by Jennifer Yu
I unlock my phone. Redial his number.
He picks up on the third ring this time. “Look, Stella,” he says. “I don’t really want to talk to you right now, okay? Just leave me alone.”
“I can’t,” I say.
I actually don’t think I could.
Kevin hangs up again.
In the next half hour, I call Kevin ten more times. Each time, the call goes to voice mail, and each time, I hate myself a little bit more. In that half hour, and for the rest of the day, and through the rest of the week, I can think of nothing other than Kevin. I can think of nothing other than how good things were, the color of his eyes, the way he talked about Camus, what it felt like to be close to him, how I might never feel that way again.
By the time Kevin shows up at my locker three days later with open arms and an apologetic look on his face and a letter so sweet that reading it actually makes me cry, I’ve barely eaten anything at dinner for the past few days, and the only reason I’ve eaten lunch is because Katie threatens to tell the school guidance counselor if I don’t.
Of course, by the time Kevin shows up at my locker three days later with open arms and an apologetic look on his face, none of that matters. Because we’re okay again.
All that, over a fight that went like this.
36.
“You should stay over Friday night,” Kevin says.
“I can’t,” I say. “I’ve ‘slept over at Katie’s’ three times in the last four weekends. They’re going to get suspicious.”
“Aren’t you and Katie best friends?”
“Well, yes. But I never used to sleep over at her house because—well, I don’t know. It just wasn’t something we did. And it’s weird if I start doing it every weekend all of a sudden.”
“Okay, sure,” Kevin says, going back to his philosophy reading.
“Don’t do that,” I say.
“Don’t do what?” Kevin says.
“Don’t—like—don’t get upset. Don’t be passive aggressive. It’s not my fault my parents aren’t like your mom.”
“I’m not upset,” Kevin says. In a tone of voice that screams: I am very upset.
“You’re clearly upset.”
“I’m just trying to do my reading, Stella.”
“Kevin, please.”
Kevin snaps his book shut and glares at me. “Look. I just wanted to spend time with you. I only ever want to spend time with you, which is why I always ask you if you want to come over on Friday nights. Because we barely see each other at school, and you’re always busy with homework after we get out of school, and I just think it’s a nice thing, okay? I like being with you. But if you don’t want to spend time with me, then that’s fucking fine. I’m tired of being the one who’s always asking.”
Then he goes back to reading.
“I feel like you’re being unfair,” I say quietly.
This time, Kevin snaps his book shut and throws it onto the floor. “What part of that is unfair, Stella?” he says. “Tell me, because I’d really like to know. Is it the part where I want to spend time with you? Or the part where I said that I like being with you? Or the part where I said that if you don’t feel the same way, then I’m fine with it? What the fuck about any of that could possibly be unfair?”
This is the first time that Kevin has yelled around me, and there’s something oddly captivating about it: the way his voice gets faster, lower, the way his eyes flash, the way he throws his arms around and starts to speak with his entire body. There is something sick about this, I know, but I can’t help but think that the way Kevin looks right now is like a darker, fun-house mirror version of the way he looks when he talks about de Beauvoir, or daydreams about going to Columbia, or reads his notes from Dr. Mulland’s lectures out loud. It’s the way he talks about things that he’s passionate about.
I am not the type of person who is careless with my words, I think, and I remember that intensity, the way everything Kevin says manages to burn somehow.
“Or just don’t respond,” Kevin says. “That’s fine, too.”
He puts his book into his backpack and grabs his coat from off my bed.
“Are you leaving?” I say.
“You’re tired of being bothered and I’m tired of bothering you,” he says.
“I’m not bothered!” I say. “Kevin, you’re being ridiculous.”
Which is, of course, the worst possible thing that I could say right now. But he is. He is being ridiculous, and there’s a naive part of me that hopes that if I just tell him that—well, he’ll listen. Because I’m right.
“Great,” Kevin says. “What a fucking supportive girlfriend I have.”
“Being supportive of someone doesn’t mean supporting someone when they’re being unreasonable,” I say. “It means that—”
But I never finish my thought. Because that’s when Kevin says, “Oh, fuck off, Stella,” and walks out of the room.
But that’s how it always was, with Kevin. We were so compatible, right up until one of us was in tears, until we were shouting at each other, until both of us were swearing up and down that the entire relationship was a mistake and we never should’ve gotten together in the first place. We were perfectly stable, until someone made one, stupid comment that landed the wrong way, and that one comment led to one more stupid comment that also landed the wrong way, and on and on until both of us were furious but neither of us could remember the comment that started the fight in the first place.
Everything was always so good, is what I’m saying, until it suddenly wasn’t.
39.
This time, I suppose that it really is all my fault.
“I feel like you don’t take me seriously as an intellectual,” Kevin says.
“We’re teenagers, Kevin. We can’t even legally drink alcohol. You can’t be a serious intellectual until you can purchase alcohol. I’m pretty sure that’s Jean-Paul Sartre, from Being and Nothingness.”
“You literally just made that up, Stella,” Kevin says.
“Everything in Being and Nothingness is made up, Kevin! Just because it was made up by a French guy with a hyphenated first name doesn’t make it less made up! In fact, every single book we’ve read in this class is equally made up as what I just said! And everything you say about those books is made up, too! We’re all just making shit up!”
I watch as Kevin’s expression morphs from one of shock to one that I can’t actually read, which is never a good sign. An expression I can’t read means that Kevin is thinking, which means that Kevin is stewing, which means it’s only a matter of time until he gets quiet and mad, or loud and mad, or just leaves.
I should say something, I know, and try to fix this situation before it gets out of hand. I should say, Kevin, I’m sorry I zoned out two minutes into your fifteen-minute lecture on Beckett and the epistemology of existence, or whatever it is Waiting for Godot is actually about. In my defense, I have yet to actually read Waiting for Godot, which made your thoughts—which I’m sure were profound and insightful as always—a bit difficult to follow.
But I can’t bring myself to say the words, due in large part to the unfortunate fact that I am not, in fact, really that sorry. Mostly I’m just tired. I’m tired of talking about the meaning of life and the futility of existence and how everything in Bridgemont is cheap and shallow and how much Kevin can’t wait to get out of here in a few months. Kevin has been so angsty lately—over whether or not he’s going to get into Columbia, over the two of us not spending enough time together, over the fact that he decided to do the reading for next week’s class ahead of time and, guess what, Godot never fucking showed up. I miss the days when the two of us actually laughed about things, things like dumb modern artwork and the state of his car and Yago’s name.
“I thought you appreciated these sorts of things,” Kevin says quietly.
; He starts putting books into his backpack. Guilt and exhaustion battle it out in my mind: Should I say something? Should I let him go?
“If you didn’t want to talk about it, you could’ve just said something, Stel,” Kevin says.
He puts his coat on and heads toward the door.
Exhaustion wins. I let him go.
46.
“How are things going with Kevin?” Katie asks me one day at lockers. Katie still sits with Lin during lunch—which is fine, because I’m usually in the library doing homework—but she makes a point to text me every few days. She still sits next to me in history class and scrawls snarky comments in the margins of my notes. We have brunch sometimes.
Katie is a better friend than I deserve.
“Stella?” Katie says, when I don’t respond. “Are things okay?”
I think of the yelling. The scene in my room a few weeks ago. The scene in the diner a few days ago. How far behind on my homework I am. How I really should be talking about this in therapy every week, but the last thing I want to bring up to Karen is how my relationship is going up in flames and that this entire thing was a terrible idea and that she was right all along.
There’s concern in Katie’s eyes—genuine concern—which somehow makes it all worse.
Maybe Lin told her about what happened at Joe’s. Maybe Becca Windham told her what happened at Joe’s. Or maybe her fucking parents told her, I don’t know. They probably talked about it at book club: Oh, that poor Stella really needs to learn to love herself. I knew that Kevin boy was trouble—didn’t we all?
I imagine the Bridgemont moms sitting in the living room of some boring, nondescript house that looks exactly like the house of every other Bridgemont mom at the table. The concern dripping from their voices. The exaggerated sympathy etched across their faces. Their pity.
“Oh, they’re fine,” I say.
40.
My dad comes home for the first time since winter break the day after Kevin and I fight about Being and Nothingness. That night, my mom bakes lasagna and the three of us have dinner as a family. The conversation goes like this:
“How’s school going, Stella?”
“Fine.”
“Getting good grades?”
“They’re fine.”
“Do you need help with any of your homework?”
“I’m all right, but thanks, Dad.”
He’s still at home the next day, and the first floor of the house becomes so awkward that I claim period cramps and spend the entire evening in bed, waiting for the inevitable storm.
The third night after my dad shows up again, I’m trying to do an entire twenty-question problem set on Riemann sums the night before it’s due. At nine-thirty, I finish problem #10. At ten, the storm breaks.
“Stella doesn’t have time to add an SAT course to the list of things on her plate right now, Tom,” my mom says.
“The SAT is one of the most important components of the college application, and I’ve barely heard Stella mention it. Isn’t she registered to take the exam in March? She’ll make time.”
I put my pencil down and drop my forehead against my desk. I know how this ends, and it’s not with me finishing my problem set before fourth period tomorrow morning.
“Okay,” my mom says. “If you want to register her for an SAT class, be my guest. But knowing Stella, she’s not going to go, and then the only thing that will have changed come March is that we’ll have wasted a couple thousand dollars.”
“Do you really have so little faith in our daughter that you think she’ll skip the classes?” my father says.
“Do you really have so little faith in our daughter that you think she needs the classes in the first place?” my mom fires back.
“I thought you were a proponent of proactive parenting,” my dad says. “Isn’t that what you always say to me?”
“I guess I just got tired of proactively parenting alone,” my mom says.
I put my head between my hands and make a last-ditch effort to focus on question #11—please define the integral of ln x dx between 0 and 2e as a Riemann sum—but I can’t do it. I’m just so worn down by it all. The arguments. The fighting. There’s this stress that seems to permeate every square inch of the house.
And then I think about Kevin. I think about how I don’t feel that dread when he’s with me, about how being with Kevin makes me feel like I’m in a universe far, far away from my parents, who can never agree on the best way to fix their daughter, and from Lin, who was right when she said that I’d been a terrible friend, and from my own thoughts. And I think about the other day, when we fought over nothing and I just let him walk away. I didn’t even try to get him to stay.
I can’t take it anymore. I change out of my pajamas. Get my backpack. And walk downstairs, straight into the kitchen, where my mom is sitting at the dinner table with her head in her hands and my dad is waving a pen around in the air.
“I’m going to Katie’s,” I announce. “I can’t sleep.”
For a second, the two of them just look at me. There is a part of me that can’t help but feel satisfied at their shocked expressions. That’s right, I think. I haven’t been sleeping. I am NEVER ACTUALLY SLEEPING.
“We’re about to go to bed,” my mom says, looking guilty.
“I’m going to Katie’s,” I repeat.
“Stella,” my dad says. “We’re very sorry that we’ve kept you up, and we promise that it won’t happen again.”
(Bullshit, I think. It always happens again.)
“It’s past ten,” he continues, “and your mother is right that we should all go to sleep. Perhaps it would be better if—”
“I’m GOING TO KATIE’S,” I say.
Silence around the dinner table.
It’s funny. This is the first time we’ve all been together around the dinner table in months, and this is the occasion.
I’m just about to say, “So it’s settled, then,” and get my bike when my mom speaks.
“Okay,” she says.
“What?” my dad says.
“What?” I repeat.
“I get it,” she says. “You need some air. You need to get away. I understand that.”
“You do?” I say.
Even my dad looks stunned into silence.
My mom smiles a little bit, but it’s not really a smile, and then she gives a little laugh, but it’s not really a laugh. “I do. Do you need a ride to Katie’s?”
I picture my mom driving me to Katie’s only to find that everyone in the Brook household is, in fact, asleep.
“Gonna bike,” I say.
My mom follows me into the garage, and I’m almost positive that she’s going to insist on driving me.
“I’m sorry, Stella,” she says instead. Her voice echoes around the garage, oddly loud.
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I just say: “It’s okay.”
My mom just stands there, her arms hanging loosely by her sides, that sad little smile still on her face. I’m taller than her with sneakers on, but only barely.
“Your father and I—we just want the best for you.”
“You don’t have to make excuses for Dad, you know,” I say. “He’s being a jerk.”
My mom laughs. The corners of her eyes wrinkle, but it’s...nice. I guess I haven’t heard much of the sound lately.
“He just wants the best for you, too, Stella. Otherwise, why would he care so much about your SAT score? Where you go to college?” She hums a little, thoughtful. “I think he’s terrified that you’ll end up like me. All alone in an empty house. Not enough ambition. Surrounded by teapots.”
She smiles a little wider, crooked.
“You’re not all alone,” I say.
“That’s right,” she says. “I’m not. But sometimes, with you at school and Thom
as—away...”
In this moment, my mom sound so weary and so tired that there’s a part of me that wants to stay. To go back inside and boil some water for tea and sit down at the table and put my arm around my mom and say, Hey, I know this isn’t easy for you, either.
It would be the right thing to do, I know, and in the coming months, I will spend many nights wondering how the rest of the year would have played out if I had just stayed this one night. If I had found it within myself to be a better daughter. If I had taken the grace my mother is extending to me right now and handed some of it back to her, instead of keeping it all for myself. If I had the presence of mind to think that some things are more important than the boy with blue eyes whose voice is enough to take me far, far away.
But perhaps I am already halfway gone.
“I should go,” I say, and my mom nods.
“See you tomorrow,” she says.
And I leave.
41.
“What if I hadn’t answered your call?” Kevin says, shutting his bedroom door behind us.
“I didn’t think about it,” I say. “I would have sat outside until morning.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kevin says. He climbs back into his bed.
“I would have rung the doorbell. I would have rung the doorbell and told your mom that you left your calculus textbook at my house and you needed it to do your homework for tomorrow. I needed,” I say, “to see you.”
Kevin doesn’t respond. His blinds are open, and the moonlight streams through and hits his torso in horizontal bars. Light, dark. Light, dark.
And I want to be close to him.
“Can I come join you?” I say.
“Do you want to join me?” Kevin says. An edge to his voice.
I swallow.
“Yes,” I say.
Instead, Kevin throws his covers off, gets out of bed and walks toward me. His steps are unsteady, punch-drunk, like he can’t tell if he’s walking into the arms of an apparition.