Three Sides of a Heart

by Natalie C. Parker

  Leaning in, they’ll pause half in, half out of the firelight so that one eye is utterly black, the other a prism of brown and tan and ocher rings. “I know you.”

  This is the trouble with going to a big school. There’s no way for me to know everyone. Though our town isn’t huge, the students roll in from the surrounding foothills and townships to make ours one of the largest student bodies on the Olympic Peninsula. It’s the sort of thing they tell us at assembly. I don’t naturally know that kind of thing. I don’t naturally care about that kind of thing. What I do naturally know—in the way of future memories, that is—is that the name of this person standing before me is Dra.

  There’s a piece of conversation that I’ll blitz out of for a moment, because one second I’m staring at the way those bare lips make beautiful shapes out of moonlight and the next, I hear it, “Dra.”

  “Dra,” I’ll repeat, the A so long it fades in a breath.

  “You were paying attention.” Again, that voice knocks against my ribs, knock-knock-knock like it anticipates a welcome.

  “I’m always paying attention,” I’ll snap, but there’s something about this person that keeps any true irritation at bay. Maybe it’s that they’re brazen or beautiful or maybe it’s that they’re completely, 100 percent unknown.

  “Are you? I would like your very close attention.”

  Their eyes on my lips. My heart in my mouth. I’ll want—I mean, I know I’ll want—this. And I don’t know which of us moves first, but in the space of a gasp, we are together. Our kiss will be lips, tongues, teeth. It’ll be rushed and long and sure.

  When we part, I’ll know she’s seen us. An. I’ll know that even while that kiss was creating something new, it was destroying something old, and I’ll feel—I don’t need to imagine this—like I have jumped off a bridge and there is no river beneath to catch me.

  If I say no.

  It doesn’t really matter, does it? I say no. We fight, and I can’t tell An that the reason I don’t want to go is that I’m afraid of what I’ll do, so my reason is a flat-out lie, which I hate, but lying to her now is better than the alternative.

  “I had a vision,” Pia—who is three years younger than me and thinks she’s thirty years wiser—says, standing in my doorway.

  “I’m busy,” I answer.

  She glances scornfully at my pile of laundry and mostly empty duffel on the floor. I find it incredibly challenging to pack for short time frames like the road trip An and I are about to take to visit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I have to start days in advance. Let my packed duffel sit for a while and see how I feel about it in the morning. No matter what I do, my luggage will end up containing options and possibilities and what-ifs. I try to limit that as much as possible, so I pack in a bag the size of a Corgi. So it’s not really a lie. I am busy.

  “Uh-huh,” Pia says. “Well, I’m supposed to come and talk to you or you’re going to do something hella stupid.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Pia.”

  Instead of answering, she pulls a strand of hair between her fingers and begins to twirl it, looping it in and out of knots. Our hair is the same dark brown, but against her paler beige skin it looks almost black. Her eyes rest on me, stubborn and unaffected.

  “Stand there if you want.” We say it at the same time. Her voice mimicking the irritation in my tone.

  I suck my teeth to keep from cursing—Dad really hates it when we curse inside the house. I do my best to save my foul language for people who appreciate it, but damn. Pia had a vision.

  This is the trouble with clairvoyance. It runs in the family, which means Pia figured out early that she could use it to her advantage. She’s always been like this. Teasing futures to get what she wants out of the present moment. I find futures troubling enough without adding those I’ve only imagined. But this isn’t one of those cases, and she knows it.

  “So, what is it?” I ask.

  She says, “An hasn’t called you today. What did you do?”

  “Shut up, Pia,” I say.

  “I know what you did. And you could fix all of this shit if you’d just tell her the truth.” She leans in my doorway while I fold T-shirts, jeans, underwear into my duffel bag.

  Pia has been telling her friends that she can see the future for years. She says she doesn’t have time for lies and deception, but I know what would have happened if I told An the truth. It’s not a future I want.

  “It won’t work. Maybe it works for you, but it won’t work for me. She won’t believe me.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re always assuming the one future is a permanent future, and it doesn’t work like that!” she insists.

  We’ve had this discussion. We’ve had it a dozen times, but she will never understand because she’s never had anyone look her dead in the eye and call her “crazy,” “freak,” “demon.”

  “I saw it in a vision,” I say, my voice cutting.

  “Bullshit. You saw it in a future and you decided it was the only one,” she says, but she sits on the ground next to me and starts pairing my socks, eyes judging every item of clothing I pack. “Are you really taking that white button-up?”

  And just on her heels, the snakelike whispers creep into my ear. Choose, Cass, choose.

  If I take the white button-up.

  An and I will get into town, the one and only Ashland, Oregon, early enough to find dinner before the play. We’ll pick a diner called All’s Well That Eats Well and order hamburgers and fries and milk shakes. An’s eyes will shine with delight as she slides a bare foot up the inside of my calf and teases my thigh.

  She’ll tease just a little too far, and I’ll drop blood-bright ketchup down the center of my bone-white shirt.

  We’ll be forced to scarf the rest of our dinner and race back to the hotel so I can change before the show, only we’ll take just a second too long and by the time we reach the theater, we’ll be forced to wait for intermission to find our seats.

  The frown won’t show on An’s face, but it’ll be there in her eyes.

  If I leave the white button-up.

  We’ll still get to town in time for dinner, but we won’t actually get dinner. I’ll take a minute too long deciding between a black short-sleeved Henley that’s nice no matter what Pia thinks, and a navy button-up with an overly long tail, and by the time we leave the hotel there’s no time for dinner. We’ll get to the theater early, spend too much money on too-little snacks at intermission, and An will have to stifle her laughter when my stomach roars into a silent theater.

  It’s embarrassing, but also a no-brainer.

  These are the kinds of futures I like. They don’t matter in the long run, I barely remember them when the moment has passed, but they’re useful in small ways.

  I turn to Pia. “No, actually. The button-up stays here.”

  She nods, pleased. And there’s no reason for me to tell her my decision had nothing to do with her, so I don’t.

  All I can think about is Dra. It isn’t right. An and I have plans. We’ve been making plans since we met. Everything has been leading up to this moment when she and I would be freed from our loving but limiting families and strike out into the world on adventures of our own. We applied to the same colleges and mapped out a future of morning classes and weekend road trips and a year abroad somewhere with seasons. That was me determining my own future. With An.

  But I cannot erase this future—the unchosen future in which I made a bad choice and kissed Dra—from my mind.

  I cannot unremember the kiss. I cannot unknow that if I’d gone to that party, I’d have fallen hard and fast and even if it was only for a moment, it would have been a lasting one. I didn’t do it, but I would have.

  I’m not even sure that if given another chance, I wouldn’t do the same damn thing.

  And An has no idea.

  An is still upset about the party when we pack the car later. Not for the reasons she should be, of course. She has no idea that I harbor a traitorous
soul. She still assumes I’m a loner killjoy who thinks I’m too good for the unimaginative horde we’ve endured in school all our lives. Lucky for me, she’s wrong. And lucky for me, she’s not great at holding on to anger. By the time we’ve snapped our seat belts and waved good-bye to my mom and Pia, An is smiling that full-of-bite-and-mirth smile. All past hurts forgotten.

  It’s road-trip time. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is putting on Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet and we’re excited as hell to be going. For a while, I was worried Macbeth would rear its ugly head in the season lineup and we’d have to change our plans. (I love the Bard with nearly all of my heart, but there’s no space in it for that wretched play full of wretched prophecies and wretched futures.) But luck was on my side, and when the season was announced, we had our tickets in minutes—third row, center.

  It’s a four-hour drive down Interstate 5. Seven hours for just me and An. Four hours away from the future I can’t forget. We stop for burgers and slushies and take pictures of our tongues—hers is electric blue, mine hyper red. We kiss with cold lips, sing to music so loud it obliterates our voices, and twist our fingers together over the gearshift of my vintage Chevy Caprice Classic. All of it makes the ride too short, and we’re pulling into the aggressively charming town of Ashland before we know it.

  This is high season for the festival, and the streets are packed. Cars pressed end to end, pedestrians aimlessly wandering between them, street performers cutting here and there like agreeable predators—it all combines to create a perfectly romantic tableau.

  An says, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.”

  I laugh and answer, “Thanks, Polonius.”

  We have just enough time to unload at our faux-Tudor, truly rundown hotel—where I have trouble deciding between a black Henley and a blue button-up—and prepare to walk the half mile to the theater before the show starts. An looks incredible in her skirt and blousy top—the hint of curves brushing the fabric without revealing themselves completely, her brown skin illuminated by bold colors.

  Guilt is sharp in my ribs. Pia is right. I should tell An everything. She is the surest, truest thing about my life, and she should know why I am occasionally irrational and strange, why choosing her sometimes will make her angry.

  I should tell her. I will tell her.

  It’s time to go. She extends her hand to me, and the snakelike voices whisper. Choose, Cass, choose.

  If I tell her.

  I’ll take her hand in mine, which is sweaty and seems to pulse with my heart. I don’t have the benefit of having rehearsed this conversation, because I never anticipated a future in which I’d have to have it. I’ll open with the expected “An, there’s something I need to tell you,” and it won’t get any better from there. I’ll use phrases like “I see the future” and “Sometimes I have to choose” and “I know how this sounds.”

  It’ll be a horrible, awkward conversation I’d rather forget. Confusing, since it hasn’t actually happened yet. But there it will be. My truth presented to An in agonizing clarity.

  I’ll watch her grapple with all I’ve said. Her eyes will cut away from me to the tickets on the table.

  “We should probably just go,” she’ll say. “And talk about this later.”

  Then the future moves swiftly, and suddenly months have passed. We’re in college. We’ll take morning classes and weekend road trips, but it’s not how I imagined it would be. An believes me now, I’ll be sure of it, but it makes her nervous in a way I know I’ll feel every single day.

  One morning, as we stand in line for lattes, mist rising from the forested hills around Western Washington University, she’ll say, “You have that look again. What did you see?” Before I open my mouth to answer, I’ll know she won’t trust what I say.

  The future slides again. More months have passed, and it’s summer. An stands at the edge of a great canyon. The sun is setting against the rocks, igniting and dampening them row by sedimentary row. It’ll be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. An will smile. This is the kind of adventure we always wanted to have, this is exactly what our future should look like.

  But when An turns and her warm brown eyes land on me, her smile will fade away. We won’t share that moment at all. We’ll just be there at the same time.

  If I don’t tell her.

  I won’t take her hand. Instead, I’ll kiss her. I won’t care that I’m ruining her lipstick. She won’t either. I’ll pull her into my arms, thread my fingers through her hair, and inhale the sweet jasmine scent of her. We’ll kiss until our lips are warm and bare, until our cheeks and necks shimmer with the sunset smear of our makeup. We’ll kiss until An pulls away and, laughing, says, “We really should go, Cass.”

  The show will be incredible. It’s Hamlet, so literally anything is possible, even an Ophelia who makes me think about the play differently than ever before. Obviously, that’s what will happen.

  Ophelia will come on stage as you’d expect—sweet little dress, hair in curls, her mouth and eyes perfectly outlined. She is beautiful, and for a moment I’ll forget to listen, because it’s my eyes that feel hungriest.

  The next time she’ll be on stage, she won’t be she. S/he’ll come out in sleek pants and a bloused top, hair slicked beneath a cap that shadows his eyes, features undefined and startlingly sharp. He’ll move differently, speak differently, breathe differently, and suddenly Hamlet’s impending retreat from the reality everyone else adheres to will be unnerving and accurate. This is an Ophelia unwilling to conform to the demands of society, an Ophelia who floats seamlessly between genders, their desire the only fixed point about them. It will be one of the most powerful things I’ve ever seen.

  And all I’ll be able to think about is Dra. The person I’ve never met except in the future.

  An will sit beside me, comfortable and challenging, a sure path into the future. We can continue as we always have. But in my mind, it’ll be the unknown promise of Dra I can’t let go of, the unreal memory of that kiss and the exciting way thinking about Dra keeps my mind from settling in one space for too long.

  An will squeeze my hand and I’ll feel guilt knuckle into my rib cage like a gun where I should feel love. An will be there with me, but I’ll be in a distant, unrealized future.

  I freeze, desperate for a third choice. But there is no time. An’s hand waits for mine. I take it. I don’t tell her.

  I’ve always known my path through the future was An, and so I’ve never feared it, but now I worry that every decision I make will bring the snakelike whispers to my ears. I worry that my next choice won’t include An. I worry that I won’t want to choose An.

  The summer ends, and cloud cover moves in like a rock wall. Life between summers here is damp and withholding. Atmospheric, my mom says. Enigmatic, Pia says. Anemic, I say.

  The school year starts, and it turns out the biggest difference between high school and college is that I have to get myself up in the mornings and can’t rely on Pia’s shrieking cat alarm to do the job.

  Once more the snakelike whispers tease me with a future of Dra. I’m simply walking between classes when the wind hisses in my ears. Choose, Cass, choose.

  I go to my next class.

  Everything will happen as it should, except I’ll trip going downstairs and crash to the landing below. My jeans will tear, my skin will break, and I’ll shed a tear no one was ever meant to see. It will be horrible and painful and horrible.

  I skip my next class.

  I’ll get halfway there when I spot Dra, crossing my path with a bag slung across their shoulders, clearly on their way to class. I’ll feel the dread—the thrill—of knowing this is also their school and I’ll never turn another corner safely again. It is impossible not to stare at the figure of Dra, long lines with confounding combinations of sharp angles and smooth curves. In the corners of their mouth, I see a girl I’d like to kiss. But in the sweep of their hair, a boy I’d like to caress. They are both of these simultaneous
ly and I find the fluidity of them intoxicating.

  Realizing I’ve stared too long, I’ll start to change directions, but in that very same moment, Dra straightens as though they’ve forgotten something and suddenly shifts course.

  There’s no stopping it once it starts—our eyes will meet, Dra’s mouth will curl into a confident, knowing smile, my heart will hammer and swirl like a storm. I won’t move from where I stand when Dra approaches. I’ll barely hear when that satin voice says, “My name’s Dra.” I’ll barely hear when my own answers, “Cass.”

  I won’t understand it—I don’t understand it—but when Dra asks if I’d like to grab a cup of tea or coffee or whatever it is my tongue prefers to taste—“You don’t have to tell me now”—I’ll go.

  I go to my class. I get my bruises, shed my tears, and when An asks how it happened, I tell her I was clumsy.

  My schedule becomes rigid—class, rehearsal, work, homework, sleep. Though my mind spins back to Dra again and again, I leave no options for any path but the one I walk. I convince An to eat in, to study hard, to sleep over, to work out instead of go out. And it works. For a little while. But eventually she is restless, anxious, bored.

  “Cass, I know school is important to you, but we have got to leave this campus. Let’s do something!”

  I hedge—there’s a test, I need my scholarship, it’s just a huge change—but she’s unconvinced. She drops a stack of Canadian bills on the bed between us and says, “I’m crossing the border this weekend. I got directions to this beach party that happens every spring. It’s only sort of a party. It’s really a bunch of kids cliff jumping into freezing-ass water, and I think it sounds perfect.”

  The temptation sinks down through my bones. She knows I want this. She knows this kind of stupid risk is what we’re made of. She knows I won’t say no. And she’s right. Saying no to this is saying no to us, and that will never be my choice.

  The beach is like this.

  There’s a plateau at the top of a cliff, cleared of trees. It’s sort of sandy, but not enough to warrant the term “beach,” and it’s littered with giant floppy ferns all the way up to the edge of a truly dizzying drop-off. The rest of the coast is just as tall, but with cliffs that billow out like skirts, hemmed by crashing waves. Here the rock wall is sheer, and just at this part of the coast it curves inward instead of out, allowing the water to pool below. That’s the only reason anyone would think of jumping. That, and someone must’ve done it before. And clearly they have, because when I peer over the edge of the cliff, I see a few dark figures on a narrow sandy embankment that curls around the pool. There’s a fire too, a beacon for future jumpers.