I'll Be Here Read online

  “How have you been?” He asks once we are alone.

  My answer is standard issue. “I’m fine.”

  Dustin barrels through this moment and tells me about things I haven’t asked about—his parents, classes, track. I let him talk. I let him have this time and I stay quiet. When the pizza arrives, rattling around on the waitress’ black tray, I even let him serve me a slice topped with green peppers.

  After we eat, as I dab my mouth with a paper napkin, Dustin says that he thinks that we should get back together.

  That’s exactly how he says it.

  I think we should get back together.

  Like it’s a completely normal thing to say to me.

  I am not surprised. I have seen this coming since he sat down in the booth and he smiled his sideways smile.

  “Taylor was a mistake,” Dustin tells me and he’s looking straight at me like the words mean something else.

  I just sit there and look back.

  “I miss you, Willow.” His expression sours and it hits me that maybe he does feel a bit of regret.

  I think that I should be happy. I think that I should be happier when he reaches across the table and takes my hand in his. It is warm. I think that I should feel something big. Is vindication the right term? Relief? I don’t know. I don’t feel that way. I don’t feel happy or vindicated, or like I want to start jumping around on the tabletop or running around the streets.

  I don’t know exactly what I feel but it’s not that. Maybe I’m a little sad. Not the cry-in-my-room kind of sad but still sad. Not because I miss Dustin. No, I consider that and it’s all wrong. Dustin is my past and that is not shameful, but I don’t miss him. Not anymore. I am sad because this feels like an ending. And this time it’s a real one.

  The pad of his thumb runs up and down my palm.

  “I was hoping that you would go to prom with me.” There’s an edge to his voice.

  “Prom?”

  He nods slowly and his dusty blonde hair falls forward over one eye.

  “What about the campaign posters for King and Queen all over campus for you and Taylor? Don’t you think it might be a tad awkward when you show up with someone else?”

  Dustin winces. “I don’t care about that.”

  He leans in closer and I can feel his warm breath against my face. “I miss you Willow. Trying to make prom court with Taylor was another mistake. You know how she can be. She’s obsessed with being Prom Queen and she thinks that I’m a shoo-in for King and honestly, I’m not sure if she ever really liked me like that or if—” His voice falls off and he’s looking at me so intently I can practically feel his eyes like fingers over my skin.

  “She’s just not you and the past few weeks have been one big disaster that I’m hoping we can help each other forget. We used to be so good together.”

  I sink against the back of the booth. “Did we Dustin? I’m not so sure…”

  “Willow you can’t mean that. Tonight I’ll call Taylor and—”

  Something clicks in my head and I stop him before he can go on. “Wait. Does Taylor even know that you’re here?”

  He shakes his head and glances at the waitress as she delivers a tray of steaming plates to the table in the corner. “No. I was planning on talking to her after I talked to you.”

  “God, Dustin.”

  He grips my hand tighter and his eyes plead with me. “The thing is Willow that I realize now that I should have just been happy with just you.”

  Just me? I think he means this as a compliment but it feels like a slap in the face.

  Dustin rolls his shoulders slightly and I take the opportunity to pull my hand from his. His eyes follow my fingers as they disappear under the table into my lap and I can tell that he is not expecting this. I can see by his furrowed brow and his straight-line mouth that he thought I would respond differently. I dig around my purse for a ten dollar bill.

  “You’re absolutely right Dustin. You should have been happy with just me but you weren’t and you can’t go back in time. Now it’s too little too late. Look, I’m sorry that things aren’t going well for you and Taylor,” I say, dropping the money onto the table in front of me. The bill sticks to a glob of tomato sauce. Oh well.

  “I really am, but you shouldn’t be telling me this kind of stuff. It doesn’t feel right anymore.” My eyes are on Dustin. “I don’t think that we can be friends after all.”

  Dustin’s mouth flops open. “Willow…” My name sounds like a complaint coming from him. “What is this?” He demands.

  “This,” I say, feeling a little tired, “is me leaving.”

  “Leaving?” He echoes as I stand up.

  I look down. His face is pinched.

  “Dustin, I’m not trying to get back at you or be mean. Honestly. But the thing is that you hurt me and you did it in the worst possible way. And I can forgive you and wish you the best in life and blah, blah, blah,” my fingers make curled quotations in the air, “but I can’t forget it, you know?”

  I pull the strap of my bag onto my shoulder and move out of the booth in a half-sitting, half-standing crouch.

  Dustin’s mouth moves soundlessly like he’s working out something to say but I don’t give him the chance. I turn. My hair settles around my shoulders.

  “I guess that I should have told you from the start that I have a boyfriend now and I don’t think that he’d want me to be having pizza with you.”

  And as I walk away I do feel like a girl in a movie. My heart is swelling in my chest and my feet are light on the ground. The waitress and the bar staff applaud as I move past them. Okay. Not really. But it sort of feels that way.

  EXIT LEFT.

  END SCENE.

  What we need are more people that specialize in the impossible.

  ~Theodore Roethke

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  …And I lived happily ever after.

  Okay, maybe I’m jumping the gun, but that’s how I feel today—like I’ve vanquished the horned dragon and pushed the evil queen from the highest turret of the stone castle.

  I am invincible.

  I am She-Ra, Princess of Power.

  I am woman, hear me ROAR.

  Today I am new.

  I am standing outside, under the gaze of the yellow sun. Scraggly, brown-tipped palmettos contrasting the liquid blue sky are the backdrop. Fresh, musky smelling mulch is my platform. My hands are on my hips. My neck is craning.

  Dustin and Taylor pass me as they walk into the main building before first period. Her arm is tucked between his forearm and his chest, and her mouth is moving rapidly. She wears her hair in a sideswept bun. Loose tendrils drip in front of her cat eyes. Cough syrup pink lipstick coats her lips.

  Dustin’s gaze falls on me and skips away quickly. Taylor is too preoccupied with herself to notice me, standing in the hollow where the sidewalk turns to ground and students mill about freely on the dewy earth.

  “You could tell her.” It’s Laney. She has come up beside me. Her eyes follow mine. I called her last night and told her what happened with Dustin at the restaurant. No one else knows.

  “Then you’d have your revenge.”

  I look at Laney’s profile: a slightly upturned nose, freckles on a bed of pale peach skin. Small silver earrings smile from the swell of her earlobes.

  “Maybe,” I say feeling my shoulders rise and fall automatically. “But, it seems sort of obnoxious, right?”

  The sides of Laney’s mouth lift only slightly. Small lines creep from her eyes to her hairline.

  “A little obnoxious,” she agrees. “But, she deserves it and so does he.”

  “You’re probably right, but I guess I just feel like they aren’t worth it anymore. Yes. I could tell Taylor that her boyfriend asked me to get back together with him and called her a mistake, but what’s the point? I might feel good about that for about five minutes but then I’d feel shitty all over again and...”

  The first bell sounds overhead. We turn north and begin walki
ng towards our classes.

  “And you have Alex now,” Laney finishes for me.

  I laugh. “It’s not all about Alex, but yes, I have him and the rest of this crap seems like a waste of time.”

  Laney grins big. “Good answer Willow,” she chirps over her shoulder as she turns left toward her first period class.

  I am walking alone, but a few people smile and wave along the way. Dizzy squeezes my arm as she goes by and Lance twirls me around—up off my feet into the air. He laughs. When I am back on the ground Nate comes up beside me to ask me a question about the homework that we are supposed to turn in today. Francesca, a girl from my English class pauses to tell me that she likes my shoes and asks where I got them.

  I look left and right. Nobody is whispering my name or giving me weird looks. Something bubbles inside of me and at first I barely recognize it. This is called being happy.

  Here’s what I think: it’s not about another person. It’s about liking yourself. And today I think that I’m okay.

  ***

  It is Friday, and after school I’ve agreed to work an extra day. We end up staying late for a hysterical patient and Smirna and I don’t get to our cars until the sky is turning pink and purple at the edges and the outlines of the buildings look black in silhouette.

  Mentally, I’m running through a checklist of all the things that I need to do when I get home. Shower. Definitely shave. My legs have sprouted a jungle of hair this week. Makeup. Hair. Maybe I’ll even curl it with the larger attachment on my curling iron so that it falls in those thick, rounded waves.

  I’m not even sure what time to expect Alex, but when we talked last it was Wednesday after school and he said that he wanted to take me on a “proper date,” whatever that is. I would think that a proper date includes dinner and the digital clock on the dashboard confirms that dinnertime is happening sooner rather than later.

  For the fourth time in the past ten minutes, I check my phone. No messages or missed calls. It’s a little weird that I haven’t heard from Alex, but he’d said that he would be busy for the rest of the week with school. I’ve only texted him once. I don’t want to be a nuisance. The last thing I want is for him to think that I’m one of those needy, overwhelming girls that freaks out easily.

  Tonight I’m going to ask Alex to go to my prom with me. It’s in exactly eight days. There might not be enough time to rent a tux at this point, or maybe he can’t make it down from school next weekend but I’m going to ask anyway.

  I stop at the red light at the corner of Osprey and Wilton Drive tapping the steering wheel impatiently. I have to remind myself to come to a full and complete stop at the four-way intersection at the front of my neighborhood. Inside the house my family is being crazy. Jake bought Aaron some new dancing game for the game system and now they’re all in the living room following the dance moves of four neon-clad teenagers on the television screen. Aaron is laughing. They barely notice me breaking through the front door and disappearing into the bathroom.

  Twenty-eight minutes later I’m sitting on one side of my bed staring at my phone. It looks the same as it did one minute ago. Metallic Black with a backlit screen. No messages. No missed calls. I even try calling it from the house phone to make sure that it’s all in working order. It is.

  I log onto the computer to see if there’s an email that I missed. There’s not.

  By now I’m starting to worry. I’m imagining all the things that could have happened to Alex. I picture him at the bottom of a set of concrete stairs, his neck twisted at a bizarre angle. Or trapped in the belly of a mangled mess of metal that used to be a car, his head lolling backwards, drips of reddish brown blood drying up on his cheeks.

  Outside my bedroom window, the sky is a broken charcoal grey. My empty stomach grumbles. The last thing I ate was an apple right before I got to work. That was around three this afternoon.

  I pick up my cell phone and my heart fires off rapidly. The line rings five times and then Alex’s voicemail picks up. Sorry you missed me. Leave a message. I’ll either call you back or I won’t. I end the call without leaving a message.

  Another two minutes go by and now I’m pacing an orbit around my bed. I call again determined to leave a message.

  I push my shoes off and shove them under the bed with my toes. Alex’s voicemail beeps, which is my cue to speak. I think that I can do normal if I try. “Hey, it’s Willow. Call me back.”

  Did that sound alright? I’m not sure. If Alex is hurt and he’s at the hospital and he gets his phone back from one of the nurses, what’s he going to think if he listens to his messages and all he’s got from me is one lousy, blasé message about calling me back?

  I call again. This time, I let the anxiousness seep into my voice.

  “I’m uh… I’m really worried about you. I’m sure you’re fine, but you haven’t called and I don’t know if you’re on the road or what. Just please call me back, okay? Okay.”

  ***.

  In the morning I wake up on top of the blankets, stiff from sleeping in the wrong position, my body still clothed in my “proper date” outfit, the pockets of skin under my eyes coated in mascara sludge and my lip gloss pooled crusty chunks at the corners of my mouth. At least I’m not wearing any shoes. They lay peeking out from beneath the dust ruffle of my bed exactly where I left them last night.

  My tongue tastes like melted pennies and disappointment. Leaning over the bathroom sink with my hand cupped, I take a deep drink of hot tap water and swirl it around my mouth before spitting it down the drain.

  After a quick shower, my hair dries around my shoulders in mass of tangles as I slip into a pair of worn jeans and a soft t-shirt. I don’t bother with make-up. That would be fighting a losing battle because there’s no way that concealer would even work to get rid of the dark circles that are under my eyes this morning. I am out the front door before anyone notices that I am up or gone.

  Then I’m sitting in my car at the Quick Stop on White Shell Drive. I’ve gathered my thick hair in a messy coil and secured it with a large-mouthed clip that I found beneath the passenger’s seat of my car. I also discovered a half-eaten roll of Sweetarts, a ticket stub from a bad movie that I saw last November with Taylor and Allison, and a Xeroxed diorama of a cathedral in Spain. Go figure.

  The radio plays out in the background but I’m not really listening. White Shell is a major road and cars are whooshing by even this early on a Saturday morning. It takes a dozen passing minutes for me to decide but then I’m turning the wheel and checking my mirrors and pretty soon I’m parking my car at the curb in front of Alex’s house. I don’t see his car but it could be parked by the garage which is actually hidden from the road at the back side of the house.

  On the front stoop, I hesitate, pondering the implications between ringing the doorbell and knocking. There’s a potted plant to my right that could use a little water. It’s even got one of those stained glass watering globes poking up from the dirt that’s supposed to make watering easier, but that’s dry too.

  There’s a brass knocker declaring Faber just below a crescent moon window. I lift it up and let it fall. The sound isn’t what I’d hoped for so I use my knuckles this time, knocking three rapid hollow beats against the white wood.

  I see the top of a head framed in the window, and then Brooke is opening the door and she looks surprised and sorry all at once. Her eyes are a clear blue. My gut clenches tight.

  “Is he okay?” I ask before the door is even all the way open.

  Brooke’s mouth hangs open like she is going to say something but then she doesn’t. Uncle Danny would call it “catching flies.” She reaches out for my hand and gently pulls me forward.

  “Oh, Willow honey, come in.”

  And it’s the way she says it that I know with certainty that Alex is fine and his not answering my calls or coming to my house last night has nothing to do with him falling down stairs or getting crushed in his car.

  We’re sitting in two upholstered chair
s in the familiar sunroom. I haven’t been here for nearly two years but it’s the same as I remember. Only the family photographs have been updated. The one on the mantle used to be of a twelve year old Alex proudly displaying a fish in front of his bare chest, his face triumphant, his dark hair a mess of wind, salt, and sun. Today the frame boasts a photo of the same boy, now a young man, in his graduation cap and gown. His arm rests on a low brick wall, the tassel of the cap dangles in front of eyes the color of calm water, his smile is a challenging secret for the camera.

  Brooke offers me tea. I ask for water, though I’m not sure why since I’m not at all thirsty. My skin feels too warm against the cold tempered glass that she sets in my hands. I wonder how red my face is.

  She sits back down and clears her throat. Alex looks so much like her. I can see it in the eyes and the chin and the straight nose. And the hands. This is incredibly awkward.

  “I promised Alex that I wasn’t going to get involved in this mess and I haven’t even told your mom but, Willow, I care about you and the look on your face is too much.”

  She shifts her weight and I see that the chair she’s in is a bit wobbly like the legs aren’t quite even.

  “Alex thought that he was going to have an awful week finishing up some work and studying for an exam, but on Thursday morning his professor moved the exam back and Alex decided to take advantage of it and come home early. I assume that was mostly to see you.” There’s a note of accusation in her voice. She fingers the glass in her hands.

  “So, he drove home and when he got into town, before he even came home to drop his bags off, he decided to surprise you after work.”

  At this point, Brooke is looking at me like I’m supposed to understand where this story is going. I don’t. I don’t get it. I’m confused as hell and I’m about to tell her so when all of a sudden it happens.

  I do understand.

  I do get it.

  Thursday.

  Dustin.