“Not cool,” Stella said when I called and told her about the letter and the conversation with Connor’s mom. “So he just never went back to school? After we saw him at the marina? He totally lied to you. So not cool.”
Again, I thought, but I did not say this. “But did you hear what I said about the letter?” I asked her. “It was so sweet and also he seemed so . . . pained.”
“Read it to me,” she said.
I was on my bed, picking at my blue comforter. I hated blue now. Everything about it. “No, Stella, that would be a betrayal.”
“You’re kidding, right? You have got to be kidding.”
“No! I’m surprised you are asking me. You’re so, I don’t know, moral.”
“The guy has sex with you and doesn’t call you. He says he’s doing one thing and he does another. He’s a liar. I think morality is sort of out the door now.”
I was silent. “I just don’t think it’s like that. Or only like that.”
“Your call.”
“Stella,” I said.
“What?”
“Come on. Don’t be mad.” Just then Frog jumped from her rock into her water. Plop.
“Sure,” she said. “Not mad. The guy’s an asshole.”
“I need to tell you,” I said. “What happened.”
“There’s more?” she asked me.
“So much more.”
“How could there possibly be more?”
“Not sure you’ll think he’s less of an asshole, but here goes. . . .”
So. I told Stella the story. About the Thing. Everything about it. It felt so good, this . . . unburdening. And I realized then that I really wanted to see how she saw it, from what slant of refracted Stella prism light.
When I was done with the story, the story of Connor, Stella was silent. “Wow. Well, it explains a lot,” she said. “Here I thought he was just this sort of angel taking care of you and showing up for you and doing all the right things until he started doing the wrong ones.”
“Well. He was that. He is that.”
“Yes and no.”
“Yes.”
“Hey,” said Stella. “Thank you for telling me all this.”
“I haven’t told anyone. Not even my sister. No one. Do not repeat, okay?”
“Of course not. Of course not. I’m just trying to process everything. Explains a lot but doesn’t make it all better, does it? All it does is make it more complicated.”
“Yes,” I said. “That is what I’m saying. That has been the problem, all along.”
“So complicated.”
“I mean,” I said, “do you think Connor is a bad person?”
“I don’t even know what that means. What does being a bad person actually entail? I don’t know him. It definitely seems like he did a bad thing. That is not really up for debate.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
“Do good people do bad things? All the time,” Stella said.
“Anyway, with all this”—I shrugged, like I was shaking off the conversation—“can you please tell me something now? Something important? So I don’t feel like the asshole always talking, never listening.” So I don’t feel like Nora, I thought. Please don’t let me be a version of Nora, the one without the Brit vocab and fake accent.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m good at listening.”
“No, I need you to tell me something. Something important. So we can be a little equal.”
“How to choose,” Stella said.
“Choose,” I said.
“Okay.”
I was silent.
“Okay, here goes. So Jared?”
“Yes! Jared!”
“He’s a senior at Penn,” she said. I wished I could have seen Stella’s face right then. Like if she was proud or ashamed of this fact.
“Wow. Old man.” I laughed.
“Well, I knew him from DC. When I was a freshman, I used to go see shows a lot. Downtown.”
“Really. That’s insane.” Just so cool. When I was a freshman, I was still making Shrinky Dinks with my mother.
“Well. I was just so angry. My parents were getting divorced. No one noticed me and I would sneak out, and the music, that kind of screaming and stuff, it helped me,” she said. “I never drank or did drugs or anything like that. It was really the music for me. Like I needed it.”
“You are amazing,” I said. “How you know yourself. And how you do what you need to.”
“Jared hung out there too. 9:30. Velvet Lounge. U Street. He went to Wilson.”
“Teen dream,” I said. I guess it was kind of mean. But it was so calculated cool. So.
“Not exactly. We started going out when I was fourteen. And he was eighteen.”
“And you stayed together for so long. That’s kind of amazing, Stella.” I picked up David B’s God’s eye. I held it up to the light. A talisman.
“Actually, it was statutory rape.”
“Wow. I was not expecting that.” I put down the God’s eye and went to my bed. “Did he rape you?”
“Well, legally, right? Look, I’m not saying I felt raped. I was totally into him and into it and complicit, but legally, that’s what it is. And it’s illegal for a reason. I mean, what did I know when I was fourteen? I was like some weird fucking child bride.”
“Totally. I totally see what you mean.”
“We went out my whole high school career. And I kept it this secret. From my parents, from friends. You went off for a night. I would go for whole weekends. I lied all the time. I never did anything in high school. No football game or school play or mock trial or science club. I was always with Jared, wherever he wanted me to be,” she said. “And when he wasn’t around, I was just studying and reading and playing guitar and writing in my diary about my parents’ hateful divorce. That’s why my grades are so awesome.”
“That’s crazy! I mean, I just had no idea,” I said.
“How could you? You never know what’s up with anyone, do you? I mean, how would you know? I would have to tell you. And you would have to tell me.”
“Are you going to press charges?” I asked. Was that even the way you said it, the way you asked?
“No.”
I had thought Stella would. She’s just that way. As in justice pursuer.
“I probably should, but I think it would only be out of spite. I think if he was dating a fourteen-year-old now, I would. To protect her. But he’s dating just a regular twenty-year-old. Just another regular girl. Who isn’t me.”
“Are you crying?” I asked.
“Me? No. Why would I be crying? It’s done. It made me me. Here I am. Me. And I’m free now. Hello.”
“Hello, Stella B.” Stella. Another person I would never know if my life had just stayed on its regular course. If I was just me before, Stella would have never had a word to say to me.
“Hello, Elizabeth S. Now we know everything.”
For some bizarre reason, I pictured those paper towels at the top of the bathroom stall door, crumpled up in Stella’s hand. Here, she’d said.
“Everything,” I agreed. And I was also thinking: What could I possibly offer Stella? What could she ever possibly want from me?
“Take,” she’d said.
I wanted to give. I was just so ready to give.
Zoe had started coming to Petiquette with Greta—my mother had had it—and she and Stella and I would hang out afterward. They were both in the same grade with those same about-to-be-going concerns. But I was the link between them in their differentness and sameness. Their humanness. My sister. She was all perfect on the outside, nails pink, lip gloss, hair in a ponytail, good clogs. And I’ve already said what Stella was and was not.
Even though the only person I told about the accident, the Thing—ever—was Stella, I told Zoe everything else. It was one night when we all went to the park at Cabin John and sat out in the cold watching the dogs let out all their energy from having to sit and stay and shake everyone’s hand. All the stars. They really are the same everywhere. Just wherever you are looking up at the sky.
“And now I can’t even talk to him,” I said.
“Give it time,” Zoe said.
“I hate that expression,” I said.
“Well? Can you imagine? Connor’s parents are probably just recovering from everything,” Stella said.
“Recovering from what?” Zoe said. “I think my sister is the one who’s recovering.”
I shot Stella a warning look. Would her ethics make her speak or be quiet? I now knew her well enough to be pretty sure it was the second option.
“Don’t panic,” Stella said to me, and I didn’t know if we were talking about telling my sister the story or about Connor. “He has always come and gone. I’m not sure that’s okay in general, but it makes sense for now. Right?”
“Okay,” I said, totally panicked. I knew where he was now, that he was okay, if okay was exactly what you’d call it, but would I ever see him or hear his voice again? And forget about touching or holding.
I might not ever see him again. And in the back of my mind, I could not stop considering Mrs. Bryant’s last few words to me: how maybe everything that had happened to us was what brought us together. That it was the only thing we had.
But how do you know? Who’s to say? What makes anyone connect, click click, and what makes that connection stick? I want to know who is to say. Mrs. Bryant? Is there some kind of law or statute for that? She could be right. That there might one day be other things that brought us together with someone. Separately.
I was crying again.
Zoe had been silent. “I had no idea you were even dating him,” she said.
“Dating? I mean really, Zo.”
“Well, seeing him. I mean, I told you about what he did to Tim’s friend. Is he even, like, a good guy?”
“He is,” I said.
“But did you ask him about her?”
I had in my own way asked about her. And he had answered. He had said, once he hadn’t been very nice. “Did you not hear me about everything else?” I asked her. “Like all the wonderful stuff I just told you? And my subsequent despair?”
“She loves him,” Stella said. “You know what that’s like, right?”
Zoe grimaced. “I don’t know,” she said. “This just sounds like a mess.”
“True,” said Stella.
“Hello? Right here. I am my own person, you guys. Can we just stick with what’s at hand? He exists. It is not, should he exist or is it a good idea he exists, but he does and now I need to get back to him.”
Zoe turned to me. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Me. I’m me.”
“I think you’re awesome,” Stella said.
Zoe gave Stella a sideways look.
“Thanks,” I said.
“We have to trust you,” Stella said.
“She’s my sister!” Zoe told her.
“So trust her then,” Stella said. “You have a better idea?”
“Trust,” I repeated.
Oh, how I wish I could have.
We sat that way awhile, our legs crossed in front of us, the dogs these eerie silhouettes jumping and twisting against the sky, until the deep, deep cold of the grass chilled us all over. We stood and brushed ourselves off and let the dogs into the cars and then climbed in ourselves. Zoe turned the heat up as high as it would go. I felt the heat on my face. I waved bye to Stella B and then I looked at my sister. Zoe. We were so separate now.
“Tim got into Columbia.” She looked down at the wheel.
I didn’t know if I was supposed to cheer or boo.
She rubbed her hands together and then put both hands on the wheel. “I have no desire to go to Columbia,” she said.
“Really?”
She shook her head.
“Well, why are you applying, Zoe? There are a million places. You could practically go anywhere.”
She shook her head again. “I’m not.”
I squinted.
“I said I am but I’m not. I don’t want to be in a city. I don’t want to be scared all the time. And I want to be on my own.”
“That’s great, Zoe. That you know that about yourself, I mean.”
“I love Tim,” she said. “But it’s not a forever love.”
I didn’t say anything. How did she know that? How could anyone, even Zoe, possibly know that?
“Was he ever? I mean, did you ever feel that?”
She shook her head. “No.”
For me? Connor? Yes, yes, yes. Forever and ever and ever love.
“Then why?”
“He was like my best friend. He was what I needed but not really what I wanted.”
I looked at Zoe.
She was crying as she put the car in drive. “When did everything get so serious?” she asked. But she wasn’t just talking to me.
“I know.” I swallowed. I thought of Tim loading up my iPod. How he jumped up to help me as soon as I needed it. I was going to miss him. A lot.
My sister took a deep breath and let it out, moved the car gently out of the parking lot. “So sad and so serious,” she said, and then we were on the highway, heading home.