Heart on a Chain (34 page)

I remember the day—and the Valentine—clearly, of course. I think I even still have it somewhere.

“
You hated me because of a Valentine?” I ask.

“
Sort of,” she qualifies. “That was only a part of it. After that, you two were always together, holding hands. Because I had decided he should be with me, I turned my anger on you. Like I said, egotistical—and petty.”

“
But he was gone by the next year.”

Jessica cringes at my words, twisting her hands together guiltily.

“
By that time, I think hating you was almost a habit. You came to school that year prettier than ever—” I make a choked sound and she stops, looking at me with guilty pain in her eyes. She cocks her head.

“
You really don’t see yourself clearly.” Her eyes fall, and her cheeks darken. “But I guess that’s my fault, too, isn’t it? I made sure you never saw yourself the way all those boys did on the first day of school.”

“
Jess, no boys were looking at me. I was skinny and dressed in second hand clothes. They couldn’t take their eyes off you.”

She smiles at me, grimly. “They noticed you, Kate. So I made sure that the attention you were getting quickly became negative attention.

“
You never stood up for yourself, not against me, not against anyone else. It was so easy…” she trails off, hearing her own words. When she looks at me again, she has tears in her eyes.

“
I had no idea what you were going through, Kate. That’s no excuse, but it makes what I did a hundred-thousand times worse. It’s already bad enough, that I’m capable of such cruelty, that I could make someone’s life so miserable. Then to know what you were suffering…” Suddenly she reaches out, grabbing both my hands.

“
You should despise me, Kate. I’m not worthy of anything from you but your loathing. I’m a horrible person. Even knowing that, I want you to forgive me. Please forgive me, Kate.”

I squeeze her hands as her tears slide down her cheeks—those perfect, flawless cheeks that I’d spent so many years jealous of.

“
You were pretty horrible,” I say, Jessica nodding in agreement. “Why did you come to me, on the night of the prom, and act so nice?”

“
I saw you when you came back to school, and I didn’t know who’d hurt you so bad, but I suddenly saw what I had been doing to you with a clarity that I hadn’t ever had before. I felt bad you’d been hurt, which was pretty foreign to me, feeling bad for you like that.

“
So I confessed to my mom—who was horrified that her daughter could be so
mean
. She told me the only way to make it up to you was to be your friend. I just didn’t know how to do that.” She squeezes my hands. “I know there’s no way I can ever possibly make it up to you. I’m so sorry for everything, Kate. For what your mom did to you, for what I did to you, for what others did to you because of me.”

“
Don’t be.”

She leans back in surprise at my words.

“
I hate pity,” I tell her. “I could use a friend, though.”

“
If you’ll let me, Kate, I’ll be your friend. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.”

I laugh and she finally grins a little.

“
Sounds pretty melodramatic, huh?”

“
Like a soap opera,” I say.

“
You have Henry, too.”

My smile falters, and I pull my hands from hers.

“
I have Henry,” I murmur, turning away.

“
I’m glad, Kate. I’m so glad you have him; that he could see what all the rest of us were too blind to see.”

“
Yeah,” I agree, “I’m glad I have him, too.”

I don’t tell her that I won’t have him much longer, and I don’t look her way, afraid she’ll see the pain and terror the thought of losing him causes me.

It’s farther from Jessica’s house to Henry’s, but with the weather warming up I begin walking the distance, then having Henry drive me back at night. I can tell that he doesn’t really understand why I’m so angry with my father, though I think Emma and Dr. Jamison are a little more understanding.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Henry, trying to find a way we might be able to stay together. I know he will be going away to school, but I have nothing to tether me where I am. I can follow him, maybe, if I work really hard and save some money. Or I can wait for him. I’ll wait for him forever if I need to.

The thought of being without him, permanently, petrifies me.

It’s because I’m walking to Henry’s that I hear the conversation that changes my hopes.

Henry is sitting in his backyard with his father. I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but in the end I’m glad I do.

“
Henry, don’t be foolish,” Dr. Jamison says.

“
Dad, I know what I’m doing.”

“
No, I don’t think you do. Son, I know you love her, but you’ll give up your future for her?”

I freeze, knowing instinctively they’re talking about me.

“
Yes, I will, I’ll give anything up for her.”

“
And end up angry and bitter because of it. Then you’ll hate her, and she doesn’t deserve that.”

“
That’s not going to happen,” Henry argues, but he doesn’t sound so confident now.

“
You don’t think it will, but I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. You’ve had your college career mapped out for as long as I can remember. You can’t just give it up.”

“
I’m not; I’m just…
changing
it.”

“
Son, you’ve worked very hard for a very long time to get to this point. How can you even think of it?”

“
Because I can’t imagine being without Kate. She
needs
me. And I can’t hurt her that way, leaving her here alone.”

I run away then, not wanting to hear anymore. I had known he would leave, of course I had known that. Even as I think it, I know that I’ve always thought there would be a way around it, just like all of the times I had managed to get out of my house to be with him when it seemed impossible. Because I can’t imagine being without him. Now I can see that he knows how dependant I am on him, that he is willing to change his life, give up his dreams for me—a nobody.

A murderer.

And I know Dr. Jamison is right, that he will hate me for it in the end. I try to imagine Henry looking at me with hate and disgust, and it makes me physically ill picturing it.

I run into the woods, the woods that had once been the site of his prom for me, a stark testament to just how far he’ll go to try to please me, just as he had when he had given up his prom to give me my own.

I sit on the ground in the wet leaves. I know what I have to do. I have to destroy myself to save him. I lean over, throwing up on the damp ground at the sickness that grips my stomach at the thought.

I get up and walk back toward his house. I have to do it now, before I lose the courage to.

Henry is now sitting alone in the backyard, hunched over in a lawn chair, deep in thought. I unlatch the gate, and he sits up at the sound.

“
Hey,” he calls, smiling, happy to see me, which breaks my heart. He gets up and comes over, taking me in his arms and kissing me. I relax into him, savoring the feeling, any excuse to put off what I need to do, wanting one last time to be held by him.

“
Your pants are wet,” he observes.

“
Oh, yeah…I stopped in the trees and sat for a while, thinking.”

He cocks his head, giving me an odd look.

“
Thinking? About anything important?”

“
Actually, yeah. Something I need to talk to you about.”

“
Okay.” He takes my hand and leads me over to the lawn chairs. I sit across from him, not sure where to start, not wanting to do this.

“
Is everything okay? Is there a problem at Jessica’s? Or with your dad?”

“
No, no problems with Jessica or my…dad. Jessica and her parents have been great, really great.”

“
You can always stay here, you know.”

My heart squeezes painfully. With every fiber of my being I want to do that, to give in, move into this warm house, to be surrounded with this family’s love. To be with Henry. Above all, to be with Henry.

“
Henry, the thing is…I can’t see you anymore.” I stand up, turning away from him, not wanting him to see what it costs me to say the words, afraid that if I look at him, I’ll take them back.

“
What?” he’s incredulous. “What do you mean?”

“
I mean, it’s time for us to grow up, to start living for our futures. And I don’t see a future with us together.”

“
What are you talking about?” He’s on his feet, and I use all my years of practice at schooling my face into blankness in front of my mother’s fury when I face him.

“
Henry, we live different lives—in completely different worlds. Our futures will be entirely different. You will be successful in whatever you do, whether you become a doctor or not. You were raised to do that. I was raised to just get by, to wear hand-me-downs, to drive crappy cars and live in run-down houses. That’s my future.”

“
That’s not true, not with me. I won’t let that be how you have to live.”

“
But that’s the difference between us, Henry. I don’t mind that. I don’t aspire to be something I’m not. And you—you could never live the way I do.”

“
You are saying we can’t be together because I’m not poor?” He sounds angry now, with pain underneath his words. “I can live that way—as long as it’s with you. I
will
, if that’s what you want.” But his words are untrue—he knows it and I know it.

“
You’ll be going away to college; I’ll be lucky to get a job flipping burgers. You need a wife who can fit into your world, who doesn’t have a past like mine, someone with parents who weren’t drunks and drug addicts, and crazy to boot. A wife who hasn’t been charged with the murder of her mother. Imagine trying to explain that to your other doctor colleagues, or to your patients when you’re trying to build a practice.”

Henry’s eyes are dark with denial, his face devastated. He’s shaking his head, and it takes all I have not to put my arms around him and try to ease the pain from his eyes.

“
It doesn’t matter,” he’s pleading now. “I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

“
But I do, Henry.” That stops him. “Because it would be
me
they would be despising,
me
who would be excluded from their lives,
me
who would be your shame,
me
who would be hurt by it.” I turn away from him again because honestly, I don’t care one ounce what anyone thinks of me, what anyone might think in the future, but if this is what it takes to get Henry to let me go, then I’ll use it.

“
Don’t do this, Katy. Please.”

His voice is broken and I shudder deep within my soul. I don’t want to—oh, how I don’t want to. But his father’s words ring again in my ears. I won’t let him ruin his life for me; I’m hardly worth it. If I wasn’t worth the love of either my birth or adopted parents, then I’m really not worth the love of someone as pure as Henry.

I pull the cell phone out of my pocket, squeezing it, as if imprinting the feel on my palm will somehow keep him close. I set it on the table.

“
Katy, please,
please
don’t do this. I want to be with you. I want to
marry
you.” He steps forward and turns me back toward him, hands clasped around my upper arms. I close my eyes against the intensity in his eyes, against my own overwhelming desire to give in to him, to be selfish and take what he offers. But behind my closed eyes I see again my imagined picture of him looking at me with hatred and I stiffen my resolve.