***
Rain did come the next day, and the girls and I spent the biggest part of it shopping downtown. We didn’t run into Ryan or Christie, but saw her friends once at a distance. That night our entire group had dinner together, but she was absent. Ryan sat with Doug and said she was sick when someone asked him where she was. I sat with my friends and refused comment, until I met him long after dark again and was able to ask him what happened as we walked on the beach.
“She said I had embarrassed her, hurt her, and she didn’t want to see anyone. She’s been crying all day.”
“Did you spend all day with her?”
“She called me this morning and asked me to come and talk to her. She was very…emotional, and so I did. I left after an hour or so. The conversation was going nowhere, and then she called me again as soon as I got back to my room. I went for a long walk. Doug unplugged the phone.”
“What did she want from you?”
“To know why. She wants to get back together.”
I took a big breath. “What did you tell her?”
“I just said things weren’t working out. That I don’t feel the same as I used to. But she wants something else.”
“What?”
“She still wants me to take her to Spring Fling when we get back. She said I owed her that.”
I weighed what he said, even though it wasn’t my decision. Christie’s refusal to accept a break up didn’t surprise me, but the demand that Ryan continue to act out the part of her devoted boyfriend, despite knowing how he felt, did.
“I said I didn’t want to lead her on. And then she asked if I was hoping to go with you or something.”
I stopped walking and looked at him. “Were you?”
Ryan grimaced. “No. I mean, I don’t know what I was hoping. Maybe that this wouldn’t be so complicated.”
It irritated me that Ryan didn’t say he wanted to go to the dance with me. Actually, the look on his face seemed to say he wasn’t interested in the dance at all. “Consequences suck, don’t they?” I knew my voice held a tone he wasn’t expecting. I couldn’t help it. His sympathy for her grated on my own conscience. “Well, I’ve got an escort to the dance, so it is not like you have to go with me or anything. Take her. I don’t care.” I started walking and Ryan followed. His hand grabbed my forearm, forcing me to slow down. I stopped again but looked petulantly toward the ocean.
“Peter and I are going as friends. I already made a commitment to him, too.” Out of the corner of my eye I checked his reaction. He looked helpless, and the annoyance I felt with him passed. “Nic and Kelli told me it would be asking for trouble with both of us on the court. Everyone will think you and I are cruel and selfish, especially if they know she still asked you to go. They’re right. I won’t have any chance of winning, and they’ll just think you’re a jerk.”
Ryan looked at first as if he might argue, and then just sighed as if he gave up. He put his hand on my shoulder for a moment before bringing it up to lift and smooth a section of my hair. “I’m sorry, Kara.” His voice was that deep, soulful baritone, and I knew his apology was heartfelt.
“It’s no big deal.” I took his hand from my face and held it. Consequences did suck. It seemed like a long time ago that being on the court and getting Ryan as my date for Spring Fling had held a thrill for me. It certainly felt more exciting then than it did now. Even though I resented Christie for having enough power to separate us for this occasion, I’d still taken from her what I wanted most. I sighed. “Even if you’re not at my side as my escort that night, you’re still mine in every other way.”
Ryan frowned at me. I realized I’d just said something terribly possessive. My face felt hot. I was embarrassed by that little slip of insecurity.
“Does it help if I tell you that you’ll be my true and only queen, regardless of who is crowned at the dance,” he teased, as if to make me feel better.
I dropped his hand. “In your heart of darkness and deceit,” I responded, making reference to the Conrad novel we read together in English.
His eyes widened. “Kara…”
I shrugged. “Don’t worry. We both make it out of the jungle in our version.”
They searched my own as he took my hand again.
“That is, I hope.” I squeezed his palm into mine.
His half laugh that followed seemed like a humorous acceptance of the comparison, but I was feeling more vulnerable than funny when I made it.
Then we walked toward our cove. My thoughts were mixed, but I knew I’d soon feel better—at least, for a little while.
Chapter 19
Click
After more than a week of not showing up to school since returning from spring break, Christie finally came back. I hadn’t really worried about why she was gone. Ryan and I had both figured she was sick or depressed and just needed some time to get herself together, but we didn’t ask. She was out of sight, out of mind now, and if Ryan had made any inquiries, it would have only confused things. Christie, if anything, had faded into part of our past that was eons ago, and now, every day, we were drawing into each other again—writing notes, meeting some place quiet after school to talk, or, if we couldn’t be alone, calling each other late at night and chatting into the early-morning hours. We were the way people are when they first become a couple—addicted to time spent together and focused on the poetry of each day, but now it was a hundred times better because we already knew each other so well. The best thing about it, though, was that I stopped feeling anxious. Kelli’s illness, Nic’s parents’ impending divorce, and my relationship restart with Ryan had helped all three of us rebond during the final days in Mexico, and after we got back there was a peace among us all in knowing we could talk about things that worried us, and that others knew and cared. I didn’t feel alone. I felt like I knew my best friends’ secrets again. It was the closeness I’d been hoping for when I first came home.
Since Christie was away, Ryan and I felt more comfortable being seen together. Granted, I could tell that her friends were still upset with him and me when they saw us (no one spoke; the smiles vanished from their faces when either of us passed them), but they tolerated our togetherness. I was mindful of being low profile, and Ryan seemed more at ease being that way, too: We only held hands or kissed when we were alone. Still, the campus was small. People knew, and I imagined when word got back to Christie she’d learn to deal with it and forget him. I figured this had to be what her time away from school after spring break was all about. I hoped things would soon be less awkward. Christie would get over Ryan, I was sure. And I was not an evil person for taking him away from her. I had brought him home to me. Our little world together had gone off course, I rationalized, but now Ryan and I were back on track and together—where maybe we were always meant to be.
But the moment I saw her, I knew she hadn’t gotten over him. Hair freshly dyed, she looked like she’d dropped at least ten pounds.
“Fifteen.” At least that was the rumor that started flying around campus. She’d lost fifteen pounds in almost as many days. She had stopped eating. She was pale and sick looking, and by the end of the day, her friends were having her lean on them for support, which just served to showcase her feebleness. She sent a note asking to meet with Ryan in person.
“Go ahead,” I told him, tossing my head back. I wasn’t jealous. More like incredulous. I couldn’t believe she would still act like this. “You really got yourself involved with a drama queen, didn’t you?”
“Don’t make fun of her.”
I backed down. He had told me she always tried to make fun of me when they were together, and I didn’t want to be like her. “Sorry,” I conceded. “Do what you think is right.”
I consciously tried to be the opposite of what I saw before of his and Christie’s relationship. I wouldn’t have talked like that a year ag
o. I would have been more demanding and selfish. Supporting my boyfriend in his free will seemed so much more adult, especially compared with the relationship they had shared.
“Call me later tonight, okay?” he said. “Around eleven.”
It felt like my evening was just starting then. Last night we talked until 2:00 a.m. and I had to get up at 6:00 a.m. I would tomorrow too, but to hear his voice had become more important than other things on my agenda.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, I’ve missed you.”
“Me too.” His tone came from deep inside, hung on emotion.
“Did you talk?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t want to press him for details if it felt too private. Obviously she was still obsessed with him, and I was sure he probably felt more uneasy than I did to see her so unwell, as he did care for her once.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
He sighed. “She’s really upset. She asked how long things had been going on between us.”
I hoped he didn’t tell her. Really, she didn’t want to know that. And I wasn’t so bent on revenge that I even wanted her to know anymore. “I just wish she’d let sleeping dogs lie.”
“She wanted me to pinpoint a time. I told her it wasn’t important.”
My mind’s eye traveled back to the first day he kissed me, against the wall on the stage in chapel. I sighed in relief. “It’s not.”
“She’s not eating because she wants to be thinner than you. Blonder than you. She thinks I’ll start to love her again if somehow she becomes more like you.”
“That’s…weird.” I felt a little sick myself. I’d wanted Christie to be jealous of me before, but this was demented.
“I think you should stay away from her.”
“What?”
“She…uh…threatened things.” His voice broke.
“She can’t hurt me.”
“She may try.”
I swallowed, remembering the wildness of her eyes that day in the elevator. She was hotheaded, but I harbored horrible thoughts toward her at the time also.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to get you involved in this. I don’t want you to think less of me because of her. She is showing a new side I’ve never seen before. She’s acting a little nuts.”
I had seen that on a couple of occasions already. How did he miss it all this time? “Well, what do you suppose we should do?”
“I don’t know. Hey, did you hear that click?”
The line did seem to drop a little. “Maybe.”
“Oh, shit. It’s her calling.”
“It’s almost midnight.” Now I was alarmed. “Are you going to answer it?”
“Do you think I should?”
“She’s so manipulative. It’s up to you.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t.”
The clicking stopped. Again he started telling me about the day, their conversation. Christie was still planning on Ryan taking her to Spring Fling. She had questioned him about where they would eat before the dance and what he had arranged for transportation.
“I told her I’d rather just meet her there if I had to do this. And then she got upset. She wanted to know if you had suggested that’s what I do.”
I hadn’t. The clicking started again. I was leaving Ryan and Christie’s plans to them and trying to finalize my own plans before Peter and I attended the event. Peter knew I was back together with Ryan and even offered to back out gracefully, if I wanted. But I had told him that it wasn’t right and we had always had the understanding we would go to Spring Fling as friends, and that was what I still wanted to do. Peter was nice. I actually wanted us to have a fun time together, but I had been thinking maybe Ryan and I could meet up later that night, after the dog-and-pony show that had become the one last impediment to our breaking free of his commitments to Christie was finished. “Why do you think she keeps calling, Ryan?”
“I don’t know, but when I get off the phone I’m unhooking it anyway because she’ll just wake up my parents calling all night.”
Again, clicking. “I told her not to call me,” he said.
“When you talked today? I guess she didn’t take that seriously. She’s being a freak.”
“Yes, today. I told you, Kara, she is not thinking straight. She’s hard to make sense to. I guess she really was in love with me.”
He said it matter-of-factly, but that last statement rankled me. “She doesn’t love you more than me.”
“I know. And I could never love or want anyone like I do you.” His voice was rich with feeling. I wished I could reach out for him. I hoped he wasn’t thinking that at least she wanted to walk in with him by her side for an important high school event. I felt bad for not being able share that kind of memory with Ryan, as the dance grew closer. But we both knew why we had to do it this way, even though as the evening approached it got tougher to visualize for both of us.
“Remember Mexico?” I whispered to him. “The beach?”
“You mean the cove under the moonlight?” His voice held arousal. We’d been desperate to be intimate again, but the weekend we came back we were confined to campus to make sure we got all our homework done, and last weekend my parents were in town. This coming Saturday was Spring Fling though, and we had talked about celebrating afterward—maybe in the limo I was renting after I dropped Peter at his home.
“I can’t wait to be with you again. Really be with you.” I lowered my voice even more.
“Mmm,” he moaned into the phone. Minutes ticked by on us like this. It’s as if desire coursed through the line between us. And when it wasn’t desire, it was the comforting lull of his thoughtful voice sharing bits of poems he was working on, witty accounts of moments in our daily life, and observations gleaned from something he read or a song he heard. Thus had been our nightly phone calls.
Click. “Is this Mr. Ryan Hutchins?”
The third voice on the line startled me. I heard rustling on his side of the phone.
“Yes. Who’s this?” The softness of his tone had disappeared.
“This is the phone company operator. I need to speak with you privately, sir.”
I was cut off into silence. I waited for several minutes that seemed like much longer until my side of the line clicked back on.
“I gotta get off the phone,” Ryan told me in a rush. “It was Christie’s mom who requested the operator break through our call. Christie took a bunch of pills and was sent to the emergency room. I told her I would meet them there. I have to tell my parents.”
“Wait,” I said spontaneously, until my mind caught up with my mouth and I realized I couldn’t do anything. “Oh my gosh, Ryan.”
“I gotta go.” His voice shook. “I love you.” He hung up.
Only when my line started beeping did I hang up too. I was shaking. A memory I hated steamrolled through my brain.
Less than a year ago, I myself had gone to the hospital after taking a few too many sleeping pills. They were old Valiums and I thought I had gotten them out of my system when I made myself vomit them up in the end—realizing at the last minute how reckless I was being—but even so, enough had been absorbed into my bloodstream to make me fall asleep for more than a day. An unsuspecting doctor determined that I was mentally and physically exhausted by stress, and I agreed that I was. I hadn’t been thinking straight. However, I also realized that no one but me ever knew just how close to death I came that night. That dark night; a night I had been so depressed. I remembered wanting to talk to Ben then, and not being able to get a hold of him. Everything had felt so hopeless and that’s when I turned to the pills that I thought would make all the darkness go away for a while. I had told no one.
***
I woke up the next mo
rning to a knock at my door.
“Phone call, Kara!”
I glanced at my clock as everything came back from the night before. Six a.m. It must be Ryan, I thought. I jumped out of bed and back to the phone booth.
I scooped up the handle at the end of a dangling cord. “Hello?” I said into the earpiece.
“G’day, Kara. Ben here.”
“Ben?” My mouth opened to say his name and stayed that way as I tried to recover.
“You betcha. How ya doin’? Sorry to call so early, but your phone is always busy in the evenings.”
“Oh, Ben.” What to say? Our last conversation had occurred shortly after I’d been back and I didn’t think it went that well. In fact, I thought it might have been the last phone conversation we would ever have.
“Yeah! Your old friend from Tassie. You haven’t forgotten about me, have you?”
“No…I’m just surprised, that’s all. Where are you?”
“In Broome. Just going onto my shift in a few minutes, but it’s almost midnight here.”
“So late.”
“Yeah, life of a resident. We’re virtual slaves. I worked twenty-four hours straight two days ago. But enough about that. How’s school goin’?”
I hesitated just a second. “Okay.”
“Yeah, you almost didn’t sound too sure about that.”
“No, I’m good. It’s good,” I mumbled. There was no way I was ready to tell him about what just happened, or even about Ryan.
“Well, I’m calling because I just got into a last-minute conference they’re having in the States. In Chicago. I thought on the way in or out of LAX I could route through Albuquerque and see you for a few hours.”
I put my hand against the wall in front of me to steady myself, blinking back the white-hot news flooding over all other thoughts in my brain. “When?”
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