—9—
Meet me at home after school.
I stared at Evan’s text, wanting to smash my phone to pieces. No fucking point in secrecy anymore, was there? The raptors had found us. I’d spent the entire day in a black haze, seeing nothing but blood and bones and a trail of my own guts leading back to his classroom.
Please, he added, and something plucked sharply in my chest, a plangent, dissonant note.
I didn’t respond. I slammed my locker closed.
Hiyam was waiting behind the door.
Myocardial infarction.
“O’Malley,” she purred. “I’ve been looking for you.”
I’d had my Revelation. This could only be Reversal.
“Let’s walk,” she said.
I still had World Lit, but no one went to the last period before vacation. The building was quiet, most classes dark. My locker slam echoed too long. This place was already a tomb.
“I’ve got class,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I want to help you keep Evan Wilke from going to jail.”
My body stilled, my entire cellular metabolism pausing. Her face was flawlessly composed, those high, upward-raked cheekbones and teardrop eyes like a mask. I couldn’t read her. She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow at me and walked away.
I followed, like the stupid kid sister.
“So,” she said when I caught up, “what do you call him when you’re alone? Evan, or Mr. Wilke?”
I swallowed. Admit nothing.
She propped open a stairwell door, ushering me in. I felt like I was walking to my own execution. I leaned against the cold concrete wall, staring at the caged bulb opposite us as if it could open fire any moment.
“Up,” Hiyam said.
We climbed to the roof door, which was unlocked.
“We’re on camera,” I said.
“Didn’t stop you with Mr. Wilke.”
If I grit my teeth any harder, my face would shatter.
Freezing air blasted over us when she opened the door. The roof slates had become a diamondback of ice, slick scales twinkling in the sun. Cloudless periwinkle stretched from forever to nowhere. Hiyam went to the ledge and I followed, calculating the chance of death from a four-story drop.
She lit a cigarette. The smoke and her breath hung in the air, gossamer snakeskins.
“This is what I’ve been wondering,” she said. “Why you?”
I stood beside her, arms crossed. I wore a man’s flannel shirt and tight leggings and the cold cut right through, but I kept my chin up, refusing to cower.
“I mean,” Hiyam said, “he could have had anyone. If he took me home, I would’ve blown him in his car. Actually, I would’ve had my driver pick us up, and blown him in my father’s car.”
“So why me?” I said dryly. “Why not one of you pathetic little girls with daddy issues? Good question.”
She laughed. Her smoke scribbled arabesques that looked like the Persian alphabet.
“There’s something about you,” she said. “You don’t give a fuck. It’s kind of hot.”
“Save the flirting. You’re not my type.”
Hiyam laughed again. “Such a bitch. I like it, O’Malley. Now let me tell you how this is going to work.” She sat on the ledge. “You are going to supply me. Anything I want, any quantity, and I’ll pay street price. No haggling. My baba joon would be so disappointed if he knew I didn’t haggle.” Something hard flashed in her eyes. “In return, I won’t tell the principal or the police that you’ve been fucking Mr. Wilke. I also won’t tell them that he fucked me.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“Because that would be a felony. Since I’m seventeen.”
I uncrossed my arms and stepped toward her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that I can lie.”
“You’re insane,” I said. “It’ll never hold up. There’s no evidence.”
“Isn’t there?” she said. “Mr. Wilke has been seen in many compromising situations. Like showing up at my party. And being in a locked classroom with both of us. Which Wesley conveniently preserved on film. My baba will hire the best lawyers. His poor little girl, taken advantage of.” She laughed smoke into my face. “I see you thinking about pushing me. But you won’t. You’ll do exactly what I say. Because you belong to me now. You’re my toy.”
If there is a God, or an Allah, or anything, I thought, strike this bitch down. Please.
“This is non-negotiable,” Hiyam said. “If you work with me, it can be a mutually beneficial partnership. If you fuck me, it will be a master-slave arrangement. Up to you.”
She flicked her cigarette off the roof.
“I’ve got big plans for New Year’s. I’ll be in touch before then.”
She left me there, and I stared at the cherry burning on the wet asphalt far below, thinking, There I am. Down there. That’s me.
After a minute, the fire went out.
#
My frozen hand wouldn’t turn the key properly, but it didn’t matter. As soon as he heard me at the door, Evan opened it, took one look at me, and pulled me inside, crushing me to his chest.
“I thought you wouldn’t come,” he whispered.
It was dusk, the sky striped pink and baby blue, all gentle annihilation. I could see the gibbous moon, a milky eye peering through a pastel curtain. His apartment was dark, Christmas lights off. Tinsel glinted in the gloom like tiny cuts in the air.
I had walked there and I was chilled to the core and he took off my coat, settled me on the couch with a blanket, started water for tea. I let him fuss, trying to steel myself inside. But when he knelt before me and took my hands in his, looking up with wet eyes, I couldn’t hold it anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I said, starting to cry. “I was so careless. This is my fault.”
“We were both careless. It’s no one’s fault.”
The tea kettle whistled. He waited until my tears slowed before he got it.
Harden up, I thought. Don’t manipulate him. Do the right fucking thing, for once.
I took a few sips of hot tea and said, “Need something stronger.”
He came back with two tumblers and a bottle of Old Forester.
“I can’t believe Wesley would do this,” I said as I drank. Oak and vanilla, burning in the back of my throat.
Evan sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. He peered into the thick syrup in his glass. “I talked to him after school.”
I went still.
“I told him no matter what he thought of me, it was wrong to do this to you. You’re innocent. I’ll have other jobs, other opportunities to not fuck up fantastically, but this is your one and only senior year.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. But I think he understood.” Evan sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I think he really does care about you.”
“He’s a stalker and a traitor. He can go fuck himself.”
Evan raised his face. He looked so exhausted. He looked, for the first time, old. “Well, for what it’s worth, he promised he wouldn’t say anything.”
Not that it mattered, thanks to Hiyam.
“You know what’s been bothering me most?” Evan said. “This is a measure of how fucked up my reality is right now.”
“What?”
“Telling you to leave class.”
I swallowed, not looking at him. The fumes in my throat mellowed into burnt sugar. “I get it. I was disruptive. You had to be the teacher.”
“It felt wrong.”
It was comforting, that it had also made him uncomfortable.
I took another long sip, filling my chest with fire. When I breathed I tasted all the winter decay, the sweet rotten leaves and pulped wood that lay under the ice outside. I was suffused with a sense of things ending. Louis the pony sat on the couch beside me, and I wrapped my arms around him.
“I can’t believe I fucked this up,” I said.
So cocky. So sure of myself. Not realizing—not in a visceral, gut-twisting way—how much danger Evan was in. How could I let this happen? I should have guarded him. I should have been the one protecting him.
He kicked my foot beneath the table. “You didn’t fuck it up. We’re here, aren’t we? It sounds weird, but it’s almost relieving. We couldn’t have kept doing this, Maise. And I don’t like what it was doing to us.”
I didn’t like that he apparently agreed with Wesley. “It’s relieving that you might be fired?”
“Listen.” In the dark all I could make out was glass and shine. Moonlight filtered through the whiskey, casting eerie maple stains on the carpet. “I made a decision today. One way or another, I’m quitting.”
“What?” I said. “No.”
“Yes.” His socked feet bounced against mine. “They need a permanent sub at Carbondale Community. One of the teachers was diagnosed with cancer. Tragic, of course, but such is life. Go Terriers.”
I put my glass down. “Which class?”
“Who cares?”
“Which class?”
“Speech.”
I wrinkled my nose.
“The point is,” he said, “I won’t be your teacher anymore. No more fucked-up power imbalance. No more hiding.”
“And what, we’ll see each other on weekends? Carbondale’s like an hour from here. Your commute will suck. Why bother? You should stay and I’ll just—”
“Move in,” he said, touching my hand on the table.
Flatline.
Neither of us spoke. Then we both did at the same time.
“I know it’s kind of soon—” he said, while I said, “Are you fucking serious—”
He laughed. I didn’t.
“I am serious,” he said.
“No, you’re not. You’re insane.”
“Insanely serious.”
I stood up, Louis and the blanket slipping to the floor. I started to walk—not toward the door, necessarily; I just needed to move. Evan was up and after me in a heartbeat. He grabbed my shoulders. I wrestled away. Now I was heading for the door.
“Maise,” he said. “Wait. Please.”
I waited.
“Did I freak you out? Too much, too soon?”
“No,” I said. “Jesus. God. I don’t know.”
He stood behind me, pressed his body against mine. Slid his hands around my waist. His touch was light, tender. I could have easily stepped out of it.
He didn’t prompt me. He didn’t say teacherly things: What do you think? (This is a mistake.) What do you feel? (Terrified.) What’s the theme of this conversation? (Bad decisions.) He just held me. Supported me. Loved me.
And I started talking.
“I’m afraid,” I said to the shadows. “I’m fucking terrified. Other people know about us. Even if you leave Riverland, they can still come after you.”
“Who knows?” he said against my hair.
I shook my head, unwilling to explain. “It doesn’t matter. Even if they didn’t, I’d still be afraid.” Okay. Here it comes. Here is the hardest thing I am going to say. Be a fucking lion. One two three roar. “I love you, Evan. I know I’ve already said it a million ways, but it’s really hard for me to accept and actually say out loud like this. I love you. God, I love you, I love you, and it’s scary and overwhelming and when you say you’re quitting your job and want me to move in, I panic. Because I’ve never grown up. I’m stuck, like Peter Pan. I don’t know how to have a grown-up relationship, I don’t know how to live with someone, I don’t know how to be with you outside of this teacher-student thing, and today proved how much I fail at that. I pretend to be this person I’m not when inside I’m a scared little kid, waiting for someone to tell me it’s okay.”
He turned me around and I wouldn’t look at him. He touched my jaw.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“I’m fucking terrified. I’m just a kid inside, Evan.”
“So am I.” He stroked my hair. “Maise, so am I. Nobody knows how to be a grown-up. We’re all just pretending for each other. It takes some people their entire lives to figure out what you already know.”
Out of everything I ever learned from Evan Wilke, I think that lesson was the most important: that none of us actually grow up. We get bigger, and older, but part of us always retains that small rabbit heart, trembling furiously, secretively, with wonder and fear. There’s no irony in it. No semantics or subtext. Only red blood and green grass and silver stars.
“Don’t be afraid,” Evan said. “We’re in this together, hand in hand, against the world.”
He was holding mine, and I thought of that moment in August when we teetered a hundred feet above oblivion, my fear spread out across the night, waiting to devour me. The way I’d held his hand and laughed in its face.
“Here’s looking at you, kid,” he said.
And he kissed me.
And we lived happily ever after.
#
Until the next morning.
I woke early, told him I had errands to run, and left the warm heaven of his bed for the rough cold world outside. I didn’t mention Hiyam. How I couldn’t trust her to keep mum even if I did her bidding. How the thought of him ever having to step into a courtroom because of me made me sick. I’d put him in enough danger.
The right thing to do now was to walk away. Sever it cleanly.
I didn’t let myself think of it as the last time, or I never would’ve been able to step out the door. When Ilsa got on that plane, I don’t think she thought of it as the last time, either. We never do. If we did, the airlines would go out of business. It’s always goodbye with the mouth and until we meet again with the heart.
I walked home, my chest feeling weird, heavy and light at the same time. I stood in the living room doorway where Mom had stood homecoming night, looking at the couch. I knew I was in love with him that night, but he wouldn’t let me say it. People know their feelings much sooner than they consciously accept them.
When did you realize you were in love with me, Mr. Wilke?
Mom’s bedroom door opened soundlessly. I had years of practicing my ninja skills on her. She lay facedown on the pillow, her snore like a saw going at aged oak even through three inches of cotton. I padded over to the nightstand and picked up her phone.
Five minutes later, I had a brunch date.
#
“Pleasure to see you again, Maise,” Gary Rivero said.
I let him take my hand and squeeze. Cool bluish light fell over us, bright but heatless. The white tablecloth glowed like snow. Quinn sat at an adjacent table and nodded at me, his scalp shining through his crew-cut.
“Thanks for sending a cab,” I said.
Gary waved it off. He wore a charcoal gray suit and pink shirt today, his hair a wave of brushed metal. His seawater eyes always seemed to be smiling even when his mouth wasn’t.
“I was surprised, and delighted, to hear from you,” he said.
Silverware clinked musically across the room. Rich aromas of frying butter and bacon grease drifted from the kitchen. We’d been seated in an empty area; Gary had some understanding with the staff.
“I’ve been thinking about our talk,” I said. I knew I shouldn’t be too specific. Discussing business with these people was an art of subtlety and double-speak. “And I may have a solution to that problem you mentioned.”
“That’s fine,” Gary said, sipping his coffee. “But we can talk about that later.” He smiled, put his cup down, and peered at my face searchingly. “I’d like to know more about you, Maise.”
I stirred sugar into my cup. “What is it you’d like to know, Mr. Rivero? What I look like naked? How much it’ll cost you to sleep with me?” I tapped my spoon, set it down. “Those things are never going to happen. That’s where my boundaries are. Are we clear?”
“I don’t think you understand. If I wanted those things, they would happen, sweetheart. But I don’t. All I want is to get to know you as a person.”
I hoped he couldn’t see me swallow. I took a sip of my sugar-and-cream coffee.
“So,” he said, “let’s talk to each other like human beings. What kind of person are you?”
“Trustworthy.”
Gary’s mouth quirked wryly. “Everyone says they’re trustworthy. You may as well tell me you’re breathing.”
I thought of Wesley betraying me, the sinking weight it had left in my stomach. “In my case, it’s true. I can prove it.”
“And how is that?” Gary said, signaling for the waiter.
“By showing you I can keep a secret.” I took a breath. “I’ve been keeping a big one for the past few months. A dangerous one. It could send someone to jail.”
Gary lifted his hand again, this time to tell the waiter to back off. His eyes stayed laser-focused on me. “What secret is that, sweetheart?”
I could not believe the first person I would legitimately tell about this was a fucking druglord, but exactly which part of my life so far has been anything near normal?
“I’m having an affair with my teacher,” I said.
And I told him the whole thing. It just spilled out of me, as if I’d been waiting, dying, to tell someone, and although I was slightly horrified at myself, it felt so fucking relieving to finally get it out. This man had no actual interest in my life. It was like talking to a psychiatrist, or a priest. A blessed unburdening. I omitted Wesley and Hiyam, of course, and when I was done Gary drank his now-cold coffee and sat back with a new look in his eyes.
“I have a daughter your age,” he said. “If any man did that to her, I’d kill him.”
Some dads make threats to prove they’re doing their job of caring. In Mr. Rivero’s case, I’m pretty sure he meant it literally.
“Do you believe me now?” I said.
“Do I believe you’re trustworthy? No.” He tapped a finger on the table. “Trust is something you earn by actions, not words. But I do believe you can keep your mouth shut, and that suits me.” He signaled the waiter again, and said, “I never talk business while I’m hungry, Maise. So let’s eat.”
#
I made it through the entire day without reading Evan’s texts. But that night in bed, I felt like a million wires were hooked into my skin, pulling me in every direction. I slipped a hoodie on and climbed onto the gentle slope of the roof outside my window, laying back on the shingles, Garbage’s “Beloved Freak” on repeat in my earbuds. Ice at the base of my neck, exploding hydrogen and new galaxies being born a hundred billion miles above me.
I couldn’t risk Hiyam’s threat. It was over between us, just like that, in one apocalyptic afternoon.
My fist hit the shingles and fire shot up my nerves. I raised my hand: blood welled black in the starlight. Then I screamed at the sky, wordless, meaningless, raw animal pain, and the stars shook with light.
Fuck all of this, I thought. Fuck how I’ve lost everything good in my life. Fuck how everyone uses me, abandons me, throws me away. Fuck how I use them and abandon them because I don’t know any better.
Tonight we were supposed to be in Chicago, in the great silver city by the lake.
Fuck you, Wesley. And fuck you Mom, and fuck you Dad, and fuck you Hiyam.
Fuck you, Siobhan, for not teaching your son better.
And fuck you, Evan. Fuck you for being my teacher. Fuck you for letting me fall in love with you. Fuck you for existing.
I couldn’t lay still any longer. I stood, balancing precariously in my socks on the freezing shingles, and crept to the edge to look at the starlit yard below, a duotone landscape of blue shadow and white frost, my ghost-bodied breath swirling over the emptiness. The grass looked soft, like dark velvet. The odds of dying from a twenty-foot fall were pretty low. Why not? I thought. Why not just let go, trust the earth to catch me? Why not take the risk of getting a subdural hematoma and dying in my sleep? Sweet dreams forever, little girl.
You have a lion’s heart. You aren’t afraid to live.
Goddamn him. He was right.
I sat on the roof’s edge, my legs dangling over the yard, my heart hanging over infinity, and sang to myself and the silent night.
#
That week, I buried myself in college apps and ignored my phone. The only person I planned to answer was Gary. Evan texted, called, emailed, and on Wednesday finally showed up at the house. I walked onto the porch in my socks and pajamas and told him, without crying, that I couldn’t see him anymore. He asked in a soft, heart-breaking voice if I wanted to go talk somewhere and I declined in what might have been coherent English and closed the door. I made it all the way to my room, to my desk, shaking the whole time, before I lost it.
Wednesday and Thursday were a blur. I was a quantum haze of probability. The likeliness of a girl crying her heart out.
On Friday I broke down and walked to his apartment, but his car was gone. I waited for hours in the cold, refusing to call, at first very Serious and Stoic but eventually so bored I made snow angels and threw slushballs at his balcony. For some reason I was fixated on the idea of explaining everything to him in person. Calling seemed too needy.
This was the kind of logic I was operating on: none.
I went back Saturday morning and his car was still gone. He had to be in St. Louis.
Gary had given me a small stipend for “business expenses.” I took a cab to Carbondale and spent the day in the mall, watching the ashen, dead-eyed Christmas shoppers with my headphones on, waiting for the midnight Greyhound.
I kept falling asleep on the bus, drifting in and out of a reverie of reunion, apologizing, telling him about the blackmail, figuring out some brilliant plan where we could still be together. Mostly I focused on how it would feel to touch him again, to be held by warm solid smoke. I tried to think of his face but it was all shadow and fog. When I got off in STL I felt like I was walking on the moon, everything freezing and too bright, my body floating over the pavement. I shivered the entire taxi ride. I could see the loft lights from the street, and a huge weight rolled off of me.
Thank you, Jesus.
I ran to the elevator, my breath clouding inside the cage. My heart beat wildly as I opened the front door.
Movie cliché: I walk in on him with another woman.
Reality: I walk in on a stranger with another woman.
A guy I’d never seen before looked up at me in shock from the couch. Behind him, a woman turned away, straightening her dress.
“Oh,” I said, standing there like an idiot. “I’m sorry.”
The guy got up and moved toward me swiftly. Short, around my height. He was Asian, tanned, spiky black hair, light goatee. And totally ripped, muscle bulging beneath his tight silk shirt and jeans.
“Can I help you?” he said with strained politeness.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I was looking for Evan.”
The man frowned. “Who?”
“It’s the weekend,” I said helplessly, starting to back up. “We’re usually here. I thought—”
A light went on in the guy’s eyes. “Oh, shit. You’re Eric’s girlfriend. Right?”
I stopped backing up. In my head, every single neuron swiveled a spotlight on that word.
Eric.
“Right,” I said slowly. “Eric Wilke.”
And I heard Evan’s voice in my head saying, Now I was her only child.
The guy’s posture relaxed. “He said he was going out of town this weekend. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“We must have miscommunicated,” I said glibly, amazed at my poise when my brain was screeching with static. “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening.”
The woman came up behind the guy, touching his arm. “Park?”
“It’s okay, honey,” Asian Guy said. “Just a mix-up. This is my buddy’s girlfriend…”
He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Maise,” I said. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Come in,” he said, stepping aside. “Please. I’m Park. Jun-yeong, but everyone calls me Park. This is Kara.”
Kara, bleach-blond and tan, her boobs squeezing out of her tube dress like toothpaste, kept her eyes on me. I must have looked pitiful, shivering and bedraggled, drained from days of weeping and bone-breaking angst like some consumptive Victorian heroine, but still she stared at me as if I might run off with her boyfriend any minute.
Focus on Kara and her ridiculous boobs. Focus on anything but the horror building in me.
Park led me to the kitchen. “Cocoa,” he said, “tea, coffee? Or there’s some bourbon—” He turned around and gave me a funny look. “Are you old enough to drink?”
“Twenty-one,” I said smoothly.
Kara raised her eyebrows. Kara didn’t look much older than twenty-one herself.
“What’s your poison?” Park said.
“Tea, please.” I desperately wanted alcohol, but getting drunk around strangers was never smart.
Kara’s phone rang. She left the kitchen to answer it.
“I’m really sorry,” I told Park. My voice sounded like an answering machine, tinny and small. “I didn’t mean to ruin your evening.”
“Actually,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “let’s hope that’s a ‘friend’ who has an ‘emergency.’” He widened his eyes.
Kara called him over. He set a mug on the counter.
“Excuse me.”
I warmed my hands on the cup. My head felt like a shattered mug that had been inexpertly glued back together, and now it was leaking something scalding.
“I’ve got to go,” Kara hissed, loud enough for me to hear. “Jen’s having an emergency. And I’m not into babysitting teenagers.”
“Okay, honey. I’m sorry about this. I’ll call.”
Kissing sounds. Kara moaned—for my benefit, I thought. The door closed, and Park reappeared in the kitchen, rolling his eyes in relief.
“You don’t like your girlfriend?” I said.
“I’ve been trying to break it off for like, three weeks.”
“How long have you been seeing her?”
“Three weeks.”
I laughed, maybe too harshly.
Park poured himself a rum and Coke and sat one stool away from me. “Things going bad with you and Eric?”
God, it was like a bullet in the chest every time. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you showed up without him. And you didn’t know he’s in Chicago this weekend.”
Chicago. Chicago.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said emptily.
Park took a drink, looked at me, took another drink, and then said, “How old are you really?”
“Eighteen.”
“Shit,” he said. “High school?”
This gave me a feeling of mortal dread. “Does it matter?”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “What did you call him, when you came in?”
“Who?” I said. “Eric?” Maybe he’d forget.
“You called him something else.”
I turned to face this stranger. I could smell his cologne, hard and clean and slightly alcoholic. Despite being built like a brick shithouse, there was something innocent and soft in his face. It made me not want to lie to him.
“I called him Evan,” I said.
Park’s eyes scanned me rapidly. “Are you in trouble?”
“What trouble?”
“Are you pregnant?”
I’m pretty sure my eyebrows briefly touched the roof. “No. Jesus, what kind of question is that?”
“Sorry. Had to ask.” Park took another drink. “Did you drive up here?”
“Greyhound.”
He nodded. “Okay. It’s pretty late. I’m going to head home. I have another place downtown. You can stay here tonight.” He took his phone out. “I’ll give you my number. Just in case.”
He even made sure I had enough money to get home in the morning. So much for The Friend being “kind of a douchebag.” Another lie, I guess. When Park looked at me, there was something sad in his eyes. I refused to see it as pity.
Then I was alone in this apartment where I had fallen in love with a man who didn’t exist.
At first I curled up in bed, but I felt like I was going to vomit. So I dragged a blanket to the couch, but we’d had sex there, too. And in the bathroom, and the kitchen, and pretty much everywhere in this fucking place.
I stared to cry, standing in the middle of the loft, surrounded by memories.
No. Fuck that.
I booted the PC in the small office area. Guest login. Browser window. Google search: eric wilke westchester illinois.
His face.
A hundred different photos of him, thirtysomething, twentysomething, teensomething. Him in high school: debate team, drama club (not lying about being a nerd). College at NU (also not a lie). Then back to high school, to teach. Awards. Honors. Regional competitions. And for what? What class did he teach?
Acting.
There was no brother. Not even an identical twin. This isn’t the fucking SyFy Channel. He had been Eric. Now he was Evan.
Why? And why did he lie about it? What else had he lied about?
Where does he go on his days off and why does he sit in his car for hours, talking to himself?
Jesus, was this going to be some Silence of the Lambs shit? Did I really want to know what was eating Eric/Evan Wilke?
Yes. Of course I did.
#
I want to talk, I texted him Monday. Can I come over?
Yes. Should I pick you up?
I’ll walk.
I took my time. If following Hiyam felt like walking to my execution, this was like walking to my own funeral. When I stepped up to the coffin and peered inside, I was pretty sure I’d see the big bloody red thing currently throbbing in my chest.
There was snow on my shoes when I stood at his door, trickling into the carpet, staining it like ink. I thought of Ilsa’s letter and the ink running in the rain.
The man who opened the door had a scruffy beard, dark circles like camera lenses around his eyes, and the thousand-yard stare of a frightened little boy.
Turn around, I thought. Run. This is going to hurt. There’s no point.
I stepped inside.
Signs of depression: dishes piled in a Jenga tower in the sink; dirty glasses on the coffee table next to the empty Old Forester; the fact that he was in pajamas at two P.M. and had some kind of echidna growing on his face.
“You’re living like a slob, Eric,” I said.
He didn’t flinch. His brow furrowed, his eyes tightening into that beautiful squint. I turned away.
“I talked to Park,” I said.
“I know.”
“So let’s hear it,” I said, walking around, poking at things, tickling the garland on the Christmas tree and making it shiver with a furry sound. “Let’s hear your sob story. Should I make popcorn?”
“I want you to know something first,” he said. “I never—”
“Stop.” I spun around, staring at him with my jaw set. “Don’t soften me up. Just tell me.”
He walked toward me, palms up, pleading, so ridiculous and disheveled and heart-breaking in the cold afternoon light.
“It’s not that simple, Maise. There’s so much—”
“Let’s make it simple,” I said, crossing my arms. “Tell me why you lied about your name.”
He opened his mouth, shook his head. Swallowed. Started to speak again and stopped. God, how do you ever plan to teach a speech class? I thought.
“I didn’t lie,” he said at last. “I had it changed legally.”
“Is that why you were in court that day?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you change it?”
He swallowed again. “There’s a situation I needed to separate myself from.”
“Jesus. Stop talking in circles and just tell me—”
“I had a relationship with a student,” he said.
My arms unfolded of their own will. The ruby in my chest finally split. I stood there full of released light and blood and a hundred crimson shards.
“It was two years ago,” he said. “It was completely over when I met you. But it ended badly, and the student had some—issues with me.”
The student. The student.
“A high school girl,” I said.
“Yes.”
“How old?”
He sighed, long and deep. His shoulders had a concave, defensive arc. “Seventeen when it started. Eighteen when it ended.”
I didn’t really care about her age. I was trying to work up to the “issues.”
“What happened?”
He spoke to the floor. “She was infatuated with me. And I made a huge mistake in returning it. I kept telling myself it was just a crush, an emotional affair, that it would never go farther than that. But I was lying to myself. I let it get to the point where we could act on it, and we did. One time.”
“And someone found out?” I said, amazed by my detachment.
“No.”
“So why—” My mouth fell open. It hit me as he said it.
“She got pregnant.”
“Oh my fucking god,” I said, my voice suddenly way too loud, way too big for this sad little scene. “Do you have a kid?”
“No,” he said. “No, Maise.” He only managed to look at me in slivers of glances, like knife slashes.
“What happened to it?”
“She miscarried.”
I was going to throw up. “Jesus fuck, Evan. Eric. Whoever you fucking are.”
“I didn’t abandon her,” he said quickly. “She was eighteen when it happened and we talked it over and I told her I’d do whatever she wanted. I was ready to accept all consequences. Her parents, the school, the police, whatever. But she cut me off, and I thought that was it. I resigned. I moved away. And then she came after me. Her friends knew about it, and they tried to make my life hell. Like it wasn’t already.”
I laughed, dry and hoarse and cruel. “So you changed your name and started over here, so you could do it all over again.”
“No,” he said earnestly. “Don’t you understand? That’s why I was so careful with you. Why I kept asking your age.”
“You didn’t care about my age,” I said, spitting the words. “You just cared about not coming inside me.”
He lowered his face, his eyes closing as if he was in pain.
“God,” I said. For an insane moment I wanted to tear down the Christmas tree, rip it to shreds. Destroy something beautiful, the way a child would. “I’m so fucking stupid. I thought we had an actual connection. I thought you saw me for who I really am. I’m so fucking gullible I actually convinced myself I was special.”
“You are special,” he said softly.
“No. I’m just young.” I put my hand on an ornament, metallic red, fragile and cool as ice, and squeezed and squeezed until it popped and the shards stabbed into my skin. “You know what? You are an amazing actor. I never once doubted you were this character you’re playing.”
“I know this is a lot for you to process,” he said.
I laughed again. “It really is. Did you go see her? Is that why you were in Chicago?”
“No.”
“Why were you in Chicago? Where have you been going when you’re not with me?”
His brow wrinkled.
“Wesley saw you,” I said. “In your car. Talking to yourself.”
“He was watching me?”
“God, please. You don’t get to be offended right now.”
“I was seeing my mother,” he said, not looking at my face. “Because you made me realize I didn’t want to carry this darkness around the rest of my life.” He shook his head, still not facing me. “And Wesley was watching, and reporting to you. That’s great. That’s really normal and healthy, Maise.”
I ground the shards into my palm. “I didn’t fucking know. And you should talk about normal and healthy, Eric.”
“I think we should take some time apart. To process all of this.”
“You think I should take some time, while you sit here feeling sorry for yourself for seducing another student.”
“I didn’t know you were in school.”
I walked toward him, flinging blood-edged shards onto the carpet. “Isn’t that the first fucking thing you should’ve asked? ‘Hi, I’m a teacher and I knocked up a student. Are you in high school?’”
He looked at me now, but his face was all self-pity. “You didn’t seem that young. When I talked to you, it was like talking to someone I’d known my whole life.”
“Oh my god. Is that the same line you used on her?”
“I didn’t use any fucking line on her,” he snapped. Good, I thought. Get mad. Show me you have actual emotions beyond regret that you got caught. “She came on to me, Maise. I’m not saying it wasn’t my fault, but it wasn’t equal. Not like us. She wanted someone to adore, and I let my ego get out of control. It was a mistake. You were never a mistake.”
I didn’t want to hear any more of this. I wanted to go home.
I started for the door and he didn’t lift a finger to stop me. Didn’t even speak. I stopped with my hand on the cold knob, breathing crazily hard.
“There’s something I want you to know,” I said without turning around. “This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me. You, and all of this. You changed my life. Who I am. How I think and feel and see the world.” I breathed out through my teeth. “But to you I’m just another student you fucked. The one you didn’t knock up. I guess that’s why this was never going to work. We’re not equal.”
I slammed his door behind me the way I’d wanted to in class. Somehow I made it down the stairs without falling or throwing myself down them, through the door without punching the glass out, to my room and my bed without harming myself or others, and then I felt something stinging my hand and looked down at the mess of red glitter and bloody splinters in my palm, and I finally started crying.
#
Black days. Days when I stayed up until four, five in the morning, slept till afternoon, got up only to exhaust myself enough to sleep again, dozing in and out until dawn. I did not want to be awake. Awake meant crying like a baby, a pathetic quivering puddle of saltwater and skin. Wesleypedia once told me that the heart and brain are 73% water. Even our bones are full of it. It made sense, then, why I couldn’t stop fucking crying. My body was made from this stuff. Hydrogen, the same thing stars burned to shine, smashing atoms together until they fused in a brilliant burst of light, the same thing it felt like my heart was doing to the water inside me.
#
On New Year’s Eve, Hiyam sent her driver to pick me up. In her bedroom, surrounded by peach satin and white wicker and the virginal flora of girl perfume, I sold her an 8-ball for two C’s. She said I was robbing her until I watched her do a line off a hand mirror, her eyes switching on like lightbulbs, bright and empty. Hollow glass.
“Fuck me. Oh, fuck me.” She sat back, laughing. “God, O’Malley. Get me more.”
I went home and slept through the turning of the year.
On the first day of second semester, I stood outside Room 209 with Hiyam and a few other kids while the third period bell rang. The class was dark, the door locked. A note taped to it read:
Film Studies has been discontinued. Please see your guidance counselor for course reassignment.
Hiyam raised an eyebrow at me, smirking. In an alternate universe, I pushed her off the roof.
After school, I went to his apartment. His car wasn’t in the lot. His name had been scraped off the mailbox. No Christmas lights on his balcony.
He was gone.
I walked home in a daze, so out of it I didn’t even notice what was sitting on the doormat until I accidentally kicked it.
Louis, the sad little pony, looking at me dolefully with his too-human eyes.
I picked him up and sank to my knees, hugging him to my chest.