11
We hung out the next day. And the next. You get the picture. Caution had officially been thrown to the summer winds. On Wednesday we walked the pier again and watched an old man rant to a flock of seagulls about the cruel ways of the world, on Thursday we went to Rita’s Italian Ice and sat on a bench with an Orange Dream while I filled Cooper in on my work drama, and on Saturday he took me on a real, actual date, to a hokey but cute Mexican place near my town’s main strip of bars. He got food poisoning halfway through and had to go home and puke all night, but still, Summer Johnson was being taken on dates – that was a thing that was happening. Score!
Four days with Cooper faded into a week. The last of late spring was exploding into summer, and my depressed little town was off to the races. The sidewalks clogged with tourists, the restaurants and bars filled with local surfers trying to wash the ocean out of their mouths with cheeseburgers and craft beers, and the beaches overflowed with sunbathers trying to worship the ball of fire in the sky. Surprisingly I never got sick of Cooper or found anything wrong with him, like I’d usually done whenever I’d liked someone in the past, just to kill the relationship before it had the chance to kill me. Hey, you just smiled at me and you’re cute and normal and in no way unacceptable in any discernible form – time to friendzone myself and/or run for my life! I called it the 10/90 rule: you know how after you charge your phone, the first ten percent of your battery life is strong and glorious and it fades so slowly you think it’s gonna last forever, but then once it hits 89% it starts plummeting faster and faster and before you know it, you’re at two percent and you’re having an anxiety attack looking for a charger? That’s how my precious two flirtations had gone: spark, explode, and then slowly fizzle out. I’d notice the guys losing interest and then decide they were messy eaters, notice they were rude to waiters, whatever, and then push them away to keep them from eventually leaving me and breaking my heart. Then I’d curl back into myself to keep myself cold and alone and safe and sound.
But with Cooper I found this urge slowly falling away like an iceberg sliding into the sea. I liked him so much it terrified me, actually. We didn’t do anything, like, physical just yet, and it’s not like we hung out 24/7, either – we both maintained our separate lives – but it was good to have someone on my team. And soon I found myself sinking into his world like I’d only sunken into books. He was so interesting, and it was really nice to hangout with someone who was just so…cool. Shockingly, we never ran out of things to talk about. We spoke of life and food and health and Saviour and what scared us and what made us feel alive. We also talked about Funfetti cake. He knew so much about so many random topics, too. At the Mexican place that night, pre-vomit, I mentioned how my uncle lived in California, and Cooper looks up and goes “Did you know that if California broke away from the States and became its own country, it would have the fourth largest economy in the world?” I couldn’t stop giggling. I mean, who even knew things like that?
So, side note: during one of my mom’s more dramatic episodes a few years back, she claimed she’d gone colorblind and had demanded that I drive her to church, since she “wouldn’t be able to read the stop signs.” In reality she was fine and just didn’t really feel like driving that day, but I mention this because it was like Cooper was disability blind. He liked me. He seemed to really, actually like me. I was dumbfounded in the best way.
And speaking of Shelly: one evening Cooper accidentally met her while picking me up after work, which was nerve wracking for obvious reasons. I swore he was just a friend, but I could see the skepticism in her eyes. He literally could not have been sweeter, though. Shelly was a little icy and closed-up at first, as she always was around my guy friends, but Cooper wore her down quickly. By the end of the visit, she was shoving food down his throat and giving him even more to take home to his mother, whom Shelly demanded to meet and befriend ASAP. Since I didn’t want my quickly-evolving double life to get even more complicated, I rushed us out the door and bid her off. He was mine, at least for now.
~
One night towards mid-April I walked to the Ocean Avenue beach access after work to watch Cooper surf. Although it was a little boring to sit there on the beach and watch him bob up and down amongst all the other dots also bobbing up and down waiting for waves, I thought it was really cool that he had a “thing.” Most people didn’t have a “thing,” you know? And he was really good, by the way. When I got super bored I took out my iPad and halfway watched a seagull trying to pull out a crab that was burrowing into the sand. Even though the waves were getting closer, about to sweep the crab away, the bird stayed put and tried to get what it wanted. But I never saw if it was successful or not, because Cooper suddenly plopped down on the sand next to me.
“Looks like we might have to get out here soon,” he said, pointing at the gathering storm over our shoulders. I tensed up at having him so close to me – being next to him was still so hard sometimes – but I was trying.
“I wouldn’t mind the rain,” I said. “Actually, the beach when it’s raining is probably my favorite place in the world.”
He grimaced. “Really? Why?”
“I don’t know. Because it’s deserted, and nobody can see me.”
He thought for a second. I could tell he didn’t really know what to say.
“Gotcha. What were you writing?”
“Nothing,” I said as I hid my iPad under my shirt.
“No, really, what was it?”
“Um, this might sound weird,” I said, “but I know this girl named Kim who has spina bifida, and I heard she’s been really down lately because she’s single and stuff, and I was just writing her a Facebook message telling her that she looked pretty in her recent pictures, and that we should get together soon. But it wasn’t a charity message or anything – I genuinely do like her. She’s sweet.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised,” Cooper sighed. “You make me feel like shit just by being you.”
“Welcome to my world,” I said under my breath. “But anyway, what happened? Why’d you come in from surfing?”
“Got bored,” he said.
“Why? You’re, like, really good.”
“Thanks, but I hate it.”
“Surfing? Why?”
“I just don’t like it. I mean, I’ll do it, but I think it’s boring, and I’d rather be fishing. I usually only surf to hangout with my childhood best friend, Kevin, actually. He’s a big surfer around these parts, and it’s all he does. He’s sponsored and everything.”
“Oh. Cool. Where is he?”
“He left, he’s gotta go on a date. With someone named Jeff,” he added with a glance at me. “Is that, like, cool with you?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Some people think it’s weird, or whatever. But our families are super close and he’s been like a brother to me since I could remember. Or a sister, I guess, come to think of it.”
“Too bad I didn’t get to meet him,” I laughed.
“It’s fine. You’ll get a lot more chances. And plus, this just gives me more time alone with you.” He leaned against my leg and then got serious. “Oh, and I have something for you.”
Soon he produced a crumpled-up paper from his backpack, smoothed it out, and placed it on my towel. I picked it up to find a photo of a gorgeous teenaged girl with red hair and striking hazel eyes.
“Yeah?” I asked as I held it. “She’s cute. Who is it?”
“You just read her book for the sixteenth time,” he said, and I jumped a bit. The most remarkable thing about Saviour was that nobody had a clue what she looked like. She went everywhere in elaborate bejeweled masks from Paris fashion houses, and her true appearance had been a mystery ever since her first album two years ago.
“Wait, what? Saviour’s face is nowhere. Where did you…?”
“It wasn’t easy – I spent all day at the library,” he smiled, “but the reference computers proved useful. Turns out she won an international poetry contest in New York when she was thirteen, and I found this somewhere in a competition log.”
I didn’t know what to say. “This is amazing, Cooper, but…why?”
He bit the inside of his cheek, brown eyes burning. “To show you the subjectivity of beauty,” he said. “A mask can make a beautiful face invisible, and beauty can make a scar invisible. It’s all just a bunch of beautiful bullshit if you ask me.”
I just stared at him.
“And also, I wanted to see her face, too,” he blushed. “Hiding in plain sight these days is a pretty admirable feat.”
“Agreed,” I said when I could talk again. “By the way, I have something for you, too. Are you done surfing?”
“I guess. Why?”
I reached into the Publix shopping bag I’d brought and carefully took out the Tupperware box containing the mini-Funfetti cake I’d baked for his mother earlier that day. I was a little nervous and didn’t want him to think I was like, weird or stalkery or anything, and so I didn’t know how he’d take it, but for some reason a tear squeezed out of his eye.
“It’s for your mom,” I said as he took the pan. “You mentioned how tomorrow was her birthday, and I just wanted to make sure she had a good one, and…yeah. Hope I’m not overstepping any boundaries or anything.”
“You are,” he whispered, “but not the ones you’re thinking of.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He just stared down at the cake. “God, this was really nice of you, Summer. My mom’s been really depressed ever since getting stuck in the wheelchair, and she doesn’t really have any friends anymore since none of them knew how to deal with the whole MS thing, and, well…”
He grabbed my head and planted a kiss on my bangs. “Your heart is as big as the ocean we live on, Summer. I am very glad I met you. And for the record, my birthday’s in March, as you know, and I like Key Lime Pie – any cooking activities on my behalf would be greatly appreciated.” He sniffled and shook his head. “And enough serious stuff. Tell me about your day at work, why don’t you? I absolutely must hear more about this crazy boss of yours!”
~
Not all sailing was smooth, though. About a week later I discovered I had the day off from work and decided to indulge in Morning Movies, my favorite past time, to clear my rip-roaring head. For some reason I just really liked the movie theater in the mornings, when everything was cold and empty and sterile. I went at 10:40, but at that time they were only showing the most depressing movie ever, some weepie about a WWII bride who got left alone at home while her man went off to fight, and I had no choice but to watch it. And in the end it turned out being way worse than depressing: it was just totally unrealistic and full of stupid clichés, and it even made me mad for some reason. All the bride did was sit around waiting for her man. Why were some women so desperate? Did someone left alone really have to lose their identity? And, like, falling in love was dangerous. Why would this girl just hand over her heart to someone who was about to leave? Didn’t she know how stupid that was?
And why on Earth had I agreed to watch this movie in the first place, again?
One line in particular toward the end of the movie chilled me to the bone. “And in the end,” the bride whispered at her groom’s body as it lay in the casket upon returning home, “I suppose the only way to find happiness is to risk total destruction.”
I shivered the whole way home.
That night I settled into a game of Scrabble with my mom and Chase on the dirty living room carpet. Hanging out with the two of them had always been a little awkward – it was usually either just me and Chase, or Chase and my mother. It’d been this way ever since his second birthday, when we’d both burst into his room early in the morning to sing him the birthday song and give him a donut. After taking the donut, he said, “Thank you, Mommy, love you,” pushed Shelly aside, and reached for me instead.
She didn’t get out of bed for a week.
To escape the awkwardness I sneakily took out my phone and started scrolling through Facebook. Misty the Pen Thief was shouting about her engagement again, sharing every single detail about her meetings with her party planners and her latest dates with her fiancé. He looked miserable in every picture, and if I didn’t know them I would’ve guessed they were on the rocks, or at least well on the way there. But like Saviour had said, I guess the truth didn’t matter as long as the lie was pretty enough. Look at my love! all her posts seemed to shout, regardless of what they actually said on the surface. Look at this man love me! I am so much better than all of you bitches!
I was preparing to send a gossipy message to Autumn trashing Misty the Pen Thief to shreds when Cooper texted the following:
I want to continue this text conversation, but I’m going to eat, and I want a companion. I’ll text you the address. Meet me there, if you are so inclined. Let’s redo my Night of A Thousand Trips to The Bathroom before I die of embarrassment.
I smiled, bit my lip, and then drifted into a fog of Battle Bride-related anxiety.
It’s been four minutes, he said four minutes later, apparently. Four minutes is an ETERNITY in texting time. Yes or no?
I told myself to chill. First, I was lying to him, and our whole relationship – or whatever this was – was based on that lie, no matter how much fun I was having. And the second reason was a slightly more classic one: I wanted to impress him by coming off as impossibly busy and nonchalant. Because I really liked him. This could be something, really something, and I didn’t want him to think I was some Debbie Desperado who crazily waited by my phone all day for him to text me and invite me out. His next text came soon after:
I had a bad day and I really need to hangout with someone. Please?!?!?
“So I’ve been thinking about things we can do this summer,” Shelly said while passing out supplies. She was still mad at me from this morning, when she’d caught me watching Maury in the Florida room. “I will not have the Devil’s work under my roof!” she’d said while wrestling the remote from me. “If you want to watch this trash, you can go find your own house!”
“But Shelly,” I’d said with wide eyes, “without reality shows, how else am I supposed to be reminded that there are people out there who are worse-off than me? I may have a broken throat and a leaky stomach, but at least I’m not twerking on a soundstage somewhere in Connecticut because I’ve just discovered my child’s actual paternal lineage!”
She gave me a funny look, but only for a second. “Twerk somewhere else,” she finally said while marching into the kitchen, the safe sounds of Kathie Lee Gifford now flowing from the flat screen. “This is a Methodist home.”
“So,” she said, back in the present, “what about an Amelia Island weekend? You love all those antique shops. Or maybe Universal Studios? I hear they have some new rides, and the drive isn’t too long. You can stay with your dad, and I’ll get a hotel.”
I motioned at Chase, who was still oblivious as to Operation 80/20, and did a throat-cutting motion. “Those are nice offers, but you do remember what I said about wanting to be normal, right?”
“That is normal. How is wanting to spend time with my only daughter not normal?”
Cooper texted yet again, and I started to get nervous.
“Look, Shelly, that sounds great, but let’s continue this another time,” I said as I got up, which took more effort than usual for some reason.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Out with…?”
I picked at my shirt. “With a friend.”
“Does this friend happen to possess a Y chromosome?”
“Yes, Shelly, he is a guy.”
“I knew it! Your skin is all pink and blushy and your eyes aren’t focusing on anything. Who is he? What’s going on? Is it that boy from the other day, the one you said was a friend?”
I tried to scoff, but no sound would come out.
“You’re crazy,” I finally said. “The only thing I’m falling in love with is Funfetti cake. I’ll be home later. See ya.”
“But I never said the word love,” she said darkly, and I froze. Before she could turn it into too much of a drama, though, I turned back and smiled.
“Oops. Brain fart. Gotta go. Bye!”
“So, what was on our agenda tonight?” Cooper asked after dinner, which consisted of steak for him and a tube of milk discreetly pumped into my stomach during a trip to the bathroom for me. The restaurant Cooper had chosen, Salt Life, was quiet and deserted, so thankfully nobody had walked in on me.
“Our agenda?”
“You and me,” he said, like our hanging out was a foregone conclusion. “Us.”
“Oh,” I blushed, “I, um, I didn’t have any-”
“God,” he said quietly.
“God, what?”
“God, it just feels good to see your face, after today.”
“Oh.” And then: “What was your bad day about, anyway? You never did tell me.”
“Just stuff with my mom, I don’t know,” he sighed. “She gets depressed sometimes, and it gets hard.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” He just stared at me. “That color looks so good on you, by the way.”
“Thanks, weirdo,” I said. “And tonight?” I chewed on my lower lip and gave myself a chance to turn him down and save him from me and my dubious fate. I failed.
“Well, I was gonna watch this hideous Netflix romance, but I don’t have anyone to sufficiently mock it with. Care to join?”
“Hmm,” he said. “How hideous?”
“Pretty hideous. I’ve seen it before. The couple meets after the girl trips on a puppy and helplessly falls into his arms. Drama ensues.”
“How much drama?”
“I remember seeing tears fifteen minutes into the movie.”
“Hmm,” he repeated. “Any horrible clichés yet, besides what you just said?”
“The main character is a bright young writer named Lola who works at a fashion magazine called Flaunt and wants to expand her horizons and get serious about her career.”
“Yep,” he nodded, “only dogs and celebrity babies are named Lola, and writers haven’t been paid to write in a decade. I would know. Sounds bad enough. I’ll follow you home – you’re worth the drive. Hopefully this movie won’t kill me with its cheesiness, because this night has already been amazing.”
I felt my face slacken with horror.
“What is it?”
“No-nothing,” I stammered, trying to recover myself. “Just please don’t joke about death with me, okay?”
“You got it,” he said a little suspiciously, as he got his box of leftovers and headed to his car. I let him follow me home in the humid night, the word unclimbable ringing in my head in an endlessly hellish chorus all the while.
~
I snuck him into my bedroom through the back porch to keep from dealing with my mother. The movie was just awful; a total hate-watch. Actually, you know when you hate something so much that you watch it just to make fun of it, but it’s so frustrating it just ends up making you even madder than before? It was one of those. It starred Kate Hudson or Katherine Heigl or whoever, and it started out with the spunky blonde heroine tripping over a leaf or a book or something and falling directly into the arms of a scruffy male lead with a name like Josh Trent or Trent Josh or Trosh Jent or whatever. After some affable banter and maybe a few coffee dates with the female lead’s adorably zany best friend named Zoe or Roxy tagging along as third wheel, they fell in love. Eventually they hit some road block, but just some cutesy problem that could be wrapped up in a bow, not a real-life issue like a demanding career or families that didn’t mesh well or, you know, an incurable medical condition or something. It ended with the couple coming to their senses and quitting their jobs and running towards each other on the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset, Josh Trent giving up literally everything to chase down the object of his love.
“Why do all these endings have to be happy?” Cooper asked as the credits – which were of course pink – started to roll. “Why do all the movies end with the couple running off into the sunset? That’s so boring. Where are the sad stories? That’s why I like Saviour, you know. Life isn’t neat, it’s dirty. I like to be reminded that fucked up stuff exists. It gives me…feelings. Doesn’t feeling stuff, even if it’s bad, make you remember that you’re…I don’t know, alive?”
“Agreed,” I said, trying to roll away from him in a way that was not awkward. “You have no idea how much I agree, actually. Let’s make a pact: no more rom-coms ever again. If there is a cupcake, a puppy, or a pastel-colored balloon on the cover, we are not watching it.”
“Deal.”
I got up to turn on the light. “And the worst thing was that they were calling each other ‘soul mates’ – that idea is just so not realistic.”
He gave me a weird look. “Wait, I didn’t say I was that cynical. You don’t believe in love?”
“I believe in love,” I said as I returned to the bed. “I just don’t believe in soul mates.”
He blinked a few times.
“Okay, well, I do believe people can find the ‘love of their lives,’ or whatever, but I don’t think that’s the same thing as a soul mate, and I don’t think that ‘thing,’ whatever it is, has to last for both of their lives.”
“Why not?”
I took a breath. “Because rarely do those people end up together. I’ve watched my mother suffer for years because of my dad. She’s still in love with him and everyone knows it. But are they together? Nope.”
“How do you know she feels that way?”
I felt my eyes track away from him. “Because when he’s on his way up from Orlando to visit me and my brother, she gets a glass of sweet tea and just sits by the window in the living room, watching for him, all day. Waiting for him to come back. It really is the saddest thing.”
A long silence filled up the space between us. “God,” he finally said. “That’s depressing. No matter what happens with us, let’s never be like that, okay?”
“Okay,” I smiled. “And sorry, I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer. My reason for not believing in soul mates is more about numbers and odds than anything – as usual.”
“Explain?”
“Okay, so, like, I look at life as a game of circumstance, right? A play at odds. There are seven billion people on Earth, I think. How many of those seven billion people do you think one human encounters in a day?”
“Hmm. If I stay in bed all day watching Netflix, zero. If I go surfing or fishing, a couple dozen. If I go to the bars, maybe a few hundred.”
“Yeah. And what about in a year?”
“Tens of thousands, maybe. Perhaps a hundred thousand.”
“And a lifetime?”
“Um. Maybe a few million or so?”
“Exactly,” I said. “And so the amount of people in the world – seven billion – divided by the amount of those people you will actually see in the world during your lifetime – a few million – is, like, so infinitesimal a number that I don’t even want to figure it out. So the whole ‘soul mate’ concept, the idea that there is one person out there who is ‘made for us’ and ‘meant to cross paths with us’ or whatever is ludicrous enough on its own, but the chance that we would actually meet that person, even if they existed? The chance that we’d share a class with them or move down the street from them or pass them on the sidewalk and spark some instant connection with them, out of so many other billions of people out there to meet? Those odds are laughable, and all those people watching romantic comedies and posting Facebook statuses about their One True Love need to eat shit.”
For one long moment he just stared at me, studying me. Finally he leaned forward and smirked, looking thought-rearrangingly gorgeous. “Here’s a number for you,” he said. “One.”
“What’s that?” I asked, and he smirked even harder.
“The number of times I need to look into your eyes to know everything you just said was bullshit.”
I gasped, totally gasped.
“But I don’t know, I kinda just think you’re too cynical for your own good,” he said soon, talking himself back from the Edge of Awkward Profundity a little. “And that’s coming from someone who listens to Saviour. From what I can tell, sometimes it’s like you mask cynicism as logic and use it as a weapon.”
“I have to,” I whispered as some strange sadness bubbled up from some chasm deep within me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. What if I had to turn cynical to protect myself? What if I had to turn all my edges in on myself and fold myself up to nothing just to defend myself from a world that seemed to have it out for me?”
He said nothing for a long while.
“You know, the world is more beautiful than that,” he finally murmured. “I don’t know what happened to you to make you like this, but I swear, goodness exists. You just have to find it.” He blinked at me and shook his head. “And who knows – maybe the soul mate concept doesn’t have to be some be-all, end-all thing like it is in the movies. Maybe the whole world is made of love, and we’re just supposed to bump into love and feed off love and contribute to love and then break off and drift somewhere else and start all over again. I mean, I fall in love with things all the time – I love books and music and beer and the sea. Maybe there are all sorts of things and people for me to fall in love with along the way, and if I do, that doesn’t mean they have to be my One and Only – maybe they’re just one wave in a sea of love.”
I saw the opportunity and jumped for it, like the crazy person I was. “…And what are your thoughts on marriage?”
He rolled his eyes. “Same as your thoughts on getting out of bed on Monday morning: it’s terrible and awful and torturous, but for some reason, people still seem to do it anyway. I said I believed in love, not the government-sanctioned version of it. And don’t look at me like that – you’d be this cynical on the issue, too, if you’d grown up watching my parents’ pathetic excuse for a marriage. I want love, sure, but that doesn’t mean I want a piece of paper to tell me I’m in love.”
“Let me read something of yours,” I said suddenly, probably to mask the disappointment sinking into my chest.
“Huh?”
“You said you’re a writer, and I wanna read something you wrote. Anything.”
His jaw clenched. “No.”
“Why?”
“It’s just embarrassing.”
“Then how do think you could ever become an author if you never let anybody read your stuff?”
“Because those people are…strangers,” he said. “And I don’t really care what they think. But you’re…you, already. You don’t understand how personal it is. Writing is like throwing your soul onto a page and then going, ‘Here, everyone, hope you love it!’ I don’t really care about that faceless audience out there, but it would crush me to not have your approval. I already think you’re the smartest person I know.”
He looked away, and my insides caved in for him. He was twenty-five and unemployed; letting his life slip by because he was too afraid to chase his dreams. And as I noticed how warm his last comment had made me feel, I realized how much I wanted to make him feel warm, too, in return, and I started thinking of ways I could do that. By looking at me the way he did every day and making me feel the way I was feeling, he was giving me a gift. But how could I give him a gift?
“You should show people,” I said. “You’re obviously very smart, and you should take advantage of that. Put your brain to work.”
“How do you know I’m not the worst writer to ever put fingers to a keyboard?” he asked, trying not to smile.
“Trust me, if you write half as well as you speak, you’ll be fine. So stop being cat shit and let me read something, you overgrown toddler.”
“And you wonder why,” he said.
“What?”
“And you wonder why I like you. You just used the phrases ‘cat shit’ and ‘overgrown toddler’ in the same sentence. You speak my language, Summer.”
He slept over. Or more accurately, I let him sleep over, which was stupid and reckless of me, because every one of these Big Relationship Steps we passed just made me fall deeper into like with him. When my work alarm jolted me awake at seven the next morning, I found him gone. And even despite it all, I felt empty and disappointed, I can’t lie. And also super embarrassed, because I always slept with my mouth hanging open and looked totally fugly, and that meant he’d seen me at my worst. Oh well.
There was a note on my desk, and when I reached over and grabbed it I laughed: Cooper’s handwriting was beyond awful. Hopefully he wrote his newspaper stories on a laptop, I noted to myself as I read, because this was damn near illegible:
It’s 2 AM and you’re too cute to mess with. I’ll let myself out. Check your mailbox when you wake up, though – I changed my mind. Just left you a little something I happened to have in my car. Nothing big. -Cooper
My whole body went numb as I finished reading. I tried to turn off my feelings, but it just wouldn’t work. Then I said a silent prayer that my mom hadn’t seen him leaving last night – as she was devoutly and irrevocably Methodist, I’d probably never hear the end of it. And because I am an impatient fool, I immediately walked out to the mailbox and found a blue folder with a story inside printed out from Microsoft Word, along with another note from Cooper:
Okay, don’t judge this too harshly – it’s a first draft. You’ll get used to my typos eventually. Hope you love it. Float on, my friend.
I put the folder under my arm and went back inside, the word “eventually” ringing in my head like the bells that sometimes chimed from my mom’s church down the street. The way he spoke about us hanging out in the future like it was a given or something was astonishing to me for some reason. No one had ever done that before. Not even close.
I tried to be cool and tell myself I’d get around to reading the story once I was free, but in reality I was free right then, and was super excited to devour it. I was kinda scared, too, that it would be terrible, and that my view of Cooper as some dark, twisted genius would be ruined forever. So as I sat down to read, I prepared to lie to him if it was bad, and keep the secret to myself.
To soothe my nerves I put on my favorite song, The Road by Saviour. And so it goes, she sang as I started reading. Just because you’re lost on life’s road / doesn’t mean you can’t find someone else to wander beside you and help lighten the load.
And from the first sentence alone, Cooper’s story blew my mind.
“We don’t get to choose how much time we get in this life, but we do get to choose how we spend it,” the story began. “And I am here today to tell you I have made all the wrong choices.”
Called Eighty Eight, the book was about a boy our age who sat around all day worrying about the future while doing nothing to help his current situation – you know, obsessing over his career and family and all that while his bills piled up on the counter, etcetera. Then one day he woke up as an eighty-eight year old man and realized he was stuck in that body for good and was going to die soon, and so he frantically ran around trying to do everything he’d planned on doing as a young man, except he was too old and frail to carry out anything on his bucket list. In the end he died with no experiences under his belt, no stamps in his passport, and nothing to show for his life, all because he’d wasted his youth stumbling through the tense fog of anxiety. The book wasn’t totally perfect, and there were some typos and clunky paragraphs he could’ve smoothed out, but the bones of greatness were absolutely there. It was only about sixty pages, but by the last sentence I was in tears. It was flat-out devastating, and it made me realize just how much I hid behind hoping for a better future instead of improving my present, telling myself I would fix it all one day and never actually fixing anything at all. In only sixty pages I had become completely attached to the old man, feeling every ounce of his heartbreak and every inch of his joy. And as I turned the last page, I just looked outside and felt empty and full and exhausted and pumped up all at the same time, but mostly I just felt hopefully heartbroken.
In the mid-morning light I saw a mom walking with her little son and their dog, and I wanted to lean out of the window and shout, What’s wrong with you freaks?! Why isn’t your world stopping? Why aren’t you heartbroken? Why aren’t you lying on the floor, broken and sobbing, because a totally fictional character in a totally made-up story is dead? I was furious that the world wasn’t broken by a story it had never read, and I wanted to gouge out my eyeballs so I could read it all over again with brand new eyes –that was the mark of a good fucking book.
After all this I found myself totally in awe of Cooper, and even more confused. Cooper was a writer to the floor of him, that was obvious. But why didn’t he know that? And how could I convince him of his talent while I still had time?
And also: why was he even thinking about these things? I’d thought I was the most morbid twenty-something to ever exist, but this book had out-doomed me in spades. Just what, exactly, had happened in his past to make him this dark? Things were starting to add up about him, and they weren’t making sense. I’d thought he could look past my scar and all that because of his mother, but now I was suspecting there could be more. Why did he act so weird in public sometimes? Why had a gorgeous boy been alone on his birthday, turning to a dating app for companionship, warning me about his internal scars?
As I closed the folder and reluctantly headed for the shower to get ready for work, I couldn’t help but ask myself: was I really the only one in this relationship who was being haunted by something?