Love You Hate You Miss You (13 page)

CARO CALLED
the day after we went to the university library. I wondered why until I picked up the phone and she said, “Have you done the research you said you would yet?”

“I’m working on it,” I said, and watched Mom, who’d answered the phone, wave at me and mouth, “I’ll give you some privacy,” before leaving the room, a huge smile on her face.

“Okay, good,” Caro said. “It’s just that you left kind of early, and Patrick basically bolted the second Mel and I came back again, so I was thinking that maybe you hadn’t…” She trailed off. I stared at the ceiling and told myself I wasn’t thinking about what Patrick had said to me.

“I guess I’d better go,” she finally said, and we hung up. Mom came in a few minutes later, still smiling. I said, “It was just someone about an English project,” before she could say anything, and then went back to doing my homework.

I could feel Mom watching me for a while, but she didn’t say anything.

Caro called again, and it was a repeat of before with Mom’s reaction, but after a few more calls—all the same, all about the presentation—Mom seemed to realize that my social life wasn’t about to change. I thought I’d be glad that Mom stopped looking so hopeful every time she called me to the phone, but I sort of missed her smiling like she knew something good was going to happen and that she wanted it for me.

Then Caro called last night, completely frantic about our presentation.

“Hi,” she said, when I picked up the phone. “Do you have any ideas about the role of the Mississippi in
Huck Finn
?”

“Well, since it was only all we talked about in class today, nope.”

“Oh crap, it was all we talked about today. I’m an obsessive freak, aren’t I?” she said, and laughed.

The laugh surprised me. I spent my days surrounded by people who were completely unable to relax about anything even remotely school related, but Caro—at least Caro could laugh about it.

“Nah. A real obsessive wouldn’t have bothered saying hi first,” I said.

She laughed again. “Hey, I—I have to go to Millertown tomorrow afternoon to pick up something for my dad. Mom won’t let me drive to school, so I have to go home and get the car before I can go. It’s such a pain. Do you maybe want to meet me at my house and come with?”

“What?”

“Never mind,” she said hastily. “I was just—it was a stupid idea. I’ve got a lot of homework so—”

“I’ll go.” I don’t know why I said it, but I did.

Mom and Dad were so happy when I told them I was doing something with someone after school that I was afraid they might explode.

Then Dad said, “Who’s Caro again?”

“I’m doing this thing, this presentation in English, with her,” I said. “And you guys know her. She used to come over all the time when I was little.”

“Oh, Caro,” Mom said, and Dad nodded, but I knew neither of them remembered her.

“Well, that’s great,” Dad said. “I guess you won’t need me to pick you up tomorrow.”

“No, I will. You have to drive me to her house because Caro can’t let anyone see me and her hanging out at school.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Dad said in a too-hearty voice that made even him look like he wanted to wince.

“Your father can drop you off,” Mom said, and then changed the subject to the latest company Dad was trying to work with, putting her hand on top of his. I figured that meant all the phone calls that hadn’t led to a glittering social life let her see this wasn’t a big deal.

As usual, I was wrong.

When I got home tonight, Mom was waiting for me, and as soon as I came in she said, “So, how was it? Did you have fun?”

I shrugged.

“What did you do?”

I looked at her. “We drove to Millertown. We picked up a bowling trophy for her dad, and then we got cheese fries. Then she drove me home, and here I am. Now I’m going to go work on the presentation we have to do tomorrow.”

I walked off before she could say anything else. I didn’t want to talk about the afternoon with her. I just—I don’t know.

It was fun. I had fun. The trophy me and Caro picked up—it was unbelievable. It was almost as tall as I am, and on top there was a guy standing with his arms in a victory V, one hand holding a bowling ball. We started laughing as soon as we saw it, and when we were eating our fries, she said, “Mom’s already made my dad swear to keep it in the basement,” and then imitated them arguing about it. I laughed so hard my sides hurt.

We didn’t talk about school, we didn’t even talk about Beth or Mel. We just…we just got a stupid trophy and ate fries, nothing really, but the whole time I didn’t feel as bad as I usually do. I didn’t hate myself so much.

Mom didn’t quit, though. She came up to my room a few minutes later and said, “Well, I think it’s great you went out. And you know what? I was thinking that this weekend we could go to Oasis and get our hair cut. Maybe we could even go to their spa, make a day of it.”

“I’m growing my hair out.” Julia always cut my hair. She was really good at it, and I know she would have had her own salon by the time she was twenty, just like she
always said, and it would have been way better than Oasis. (Even if I never have been there.)

“Oh. Well, maybe we could go to the mall or something instead.”

“I don’t think I can. And look, I have a lot of homework, and the presentation is tomorrow, like I said, and I ate already, so I—you know. I need to focus.”

Mom didn’t do anything for a moment, and then she nodded and left.

I thought maybe Mom would come back and ask me to do something with her again, but she didn’t. I went downstairs later to get a soda, and she and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table, holding hands and talking. They didn’t even look up when I came in. They didn’t seem to notice me at all. Totally familiar territory, and exactly what I wanted. It just didn’t feel as great as I wanted it to.

I know things will go back to normal after tomorrow. Caro won’t talk to me after the presentation, and it looks like things are getting back to how they were with Mom and Dad. It’s good. It’s all really good. It’ll all be like it was. Like I deserve.

But then why…

Why do I feel so bad?

MEL AND CARO
ended up doing all of the talking during our presentation, which was fine with me. I hadn’t thought about what a class presentation really meant. How it was a whole standing-in-front-of-an-entire-room-of-people (annoying people, but still) thing. It was like being at a party, only worse because it was school, I wasn’t drunk, and Julia wasn’t there.

If there was a way I could have bolted out of class and gone and gotten a drink, I would have.

I suppose I could have. I could have walked out of class, out of school, and found a drink. But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I was too scared to move. I stood there, too tall, too quiet, tugging at the ends of my too-red hair, and missed J so much it felt like I couldn’t breathe.

If Julia had been there, I could have gotten through today okay. Safely.

We were the last group to go, and when the bell rang Mel was still talking. Gladwell said, “Thank you all for a wonderful presentation,” raising an eyebrow at me because I hadn’t said a word the whole time. (But she didn’t give Patrick the eyebrow. Apparently clicking a mouse counts as talking.)

Everyone left except us and the other two groups that had spoken. Of course they got their grades first. Caro disappeared into the hall before we got ours, though, because Beth gave her a look, and so me and Patrick and Mel were left standing there.

“You know,” Mel said, “I thought about you when I was talking about Huck and Jim’s friendship.”

I (stupidly) nodded, figuring Mel was about to head off into one of his tangents where he asked me if I liked tacos or something, but instead he said, “You must really miss Julia. I mean, you never talk about her or anything, which is kind of weird, but I can just tell you do. I talked to her at parties a couple of times, you know. She had a great laugh. I remember this one time—” He kept talking and I thought about taking my copy of
Huckleberry Finn
and stuffing it in his mouth so he’d shut up.

I could actually see myself doing it. I wanted to do it.

I wanted to do it so badly it scared me.

Patrick cleared his throat. I looked at him, surprised. He looked away, of course. Mel glanced at him too but kept talking to me. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think Julia would have wanted you to be so sad.”

I forced myself to nod. A few conversations at a party and Mel was qualified to tell me what Julia wanted? It was like being in freaking Pinewood or talking to stupid Laurie, where everyone was so sure they knew J and what she thought about her life and me even though they’d never met her.

“See, the thing about grief is—” Mel said, and Patrick shifted the laptop he was carrying, his elbow clipping Mel’s side.

“Sorry,” Patrick said. “Hey, can you go grab the CDs? I left them on the bookshelf in the back. I would get them, but I have to put all this stuff away before my next class.”

“Sure,” Mel said and patted my arm before he turned away.

“Thanks,” I told Patrick, and I meant it. I thought he understood, and it was nice that someone knew that people telling you what you should feel sucks.

“Sure. The anger will go away, you know. Mostly, anyway.”

“What?” That wasn’t understanding at all, and I felt so stupid for thinking, even for a second, that someone could really get how I felt. It pissed me off.

He took a step back. “Never mind.”

“No, go on. You were going to, what? Tell me I’m not sad, I’m angry at myself? Wow, you’re a genius. Congratulations on observing the obvious!”

“You know what I mean,” Patrick muttered.

“Whatever.” I started to walk away. Hearing my grade could wait. I just wanted to get out of there.

“You’re angry at her,” he said. “At Julia.”

I kept walking like I didn’t hear him. But I did.

I should have just left it at that, but I had to sit through lunch and the rest of my classes, and even though I ignored Patrick I knew he was there. I saw him sitting in physics with both hands clamped to his lab table like they were bolted to it. He got up and left when we still had twenty minutes to go, saying he had to use the bathroom and never coming back.

And did anything happen to him? Did the teacher realize he was gone and report him? Of course not.

I got mad then. I got really mad. It was okay for him to leave class early, because he was smart and not
a freak like me? It was okay for him to skulk around hallways and not talk during class presentations? But me not wanting to talk about Julia with the losers I’m stuck seeing in class?

Well, something must be wrong with me, and I shouldn’t be so sad. But wait! I’m not sad, I’m mad at Julia!

I raised my hand and asked to go to the nurse’s office. I told the nurse I had cramps. She let me lie down and went off to gossip with the secretaries. I used her phone to call Dad. He was on a conference call, but his secretary put me through.

I told him he didn’t need to pick me up. I said I was going to the library. I said I was going with Caro. I said she was going to give me a ride home. He said, “That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” and sounded so happy. The “sweetheart” didn’t even sound forced.

I should have called him back and said I’d changed my mind or something. Should have, should have, should have. Instead I flipped through the school directory in the nurse’s desk and wrote down an address. Patrick lives in Meadow Hills, over by the golf course.

I took the bus there. His house looked like every other one on the street, white with big columns and a stained glass window over the front door. A woman shouted, “Come in!” when I knocked.

I didn’t see anyone when I walked inside, but there was a television on in the room right in front of me, and past that I could see a kitchen with the fake marble linoleum Julia’s mom always wanted. (And Julia was right, it looks horrible.)

There was a staircase just to my right, one of those split ones for people with houses on three levels. The upstairs part was barricaded with the gates people get for little kids. The downstairs part led to a hallway.

“I thought you weren’t coming till after six!” It was the woman again, still shouting, and before I could say anything, she added, “I’ve got Milton in the tub, Wendy, so just go downstairs and get Patrick to help you carry the bikes out. He came home early to get them ready.”

I went downstairs. I didn’t bother knocking before I started opening doors. The first one led to a laundry room, and the second room was full of hospital-type stuff: a bed with railings, a wheelchair, and one of those walkers medical shows use during the very special episode when someone learns to walk again.

The third one was Patrick’s room and Patrick was sitting on his bed, which was just a mattress on the floor. His room was a total mess, clothes and books and CDs everywhere, and I could barely get the door open. When
I did I just stood there, staring at him sitting cross-legged and hunched over his laptop.

He didn’t even look up, and after a minute he said, “I know, I promised I’d get the bikes together and help with Dad before Wendy comes over, but I had a really bad day.” I thought of a million things to say like, “Yeah, must be tough to get to leave class whenever you feel like it,” or “I just came by to say you’re a loser freak. Later,” but instead I just stood there, and eventually he looked up and said, “Amy?” and I said, “You don’t know how I feel.”

I said that, and he looked at me for a long, silent moment, and then said, “You hate yourself,” quietly, so quietly, and I clapped my hands together slowly, applause for a moron because of course I do, it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and felt a smile cross my face because I’d shut him up.

Except I didn’t because he said, “You hate her.”

I stopped clapping and moved toward him like Julia used to when she was going to fight, deliberate steps, and for once being so tall was great because I’d be able to see the look in his eyes when I hurt him.

I wanted to hurt him. I wanted his words gone, shoved back down his throat, undone, unsaid. My mouth was open, my hands were curled, but I—

I didn’t hit him. I could see it, my fists smashing into his face, his mouth opening not around words but breath, blood, but I didn’t do it.

I didn’t hit him. I remember seeing my hands, balled into fists and outstretched. I remember feeling something ripping up my throat, and then there was the bright whiteness of my knuckles smacking his chest. And my open mouth, the one that was so full of words ready to rip out of me,
you’re so wrong so full of shit you hide from the world so what do you know?
It didn’t form words.

I didn’t say anything. I was silenced, like something inside me was broken. I just stood there, mouth open in a silent scream.

If he’d put his hands over mine, trying to comfort, I would have hit him. If he’d said something—anything—I would have hit him. If he’d done any of that, it would have been—I could have dealt with it. My hands have been touched earnestly a thousand times, by my parents, by stupid counselors at Pinewood who “just wanted to reach” me.

He just looked at me.

He looked at me, and I saw he didn’t want me there, that having me in his home, in his room, in his space, was bothering him. He looked at me, and I saw that
he wanted me to go so badly he couldn’t say it, that he was afraid. That he knew what it was like to wake up every day and know that this life, the one you live, is not the one you ever saw or wanted but is yours all the same.

I always wanted to be grown up. When I was little I couldn’t wait to be a teenager and go to high school. When I got there I wanted to be done with it, wanted to get out into the world, the real one, and live in it.

The thing is, that world doesn’t exist. All growing up means is that you realize no one will come along to fix things. No one will come along to save you.

I put one hand on his throat. Palm down, resting against skin. He breathed, and I felt the rise and fall of his breath against my hand. I pressed my fingers in a little, flexing. Skin is so fragile.

The whole body…it shouldn’t be like it is. It shouldn’t be so easy to break. But it is, and in his eyes I saw he understood that too. I slid my hand up, rested it against his mouth, and in a moment replaced it with my own.

As soon as I did, I knew what would happen. It started one night, back when Julia was still here, and I pretended it away. It never happened, I told myself, but it did.

I touched my mouth to his because he hadn’t done what I expected, hadn’t tried to comfort me. I touched my
mouth to his because he didn’t say he was sorry for me, for my loss, or for what he’d said. I touched my mouth to his because he understood everything.

I touched my mouth to his because I wanted to. I kissed him, and this time I didn’t run away.

Patrick smells like fall leaves, the orange-brown ones that blow around your feet when you walk and swing into your face smelling of sunshine and earth. His skin is cool and pale, and I’ve traced his back, mapping the play of muscles under skin. I’ve felt his mouth against mine. I’ve felt his hands on my skin. There is a scar on his stomach, round and white, tucked up against the side of one rib. It is smooth to the touch.

I know all these things, and now they will not leave me.

I lay there afterward, eyes closed, feeling his mouth ghost across mine, and felt…I don’t know. I just know I felt okay.

I felt okay, and that wasn’t how I was supposed to feel. I got up, tucked my body back into my clothes, and shook my head so my hair slid over and around my face, covering me. It’s long now, almost to my shoulders. It hasn’t been cut since before Julia died.

Patrick was dressed when I finally looked over at him, his head emerging from his T-shirt and a red flush along his cheekbones. He saw me looking and the
red deepened, blossomed across his face. I opened my mouth, then closed it. He did the same.

I left his room, shut his door behind me. I didn’t look back, not once, but I walked home feeling strange, like I’d somehow lost part of myself, like somehow part of me was still with him.

Was this how it was for Julia with Kevin? Did it feel like this? Did she see him when she closed her eyes? Did she see him even when he wasn’t there? How could she stand it? Why would she want it?

I wish she was here. I wish. I wish. I wish.

I wish I didn’t hate her so much for leaving me.