Just Like Fate (22 page)

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?
For some reason, the question makes me laugh. I think
back on the last six weeks of my life and really, what
didn’t
happen to me? I stare at the screen, thumbs ready to type, feeling like I’m experiencing a moment—one of those moments
when the decision you make really matters. I type:
CAN YOU TALK?
Joel doesn’t reply, but my phone rings a few minutes later.
It’s middle-of-the-night hushed on his end except for the
whispered lyrics to “Flannel” playing in the background. Like
I’ve been through war and somehow come out unscathed, I’m
numb to its power. All it is right now is the absence of silence.
“Hi,” I say quietly. “Thanks for calling.”
“No problem,” he says, matching my low tone. He waits,
and then, “This is it, right, Caroline?”
“Yes.” We listen to the part in the song about forever love.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I wonder for which part. Then I
realize that none of this was his fault. At no point in our relationship was Joel anything other than himself.
At lots of points, though, I was.
“I’m sorry, too.”
“This didn’t turn out how I thought it would,” he admits.
“Me either,” I say, but I’m not sure if it’s the truth or just
a statement meant to make him feel better. “Well . . .”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Joel?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?” he asks. I hear him shift in his bed. In the bed
that changed me.
“Thank you for sharing a little bit of your life with me.”
He laughs once, quietly, then, “That’s a cool thing to say,
Caroline. You’re a cool girl. And . . . you’re welcome. Thank
you for doing the same.”
We say good-bye and when I hang up, I feel lifted for having had the conversation. It would’ve been easy to float on
as Joel’s girlfriend for a while longer—to enjoy the win—and
just as easy to end it with a text. But he let me in. He showed
me his insides. He shared things that were difficult for him to
share—he opened up. And for that, I owed him the courtesy
of my voice. I owed him a proper ending.
Afterward, my head doesn’t hurt as much.
My heart doesn’t hurt as much.
I inch down deep under the comforter and exhale, watching through the break in the curtains as huge flakes fall outside. For the first time in a long time, I don’t think of what’s
happened—only what’s to come. And with hope and possibility whispering me a lullaby, I sleep.

The sound of a guitar filters into my ears, tender and slow
and all for me. “Sweet Caroline,” he sings softly, only it’s not
the Neil Diamond version. It’s mine. “Blindsided by you . . .
I never really knew how good it could be . . . my sweet, sweet
Caroline. . . .”

“Stop being cute,” I murmur as I wake up. I turn to see
Chris next to me in the hospital chair, the same place he’s
sat for close to a week. “It’s Thanksgiving,” I tell him. “You
should be with your family.” I try to sit up, tangling myself in
the tubes attached to my hand.

“First of all,” he says, setting his guitar aside, “I wasn’t
going to leave you after surgery. Secondly, I have no interest
in going to the Bahamas with my parents right now. My mom
said she hopes you’re feeling better, by the way.”

Chris’s eyes meet mine, still guilt-ridden as if it’s his fault
I got hit by a car on an icy road. As I hold his gaze, he reaches
to run his fingers down my arm until they touch the cast just
below my elbow, then back up again. The bones in my left arm
were shattered, and so once my vitals stabilized, they operated—putting my arm back together with pins and metal rods.
Teddy’s been calling me RoboCop.

“Those goddamn crutches,” Chris mutters. “I couldn’t
get traction when I tried to grab you. I—” His face breaks like
he might cry, and I take him by the collar of his T-shirt and
pull him to me.

“It’s not your fault,” I whisper near his ear. “So stop blaming yourself.” I think about how I felt after Gram died, how I
wished I could have done it differently. But you can’t live with
guilt. You can’t let it take everything that’s you.

My mother walks in, and Chris straightens out of my
arms, sniffling hard. Mom is holding a stack of Tupperware, a
bag dangling from her wrist as Juju totters in behind her. My
father and brother have already left, promising to come back
later, so this is my official Thanksgiving dinner with my mom.
In a hospital room.

“I hope you like yams, Christopher,” she says. “They’re
very good for you.” He shoots me a look and crinkles his nose
but then stands to help my mother.

“If you made them, I’m sure they’re delicious,” he says. He
takes the food from her hands and hops over to set it on the side
table. It wasn’t the best of circumstances for them to meet, him
frantically calling her from the hospital, but after the first day I
kind of like the way she is around him. She’s very . . . motherly.

Juju sets her sippy cup on my white blanket before trying
to yank the IV tube from my hand. “No, no,” my mother says
sweetly to her. “That’ll hurt Coco.” She busies my little sister
with her cell phone, and Juju makes her way to the hospital
chair on the other side of the bed.

“Albert is entertaining your aunt Claudia at the moment,”
Mom says, pulling some paper plates out of the bag. “We
should probably include him in our prayers.” When she
smirks, I choke out a laugh, surprised that my mother can be
sarcastically funny when I’m laid up in a hospital bed. I think
we’re more alike than I realized.

“There’s no silverware,” Chris says after everything is
unpacked. “I’ll grab some from the cafeteria.” He grabs his
crutches and leaves. When he’s gone, my mom turns to me.
“I really like that kid,” she says. “He reminds me a lot of your
grandfather—sort of goofy, but in that really endearing way.”

I smile, her approval of Chris making it feel more real
somehow. Maybe it’s the holiday spirit or maybe it’s the drugs
still coursing through me, but as she comes to lay a napkin
over my lap, my eyes tear up. “I miss you, Mom,” I whisper.

“Living with Dad and Debbie,” I start, “you know it’s not
because of you, right?” There’s a flash of hurt across her face,
but she nods.

“I know you like it there. So long as you come and stay
with me sometimes, I’ll get over it.” The last weight, the last
bit of guilt, leaves then. I lay my head back, watching the scene
contently. The door opens and Chris reappears with a handful of plastic bags filled with clear silverware.

While Juju is distracted, my mother and Chris pull up
chairs as we share a meal. Mom can’t stay long, so Chris and
I indulge in pumpkin cheesecake alone as she gathers up her
things. Despite the fact that I’m the hospital, she still has her
own Thanksgiving to lead at her house.

“Thanks for the food, Mom,” I say as she comes over to
give me a kiss good-bye. “And the company.”
She smiles, looking as thrilled as I’ve ever seen her. “Anytime, Coco,” she says. “I’ll be back in the morning.” She says
good-bye to Chris and then takes Judith’s outstretched hand
and leads her out of the room, closing the door behind them.
Once they’re gone, Chris sets his drink aside and then
comes over to ease onto the bed next to me. He lifts my unbroken arm to take my hand and kiss my fingers.
“Those yams were disgusting,” he murmurs. “I’m just
lucky she didn’t make me try that green bean casserole.”
“Maybe at Christmas,” I say, closing my eyes as Chris
kisses my shoulder through the hospital gown. “Or New
Year’s.” I’m a little breathless as his lips touch my neck, his
kisses sweet and mostly innocent—unlike my thoughts. “Easy
now, we’re in a hospital,” I joke.
“I’m going to get under the covers with you, okay?” His
voice is serious.
“Okay.”
Chris climbs in, curling around me as I snuggle close. It’s
only a minute before I feel the first shudder, hear his sniffle as
his tears fall on my skin. I thread my fingers through his blond
hair and say nothing. He doesn’t talk—maybe can’t talk—for
a long time. His arms are locked around me like a vise, his
breath warm as he buries his face in my hair.
“I was so scared,” he whispers eventually. “First at the
accident—you were so still, it was like you were gone.” He
chokes up. “Then waiting for you to wake up, your surgery.
Caroline, I can’t handle the idea of losing you. I can’t—”
“Stop,” I say, pulling back so I can look at him. “I’m here.
Just like fate, remember? You couldn’t lose me if you tried.”
Chris rests on his elbow, gazing down at me. His eyes are
bloodshot but still so blue. He puts his palm on my cheek,
checking me over one last time before he leans down to kiss
me—telling me to stay, stay with him—and to never run away
again.

Simone, Natalie, and I are splayed out on the couch on a summer Sunday, watching an interview on E! with River Devlin
about his stint in rehab and the collapse of Electric Freakshow.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Natalie says through
fingertips, as if the breakup of our favorite band is on par with
a national disaster. “They were so good together.”

“All good things must come to an end,” Simone says ominously.
“Not
all
good things,” I say, smiling as I think of Chris.
“Vomit,” Simone says good-naturedly. I throw a piece of
popcorn at her—which she dodges, then eats—and refocus
on the TV. The interviewer is asking about examples of times
when there were differences of opinion among band members.
“There were too many to count,” River says, shifting in his
chair and tossing back his hair like it’s a tic more than a necessity. “But I mean like take ‘Magnets for Fate.’ Huge hit, right?”
The interviewer nods. “I should say so—it spent a year in
the top five.”
“Right,” River says, his voice gravelly. “That was one that
I wrote, and I still to this day don’t think Nicky and Argent
even got it. I’ve seen them out there, talking about what it
meant to them, and they totally missed the fu—”
Beep.
“—point, man.”
It makes me like him more for calling the gorgeous host
“man.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the interviews in question,” she says, and
it comes off like she’s trying to prove that she did her homework. “It seems like the song’s message is that all of us are
living a life set out for us by destiny. By fate.”
River slams his hand to his knee. “No, man!” he says, running
his hands through his too-long hair. “That’s what I mean! No one
gets it. But they buy it. They spend their allowance to download
it. And yet they have no idea what they’re singing along to.”
“Why don’t you explain it to us, then?” the interviewer
says, clearly annoyed.
“I don’t think I should have to,” River says, shifting again.
The interviewer looks at him expectantly. “Fine,” he says. “It’s
just . . . the point is that yeah, we’re fated to live a certain life.
But it’s not like we’re being mind controlled or something.
There’s a little thing called free will.”
“So you’re saying we have control over our lives?” the
interviewer asks. “That we can change our fate?”
“I’m saying we have freedom to make mistakes,” River
says, shaking his head. “I’m saying that our mistakes—one
mistake or many of them—don’t define us. They don’t derail
us. We end up where we need to be in the end.” He pauses.
“But hopefully having learned something from our stumbles .
. . having grown into better people because of them.”
“It seems like we’re saying the same thing here.” The
interviewer reaches over and takes a sip from an Electric
Freakshow mug.
River gets a funny look on his face. “Is that coffee?” he
asks. She nods. He laughs to himself, and I imagine that
I know what he’s thinking . . . about the lyrics at the end of
“Magnets for Fate.”
And no matter where you sit, how fast you sip . . . The coffee
tastes the same on magnet lips.
River stands and pulls out his microphone; with a stunned
interviewer gawking after him, he walks off the stage.
“Well, that’ll earn him some headlines tomorrow,” Simone
says. “Pure publicity stunt.”
“I can’t believe he just did that,” Natalie says, like she’s his
mother and she’s disappointed in him. She and Simone start
chatting about how River used to be so much nicer in interviews and I zone out, getting it. Getting him.
For some reason, in that moment, I think of the night Gram
died. I think of how Simone offered me the choice to stay or
go—and how it so easily could have gone the other way. For a
moment, I wonder what life would look like had I gone down
the other path. But then I think of River Devlin and what he was
trying to say. He wasn’t saying that I’d end up in the same place
either way so it didn’t matter. He was trying to say that whatever life I lived because of the choice I made is important. And
maybe I found my way back to basically the same place—who
really knows—but the mistakes I made make me who I am.
We may be drawn to our fates like magnets, but whatever
we pick up along the way means something. Mistakes mean
something.
“I have to go call Chris,” I say, standing from the couch.
“I’ll be right back.”
I run upstairs to my room and shut the door, then instead
of calling Chris, I write the first piece of fan mail ever in my
life. I write about the night Gram died. I write about my life
ever since. And who knows if River Devlin will see it. Who
knows if he’ll even care. But in that moment, I need to tell him
that I spent my allowance downloading a song that I love—but
also one that I understand.

Waiting there above a forwarded viral video from Simone and a love note from Chris is a message from The. River.
Devlin. Or, I think cynically,
whoever writes e-mails for him
.
But when I open the message—when I see the content—I
know it’s authentic. I know he wrote it. It’s five words, written like they’re a continuation of a conversation. No hello. No
good-bye. Just a glimpse into his mind. Just enough to hear
“thank you” even when he didn’t say it.