The Unexpected Everything

I looked up at him, at the sunlight filtering through the trees and landing across his face, and I wanted to tell him everything I was feeling. I wanted to have someone I could talk to about this, someone who would face this—however it turned out—alongside me. But I couldn’t rely on Clark to help me, just like I couldn’t rely on my dad. Clark was leaving in just a few weeks, and I never should have let myself forget that, not for a moment. Both of them were heading out the door any minute now. I couldn’t tell Clark what I was feeling, couldn’t get used to him in my life like this, because at the end of the summer he would leave, and then I’d be truly alone.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset about this,” I said, even though I knew it wasn’t fair. “I mean, you’re going to leave in a couple weeks anyway.”

Bertie, done with his tree, started walking again, and I looked over at Clark, expecting him to be angry or hurt. But he was giving me a small, nervous smile, putting his hands in his pockets and then taking them out again. “Actually,” he said, then took a deep breath, “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Talk to me about what?”

“Me staying here.” My head snapped up, and I stared at him, pulling back against the leash harder than I needed to, sending Bertie stumbling back a few steps.

“What . . . ,” I started, then shook my head. “What do you mean? Here at the house?” As far as I’d understood it, Clark’s arrangement with his publisher has been just for the summer. I was sure of it.

“No,” Clark said. “I mean . . . not going back to Colorado. I was thinking about going to Stanwich College. Taking some classes. I e-mailed the dean about it last week. I really should be in college now anyway. And that way . . . I could stay around here.” He gave me a shy half smile, and there was such open, aching vulnerability in it that I had to force myself not to look away. “So . . . what do you think?”

He was nervous. I could hear it in his voice. A part of me wanted tell him what great news this was, let myself be happy about it. This was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? An answer to what was going to happen to us at the end of the summer?

But another part of me—a bigger part—felt myself pulling away, backing up, slamming all the doors tightly. Because it was one thing for Clark to be here for a season. But this was already the longest relationship I’d ever had. Did I really think I was going to be able to keep this up for months and months longer? I’d already managed to wreck the best friendships I’d ever had—of course I would wreck this, too. At some point he’d see who I really was, and then it would be over and I’d be worse off than I was now. So I pushed down what I was really feeling, all the hurt and hope and fear, and reached for anger instead.

“Were you even going to ask me about this?” I asked, walking a few steps away from him, pulling Bertie’s head up from where he’d been straining to get to a particular rock, knowing I wouldn’t be able to say these things if I had to look at Clark’s face.

“I . . . thought you’d be happy,” he said. “I thought the other night, when you brought it up . . .” I could hear the confusion in his voice, but I made myself push on anyway.

“Maybe I just want someone to ask me what I want, for once. Maybe I just want someone to consult me before there’s another huge change that impacts me.” I started walking faster. I was feeling reckless and angry and like I was just going to keep going down this road I was pretty sure I didn’t even want to be on.

“I thought that’s what I was doing,” Clark said, shaking his head. “I was talking to you about it.” Clark stopped walking. I stopped too, and Bertie took the opportunity to start sniffing our shoes, weaving in and around our legs. “So . . . you don’t want me to stay?” I could hear how hurt Clark was, how he wasn’t even trying to hide it, wasn’t masking his feelings and running away from them like I was.

We looked at each other, and it was very quiet, no cars on the road, just the birds in the trees, a far-off lawn mower, the dog snuffling at our feet. I could feel that we were at a threshold, that things could go different ways from here, but that a gauntlet had been thrown, and we wouldn’t, at this point, be able to go back to where we’d been twenty minutes before. That things had changed, were changing, right now. That a decision had to be made.

And even as I looked at him in the sunlight, with his face that had become so precious to me, with his kindness and his humor and his patience, with him holding his heart out to me so bravely, I felt myself backing away. Him—this—everything it would mean to continue with this was too scary. It was too much. I would hurt him in the end, and he would hurt me, much worse than either of us were hurting now. So I made myself say it, knowing that, deep down, it was probably the truth. “I don’t think it would work out.”

“What are you saying?” Clark asked, his eyes searching mine, like he could find the truth in them, find what I was really feeling behind the walls I was putting up as fast as I could.

“This was always supposed to be for the summer, right? That’s what I thought.” I looked away from him, down at Bertie, so he wouldn’t see the tears that were forming in my eyes.

“Andie, this isn’t you.”

“It is, though,” I said, fighting back the sob that was forming somewhere in the back of my throat. “Our first date?” I asked, and he nodded. “That was me. We can pretend to be different people for a few months, but . . .” I flashed to my dad, back in his work uniform like nothing had happened, like the entire summer we’d spent could just be erased. “In the end, people don’t change who they are.” I could hear the conviction in my voice as I said this, and as I looked across at Clark, I saw that he was finally starting to believe me.