by Foxx, Gloria
“And that makes you happy why?” I felt a little churlish worrying about the younger Boston taking foolish risks.
“Pissed off my parents.” He smiled and shrugged as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
“A grab for attention?” Those moments he faded away on the way to the game made more sense now.
“I suppose maybe.”
Back in his room, we hang out for a couple hours before work. Sitting on his bed, our backs propped against the wall sharing his ear buds I go back to earlier in the day. “I’ve never told anyone else about my mom’s many husbands.”
“I never told anyone I thought my parents’ lives revolved around my brother.” He ducked his head, avoiding my gaze as he said it. “They were helping him fight terminal cancer. I shouldn’t be jealous, but I guess I am.”
Reaching for his hand, I lace my fingers with his, squeezing and holding tight while bowing my head and peeking past the hair curtaining his face. It feels like we’re dating and that means I’ll eventually have to tell him about Emma.
* * *
“Are you happy?” Annie probes as we have lunch together in the cafeteria.
“I shouldn’t be.” The question pushes me back. I see Emma before me instead of Annie. Emma’s death left behind an overwhelming sense of guilt. I smooth the back of my hand, releasing the pressure in my wrist. I shouldn’t be enjoying myself, yet I am. These past weeks with Boston have been the best of my life.
“You are, aren’t you?” she crows as if uncovering some great truth.
“I am.” I can feel the silly grin on my face, my cheeks high near my eyes. My heart has lift in my chest like a hot-air balloon. “We can talk about anything or nothing,” I add as if that clears it right up.
We’re sitting together in the far corner, windows on both sides. Annie’s beaming like a proud parent. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thinking about Boston makes me smile.” I swirl my spoon in my soup, watching as it disappears and resurfaces amidst the vegetables and chicken and broth. “I know it’s dopey,” I shrug, hunching low over the table and ducking my head, “but I can’t help myself.”
“Sounds like more than just happy,” she crows, pointing her breadstick in my direction. “I knew it. You guys are the perfect couple.”
I roll my eyes, but my smile softens the implied skepticism of the gesture. “Hey, maybe you can help me Annie.”
“I’m a font of relationship knowledge. I’m sure I can help.”
I cringe at the hard sarcastic edge to her voice. “What’s the matter Annie?”
“I’m sorry. It’s nothing.” I haven’t seen Flynt in a while and hearing about you and Boston made me a teensy bit jealous for a minute there.”
“Flynt? That’s your guy?”
“Yeah.”
“It must be hard being apart?”
“Yeah. What did you want to ask?”
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah I’m sure. Now what did you need?”
“Well … we went to the football game on Saturday and Boston got a little weird when I asked about his parents,” I offer, trying to soften the subject.
“You know he doesn’t get along very well with his parents, right?”
“He said something about that.” I wonder for a minute if I’m spending too much time worried about my own problems to see that he has problems of his own. “Hey,” my head snaps up. “How do you know about his parents?”
“We’ve had breakfast together a few times.”
“Oh.” My eyes narrow.
“No need to worry about that. Boston really likes you. He wouldn’t bat an eye in my direction.”
“I’ll have to pay more attention next time we talk.”
“You know Sterling,” she pauses, waiting for my eyes to come back to hers. “When you really care about someone, you’re more concerned about protecting them than protecting yourself.”
“Hmm.” It’s all I have to say.
As we gather our trays and head to the conveyer, my mind goes to Emma. I cared more about protecting her than protecting myself and still I failed her. I feel like I’m unworthy of happiness, like I should pine away, flagellate myself, deny any joy in my life. However, when I cry, overwhelmed by sadness, missing Emma with every molecule of myself and feeling as if my heart is broken, clenched in a massive fist and squeezed until I can’t breathe, I feel like Emma is sad too.
Our feelings often matched, happy together and sad together. Emma would like me to be happy and right now Boston makes me happy. Boston deadens the voices and feelings and beliefs that haunt me.
* * *
“On a day like today, I almost don’t need coffee.”
Boston laughs at my declaration as he pulls open the sandwich shop door. “We could always skip it.” He smirks, leaning against the edge of the door while holding it for me.
He knows wild horses can’t pull me from my daily java addiction. I didn’t like coffee before Boston. He turned me on to the many nuances of great coffee. Now I’m hooked.
“I said almost!” Laughing up at him, I pass from the crisp autumn sunshine to the dim interior.
Boston’s eyes crinkle as I go by; his pupils flare, a grin pulling at his cheeks.
It’s Halloween and for the first time in several years I feel like I might enjoy the holiday. I’m not dressed up, but I’m not hiding in my home trying to avoid the parties and revelry either. The last Halloween I’d dressed in costume had been a day from hell. Today I’m buoyant with warmth and lightness bubbling up from within. Halloween doesn’t feel quite so sinister now.
We order our coffee at the rough-hewn counter, and Boston laces his fingers with mine as we step aside. “Annie and Julie are here. Let’s go say hello.”
I might have objected if I were paying attention to anything other than Boston. Instead I let him pull me between tables, skirting occupied chairs.
“Hey guys.” He leans in, kissing Annie’s cheek before moving to kiss Julie too.
It makes me feel a little weird, especially because he’s never greeted me with a kiss to the cheek. I’m not quite jealous, but I could be.
I smile at Annie, and she shrugs tossing her head back as if to say I shouldn’t worry about it. Boston pulls away from Julie, and as I look back to say hello, my stomach drops as if slipping over the edge of a water slide, except my mouth goes dry too.
Blonde curls behind her left shoulder look so much like Emma’s that I’m frozen, forgetting for a minute that Emma is gone. The curve of her cheek, the tilt of her head, the jacket that’s not Emma’s, but could be. That’s the funny thing I’ve discovered about college. Life here operates in its own realm, isolated from the rest of the world so that I can almost forget the agonies of my past, the reality that exists in the world outside.
My gaze moves back to Julie, and she smirks at me like the Grinch ready to snatch away my greatest pleasure and, of course, I believe it. History has taught me to believe it.
I can’t force the words past my tongue dry as the autumn leaves skittering around outside. Instead I nod, feeling less than confident. My arms creep around my middle hugging myself as if in self-preservation.
What the hell is wrong with me I wonder to myself, hoping no one notices.
“Number one forty-seven, one forty-seven…”
“That’s us,” said Boston. “Sit Sterling, I’ll be right back.”
I try to pull myself together with determination and self-preservation as he goes to pick up our coffee, but I don’t feel terribly successful.
Annie pulls me into the chair next to hers, much like she did when we first met on the bus tour. “You look like you might faint.”
The room got steadily warmer the longer I sat; moments stretched into an eternity, threatening to overtake me. My hand slid along my forearm, massaging my wrist.
Hope is a fickle companion, propping us up, encouraging us, and pushing us forward until reality intrudes. Then hope deserts, leaving us in the dust like
a spooked horse abandoning its rider.
Crack… Everyone turns my way at the sound of my wrist giving under the pressure.
“Here you go.” Boston sets a cup in front of me, but my hands are too busy for coffee as I continue to massage my wrist, my eyes looking past Julie. Could they hear my heartbeat? Could they see the tension on my face?
I don’t know when he took the seat between Julie and I. Time has lost all structure. Minutes could be hours; days could be seconds for all I knew.
The voices in my head are clamoring. I have to get out of here. Palms grossly moist, I rub them against my thighs anxiety climbing my spine fast like a centipede.
“I’ve gotta go.” I stand, my grossly long legs banging into the table, setting cups to teeter, flatware to clatter. Waving my hand in a careless gesture of goodbye, I head to the door in a rush, without any explanation. I don’t hear what Boston says, but he isn’t far behind me.
I turn toward Schroeder Hall, head down, hands jammed in the pocket of my hoodie.
Chapter 12
“Sterling? Are you okay?”
“Fine.” My answer is terse in the “leave me alone” sense.
He comes up next to me, fists shoved into jean pockets mirroring my posture. We walk side by side, but not touching, an invisible wall around me as I worry my lip. He left me alone for a minute, but not forever. Blocks away he asks, “What’s up? You left without your coffee.”
“You did too.” I snipe, defensive.
“Sterling.” He sighs sounding confused but curious, at a loss, but trying to understand. “What’s wrong? I’m not interested in Julie you know.”
I don’t answer. I can’t talk about it. My pain is too new. I thought my world had changed. I felt like I had my life together, back on track, but I’m deceiving myself. It’s too soon. I can’t change my circumstances. I can’t pretend everything is normal because it’s not.
Boston picks up speed, moving in front of me and turning to face me before stopping in my path. He leaves me two options, running into him or stopping too.
“Talk to me Sterling. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I look down, hoping to hide the shadows in my eyes as my gut clenches in an effort to hold back the roiling agony, the darkness that threatens to drag me down at the reminder of Emma.
My voice catches in my throat. I have to tell him something. Croaking as I begin to speak, I lie. “It’s Halloween. I have trouble with Halloween, although I thought this year might be different until I saw the first costume.”
His eyebrows drew together, confusion wrinkling his brow. “Someone scared you?”
“No. I saw someone in a costume, and that reminded me of a terrible Halloween I’d rather forget.”
“What do you mean by terrible, monsters, scary clowns, something else?” His brows draw together, a skeptical quirk settling on his lips.
“She reminded me of the person I am and the bad luck that always finds me.”
“Tell me Sterling.”
I sigh, resigned. He won’t stop pushing until he has an answer. “I needed Logan, my high school boyfriend. You remember him?”
Boston pauses for a minute. “Yes,” he says with caution, as if wondering where this might go.
“We were a couple and I needed him. It just happened to be Halloween so I’ll always remember.” I hesitate, hoping he might understand with only the barest of details. He didn’t and I had to continue.
My voice is low and requires huge amounts of effort to push the words from my throat. “When I finally found him, I wished I hadn’t.” My hand slid across my wrist inside my pocket, tension building. “I found him in bed with someone, her ankles wrapped around his bare ass, his pants bunched around his shoes.”
“Oh Sterling.” His fingers curl past my ear, his palm at my cheek offering comfort. Instead of leaning into him, I jerk my face away from his touch.
“I remember sagging in the doorway, my legs weak, my muscles deprived of oxygen. He said. ‘We’re busy here. Shut the door.’ He didn’t even look to see it was me. I needed him, but I guess he needed someone else even more.”
Hoping that Boston thought my Halloween betrayal explained why I ran from the coffee shop, I stop there.
We’re blocking the sidewalk, students heading to class beginning to surge around us. He ducks his head trying to catch my eye, but I’m too raw, too afraid of what he might see. I avoid his gaze, moving around the barricade he’s created. “I’ve got to get to class.”
Boston catches the strap on my backpack pulling me back. Panic at being restrained rolls through me like a building wave. I snap my head around, glaring. Sadness and disappointment bank in his eyes. “There’s something more, isn’t there?”
“That’s it. There’s nothing more.”
“There’s something more.”
I’m ready to spill, can barely hold back the words, but I stuff the impulse back down, jamming it deep. I can trust Boston. I know I can, but I have to think about myself first. I have to protect myself because I am me and my relationships always dissolve. Everyone goes. I may dream of something more, but this is my truth.
Warmth radiates from his eyes, and I tremble as the heat from his fingers seeps through my sleeve where they trail up and down my arm, from shoulder to elbow and back again. It’s easier to play the ostrich.
“I’ve gotta go to class.” I walk away.
“Can I still get a ride to work with you?”
“Yeah…. Yeah, this isn’t you. Okay.” I haven’t felt awkward with him in several weeks, and now I’m bumbling again.
Boston stands still, watching as I walk off toward Schroeder Hall, on a mission to get away. My shoulders are hunched against the wind, but also against the dread and the tears that build within me, welling up from my belly and clogging my throat. I wonder if we’re getting too close.
* * *
“Hey, I’m sorry about yesterday.”
There’s no response. “Boston?”
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry I ran out on you yesterday.” I can feel quivers in my stomach from my deception and based on his silence today, I feel like he suspects, like he no longer trusts me.
“It’s okay.”
“Then what’s wrong?” I push, not certain why.
“It’s my dad.”
“Oh.” I flip on the signal to go around the block and park behind the hotel.
“Mom called last night. She said he’s sick and I need to come for a visit.”
“Are you going?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t want to, but my parents are older and if it’s something serious….”
“You’d never forgive yourself if you didn’t get to say goodbye, maybe make amends?”
“Right.”
“Then go. Don’t let hard feelings and regrets stand in the way of your future.”
“What if he doesn’t want to see me?”
“Then it’s on him. You make an effort, and if he doesn’t respond, it’s his loss.”
“It could be my loss too.”
“Yeah,” I agree, thinking about my mother, “But it’s his fault. You would have done your part.”
“Maybe I’ll go.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Chicago.”
I pull forward into a parallel parking space with a car in front and an alley behind me.
“That’s not far. You can make it a day trip.”
“If I had a car.”
“Wanna borrow mine?”
“No. I can’t leave you stranded. I’ll take the bus.”
I shift into park and turn the key. “How about the ride board?” Pulling out my phone, I click on the app and scroll to Chicago. “Here. There’s a bunch of people going that way.”
His thumb flicks, scrolling down the screen as his eyes scan.
“This will work,” he says, sounding normal again and maybe a bit excited about the possibility of finding common ground with his parents.
Bos
ton’s fingers caress my cheek as I lean across the console. He pulls me toward him without pulling. I melt when our lips meet. After weeks, I expect finally to have enough of him any day now, but the more time we spend together, the more time I need.
He pulls away first. “Don’t want to be late for work,” he offers against my mouth.
My lips cling, not letting go. “I don’t care right now.” My fingers slide around the back of his neck, holding tight, so he doesn’t get any ideas about leaving me right now.
* * *
Lyla gave Boston a night off. He’s leaving this morning and coming back tomorrow afternoon so he doesn’t miss any classes.
As I wait for his ride to arrive, I wonder about Boston’s relationship with his parents. They’ve already lost one child so I can’t imagine why they don’t hold tight to the only child they have left. I would hold tight to Emma, protect her at all costs, if I still could.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe they’re smothering him. Still, that’s something to protest, not avoid for years.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen your parents?”
“Seven years.”
“Do they smother you?”
Boston gives me a strange look in response to the question. “What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just. Well, you haven’t seen them in a long time.
“I can’t talk about this right now. I have to get through this weekend and then maybe.”
“Okay.” I can see I’ve touched on a nerve, and I agree to leave it alone, for now.
“Hiya.”
We both turn to see Julie walking our way. My stomach sinks. There’s no place to go, no getting away this time, until Boston’s ride arrives.
“Hey Julie. Whatcha doin?” Boston leans in to kiss her cheek while she watches me over his shoulder, a smug look on her face.
“I’m your ride to Chicago,” she says with a smile that turns smirk as he leans down to grab his duffle.
“Lead the way,” I say, not giving her the satisfaction. She may think she’s getting to me, but I swallow my visceral reactions and follow.
At her car, Julie opens the trunk and moves around to the driver’s door. While Boston is behind the trunk, she waggles her fingers in my direction saying, “You can go now Sterling. I’ll take good care of him for the next few days.”