The Last Time We Were Us

by Leah Konen

  MY THERAPIST IS A COOL, TATTOOED LESBIAN WHOSE practice is located twenty minutes away.

  Angie adjusts herself in her chair, fingers her thick glasses. “How’s your cheek feel?”

  Mom, who has never believed in therapy, didn’t put up a fight when Dad insisted they get me in to see someone right away. Dad explained that I’d been through a supertraumatic experience, and that the lines of communication weren’t exactly the most open between all of us right now.

  “It’s not that bad,” I say. “I still have the strong painkillers, and it’s more gross than anything, so many stitches and Neosporin and bandages and all that.”

  “Have you looked at it yet?”

  Mom sees it every day—she’s my official bandage changer—and my sister has taken a look, but not me. “I don’t really see the need.”

  “Uh-huh.” Angie ticks something off on her notepad.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she says. “I like to check in about it.”

  “You think I’m in denial?”

  “Do you think you’re in denial?” she asks.

  Here we go. I like Angie. It’s been exactly a week since the night Innis attacked me and Jason, and this is our third session. So far, I’ve done a lot of crying, and she’s done a lot of passing of tissues, and it’s been good. She’s not uptight or old or traditional, and I don’t worry that she’s going to judge me for anything, so I’ve told her all of it, the whole sordid tale. For the most part, she’s been cool, but then every once in a while, she does her therapist talk—“Oh, do you think you’re in denial?” kind of a thing—and it’s almost like she’s trying to be annoying.

  “The way my mom sucks in her breath every time she sees it, it’s obviously a big deal, and I’m going to look different,” I say. “That doesn’t mean I want to see it myself before I have to.”

  Angie nods. “Let’s backtrack a bit. Last session, we talked a little bit about how you think this is, at least partially, your fault.”

  “That’s because it is my fault.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Can you tell me again?”

  My face gets hot, but I swallow, push the tears back down. “It wasn’t just the stuff that had happened before that made him snap. It was all of it put together. If I hadn’t led Innis on all summer, if I hadn’t toyed with him like I did, then he would have been able to let it go. Both times he tried to hurt Jason, it was because of me.”

  Angie purses her lips and stares at me. When I don’t say anything else, she adjusts again before speaking.

  “Even if that is true, which I’m not sure that it is, it would still not be your fault. It would still be his fault. He is the one who broke into a home. He is the one who brought a weapon.”

  “That’s what you have to say,” I stammer.

  Angie makes such a huge deal about the fact that I feel guilty about this. I’ve told her that it doesn’t matter. I’ve already agreed to testify for the prosecution when Innis’s hearing comes up in a couple of months, and I’m not going to be all—“it was my fault, really”—up on the stand. The lawyers have made it clear that with his past, Jason will not be a reliable witness; it’s all on me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still, in the back of my head, know that there are things I could have done differently, ways I could have circumnavigated all of this.

  She stares at me. “What would you say to Innis if you saw him today?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She makes another note.

  ANGIE WAITS UNTIL the next session to tell me that she thinks it would do me good to confront Innis. She has told me that though my guilt might be natural, it is not warranted, and that calling Innis out on what he did could be a good way to move through it.

  When I get home, I tell Mom. It’s the Monday before Lyla’s wedding, and she has enough on her mind, but it doesn’t stop her from picking up the phone.

  “What in the world are you suggesting?” she asks as soon as she gets ahold of Angie. “Why would you urge a minor to put herself in danger like this?”

  Mom vigorously shakes her head as she listens to Angie’s responses, and they have two more phone calls to talk about it. Mom and Dad even have a long conversation in their bedroom, the door closed and their voices soft, but eventually, she’s okay with the idea.

  Jason doesn’t like it either. I meet him at his house, after his shift at the gas station, and he paces in fury.

  “What kind of idiot would put you through that?” he asks.

  “She thinks it will be therapeutic.”

  “It’s insane,” he says, his lips turning down, his breathing quickening like he’s scared for my life.

  “She said you could call her to talk about it,” I say. And he does. And eventually he comes around, too.

  MacKenzie also thinks it’s a horrible waste of my energy and resources. “Why give that asshole even another ounce of your time?” she asks, when we talk the next morning on the phone. She’s already explained to Payton that she will have absolutely nothing to do with him if he so much as thinks about Innis ever again. He’s acquiesced, for now, but I wonder whether everything that happened will break them up, eventually.

  Even the lawyers are wary. They remind me that I shouldn’t talk about the case or my planned testimony. Innis was picked up the night he attacked us for a DWI, and apparently there’s a pretty strong case against him. I think they’re worried I’ll go over there and come out of it deciding I won’t help out after all.

  Surprisingly, it’s only Lyla who seems to be on board. Lyla, who has her own history with the family, who feels she failed me as a sister this summer, who is willing to listen to any idea if there’s a chance it might help. Lyla, who is getting married this Saturday, who should be thinking about other things, not me, not Innis, not everything that happened that led us to this moment. My parents hemmed and hawed about postponing the wedding, but I absolutely refused, and Suzanne agreed, reminded my dad that he would not be getting his deposits back if he changed the date this late.

  JASON COMES OVER on Wednesday morning, the day I’m set to go to Innis’s. I’m sitting on the wicker love seat on the porch, legs in the sun and Heart of Darkness in my hands.

  “Hey.” He rushes up, leans down, and gives me a kiss.

  “Hi.” I put the book down, lace my hands through his.

  I’m not worried about people seeing us anymore—everyone knows everything by this point, anyway. I’ve seen Jason every day since that night, and I plan on seeing him every day indefinitely.

  Mom comes out then, a smile on her face. “Y’all want tea?” she asks.

  “Sure, Mom,” I say.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jason says.

  She brings out two ice-cold glasses and we say our thank-yous, Jason being extra polite and Mom being polite right back. I’d be naive to think that a guy with a juvenile record is her first choice for her daughter’s boyfriend, but even so, she seems to have accepted us, in her way. Maybe it’s because Jason took care of me that night. Maybe it’s because she sees him like I do now, the same Jason we all knew and loved for all those years. Or maybe, finally, she trusts me.

  Mom goes back inside and I take a sip of sweet tea. “You sure you don’t want to go to school with me next year?” I ask. Jason’s set to go to another high school, given the location of his condo, but since the house next door is technically still Mr. Sullivan’s, he actually could go to East Bonneville.

  Jason tilts his head towards mine. “You know I want to be at school with you. But there’s no way I can go back there. I need a fresh start.”

  “I know. But it doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?” I’m terrified of facing a whole school year, every rumor, every superficial friendship—possibly even Innis, if they only give him probation—alone.

  Jason squeezes my hand. “Speaking of ‘doesn’t hurt to ask,’ can I just double-check whether it’s a good idea to go to Innis’s? M
aybe you could wait a little bit?”

  I scoot closer, nuzzle into his shoulder. “Angie thinks it will help me. Move on and everything. Otherwise, I’ll be stressing about it until the hearing. That’s at least two months away, without any postponements.”

  Jason runs his fingers through my hair. “It’s just so soon,” he says.

  “She thinks I’m ready. And it’s all arranged.”

  Mom called Mrs. Taylor and set everything up for today. Like it’s some twisted playdate in another universe.

  “It could be unarranged.”

  “Stop worrying.” I look up, catch his eyes. “Think of the pygmy goats.” In the days right after that night, it seemed that all we could manage when we were together was to watch cute baby animals on the internet—even funny movies seemed like they required too much energy.

  Jason laughs.

  “See? It’s hard to feel crappy when you think about tiny goats.”

  LYLA AND I arrive at Crawford Hall at noon, as planned. We pull around the back, park in front of the detached garage.

  “Weird to be back?” I ask, as she turns off the car.

  “Pretty strange,” she says. And then her lips pull to a frown. “Are you okay to do this?” she asks.

  I nod. “Are you?”

  She nods back.

  I flip down the mirror. My bandage is smaller now, no gauze, no extra tape. My stitches came out yesterday, but I still haven’t looked at the cut properly, leaving all the aftercare to Mom. I’ve been trying to make up for my appearance with extra eyeliner and lip gloss, but I still look so strange, like an alien spaceship has landed on my face. I flip the mirror back up. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  I glance to the basement as we walk from the driveway across the back lawn: a hundred lifetimes ago I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world just to have an invite down to Innis’s den of iniquity. We pass the pool, still and shimmering and perfectly maintained, where MacKenzie and Payton used to hook up. We walk up the stairs of the huge back porch, where I sat with the Taylor family and listened to Innis regale us with stories of Sally the cat. From the porch, I look back, across the lawn, and try to guess where the infamous fire pit used to be, where everything was put into motion. I can’t tell, and maybe it’s better that way.

  I wonder what Lyla is remembering, if it’s good or bad or all jumbled up.

  Mrs. Taylor, herself, meets us at the door. No housekeeper or anything, just her. She’s dressed in slim black pants and a muted silk blouse that hangs perfectly on her, minimal makeup, a simple black headband. Nothing fancy, as there is nothing to celebrate, but nothing too casual or irreverent, either. Good breeding, especially in moments like this.

  “Liz.” Her eyes flicker, for a millisecond, to my cheek. “Lyla. Come in, girls.”

  We don’t exchange any pleasantries, even though it’s been years since she’s seen Lyla, even though there is so much to be said. It’s been too long! How’ve you been? Did the library fund-raiser make as much as you’d hoped? You all set for the wedding, Lyla? How’s your cheek doing? Healing well from the night my son attacked you? I hear tea tree oil works wonders, saw it in a magazine.

  “Innis is in the living room,” she says. Then she looks over to Lyla. “Did you . . .”

  Lyla’s eyes dart quickly to mine, but I nod at her; the plan stands.

  “I’ll just hang out right here,” Lyla says, taking a seat on a tufted ottoman in the hallway.

  “Would you like water or something else to drink?” Mrs. Taylor asks. Lyla shakes her head.

  Mrs. Taylor takes a deep breath, clasps her hands together. “All right then, this way, Liz.”

  I follow her down a side hallway into a room that’s not half as fancy as all the others. A room without gilded mirrors and antique seating. The kind of room where it looks like regular people live. Windows look out on the backyard and the room spills into an equally normal-looking, if not a little large, kitchen.

  And in the corner is Innis. He’s sitting on a beige sofa, looking down at his hands. He’s in a navy polo and khakis, boat shoes on his feet, and there’s a bulky black bracelet on his left ankle. His parents were able to post bail, of course, but due to the violent nature of the crime, the close proximity of the victim—that would be me—home monitoring was a must.

  “Are you all right?” Mrs. Taylor asks me.

  I nod. “I’m fine.”

  “All right, then,” she says. “I’ll just be in the other room.”

  Innis looks up at me then, follows me with his eyes as I take a seat on the couch across from him.

  He doesn’t speak until his mom is out of the room.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  He looks like Innis with the brightness turned down, like you just erased a layer of color from his face, left a shell of a person, someone with all the life and vitality sucked out. Someone who has no experience with the high road, who, when push comes to shove, takes and takes and takes some more. There’s a darkness in every single one of us, tiny, crazy thoughts, they flit out as quickly as they come in. But when he gets them, he embraces them, acts on them. He’s like an angry child working at a jigsaw puzzle, pressing the pieces as hard as he can, banging his fist upon them until there’s a semblance of a fit, slicing them and tearing them until he gets the satisfying thunk he craves—until he has a picture before him that, to him, looks the way he wants it to.

  His eyes lock on the bandage on my face, and he looks back down.

  My therapist was right. There was nothing I could have done.

  I am allowed to break up with someone. I am allowed to be with the person I want—no matter what happened in the past—without it coming to this.

  I’m not sure how much time passes—if it is seconds or minutes—before I breathe deeply, ready to talk.

  “I don’t want to stay long,” I say. “But I just want to say this. Jason and I didn’t deserve any part of what you did. It was horrible and scary and something that never should have happened, no matter what you think or thought we did to you. And if you don’t let go of your anger, you’re going to have a miserable life.”

  Innis’s hands squeeze together, release. He looks up, and his eyes are dripping. I’ve never seen him cry. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “But you did.” I hear my voice rise, feel my heart beat faster. I take a deep breath, force myself to calm down, push back the tears threatening to break through their weak levee. “You knew I cared about him, and you wanted to hurt him. You knew that would hurt me, too.”

  He shakes his head, looks up at my bandage, back down as quickly as he can. “But your face. I never meant to—I only thought I’d scare him. I wasn’t even going to really hurt him.”

  “Maybe you were and maybe you weren’t. It doesn’t matter,” I snap. “You came at us, drunk and with a knife. What did you think was going to happen? Did you really think you could control a situation like that?”

  “But if he hadn’t—”

  “Let it go.” My voice is fully raised now, shutting him down. “Let the past go. Your brother has. We all have. It was an accident, you know it, and you put him away for a year and a half with your lies. And now you’ve hurt me in a way you can never, ever take back.”

  He looks up at me, pleading for forgiveness that’s not fully mine to give. “I never wanted any of this,” he says.

  “None of us did.”

  And I stand up, walk out of the room as fast as I can.

  Because I have used up all the words I have stored away for Innis Taylor. And from now on, my words will be saved for others.

  IN THE HALLWAY, I see Skip and Lyla, sitting on the ottoman together, as close as they used to be when they sat on our porch, when they kissed in Skip’s car in the minutes before curfew, when they hung out on the couch in our living room, watching reality TV. Skip is turned towards her, their knees almost touching, the good side of his face to me. If I took a picture now, showed it to a strang
er, they’d see a couple, young and in love. It shocks me, but in this weird way it seems okay. Like in another universe, it’s just your average everyday moment.

  Lyla looks up. “You ready?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “’Bye, Skip,” she says.

  “’Bye, Lyla,” he says.

  BOTH OF US are quiet as we pull out of the circular driveway, away from Crawford Hall. I wait until we’re back in our own driveway to grill her.

  “What was that about?” I ask.

  Lyla turns off the car and faces me. “You first. How did it go? How do you feel?”

  “Good,” I say, and surprisingly, it’s true. It’s like a weight has been lifted, a tiny one, but one just the same.

  “Really?” she asks.

  “Really.”

  Lyla nods.

  “So what happened?” I ask.

  She picks at the skin around her nails, the same thing I do when I’m nervous. “He came in and asked if he could sit down next to me. I said yes. He said that he was sorry about what Innis did to you, that he thought it was somehow his fault—I told him it wasn’t, of course—but then he changed the subject, started talking about us.”

  “And?”

  “He said that he was sorry he broke up with me like that. He said that it must have been really hard for me. He said that he was glad I was getting married.”

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says. “And he meant it. Skip has always been a good guy. He had his flaws like anyone, I guess, but he was always good to me.”

  “It looked like something was going on with you two, the way you were sitting there together.”

  I bat at Lyla’s hands and she stops picking. She tugs at the ends of her hair instead.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “He said that he never stopped loving me. And—” she stares straight ahead. “And I guess I said that I never really did, either.”

  “What about Benny?” I ask.

  She whips her head back towards me. “I love Benny with all my heart.”

  “But you love Skip, too?”

  She nods solemnly. “And Skip, too. In a different way. Like in a memory kind of way. An old postcard of a favorite place kind of way.” She hesitates. “Now, do you promise not to tell anyone ever what I’m about to tell you?”