Who I Kissed

by Janet Gurtler

  “Why would I blame myself?”

  “Because. You’re you.” He stops and rubs his eyes. “She loved being pregnant, she wanted a baby so much. She was so excited. But it brought back the depression with a vengeance. She struggled. She had a horrible time with postpartum blues. We had her in and out of doctors’ offices. They were playing with her medication, trying to get the doses right, but she wasn’t getting better.”

  He reaches over, picks up the picture frame again, turns it toward himself, and studies it. “I was working, trying to keep things together. We didn’t have a lot of money. Your mom’s mom, Grandma Catherine, was sick then. It was right before she passed. She couldn’t help out.”

  “What about Grandpa Ned and Grandma Karen?”

  He makes a grunting sound. Puts the picture down flat on the table. “They weren’t ready to help. Not really. For one, they didn’t believe your mom was sick.” His voice hardens. “They thought she should just get more sunlight. Take extra vitamins. Aunt Allie came to stay with us, but I think it made your mom more anxious, if anything. She felt like Allie was judging her. She wasn’t, but the illness…Well, she wasn’t herself.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?” I say softly.

  He holds his hands out flat. I stand from the sofa and walk over and sit down close to him. “Maybe I was waiting until you were ready to talk about it. Maybe I was waiting until I was.”

  He pats my knee, and I nod. Both of us were so wrapped up in my world. Swimming. I’d let my questions about my own mom wait.

  As if he senses my guilty thoughts, he puts his arm around my shoulder.

  “It was never your fault. It was never about her not loving you. She loved you so much. So much. More than she ever loved anyone.” He smiles. “Even me.”

  “So…when she died?” I can’t help the thoughts trying to sneak in.

  He squeezes me tighter. “No. It was an accident. They investigated. The road conditions were terrible. The other driver was at fault. Your mom couldn’t have done anything different.”

  I breathe out. Relieved. I twist my braid around and around my finger.

  Dad takes his arm away from me and reaches for the frame again. He picks it up with one hand. “She was a good woman, your mom. She would have gotten better. I know that. She would have loved being with you as you grew up. She would be so proud of your swimming.” He holds it out to me.

  “Take this. She would have been so proud of the way you turned out, butterfly.”

  I shake my head. “No. I have the necklace. You keep it. On your dresser. With the other pictures.”

  His lips turn up, and he nods.

  “Is it hereditary?”

  He puts the frame down on the couch and turns to me. “Honestly? It can be. When you were little, I worried. But you’re stronger, Sam. You’re not like your mom that way. You’re healthy as a horse.”

  I close my eyes and think. No. I don’t think I’m sick like her. I’m wounded, but not down.

  “You calling me a horse?” I open my eyes.

  He chuckles. “I loved your mom so much. And she loved us. Especially you.”

  He pulls me in then and holds me tight. His warmth spreads to me.

  “Are you afraid it’s happening to me?”

  He puts his chin on top of my head. “You’re keeping it together pretty well, considering. The worst thing you’re doing is punishing yourself by not swimming.”

  I close my eyes.

  “You’ve always had an active imagination. Swimming has helped. Believe it or not, it’s not always about being the best. Or getting into the best university.”

  I pull my head out from under his chin and glare at him.

  He laughs. “Okay. Guilty. I’ve been interested in those things too.” He pats my head then, as if I’m Fredrick. “Maybe too much.”

  We sit in silence for a while, and then I realize I have to get up. Burn up some energy. Do something. I pull away from him. Stand. “You pulled me away from my gym class. I’m going to go for a run. You want to come with me?”

  His face reddens. “I haven’t run in a long time.” He looks like he’s about to lapse into another long speech.

  “It’s okay, I’m more of a lone runner anyhow.”

  He nods. “Okay. Be careful. Take your phone with you.”

  I go to my room to change, stopping in the living room on the way out and pointing at my arm band holding my iPhone. A one-stop entertainment center and Dad-approved safety feature.

  ***

  I run toward the pool. The south wall of the recreation center is a glass window. The blinds are open. I can see my team on deck, and I slow down. Watching them. It looks like they’re lining up to do sprint races. Light glimmers off the water, reflecting and shooting up pretty colors from the sunbeams. The colors dance on top.

  Clair is on deck. As if she senses me watching, she slowly turns her head. I lift my hand. She stares at me and then lifts her hand in return. I jog faster until she’s out of sight. I think of Alex. His baseball and where he was headed in the future. I think of my mom. Crippled by her mind. Unable to get back to the pool. Am I doing the same thing?

  I run farther. Faster. Until I’m home.

  In my room, I google bipolar disorder and go over the symptoms. A website lists a page about a group working to lessen the stigma of mental health issues. I notice a link that advertises a five-mile run to raise funds and awareness for mental health. I click on the link, sign the online form, and click Send.

  And then I type in “peanut allergy.” I read and explore, and then I hit a website that gives me an idea. A way to do something. A way to finally do something more than mope in my room.

  chapter seventeen

  I barely notice Halloween arrive. I’ve ignored the houses on our street turning into haunted mansions with fake spider webs dripping from trees. I’ve ignored zombies hanging off porches. Carved pumpkins. I’ve glossed over huge candy displays in the grocery store.

  It’s always been my favorite holiday, ranked even ahead of Christmas, but when Dad offers to pick up pumpkins to carve, I turn him down. For the first time ever.

  At school, Taylor tells me she’s having a small get-together even though it’s a weeknight. For the swim team and a few other friends. Her mom will be chaperoning to help the kids work through bad memories from her last party and show them life goes on. Taylor pleads with me to come, but we both know I won’t.

  It’s the first time I’ve missed a Halloween party since I stopped trick-or-treating. But I can’t imagine being at Taylor’s with Alex’s friends. I’m the last person who should be there.

  What I really want to do is sit in my room and read, but Aunt Allie is consumed by Halloween excitement and makes me sit on a stool in the kitchen while she cooks. “Keep me company while I make dinner. Well. Breakfast for dinner. Perfect for Halloween.”

  Fredrick sits in the middle of the kitchen and stares intently up at her. She ignores him and moves to the counter to chop up onions. She picks up a handful of the chopped onions and throws them in a frying pan. A sizzling sound fills the air first, and then the smell. I’m not wild about the taste of fried onions with eggs, but love the smell of them cooking. She stirs the onions, stopping to wipe a drip from under her eye.

  Fredrick burp-woofs, and she tosses him an onion. He sniffs at it and then runs from the kitchen while she and I both laugh.

  She chops up more onions on the cutting board, banging at them like she really means it. “I’d like to kill your dad for keeping me away so long.” She frowns and puts down the knife. “Well, not literally kill him.”

  A tear drips down her cheek, and she lifts her arm and uses her sleeve to wipe it away.

  “Me too.” I get up and fill a glass with juice. I down it in one gulp and then open the dishwash
er and put the glass on the top rack. “Can we talk about my mom?”

  Instead of frowning, she smiles. “Your mom?” She adds salt to her concoction on the stove. “She was a good person.” She pats her heart and plunks the salt shaker down. “Inside. Where it counts.”

  She takes a plate from the cupboard and scoops some eggs and onions out of the pan. “In some ways, she had incredible strength. In the pool, for example. I never completely understood how she could be so great at something but so unsure of herself in other ways.”

  She removes more eggs from a carton on the counter and adds them to the sizzling pan, stirring them as she stares off, thinking. “She was hard to get to know in many ways. But I liked her.” She frowns. “No. I loved her. She was like a little sister to me. Cheese?”

  I nod, and she turns from the stove, grabs the parmesan cheese from the counter, sprinkles some on the eggs, and hands me the plate.

  I smile my thanks, balancing it on my hand. “Do you think…was her death an accident?”

  “Yes. It was. I believe that with every ounce of my being. She would never have left you on purpose.” She reaches across, pulls open the cutlery drawer, hands me a fork, wipes her hands on her apron, and serves herself a plate of food.

  I lean against the sink counter and stick a forkful of eggs in my mouth.

  We eat our dinner standing and in silence, and afterward she disappears downstairs for a moment and then comes up wearing a black dress and purple witch hat. Fredrick follows her, prancing in a black bat costume with a look that dares me to make fun of him.

  “You have to keep me company,” she insists and perches herself on the living room couch before it’s even dark, waiting for kids to come to the door. Fredrick crawls into her lap to wait.

  On a TV table by the front door, a bowl overflows with oversized chocolate bars and full cans of pop that Aunt Allie bought. Much more extravagant than the fun-sized Skittles Dad picked up, which are pretty much there so he and I can nibble on them.

  When Dad gets home from work, he changes and goes to the kitchen for dinner and Aunt Allie moves to the chair closer to the door. She races Dad every time the bell rings or a tiny voice shouts out “trick or treat,” and Fredrick breaks out into a chorus of cough-barks and jumps around in his bat costume. The kids ohh and ahh over him, and he looks at them with disdain. After the first couple of kids, Dad gives up trying to get to the door and rolls his eyes at his sister. I know him well enough to know he’s a little disappointed. After all, I got my love for Halloween from him. But we both know it’s been a few years since Aunt Allie had a house to sit in and children to hand out candy to. He’s letting her have it.

  My cell phone cheers, and I take it from my pocket to see a text from Taylor telling me that people are asking for me. I know she’s lying and can’t bear the thought of facing anyone at the place where Alex died.

  As the parade of children starts to die down, Dad excuses himself and goes up to his room to watch TV in private. I put down the book I’ve been trying to read.

  “I’d really like to do an angel reading,” I tell Aunt Allie as soon as Dad’s out of earshot. “Halloween feels appropriate.”

  “I find that a little insulting,” she says and cackles at me.

  “I don’t mean it that way.”

  “I know.” She stands up, grabs a chocolate bar, throws it to me, and takes one for herself and opens the wrapper. “The question is, have you written your letter to Alex?”

  “Not yet.” I hold the chocolate bar up and squint to read the list of ingredients on the back.

  “Well. It’s the stipulation. No self-respecting angel is going to provide guidance until it’s done.” She sinks her teeth into the chocolate. “Mmmm,” she says and happy-sighs.

  “You’re making that up,” I tell her.

  “My angels, my rules.”

  I glare at her and hold out my chocolate bar. “This says it may contain peanuts.”

  Aunt Allie is about to bite her bar again but stops. “Okay?” Her voice is softer.

  “Kids with peanut allergies can’t eat them,” I tell her.

  She brings the bar away from her mouth. Her hand twitches and she brings it to her lap.

  “We should have bought peanut-free candy. Just in case. More and more kids have nut allergies these days.”

  “But it’s a small percentage, butterfly. Isn’t it like one percent or something?”

  “It’s more like three or four percent. And what if one of them comes to our house?”

  “Then they won’t eat our candy?” She lifts her eyebrows.

  I squish up my nose with distaste, and she nods.

  “Okay. You’re right. It would have been an easy thing to do. Next year I’ll make sure.”

  I smile, happy that she hopes to be here next year at Halloween and that she’ll go peanut-free with me.

  “I’d really like to do the angel reading ,” I say again. “I feel like I need to know from a higher power that things are going to turn out okay. Or not.”

  “You need to write your letter,” she says. “Until you can deal with Alex in that form, there is nothing the angels can tell you.”

  “Hmm.” I unwrap the chocolate bar she gave me and stare at the brown hunk. It looks harmless. My mouth can recall the smooth texture. The sweet, creamy flavor.

  Aunt Allie pops the rest of her bar in her mouth. She has a look of rapture on her face.

  “Catch,” I call and throw my bar at her.

  She reaches for it, but her hand twitches and she misses it. She grabs it quickly before Fredrick can get it. “Ten-second rule,” I say.

  She nods and smiles. “I shouldn’t have another,” she says and takes a bite. “But I will. We only live once. Well. Maybe.” She points to the living room doorway. “Now go. Write.”

  I stand and take a deep breath. I can write a letter, even if it’s not the one she wants.

  ***

  Dear Chloe,

  I type into my laptop. I’m not ready to talk to Alex. Not yet.

  I push him out of my mind and concentrate instead on his sister. I don’t know what to say to her. Sorry I kissed your brother? Sorry I have the equivalent of a tape worm in my belly and feel compelled to eat every five minutes. Sorry I chose peanut butter. Clair recommended it as good protein since I’m not much of a red-meat lover.

  It was an accident. I feel so bad. Awful.

  No.

  That’s all me. Me. Me. Me. It sounds trite and insincere even in my head. How do I convey my feelings without making it sound like I’m only feeling sorry for myself? My pain is nothing compared to losing a brother. I have no idea how that feels.

  I close my eyes and type, letting thoughts flow from my brain straight through my fingers.

  Chloe:

  I have no idea how you must feel. I am so sorry about the loss of your brother. From everything I’ve heard, Alex was a wonderful guy. A great guy. I wish I’d known him better. Much longer.

  I’m sure you’ve wondered what made me kiss him. I didn’t know him well. Why did I kiss him despite that? Honestly, Alex was being kind. Trust me, I’m not usually the type of person who kisses boys I don’t know. I wasn’t. Until Alex, well, I’d never done that before.

  He was trying to make me feel less sad and lonely that night. He was wonderful, trying to make me feel good about myself. He was a very nice person.

  I can’t blame my behavior on alcohol. I wouldn’t even if I had been drinking. But I wasn’t. No, the impulsiveness and the absolute carelessness of my actions were my own, and for that I am so, so sorry.

  I know about peanut allergies. I should have thought about what I’d eaten before I kissed someone. Even though I didn’t know Alex had the allergy, in this day and age, it should have been on my radar. My selfishness ha
rmed someone you loved very much and for that I will always be very sorry.

  I know it sounds trite. It is hard to even try to apologize. I would do anything to take it all back, but of course that isn’t possible.

  If there is anything, anything at all that I could ever do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.

  I hope that you are managing to deal with your grief and that in time you will only remember Alex with good thoughts. I wish I could do something to help you get there.

  Always and forever remorseful,

  Samantha Waxman

  It’s honest. It’s all I can do. I print the pages and carry them to the living room.

  It’s not even seven o’clock yet, but the trick-or-treaters in the neighborhood are already trickling down. Aunt Allie is watching a movie on TV, with costumed Fredrick curled up on her lap. She sees me holding up the pages. “For Alex?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “No. Chloe.”

  “Hmm. Well. That’s a start. I don’t need to see what you wrote, though. It’s between you and her.”

  Fredrick lifts his head and woofs his agreement.

  “I’m proud of you, butterfly.” Her eyes go back to the television, and I recognize Jack Nicholson on the screen.

  “Witches of Eastwick,” she tells me. “Jack is so delicious in this. Want to watch?”

  “No, thanks.” The ache in my bones hasn’t gone away. I carry the pages back to my bedroom and sit on my bed, reading the letter over and over.

  Finally, I reach across the bed and pick up the phone on my nightstand. It’s time to make the call.

  chapter eighteen

  My brain is slodgy, and I cough to clear my throat. I push out a breath and punch in the numbers.

  The phone rings.

  “Hello?” A voice picks up on the second ring, and my heart stops. I’d been hoping for an answering machine or at least a couple more rings.

  “May I speak with Chloe, please?”

  “Speaking,” she says, her overly polite tone matching mine.