by Haley Pierce
I tilt my chin up, and she lowers her mouth onto mine. After I kiss her, I look at her, feeling shittier than ever. It’s the real Genevieve, the one who doesn’t put up her fists, and that wall, to hide herself. It’s a rare sight, but I fucking love it.
Only now, I hate it.
She nods. “What if we move in together? When my lease is up? Doesn’t make sense to have to pay rent, does it? I’m hardly here anymore, anyway.”
I stiffen. She has to feel the way I stiffen.
She does. “Moving too fast?” she says, a little embarrassed. “It’s okay. It was just a suggestion.”
“No,” I say, nodding. Part of me always thought about making a home with Genevieve, of having her to come home to. “It’s a fucking good one. Let’s do it.”
By then, I’ll be back in Pittsburgh.
There’s bile in my throat, but I swallow it down. When we finish our Chinese food and watch an old cheesy romance that Genevieve insists on, because she says it’s her favorite movie. It’s mind-numbingly annoying. But as she curls around me, her heart against mine, I realize that maybe I’m just fucking annoyed with myself.
Geni
Friday morning, I pack a pair of new pajamas for my dad into the bag, as well as some chocolate chip cookies I baked for the nurses, and about twenty copies of the Brady Times into the trunk of my car. Silas, proud of my achievement, bought out every copy in the Bend Market, and at the hardware store, so I have enough now to wallpaper his apartment.
As I head out on the highway, I keep the stereo blasting Silas’ favorite country station and thinking about marketing ideas for the shop. No, Silas never had a shrewd, marketing mind, but that’s what he has me for. It’s actually perfect, that we’re partners in this. It’s almost enough to make me think that football had been the distraction, and that this life is what was meant to be.
When I meet the nurses, one of them, the gray-haired one who didn’t know who Silas was, smiles at me. “I read your column, young lady,” she says from behind the counter. “It was fantastic! It brought a tear to my eye. So we had to read it to your father.”
I smile. “Did he like it?”
“Oh, I think he heard it. His eyes seemed brighter afterwards.”
That’s enough to make my day, completely. Not only are people I don’t know reading and liking my writing . . . it may have just gotten through to my father. What more could I ask for?
“You’re kind of a celebrity here, you know, now,” she says, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a folded copy of the Brady Times. She hands me a pen. “And in my book, even bigger than that young, handsome, football-playing boyfriend of yours. Could you sign?”
I’m confused. “Me?”
“Of course, you. You’re destined for great things.” I reach down and scribble my name underneath the header of my column, feeling odd. This is something Silas is used to, but I don’t think I’ll ever be. “Go on in and see your dad. He’s in his room.”
“Thanks.”
I head down the hallway that I’ve traveled so many times, and when I get there, my father is lying in bed, looking at the wall. He’s been freshly shaven, and I they’ve given him a haircut, so even though he’s wearing his old pajamas, he looks neat and clean, and a bit like he used to when he’d sit behind his desk, in front of a client. But there’s still the lost, sad, desperate wrinkle of worry in his face, one that never seems to go away. I sit on the edge of the bed and show him the new pajamas I bought.
Then I curl my hand around his and whisper things that have been swirling in my head. Things that I haven’t been able to tell anyone. I tell him about Silas. I tell him how afraid I’d been to trust him. I tell him that really, Silas had never let me down, it was just fear, holding me back. “But I’m not afraid, Dad,” I tell him. “I’m not afraid, anymore. And I love him. I don’t think it’s possible to love anyone more than I love him.”
He doesn’t answer. I stay with him through lunch, helping to feed him his grilled cheese sandwich and mandarin orange slices. He doesn’t eat more than a few bites, which is why he’s wasting away. Then I hold his hand, and we watch old All in the Family reruns on TV Land until the sun is starting to lower in the sky. I stand up and give him a kiss goodbye. “I’ll come again in a few days,” I tell him.
When I step outside, I stand in the lobby, signing myself out, as the gray-haired nurse talks to a doctor. “I will, Dr. Bruges,” she says after a moment, before nodding to me and hurrying into the back to make a photocopy.
Dr. Bruges. Where had I heard that name before?
Suddenly, it hits me.
“Are you the Dr. Bruges from Butler?” I ask. “The orthopedic surgeon?”
He nods and smiles at me. “Yes, I’m on call at a number of facilities in the region, but Butler Hospital is my home base. And who are you?”
“Oh, I was in your waiting room on Monday, actually,” I say, smiling at him. “My boyfriend, Silas St. Clair, saw you.”
My boyfriend. I haven’t called him that since high school. But it sounds right to say it out loud. We might even be more than that.
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
I nod.
“Wish him the best on his surgery, for me. He needs to get back on the field.”
My face falls slowly. The smile is there, but I can feel it cracking. No longer real. “Oh, he’s not doing the surgery. He decided against it,” I say, confused. Hadn’t he told his doctor that?
He seems confused. “That’s strange. When I took off the cast, the surgery was still scheduled,” he says. “And he said he couldn’t wait to get back. The Steelers are suffering without him.”
“Well, he thought the risk was too big,” I explain, recalling what he’d said to me that day, outside the nursing home, when he’d finally gotten up the guts to confess what had been holding him back here.
The doctor raises an eyebrow. “And what risk is that?”
“That he could become permanently disabled,” I say, wondering what kind of doctors we have in the Alleghenies. Shouldn’t this man know the risks?
The doctor shakes his head. “There’s risk in any surgery, so I never say never, but there’s hardly any chance of him becoming disabled. That surgery could’ve restored his ankle back to near complete normalcy in a matter of weeks, and allowed him to go back to his normal routine.”
I hear my heartbeat in my ears. All that plays in my head is the same thing, over and over again. Silas, saying these words to me: I’m done. “What?”
The nurse arrives with a clipboard. He signs his name carelessly and looks up at me. “I hope your boy does make it to Pittsburgh. They could be in the playoffs with him.”
Then he leaves me standing there, my jaw hanging wide, trying to unravel what, exactly, Silas is up to. But the only thing I know for sure is that he lied. He lied.
I don’t remember if I say goodbye to the nurses. The only thing I remember doing is heading down the sidewalk, toward the wooded area at the front of the nursing home. Once I’m sure I’m at the part where Silas had been, I veer off into the trees. The sun starts to sink, leaving me in inky dusk, but I sift through the leaves, again and again, until I find Silas’ heart.
Silas
I hang out in the garage on Friday, making calls to people in Pittsburgh. Talking to Coach, the other players, planning my return. It looks like if, by some miracle, the Steelers do get into the playoffs, I might be cleared for the first or second game. Everyone starts the conversation the same way, with some version of: “Shit, when you getting back here?” I tell them all that the surgery is scheduled in Philly for Monday, and I’ll be back home in another few days.
Then I think of Genevieve. I think of the way she gave me her heart. The way she was so happy to help me get my business up and running. The way she called us a we, as if we were, finally, in this life, together against the world.
I grit my teeth. Shit. Did she know how when I was a senior in high school, that was all I wanted in
this world? That was everything? I would have gladly given it all up for her.
But now, I fucking can’t.
When I’m done, it’s after six. I lock the garage and go to take a shower, thinking I’ll just get a late dinner of shitty nachos at the Roll-a-Rama.
Before I go into the bathroom, I text Genevieve, What time should I pick you up?
When I get out of the shower, toweling dry my hair, I look at my cell phone, propped on my dresser. She hasn’t texted back yet.
I start to worry, even then. But then I tell myself not to be stupid. It’s only been fifteen minutes.
I wait another fifteen before I text her again: Hey. You okay?
A full hour passes by, and nothing. She’s visiting her dad, I remind myself. She probably lost track of time. Or her phone lost its charge. Still, the doom-and-gloom part of my brain imagines a car accident. I shove that thought to the back of my mind. Not able to stay idle, I sit in the kitchenette, trying to think of where she could’ve gone, and why she isn’t answering her texts.
Twenty minutes after that, I sit back, run my hands through my hair, and drum my fingers on the table nervously. I’m pretty sure she said she wanted to get to the Roll-a-Rama by eight, which is a half hour from now.
She’s onto me.
Not able to stand it, I go outside and sit on the stoop outside my house, hoping her car’s headlights will cut through the dark, pulling up behind my truck. I check the phone screen like a man obsessed, typing in a few more texts to her.
Fuck. I wish I had Abby’s number. Or . . . anyone else’s.
Closing the door to my apartment, I hurry down the steps, jump in my truck, and head to her apartment. Her car isn’t parked outside, and the only light coming from the building is the neon Peking Dragon sign outside, but I climb the steps two at a time and knock on the door. Then bang. Then, shit, try to open the door on my own.
It doesn’t help. She isn’t there.
My palms are slick with sweat now, and I can’t help but think of the last time I saw her, before I went to California.
“Breaking up? After what? How can you fucking say that?” I’d shouted at her in the parking lot of the school. From the gym, some slow song was playing, and all I could think is that we should’ve been inside, with her in my arms. Instead, my jaw ached. My teeth on that side felt loose.
She was standing, facing away from me and the school, staring out into the dark. She was still, but her body was trembling.
“Come on. Let’s just go inside . . .” I made the mistake of trying to put a hand on her.
She whirled around, her hands claws. I’d seen Genevieve angry enough to spit fire plenty of times, but I’d never seen her this angry. She scratched at my arm, drawing blood. Tears were streaming down her face, making her look wilder and crazier still. “Don’t you see? You and I . . . we don’t work. This is a stupid illusion, Silas. You’re you, and I’m me. We’re so different.”
I stared at her. “But that’s what I like about you. And I thought you liked that about—”
She was already shaking her head. “No. I don’t need you. I happen to think you’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met.”
I knew that was a lie. Yeah, I was dumb. I knew that. But she’d always told me before how I just had a mind for other things, and was actually kind of brilliant, in the things they didn’t teach in school. She was pushing me away, for some other reason. “Don’t fuck with me.”
Her eyes flashed defiantly. “I’m being serious. I really need to apply myself if I’m going to get into the Ivy League. And instead, what am I doing? I’m spending time wondering whether or not I can trust you. All the time. I don’t need this, Silas. It’s just a distraction.”
“But . . . you can trust me,” I said. I knew where her concerns had come from. All through high school, I’d been a good ball player, but nothing special in the looks department. My senior year, suddenly, girls were waiting to talk to me at my locker. Chasing me around. Erica Lindley, the most talked-about girl in the guys’ locker room and the source of the most raging hardons, had actually whispered to me in Sex Ed that she wanted to suck my dick. There was graffiti about me in the girls’ restroom stalls. Somehow, I’d won hottest guy in the yearbook senior superlatives. It was all a fucking baffling whirlwind.
But no matter what, I’d never forgotten who I belonged to.
She just shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t do this anymore,” she sobbed. “You’re in the same town as me now, and I can’t stop worrying about what you’re doing when I’m not with you. I can’t do the long-distance thing. It would only be worse.”
I wanted to grab her, to scream that I hadn’t done anything. Instead, I said, “Then I won’t go. I’ll stay with you.”
“You’re insane, Silas. You’re too good to be stuck here,” she said, her eyes trailing to the ground.
“But I’m yours.”
“You never were mine. Stars don’t belong to any one person. They belong to the whole world,” she said softly, before turning and running away in her Chuck Taylors and pink sparkling dress.
I tried to chase after her, but she disappeared between the cars, and from my life. I spent another hour, just wandering about out there, calling her name, wanting her back. When I retreated to my car, a bunch of girls were sitting in the back of Chuckie’s pick-up, getting high and drinking. Erica was there. They offered me some weed, and shots of Jack. I felt so fucking sorry for myself, I did a shot. Then another.
By the time the prom ended and cars started pulling out of the parking lot, I was wasted. I climbed back to my Mustang, thinking of one thing, and one thing only. Genevieve.
I didn’t even notice Erica climbing into the passenger seat beside me. Didn’t even really know what she was doing when she slid her hand in the waistband of my rented tuxedo pants and started to play with my cock. When she took it out and started to suck on it, I didn’t feel anything. Somehow, we ended up in the back seat, and she climbed on top of me, impaling herself on my dick. I closed my eyes, thinking I could pretend it was Genevieve. That if I wished hard enough, I could wish her back into my arms.
I came a split second after Erica slid onto me.
“Fuck, Silas,” she said as I let my head fall back so I could look at the full moon, feeling as shitty as I ever had. “You’re pathetic.”
I knew it. Goddamn, how I knew it.
It’s that night that hangs in my memory as I drive to the Roll-a-Rama, so blind and frantic that I’m sure I speed through traffic lights. No wonder she never trusted me. No wonder she had that wall around her heart. And what had I done? I’d made it my challenge to rip it down again, just so I could drive another nail into her heart.
Of all the women I’ve ever met, she deserves that the least. And yet, I treated her worse than any of them. I am, like they say, like she said, a fucking asshole.
I need to talk to her. If she doesn’t know, I need to come clean and explain, and . . . make this right.
When I reach the skating place, the lot is packed. I find a spot on the gravel, far away from the entrance, jump out of the car before I’ve even cut the engine, then storm inside.
When I get in, I ignore all the familiar faces that turn to say hello to me. Girls throw themselves at me, and someone offers me a high five. I push past them, my eyes focused on the place I’d seen Genevieve before. She’s not there. I scan the rest of the place as Eye of the Tiger blares from the speakers.
Then I see Abby, in a corner, making out with some guy I don’t know. I stalk up to her. “Where is Genevieve?”
She turns to look at me, taking her time, like she knows that’ll piss me off all the more. “Why, hello Silas, and how are you?”
I frown at her.
“Not here,” she says.
“Fuck. You think something happened to her?”
She nods. “Yeah. You.”
“What?”
She lets go of her boyfriend, and rolls her eyes. “I don’
t know exactly what you did this time. But she told me that she couldn’t come out tonight.”
What I did? She knows. My throat is closing up. I pull on the collar of my sweatshirt. Breathe. “Did she say where she’d be?”
She shakes her head. “She knew that you’d come after her. She said for you to just go home.”
Home. What a fucking joke. This isn’t my home. I scan the place, realizing that though I once ruled this place, now everyone looks unfriendly and like strangers. This never was my home. Where she is, is my home. That’s the truth. And I fucked it all up.
“Home,” I repeat, trying to get it through my head. “Did she say anything else?”
“No.” She takes a swig of her beer and then regards me with pity. “So just go, Silas. You fucked up her life enough the first time. You really had to go for the sequel?”
I run my hands over my face, rubbing my tired eyes. It had been me, back then. I’d wanted nothing more than her, and then I’d gone, given up, and fucked things up beyond repair.
And now, I’d gotten another chance, and what did I do? I’d wanted her so much that I fucked them up again.
As I turn to leave, women are on me like flies on shit. I look at them like they’re all diseased. I feel rabid, out of control. I push my way out of the Roll-a-Rama doors, jump into my truck, and speed toward home, trying to think where she could’ve gone. She has no place else. If she isn’t in her apartment, where could she be?
After an hour of roaming around, not catching sight of her shitty blue Bug, I finally pull up outside my apartment. I trudge up the stairs, banging my fist on the railing, getting splinters in my hand. Head down, the first thing I see on the stoop is the white envelope, glowing in the moonlight. It has one word on it, Silas, in Genevieve’s looping script.
I lunge at it, lifting it into my hands, surprised by the weight of it. Opening the flap, I lift out the letter. It says, very simply, too fucking simply, See you on ESPN.