Her

by Heywood, Carey

  “Sounds like she ran away.” My mom sniffs.

  “She wouldn’t do that. I have to find her, bring her home.”

  “We leave for Italy in the morning.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not going.”

  My dad looks back at my mom. “Maybe we should cancel the trip.”

  Her eyes widen then fill with tears. “No, please. We have to go. My family. What will they say? Don’t say that.”

  He looks back at me before pulling her gently towards their room. I can hear their voices raise, my mom slipping in some Italian in frustration. After an hour, he comes back to talk to me alone, guilt on full blast. My mom, her feelings, my sister, how could I do this to her. Finally I agree to go, on the condition that the second we get home they won’t stop me from looking for Sarah.

  He leaves but comes back to bring me some toast and water. I inhale it and go downstairs in search of more food. My mom is on the phone in the kitchen, telling someone we’ll see them there. She must be talking to one of our relatives, but usually, she speaks Italian when she does.

  I grab an apple and some slim jims and head back to my room. I text Brian again, this time letting him know I’m going to be gone for the next month. My phone doesn’t even have an international plan, so I won’t be able to get texts or calls once I go. I give him my email address because I’ll at least be able to check that.

  I make a halfhearted once over of my bags. Thankfully, they were mostly packed a few days ago. The next morning, I feel like I’m on autopilot again. We take a cab to the airport. When we get to our gate I feel like I’m imagining things when I see Jessica and her family waiting there. I stop and look at mom. She ignores my stare and rushes over to hug Mrs. Burton. What the fuck just happened?

  Jessica’s face breaks into a wide grin when she sees me. “Hey, Will.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, confused.

  With total mock innocence, she puts her hand on her chest and widens her eyes. “You didn’t know our families were going to Italy together?”

  “What?” I turn to my dad.

  He shrugs, sitting down with a newspaper.

  Jessica reaches for my arm and doesn’t even react when I pull away from her. “Mom, why didn’t you tell me?”

  She smiles at Jessica, who preens under the attention. “I thought you’d be happy your girlfriend was coming.”

  I stare at her, dumfounded. “Mom. Jessica is not my girlfriend. Sarah is.”

  My mom rolls her eyes and waves me off, turning back to Mrs. Burton.

  I turn, about to walk right out of the airport when Mitch, her little brother, runs over to me. “Hey Will. Isn’t this cool? We’re going to another country. I’m so happy another boy is going.”

  Maybe I can use him to shield me from Jessica the whole trip.

  I have never felt so good to be home in my life. Yes, Italy was cool. Yes, I was able to take a ton of pictures. Yes, I am happy I got to see some relatives, but ever since Brian emailed me that first week that she did go to her uncle’s, I knew that was where I was heading the moment I got home.

  I was actually looking forward to being by myself in my car as I drove up there. Jessica barely left me alone the whole time we were away. I don’t know how else to make it clear to her I’m not interested. I hope she gives up soon. What’s worse is I’m pretty sure my mother was encouraging her.

  Our flight didn’t get in until tonight late, so I’m leaving in the morning. My mom is pissed, but she should be happy I went to Italy at all. I have no problem falling asleep. It’s like my body knows I’m going to see her tomorrow, going to get her and bring her home, and wants to be rested.

  I set my alarm for six so I can miss rush hour traffic as I drive out of town. My mom and dad are both still asleep when I leave. It’s just me and the road. I look at the empty passenger seat beside me. Since the first day I got this car, she’s usually been sitting there.

  I can’t wait to bring her home. I don’t have much of a plan. I understand I probably should. I just figure once she sees me it’ll fix whatever it was that made her go away in the first place. She’s it for me.

  My plan to make it up there in one day is turned to shit by the state of Maryland and some bullshit construction. It’s bumper to bumper. I manage to inch my way to an exit and give up for the day. The motel I end up booking a room in looks like something out of a bad seventies horror movie.

  I hit the vending machine and have a dinner of a three day expired pack of crumb doughnuts, a strawberry pop tart, and a Mountain Dew. I set the alarm on my phone to make an early start.

  It’s raining when I get up and doesn’t stop until I hit the New Jersey Turnpike. I take it as a sign. The clouds are going away since I’m getting closer to where she is. I glance at my GPS, I’ll be at her uncle’s place soon.

  When I get there, I run up to knock on his door, not expecting there wouldn’t be anyone home. I’m hungry so I get back in my car and hit a drive thru so I can eat in my car while I wait for her.

  I feel like a creeper sitting here in my car waiting for her. What feels like hours later, a beat up truck pulls into the spot numbered for her uncle’s condo. I sit up, groaning as pins and needles shoot up my back from sitting in my car so long. A young guy gets out of the driver side as she gets out from the passenger side.

  My pulse starts racing as soon as I see her, my hand on the handle to open my door. It’s weird that’s she with some guy. They walk toward the bed of the truck. She’s smiling at that guy. Sarah is smiling at some guy. My hand falls off the handle and to the edge of my seat. I lean forward, squinting at them. Sarah reaches into the back of the bed and lifts a big stuffed monkey, the kind you win at a fair.

  Were they on a date? She throws it at him, laughing. When he catches it, he shakes it towards her, and she laughs even more. I feel like throwing up everything I just ate. I can’t believe I’m sitting here, watching my girlfriend on a date.

  My vision blurs as I watch her unlock the door, and that guy follow her into the condo, shutting the door behind him.

  All I ever wanted in life was to see her smile. I just thought I would be the guy that did it for her. Do I love her enough to step aside if someone else makes her happy? It takes me a full ten minutes to decide to leave. As much as I want an explanation, I’m too scared to hear her tell me she doesn’t love me anymore. I’m angry too. At her, at myself. She’s moved on.

  Something brought her here. It wouldn’t be fair to her for me to step in now and to reinsert myself into her life. I’m back on the turnpike before I can actually accept I just saw her with another guy.

  I want to figure out a way to erase that image from my mind. Instead, her smiling at someone else seems etched onto my corneas. Until this moment, I have never considered my life without her in it. Even the first day she left, even the whole time I was in Italy, I assumed this was temporary. It isn’t temporary. Today might be the last day I’ll ever see her. That night might be the last night I ever touched her.

  I pull over in a rest area and break down. It feels like a valve has disconnected itself from my heart and is now bleeding from my eyes. I can’t see straight. I can barely breathe. My body is physically rejecting the thought of losing her.

  A little boy parked in the car next to mine stares at me in abject horror and makes me pull myself together enough to get back on the road. I pull over and take a piss somewhere in Virginia but otherwise drive straight home. It’s almost morning by the time I pull into my driveway. I’m starving, but exhaustion has a stronger pull and I just make it to my bed before passing out.

  As I wake during that fuzzy time you adjust to being conscious, I haven’t yet realized she’s gone. I’m seconds into my moment of blissful unawareness when I remember. Then that picture burned on my brain takes away any hope I have. She taunts me from every direction of my room. For the first time in my life, I question the amount of pictures I’ve taken. She’s tucked into every frame. She was my favorite subje
ct.

  I feel like I made a mistake in not confronting her. I drove all that way and was too scared to talk to her. What the fuck is wrong with me? My stomach and my need to escape her take me to the kitchen. It’s mid afternoon. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. I eat a bowl of cereal and go back up to my room. I can’t throw her pictures away, but I can’t look at them either. I end up shoving them into a shoe box and putting them in the far corner of my closet.

  What now?

  Every plan, every dream I had is now altered, but I’m still pulled to her house. After I’ve showered and changed, I’m on my way there. I need the familiar feeling of her house, even if she’s not in it. I text Brian before I leave to make sure it won’t be weird. Pulling up to her house, knowing she won’t be running out to jump into my car, hits me when I park. I start to get choked up but do my best to shake it when I see Brian open the front door.

  I get out and walk over to him. “Hey.”

  “How are you?”

  I shake my head, hoping for a change of subject.

  “Did you go?”

  I nod. My tongue feels swollen and stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  He scratches the back of his head. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Why did I even come here? I’m starting to feel like this was a mistake. I don’t nod. I don’t speak. I stand there incapable of saying I’d love to talk about it, but if I do, I’ll probably cry and I don’t want to do that in front of him.

  After a couple of moments of awkward silence, he invites me in. I fight the impulse to go upstairs and into her room. I miss the way she smells, the way she tastes, the way she fits me, gets me, and the way I thought she loved me. Instead, I stiffly sit on the sofa in her den, with her big brother.

  He finally gets up and puts a movie on to find something to fill the silence. When Mrs. M gets home, she pulls me into a hug and makes me promise I won’t be a stranger. She asks about Italy, and I’m embarrassed by how little I can tell her. I show her pictures instead, even the ones I don’t remember taking.

  I excuse myself and leave not long after. Being there is somehow too hard and comforting at the same time. Over the rest of the summer, I find myself there, sitting on her parents’ couch, not talking to Brian, a lot. Things get busy at the end of summer as I get ready to go off to college. Life keeps moving that way. I haven’t moved on, but I’m a different Will from the one that saw her that day.

  I had dreamed of sharing an apartment with her. Of falling sleep with her in my arms every night. Instead, I get a last minute dorm assignment. My roommate, Carl, is an okay guy. He likes to party more than I ever have.

  I get sucked into it, the partying, the drinking, the nameless girls. I steer clear of Jessica every time I see her out, but it doesn’t stop her from going after Carl as a way to get to me. Waking up with her in my dorm room one time is all it takes to set some ground rules with Carl.

  I don’t care who he brings home, as long as it isn’t her again. At first, he thinks it’s because I’m still interested. It doesn’t take long to convince him otherwise.

  It all still comes back to Sarah.

  One night at a party, I sit back and watch as more of a spectator. There is more than one beautiful girl there. It doesn’t matter. No matter how hard any of them try to get my attention, it’s useless. I feel branded beneath my skin by a girl who left without even saying goodbye. That’s when I decide to get a tattoo. I need to be marked on the outside as well.

  Carl decides to come along and even makes fun of me for picking a Miller Lite logo, saying it’s a bitch beer. He thinks I should get something more manly, like Whiskey or Jåger. This isn’t about beer, though. It’s about a girl.

  Growing up, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, putting your hand over your heart every day. That’s where I get it, directly over my left pec. The rest of my freshman year ends up being a blur of too much alcohol, and I just eek out passing grades.

  My first day back in Decatur, I find myself sitting on her parents’ couch, watching a movie with Brian. He knows, the whole time, that I still need this piece of her even though she is gone. I ask about her, what she’s doing, how she is. He always brushes my questions off.

  He won’t answer them, but he doesn’t act annoyed that I still ask. Even not knowing the answers, knowing I’m near someone who does helps me. We hang out a lot that summer and become the friends I’m not sure we could have been if she was around.

  Carl wants to room together again our sophomore year, but I end up getting a one-bedroom apartment off campus instead. I just want to keep my head down and focus on school. There are still girls during low points when she seems to haunt me. The relief they offer is brief and unfulfilling.

  The summer before my junior year, Brian starts law school and gets his own place. It cramps my still needing to go to her house. Somehow, I think he knows because he makes a point to invite me over whenever he’s going over there.

  Mrs. M catches on too and reminds me more than once that I’m welcome any time. During school it’s easier. I stay there instead of driving home on the weekends and breaks, unless Brian invites me back to his place for something. When he does, half the time I’ll just crash at his place. School is a means to an end.

  I think I’ve always known I wanted to be a teacher, especially after that day with Sarah, when we gave our project. There are teachers, like Mrs. Hall, who recognize when something wrong is happening or a student is being bullied. She didn’t make Sarah walk back into our class that day. She let her go to the nurse so she could go home.

  Then there are other teachers who are oblivious. I want to be the teacher that notices, the teacher that’s there to encourage. Photography has always been important to me. Before I went to school, I was really only goofing off with the pictures I took. I didn’t know enough about the light and balance and after editing to ever be serious about it.

  I channel everything that’s left in me into learning. With practice, it’s possible to learn the rules of certain mediums and be able to exist within them. I want to teach basic art. I want to give kids their first structured glimpse into the possibilities of creation. The class I struggle with the most is oil painting. Thank God the state of Georgia sticks to tempora and water-based paints for middle school art.

  After I graduate, I buy a place in Brian’s complex. I apply all over the place for teaching positions. When I apply to teach at Renfroe, I don’t think I have a chance. Given the neighborhood and the schools that feed into it, it’s a highly sought after place to teach.

  When I get the job there, the first thing I want to do is tell Sarah. I wonder if our separation feels like someone experiencing phantom pain from a lost limb. It’s been five years since I’ve seen her, and my impulse is still to tell her good news. Will that ever go away?

  Brian takes me out for drinks to celebrate. That’s when I get the call from the hospital. I meet my mom in the emergency room. By the time I get there, my dad has already passed. I know right away my mom isn’t going to handle this well.

  I take her home that night and sleep in my old room. I handle all of his arrangements. I’m detached throughout the whole process. I was never very close to him. He was always gone. Part of me always hoped that once he retired we would start over, form some type of relationship. I feel the loss of what could have been more than what was.

  My mom stops functioning. I try to split my time between my old house and my condo. It’s hard with work. I’m in the worst mood the day I meet Christine. She’s subbing for a teacher going out on maternity leave, a math teacher. I don’t have the best track record with the teacher she’s subbing for. She seems to think math supersedes any need for art in a child’s life. I’m expecting the same from Christine.

  She’s not like that at all, and eventually, we become friends. I’m having coffee with her one afternoon when Brian walks past and sees us, sees her. I know this because while I’m still sitting, drinking my coffee, he’s already texting m
e, asking who she is and if I’m on a date. I don’t text him back right away, thought it would be rude. I stop by his place when I get home. Once I tell him we’re just friends, he asks me to hook him up with her. Christine’s a good looking girl, light blonde hair and pale blue eyes. It makes sense she catches his eye.

  We talk about ways they can meet. We come up with a plan where she and I can meet for dinner and Brian can just happen to be there. Then once I’ve introduced them, I’ll get a call about some emergency and have to leave.

  “Then me, being the nice guy that I am, can offer and stay to keep her company.” Brian nods.

  “It’s genius. It gives you a chance to talk to her one on one, and if you think she’s cool, you can ask for her number.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to stay when you have to go?” Brian asks, scratching the back of his head.

  “Why wouldn’t she stay? Maybe I can ask you to stay. That way, it’s like you’re doing me a favor.”

  He nods. “That sounds good.”

  At school on Monday, I mention this new sushi place to her at lunch. Turns out, she has been wanting to go there. We agree to meet there Thursday night. We’ve just ordered our drinks and are looking at the menu when Brian walks up.

  “Hey, Will. I thought that was you. Just wanted to say hi.”

  “Hey, Brian. Christine, this is my friend, Brian. I’ve known him forever.” I look at Brian and try to keep a straight face. “This is Christine. She teaches at Renfroe with me.”

  She gets red when Brian reaches out to shake her hand. He has his other hand in his pocket, thumb on the call button.

  His eyes are still on Christine. “I went to Renfroe. What subject do you teach?” He presses the call button while she answers.