Terminal 19

by L. R. Olson

  I release a harsh laugh. “If I would have held on a little while longer… If I wouldn’t have broken things off…”

  Mom is headed our way.

  “You could have continued the relationship.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”

  Truth is, I’ll never know. Half the attendees have already left. They’re going to a banquet hall for a meal. There’s no way I can eat right now. Zach’s mom is still by the casket, her hand pressed atop the lid, her lips moving as she says her goodbyes. We’ll leave and they’ll lower him into the ground. Gone forever.

  Mom is suddenly in front of us, her worried gaze on me. Hell, she barely looks at Beth. It’s as if I’m the only one here. “You guys ready?”

  I nod. Beth slips her arm through mine. While I was in Scandinavia, Beth had mentioned that she and Mom had movie and pizza night every Friday. I’ve noticed that since my return the routine has stopped. Beth has been pushed to the sidelines again because of me. Mom starts toward the car and we follow.

  “Don’t worry,” Beth whispers. “We’ll figure something out. I promise. We always do. Just…don’t give up on life, okay?”

  “Hope,” my mom says. “Mrs. Jackson told me to give this to you. Said Zach wanted you to have it.”

  She hands me a book.

  Walden.

  Beth and my mom start toward the car. The entire world disappears as I stare at that book. Such a simple thing, but it means so much. It’s a connection to Zach. A piece of him. With trembling fingers I flip open the cover.

  Dear Hope,

  I know it’s difficult for you to try a book that’s above your reading level, but we all have to start somewhere. Just take it slow and use a dictionary. And this time, don’t lie about reading it. I’m dead, I know all, see all.

  P.S. Below is my favorite quote.

  A startled laugh escapes my lips. He just couldn’t let it go, had to have the last word. And in this moment, it feels as if he’s standing here with me.

  I take in a deep breath and read the quote.

  “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

  Live for me, Hope.

  Love,

  Zach

  ****

  “Hope, it’s nice to see you.”

  I give a small nod to the counselor in front of me as I settle on her familiar sofa. It’s hard, kind of uncomfortable. But I suppose she doesn’t want anyone to fall asleep. Mom forced me to make an appointment. I told her I didn’t want to go, but she begged me. Guess she’s had enough of my melancholy.

  “Your mother said you took a trip to Europe.” She crosses her legs, looking prim and proper and very Zen in her white blouse and black skirt. “That’s exciting.”

  I drum my fingers on the arm of the sofa. One hour. We have an entire hour. “Yes, it was.”

  There’s a moment of silence, as she waits for me to continue. While I look out the window, she’s looking at me. I might have agreed to this appointment, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it. Don’t they realize I just want to be left alone and figure this out on my own?

  “You look tired,” she says.

  I hate when people make that comment. They might as well say I look like shit. But I am tired. And that’s because Zach’s quote keeps running through my head. Why? Why did he write it down for me?

  I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

  Did he think I wasn’t living? I wasn’t trying?

  “Why do you think your mother made you an appointment?”

  As if she doesn’t know. I’m sure my mom has already given her the lowdown. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I fainted at the doctor’s office and ran away from a funeral.”

  She tilts her head quizzically to the side. “And why do you think you fainted?”

  Why is everything a fucking question with this woman? Why can’t she just tell me what’s wrong with me, and how we can fix it, so we both can move on? “Because I just learned…”

  I can barely say the words. I’m still too confused. Too worried that it’s all a lie. Worried it’s the truth. Hell, I don’t know what I’m anxious about. She waits. The silence stretches. I can either leave, or answer.

  I swallow hard. “I just learned that I might actually…live.”

  She nods slowly but doesn’t respond, as if she’s letting me digest what I just said. Have I really accepted it? That moment I fainted in the doctor’s office was real. All too real. The emotions that bombarded me were overwhelming, to say the least. It was scary to wake up on a cot, having no idea what had happened. I can’t lose control like that again.

  “The man you met in Copenhagen…have you told him?”

  I release a harsh laugh and surge to my feet. Mom told her about Christian? Unbelievable. I pace to the windows that overlook a retention pond. Two ducks are floating across the water. “No. I haven’t told him.”

  “Don’t you think he deserves to know the truth?”

  “Deserves?” I cross my arms over my chest. Her office is cold, the air on full blast. “I hate when people say that. It’s not always a privilege to know the truth. Sometimes it’s a privilege not to know.”

  “You think that by not telling him, you’re helping, protecting him?”

  I turn to face her. “What the hell am I supposed to say to him? Sorry I left you heart-broken, lied, kissed my ex in front of you, but good news…I’m fine so we can start back up again? And then what? He feels like he has to forgive me because I have cancer?”

  “Had cancer.”

  Her words confuse me, and for a moment I’m left bemused, speechless, thinking she’s speaking about someone else. Illness has been a part of my life for so damn long. Are the bad cells really gone? Is my body truly normal again? I don’t feel normal.

  “It sounds to me that you believe as if people are with you merely because they feel bad for you because of the cancer.”

  I shrug and walk to her bookshelf, picking up a small ceramic dolphin. “Maybe I do. With some people. But he wasn’t. If I didn’t tell him about the cancer, if I became this person who didn’t have cancer, he was with me just to be with…me. If I tell him the truth, I’ll never know why he’s with me.”

  She gives me a soft smile. “Maybe because you’re a great person.”

  Zach would find her comment hilarious. The sadness I’ve been trying to keep buried surges forward. Zach. No more texting him about the ridiculous things I see or hear. No one to mock me. Make me feel old. I haven’t read Walden yet, and I can practically feel his frown of disapproval in the very energy that surrounds me.

  I replace the ceramic dolphin. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m selfish. Rude. Cynical.”

  “Aren’t most people to some extent?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. For so many years it’s always been about me. Me. Me. Me. Hell, if I know how most people act. I don’t know anything anymore. I’m a social misfit. “People have been nice to me because they had to. And when they couldn’t handle the stress of my existence, they trailed off. Fact is, I’m not even sure who I am without my illness.”

  She pushes her glasses up her slim nose. “Who were you before the cancer?”

  “I hardly remember. I was just a kid.”

  I move to the sofa and settle on the firm cushions. Who am I if not the cancer? If not the fear? The anger? Who was I? A kid who loved to be active, who loved to explore. A kid who loved to find rocks, shells, fossils to collect like treasure. A kid who loved nature and other cultures, who saw the beauty in so many things. A girl who believed in magic. Could I be that girl again?

  “I was prepared,” I say, picking at a thread on the hem of my tee. “I was prepared to go. To die.
Bags packed. No looking back. I knew what would happen. Knew my future, and that future was death.”

  But I did look back. I looked back in Copenhagen. In Norway. When I was with Christian. Going to Europe was taking the road less traveled. It led me away from that path I was supposed to take…my one-way ticket straight to death. A sidetrack to “what if?”

  She sets her notepad down and looks at me. Truly looks at me. “Are you angry that you’re not dying, or angry that you weren’t living all these years?”

  I stiffen, startled by her comment. “I was living…I went to Denmark.”

  She nods. “You did.”

  It’s silent for a moment as I mull over my thoughts. I went to Europe. But before that, all those years, had I been living? No. Not in the least. I’d been surviving, but certainly not living. Oh god, she’s right. All those years I was preparing to die.

  “Death was so sure,” I say. “Living isn’t a sure thing. You don’t know what will happen in life.”

  “Some say that’s the fun of it.”

  I snort. “Fun? Fun in what? No. It’s not fun realizing I barely got through high school and have no college degree or job. That I don’t know how I’ll support myself. It’s not fun wondering if the cancer will return. It’s not fun having no friends because all of mine have moved on. What sort of future do I have here?”

  She’s quiet, as if waiting for me to finish.

  “I didn’t plan for a future, Dr. Powers. I have nothing.”

  “Or you have everything, and that scares you? You can start at a community college. You can make new friends. You can…live. You can allow yourself to think of the possibilities, Hope. You just have to believe in life, in you. You’re the only one who can do it.”

  She’s watching me. Waiting. Waiting for the words to sink in. I shift on the couch, growing uneasy. Can I allow myself to believe? Believe that I’ve been given an extension on life? Hope. Possibility. A future.

  Maybe I didn’t break up with Christian just to save him, but maybe I broke up with him to save me.

  Hell. She’s right. I haven’t been living.

  And I’m terrified to try.

  “I have something for you.” She leans over toward her little side table and picks up a postcard. “Here.”

  I take the card. It’s an advertisement for an art gallery downtown.

  “A friend of mine owns this gallery right on the square. I’ve talked to her, and she’s willing to give you some room for a show.”

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  She smiles. “Your photographs.”

  I stiffen. “What? No. I can’t. I’m not ready.”

  “Are we ever?” She leans back in her chair, daring me. “What do you say, Hope? Will you give life a chance?”

  Chapter 18

  Hope

  Christian

  “Are you sure you want to change your major, Christian?”

  The question irritates me. If I wanted a lecture, I would have contacted my father. I’m staring out the windows onto the busy street below, fuming, because everywhere I look I’m reminded of Hope. How can that be when she was only in this city for two weeks?

  It’s like she’s branded the entire country with her presence. In the distance is the tower we climbed on our first date. Around the corner is the café where I gave her the five kroner. Below is the road we walked the morning we went to the train station to visit Kronborg. The day I knew I could fall hard for her. The first time I felt like she was truly being herself. She’d let me in.

  “Have you ever read Hamlet?”

  I remember every word she said, even the way her face scrunched up into a grimace. “God, yes. Unfortunately.”

  Even now I can’t help but smile at her reaction. Fuck. I don’t want to smile. My hands fist as I shove my emotions down into the dark pit of whatever remains of my soul. The memories pop up at the most annoying times. She’s ruined me. I can’t sleep. I have no appetite. Studying is impossible. What can I say…I’m pathetic.

  I don’t want to think of her fondly. I want to hate her. But as I said to Audrey and Max after she left, I can’t hate her because she never pretended it was anything other than a fling. Hell, she reminded me enough. While I was acting like a teenager just discovering sex and infatuation, she had made it perfectly clear that at the end of her vacation she would return home without a backward glance.

  “You’ve already done a year in Political Science,” the dean adds.

  Everything changed the day I met her. That day I gave her the five kroner. The day she yelled at me for following her to Rosenborg. That protective wall I’d been building since childhood started to crumble, piece by piece. This fierce woman with eyes that flashed blue, green and brown all at once, destroyed all the dignity I’d tried to maintain. Hell, she made me weak.

  “Your father will not be happy about this.”

  I admit, at least to myself, that day I’d walked behind her, trailing the strange American to Rosenborg, I’d been completely aware of her the entire time. The sway of her hips, the curve of her ass, the excited way she’d watched everything around her. She’d been half right when she’d thought I was following. I could have gone another route. I’d been too intrigued.

  No, I don’t hate her. I hate myself for thinking there was something between us. Something unique. Something pure. Something neither of us had ever experienced. Before I met her, it was as if I’d been asleep, going through the motions of life with a forced smile and feigned interest, but inside feeling half-dead. She’d awoken something within me, and for a brief moment I’d tasted life. Now, it’s gone. Slipped between my fingers.

  “If you switch majors, and schools, it will add on another year.”

  I’m startled from my thoughts, and realize I haven’t been paying the least bit of attention to what he’s saying. Another year? Who cares? What’s one more year in the face of a lifetime? I turn toward him. He’s a friend of my father’s and I can see the reluctance in his eyes. He’s going to call my dad the moment I leave. Let him.

  “Well?” he asks.

  I stare so hard at the man, he actually shifts in his chair. “Yes. I’m sure I want to change schools.”

  I leave no room in my tone for argument. What can he do? Nothing, really. I’m an adult. He has no hold over me. And despite what I thought, neither does my father. Fact is, I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what he wants from me, how he expects me to behave. I don’t care about his threats to disinherit me. To shun me. If I credit Hope with one thing, it’s that she has stripped every feeling from me so that I no longer care.

  “Music? Really?” He sighs long and loud as he flips open a folder. “I know you’re a good pianist, your father mentioned it. But there’s no money in the arts.”

  “I’m not good…I’m great.”

  He seems startled by my bragging. Clearing his throat, he shuffles through my paperwork, avoiding my gaze. He’s not sure what to do with this cocky, arrogant man. He’s used to me smiling politely, doing what I should. The perfect son. And isn’t that what I wanted after Kate died? To be perfect so my mom wouldn’t worry, so my father would care.

  “Amelie.” Her voice whispers through my memory. “My favorite movie is Amelie. There’s something about the message—standing on the outside of life, not really participating—that gets to me. I think a lot of people are guilty of that, don’t you?”

  I take in a deep, shaky breath. Every memory is like a blow to the chest. I settle in the leather chair across from his desk. Why can’t I forget her? I don’t want to think about the quirky things Hope said while we were together. I don’t want to wonder if she was right…because I know she was right.

  Hope had a way of looking at the world as if she had lived in it much longer than her twenty years. It was part of her appeal. At the same time, there were moments when she would appear so vulnerable, so innocent, that a streak of protectiveness would race through me. And in that moment I would have given my life to protect h
er.

  “Standing on the outside of life, not really participating—that gets to me. I think a lot of people are guilty of that, don’t you?”

  Was that question for me? Part of me wonders if she’d seen through my façade. She’d known the true fucked-up me. Have I ever really participated, or have I always just gone through the motions, doing what my father, mother, and society expects?

  “Well, alright then.” The dean closes my folder, startling me from my thoughts. “It’s done. You’ll have to make an appointment to speak to your advisors though.”

  Relieved to be finished with it all, I stand and shake his hand. He tried to talk me out of it. He did his job. At least he can say that much. I leave his office feeling oddly light for the first time in months, as if a weight has been lifted off my chest. My mother supports me fully, but I knew she would. I’ll get through the extra year. And perhaps, someday, I can forget about Hope. Have an actual life. And maybe, just maybe, someday the memory of her kissing her ex will be forgotten.

  I shake off the thought, and step outside. The wind is a bitter, biting cold that soothes the heated anger thrumming through my body. I move down the steps and cross the street. A fine dusting of snow crunches underfoot. Pure. Clean.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” her voice whispers through my mind. “I have to go soon. It won’t end well.”

  “Are you worried you’re getting too attached to me?”

  “Yes.”

  I can still remember the sense of euphoria I’d felt at that simple response. “I could get addicted to you.”

  Like a fool, I ignored the warning signs and jumped in, thinking we could somehow have a relationship. We could make it work. She’d been the rational one. But I’m determined to forget her as she has forgotten me. I will get over Hope.

  “Christian?”

  The familiar voice startles me, and I pause, trying to place it. Jessica steps from a coffee shop and into view. I haven’t seen her in months. Our club nights have fizzled out. Everyone has gone their separate ways, busy with their own lives. Ben is dating. Fiona went back to Scotland. Jessica is busy with Sebastian.