by Jennifer Yu
Then, of course, I remember that Jeremy has just texted Kevin oh my God what the FUCK, and all thoughts related to Jeremy’s fortunate genetics are eradicated from my mental landscape.
“Why would you do that?” I ask, trying (and failing) to keep from shouting.
“I mean, I figured you’d rather be with your boyfriend than with me, so...”
“Oh, God,” I moan. I lie back down on the floor and try to become one with the linoleum. “Oh, God.”
“Is that...bad?” Jeremy says. I can see the gears in his head turning, and I want to throw something at them.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, it’s very bad.”
“Why?” Jeremy says.
If you had asked me a month ago if I ever in a million years would tell Jeremy Cox about my relationship problems—Jeremy Cox! A man who gave himself motivational pep talks worthy of Friday Night Lights every time he had to change the fake diaper of our fake child—I would have first said no, and then suggested a trip to the emergency room for a CAT scan. But what does it matter now? I have less than half an hour to live.
“Our relationship is in pieces,” I say tonelessly.
“Oh,” Jeremy says.
And then he adds: “I’m sorry to hear that. Why is your relationship in pieces?”
I look from the toilet to the ceiling to Jeremy. Jeremy, with whom I have raised a child. Jeremy, who has poured me water in my greatest time of need. Jeremy, who has the bone structure of a Roman bust.
“Well,” I say. “Because of you, really.”
“Me?” Jeremy says blankly. The idea that he could be responsible for destroying a relationship—for destroying anything, other than the defense of a particularly ill-fated rival football team—is clearly unfathomable to him.
“Yes, you,” I say gravely. It’s actually starting to freak me out, how calm I feel. It’s like I still haven’t processed the fact that all of this is real—that I actually came to this party, that I drank so much I blacked out, that Kevin is on his way right now to pick up his girlfriend from a party she didn’t even tell him she was going to. Right now, the entire world is the size of a nine-by-six-foot bathroom with impressively cold linoleum floors, and the fifteen minutes between me and my impending death feel like an entire universe.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Jeremy says.
“I guess that’s not really fair,” I say. “I guess it was really the project that ruined the relationship. Although, things wouldn’t have been nearly so bad if I had gotten paired with Brady Thompson.”
“Brady Thompson the mathlete?” Jeremy says.
“What other Brady Thompsons are there at Bridgemont? Look, the point is, Kevin totally hated all of the time we were spending together even though we literally had no fucking choice, and Kevin totally hated that I didn’t totally hate all of the time we were spending together even though we had no fucking choice, and then he found out he couldn’t go to Columbia and everything just really went to shit. I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. Do you think I’m still drunk?”
“You drank half a bottle of Fireball,” Jeremy says. “You’re definitely still drunk.”
Then he pauses and starts to look thoughtful. I brace myself for a football metaphor.
“I get why Kevin would feel that way,” Jeremy says instead.
I blink.
“You do?”
“Yeah!” he says. “I mean, you’re a pretty girl, and I think Kevin is just one of those people who never really liked me, although I’m not sure why...”
He trails off, frowning a bit, and even in my current state, I manage to feel a twinge of guilt.
“And we have been spending a lot of time together. Jennie wasn’t a huge fan of the project, either. Remember when I had to cancel that date night so we could finish all those stupid journal entries? Plus,” he adds, “she felt weird having sex with Emily around.”
“So what happened?” I say. Fights with Kevin from the past few months flash through my head—the confrontation at the diner, the argument in my room—only I picture Jeremy and Jennie there instead, superimposed onto the scene in place of Kevin and me. Jeremy, throwing a textbook across the room, his face furious and contorted. Jennie, in full cheerleading uniform, standing in Joe’s Kitchen and bursting into tears.
“Well, we talked about it,” Jeremy says.
I wait for him to tell me about the screaming, the crying, the fighting, the storming away, the almost-breaking-up, the getting-back-together.
“I was like, ‘Nothing is going on between me and Stella, and Emily won’t be around forever. Soon her batteries will die.’”
I stare at him. “That’s it?”
“Uh,” Jeremy says. He thinks back to the conversation. I can tell that this is a very strenuous exercise for him. “Well, then she was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve been feeling sad about you going to Michigan in the fall and it would be nice if you were around to talk about it with me,’ and I was like, ‘I’ll try harder,’ and she was like, ‘Okay.’”
“That’s it?” I repeat.
“What do you want me to say?” Jeremy says. “I would never cheat on my girlfriend. Jennie knows that.”
“See, this is the difference between people like you and Jennie and people like me and Kevin,” I say. “You’re the kind of guy who just, like, says things, you know?”
“I do say things,” Jeremy says uncertainly.
“When you’re like, ‘Stella, you’re a pretty girl’—shut up, by the way—you actually just mean...‘Stella, you’re a pretty girl.’ There’s no deeper significance there, you know? You’re not, like, tortured by longing or full of internal turmoil or—or anything. It’s just a thing that you thought that you said out loud.”
“I feel like you’re insulting me,” Jeremy says. “But I don’t actually think that anything you’re saying is bad.”
“Kevin would never just be like, Oh, you’re a pretty girl. He’d be like...”
I muster up the most dramatic face I can possibly make and imitate the cadence of speech Kevin gets into when he thinks that what he’s talking about is very serious, which is always. “You...are a pretty...girl.”
“Uh-huh,” Jeremy says.
“And what he would mean by Stella, you are a pretty girl would actually be that he thinks I’m very beautiful, and our relationship is beautiful, but also that all beauty is ephemeral and temporary, and whenever he looks at me, he’s struck by the deeply moving and deeply painful duality of existence vis-à-vis beauty. Or something like that.”
“Uh-huh,” Jeremy says.
“And Jennie is the type of girl who hears, ‘Stella is pretty,’ and thinks, ‘Okay, sure,’ and then moves on.”
“Because she trusts me,” Jeremy says.
“I’m the type of girl who hears, ‘Stella is pretty,’ and should probably go straight to therapy to figure out why the fuck a compliment is giving me major anxiety. Because I’m insane! If Kevin and Jennie were paired together on this baby project, I’d probably be just as much of a control freak as he’s been.”
“Don’t you trust him?”
“Of course I trust him,” I say. “I’m the problem.”
“I don’t get the way you think,” Jeremy says.
“There was a time when I would have found that fact reassuring,” I say. “But now it’s just disheartening.”
“I feel like what you got out of my story is that I’m not the ‘type of guy’ who is capable of deep thoughts, and that Jennie isn’t the ‘type of girl’ who gets possessive. Which is...a bit insulting, actually.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not an idiot, Stella. Sometimes the things I say can have a deeper meaning. But sometimes I just want to chill, and I like being with Jennie and my friends because things with them are easy and I don’t have to try to be deep all the time.
”
“What I—”
“And Jennie can be jealous, too. Like in sophomore year, when they made Alexis Prader cheer captain instead of her. But the point is, she doesn’t feel that way when she’s around me.”
“But—”
“Also, you’re not a ‘type of girl.’ You’re just, like...a girl.”
I roll my eyes so hard that I feel another wave of nausea. “Great. Thank you. I’m not a type of girl—I’m just a girl. Some truly groundbreaking thinking going on over here.”
“I’m just saying,” Jeremy says, “that—”
But I never find out what other feel-good clichés Jeremy has to throw at me. Because then my phone rings, and it’s Kevin calling to say that he’s here.
64.
The clock on the dashboard reads 1:47 a.m. when I get in the car.
“Fun party?” Kevin says.
And even though I’m expecting it, even though I’ve been preparing for this for the last fifteen minutes, even though I know there is no other way this car ride could possibly go, the coldness of his voice still burns.
“Kevin,” I say. “I’m so sorry. For everything.”
Kevin shifts the car out of Park and into first, then second, then third gear, until we’re going fifty miles per hour on a tiny street where the speed limit is probably twenty-five. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me nervous, but it’s the middle of the night, and there’s no one around, and criticizing Kevin’s driving seems like the worst thing I could do right now. So I keep the thought to myself.
“Please say something,” I say.
“I have nothing to say,” Kevin says.
“I know you have something to say, Kevin. You always have something to say, and that’s what—”
The words catch in my throat.
“That’s what I love about you,” I finish.
The speedometer hits forty-five.
Kevin snorts. It is an ugly sound.
“I know you might not believe me right now,” I say. “And I understand why you don’t. I understand why you’re angry. I should have told you that I was going to this party. But I just—I knew it would make you upset, and we’ve been fighting so much, and I just didn’t know what to do.”
Kevin pulls up to my house and hits the brakes so hard that the two of us lurch forward. It takes me a second to register that we’re here: I still haven’t gotten used to seeing the driveway without my dad’s car in it.
“Good night,” Kevin says flatly. He’s staring straight ahead through the dashboard. The engine is still running.
“Kevin, please,” I say. “Please just—”
In the moment immediately after I say those two words, I think of all the things that I want right now. All of the things I wish I could ask for. That I wish Kevin could give me.
Please just don’t be mad.
Please just think of how things used to be. Don’t you remember? How could either of us forget?
Please just believe that we can get back there. Believe me when I say that I will try if you will try.
“Please just look at me,” I say.
Kevin turns his head and makes forceful, pointed eye contact.
And he then repeats himself: “We’re here.”
“Kevin, I couldn’t take it anymore!” I say. “I was miserable. Okay? I was absolutely fucking miserable, and I just needed to get out of my head and do something other than sit in my room and wait for a text that I knew wasn’t coming and I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do anymore!”
“You don’t know what you were supposed to do?” Kevin says. For the first time since picking me up, genuine emotion slips into his voice. But anger isn’t exactly the emotion that I’m going for right now.
“You didn’t know what you were supposed to do?” Kevin repeats. He looks at me like he has never felt more disgusted with another human being in his life, and that’s when I start to cry.
“You were supposed to be here for me!” Kevin shouts. “Not run off to some party and get trashed with the Bridgemont football team!”
“I tried!” I say. “I tried to be there for you! I came over after school. I listened to you when you needed to vent. I tried to talk about other things—anything—when you didn’t want to talk about Columbia, but you didn’t really want to talk about anything else, either. I came to your house in the middle of the night when you wouldn’t text me back—”
“And then you left,” Kevin says.
“You told me to leave!”
“I did not tell you to leave, Stella. You chose to leave. You have always chosen to leave.”
“And I didn’t tell anyone that you were cutting again because you asked me not to. Do you know how fucked up that is, Kevin?”
“Please, enlighten me,” he says. “Tell me how fucked up I am. Tell me this is all my fault, go ahead.”
“That’s not what I’m saying!”
Kevin leans forward and props his elbows up on the wheel, then puts his head in his hands so I can’t see his face.
“I would never say that,” I say quietly.
And now—
After all that yelling. All that fury.
The car is silent.
And I realize that Kevin is crying.
“Kevin...” I say.
It is now 2:01 a.m. The hum of the engine is loud enough that Kevin’s crying is barely audible. But I can hear it.
As we sit in his car for the next five minutes, side by side and silent, it does not occur to me that ten minutes ago, while I was crying, sobbing, begging for forgiveness, Kevin could not muster up a single bit of sympathy. I don’t feel resentful or angry. I don’t even feel scared or sad, which is weird, because it seems like this time is the time that things are really fucked for good.
What I feel instead is this tenderness. Like I wish I could reach out and touch him, if only I could do it gently enough.
“This isn’t going to work, Stel,” Kevin finally says. His voice is weary and muffled by his hands.
“I don’t believe that,” I say. “And I don’t believe you believe that, either.”
Kevin sounds exhausted, but I am ready to fight. I am ready to fight for us. I am ready to fight for us even if that means that we have to fight with each other, even if it means that we have to yell until it’s five in the morning before we are raw enough to feel that tenderness again.
The problem is, you see, that Kevin is walking away from the ring.
“If you believed that we could work things out, Stel,” Kevin says, “I think you would have told me that you were going to Jeremy’s.”
Kevin takes his head out of his hands and looks at me. His eyes are red, but dry.
“It’s not your fault,” he adds. “I suppose that I’ve never been a particularly easy person to work things out with.”
Kevin takes a sharp breath—as if to say more—and then seems to change his mind. “Maybe let’s talk about this another time,” he says instead. He sounds calm, peaceful—like he’s come to terms with things—which doesn’t make me feel better at all. People don’t bother coming to terms with good news.
“I already said I was sorry for not telling you,” I whisper.
“I know,” Kevin says gently.
Then he reaches over my lap and unlatches the passenger seat door.
A moment of silence.
Then: “For the record,” I say, “I am not choosing to leave right now.”
“I know,” Kevin says.
“You are the one choosing to leave this time, Kevin,” I say. I can feel the anger rising inside me. “So don’t fucking pin this one on me next week.”
“I know,” Kevin says again. He drops his head. He might be crying again. I might be crying, too.
I unbuckle my seat belt and step out of the car. Ther
e is something more to say, I think. Anger begins to give way to disappointment, which in turn collapses into panic. There must be something more to say—Jesus, Stella, anything. Say something.
“I love you,” I say.
“Have a good night, Stella,” Kevin says. “Get some sleep. Drink water before you go to bed, all right?”
“Do you not—”
I choke on the words. Can’t finish the sentence.
“You know I do, Stel.”
His voice is shaking.
Kevin drives away.
65.
I don’t remember how I get back into my house.
I know that it must happen. That I must walk down the driveway and up to my front door. That I must dig through my purse and find my keys. That I must slot my keys into the doorknob, wait for it to click and then step into the foyer.
At some point, I must make my way into the living room and onto the couch. I must have the presence of mind to get a box of tissues. Not a trash can, though—I’m surrounded by dirty tissues by the time my mind clears, however many hours later.
I don’t know how long it is. All I know is that at some point the lights turn on, and my mom is standing there, bleary-eyed and confused, still wearing her pajamas. I imagine the sight she’s seeing: her daughter, sobbing into the couch, makeup smeared down her cheeks, wearing a black crop top and jeans that probably have vomit on them.
I don’t even have the presence of mind to be embarrassed.
“Stella?” she says. “Oh. Oh, hon.”
I don’t respond. I couldn’t even respond if I wanted to.
I hear my mom walking through the kitchen. The tap runs, and then stops. The sound of the stove clicking on. Then she’s next to me, rubbing my back through the fabric of Katie’s too-small shirt in steady, gentle circles, and it feels so nice that it makes me cry harder. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve any of this—this kindness, this patience—and I don’t understand how—I don’t understand why—
“Why—” I say, and try to finish with “—are you doing this,” but I’m crying so hard that the words come out sounding like gibberish, and my mom just says, “Shh,” really softly and keeps rubbing my back, those same small circles, that same even pressure. Eventually, the water boils, and she gets up to get it.