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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 lino-leum 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 fl oor.
His room was a total mess, clothes and books and CDs everywhere, and I could barely get the door open. When 225
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—
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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,
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 227
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 fi x 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 228
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.
