Loud Awake and Lost, page 16
“Drew, my son, I hope you know that your family thinks you knocked the cover off the ball with this girl.”
“Yikes, with a bonus sports metaphor,” I whispered back.
“So please join me in raising your glass as we wish Drew and Raina health and happiness.” Mr. Wilde swiped the air before he drank deeply to the scattered applause and hear, hears.
“Thirty-four years, gawd,” said Rachel, with another sly check on her phone. “Doesn’t that sound like a gruesome amount of time to be married?”
“It sounds like a gruesome amount of time to be anything,” I answered.
“Check it, Jake just texted that he’s at Floyd with the guys and he’s ordered a couple of pizzas. So we can head over—want to say in forty-five minutes?”
“Sure. My allergies can’t take too much more of these flowers, anyway.”
The conclusion of the toast had rearranged the room into different conversation nests, and I watched as Holden broke from one of them to give Raina a brotherly embrace before he beelined for me, sidling up and looping his arm around my shoulders in a tight squeeze. He might have had another beer, I could sense from the way he kissed the top of my head—casual, almost goofy.
“Come to my room,” he said, his voice thick and hopeful in my ear. “Away from all these poison weeds, right?”
“Ha, no kidding.” I sensed my friends pretending not to notice Holden’s and my closeness. Their tiny nudges, their spidery-watchful energy. This was how it had been. This was how it was supposed to be, in everyone’s minds. Friday Follies and parties and everyone together forever, all the way up to Mr. Wilde’s sweaty champagne toast, for the rest of our lives.
But would the Wildes really and truly think their son had “knocked the cover off the ball” if he wanted to spend his life with a girl who had broken his heart? A girl who’d dropped everything she’d been, and then one night driven herself over a bridge, killing someone else in the process?
Or would they be (more likely) endlessly brooding and suspicious, always ready to expect some act of self-sabotage or recklessness, the very worst of me?
Ice, fever, ice. I felt light-headed as my resentment seethed. It wasn’t for the Wildes to decide. Holden was mine and I was his, if we wanted each other. And if a future together was our landscape, it was a personal map for us to unfold, for us to plot the journey.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”
20
One Guy, One Decision
Holden’s room was just as I remembered, but at the same time it felt antiseptic. There were a few things I hadn’t seen—the graduation picture, and Holden’s cobalt-blue Lafayette mortarboard hung rakish over an old Super Soccer Stars trophy. Except it was a phantom presence of Holden here now. I could sense it in the stark surface of his desk and in the absence of his personal presence, that stuffy yet comforting, lived-in bedroom odor of gym socks and sweat and aftershave and a hint of fast-food French fries.
Noise pumped upward through the floorboards. If the Wildes knew one thing about a party, it was how to keep it going. But I never liked the sound of adults getting silly on red wine. Which would be most of the Wildes’ friends. It was yet another way that Holden’s parents and my parents were different. And while mine might be less “fun,” at least they never became giggle-boozy like Mrs. Wilde, or made dirty jokes with a hot face like Mr. Wilde. I was always surprised that Holden wasn’t more irritated or upset, but I guess he was used to them.
Holden clicked the door shut. We each yanked up a few Kleenex—the flower arrangements were killing us—to get control of our weeping noses, laughing grimly about our shared allergy issues, before lying stomach-down and side by side on the bed, where we pored over the Lafayette senior yearbook. Holden got up once to get his iTunes going, and to lower the light. My body was a squeeze of nervous anticipation as Holden returned to the bed and then pushed away the yearbook to pull me close.
I could taste warmth and beer as Holden kissed me hard—there was something defiant about it. I wanted this, didn’t I? I shifted position. I was having trouble relaxing; I couldn’t seem to find the right place to put my arms and legs. Holden slipped my dress over my head, then undid the clasp of my bra and scooped a hand inside.
“Oh!” We hadn’t hooked up for real in such a long time. Of course I’d agreed to it. Just in letting Holden’s index finger link mine as we’d stolen away up the stairs, there’d been acknowledgment. We’d been flirting all night, wanting to end up in just exactly this space, alone together.
But now did I want it? I didn’t want to overthink it. I wanted to be loose and warm and untrapped. I kissed him back as I cracked open my eyes to stare at Holden’s shadowed face. He was undeniably cute. That tousled hair, the slight cleft in his chin—it all worked.
Holden was tugging down my tights—I helped wriggle and peel them off, dropping them over the side of the bed. Sexually, I’d gone pretty far with Holden, nearly all the way to actual sex, and the funny thing about that was no matter how much time had passed, the unspoken rule now seemed to be that all the things we’d done before were ours to do again, speedily, and only because we’d done them all before.
He kicked out of his gray flannels, and I helped him unbutton his shirt, and here we were down to nothing but underwear, facing each other in newly unwrapped shyness. Our mouths met, skin on skin. I could feel his fingertips trailing my spine, finding the bolt—though I’d shown him before, I hadn’t let him pause there. In the heated, heavy darkness, his fingers learned and accepted it, and then he carefully rolled over on top of me. His body on mine was a familiar excitement.
Was I betraying Kai tonight, with Holden? The thought triggered another future, only this one was not the Wildes’ parlor. Kai’s life was less ordered, less safe; his world was explosive with the dry, glittery desert heat of Burning Man, it roared with the baseball crowd in Yankee Stadium, it trekked the green farmlands of the Glastonbury music festival, it teetered at the apex of the Coney Island Ferris wheel. In a split second, I saw all of it distilled as clearly as if a fortune-teller had let me gaze into her crystal ball.
“Holden,” I whispered, unlatching my arms from around his back.
He didn’t answer. Gently, I pushed his hand off its hopeful back-and-forth skimming along the elastic band of my underwear. “Holden, I’ve got to go.”
“What, to Floyd? No, you don’t,” he mumbled, catching and twining my hair around his finger the way he used to. “Nobody needs us to be there.”
“It’s more like…I don’t think I can be here.”
“Huh?” A little dazed, he pitched up on one elbow to regard me. His free hand stroked my cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not…It’s too soon, I think. Being here with you.” Not quite true. What I was really thinking was how bizarre it was, after a year, that Holden and I were right back at this same knotty moment. Except this time there was no apple candle, no snoring Jolly at the foot of the bed, no frost on the pane. Only the catch in my lungs that made it hard to breathe through what I knew I might say.
“I felt like we were moving closer,” he said.
“Maybe we are.” I wasn’t being totally honest, and if I wasn’t being honest, I wasn’t being fair. “But I think I just want more time,” I qualified. That was honest. Wasn’t it?
“Okay.” He half laughed, then rolled off me so that we were side by side, innocent as toy mice in a matchbox.
We stayed like this for another minute or so, and then Holden jumped off the bed, moving toward the chair stacked with folded clothes and rummaging for his jeans, which he then yanked up in one rough swoop.
“Where are you going?”
“I think I’ll hit Floyd.”
“Oh.” I stood, picked up my dress from where it had puddled on the floor. “Holden, I know you’re upset.”
“A little bit. That’s normal, right? What do you want from me, Ember?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The thing is, I can’t be anything more than I am. And I’m one guy, one decision. So make it or don’t. Let me know when you do.”
He sounded weary, and I didn’t blame him. This wasn’t supposed to be the end of this night, with me tossing Holden off as if I were a child who’d grown bored with her amusement. I struggled with the zip of my dress. Holden had snapped on his lamp and was now leaning over his desk, facing away from me and clicking through emails on his laptop.
“Hold?” I whispered.
He didn’t turn around. “You coming with me to Floyd?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, cool.” His back still facing me. I hated to think of the tears that might be in his eyes. Holden put up a stoic front, but I knew better. “I’ll call you later.”
“Sounds good.”
He was hurt, and I couldn’t undo it. So I left him; I had to. In the front hall, a number of guests were starting to leave—it was easy to slip out the door unnoticed. Head tucked, I found my coat, then clipped down the front steps and around the corner. Withdrew my cell phone from my bag and keyed in the numbers.
I was walking too fast and I couldn’t stop; it was as if I’d spent the past couple of hours caged.
It went straight to voice mail. I spoke in a whisper. “I know this is probably crazy and violates our rules and you’re not there and whatever, but I’m coming over. I’ll be in the lobby of your building. So just text me whenever you get in from class or work.” I paused. “Because I need to see you, Kai. I’ll wait for you.”
One guy, one decision. But hadn’t that decision been clinched the moment I’d met Kai on the fire escape?
Quickly, I sent Rachel a text—pls pls cover for me if my folks call—before I turned off my phone and began to walk purposefully toward the St. George.
It was the right thing to do, to leave Holden. I couldn’t hook up with him—not mindlessly, and especially not with full awareness—if I didn’t feel it. Worrying and regretting and puzzling and perseverating over us was all just a waste of time. I didn’t regret it, but I longed to make it better. And yet I couldn’t.
I quickened my step, as if I could outpace my emotions, and checked my watch. It was only ten o’clock. If only I could see Kai again. Even if it was just for a few minutes. So what if he worked and took night classes, so what if he didn’t have enough money or free time or whatever? Those were excuses; they weren’t real reasons to stay apart.
And I was tired of being apart.
I broke into a run.
21
Waving, Worried
“There you are! It’s almost midnight.” Mom didn’t sound upset. Good, Smarty must have provided an alibi. I exhaled in relief.
“Is it? I must have lost track of time. Sorry.” I was shivering from the long walk home. “Mrs. Wilde says thanks for the orchids.”
Mom peered at me. “Your cheeks are pink. I’ll make cocoa. It got cold out, didn’t it? It’s going to be like this all through the weekend. You know, sweetie, I realize it’s only six blocks or so, but I would have picked you up from the Wildes’ if you’d called.”
“Nah, I was fine. Cocoa sounds good.” I rubbed my chapped hands together, then pulled off my boots and stomped my feet. The temperature had plummeted. It had even been drafty and uncomfortable in the lobby of the St. George, where eventually I’d fallen asleep waiting for Kai, who never showed.
As soon as the kettle was boiling, Dad appeared, “yawning” in the doorway. Whatever. I knew them both too well. They’d both been awake, a couple of insomniacs, ruffling their feathers, waiting for me to come back to the nest.
“Your cheek is creased,” Dad observed. “You’ve been sleeping?”
“Yep, I was. Over at Holden’s.”
It was a delicate moment of embarrassment to stew in, but I’d rather have them think that I crashed in Holden’s bed than tell them the opposite—that for the past couple of hours I’d been curled up on a plastic couch in the St. George’s dorm lobby, roused only when the security guard had shaken me and demanded to see my student ID—and then tossed me out like an orphan when he learned I had none.
Kai hadn’t been in touch at all. I felt unbearably dumb.
“Tell me about your night.” Mom spooned out the cocoa mix. “Starting with, what’s Drew’s fiancée like?”
“She’s okay.”
“Oh? Just okay?” Mom added the boiling water while Dad found a pack of campfire marshmallows in the cupboard and landed one in each mug. We slouched around the kitchen table as we had a thousand times before.
“She’s the best Drew could hope for.” My hot mug felt good in my cold hands, and I hunched down to let the steam bathe my face. “Listen, I’m glad you both waited up for me, because I need to talk to you about something.” I sipped slowly, aware of their unsettled silence. “I think I need to start driving again.”
My parents were wearing coordinating pajamas. Probably not on purpose, but it seemed too coincidental to be pure chance. Mom’s were moss-green flowers on a butter-yellow background, and Dad’s were butter-yellow with moss piping. They looked like people from one of those comfort-living catalogs that sell pj’s along with wind chimes and chenille throw rugs. Mom and Dad had been married forever, and it was hard to imagine what they’d been before they morphed like cookies in the oven into this warm, sweet pair. Yet they were incomplete without me; I was their Everything. I sometimes felt like each hug came with their assertion in my ear:
“Ember, you are everything we dreamed you’d be!”
“Ember, we love you more than life itself!”
It had always been a weight on me. A loving weight, but heavy anyhow.
And it made conversations like this extra hard. I could feel both my parents’ instant, snap-to-it attention at my mention of driving, and I’d have bet anything they’d been wrestling endlessly with this topic in private for a while now, of how I hadn’t expressed any desire to drive since I’d come home.
“See, because I think the longer I go without driving,” I continued, “the harder it will be for me when I do.”
“Absolutely! If you think you’re ready! Let’s get you back in the saddle!” Dad’s voice was loud, to cover his all-too-evident doubts.
I nodded along with him. “I’d like to take it out Saturday. If that’s okay.”
“Where are you going?” Mom was pushing a spoon around and around like a windup toy in her cocoa. Hydration was not helping her on this one. “And just to point out, you’ve never handled the Prius. Wouldn’t you like me to go along with you? We could test-drive together, and work up to a big trip.”
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad plan. Mom had taught me to drive the first time around, and she’d be a steady presence in the passenger seat. “Sure, tomorrow would be good,” I decided. “I should probably get in some practice before Saturday.”
“Wonderful.” Mom beamed. “Does that mean you and Holden are going somewhere Saturday?”
“Uh, yeah.” It’d be easier to let them think that I was spending Saturday with Holden. Though my parents’ worry practically had tentacles. Sweet as they both were, their protective instincts were like a monster they’d expertly conjured together. I could almost see those waving arms reaching for me through the air, plucking me up, curling around to hold me in a lock, and then my parents whispering in my ear that I was their very best thing, and that I must never, never leave home again, ever.
“You and Holden! I can’t say I’m anything but glad about that!” Dad’s voice was cheerful enough to scare the neighbors.
“He’s a good guy.”
“And he must have walked you home tonight, yes?” Mom looked over her shoulder, as if half hoping that even though I’d been home alone for twenty minutes, Holden might suddenly materialize in the doorway.
I colored, half nodded. After I’d been tossed from the St. George, I’d checked my texts, only to find a smattering of notes from Smarty. Nothing from Kai, and of course there’d been no new messages from Holden. No matter how hurt he was, Holden wasn’t the type to push for extra rehashing of what had just happened between us. If I said I wanted time, then time was what he’d give me.
“So what special thing are you two doing this Saturday?”
“Not sure yet.”
“But you know that you need the car,” Mom said, arching a brow.
“Where are you going in general?” Dad squinted at me.
I was starting to squirm. I made myself stare at him directly. “We were planning to take Jolly out to the beach, if it’s not too cold.”
Dad liked that answer. They both did. They also figured I meant a day trip to Lawrence Beach, out in Rockaway, where we’d always gone as a family, and a route I had practiced on back when I’d first gotten my learner’s permit. A very smooth, safe excursion up the Belt Parkway.
I’d let them think it. Spare them the anxiety.
Kai or no Kai, a driving test had to be conquered.
Up in my bedroom, I checked my phone one last time.
One more from Smarty. Nobody else. Not that I was expecting different.
22
She Knew, and She Pitied Me
“Howdy, stranger. You should have come out last night.” Rachel had pulled up abruptly beside me as I walked down the hall. Despite Smarty’s chirpy tone, there were thunderclouds in it, a warning of her temper.
“Sorry about that. Thanks for covering for me.”
“Sure, no problem. But I also left you a few messages. Did you get those?”
“Uh-huh.” Three, to be exact. The first—hey where are you, I want to go to Floyd now. The second—just checked my text, why are you making me cover for you, are you showing up here later? The third—oookay, fielded your mom’s call, so you’re good. But you’re not coming to Floyd at all tonight, huh? Holden’s here and he looks depressed. What happened? Call me back! And then a couple of missed calls.
“But you didn’t answer any of them.” Rachel was waiting for an explanation that made sense.
