Like a Book

by Bette Hawkins

  “You and your damn lists!” Leigh said, handing her a tissue. “You don’t know when to stop.”

  Trish raised her eyebrows and pointed to a list on the fridge.

  “That’s different, I’m getting married. I have a lot to organize right now. It would be impossible for me to keep track without them.”

  “I know, but I’m begging you, can we please stop talking about the list? You’re starting to make me wish I hadn’t told you. I already feel bad enough.”

  “Sorry. But that’s really the icing on the cake in this whole thing. I bet it wouldn’t be so bad if she hadn’t seen that. She might have been able to get over the other stuff. Well, then there’s the Katrina thing. I can’t believe you weren’t more thoughtful about all that. How would you feel if she were dating someone else, flaunting it like that and telling you all about it?”

  Trish threw her head back, somewhere between crying and laughing. “Leigh! Can you stop rubbing salt in my wounds? I came here for support, not to be told how stupid I’ve been. I already know that.”

  “You should have kept me updated, I could have really helped you avoid some of your bigger mistakes. I would have told you June was only doing that silly romantic friendship thing because she wanted to get close to you. I’ve never heard of anything so dumb. You should have seen right through that. And like, the whole Katrina issue, I can’t believe you even considered it. Ugh.”

  “Honestly? Neither can I. It was all very unpleasant. I didn’t consider it, not really. I should never have gone there, though.”

  “Damn right you shouldn’t. June’s so cool, and nice. Katrina’s not fit to lick her boots, to tell you the truth.”

  “I really like her,” Trish said helplessly.

  Leigh handed Trish another cookie. “I can’t believe you made me break my wedding shredding diet for this.”

  “You opened them! I didn’t ask you to,” Trish said.

  “Whatever. So, what’s your next move?”

  Trish stuffed the cookie in her mouth. “There’s no next move. She couldn’t have been any clearer. I’m just going to have to get over it.”

  “You’re kidding. You can’t leave it like that!”

  “Stalking is illegal in this state last time I checked. I was already pushing it going to see her at work.”

  Leigh sighed. “Oh, Trish, you’ve always been such a quitter. Always taking the path of least resistance.”

  “What exactly do you propose I do?”

  “Make a grand gesture. She’s already mad at you, what’s the worst that can happen if you give it one last shot?”

  “A grand gesture? Like what?”

  “I don’t know what she’d like, I don’t know her as well as you do. It needs to be something personal. Something just between the two of you. You’ll know the right thing to do if you give it some thought.”

  That night Trish lay on her sofa, thinking about every romance movie she had ever watched, and ran through every make-up scene in fiction that she could think of. She considered special songs and performances, expensive dates and gifts, and yelling for June outside of her window with a stereo over her head. Everything that crossed her mind was ridiculous, and she couldn’t imagine June going for any of it.

  It had to be something that Trish would have time to deliver before June could cut her off. That added an extra layer of difficulty.

  There was so much she wished she could say to June. Yet, she’d never been all that good with words, and when it came to June, all she had ever done was put her foot in her mouth. If only she could be eloquent, if only she was the sort of person who could find the right words to capture everything.

  It had to be a letter. As soon as she thought of it, she knew it was right. It wasn’t exactly a grand gesture, but it would be sincere, and it would mean she was being true to who she was. Writing to June would give her time to digest Trish’s words. There could be no more ambushes, like what she had done when she’d gone to June’s classroom. Even if June made the decision to not forgive her, there was something comforting to Trish about the idea of spilling it all onto the page.

  Trish jumped up from the sofa, arranging herself at the table with a notepad and pen.

  It took her hours, because she approached the letter in her usual methodical fashion. Though she had always wanted to write, she didn’t consider herself a natural author. She didn’t have any special skill in transforming her words into sentences and paragraphs, especially not when it came to emotions. It was something that she had to plan, no matter how much the sentiment was from her heart.

  Trish began by writing bullet points that set out exactly what she wanted to communicate. It was important that she explain herself and tell June why she had been acting the way she had, but the worst thing she could do was write something that was all about herself. She wanted to focus not just on the way that June made her feel, but on why June was everything that she wanted in another person. And she had to do it in a way that would blot out the memory of those damaging lists and everything they said.

  Trish drafted and redrafted, reading the words aloud to herself each time to see if they were working. When it was right, she would know. When she was finished, she went to bed and slept on it, and then when she got out of bed just after dawn she rewrote it one more time.

  At last she was satisfied. Trish crisply folded the letter and sealed it in an envelope. She was going to mail it, because she didn’t want to risk being discovered if she tried to slip it into June’s mailbox.

  Dear June,

  I know that I owe you an explanation, but that you don’t owe it to me to hear it. Still, I hope that you’ll keep reading.

  Once there was a time when I would have said, “if you care about someone enough then fear doesn’t matter.” I would have said that fear could never be a reasonable excuse for treating someone the way that I’ve treated you (and I’d be right, wouldn’t I?). I would have said that there must be some other reason someone would act this way, because if you hide behind fear then you just don’t care enough. I feel differently now. I still believe that it’s not a reasonable excuse, but I do care about you, and still I let fear get in the way. I’ll always regret that.

  I don’t know what happened to the person that scoffed at the idea that fear could make a person act the way that I have acted. The simple answer is that I’ve gotten older and somehow not at all wiser. My experiences have not made me brave as you should be brave when you’ve lost something, especially if you ever hope to be happy again.

  I was with a person for a long time that taught me a lot of bad habits. I learned to mistrust myself, and to think that my feelings don’t mean much. I don’t blame Katrina and I know that I played my part in all of it. One day, if you let me, I’ll tell you about all the ways that she’s your opposite. I’ll tell you how you’ve allowed me to imagine a different way of being with someone. You make me feel good about myself and I wish that you could say the same about me.

  You know that I’m a rule follower. Rules are necessary, but I’ve always overestimated how important they are. I’m trying to face the fact that I grab on to them because I don’t know who I am sometimes. Katrina is supposed to be the type of person that I should be with for no other reason than that she follows the same set of rules that I do.

  You might be wondering what it is about you that makes you someone that goes against these all-important rules. You saw my stupid list, you know what I’ve thought. But you think it’s a judgment against you, when it’s myself that I doubt. We come from different worlds. I’ve always wondered what you would see in me, someone who is older, conventional, and dull. I’m a librarian! I would never dream of strapping on a pair of skates, or riding a motor bike, or working two jobs so that I could pursue my dreams.

  That is why you scare me, because I was always sure that if we were ever to be together I would bore you and it would be over almost before it had begun. If I’ve ever made you feel like I thought you’re not good enoug
h it’s just my own stupid projection. I’ve worried that I’m not good enough for you, and that if you didn’t already know that then you would figure it out soon enough.

  The reasons that you are against the rules are the exact same things that attract me. Seeing as I’m so good at making lists (!) I will tell you some of the things that I love about you. I love your wit, your toughness, your beauty, and intelligence. I love your drive, your talent, and your sense of fun. I love the million things that make up who you are that I can’t define.

  I wish I could rewind to when I met you. I’d relive every interaction with you, but I’d do everything differently. Instead of trying to run away from you all the time, I would run toward you.

  We could never have been friends and it was foolish to try. I take full responsibility for everything. Trying to be your friend is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made. I just didn’t know how to do it. I wanted to be near you, and I was so selfish. I should have been brave enough to date you when you asked me, and I’ll regret it forever that I didn’t have the courage.

  You were right about romantic friendships, they can’t exist like that, at least not for people like you and me.

  I hope that there are some good times that you can remember about us. I know that I will always remember them, and I’ll always remember you.

  You know where I am if you ever want to talk to me. I’d give anything to talk to you.

  Love, Trish.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Each day Trish slid her fingers cautiously into her mailbox, wondering when she would find the letter returned and unopened. The fact that it wasn’t there brought her a relief that never lasted for long. June could just as easily have thrown her letter away.

  Trish promised herself that if two weeks passed and there was no response, she would accept that there was never going to be one. At some point, she had to move on, and she would have to take some small comfort in knowing that at least she had given it one last try.

  The two weeks dragged by, the days long and dreary. Trish fantasized about having one last chance to rewrite that letter. It scrolled through her head constantly, and she fixated on sentences that could be misinterpreted. Still, she decided that she wouldn’t mind if June were to come storming into the library to throw the torn-up letter in her face. At least it would be something.

  Trish survived each evening by distracting herself. She thoroughly cleaned the house, and while she worked she planned what she was going to do next. When this wait was over, she would try making new friends. She could invite Jodie over to dinner, because that was a friendship that she wanted to cultivate. They’d been talking a lot at work and now that things were out in the open, they’d really been hitting it off. It might help to join some type of class or group, something on her own without Leigh so that she would be forced to put herself out there. This loneliness was not something that she was willing to live with for long.

  The two-week deadline came, and there was nothing. On the night it passed, Trish went to bed with her stomach hollowed out, sick and sad. She cried like a child, lying stiff as a board on the mattress. The deadline was arbitrary, something that she had made up all on her own, but it felt like she had lost something all over again. It didn’t matter how much she’d tried to keep her expectations low, she’d still believed that there was a chance. Now it was gone, and her hope seemed foolish. June had made her decision, and a stupid letter was never going to change it.

  Trish had the next day off from work, something she’d organized because she wanted to take some time out for herself. Throughout the last two weeks of waiting she’d been taut as a bow string. Now she woke up sick of crying with sore eyes; she just couldn’t do it anymore. She rolled out of bed, downing a glass of water that was on the nightstand.

  She pulled on her leggings and a sweater to go jogging. When she got home, she cooked a pot of minestrone soup to take to work for lunch for the week. Afterward she paced around the house. She snatched up her copy of Infinity, deciding that she’d take it around to Gina’s Place to read.

  Trish brooded over her coffee. She’d done what she could to salvage things, but it was really over, and there was no choice but to move on. While she’d been spending time with June, she’d been a happier person. Not only was she going to miss June, she would miss the person she’d been with her.

  It wasn’t going to be easy, but she wanted to make herself be happy on her own.

  Trish walked home, then sat out on the porch with her tablet, laying a list of ideas for what she could do down next to her. Aside from researching social groups and gyms she might want to join, she was going to work on finally getting herself a cat. It would be nice to have someone to talk to when she got home from work, and someone to care whether she was around or not.

  There was the roar of an engine on the street but Trish kept her eyes trained on her tablet. For two weeks, she’d run to the window at the sound of every car. It had to stop.

  The noise could only be ignored for so long. It was growing louder, and Trish’s focus snapped up, following the familiar red and black bike as it pulled into her driveway.

  Trish leapt from her seat. Even after all that waiting, she wasn’t ready for this. If only she could pause this moment, because anything might happen in the next. For now, there was June sliding off the bike, pulling the helmet from her head. Trish put her hand tightly on the railing and met her gaze, trying to read June’s purpose in it. What if June just wanted to have one final talk with her, to tell Trish again to leave her alone?

  It was better than nothing.

  Trish froze. It occurred to her that she could walk down the stairs and meet June, but it made more sense to talk inside the house. She didn’t know if she should invite her up. She didn’t know what to do at all.

  June broke eye contact and disappeared out of view, and then Trish could hear the sounds made by her footsteps as she ascended the stairs.

  They were face-to-face, and still Trish couldn’t guess what June’s intent was. Her expression was serious, and it didn’t change when Trish tried to smile at her.

  It was so overwhelming to look at her. Trish had thought that June’s face was fixed well in her mind, but it always seemed like June was a little different than she remembered. Now she was even more stunning, though there was something fragile about the way she looked. There were dark circles under her eyes and again Trish suspected that like herself, June had not been getting enough sleep.

  “I thought you weren’t going to come,” Trish said.

  “I needed to think about a few things.”

  “And, what did you decide?” Trish said.

  June put her hands together as though in prayer, placing them up against her face. “I’m not sure. I don’t know. I thought I might know when I saw you.”

  She pulled her hands away from her face and laughed, until Trish was laughing along with her. The release soothed her, and for the first time in weeks the weight was lifted from her shoulders.

  “Do you want to sit with me and talk?” Trish asked, forcing her hands to stay at her sides. She could clutch at June right now. She would do anything to keep her here.

  “I think I might keep going, actually. But I’ve at least decided I’m going to start coming back to the library. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Trish agreed, a smile breaking out on her face.

  It wasn’t a promise, it wasn’t much at all really, and Trish closed her mouth against asking more about what it meant. At least she would be able to see June all the time again. It meant that June might not hate her.

  June smiled back at her. “I’ll see you there, then.”

  She turned to go, and Trish watched her back as she walked away, throwing one quick glance over her shoulder as she walked down the stairs. Trish sat back down, unable to believe it. June had come.

  Trish didn’t have to wait long to see her again, though it felt like an age. The next day she watched June come into the library like she had so many times
before, her backpack slung over her shoulder, sauntering in like she’d never been gone. She nodded toward Trish before she found her seat. The half smile she used to acknowledge Trish was a miracle.

  Trish knew better than to go to her. Instead, she tried to just take pleasure in June’s presence, glancing over at her every time she had an opportunity, to reassure herself that she was still there. Whenever she caught June looking back at her, heat gathered between her legs. It was even stronger than it had been before all of this had happened.

  There was a powerful sense of déjà vu associated with all this. Trish wanted to believe that it meant that June was ready to be friends with her again, and with any luck much more than that. Yet how could she know when June had barely said a word to her? There was no way of knowing how long they’d play this game. Trish tried to put those thoughts out of her mind and just enjoy that they were in the same room together again.

  Trish was organizing overdue notices when she sensed a presence at the counter, and she looked up to find June standing there, staring back at her.

  “Hel-Hello,” Trish said.

  “Hey there,” June said, sticking out her hand as well as her chin. “I’m June.”

  Trish blinked at June and took her hand to shake it, playing along even if she didn’t quite get the joke. The fingers were warm in her hand. She didn’t let them go for a long time. If she could, she would pick up that hand and press her lips to it. June nodded at Trish, silently urging her to do something.

  “My name’s Trish?” she said.

  “Hello, Trish. You’re the new librarian here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Trish said, then frowned. What was this exactly? She looked back at June, who was waiting for her to say more.

  “I’m sorry, what are we doing?” Trish asked. “I don’t get it.”

  June raised her eyebrows. “Really now? You can’t figure it out? I thought it would be obvious.”

  “Well, you’ll have to excuse me, but it’s not obvious to me,” Trish said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, June’s meaning started to register. “Hold up, is this us starting all over again?”