by S. L. Naeole
“I won’t say that I regret my decision, because I don’t. It helped me to learn more about myself and what I was capable of, both the good and the bad. It gave me a friend I didn’t have before then, and it gave me an appreciation for knowing what I want and what I’m not willing to settle for.
“And what I want is to tell you that I don’t see my life going anywhere unless you’re in it because I love you. It’s not the kind of love I have for Grace, because I love her, too. But this is something different, something that feels like a big rock is sitting on my chest and the only way to remove it is to see your face and hear your voice.
“And I hear your voice in my head, and I see your face in my dreams, and I know that if I closed my eyes for the last time, or if I never heard another thing for as long as I lived, those would be enough for me. The stupid poets who wrote those sonnets of love and devotion didn’t know what they were talking about because they’d never met you. They’ve never known what it feels like to carry my heart in their chest whenever you walk by.
“They’ve never known what it feels like to have my legs whenever I smell your perfume. They’ve never known what it feels like to hear you say their name and see you smile when you say it.
“I’m not good at expressing my feelings, Lark. I’ve been so confused about so many things that after a while, they all start to blend into each other and I cannot pick out the differences anymore. But what I feel for you stands out like a wide receiver open in the last twenty yards from the goal. It stands out like a single flower on a gravestone covered in snow. It stands out like a quarterback writing a love letter to someone whose love he doesn’t deserve.
“I dream of one day being able to say these things to you in person, to have enough courage to be able to look into your beautiful face and not stumble on my words, but I can admit that I do not know any other way to tell you this than through this pencil and these sheets of paper.
“You’ve changed my life, Lark. No matter what happens between us, no matter what happens after this, I want you to know that besides Grace, knowing you has been the best part of my life, and the only part that I’ll ever look back on without regret.
“Sincerely Yours,
“Graham Hasselbeck”
I quickly handed Graham the stack of paper with shaky hands. He looked at me, nervously anticipating my response. “Well…?” he asked while I dabbed at my nose with a tissue he handed to me.
“Well what?” I replied, trying to contain my emotions so that I didn’t end up speaking like a cartoon character..
“What do you think? Do you think she’ll like it?”
I looked at him, looked at his face and his wide, anxious eyes. I couldn’t lie to him, and so I didn’t. “I don’t know, Graham. I honestly don’t know if she will or not. Lark isn’t like most girls. I love it, but then again, I’m not like most girls either.”
He nodded his head as he digested my answer. “Well, could you give it to her?” He folded the stack of papers in half and then pressed the bundle into my hands. “Could you give this to her, read it to her and let her know that I don’t expect anything from her. I don’t expect anything at all.”
I clasped onto the letter and nodded. “I promise you that she’ll get it.”
Graham smiled and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly to his chest. “You’re the best, Grace. And I meant what I wrote in there about you, too.”
I laughed at that. “I know you did.”
He loosened his hold on me and then pressed a sloppy kiss on the top of my head. “I do love you, Grace. You’re my best friend. The best friend any guy could have. I don’t know what I did to deserve you but I’m glad for it.”
I couldn’t say anything to him as he got up and left. I just watched him go, feeling incredibly lucky and guilty all at the same time.
As soon as the door was shut, I looked at the folded bundle in my hand, opening it up to once again run my fingers across the deep indentations of each letter.
“Did you hear all of that?” I asked softly, my hand starting to tremble as it reached the end of the last page.
“Yes.”
Lark stood by my window, her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes shut tightly, as though it could keep out the vision of my holding the declaration that I held in my now violently shaking hands.
“Now you know for certain. Now you know exactly how he feels, without your charms, without anything but his own heart in each and every word. I didn’t want to read this letter, Lark. I didn’t want to read it knowing that you were here and he had no clue. That wasn’t fair to him.”
I stood up and grabbed one of her hands, shoving the papers into them. “You said that you two had no future together, but he thinks differently.”
“He thinks differently because he’s a silly human who doesn’t understand the concept of time and-”
“And what?” I asked angrily. “And what? What doesn’t he understand that’s somehow so fantastical, so divine that only you can know? Huh? How can you stand there and be so self-righteous when you cannot even recognize love when it slaps you in the face?
“He knows what it is and isn’t afraid to tell you, and he’s the silly human, remember? He’s the one proving to you that you’re the one who doesn’t understand the concept of time because you’re wasting it trying to figure out an excuse that will prevent you from having to face the fact that deep down, you love him, too.”
I stood nose-to-nose with Lark, my breath coming out in angry huffs while she remained calm and collected. But I could see that her icy exterior was beginning to crack.
You understand and see nothing.
“Oh no. I see a lot more than you do, Lark. I can see that you’re scared, but what I don’t see is why. Why are you so afraid of letting him love you? Why are you so afraid of loving him back?”
She turned her face away, the crystal droplets once again falling from her eyes. I bent down to collect them, each one a perfect teardrop. “You can cry tears, but you cannot accept the reason why you do so. You have his heart, Lark. What are you going to do about it?”
Lark opened my hand and removed the tiny crystals from my palm. She placed them into the folded letter and then returned it to my hand. And then she was gone.
FLEE
The last week of class before spring break held the usual amount of excitement that any vacation would bring. All throughout the school, everyone was talking about their plans for the upcoming week; everyone except for one small group of people.
“Do you know when she’s coming back?”
Graham and I looked at Robert as Stacy asked him the same question for the third time today. “Has she spoken to you? Called? Anything?”
“Stacy, he’s told you twice already that the answer is no. Could you leave the guy alone?”
Stacy’s head snapped up to look at Graham. “Since when did you care about leaving Robert alone?”
Graham pushed the food on his plate around as he answered her. “Since you started hounding him three days ago.”
As the two of them argued, I observed Robert, who appeared to have a headache. I knew that wasn’t possible, but from all outward appearances, that’s exactly what it looked like as he rubbed his temples with his fingers, his head balancing precariously against them.
“Just like they never broke up, huh?” I joked, looking for something to break the tension with.
He peered out at me from beneath his hands and snorted. “Just like they never started dating.”
I couldn’t fault him there. He was right. Though it had been a few weeks since they had broken up, Graham and Stacy looked for all the world exactly as they had when they were dating. The only real difference was that instead of sitting next to each other as they had previously, they now sat on opposite sides of the table, their seats as far away from each other as possible without being a part of a different table entirely.
“So…” I began, looking to change the subject, if only between the
two of us.
“Yes, Grace?”
The indifference I detected in Robert’s tone disturbed me. “Are you going to act like this for the rest of the school year?”
His face didn’t show any reaction to my question at all, something that I had come to expect over these past few weeks. A part of me wondered why I even bothered asking him any questions anymore.
Robert threw his napkin onto the table and stood up abruptly. “I’ve got things I need to do.”
He walked away from the table, not bothering to say goodbye to anyone. Not bothering to say goodbye to me.
“Are things okay between you and Robert?” Stacy asked in a low whisper. “He seems angry.”
Graham left his seat and quickly sat in the one vacated by Robert. “What’s wrong? What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “He’s just…upset that Lark and his mom left on vacation without him.”
Stacy nodded her head, wholly empathizing with Robert and the falsehood I had just told them, while Graham simply looked dejected. It wasn’t a good look for him.
“Grace, do you know when they’ll be back?” Stacy questioned cautiously.
I frowned and shook my head. “I know absolutely nothing, Stacy.”
She bobbed her head in acknowledgement and then started to play with her mashed potatoes, disappointment written clearly on her face. Graham watched her with an equally gloomy expression on his.
In that moment I felt nearly ready to curse Lark for doing this to all of us. After she had left my room, Robert appeared, angry and upset. He told me that Lark had left Heath—and most likely the country. He accused me of not trying hard enough to keep her in the dark about Graham’s feelings; that I had intended on her overhearing everything that was said between Graham and I in an attempt to play matchmaker. I was so hurt by the accusation that I had asked him to leave and never come back into my room again.
He abided by my demand, yet still showed up each morning to pick me up. He had neither apologized, nor offered an explanation as to why he would feel it alright to jump to such conclusions when he could have seen for himself that that was never my intent at all.
As each day dragged on, it felt like we were growing further and further apart as we spent less time together during school. Graham seemed to step in like a surrogate-boyfriend whenever I was left to walk to class or home alone, and this only fueled Robert’s disenchantment even more.
Today was no different as the bell that announced the end of lunch began to ring. “I don’t want to go to fourth period,” Stacy groaned into her mashed potato and pea sculpture. “Hey, let’s ditch school and go to the mall!”
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked her. “Your parents would ground you until you were old enough to collect social security if you did that.”
“Ugh—I’m so tired of rules and regulations and restrictions and blah-blah-blah. I just want to live a little. Is that such a bad thing?” She grabbed her backpack and fished out her keys. “You guys coming?”
Graham looked away while simply I shook my head. “Sorry. As much as I despise Biology class, I need this credit in order to get into Berkley.”
Stacy’s eyes widened with surprise. “Berkley? So far away?”
“Yeah. I got my acceptance letter last week and I’ll be able to pay my way through one of their student work programs; all I gotta do is graduate. They’ve got a pretty good journalism program there, plus I’ve seen their brochure. I’ll totally blend,” I explained as I slung my backpack over my shoulder.
“Well that’s great, Grace. You’re going after what you want. And-” she said with a flourish of her hand, “you might actually get some color on that skin of yours in the process. What about you, Graham? Where are you headed?”
Graham shrugged his shoulders. “Some place in Florida most likely. I’ll stay with my mom so that I can get the residency discount and probably see if I can get a spot on one of the football teams as a walk-on.”
“Well, I’ve decided that I’m not going to college,” Stacy announced matter-of-factly.
“What? Why?” Graham and I asked simultaneously.
“It’s complicated,” she began but then turned around and started to walk away before finishing her statement. “Grace, I expect you at practice today—you’re back in the beginner’s class,” she yelled out as she headed towards the exit.
Graham and I both looked at each other, confused and distressed at her announcement—and I was slightly nervous about the practice part. “Did she tell you about this before you broke up?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “She never mentioned it. I think I was too busy talking about my plans to really notice though, so I can’t be sure.”
“Maybe this is her way of rebelling,” I suggested. “I mean, she joked that her mom wouldn’t let her go to college alone, and if she did go, she wouldn’t be able to pursue what she wanted—she’s always done what they asked of her—maybe she’s done playing the role of the obedient daughter.”
Graham held the cafeteria door open for me as we walked out. The hallway was nearly empty; the bell was just about ready to ring. “I suppose you’re right. She was always paranoid about missing curfew, always worried that if she didn’t check in, her parents would ground her or something. I told her that she’s eighteen, she can do what she wants, but she would tell me that ‘Korean daughters don’t act that way’ and that she had to be a ‘dutiful daughter’. I just hope that this isn’t the case.”
Our pace didn’t pick up, despite the bell ringing, and we kept walking slowly towards our classes. “Why not?” I wondered.
“Because part of the reason why she dated me was to defy her parents and look at how well that turned out.”
“Ahh,” I realized. “She was testing the waters with you, and her parents didn’t flip out.”
A broad grin stretched across his face as he nodded. “Yeah. Her brothers did, though. All five of them.”
My biology class was up first and I looked at the door with trepidation. “I’m up.”
“Are you gonna be okay?”
“Yeah,” I said with a half-smile. “I’ll be fine. What about you?”
His smile faded a bit as he answered with the same reserved tone that I had just used. “Me, too. Wait for me here after class, okay? I’ll walk you over to English.”
“Alright,” I agreed, and walked into the classroom.
***
School ended without any real fanfare. As I had expected, Robert wasn’t in class. Graham had apparently expected it too, because he was there waiting for me as I walked past the double doors. “You need a lift home?”
“Yeah.”
The two of us walked through the school corridors like nothing had happened these past eight months, nothing had changed between us. He nodded his goodbyes to some of the kids that called out to him, bumped fists with some of his football buddies, while I stood beside him quietly.
When the entrance to the school was far behind us and we were both in his car heading home, Graham finally asked me the question that I had been dreading because I knew that I would have to lie to him.
“Did she leave because of me?”
I had planned what I was going to say as soon as Robert had informed me four days ago that Lark had left, laying down the words and rehearsing them so that when today actually happened, I’d be able to say them without faltering and giving away the lie.
Instead, all I could do was stare at him with my mouth open, unable and unwilling to deny the truth that we both knew but didn’t want to admit. It had been so much easier and less complicated to lie to Stacy, and I almost hated myself as I wished for that to be true for Graham as well.
But how could I tell him that Lark had indeed left because of him? He’d ask me why and I had no answer. I couldn’t very well explain to him that she wasn’t quite human and that for some reason unknown to me, she couldn’t admit to anyone—especially herself—that she was in love with him.
The path to falling in love with an angel was a straight one—I knew that as soon as I accepted that I was in love with Robert—but it was paved with broken glass that you tread on barefooted. I had already shed my blood on it but I had done so willingly. Graham was in love with Lark the person. He knew nothing of Lark the angel, and I could only guess that this was the side of herself that Lark didn’t want Graham to know about.
Of course, speculating did nothing to help either of us, and since Robert was far too angry with me to even bother explaining, speculation was all I had. And I was all alone with my theories since I couldn’t very well discuss this with Stacy either. The vacation lie was so simple and convenient, and it fell out of my mouth so quickly and smoothly, Stacy had believed it without question which meant that I couldn’t even hint at the root cause being boy trouble anymore.
“Grace?”
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t answer my question. Did she leave early because of me?”
“I-I don’t know, Graham,” I managed to utter before my mouth shut down on me again.
His head jerked once, acknowledging my answer, but the promise of a more thorough inquisition lurked just beyond the woeful cast in his eyes.
“Did you want me to drop you off at practice?” he asked as we pulled up to the curb fronting his house. “I can do it on the way to work if you want, but I won’t be able to pick you up.”
“No. I don’t think I’ll be going today. I don’t feel like getting my butt kicked by eight-year-olds.”
This seemed to amuse him as he started to chuckle softly. “I’d actually like to see that. It might be worth calling in sick just for that reason alone.”
I immediately protested against the idea. “You’ll get into trouble with Robert, and I can’t lie to him if he were to ask me if you were really sick.”
The laughter faded, but my words hung like stale air around us in the car. Without intending to do so, and despite the current state of our relationship, I had just admitted to Graham that my loyalty belonged to Robert first.