What She Left Us (3 page)

She
tried to remember what it had been like a short time ago, just last year, when
she was a freshman, away from home for the first time, when her mom was still
alive, when she was excited to be free from parental guidance, when she could
do whatever she wanted, when she
did
whatever she wanted. Had she
behaved liked the animals she was now in charge of? Sure, she had ventured out
of her comfort zone, experimented with alcohol, ended up sleeping on the
bathroom floor more nights than she cared to remember, but she didn’t go crazy
like she’d seen some of these kids. She never tried to sneak a keg of beer up
six flights of stairs, or run around the common area practically naked. What
kind of parents did these kids have?

There
was a light tap on her door, and then, “Courtney?”

Her
door was usually cracked open. It was one of the rules that when she was on
duty, she had to have it partially open to let the kids (kids, ha, they were
barely younger than she was, some of them only by a few months) know that she
was there and available for them.

It
was Bren. In a half shirt and teeny tiny shorts, rubbing her eyes from the
light in Courtney’s room, swiping black eyeliner all around, her dark hair
pulled on top of her head in a big, floppy bun. The girl looked exhausted. If
it wasn’t Angie complaining about Bren, then Bren was usually coming to
complain about Angie. Courtney didn’t see how those two were going to make it
through the year as roommates, they had so much trouble getting along.

“Come
on in. Are you and Angie at it again?”

“Sorry
to bother you so late. No, actually, it’s the dude next door to us. He’s been
jamming on his guitar and I have a psych test in the morning. Can you ask him
to quit playing?”

Courtney
tried to picture who was in the room next to Bren and Angie but couldn’t
remember. “Who is it?” she asked.

“I
don’t know, Mark, Matt. Something like that.”

Courtney
couldn’t place him. She knew he hadn’t shown up for her meeting, and since
there were forty-eight kids she was responsible for, she hadn’t quite gotten
around to meeting every one of them personally. Well, she was going to have to
go and have a chat with this Mark-Matt guy right now she guessed.

“Okay,
I’ll go talk to him.”

“Thanks.”

Courtney
grabbed her keys, locked her door, followed Bren out and walked with her down
the far end of the hall toward the sound of the guitar. It was loud, but not terribly
so, but Courtney could see how it could prevent Bren from falling asleep. Bren
slipped inside her own room, and said goodnight to Courtney.

“Night
Bren, good luck on your test tomorrow.”

“Thanks,”
Bren smiled, and closed her door.

Courtney
put her ear to the door where she heard the music. Mark-Matt was playing the
final riff of some Dave Matthews song and she felt it might be kind of rude to
knock and interrupt. Besides, Courtney thought he sounded kind of good.

She
had never played an instrument. When she and Jenna were young, about eleven and
six, their parents had wanted them to take lessons of some kind, and Courtney
had no interest. Yet Jenna had taken up the piano. She had been so good that
her parents, after a few years of lessons, finally invested in a piano for
their home. That’s when Courtney decided that she liked playing the piano, and
she would bang on the keys any chance she got. Her mother would come into the
living room and say, “Courtney, get off the piano. It’s Jenna’s. You had your
chance. You didn’t want to play an instrument, remember?”

Every
now and then though, when her mother wasn’t home, Courtney snuck onto the sleek
seat of the piano, feeling the cool of the shiny wood on the back of her sweaty
thighs. She’d touch the keys, and listen to the plinks it made, pretend that
she could, in fact, play. Her father would come by and give her a knowing wink,
but then she’d jump when she’d hear her mother coming, scared she’d get in
trouble for playing on her sister’s piano.

Once,
in a moment of childhood sisterly bonding, Jenna taught Chopsticks to Courtney,
and the two of them spent a couple of weeks playing it side by side on the
piano. It amused their parents, until Courtney went back to the obnoxious
banging of the keys or the da-da…da-da…dadadadadadadadada
Jaws
theme
song, and that had been the end of Courtney’s piano career. The end of all her
musical talents. That's when everyone decided she would be better suited to
work with art supplies. Less noisy.

Courtney
listened by the door again. Mark-Matt finished the song and moved onto another
one. She realized she better get in there and stop the music so the other kids
could get to sleep, but before she knocked, she heard the first notes from a
song that wrecked her soul. It was
Gravity
by John Mayer. Oh, how she
loved that song.

She
listened to the quiet beginning of the song, and then knocked softly. Because
she really didn’t want him to stop playing. The music continued.

A
harder knock this time, and she heard fingers slash through the guitar strings
– and an abrupt stop in the music. She heard the guitar plunk down, movement
from inside, and then the door handle turned.

Mark-Matt
opened it.

And
there he was. The guitar player.

How
come Courtney hadn't noticed him before?

“Hey
RA.”

“Hi,
are you Mark? Matt?”

“Mitch.”

“Oh.
Mitch.”

“Yeah,
Mitch.”

Courtney
said nothing.

“Did
you come for the performance?”

His
smile. That was the first thing she noticed. Well, that was a lie. The first
thing she noticed was the music.

But
the second was the smile. His straight beautiful, white teeth. And the way he
grinned down at her. And that cheeky little bit of humor. Did she come for his
performance?! And a sprinkle of freckles on the bridge of his nose. And lashes.
Lashes like no boy should be allowed.

“Well?”
he asked.

“Um,
no. Well, kind of.” Courtney said, “Actually, a complaint.”

“I
hope not from you?” Another smile.

“Nope.”
She smiled back.

“That’s
good.” He grinned.

Courtney
felt her cheeks burning and her smile widen.

“Come
in?”

She
did.

His
room was one of the smaller dorm rooms, and his guitar was on the chair by the
desk. He sat on the bed, and since there was nowhere else for her to sit, she
sat next to him, awkwardly.

“Wait?
No roommate?” Courtney asked.

He
laughed, “You’re the RA, aren’t you supposed to know these things? I’ve got a
single. I transferred here from State. I’m a junior. Man, you don’t do your
homework, do you?”

“I
guess not. It hasn’t been a very good year for me so far. But anyway, that’s
not why I’m here. Someone did complain about the music,” she said.

“But
not you?” he asked.

“Not
me,” she said. "And only because it was too loud. Not because it wasn't
good."

“Well,
that’s good.”

“So,
you’re a junior?” she asked. “What are you doing living in the dorms?”

“Since
I transferred here and didn’t know anyone, I chose the dorms. Plus, I didn’t
want to have to cook. I like dorm food.”

“Why’d
you transfer here?”

“The
music program.”

Courtney
nodded. “Obviously, that’s what you’re studying?”

“Well,
that… ”

“And
what else?”

“You.
Right now.”

She
cried when she opened the door and saw Darren. She told herself she wouldn’t,
had pinched her face, and slapped her cheeks when the doorbell rang but it was
no use. He was there, and she hadn’t seen him in five months. He was at her
doorstep.

“Come
on, don’t do that.”

He
took her in her arms, held her as she cried. She cried for a long, long while,
and he was so good, he just let her cry. He led her to the couch, and held her
to him while she cried. It was the couch where they used to watch episode after
episode of
The Office
, where he lay hungover some Saturday mornings
watching old
Scooby Doo
reruns, where they ate cartons and cartons of
Pad Thai and drank bottles of wine, and where they had spent Sundays watching
the Eagles. The couch where they had made love and memories.

And
now, she was bawling her head off and her eyes were red and puffy and she
planned on being strong and stoic and getting right to the point and didn’t
want to cry but when he showed up, all handsome and gray-eyed, tall and
beautiful, and she looked at him and realized that she was a complete fool for
doing what she had done, well, she just lost it, and that’s what happened.

After
holding her calmly and quietly, letting her cry for twenty minutes, he pulled
her away and said, “I’m going to get you a cloth and some water.”

“Okay.”

“And
then, you’re going to stop crying, and we’ll talk. No more tears, okay?” Darren
said.

“Yes,”
Jenna sniffed.

“I’ll
be right back.”

He
knew where everything was. She hadn’t moved anything in the kitchen since he’d
last been there. He grabbed a cloth, ran it under the faucet, got two glasses,
filled them with ice and water, and came back to her on the couch.

“Here,
wipe your face,” Darren handed her the cloth. Jenna pulled her long hair away
from her cheeks and grabbed the hair band around her wrist, glanced at her
tattoo, and quickly twisted her hair into a sloppy bun. She wiped her eyes,
then her nose and cheeks, finally her lips. Darren handed her the water and she
drank.

“Thanks.
I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to do that. I told myself not to do that. I
even slapped myself in the face and gave myself a pep talk so that I wouldn’t
do that before I opened the door.”

Darren
laughed. “Sounds like you. Do you feel better though?”

“A
little. A good cry helps. You know, I think I used all my tears for my mom. I
don’t know if I ever cried for us.”

“You’ve
been through a lot.”

“Yeah.”
Jenna really didn’t know what to say. So she told him about the autopsy report,
and the possibility she might carry the gene for a weird disease called hemochromatosis.
“I have to get checked, and so does Courtney. It’s pretty scary. I mean, I
don’t
think
it’s going to be life-threatening, but it could mean some
serious preventative measures for the rest of our lives.”

“Like
what?”

“Like
something called ‘bloodletting.’”

“Vampires?”

A
small smile spread across Jenna’s lips. It felt good to smile with Darren, even
though her head pounded from all the crying. “Not that extreme, but maybe an
Edward Cullen look-a-like might help me forget about you for a while.”

“Come
on, don’t do that. Tell me more about this hemochrome disease.”

“Well,
if we have it, we may have to start taking daily medication, watching our iron intake,
we might need biopsies. I have been on the Internet for days reading about it
but it’s all so confusing. With the bloodletting thing, if there’s too much
iron in our systems, it means weekly visits to have blood removed. They remove
it just like how when people go and donate blood. But to keep the iron regulated.”

Darren
nodded.

“I’m
more worried for Court though, because she was such a sick kid as a child, I
bet she’s more likely to be a carrier. And I’m scared to death to tell her.
She’s been having such a hard time at school. She didn’t want to go back this
semester.”

“You
know, she called me,” Darren said.

“She
did? When? Did you talk to her?” Jenna tensed up.

“No,
I didn’t talk to her, and it must have been right when she got back to school.”

“I
didn’t tell her yet.”

“About
the disease, right?”

“About
us breaking up,” Jenna said.

“Jen,
you've got to tell her."

"I'm
going to. Next time we see each other."

"How
could she not know? We weren’t together all summer. You gave me back the ring
after your mom died. Why?”

“I
just… ” Tears started up, but she willed herself not to cry again. She didn’t
know why. Courtney had loved Darren almost as much as she did.
As much as I
do,
she thought.

God,
Jenna was so screwed up, and she didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She
looked at Darren, looked into his eyes.

“Darren…
”

“Jen,
don’t.”

"I
know what was wrong with me then. I think I blamed you partially, and it was so
wrong of me. I think I felt you could have saved her. And now I know that's not
true. I know she was gone before we got there. I know. But I was in shock, I
was grieving. You know I didn't have a stable family life, with Dad leaving
when I was sixteen, and Mom never having anything positive to say about their marriage.
I freaked. I was in shock, you know that. You
know
me. Why didn’t you
fight for me? Why did you give up on me when I needed you to be there for me,
when you knew I didn’t have any strength in me to make any type of rational
decision? Why didn’t you want me then?”