I was thinking maybe I’d had a plan all along, but had kept it hidden, even from myself, because I sort of didn’t want to face it.
I mean, maybe even coming in the window wasn’t, like, so totally coincidental, because maybe on one of the million times Laura had made me wait for her when she went inside her house, I’d walked into the yard and noticed that the gardener had this bad habit of running a hose out of the basement window, because he used all the outside faucets for sprinklers, and he left the hose attached to the spigot inside the unlocked window after he’d gone home. And earlier I couldn’t really face the fact that maybe I’d sort of planned all this in my mind—I mean, sort of seen that the window was always left open, and kind of concocted a plan to one day maybe go inside.
But now, sitting there by myself and listening to the maid, I faced it.
My plan, I mean.
I mean, I wasn’t really sure I’d done it all on purpose. I mean, I wasn’t positive. Sometimes, you know, you might do something on purpose, but then keep it a secret and sort of hidden in your mind, and you don’t even tell yourself that you actually planned on doing it, because you can’t really decide whether it’s right or wrong.
I couldn’t really decide about that.
But I knew one thing.
I didn’t want to leave.
I really didn’t want to.
I mean, this was my one chance to find out something about Laura. My only chance, because I knew I’d never be back inside her house in a million years. I’d come into the house to find Laura—I mean to find out something about her that might explain why she left me, and why she ever wanted to go out with me in the first place.
But I hadn’t.
I hadn’t found out a thing.
All I’d learned was that her life wasn’t what I’d thought it was, but that didn’t actually explain anything. I’d learned that she had seen me, but I still didn’t know why, and I still hadn’t really seen her.
I sat there for a while and didn’t know what to do, really just sat there looking over at the wall across from me, just sort of staring at the wall.
Maybe there was something I could find out about her.
I mean, if I stayed inside her house.
I don’t mean I wanted to stay forever.
No.
For just a little longer, until I—
I must admit I felt a little scared.
I don’t mean about getting caught.
It really didn’t matter if I got caught; that’s not what scared me.
For some reason that didn’t scare me at all anymore.
I was scared by what I was thinking.
You see, I had a crazy feeling.
I was here—I knew now—to do something.
I wasn’t just fooling around being heartbroken anymore.
But what was it I wanted to do? What was my plan?
I didn’t know.
All I knew was, this was my one chance to find out something really important about Laura, like I just said, and I didn’t want to blow it.
The truth is, I didn’t really know what to feel about Laura anymore.
Because all along, you know, I’ve had these sorts of feelings about her and what she’d done to me—I mean how she’d treated me—and I guess I never really told you, because maybe I was afraid I’d look bad.
But I think I’ll tell you now.
I mean, in one way, I guess I felt pretty hurt because she dumped me and really did it just because her mom told her to, at least that’s how she played it, so she didn’t have to take responsibility for hurting me herself, but that wasn’t fair to me, because for one thing I was just a sitting duck. I mean, I never really ever had any leverage with Laura, if you get what I mean, because when you get right down to it, she had lots more friends than me and was, like, accepted by everybody, even idiots like Biff Roberts who invited her to their lousy parties, whereas I didn’t have so many friends and mine were all just, like, fringe friends as my mom always called them. And so of course I wanted to go out with Laura—going out with a girl like Laura was like a dream for me—but I never even had a chance with her. And I knew it because she had so much more than me and just always sort of flaunted it, and not just stuff but experience, too, and I hated it.
I did. I admit that.
I hated it.
I hated that there was nothing I could say to make her change her mind when she dumped me—even though I could tell from this terrible look in her face that she maybe actually loved me—and nothing I could do to show her I had value, because I didn’t know how to act and I never had a mask and all I could ever be was myself, and that just wasn’t good enough for her.
I just wasn’t good enough for her.
I never had been, and I couldn’t stand it.
But the worst thing is, I could stand it, just like I’d been able to stand living in the neighborhood all my life and just sort of behaving so I would be tolerated. But this was different.
I mean, the people in my neighborhood never saw me because I was hiding, so I didn’t care what they thought. It was okay if they thought I was nothing.
But Laura saw me.
She saw me, and I wasn’t good enough.
I wanted her to love me, but I was never good enough for her, and I think she knew it all along.
So why did she want me at all?
There was no reason and no answer, and I was getting no answer snooping in her stupid house.
But I wanted an answer.
I refused to leave without an answer.
Because maybe if I got an answer for why
