“So I fucked it up, I watched you go. I saw my hand not dialing the phone…” It never ceases to marvel me how my iPod has such a knack for playing the songs that reflect exactly how I feel at any given time. I was even holding my cell phone in my hand, but couldn’t bring myself to call her and apologize, or even send an apologetic text message. I wanted to throw the phone full-force against the opposing wall, but I’d already lost two devices that way and I knew the insurance plan I finally bought didn’t come with Girlfriend Protection.
I turned down the iHome that sat on my bedside table and called my mother instead. She was always so full of good advice, and always willing to give it. Another Saves the Day song played in my mind. “Called my mom last night, she said ‘Sweetie, you don’t need someone who’s more fleeting than fall.’” My mom would give such advice, if Bex was, in fact, fleeting. But over the course of the past four years, Bex had been my anchor. My constant. She kept me moored and afloat at the same time. Without her the only constant was the overwhelming sense of drifting.
“Hi, honey. What’s up?” my mother’s voice filled my head and I was grateful I hadn’t gotten her voicemail. I knew how busy this season was for her at work.
“Hey Mom,” I breathed, giving her instant access to my well of miserable feelings. “I think I just needed to hear your voice.”
I could hear the smile and warmth across the distance. Whoever said cell phones were ruining the way we connect with people was full of shit. I don’t know what I’d do without the option of instant access to my mother. Maybe I was just needier than my peers. Or most high school students, for that matter. “Then I’m glad I answered,” she said warmly. “Don’t get mad if I’m wrong, but did something happen with Rebbie?”
I couldn’t help the smile that came at the mention of my ex-girlfriend’s alter-ego, Rebbie. They were essentially the same person, but I had exclusive rights to the nickname “Bex” and always used it when we were alone. To everyone else, my private Bex was known as Rebbie. Both short for Rebecca, of course.
“You guessed it. I think I really messed up this time, Mom. And the worst part is I can’t bring myself to apologize.”
Papers rustled in the background. I probably shouldn’t have bothered her at the office, but I was already feeling a bit better. She muttered something to a coworker and asked, “What do you need to apologize for?”
With a heavy sigh, I began telling my mother what had happened over the course of the past two weeks. I told her the events that had led to Bex calling me a “neurotic sociopath with sub-terrestrial self-esteem” before kicking me out of her Jeep and driving away for good. It had taken great effort to fight tears when it occurred, but I’d mulled over it so many times and relived it in my mind in the past two days that I was almost numb to the memory.
“Oh, sweetie,” she breathed. “You did mess up. God, why do you do this?”
The words stung, but only briefly. Like being snapped by a rubber band. My mother must have heard my sharp intake of breath because she continued. “I’m not angry, don’t get me wrong. I just wish… I wish she wasn’t right. But she is! I don’t know about the self-esteem part, but you can be very, well, sociopathic sometimes. And questioning her fidelity in front of her parents? Very bad call, son.”
I sighed again. “I know. I know I shouldn’t have done that. I ruined that night in a big way. It’s a good thing it wasn’t their first impression of me, but still.”
My mother moved some papers around again and I heard her desk phone ringing. I considered letting her go, but she still hadn’t told me what to do yet. “Mom?”
“Yeah, honey?” She was getting distracted by something on her end. I felt the same bleak sadness I’d felt before calling her. Bex was right about everything. She should’ve called me a Momma’s Boy as well.
“Just tell me what to do,” I breathed desperately.
It was her turn to expend a long breath. “Don’t apologize yet. If you do it now it will only perpetuate her opinion of you as a whiney, self-absorbed, self-depreciating—”
“Mom.”
“Sorry. But you get my point. You need to change those things about yourself before you try winning her back. You did a series of stupid things, Nick. Fix yourself before you try fixing things with Rebbie. I have to go, honey. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks for listening,” I muttered, trying not to take her words as offensive. “I love you.”
“I love you too, hun. Talk to you later.” The phone fell silent and I placed it reverently on the side table. I stared at the room surrounding me, and all the things that reminded me of Bex. It was overwhelming how integrated our lives had become in four years. I considered putting the music back on before it occurred to me it was Bex who had introduced me to Saves the Day in the first place.
“Damn it,” I breathed before walking into the kitchen to make myself something to eat.
“Rebbie! Come look at this!” my sister called from the next room. I paused the reality show I was watching and stood from her overstuffed leather couch. I cast another disdainful glance at my cell phone sitting on the corner of the pine coffee table. The screen still hadn’t lit with a message from Nick, and part of me was relieved. I still didn’t know whether I wanted an apology out of him, or if I owed him one for the harsh words I’d tossed his way. Not to mention abandoning the poor prick on the side of the road.
I walked down the hall and turned into my sister’s spacious master bedroom. It was easily my favorite room in the house, as she had given me unlimited funds from her husband’s credit card with which to decorate it. I found her sitting on the floor at the foot of their California king sized four-poster bed. She was sitting in a nest of old photographs. I fell to my knees beside her and leaned in to see the snapshot she was holding.
“Can you believe how madly in love you were with that doofus?” she asked with the teasing softness only a sister can produce. She handed me the picture and resumed picking through the piles of glossy and matte memories that surrounded us.
I held it by the edges, as it was a glossy and I hated nothing more than fingerprints on the surface of photos. It was a picture from my freshman year of high school. The photographer had been an amateur, that much was evident right off the bat. We were fuzzy and distant, the flash barely reaching our faces. But I quickly recognized the water buffalo-style haircut of my Homecoming date, Brent Bronson. His hair had the unfortunate color and consistency of shredded wheat, and his face was adorned with a childish dusting of light brown freckles. I took in the innocent placement of his hand on my shoulder. We looked more like cousins than a couple.
“I cannot, in fact, believe how madly in love I was with that doofus,” I laughed in response to her rhetorical question. “Look at how he’s holding me, like someone’s going to beat him if he gets fresh.”
Adrianne laughed and reminded me, “He would’ve gotten beaten. Dad took that picture, remember? He hated Brent so much because he was on the baseball team instead of the debate team.”
“I do remember! He even told him that I’d be allowed to stay an hour later if he’d forgo one practice to come to a debate!”
We both laughed at the memory of our father’s quirkiness. He was still in charge of the debate team at the high school, but a bit of the wind had come out of his sails when all his kids graduated and he was stuck with the painful new generations that followed. At every family dinner he was sure to remind us that now all the kids wanted to discuss were the dangers of texting while driving, or how the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen.
“What ever happened to Sir Water Buffalo?” my sister asked, distractedly separating the pictures into neat piles in an arc in front of her crossed legs.
I tossed the old photo back into the pile of unorganized, unsortable images. “Hell if I know. He moved away halfway through sophomore year, and we haven’t exchanged so much as an instant message since then. I am sure he came together nicely, though. He had an older brother who was absolutely gorgeous.”
Adrianne snorted. “Good looks aren’t necessarily genetic. You got the short stick in our family, remember?” She laughed and nudged me playfully. I laughed as well, knowing that we were both gorgeous, and had no reason to take such playful jabs to heart.
I stood and excused myself. I stopped in the kitchen for some Fritos, and returned to my spot on the couch. It was still warm, thankfully. I pressed play on the DVR and watched the reality mayhem unfold before me. At least it was someone else looking for a chance at “love”, and not me. As far as it applied to me, Love was a truckload of horse shit. But sure enough, I checked my phone once more before getting comfortable.
I woke two hours later to the sound of Daniel’s booming voice in the foyer of the house. “Girls! There are seven deer in the front yard! You gotta see this!” I sat up slowly and somewhat grudgingly. I swiped at my eyes to dislodge any sleep that had congealed in the corners, and pulled myself off the couch. At the top of the stairs I looked down at Daniel, who was peering out the front window. From up here, his bald spot was embarrassingly obvious, despite all his attempts at hiding it. My heart warmed for the man. All the money in the world and he still couldn’t keep his lush black locks from leaving him.
“They still out there?” I asked quietly as I began descending the stairs.
Daniel turned and looked up at me. “Yeah, I think one of them is a boy. He’s got little tiny antlers,” he mused, moving aside so I could join him at the window.
“I can’t believe they didn’t run away when you pulled in,” I whispered, watching the seven elegant creatures browse the vegetation in the front yard for something that appealed to them. I probably shouldn’t have spoken, because in the next breath, Adrianne’s rumbling Mustang GT came with a vengeance down the street, startling the deer into motion. They darted around the side of the house and were gone.
I laughed at the irony before saying, “I didn’t even know she was gone. She didn’t wake me to tell me she was leaving.”
Daniel shrugged and pulled open the front door to go greet his wife. I watched from the doorway as they kissed on the sidewalk, and as Daniel offered to help carry the groceries she had procured from the store. They walked up the sidewalk, heads bowed and voices low. I held the door for them as they came inside. They hardly acknowledged me as they made their way to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner. I closed the door quietly, but not before noticing an eighth deer standing at the edge of the front yard. Its deep chocolate eyes fixed on me.
“What are you making for dinner?” I asked as I ambled into the spacious, chrome kitchen. I rested my elbows on the granite countertops and watched as Daniel and Adrienne began their elegant waltz about the room as they prepared dinner. I loved this about them.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s better than the frozen Banquet dinner that awaits you at your house,” Daniel offered, pointing a zucchini in my direction.
Adrienne came to my defense and smacked him lightly on the rear end with a clump of some green herb I couldn’t name. “You’re eating with us,” she commanded. “I’m making veal and acorn squash. Have a seat and I’ll pour you a glass of wine.”
Part of the reason I loved visiting my sister was the unabashed wealth and luxury in which she lived. Part of it was the particular closeness we shared, and the willingness with which Daniel accepted our closeness. Another part was that I never went without offers of food and alcohol for more than a couple hours. Perhaps the biggest part of all was the fact that my own apartment was a shitty hole in the wall downtown, where the traffic and noise were unbearable, and all I had to entertain myself was a ridiculous amount of books, and a pet snake. Daniel was almost dead on with his Banquet dinner taunt. When he said it, my mind flashed to the image of my freezer, chock full of Hungry Man dinners.
I took a seat and thanked my sister when she poured me a glass of Yellowtail. I sipped it slowly, secretly wanting to get smashed, but deciding to wait until after dinner to attempt it. It wasn’t uncommon for Adrienne and I to go through a bottle or two after Daniel had gone to bed. As the alcohol danced down my tongue and into my stomach, I thought fleetingly of Nick. It was a bitter memory. We’d been drinking Yellowtail the night he made a complete ass of himself in front of my mother and father. With the next sip, I urged myself to forget about him.
“Think of all the times this jerk has fucked you up and left you down,” Adrienne said quietly, almost reverently, as she looked out at the not-so-humble lake upon which her house was situated. We were sitting on the back steps, each holding a frosty glass of tequila, blended with a little strawberry margarita mix and ice to lessen the burn of the alcohol.
I took a long pull from the beverage and placed it on the stair beside me. I crossed my arms over my knees and looked at my sister for a long time. I knew she’d just quoted Saves the Day, and for a moment I was confused. Nick and I both boasted a love for the band, but it took me a bit to recall that Adrianne was the one who had introduced me to the quartet in the first place.
“Do I have to?” I almost whispered.
Adrienne looked at me with her soft, aqua eyes. “Rebbie. It was a bad relationship. Everyone could see it but you guys.” She took a drink of her booze-soaked ice and winced the tiniest bit. I had always handled my hard liquor better than my little sister. I had always been disappointed by this, but had never told her.
“Everyone could see it?” I asked, genuinely surprised by this offering. I thought of all the occasions Nick and I had met my friends at the bar, and he had hovered around the juke box or the pool table the whole night. I thought of countless family gatherings we’d left early because he felt sick, or tired, or bored. Maybe she was right. His antisocial behavior would have been a very good indicator of a rocky relationship, had I been on the outside looking in, as opposed to submerged in it.
Adrienne kept her oceanic eyes on me and nodded very subtly. “I hate to say it, but Mom and I always worried you’d end up with him. We were this close to placing bets on whether or not you’d get married.” She paused, and started, and paused again, as if debating whether her next tidbit would be too hurtful. Apparently the alcohol had already loosened her tongue. “I would be a hundred bucks richer now if we had.” A hint of a smile touched her thin lips before she rested her glass against them again and took a drink.
I hung my head between my knees and mumbled, “It isn’t necessarily over. He could still…” I let it linger, not sure what it was Nick would have to do to mend the gaping hole in our generally holey relationship.
“Get an entirely new personality and outlook on life? Cut the goddamn umbilical cord?” my sister offered crudely.
I jerked my head in her direction. “No fair. His mom is a fantastic woman. She’s like eight times better than our mom. But don’t tell her.”
Adrianne made a gesture of zipping her lips closed and tossing the pull tab. She then opened her lips again and drank more comically red liquid. My mind jumped to a premonition image of my little sister vomiting red-stained veal chunks all over the expensive stained steps. When she’d finished and placed it loosely on the surface beneath us, I subtly took her glass and moved it to my far side, next to my own condensation-drenched drink.
“Fantastic, but she’s not strong enough to tell him to grow up.”
“She’s strong,” I argued, before asking myself why I was defending this woman. I paused and considered, knowing full well it was because for at least a few months I had been hoping she’d become my mother-in-law. Now that seemed a distant pipe dream. It wasn’t in Nick’s nature to let his pride step aside for logic, or even love. I took a long, long pull from the aggressive red spirit. When I’d finished I let out a loud, decidedly unladylike belch. Adrienne offered an air applause and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“I just want you to be happy, Rebecca. I want to see you with someone who worships you. I want you to find your Daniel.”
I smiled at the last sentence. I turned and gently kissed her downy crown. I loved how soft Adrienne’s hair was. It always smelled like fresh fruit, too. Raspberries filled my nostrils and I wrapped an arm around her crooked back. “I know,” I breathed. “Bed time.”
“I’ll get the rope from in the house, survey the scene, finding two of the tallest trees. And I’ll tie myself up above the cruel earth to dangle in the twilight.” I couldn’t resist singing along whole-heartedly with words I could so easily imagine myself acting out. I thought of myself dangling by the neck and of course wondered how Bex would react when she found out. I got a sick, selfish thrill at the image of her sobbing over my casket and considered dialing my mother again.
She hated when I talked about ending my life. She didn’t get emotional or play into my shameless inquiries about who she thought would attend my funeral service. Rather, she’d take the logical course of action. On more than one occasion she’d said, “Please, Nick. I can’t afford a funeral right now. You’ll spend eternity looking up at those hideous sheets your Aunt Hetta gave us if you off yourself now.” Not surprisingly, the idea of teal paisley resting over my eyes forever was enough to keep the rope coiled in the garage and me sulking in my room.
So I had taken to heavy drinking and video gaming, always simultaneously. I was, of course, completely useless and wretched at computer games when my mind was botched by liquor and the ever-present memories of Bex. It was just convenient to have something to do with my hands and eyes. My favorite was Tetris. I found the old-school version most comforting. If I got wasted enough I could almost revert to the time before I met Bex, when I was a pimply, lanky, obnoxious 13-year-old first discovering the wonder and amazement that was computer animated games.
I nodded my head from side to side to the electronic cover of the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies. I picked up the bottle of bitch beer from beside my couch and tipped it back. It was empty. Rather than pause the game, I set the controller on the cushion and walked unsteadily to the fridge in the kitchen. At some point between the couch and the counter, I heard the falling sound that meant I’d lost the game. Talk about an understatement. I yanked open the refrigerator door and grabbed another drink. Using the hem of my t-shirt, I untwisted the cap and let it fall to the linoleum floor. I’d pick it up in the morning.
I returned to the couch and placed the new, frosty beverage on the end table. Rather than starting another game of Tetris, I put in a racing game. When it became evident I couldn’t even keep my little hover car on the track, I turned that game off, too. The biggest downside of having the whole X Box world at my fingertips, was the presence of a little folder called “Photos”. I absentmindedly navigated to it and selected to open it. In seconds, my screen and my mind were filled with photos of Bex. Candid photos, formal photos, photos I had forgotten about over the course of the last four years. I felt my eyes well up when I came upon a gorgeous picture of Bex sitting in silhouette, the sun setting in front of her.
With one push of a button, the whole console powered down and I was left staring at the clear blue screen. No distractions anymore. Nothing to take my mind off the gaping hole where Bex belonged. I drained the bottle of lemonade-flavored malt beverage and clumsily found my way to my bed. I fell asleep and didn’t think another thing until late the next morning.
I wasn’t surprised when I woke up in a hazy cloud of penetrable pain. Everything from my hair line to my hips ached with the uncomfortable recollection of all the alcohol I’d consumed the night before. I was lying on my stomach on Adrianne’s couch, one half of my body drooping to the floor. The television was on, but the sound was muted. It was some DIY show about refinishing a deck. I groaned and groped blindly for the remote control, so I could kill the power. Even the dull hum of the electricity powering the screen was making my head throb.
I grabbed, instead, my cell phone. I pressed the number 5 several times before realizing it wasn’t the remote. My motor skills were lacking in a big way, so I switched my phone to my other hand and reached again for the remote. I found it and pressed the red power button at the top. The TV went out like a light and my head immediately felt a tiny bit better. I turned my attention to the phone in my hand, and felt my heart still when I read “1 New Message”. The tiny picture of Nick in the bottom right corner made my stomach gurgle and churn. I knew I didn’t want to see the contents of the message, but I knew I’d never forgive myself if I deleted it without first reading the words he’d taken the time to send.
“imagine the one thing you wanted from life, the thing you saw yourself doing in 50 years, your everything—was impossible. unachievable. what would you do?”
I stared at the glowing screen, my eyebrows knit together. I could feel the desperation in his words. I understood his pain, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I took a deep breath and hit “reply”. I typed out a message, something honest and inspirational. But I knew if I sent it, it would give Nick false hope. I bit my lip, re-read the message I’d just typed, and hit the “end” button. I wasn’t ready to respond to him. He wasn’t ready to hear from me. I groaned, turned over, and fell back asleep.
