The Window

by Amelia Brunskill

  Even that version didn’t include the aftermath, how after Lily talked to the police she’d fallen apart completely—crying and shaking until her dad checked her into some kind of treatment center in Tampa. She’d texted me from there, a long, rambling text alternating between asking for my forgiveness and telling me that it wasn’t really her fault, that she hadn’t understood what was happening. I’d deleted the text and blocked her number.

  There were so many stories about what had happened, but so far I hadn’t heard Nick mentioned in any of them. I really hoped it could stay that way.

  Nick.

  I’d been avoiding him. I knew I needed to talk to him, needed to say something about why I wasn’t showing up for our runs anymore, why we’d never go on that date. I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever—in a school of three hundred students that simply wasn’t possible—and I kept telling myself I was holding off on talking to him until I could get it right. Deep down, though, I knew I was just a coward.

  When it finally happened, I was in the stairwell, late for practice. I turned the corner to go down the final flight and saw Nick heading up toward me. My first impulse was to run right back up, to stay squarely in the flight end of the continuum. It took everything I had to make myself stay put.

  When he saw me, he slowed down but kept on coming until he was two steps below me.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I replied. It was a start.

  “I tried to visit you at the hospital,” he said. “I guess you were sleeping, though.”

  I nodded, despite knowing that in all likelihood I’d been awake. After Brian left, I’d told the nurse not to let anyone but family in. There wasn’t anyone else I could handle seeing, including—especially—him.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “I’m okay,” I said. White lies, they serve a purpose sometimes.

  “Okay, good.” He stood there looking at me. “I think you’ve been avoiding me,” he said. “You haven’t really been subtle about it. And I get that all the stuff with Charlie must be a huge amount to process, but you don’t seem to be avoiding other people, only me. And I’d really like to know why.”

  He looked at me with serious eyes.

  I said nothing. I didn’t know how to begin.

  “We can just be friends, if that’s what you want,” he said. “There’s no pressure to be anything else, if that’s not something you want to deal with at the moment.”

  “Is that what you want? To be just friends?” I shouldn’t have asked that; it wasn’t fair given what I’d already decided, but selfishly I wanted to hear the answer.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not.”

  For a second, my heart held still, trapped in an alternate world in which that made all the difference. A world in which I didn’t know that he’d already been spoken for—that I was nothing more than an accidental interloper in a relationship that should have been, would have been, Anna’s. A world in which I could look at his face without imagining her broken body lying beneath his window. And then my heart started again, started beating back in the real world.

  “We can’t be anything,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  He frowned. “Why not?”

  I struggled to come up with a version I could tell him. So much was off-limits. “You liked Anna,” I said. “I thought it didn’t matter, but I was wrong.”

  “Why does that matter?” he asked. “I did like Anna, I did, but I didn’t even know her that well.”

  “I think she’s what connected us,” I said. “I think she’s the reason you talked to me in the first place.”

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  “Okay, then tell me you would’ve stopped in the hallway no matter who I was,” I said. “Tell me it didn’t matter for one moment that I have her face. Tell me you never once thought I was your second chance.”

  His body tensed, like he was wrestling with the request; then he sagged against the banister. “You guys were twins. Of course I noticed. Of course I wanted…” He shook his head. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like you, doesn’t mean that what I feel for you doesn’t count.”

  You’re not wrong, I thought. But you’re not right either. Because I don’t think you would ever have fallen for me if you hadn’t already fallen for her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Me too,” he said. “I think we could’ve been kind of amazing.”

  He looked at me and I saw it: all the time we’d had together, all the future moments we could share. Maybe I could push it all down, I thought. Maybe he’d never find out that he was the one she was going to see. Maybe I could make myself believe it doesn’t matter.

  But then I saw Anna, and how she glowed that night, thinking of him. How she smiled like she had a secret. A good one. Finally, a good one.

  So I said nothing.

  And when he pushed himself off the banister and kept on going up the stairs, I didn’t call out and stop him, didn’t reach for his arm as he brushed past.

  I just watched him go.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, I went to Anna’s room and retrieved her poems from the bookcase. I sat on her bed and started reading through them again.

  Last time, I’d read them quickly, searching for clues. Hadn’t balanced each word on my tongue, hadn’t paid attention to how they fit together to tell a story, to make a larger image. How the poem about a flower wasn’t just about a flower but about how she’d seen the flower, about her memory of it and what it had meant to her. Mr. Matthews might have been worried about her, might have liked her as a person, but in terms of her writing I suspected he’d simply been stating the truth: she was becoming a wonderful writer, and he was so glad to have her in his class.

  The love poem I left to the side, unsure whether I could cope with reading through it again, knowing that I might now see Charlie in every line.

  I’d gone through most of the stack before I heard a soft knock on the side of the door, and then Mom slowly pushed it open.

  “Hey,” she said. “I wanted to let you know we’ll be eating in about half an hour.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll come down and help set the table in a few minutes.”

  “That would be great.” Her gaze settled on the pile of poems beside me. “What are you reading?”

  “Poems,” I said. “Of Anna’s.”

  “Can I look?” she asked. The question came out casual, nonchalant, but there were traces of something else there, something echoed in the creases that had appeared at the corner of her eyes and her mouth.

  I hesitated briefly, not wanting to let them go. Then I remembered the box, and I nodded.

  She sat down beside me. I watched her read through two of the nature ones. Saw her smile and occasionally silently mouth some of the phrases. I had expected to feel a sense of loss watching her absorb Anna’s words, but it wasn’t like that. It made me feel lighter inside, like there was less pressure.

  Still, when she picked up the love poem, I felt myself start to reach forward, wanting to take it from her. I stopped myself, though. It’s okay. I thought. You don’t know that it’s about him.

  She read the poem twice. I could tell by the way her eyes tracked down the page.

  “It’s lovely,” she said. Her hand held it lightly, as if that piece of paper were more fragile than the others.

  “I guess. It’s a little sappy.” It was hard watching her hold it, and I wanted her to move on from it, to put it back down, so my words were sharper than I intended.

  She furrowed her brow and looked at me quizzically.

  “Sappy?”

  I shrugged. “You know what I mean. Just a generic love poem.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Sweetheart—I don’t think it’s a love poem.” She paused. “Or, I suppose it is a love poem, in a sense, but not a roman
tic one.”

  It sounded like a riddle. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She got up from the bed and flattened out the page for me.

  “Read it again,” she said. “Take your time. Take as much time as you need.” And then she left the room, closing the door behind her, the latch clicking shut.

  I picked up the poem, steeling myself for the possibility of seeing Charlie through Anna’s eyes while also knowing how it all ended.

  I read through the poem slowly, hesitantly, waiting for the trapdoor to open underneath me.

  I read it again.

  And again.

  It took a while for me to understand.

  Because I had assumed it was about a boy. Because that fit with what I was searching for. Because it fit with the dress.

  But I had been wrong. Just like I had been wrong about so many things.

  Because it wasn’t about Charlie. Or even Nick. Wasn’t about a boy at all.

  It was about me.

  It was about us.

  I want to tell you everything

  Want to talk deep through the night—

  Sometimes I feel you already know

  All the things I hold inside.

  It’s hard being away from you

  And it’s hard being too close by

  You want so much, you are so sure—

  I feel so far behind.

  And I can’t forget you lying there

  Stretched out beneath the sky—

  How my heart only started to beat again

  When you opened up your eyes.

  SARAH AND I HAVE STARTED running together. We do shorter runs than Nick and I did, and we take a different path. Sometimes she gets sick of maintaining a steady pace and she sprints off like a jackrabbit and then waits for me to catch up. I tell her it’s good practice for when she’s in cross-country again. Or, rather, when we do cross-country together in the fall. I think I’m going to be good at it. I think I’m going to be better than her. I haven’t mentioned that to her. Not yet.

  A couple of times, Mona has run with us. When she does, Sarah sucks it up and runs alongside us the whole way.

  We don’t talk much on these runs, even when it’s the three of us. We don’t talk about Charlie, or that night. Don’t talk about all the other drugs the police found when they searched his room, or what we’ll say when we’re called up to testify against him. Don’t talk about how his father resigned, the official word being that he wanted to “spend more time with his family” and the unofficial word being that he was forced to resign after it came out that he hadn’t submitted Anna’s samples for testing, that he’d lied to cover up for his son. Maybe there will be a time when we’ll want to talk about some of it. Maybe there won’t.

  It’s different, but we don’t talk about Brian either. Don’t talk about how he and Mona sit across from each other at lunch sometimes, at the far edge of the cafeteria. Sarah and I try not to pay too much attention to the two of them together, try not to notice how most of the time they don’t talk and they definitely don’t touch. It’s private, whatever there is between the two of them, and delicate. But it looks a little like hope, like a new beginning.

  I think Anna would have liked that.

  I think she’d have liked how Mom brought down a photo album from the attic the other day, and we looked through it together, looked at old pictures of her. At the photo of her on the homecoming court, her hair stiff with hair spray, and a huge, huge smile on her face. Anna’s smile. I’m not sure why I never noticed that before.

  Sometimes I tell Anna about these things—all the things she’s missing. All the things I think she’d want to know about.

  Sometimes I almost think she can hear me.

  Sometimes I almost think I can hear her respond.

  For a brief period of time, I harbored pleasant delusions about the kind of writer I’d be, picturing myself as the confident yet mellow sort who’d calmly go through the process without much fuss. Instead, it turns out that I’m a grumpy and angsty writer—not mellow at all, and far from a joy to be around. So, many thanks to everyone who put up with me while I wrote this book. I can’t promise I’ll be any better in the future, but I’ll try.

  I would also like to thank the coffee shops and bakeries of Chicago, where I spent many hours typing away, fueled by tea, cookies, and the occasional iced coffee. Bourgeois Pig, The Perfect Cup, La Colombe, The Grind, and Floriole, you guys all really know what you’re doing.

  Moving on to my family, who are even better than sugar or caffeine (and I do not say that lightly). My parents are amazingly supportive and kind and just delightful through and through, and my sister is brilliant and wonderful and a huge source of inspiration. Mom, Dad, and Emma: I love the three of you so very, very much. Thank you for reading various drafts of this book, sometimes on ridiculously short notice, and for being such fantastic people I’m so proud to be related to.

  Many thanks also to my nonfamilial beta readers and fellow writers, Jennifer Solheim and Stephanie Scott. You read my book when it was still figuring itself out, and you gave me such helpful feedback—I will appreciate that forever. Thanks as well to my other writer friends who provided great moral support throughout the process: Kristin Hamley, Jen Minarik, Rachel Leon, and Claudine Guertin.

  I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my teachers at StoryStudio: Rebecca Makkai, Molly Backes, and Abby Geni. You are all incredible teachers and you each, in your own way, inspired me to keep chugging away at this thing.

  Enormous thanks to my agent, Bridget Smith. You are the best. Your taste is impeccable, your notes are excellent, and you write wonderfully soothing responses to panicked emails. I could not ask for a better agent.

  To my editor, Wendy Loggia: I am still amazed and terrified by the potential you saw in this book and the trust you placed in me to get it where it needed to be. Thank you so much.

  Kevin, you read the first chapter when those few pages were all that existed, and you said you thought it could be—should be—a novel. It was the perfect thing to say. You are, and will always be, my favorite husband, my favorite reader, and my favorite person.

  Amelia Brunskill was born under sunny Australian skies but now lives in Chicago with her husband and her dog, Max the corgi. She is a librarian who drinks excessive amounts of tea and does not always return her books on time. The Window is her first novel.

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