I looked down at my jeans, pressed my thumb onto the black fingerprint above my knee, and imagined October could feel it on her leg.
Pathetic.
SEVENTEEN.
There’s a type of spider native to southern Africa. It’s called the wheel spider, and it cartwheels away from threatening situations when it senses it’s in danger. In fact, it’s so adept at getting away from perilous circumstances that it can do almost fifty cartwheels a minute to escape.
I was the human equivalent of the wheel spider, constantly tumbling away from anything that had the potential to hurt me. Because I can talk until I’m blue in the face about how I hadn’t wanted to hurt Cal, and that was true, I would have rather cut off my strumming hand than betrayed him again. But I had a hunch that even if October’s boyfriend had been a stranger to me, even if she hadn’t had a boyfriend at all, I would have made up a dozen other reasons to spin away from her.
Later that afternoon, when I got back to Casa Diez, October was in the yard with Diego, playing the wolfhound version of fetch. Wolfhounds aren’t known for their retrieving skills; every now and then Diego would go get the ball if you threw it, but he wouldn’t bring it back. He would just hold it in his mouth and circle you in big, gawky gallops, trying to coax you into chasing him for it.
Diego dropped the ball and ran to my side when he saw me, his tail wag like a whip against my leg. October stood still, arms crossed in front of her chest, watching me.
The walk home had made me more lucid. I felt as if I’d been pulled up the driveway by big, heavy thoughts. I went to October wanting to lay them at her feet, but all I could say was “Sorry.”
She didn’t say anything. She just picked up the ball and threw it toward the garage. Diego followed the ball with his eyes but didn’t go after it.
October crossed her arms again, this time higher and more rigidly, as if she were protecting her heart. She stood straight and dignified like the redwoods that surrounded her, like they were all a gang and she was their tiny leader.
“Listen,” I sighed. “These last couple of months . . . Moving here . . . Meeting you . . . Reconnecting with Cal . . . It’s a lot. And I know that’s not an excuse for being an asshole, but that’s just who I am.”
She shook her head. “That’s not all you are.”
Diego took a step closer and leaned so heavily into me I had to steady myself to keep my balance.
I said, “I don’t want people to get hurt, OK?”
“Oh. OK. Well, either you think I have no feelings or you mean you don’t want Chris to get hurt.”
I shrugged. The truth is, I wasn’t thinking about Cal or October. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking, One day she’ll see me for who I really am and she’ll crush me. I was thinking, I don’t want to get hurt.
She studied me, and her face relaxed and paled, as if it were emptying itself of blood. Then she nodded and said, “I understand.” And I believed her, because her eyes were bristling with a sad tenderness I didn’t think I deserved.
I turned and started toward my apartment. A moment later she said, “You’re going to die someday, you know.”
I stopped at the steps and turned back around. Diego’s ball was at my feet.
“I know that,” I said, gruffer than I’d meant to.
“I’m not sure you do,” she said. “Because you live like someone who doesn’t understand how quickly all of this is going to be over. You live like someone who doesn’t understand how fast the sand moves through the hourglass. You live like someone who doesn’t understand how much all these decisions matter. How much your dreams and desires matter. How much your happiness matters. Or maybe you don’t care. But I think you do. I think you care so much.”
I glanced off into the trees, looking for a retort, for a spark of wisdom I knew lived out there. I thought about the thesis I’d written on Aristotle’s notion of happiness, and how Sid used to tell me that it was useless to study philosophy and ethics if you couldn’t actually put what you’d learned into practice.
“Before you know it, the majority of your life is going to be behind you,” October continued. “Hell, it may already be behind you. And in the end, nothing is going to seem as scary or as painful as the realization that you walked away from everything you ever wanted.”
I felt that heavy pull again, a tension in my skin, in my body, in the weight of my feet on the gravel below me. It was like what October had said the night before about gravity being Earth’s way of keeping her spirit grounded. Only my spirit felt chained.
“You think you know what I want?” I said.
“I don’t know it. I feel it.”
I picked up the ball and threw it hard across the yard. Diego didn’t flinch.
Without another word, October turned and went into her house. The dog waited, watching for my next move, but he soon turned and went into the house too.
I made it halfway up the steps to my apartment, changed my mind, and went back down to Cal’s studio.
I tore off my shoes and threw them against the door. Then I grabbed the ’59 Les Paul Standard and spent the rest of the day using it to channel my rage.
EIGHTEEN.
October and I had a demanding week in preparation for the exhibit on Friday. We had no time to talk about anything except work, and that was a relief. But the vibe between us was strained. October was distant, and I was too sheepish
