed it up by being a monumental jerkwad afterward,” she says bitterly, sliding off her shoes and putting her feet up on the dash. “He half-apologized last night and again this morning. Whatever.”

  “We’re not talking him trying to force you to do anything, right?”

  “No, definitely not.”

  “Okay, good. Because we’re still close enough to campus that I can turn around and rip him limb from limb if you want.”

  She grins. “Thanks, I think I’ll be okay. How about you? You and Dave seemed to work things out well enough.”

  “Yeah, we’re cool. Just doesn’t make sense to be anything more.” I figure that if I keep saying it, eventually I’ll really start to believe it. Maybe then Fitz’s smug smile will get out of my brain.

  “Well, that’s very rational of you. Very…Reagan.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning you’re good at following your head,” she says, turning up the music a notch. “Not everyone can do that. Lord knows I can’t.”

  I know she doesn’t mean it to be, but somehow I feel like I’ve been insulted. “Are you suggesting I’m some sort of robot or something?”

  “No! Of course not. But…”

  “But?”

  “But you’re not exactly crazy-forthcoming with your emotions. Don’t get me wrong, I respect your privacy and everything, but don’t you think it’s a little crazy that we’ve been best friends for years and I know basically nothing about your romantic life? I obviously haven’t had a lot of close friends or anything, but this is the kind of thing we’re supposed to talk about, no? Lord knows I tell you everything when I hook up with boys.”

  “Yeah, key words being ‘hook up with.’ If you had serious relationships with them that ended really badly, do you think you’d be that open about them?”

  “Yes,”
she says with no hesitation, and I grit my teeth because I know she’s telling the truth.

  “Fine,” I say on a sigh. I always knew this day was gonna come, and I’ve already put one awkward conversation behind me this morning, so what’s one more? “What do you want to know?”

  “How long were you together?”

  “Two years—eighth grade and ninth.”

  “That’s your serious relationship? Junior high?”

  Already I’m regretting having this conversation. “It’s not like this is new information for you,” I point out, the edge in my voice obvious to both of us. “You came to CHS in tenth grade and he was already gone.”

  “Wow, I never really thought about how much older he was,” she murmurs. “So when you were in eighth grade, you were with a junior in high school? Isn’t that kinda…”

  I know what kinds of words she wants to use to finish off that thought, and there’s no way I’m going to give her the chance. “It sounds weird when you say it out loud, but it didn’t feel that way.” My knuckles are going white on the steering wheel, and I count to ten in my head and force myself to relax. “He used to hang out with these kids at my trailer park, and every now and again he’d come over and make conversation, and before I knew it, he was paying more attention to me than he was to his friends. The same thing would happen when he came to pick up his siblings from junior high, and then he would invite me to come back and hang out with them. Their house basically became my second home.

  “Then, the night before I started eighth grade, we were hanging out, and he kissed me. He told me he’d liked me for months and was trying to wait until I started high school to say anything, but he just couldn’t wait anymore. And that was that. We were glued to each other from then on.”

  “I can’t even imagine you glued to somebody,” Vic muses. “Did you have pet names for each other and everything?”

  “Sort of. He used to call me Ragin’, he said because I got pissed at him all the time. Which isn’t even really true.”

  “And what’d you call him? Fitz?”

  “Not when we were dating. When we were dating, I called him Johnny. His real name was John. Is John.” I don’t know if she’s heard the rumors yet, but I don’t want her thinking I believe them.

  “So why’d you break up? Because he wanted to join the army?”

  How badly do I want to say yes? To make it that simple and never have to speak of it again? If this were anyone but Vic, I would in a heartbeat. But everything with Dev just drove home the fact that she’s all I have, and if I lie to her about this, about anything, then I don’t even really have her.

  “Not exactly.” I hate how quiet my voice gets, but I’ve never talked about this before, with anyone, and I’m scared to hear what it sounds like out loud, even though this is the part most people know, the part his family made sure everyone knew. “He joined the army because we broke up. I don’t know if it was revenge or if he thought I’d get back together with him if he’d agree to stay or what. By that point, he was so messed up I honestly have no idea what was going through his head.”

  Vic whistles. “Wow, that is seriously intense. So why’d you break up in the first place?”

  “Ironically enough, because I wanted to get out of Charytan and he didn’t, if you can believe that now.”

  “But you were only in ninth grade when you broke up.”

  “Yup, but he was a senior, and he wanted to seal the future. He had no plans to go to college or anything. He was just gonna stay in Charytan, probably do carpentry with his dad.”

  “And you had a problem with that?” Out of the corner of my eye, I see her bend over and grab her bag. She fishes through it and then triumphantly holds up a pack of gum and offers it to me. I decline with a wave of my hand.

  “No, I was fine with that, as long as he understood that in three years when I graduated high school, I was getting the hell out of Charytan, with him or without him. He didn’t take terribly well to that.”

  She unwraps the gum, pops it in her mouth, and chews for a few seconds, as if giving herself time to add up the pieces to my story. Or maybe she assumes I’m going to say more. When I don’t, she blows and pops a tiny but loud bubble and says, “He broke up with you over that? Who knows if you would’ve even still been together in three years?”

  I smile grimly. “That’s…not quite the end of it.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Trust me, I wish there wasn’t.” I can feel the waffles flip-flopping around in my stomach now and I look up at the signs to gauge how far we are from the next rest stop. I feel sick to my stomach reliving this and I need to not be behind a wheel right now. “Okay if we get off at the next rest stop? I need a break.”

  “From the story or the drive?”

  “Honestly? Both.”

  “Was it really that bad?”

  I stare intently at the road, afraid that if I so much as blink, memories will come flooding back, as clear and colorful as the tropical print of Vic’s skirt. “He wanted to get married.”

  There’s a strangled sound in response, and I look over to see that Vic is choking on her gum. I wrench the steering wheel to the side and pull into the shoulder. “Holy shit, are you okay?”

  She nods, reaching out her hand and opening and closing her fingers like a claw in a toy vending machine. It takes me a bit to realize she’s motioning for me to hand her a water bottle, and I find one and immediately pass it over. She takes a long drink and then sighs. “Yeah, fine. Just… didn’t expect that, I guess.”

  I laugh; I can’t help it, even though I know Vic didn’t mean anything by it. “You think I did? I was fourteen.”

  “That’s not even legal, is it?”

  “With your parents’ permission, it is, at least in some states. And guess whose parents were more than happy to give her up when asked?”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Fitz had never done more than the minimum amount of research for a school assignment in his entire life, but for this, he had an exact church in Birmingham, Alabama, picked out and everything. My parents loved the idea. I threw up the minute I heard it.”

  “And you broke up with him on the spot?”

  Where the hell is the next rest stop? “Not exactly.”

  “But if he wanted to get married and you didn’t break up…were you engaged to him?”

  “Give that girl a prize.” I swear I can feel the fourth finger on my left hand itching where it used to sport the thin gold band my mother somehow commandeered.

  “But why? If you knew from the beginning that you didn’t want it?”

  “Because I was stupid. Because I was completely, totally in love with him and I didn’t want to lose him. Because his family already felt like family. And because I thought that maybe, just maybe, if we got married, he’d follow me to college and we’d get out of Charytan together.”

  “I’m guessing things didn’t work out that way.”

  “You guess right.” Finally. I spy a sign for an upcoming rest stop, and we remain silent until I pull off the highway with a sigh of relief and slide into a spot close to the entrance. Before Vic can ask me for any more details, I bolt from the car and through the doors.

  The bathroom reeks of floral air freshener and isn’t helping the horrible wave of nausea wracking my body. I run into a stall and lock the door behind me before dropping to my knees and dry heaving into the toilet. Considering how much I’ve eaten this morning, I’m somewhat shocked that nothing comes up, but after a minute, I rest back on my heels and let my head fall against the cool metal barrier.

  I’ve worked so hard not to think about this part of it all. I can handle the rest—his family, even his leaving, but not the betrayal that still makes me physically ill. It’s the only part no one knows, the only part that might make people understand why I let him go, if it were the kind of thing you could actually tell someone.

  The door opens, and then the tapping of Vic’s heels sounds on the dirt
y linoleum. “Rae?” she calls softly.

  I stick my hand out under the door, just enough so she can see my chipped black nail polish and the cheap mood ring on my index finger. I stare at the stone, wondering why it’s not as dark as I feel, and then there are her toes, and then she’s crouching down and squeezing my hand, and then suddenly I am crying, so hard my shoulders are shaking, and she squeezes harder, and then I squeeze harder, and finally I crawl out from underneath and let her hold me and rock me into submission on the floor of a public restroom in a rest stop on I-70.

  Eventually, a stranger comes in, a woman in acid-washed jeans and a sweatshirt that smells of baby vomit, and I peel myself off the floor and let Vic escort me out to the McDonald’s counter, where she buys us coffee. The warmth seeping through the cup is delicious on my palms, which feel like ice. We sit down at a little table by the window and both of us stare out at the parking lot, blowing on the steaming liquid.

  For a second, it almost makes me miss Joe’s.

  Silence between me and Vic is usually the nice we’re-so-close-we-don’t-need-words kind, but it’s a different kind right now. It feels thick and tense, laden down with questions she’s not asking and answers I’m not offering. When she finally does speak, I couldn’t be more stunned at the words that come out of her mouth.

  “I used to get my butt kicked in Arizona,” she says in a faraway voice, her gaze still on the parking lot. “There was this girl, Ashley, who just hated me. Hated all the Latino kids in the school, but me the most. I don’t even know why. She used to get her friends together and they’d stop me in the hall and demand to see my papers.”

  My mouth drops open. “What a bitch.”

  “Yup. She’d make sure I got hit in every gym class, corner me in the locker room…she just made my life a living hell.” She taps her forehead, the stripe of a scar I know all too well. “This is from when she rammed my head into a wall.”

  “And your parents let this go on?” That did not seem like the Reyeses I know.

  She takes a slow sip of her coffee. “They didn’t know. Not until the day I hit back.”