Chasing Days

by Deirdre Riordan Hall

My mom left a note on the fridge. Band practice. Lentil and kale salad in the fridge. Don’t wait up for us. XO

  Wohl-Breuk, party of two. My parents don’t mean it, but it’s like they’re more in love now than they were when they were in high school, not that I’d know, but I don't like how it leaves me feeling lonely.

  I’m a million miles from being in love with anyone and that's okay. I’m desperate to get clear on whom I like. I was taught, by extremely accepting and loving parents that some people are born oriented toward men or women and others grow into love because they find a person so exceptional, so special, gender is secondary. I’ve heard both arguments and a variety of others, but haven't formed one of my own. For most of my life, I’ve assumed I like boys, but that could be because I’m a girl and that's the common assumption. However, in over a decade of lucid memories the sight of breasts doesn't always make me swell inside. Just sometimes, I guess. Perhaps Joss woke something up within me. Or maybe I've been a lesbian all along and have been living in denial. Although, there is no denying how Grady turns me to goo, too.

  I dwell somewhere in the gray, foggy area of ambiguity. Maybe I’m destined to be neither. Epicene. I’ll grow old by myself, a vestigial virgin. Maybe it’s a Darwinian theory. I’m used to having Teddy to bounce my wacky ideas off, but this one, I’d rather keep to myself anyway. He’s endured enough, knowing who he is even though he doesn’t announce it. We’ve never had the discussion. I’ve always known and I suppose, based on his encouragement to go after Grady earlier, he’s just assumed about me. I've assumed about me for that matter. Certainty ducks into corners, slips into shadows, and vanishes from sight.

  I pick at my dinner, peeping in on other people’s social media accounts. Heather is at a party… I scroll down. With Sherman! Maybe Teddy went to witness her completing the dare. I text her Game, set, match. You win Tuesday.

  My phone remains silent. I go back to being a recluse and scroll through more images, catching glimpses of the slip and slide from earlier and group selfies. I land on a filtered Instagram of Teddy, taken a mere seventeen-minutes ago, at the same party as H. He clinks a beer with the camera and wears a smile I haven’t seen in a while.

  The refrain I don’t know plays over and over in my mind. I don’t know why I wasn’t invited. I don’t know why no one has ever asked me out. I don’t know why I’m afraid to understand whom or what I like or want.

  I dump my salad in the compost and trudge to my room as the pink VW pulls in. My parents chatter, amped up from Proton Wheelhouse band practice. They’ve been jamming with the same two guys since 1999, I’m pretty sure. Before I was born at least. I sigh and gaze out the window and up at the moon. Grady said that thing about breaking rules. I kick my backpack. I’m not going to do my homework. I lie down on my bed and close my eyes.

  Grady is there, bare chested and Joss in nothing but her underthings. They’re kissing and I want so badly to nudge my way in, to feel their lips on me. I edge my hand down my shorts, feeling my soft, fuzzy warmth. Then the hallway light blinds me. I roll over, trying to be inconspicuous.

  “Oh, honey, sorry. Didn’t realize you’d be sleeping already. Have a good day?”

  “Yeah. The heat,” I stutter, meaning to explain why I’m in bed already.

  “Want some water?” she asks sweetly.

  “Uh, no thanks.”

  “All right. We’ll be quiet. To the moon and back.” She blows me a kiss as she shuts the door.

  I exhale loudly, tug on a clean tank, brush my teeth and wash, and then doze off for real.

  A couple hours later, I wake to the squeak of springs from the next room. They’re like rabbits. It’s a wonder there aren’t five Willas. I can’t imagine having a sibling, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they had quintuplets.

  I open my window all the way and pop out the screen. I plink a few rocks at Teddy’s window.

  Oh. The Grapesicle isn't in the driveway below, telling me he's still out. It’s after midnight.

  I cringe at the thought of having to listen to Mr. and Mrs. Westing rail on him for being past curfew. But it looks like they’re already asleep. I scan my phone. More party pictures. This is what seniors with only eleven days of school left look like. Happy.

  I grab my phone and keys and pad downstairs. I guzzle a big glass of water and then sneak over to Teddy’s house.

  I slide my key in the lock and am careful to walk on the less squeaky side of the stairs closest to the polished rail.

  Mr. Westing coughs from behind a closed door. Anxiety washes down to my stomach. If either of his parents wakes up, I'm so busted. Then again, Teddy and I have done this loads of times since the Westings forbid sleepovers. The boy girl rule, except, duh.

  I slide the ribbon from the inside of the doorknob to the outside. Code for I’m here. After I close the door, I push a mound of clothes off his bed. It’s too cold in the Westing's climate controlled house. As an act of rebellion, I thrust the window open, letting the warm summer night punch its way in. Lying back, I inhale Teddy’s grapefruity pillow scent.

  Heather doesn’t think girls and boys can be close friends without the hint of something more, but Teddy and I prove this wrong. It probably helps that we’re more like sister and brother. I was there when he had stomach flu and exorcist-barfed across the room, nailing me in chest. Every time his parents rejected his ideas, the vision he had for himself, his plea for a sewing machine to make his own clothes, then sculpting classes, I was there to catch his tears and help him figure out a way. Every time except this time.

  He was there when I got my first period. He held my hair the first, and only, time I got drunk. We fart in front of each other. We’ve laughed and cried together. Strangely, neither one of us has had a serious boyfriend all these years. In fact, Teddy never has, despite his alleged and cosmic crush on Jerusha. Andrew Silver fumbled and I bumbled through our three weeks of whatever you call it back during sophomore year.

  Now it's like we've taken up residence on different planets.

  Maybe all this time, Teddy and I have occupied the role of partner-enough for each other. A sort of surrogate relationship. I wonder if anyone at the party tonight asked where his other half is. We’re a pair, always together. Where there’s one, the other always turns up. It’s a natural law. Except now. Framed in Teddy’s window is my house. I elbow away the feeling that I’m perpetually outside looking in and as usual, all alone.

  I doze until a car door slams, soft steps pad on the stairs, and then the shower turns on. I shift in the bed so he’ll have a spot when he comes in.

  The door opens, letting in a shaft of light, and he crouches next to me. “You awake?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hang on.” He riffles through his drawer and I hear fabric against skin as he slips on shorts then the mattress shifts.

  He’s quiet for exactly seventy-four-seconds. “You want to know where I was.”

  “The Parkers',” I answer. “I recognized their wood paneled basement in the photos on Heather’s feed.” I've never been there, but have seen enough photos of their renowned parties.

  “You want to know what I was doing,” he asks.

  “Being eighteen,” I answer.

  He chuckle-snorts through his nose as if to confirm how very true this is. “You want to know why.”

  “Yeah.” I don’t have an answer for this one. “Why now?”

  He wraps his arms across his chest, but there’s no way he’s chilly while the warmth from his shower still radiates from his skin. “I don’t know. I guess, all this time, I’ve been this one person, keeping myself at arm’s length, and now that the end is near, I really have nothing to lose. Actually, I realize I never did.”

  “You’ve never been apologetic for who you are,” I say, trying to disagree with him about himself.

  “No, but I’ve never shown the world who I really am.”

  “You’ve shown me.” As soon as I make the statement, I regret it wasn't a qu
estion.

  Teddy breathes shallowly.

  I almost can’t utter the words, but if nothing else, I’m incapable of not questioning. “Why didn’t you invite me tonight?”

  He exhales and his peppermint breath fans me.

  The exclusion stings. “Am I not cool enough?”

  “Being so-called cool isn’t real. It’s just perception.”

  “Yeah, but there are different levels of cool. There’s the: I know I’m a total nerd, level three Trekkie. Then there’s the level two Dr. Who cool. It has a certain kind of credibility. There’s Star Wars rock star cool, down to earth cool like my mom and dad. There’s Joss cool…” I trip over her name. “Then there’s convenient cool, like a part time friend who’s cool when it’s convenient otherwise they treat you like a total freak loser and leave you behind.” I'm being such a child. Tears pierce my eyes, but I blink them away.

  Ordinarily Teddy would sense this and wrap an arm around me or poke that spot on my neck that would turn into a tickle and laughter. Not tonight.

  “No, there’s no such thing as cool. I figured it out freshman year when Kassie Reed farted and burped at the same time during Mr. Higgins’s lecture on air pressure and currents. Had it confirmed sophomore year when Bethany Gibbs walked out of the girls' bathroom with toilet paper stuck to her shoe. They were both the cool girls," he says, emphasizing the word cool. "And again junior year when Austin brought his guitar to school and couldn’t even keep a beat. Remember when Jamal psyched us all out during basketball in junior high and I’m the one who got the winning shot. The not-athletic-kid with two left hands, never mind two left feet. They all crashed and burned off the cool charts, destroying the notion in the process. No such thing as cool. It's a shit lick concept.”

  “Okay, I get it, but you are left handed.” I sense the dubious look on his face, even in the dark.

  “We’re all human. There is no actual measure for cool. No one has an ultimate tally keeping track of points for come-backs, edgy fashion, and obscure music, but…” he says, dragging it out like he’s about to reveal the biggest secret there is, “realizing that cool is irrelevant is like having a flying bicycle. You can be yourself. It’s liberating. And to me, that's fucking cool.”

  In the sleepy silence that follows, I turn his words over and over.

  "We've had some of our best conversations at one a.m.," he says and the sleep in his voice cues me to the door.

  Chapter Six

  ☼

  Wednesday

  “Willa Willa bo billa, banana fana fo filla, Willa.” Singing tugs me from a dream. My eyes flash open. For a second, I’m afraid I’m still in Teddy’s bed or have entered a nightmare where his parents torment me with this earworm of a song. The silhouette of my dorky dad, dancing around my room and singing, comes into focus. “Morning sleepy head,” he says.

  I groan and close my eyes.

  “I never thought I, king of oversleeping, would be the one to say you need to be ready in twenty-minutes, but there it is,” he proclaims thoughtfully. “Teddy will be waiting for you shortly.”

  “That’s the problem, Teddy won’t be; it'll be someone named Theo,” I mumble, my voice scratchy from sleep.

  My dad doesn’t hear me as he trots down the hall. Over his shoulder he calls, “Mom's making you a mystery smoothie. From the contents of the crisper. That’s what you get for sleeping in.” He’s all kinds of buoyant morning laughter like today is the best day ever and everything is awesome.

  I can already tell it isn’t. There’s no flying bicycle in my vicinity and although Teddy and I had a good convo, something was missing.

  I gaze out the window at his drawn shades, seeking an answer. It was because we weren't caught up in rehashing the party. Because I wasn't there. I missed the oh no she didn’t moments and commenting on Rosa’s unfortunate new hair color—a brassy blond that matches her tuba. There's a waning between us, like as close as we got to the stars, now we’re drifting apart, each in our own orbit.

  Even after a shower, I’m sweating in the heat. Or maybe I'm steamy from my thoughts of longing as if I’d read all the frayed bodice ripping romance novels on the teetering carousel at the library. I tell myself it’s the humidity, not Joss and not Grady.

  Wind pushes past the clouds as Teddy drives us to school. I twist a piece of hair. The space between Teddy’s eyebrows wrinkles and his hands grip the steering wheel. I want us to be ponderous together, but despite our connection last night, he's activated his force field again.

  “Do you ever wonder what it’ll be like, out in the real world, with a name like Gretel, Berlin, Asher, Gibson…?” I say, listing off some of our friends and classmates. “Or Willa,” I add, self-deprecatingly.

  Teddy rolls the window down the rest of the way.

  I raise my voice over the wind. “I mean we drink green smoothies and homebrew, ride skateboards barefoot, grew up with chickens or videogames or both.”

  Teddy looks like how I feel: somewhere far away, but not far enough to outpace confusion and fear. If I can’t reel myself in, maybe I can help him or at least get him to break his peculiar silence this morning. I’ll attribute it to the name change. This tall, quiet type is Theo, not Teddy.

  “Did you hook up with someone last night?” I ask, hoping the question digs into his thoughts and brings him back to me. Maybe we'll meet somewhere in the middle to sort each other out. It’s always worked before.

  “Who me? Uh, no.”

  “I’d tell you to look me in the eyes, but you’re driving."

  “Terrible horrible idea. Let’s not get in an accident.” The words force themselves onto his lips, belying his usual joking self. It’s like a doctor tapping his knee with the grubby rubber mallet, coercing movement and polite conversation.

  "Pinky promise?” I wag my pinky toward his. My squeeze meets a flaccid finger.

  He surpasses the ninety-seconds of silence mark. A first in all the years that I've known him.

  I plow on with my debut monologue. Apparently, I have a future on the stage, not that I want one, but today, I can't take the cut of his quiet. “You know, all of us whose parents wouldn’t deny naming their kid after their guitar, or their favorite city, it’s nothing new. It’s like the seventies hippie mentality and nineties apathy gave birth to ironic. And most of us don’t even realize it. We just dope along thinking having a twin brother named Hansel and inhabiting who it is to be Gretel is normal.” I don't even fully agree with what I'm saying. I just want to hear his response or maybe I'm just craving interaction or distraction from my own inner drama.

  There’s a long pause that I want to fill, but I don’t think my future is in pathetic soliloquies after all. Until now, I could rely on Teddy not to keep quiet, to fill in my spaces so I didn't dwell too long in my mind. Ninety-four-seconds pass. Then ninety-nine. He breaks, but my relief isn't as sweet as I'd hoped.

  “Believe it or not I am listening to you and no, not everyone has parents like that.” There’s steel wool in his words.

  I backpedal. “I know that, but my parents are practically your parents.”

  “Mama Autumn and Papa Kurt would agree to send me to RISD; they’d have a send-off party, visit me every weekend. Okay not every, but they’d come to all my shows—the important stuff.”

  “And they will. But that’s not what I meant.”

  We’re in the parking lot. Teddy turns to me, looking me in the eyes. “I didn’t hook up with anyone last night. And despite what you think about people like Berlin, Hansel, and Gretel not having what it takes out there in the real world, actually this is real life, happening right now. Berlin is going to work for his dad; Hansel is going to school in Florida and Gretel in Portland. So, you know what, maybe they at least have some clue as to what to do with their lives.”

  Ouch. A forced smile, plastered on my face—the kind that appears when the photographer on picture day says, "Money" or "Cheese"—is my best attempt to act like that didn't sting. "I know this is real li
fe, but—”

  “Your parents, even in their quirkiness, are two of the most genuine and understanding people I’ve ever met. Have you already forgotten what I said last night about freedom?”

  “I thought you were a scootch drunk. A bicycle with wings?” I say, despite the fact that was possibly the wisest thing he ever said. Now I’m just being stubborn because I don’t have a clue what shape my future will take. I’m too busy trying to figure out the present. I should say all of that, but then I’d have to explain.

  His ears burn red. “Big deal, Willa. If you wanted to be a scientist or an artist, your parents would support you.” He’s out of breath.

  “That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t trying to invalidate your experience. It’s just that…”

  “You have shit to figure out. I get it.”

  I'm not sure that he gets it. We've run clear to the edge of a plateau and I don't think either of us expected that Teddy-Willa land had an end.

  He goes on, “But so do the rest of us and you know what, that’s real life. Getting back on the bike every time you fall off or end up where you didn’t expect. I’m not giving up on my dream to go to art school. But in the meantime, I can’t give up on myself either. You should hear that.”

  Teddy slams the door and strides across the lawn. My eyes water. I should jog after him and meet him with understanding. Despite not knowing what I want for my future, I guess he’s right that it’s a good problem to have as opposed to say, not having any opportunities, shoes, food, or parents who love me. Nonetheless, it doesn't help the fact that the inner turmoil and conflict about my sexuality and my future frightens me, right to the core. He’s always been the first person I turn to, especially with something like this, but he's struggling under the weight of his own burden. I sigh, tilting my head back on the seat, letting warm tears run along my jawline.

  When I wipe my eyes, Joss crosses the lawn toward the school. She catches up with Teddy. It would be nice not to care so much, not to analyze and overthink every little thing, and live boldly in a pair of Wonder Woman underwear. The warning bell rings as if rejecting the idea.