Glass Half Full

by Rose, Katia

  I thought I could run far and fast enough from my past to keep it out of my present. The shadows of what I’ve done are never going to leave me, but the things that cast those shadows—I thought one day those would be far enough they couldn’t catch me.

  I was wrong.

  He was just standing there, looking almost the exact same as he did at nineteen. I could bump into him again anytime, with anyone. He could walk into Taverne Toulouse one night. Hell, he could show up on the sidewalk like that when I’m meeting Renee’s parents for the first time.

  He could haunt me the same way my record haunts me every day. I have no control over when and where that mark against me will cause problems. What kind of a life is that to share with someone else?

  Stella was wrong. Your past can reach you whether you want it to or not. There’s a whole world just waiting to swallow me up again, just waiting for me to slip through the cracks. I’ve got so far to fall, and when you fall like that, you take everyone down with you.

  Eighteen

  Renee

  ELEGY: A poem that expresses a sense of grief or loss

  I text my dad to let him know I don’t need a ride home from therapy. I feel bad for bailing on our bonding session, but something about Dylan’s suggestion that we hang out today felt urgent. I try to squash down the insecurities and convince myself nothing’s wrong as I take the elevator up to my therapist’s office.

  Picturing Dylan’s lazy smile as he held me in his arms in bed does wonders to reassure me. It’s been four days, and I’m still replaying our night together like it’s a hit song I can’t get enough of. Everything about being with him just felt so perfect, like we already knew where to touch each other and when. We didn’t think; we just felt—with our bodies, our breath, our minds. I lost track of where my pleasure ended and his began.

  Okay, rein it in there, girl, I warn myself as the elevator doors slide open.

  I do not need to walk into this session looking like someone who’s spent all day thinking about getting fucked.

  Which I totally have.

  I settle myself in Sarah’s office, and we spend an hour talking about my job, about my family, and of course, about Dylan. I don’t go into detail, but I do tell her we ‘spent the night together.’ I half expect her to tell me I made a mistake, that I should have waited, but of course she doesn’t. This isn’t somewhere I come to be judged. This is somewhere I come to simply be, and as we work our way through the hour, I realize that what I’m being now is happy. Hopeful. Excited.

  I have so much to look forward to—not just about Dylan, but about me, about my life—that it’s practically bursting out of me. It’s like I’ve been a bed of frozen soil for months, and I’m finally ready to bloom.

  “I’m still anxious,” I tell Sarah. “I think anxiety is part of my life now, but that’s just it: it’s part of my life. It doesn’t define it. I’m so much more than that.”

  I leave my worries about Dylan’s message behind when I leave the office. All he did was say he wanted to see me and suggest we meet today instead of Saturday. That’s a perfectly normal thing to ask.

  He wants to see me.

  With my doubts gone, the thought almost makes me giggly, like I’ve downed too much champagne.

  I tell Dylan I’m a little ahead of schedule and offer to pick up our drinks. It’s an unseasonably warm day, and since I’m only a few blocks from McGill University, I suggest we switch plans and meet up there so we can hang out on campus. The leaves have already reached and surpassed the height of their colour, but it will still be nice to walk around the tree-lined paths and old stone buildings with our drinks.

  Dylan’s running late, so I find myself a bench on campus and set the coffees down while I wait. I really am drinking coffee this time, instead of the chai lattes I’ve gotten obsessed with. Tahseen would be proud of me for going to Starbz, and since fall is winding down now, I couldn’t resist the call of the pumpkin spice latte in its final days of the year. Of course, I went with an Americano for Dylan.

  Students surge past me, their backpacks sagging with the weight of their books, scarves thrown around their necks as they gulp down caffeine and late lunches, rushing from lecture to lecture. For the first time since I got back from England, I feel a pang of longing for the lifestyle I left behind. I miss learning. I miss filling my days with ideas and arguments and theories. I miss the challenge of it, the constant invitation to expand who I am and what I’m capable of.

  I could go to school here.

  I’ve always loved the McGill campus. When Tahseen and I were finally old enough to come downtown on our own, we’d always hang out here. There’s something about the architecture, the history of it all, that makes every step you take here feel important. Purposeful. Powerful.

  Tahseen was always dead set on doing her degree here. I knew even then that I wanted to go abroad, but I still applied to McGill as a ‘safety school.’ I even got offered a small scholarship along with my acceptance.

  I sip at my drink, imagining myself joining in the swarm of students, wearing a deep red McGill sweater and filling my head with ideas and knowledge, with plans and goals to achieve. I’m surprised to find how little the idea scares me. Just a few months ago, even the thought of being on a university campus again would have made my heart speed up and my breath get short. Now it almost makes me excited.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  I’m so zoned out I don’t even notice Dylan until he’s lowering himself onto the bench beside me. I turn to him and feel my face splitting into a wide smile. It’s become a reflex response around him. No matter where we are or what we’re doing, I lay eyes on him for the first time and this surge of joy shoots through me like just the sight of him pushes the dopamine button in my brain.

  “It’s okay. It’s a gorgeous day out. I almost forgot I was waiting for you,” I joke.

  “Well we can’t have that.” He leans over to peck me on the cheek. I turn so he can kiss me properly, but he’s already pulling away. “What Starbucks drink are you subjecting me to?”

  It’s fine, I tell myself as I reach for his drink beside me and pass it over. Just because he didn’t full-on make out with you the second he saw you doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong. He also doesn’t need to sit right beside you. There can be a few inches between your thighs.

  Still, he’s never lost the opportunity to squeeze in as close as he can. My doubts start seeping back in like an IV drip I just can’t cut myself off from.

  “Relax,” I order him, doing my best to sound breezy. “It’s only an Americano.”

  “Espresso as it should be served.” He holds his cup up to cheers it with mine and then takes a sip. “Thanks for picking these up, and thanks for meeting me today. I really am sorry about being late. I had to stop in at the bar, and you know how it is. You go in to do one thing, and then you end up doing a dozen.”

  He knocks back a few sips of coffee one after the other, and I notice the way his heels are tapping out a frantic rhythm against the ground.

  “God, I sound like an asshole. ‘You know how it is,’” he mocks himself. “I should have gotten out of there earlier. I’m sorry.”

  “Dylan.” I place my hand on his thigh, tentative at first, but I squeeze his muscle when he puts his hand over mine and finally stops tapping his feet. “It’s okay. Are...are you okay?”

  I wish he’d turn and smile at me. I wish he’d bring my hand to his lips and kiss my fingers before saying he’s okay, we’re okay, everything is the most okay it’s ever been.

  Instead he sighs.

  “Is this...” I pause and swallow, bracing myself for the last thing I want to hear and the one thing I’ve been most afraid of. “Is this about...that night?”

  “It’s not like that.” His hand twitches where it’s still holding mine. “It’s not like that at all. That night was...There’s nothing about that night I regret. I’ve never felt so connected with someone, so...so whole in the way I am whe
n I’m with you. I want you to know that.”

  I feel like I’m on a seesaw, sliding down into despair one second and being buoyed up by hope the next.

  “It was the same for me. I don’t regret anything about it either. So why do I get the feeling you’ve got something bad to say?”

  He starts stroking the top of my hand with his thumb as he stares across the laneway in front of us. Then, as if he’s just realized he’s doing something he’s not supposed to, he pulls his hand away and shakes his head. I feel the loss of his contact through my whole body.

  “I just...I don’t know if this is working.” He winces at his own words. “I just don’t know.”

  I should move my hand off his leg. It’s stupid to keep it there when he doesn’t seem to want to touch me, but I just press my grip more firmly into his thigh. I’m not letting go of him.

  “You mean you want to slow down again?” Part of me realizes that’s not what he means at all, but the rest of me is hell-bent on denying it. “We can do that. We can go even slower than before. I don’t care how long it takes. I’m willing to put in the time.”

  He’s still staring off into the distance. “I don’t know if time is the answer here.”

  “What’s even the question?”

  I try not to snap at him, but I can’t help it. This doesn’t make any sense.

  He turns to face me, and his eyes hold more pain than I’ve ever seen in them before. “The question I keep asking myself is whether being with me is the best thing for you.”

  “No.” Even I’m taken aback by the force in the word. My voice sounds harsh, dangerous even. I’ve never heard myself speak so low before. “No, no, no. You do not get to do that, Dylan. I told you I was in this. I’ve told you over and over again that I’m ready for whatever this takes, that I know it’s not going to be easy, that so many things are stacked against us, but I’m here for this. I’m here for you. Don’t confuse what’s best for me with what’s the least scary for you.”

  As Dylan stiffens besides me like he’s just been slapped with the truth, I realize I’m right. He’s scared. Something is holding him back, and he’s looking for excuses to turn away from this.

  From me.

  “That’s not...that’s not what this is about,” he stammers.

  “So what is it about?” My question is still a demand, but my voice is softer now. I need him to explain. I need to know what he’s thinking so I can help him.

  “I told Stella and Owen about you,” he begins, “about us. It made me realize just how much we’ve been ignoring about this situation. They’re two of my best friends, and I still had to explain us to them. I had to make sure they knew it’s ‘not what it looks like.’ I’m going to have to keep doing that over and over again, to anyone who finds out about us, and not everyone is going to understand. Not everyone is going to approve. I don’t want to put you in that position. I can’t handle the idea that people will look down on you and think badly of you because of your choice to be with me.”

  He spreads his hands like that’s the be all and end all of this decision, but I’m not buying it.

  “Why would people think badly of me for being with you?”

  “It’s the...situation,” he stammers. “Our jobs—”

  “Are jobs, Dylan,” I interrupt. “I know how much Taverne Toulouse means to you. It means a lot to me too, but this”— gesture between the two of us—“is a big part of who I am now, and if that’s not welcome there, then I don’t want to stay. We can get new jobs. You don’t even like your—”

  “It’s not that I don’t like it—”

  “Bullshit.” I’ve been doing my best to be understanding, to give him space to speak, but my frustration wins out. “You do not like being a manager. You don’t feel like you’re on the right path. That’s why you keep messing things up. I think part of you wants to get fired so you won’t have to step up and make the choice yourself, just like you’re trying to leave me for my ‘own good’ because the alternative is way too scary. I know it’s scary, Dylan. I’m scared too. That’s not going to stop me.”

  My heart is pounding in my chest. I want to jump off this bench and pull him to his feet. I want to throw my arms around him, to kiss him with all the fire roaring through my veins. I want to take him to bed and show him, with my skin and my screams and my hands in his hair, that this is worth the fight.

  Only he already looks like he’s done fighting.

  “You don’t understand,” he murmurs.

  “So help me to,” I beg. “What am I missing?”

  “You...You shouldn’t be with me. I’m only ever going to bring you down.”

  There it is. There’s the eye of the storm.

  “Dylan.” I rest my fingertips on his forearm. He doesn’t cover them with his own, but he doesn’t shrug me off either. “You’ve helped lift me up higher than I’ve ever been before. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met—”

  “I’m not,” he cuts me off. “I’m really not.”

  “How can you say that? Have you seen yourself? Seen what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve done? You’ve changed lives. You...”

  I trail off when I identify the sound he’s making. He’s laughing. He’s chuckling to himself as he stares at the ground, and it raises the hairs on my neck.

  “What I’ve done,” he repeats. “Do you want to know what I’ve done? I went to jail, Renee. I spent four months of my life in prison.”

  “You...Wait, what?”

  “I’m a convicted criminal.”

  What did you do?

  I hate that it’s the first thing that comes to mind, but the question echoes in my head all the same.

  What did you do? What did you do?

  I won’t ask it. Whatever he did, he’s more than that now. I know he is. I know him.

  Do you know him, Renee?

  “Still think I’m one of the best people you’ve ever met?” His voice is bitter.

  I can’t find my own to answer, but I tighten my grip on his arm.

  “Just the other day, I bumped into someone,” he explains, “someone...from my past. I keep thinking everything happened long enough ago that it can’t touch me now, and then something will remind me how close the past always is. It’s always fucking there, hanging over my head like my damn criminal record. That’s the worst part of it all. The record. That thing is going to be with me for the rest of my damn life. How could you want that associated with you? How could anyone want that?”

  I’ve never seen him look this hopeless before. He’s sunken, shrunken, nearly unrecognizable from the guy I’ve seen bouncing around the bar using a spatula as a microphone.

  “I’m still here.” I wish my voice wasn’t wavering so much, but at least I’m able to speak again. “I know now, and I haven’t run away.”

  “You don’t even know what I did.” He lets out a shaky breath, and I realize I’m about to get the story. “I stole my little brother’s medication.”

  He pauses, like he’s giving me a chance to get up and leave, but I don’t move a muscle as I wait for him to continue.

  “My mom had drilled the ‘don’t do drugs’ thing into me since I was a little kid. I still don’t know exactly why it was such a huge deal for her, but I think my dad had something to do with it. When I was a teenager, one of my...my friends”—he all but spits the word out—“Kyle, got into dealing. I thought he only bothered with weed. I never touched it myself. Not that I have a problem with people smoking, but I just...I never wanted it. I pretended not to know just how deep into the drug scene Kyle had gotten. Turns out I didn’t have a fucking clue.”

  His shoulders start shaking ever so slightly, and I can’t stand the separation anymore. I slide closer, pressing the side of my leg up against his as he continues speaking in a dull, almost dispassionate voice, like the only way he can get through this story is to distance himself from it.

  “I’d just lost my job at a convenience store. They were going under and
couldn’t afford to pay me anymore. I was saving up to go to college at the time, and I had all these application fees to pay and bus tickets to buy so I could visit the schools, and Mom was working so many extra hours just to put food on the table, and it just seemed like there was never enough money. I was so fucking sick of it. Then one day Kyle found my brother’s medication in our bathroom and told me the street price for Adderall.”

  He raises the arm I’m not holding and drags his hand down his face. A long moment passes before he continues.

  “It took a few weeks, but eventually I came around to the idea. We went to this party, and that’s when I realized just how far things with Kyle had gone. That party...I don’t even know if party is the right word. There were so many drugs, and all this cash, and people had fucking guns, and then the cops showed up. I don’t know where Kyle went, but he wasn’t around when they got me. I had my backpack on me. They found the Adderall and...almost two thousand dollars’ worth of weed Kyle had asked me to carry for him.”

  “But...” I struggle to slow the whirlpool of thoughts spinning around my head. “But they were his drugs, and you went to jail?”

  Dylan shrugs. “I carried them. I knew they were there. I stole the Adderall. I went to the party with the intention of selling. It didn’t make much of a difference to the judge—not that it should have. I stole my own brother’s medication. Who does that?”

  “What...what about Kyle? What happened to him?”

  “He had the money to hire some lawyer who got him out of any charges. We’d only just arrived at the party when the cops showed up, so no one remembered him being there. They weren’t looking for guys like me and Kyle, anyway. It was a bust to go after the big guys. I got caught up in the crossfire.”

  I don’t know what he was expecting this story to make me feel, but the urge to pull him closer is overwhelming. Nothing he’s said has made me want to push him away.