What would they remember? Would they remember the little girl who sometimes was afraid of the dark? The girl who said please and thank you and couldn’t fall asleep until they kissed her goodnight? Or would they remember the me from the last few years. The one who wanted to be left alone. The one who yelled and stomped down hallways. The one who was too blind to see how lucky she was to have someone in her life that cared enough to set boundaries.
All along I thought my mother was so hard on me because she didn’t think I was good enough, but it was the opposite—it was because she wanted the best for me. It was because she loved me.
I would’ve given anything to see my parents one more time. To tell them I was sorry and I loved them. The longing was so intense it burned, the regret ripping at my insides with claws. I should have seen it all along. Why was it only now that I could see it so clearly?
Blink.
Alana James walked up the steps of the house Sunny sent her to on the day of her birthday party. She saw the “for sale” sign and the empty living room through the curtain-less windows, but she still went up to the porch and rang the bell anyway. Just in case. Just to be certain.
She slumped against the wall of the empty house, hot tears streaming down her round cheeks. I could feel the self-loathing Alana felt. It coursed through her veins like acid, anger so thick and raw it was practically opaque. But it wasn’t Sunny she was mad at.
Alana blamed herself.
Stupid, she thought. I’m so stupid. Of course she didn’t want me at her party. Why would someone want something as fat and ugly as me at their party?
I wanted to tell her I was sorry. I wanted to fold her hands in mine, look into her eyes, and tell her she was the best of all of us. I wanted her to know that she was smart and kind, that life would get better for her, if she could just be patient. Please, Alana. I am so sorry. The words were out of my mouth and I yelled them at her, but she couldn’t hear me. It was too late. I would never get to tell her.
Blink.
I saw Justin, his skin warm and silvery against the moonlight as he watched me on the roof of Sunny’s house. His eyes were pools of blue and green, swimming with affection, and suddenly I understood. Justin didn’t see me as the flawless girl from Logan’s picture—he didn’t need to. He liked me the way I was, flaws and all. It had taken him so long to ask me out because he wasn’t sure which was the real me—the giggly girl who kept flipping her hair and trying to get his attention, or the quiet, studious girl whose cheeks flushed when he looked at her.
If there was one picture I wanted to hold on to forever, it was the look in his eyes the moment after we kissed. My first true dance with love happened on the roof of Sunny’s house, and only now could I really see what a wonderful gift it was. Maybe I should have been sad to leave it behind, but I was grateful to have known it, if only for a moment.
I wanted to shout to Justin, to thank him for the brief interlude that promised something bigger. It was the last gift I was given before I left.
Blink.
It was the first day of second grade. Across the room there was a little girl with fiery hair and a grin so warm it lit up the whole room. It seemed fitting that her name turned out to be Sunny. She bounced over to me and took my hand in hers, proclaiming us best friends. I was overwhelmed with a sense of pride. She could’ve chosen anyone to be her best friend, but she chose me.
“Okay,” I told her, “You’re my new best friend.” What I didn’t tell her was how badly I wanted her to pick me. How much I needed her to pick me.
Blink.
It was dark outside. The clock on Sunny’s nightstand read 2:07 a.m., the red numbers glowing like the embers of a cigarette as the minutes passed slowly by. Outside, a car door slammed. Sunny jumped out of bed and peered out the window, where she watched her mother lean into the driver’s side window of a car she did not recognize. Her mother kissed the man behind the steering wheel, her lips lingering over the top of his in a way that made Sunny feel sick. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man who was not her father. Her small fingers dug into the white windowsill as she watched her mother brush the back of her hand across the man’s cheek before he drove away.
He was not the first man to pull into their driveway in the wee hours of the morning. He was not the first man to feel the weight of her mother’s boozy kisses before she snuck back inside the house and into the bed of the husband she didn’t really love. But this man was different from the dozens of others because Sunny recognized him. He was at the parent-teacher open house the week before, holding onto his daughter Alana’s hand.
Two nights later Sunny’s mother left, saying she didn’t love Sunny’s father anymore. She looked Sunny in the eye and promised to come back for her once she’d had time to figure out where she was going and who she was meant to be.
“Can you take care of Miss Violet Beauregard while I’m gone, Sunny? She’s a special dog who needs a special person to care for her.”
“Okay,” Sunny said as her mother placed the small dog into her arms. She pressed her face into patchy fur, tears of relief streaming down her cheeks. Her mother had to come back now. She would never abandon Miss Violet Beauregard. “I’ll take good care of her for you,” Sunny promised.
She watched as the taxi carrying her mother disappeared down the street.
It was the last time Sunny ever saw her.
Blink.
We were at the father-daughter Girl Scout dance, but Sunny’s father was nowhere to be seen. Sunny sat by the window of the church all night long, her face pressed up against the glass watching for him.
“Any minute,” she told me. “He’ll be here any minute.”
My dad held out his hand to her, asking her to dance. She looked at me once to make sure it was okay, and even though I felt a pang of jealousy, I nodded and took her seat by the window so I could keep an eye out for Frank while they danced. My dad twirled Sunny around and around on the dance floor. She grinned and laughed as the pink tulle of her dress billowed around her like a bell. Her father never came.
Blink.
Sunny was seated next to me at my ninth birthday party, cheering me on as I blew out the candles. Sunny grinned and slung her arms around me and the snowwoman we created as my mom snapped a picture. Sunny taught me how to french braid my hair, holding the mirror up patiently for me so I could see what I was doing. Sunny shoved Tracey Allen into a pile of mud after she stole my boyfriend. Sunny sat next to me at my family’s dinner table, cracking my dad up with a joke. Sunny leaned against my mom the night her mother left, tears streaming down her face. Blink, blink, blink.
And then I saw the thing that I should’ve seen all along. I was ashamed that I had to climb so high and so far to see what had been right in front of me the entire time.
I saw Sunny on the night of The Fields, her hair dripping wet with pool water as she wandered around the house looking for me and Justin. She stopped when she walked into the Africa room, listening to the sounds of our voices out on the roof. She sat down on the bed when she heard Justin say he didn’t like her, and I saw her hands ball up into fists as she listened to him say the only reason he even talked to her was because she was my friend. She heard him tell me I was better than all of this, and even though he didn’t exactly say “Taylor is too good for Sunny,” it’s what she heard. And she didn’t hear me deny it. I didn’t correct Justin or tell him that he was wrong. Instead she listened as I told him my theory about the fly. She heard me say that she was a big buzzing distraction, keeping me from all the great things I could have done if she hadn’t been in my life.
I watched as tears welled up in her eyes just before she punched the lamp and sent it crashing to the floor, the sound of broken glass punctuating her anger like an exclamation point. She ran out of the room and down to the party, where she found Logan standing by himself in the kitchen. She whispered in his ear and took his hand, leading him into her bedroom.
“We d
on’t need them,” she said. “Let’s show them how much we don’t need them.”
In the morning, after he left and she was alone in her bed, the shame washed over her like an ocean, so deep she thought she might drown.
Blink.
Sunny was stretched across one of the lawn chairs in her backyard. Her face was pale and unsmiling as she watched Jenny execute a series of butterfly kicks down the length of the pool. Jenny slapped her palm against the wall and popped out of the water, her head bobbing up and down as she frowned in Sunny’s direction. She waved her cast triumphantly in the air, this time wrapped in a thick layer of plastic wrap to protect it from the water.
“Why are you defending her?” Jenny asked. “Considering everything she did to Logan, is it that hard to believe she’d get it on with a teacher?”
Sunny looked down at her hands, swallowing back the lump forming in her throat. She hadn’t meant for it to get so out of hand. She didn’t mean for it to go so far.
“Regardless of what happened between Taylor and Logan she would never do that. She thinks Mr. Thomas is disgusting. Can’t you see? Tracey is lying and using this as an opportunity to make people forget about what a skank she is.”
“How do you know? It seems to me there are a lot of things we didn’t know about Taylor. I really don’t understand why you’re getting so defensive, anyways. She’s getting exactly what she deserves.”
Sunny swallowed thickly, her eyes lingering on the empty lounge chair I usually claimed during our summertime tanning sessions. There was a sour taste in the back of her throat. She felt like she was going to be sick.
“What if I told you none of it was true?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “What if I told you that I made it all up?”
Jenny doggy paddled to the edge of the pool and gripped the blue tiled rim. “What are you talking about?”
Sunny stared into space until her eyes lost focus. She licked her lips. “Tracey was going to tell the store manager I stole the pills. They would’ve called the police, and Tracey would’ve told everyone. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. And then the lies just kept tumbling out of my mouth … ”
Pool water dripped from Jenny’s curls as she pulled herself out of the water. Her feet slapped wetly against the concrete when she stomped towards Sunny’s chair, determination pulsing from her narrowed eyes.
“Listen to me.” She grabbed Sunny’s shoulders and shook her back to reality. “I’m going to pretend I never heard that, okay? And you can never tell anyone else what you just told me, do you understand?”
“Why?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. “She doesn’t deserve this. I do.”
“Do you want everyone to hate you? Do you want to be a social outcast? Because that’s exactly what will happen if people find out that you lied about your best friend. No one will ever believe anything you say again, and you will have no one. Do you understand me? No one.”
Fear bubbled inside Sunny, and beneath that I could feel the suffocating loneliness that she fought so hard to hide from everyone. It was horrible. I could barely breathe for it. How had I never noticed it before? It was a living thing inside of her, with hands that squeezed her and feet that ran sprints up and down length of her body. Its voice was deep and gravelly, whispering hotly in her ear. You will always be alone. No one will ever love you. Your mother left because she didn’t love you. Your father can’t stand the sight of you. Do you really want the rest of the world to know what you did? To see you for what you really are?
Her loneliness was all-consuming, and as she listened to Jenny, it drowned out the rational part of her brain that wanted to do the right thing. At least she had Jenny. As long as she had someone she could keep the loneliness at bay. If everyone found out and hated her because of it …
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she said to Jenny. “But I don’t want everyone to hate me.”
“Then we’ll just pretend this never happened. Your secret’s safe with me, but you have to promise me you won’t ever mention it again. Okay?”
Sunny nodded. “I promise,” she said, shaking off any remaining inclinations she might have had to tell the truth. She stood up, straightening her shoulders as a wicked grin spread across her face. “I bet I can do more flips then you can.”
“No way. I’ll totally kick your ass.”
The girls dove into the pool, leaving Sunny’s confession behind them.
Blink.
I was back on the steps, the rain pounding against my skin like nails.
I was Sunny’s best friend. I was her buoy against all the bad things in her life—the mother who abandoned her, the father who might as well not be there. She was like part of my family. Hell, she was my family. What did it feel like, listening to her crush and her best friend rip her apart? How much did it hurt when she heard me say I’d be better off without her in my life? As soon as I thought of the question, the answer was there, as clear as if I’d plucked it straight from Sunny’s head. I was like her mother. I was like her father. Everyone she ever loved left her because she wasn’t good enough for them. I was one more person to add to the growing list of people who had abandoned her, only I was worse than all of them, because I promised I would never leave her.
I cried. I couldn’t help it. My tears mixed with the rain, and my sobs sailed away on the gusts of wind, drowned out by the cracking thunder. I wished I hadn’t seen it. I wished I was still ignorant to Sunny’s motives. I wished I didn’t know how she interpreted the conversation with Justin, or how alone she really felt.
“Please,” I whispered to the storm. “Please. No more.”
Before Sunny, my world was bland. Without her, I would have always colored inside the lines, which by all appearances may have made for an easier life, but it would not have been a life without Sunny.
I would have given anything to take back the last few weeks and tell her I was sorry, to tell her what I really saw when I looked at her. Sunny would always be my best friend, but I’d never get to tell her. She would never get to know how much I loved her.
More images flashed behind my eyes. My parents. Sunny. Alana James. Brandon Blakes. Logan. Jenny. Amber. Justin. All of them swirled around me like the storm clouds, and all of them were tinged with regret and longing.
Regret was an angry monster. Regret was the storm that swirled around me, pushing me against the steps as I rocked myself back and forth.
“Please. I’m sorry. I wish I could take it all back. I wish … ” I whispered to the storm, my words drifting unheard onto the stairs. “Please forgive me. Please make it stop. Please just make it stop!”
And just like that, it stopped.
The thunder stopped, the rain halted, and the cold wind was replaced with the warmth of a sunny afternoon. When I finally lifted my head from out of my hands, I saw that the sky was back to its perfect cornflower blue. There were no clouds; there was no wind. My clothes and hair were perfectly dry. It was as though the storm never happened.
I sat there for a few minutes before trying to stand. My legs were shaky and my eyes raw and itchy from crying so hard. Slowly, I eased myself up off of the step. My breath caught in my throat.
A few steps ahead of me there was a door.
I rubbed my eyes a few times to make sure it wasn’t a mirage, but when I opened them again it was still there, as real as anything. Has it been there all along? Was it raining so heavily that I wasn’t able to see it?
It didn’t look like anything special—just a plain white wooden door with a brass knob, like you’d find inside someone’s house. It was set inside a blue wall, but as I looked out past the stairs the wall seemed to become part of the sky, so I couldn’t tell if the wall was the sky or the sky was the wall or if they both melded into one continuous space.
I climbed the remaining steps and stopped in front of the door. There was a peephole in the center, staring back at me like a small, round eye. The afternoon light reflected off the glass cir
cle, and for a second I got the impression it blinked at me. Was there someone on the other side of it, watching me?
I reached my hand out toward the knob, but then stopped. It felt strange to open it and walk through after everything that had happened. Should I knock first?
I lifted my fist up, but before my fingers hit the wood I heard a click. My stomach did a double back handspring as I watched the brass knob slowly turn.
The door opened outward a few inches, creaking as though it had rusted over from waiting for me so long.
A soft, warm light filtered through the open space between the door and the wall. It was brighter than the sunlight and warmer than the air around me. It shimmered, glittering against the air as though made of something more substantial, but so clear and sharp that it split the air into tiny particles of color, like the light itself was a prism of glass refracting everything that filtered through it into tiny rainbows. It was as brilliant as the trail left by the dragonfly, and for a moment I wondered if it had been around me the whole time. Maybe the staircase was a veil I had to lift to see the real wonder awaiting me.
A hand slowly emerged from the opening. It glowed like the light spilling from the crack in the door, but I couldn’t tell if the light caused the hand to glow or the hand created the light. The skin was the color of wet sand, not white or black, but somewhere in between it all. Small, square nails sat atop of each finger, neatly trimmed and manicured into perfect little window-shaped tips. The hand flipped over so that it was open, palm up. Normally alarm bells would have gone off inside my head, screaming stranger danger! But I was not afraid.
I placed my hand inside the stranger’s, feeling the warmth of their skin against mine.
In that moment, it hit me like a jolt of electricity. Fire and ice raced through my veins all at once, and the sensation of being filled with something warm and harmonious rolled across my body like waves against a shore. And just like that, I got it. Oh man, did I get it. I could barely see through the tears in my eyes, and yet I saw so much. Like how there was forgiveness enough for all if we only asked, and how we were all exactly where we were supposed to be even if it didn’t feel that way.
Where the Staircase Ends Page 18