Life Before (26 page)

But I will know.

“Kat, I’m not going to say what you think I’m going to say. Yes, it would keep for the morning, but I want to tell you while we still have time to discuss it.”

She sits upright and leans against the couch arm. “I’m liking the sound of this less and less. I’m not asking for a relationship. Obviously I can’t be tied down.”

She might be as screwed up as I am. How can I put this gently? “Look, Kat, everything we’ve done together has been great. I feel—changed, because of you.”

She covers the shiny bra with her arms. “Less and less.”

“I’m trying to have a real conversation here.”

“You’re killing the mood, Graham.”

“That’s the thing.”
Deep breath.
“My name’s not Graham.”

Kat’s hands and arms dance around her torso, trying to cover all her bare skin simultaneously.

“Relax, I’m totally the guy you know. I promise. Here is the short version: almost six weeks ago, the day I was supposed to graduate, my father murdered my mother. He was looking for me when he did it. I was … terrified! So I took my fake ID—with the name Graham Bel from Wheaton, Georgia—and I took off. Two days later, I wound up in Burlington. And for a while, I hid out, panicked that my father would find me and kill me. I slept in the woods, I holed up at a hostel. I tried to get into the homeless shelter. That’s another story.

“Eventually, Curt gave me his couch and a pseudo-job to keep me afloat. And things got better. And then I met you, and things got good. And today, my father
did
find me, and now he’s going to prison.

“That’s it. I’m really going to Tulane this fall. And my name. My name is Xander Fife.”

I haven’t said my full name for weeks.

“So you have lied to me about everything.” Kat pulls the blanket over her bare chest.

“No. Well, about that one thing—two—yes. I’m actually from Ohio, not Georgia. But I swear to you: everything else is true. I run a lot. I love the blues and hate football. I love soccer and sunshine and ice cream and really, really love to read. I’m dying to travel.”

“And Jill?” Kat’s really weird about Jill.

“Jill is my very best friend, and has been since I was four years old. She helped me through all of this.”

Kat snugs the blanket around her torso. “I want the whole story. The long version. Absolutely no lies.”

She cries when I get to the part about Gary and the domestic violence shelter and she cringes when I tell her about that night with Jill on my parents’ floor. I almost leave out the woods with Gretchen, but at this point I don’t want to hold back.

I feel naked, but telling the story of my life is freeing. Everything is real again.

“And that is everything. Scout’s honor.” I follow quickly with, “I was never a scout. And, one more truth: that day, when I opened the door to find you standing there? I thought you were smokin’ hot. I really had expected you to have green eyes like a cat, but that’s not why I stood there with my mouth open. You make quite an impression.”

Kat grins. “They’re my favorite shorts. One day, my jeans were too short, so I cut them off at the knee, and every time they looked too shaggy, I cut off a little more.”

“They’re working for you.”

She laughs. “Graham—Xander—Is it Alexander? Or Zander with a ‘z’? Were your parents hipsters?”

“It’s Alexander Fife. No middle name. Jill started calling me Xander, because Alexander was stuffy and Alex seemed square.”

“I can get behind that.” Kat laughs, and then she’s crying hysterically.

What have I done to this poor girl?

“I just thought I had found something here,” she says. “A real friend, in you. And now you’re leaving, and you don’t want to be something other than friends and …”

Her crying is almost loud enough to wake Sophie. Hugging helps calm her down.

She still smells like patchouli.

And she’s half naked.

Focus
.

I am being a good friend to Kat, and good something-more to Gretchen at the same time. I stroke Kat’s back, in a friendly way.

“I feel like I’ll never really connect with people.” She gazes at me. “Or have a real boyfriend.”

“Of course you will! But it’s not me.”

She sniffles. “I know. Gretchen is waiting.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t matter right this second. I like you, Kat, a lot. You said that you wanted to have a moment to hold onto forever. How about a friend instead?”

She shrugs.

“No, I’m serious. My time in Burlington has been bizarre and askew, and I would have gone insane without my lifeline to Jill. And then I met you, and life got immeasurably better. So, while you’re here and when you feel invisible, you’ll have me.”

“Long distance relationships fizzle.”

“Are you kidding? I live on the Internet! And I am not Dawn. I’m not going to disappear. And don’t discount what you have done for me here, either. You’re
my
friend. I want to hang on to
you
!”

“I’d like that.”

Kat scoots closer to me, gathering the blankets and pillows around her like a nest. Without a second thought, I put my arm around her. It feels genuinely friendly.

We’re quiet. There’s nothing more to say, really. I suspect she’s lost in thoughts as deep and dark as my own. Where do we go from here? I mean, separately. Where do I go from here? Where does she?

We’ve been sitting like this, not talking, forever.

Kat stands and shakes off the comforter so she’s just in her tiny shorts and shiny bra. “This was 100 percent not how I thought tonight was going to work out.”

Me neither.

“I’m so glad we talked instead,” she says.

“Me, too.”

Kat shimmies into her John Lennon shirt. If I had held off for twelve freaking hours, we might be a tangled mess of nakedness on this couch.

But then there would be lies between us. And a huge mess between me and Gretchen. Instead, Kat and I know each other. Really. She knows everything, and she doesn’t shun me. That’s pretty amazing, actually.

“I love that John Lennon T-shirt.”

“He’s the one who said, ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.’”

My life. I’m trying to change it, but until it changes, this is it. I’m living it.

Kat tucks in her shirt and brushes her hair out of her face. “Sorry for dumping on you this week. I never told anyone half of that stuff. Thanks for letting me talk.”

“I loved hearing it.” I wrap her in another warm hug.

“I think I fell in love with you a little tonight, Xander.”

I want to hang on to her. I want to clutch this moment with my entire being. “I think I love you, too.”

The lovely Kat says, “I need to head home. I’m mentally exhausted. Like we just did a triathlon, you know?”

“I do.”

Our hug is like reverse tug-of-war: both of us waiting for the other to disengage. I refuse to let go first.

Kat whispers, “Oh. This is it. This is the moment I’ll take with me out into the world.”

When we finally let go, Kat delivers a chaste kiss on my cheek. “Good night, Xander.”

“Good night, Kat.”

If I ever see Kat again, it won’t be for a very long time. With the couch to myself, I rest my head inside Kat’s little pillow nest, my conscience clear. I was true to myself, and true to her, and true to Gretchen. And what else is there, really?

T
HIRTY-SEVEN

Running back to something takes a lot longer than running away from it.

I can’t wait to get off this bus. After this small step backward into Laurel Woods, I can catapult myself into the future, one in which I can embrace my own name and my past.

Forget the catapult: I can start doing that today. Right now, I am an orphan. It is a very strange and disquieting feeling. I am homeless, in a completely different way, and this time it’s permanent.

I have other labels now, too: the guy whose mom was murdered and whose father is going to prison. But now, I own it. And in two short weeks, I will turn eighteen. I’m already a different person than I was on the last day of school, or in the mini-woods with Gretchen. I have tasted life—my own, interesting life—and I want more.

My Greyhound shudders and lurches, and I hear
more, more, more.
More music. More books. More people. More understanding. More discussions about everything and nothing and what makes everyone else tick. More travel.

I have been missing Laurel for weeks, but now I want one more Reuben from Curt’s. Or one more hour at the Free Library. One more walk to Ben & Jerry’s. One more biking tour.

Hugging Sophie good-bye this morning opened my Mom wound a little more. I hope Sophie improves. I’m glad she has Curt and Kat. I’ll take a bit of Sophie with me. Curt and Kat, too. And probably Bingham from the hostel, which already seems like ages ago. Of course, he still knows me as Graham.

Being Graham Bel taught me a lot about being Xander Fife. For maybe the first time in my life, I belong to myself. And I am just fine. And interesting. And good.

Part of my heart is buried with my mother, and a huge part of it lives with Jill. But I love Kat, too, so part of my heart will travel with her. And a little piece of my heart stays in Burlington, where I made it on my own. And next month, when I finally—finally—make my way to college, other pieces of my heart won’t go with me.

Maybe that’s what life is: a series of tearing your heart into tiny pieces and giving them to other people. Maybe as soon as you detach yourself from someone you love, you can never be whole again.

Okay. So what part of my heart is mine?

T
HIRTY-EIGHT

One second I’m standing in the Youngstown Greyhound station working the buckle on my backpack and the next I’m nearly thrown to the ground by one hundred pounds of squealing Jill.

Tucker’s not far behind, hands in his pockets. “Hey.”

I wrap my arms around him just as tightly as I had Jill. “Congratulations, buddy.” I cock my head toward Jill.

Tuck stands up a little straighter. “It’s not like that, Xander.”

“I already told him everything,” Jill says. “Don’t be weird.”

“There is such a thing as private relationship business, Jilly.”

Their focus is off me as we walk to Neapolitan. Tucker calls shotgun while I’m stuffing my bags into the trunk.

“Nuh uh, I have been gone twenty-three days. The least you can do is let me sit in front.”

Tuck folds the seat forward. “Rules are rules.”

I climb in the back, and we’re off.

Jill says, “Mom emptied Ryan’s room after you called, and my brothers have been bunking together. She says you might need privacy.”

“Which is more than she’s doing for me, by the way,” Tucker says. “Janice watches me like a hawk. Lights on when I’m over. A genuine curfew, even on the weekends. Janice framed a photo of us, and I’m not even allowed up to Jill’s room to see how it looks on the wall.”

“Your reputation precedes you, Tuck. What’s the photo, Jill?”

“The three of us at Quaker Steak. She paid Gretchen to snap it in May. Mom framed it as a graduation present, one for each of us.”

“Sweet.”

Jill has more and more and more. “Nine Inch Nails is playing at Blossom on Thursday, and I’m sure we can get another lawn ticket for you. Tucker refuses because of
the noise
, of course.”

Tuck says, “That’s hardly fair,” and they quibble all the way home; I can’t get a word in edgewise. It’s good to be back.

The weight of the air changes when we reach the town limits. We pass the Dairy Queen, and I wish I’d eaten more Ben & Jerry’s in Burlington. Ben & Jerry’s is light years ahead of DQ when it comes to flavor.

Still, DQ is home.

Jill parks in her driveway and I glance at my own house, two doors away. A brown and yellow real estate sign hangs from a post next to the driveway.

Jill follows my gaze. “It went up last week. I didn’t want to tell you on the phone.”

“It’s okay. I never need to step foot in there again.”

Janice is yelling at the little boys. We duck into the backyard to find Ryan running around, completely naked.

Janice says, “He is covered in baby oil. I have been trying to catch him for twenty minutes.”

Same old, same old. Last time it was Vaseline.

Janice wraps her arms around me. “Welcome home.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, I would like nothing better than for you to live with us this summer. What do you say?”

“Sounds great.”

Janice beams. “That is exactly what Jill said you would say.”

My best friend knows everything there is to know about me. Rather, she knows everything I knew about myself when I left Laurel. I desperately need to fill her in on everything else. I want her to know about Curt and Kat and Burlington. They’re important parts of me now, and things still don’t feel real until I tell Jill.

All this time, I thought life in Laurel was going on without me. In reality, my life was temporarily not here; I took it with me and made it my own.

I turn to see Jill and Tucker holding hands, something Jill has not done with anyone since the fifth grade. Life is different now, and it’s rolling forward.

_______

I’m sifting through all my crap in Jill’s unfinished basement because I can’t stand my Burlington clothes for one more second.

Janice comes down to load up her washer. “Sorry it’s such a mess. We had to move everything very quickly.”

“Hey, I appreciate you got anything at all.” I’m hoping she got some decent clothes, although I guess everyone has already seen me at my worst. I want tonight to seem like more of a date than just a night to hang out.

Janice points to one dented box. “That one’s your mom’s. Most of her stuff I donated, but I kept some things I thought you might like to have someday.”

Memories of Mom flood my mind. She only exists in memories now, which is both nauseating and freeing. If I can let go of the negative and abusive memories, her life can be all happiness and love. Maybe that box is full of things that made her happy. Her Beatles bookends, maybe. Or her favorite books. Or the scarf she knitted me, complete with seven holes.