3 Sides to a Circle (24 page)

“Libby.”

She’s in the middle of the ice. Sprawled out like a snow angel. Not moving. Head tilted to the sky with her arms and legs spread wide, her bare feet pointed out.

I stop at the edge of the pond and call to her, but she doesn’t move.

“I’m too heavy. I’m worried I’ll break it. We have to lay down and make a chain.”

Honor drops immediately and starts to squirm her way to Libby. I’m stretched out, my stomach pressed to the ice, holding Honor’s legs as she extends herself toward Libby.

I’m terrified. I keep calling Libby’s name, but she’s not moving. I can’t even tell if her eyes are open. Honor finally reaches her and calls to me to pull them both back. The ice creaks beneath me, but I slide them over to the edge. So grateful that she’s alive that I’m crying hard.

I cradle her on the side of the pond as Honor pulls out her phone to call 911. I’m freezing so I can only imagine how Libby must be feeling. But aside from the shivering, nothing appears to be registering on her face. Her eyes blink and drift back closed. She says nothing, does
nothing. She’s a shivering rag doll in my hands and I choke on the very real fear that I’ve lost her.

By the time she’s settled and sedated in the ER, it’s almost morning. I flop on
the bed and more tears press against my eyes. I thought they’d be gone by now, but they keep flooding down my face. Finally, when I’m convinced I have nothing left, I pull myself up and call my mom.

“What’s wrong?” she answers the phone. Not hello.
Just the certainty that I need to talk to her.

The relief of
hearing her voice and the reality of her presence almost crushes me. And then I’m blubbering into the phone again, until she finally hushes me.

“Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind about this one,” she says.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“If you’re sure, I’m sure. You’re a good kid, Toby. You always have been. I’m sorry for all the mess, but I’m glad to see that something has brought out passion in you. I was worried for a bit there.”

I laugh a little. “Really?”

“Yeah. Parents always worry about their kids. But you have always been so quiet and stable. And that’s worried your pop and I a bit. It made us feel like you were floating a little through life instead of trying to figure out what makes you tick.”

“That’s kind of deep, Mom.”

She chuckles and the warmth of it spreads through me. “I know. And I haven’t even had my coffee or gotten the kids up yet.”

“I’ll let you go.”

“We love you, Toby. Always.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

And with one five-minute phone call, I know what I need to do.

Honor

A knock at the door startles me awake, and I check my phone first but I didn’t miss anything from Libby, Toby or the hospital. Nothing must be different, or maybe they don’t notify friends
, despite the nurse’s assurances that they would.

Another knock. Not Toby. Not Sawyer.

I slide a sweatshirt over my tank and open the door to come face to face with a woman several inches shorter than me and slightly older than my mother.

“Are you Honor?” the woman asks.
“I’m Libby’s mother.”

I think I nod, but I’m stunned. Libby actually came from somewhere, wasn’t just created
or plopped down on campus. “You’re Libby’s mother,” I repeat.

“
Simone.” She reaches out her hand and I take it. She looks so…
normal
.

Wait. “Is Libby…?”

“Stable.” She nods. “Severe hypothermia. It’s going to take her body a while to recover from that. And…being off her meds.”

“I’d imagine.” I’m standing in the doorway when
I realize I’m probably being rude and I step back to let her in.

Libby’s mom comes three steps into the room and freezes, her hand over her mouth. She takes in the painted ceiling.
The makeshift bed. The actual bed, which has turned into a jungle of a closet. She fingers the rhinestone border of our corkboard.

She sniffs a few times. “I begged her for pictures of her room and now I get it.” Simone sits on the bed frame as her legs shake.

“Get what?” I kneel on the mattress a few feet away, still sort of amazed this woman exists.

“That she
wouldn’t send them because she wasn’t on meds. This is manic Libby, not healthy Libby.” She begins to shake in sobs, and I don’t know what to do.

“She never talked about you, told us how to reach you. It took me pulling out everything in our closet before one of her bags had a luggage tag on it.” I’m babbling, but I’m not sure what else to do.

“I shouldn’t have let her come so far. I pleaded with her to stay home. She promised…”

“Where are you from?” I ask. If she’s had time to check in at the hospital before coming here…

“Libby grew up a couple hours from here. She begged me to let her go farther, but I asked if she’d wait a year and be closer to home. Just to see how she did.” Simone’s brown hair covers her face as she stares at her hands wrestling each other in her lap. “She doesn’t have to be her dad. She doesn’t have to be…”

I rest a hand on her shoulder as I sit next to her, having no ot
her idea what to do. Libby lives a couple hours away? That’s it? She never went home. Never talked about home, and it was that
close
?

“I’ve heard so much about you, dear. You and Toby, and how much she loves you two.” She sniffs a few times and wipes her face.

“Really?” I ask, sort of shocked that her mom knows about us when we know almost nothing of Libby’s mom.

“All about you.” Simone looks at me a bit the way my mom does. “Thank you, Honor. I can never thank you enough.”

Guilt pushes around inside me because I didn’t want to leave the dorm, and I did it more so Toby wouldn’t have to be outside alone than for Libby because I was too angry. I’m not the one who noticed Libby was slipping down, I was grateful she was quiet. That was all Toby. “You should thank Toby.”

“I will.”
Simone gives me a small smile. “Don’t feel bad. I’ve wanted to strangle that girl more than once, but she has a good heart.”

That spreads through me and makes me
understand why it was so easy to forgive her most of the time. How can you hate someone when you know there’s no meanness in them?

“I’m going to go sit with my girl, I just wanted to say thank you and that you’re welcome to come to the hospital any time. She’ll be admitted
for treatment after the hospital gets her physical body well enough. She needs a good set of doctors to get her meds straight and to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” I shake my head. And I hate that I just let those words slip out, but now it’s done and I’m not sure how she’ll take it.

“No.” Simone frowns a little. “She’s going to need someone to force her for a bit, I think. The hope is that one day she’s okay with needing her medication so she never stops taking it.
Libby
thinks that the hope is that she’ll stop taking it and one of these times it won’t matter—that she’ll be over their purpose.”

“And you don’t think that’ll happen?” I ask.

Simone shakes her head. “Her father battled being bi-polar for years before he killed himself. I just need Libby to know that her fate can be different.”

“Thank you. For stopping in.” I stand up and she stands with me.

“Thank you.”

“I won’t be here next semester,” I blurt. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” She shakes her head. “If the boy sleeping in the waiting room is any indication of how he feels, she won’t be alone.”

“Toby’s the best sort of guy.”

“And you two are not together?”

“I have someone,” I say. I think I do.
Or that I could. I just need to get this mess sorted out first.

Toby and I sit in the quiet of the library. I have no idea if he’s gone to classes today or not, but if he did, he wasn’t really there. Finals are coming up fast, and that has to be pressing in on him at least a little.

“You’ve met her mom?”

“She’s… She’s so normal and sweet.” Toby smiles a little.

“What are you going to do when she wakes up?” I ask. “Or you’re allowed to see her?”

“Tell her I love her. Lay it all out. See what happens.”

“I’m moving,” I say.

“I’m surprised, but not surprised.”

“She was good for me in ways, but I can’t take it everyday. Maybe if she gets on her meds…I don’t know. I can’t imagine not being her friend, but I can’t go back to how things were.”

“I get it.” Toby gives me a quick sideways hug, but there’s too much Libby and too much everything between us for me to understand how I was ever confused about him.

“I’m glad we’re friends.” I pause. “We are, right?”

“
Of course.” He takes my hand. “If you miss the painter, you really should fix it. It must be something pretty amazing for you to be so sad about it.”

A lump forms in my throat almost immediately. “You start dating someone because you think they’re someone you might one day be able to be in love with, but after we started dating, I thought he could be someone who could be everything. The missed chance at possibility is killing me. And so is being away from him.”

“I’m sorry, Honor.”

“I think we’re all sorry about a lot of things. This is definitely not what I expected out of my freshman year.”

Toby sighs. “Me either. But I’m glad we met.”

“Me too.” And I give Toby a hug, but it also feels almost like a goodbye. Or maybe it’s that things between all of us are going to change, and I need to find a way to be okay with that.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Toby

Libby’s finally awake.
She texted me from the hospital. No actual words, just a smiley face. Which sort of pisses me off because I will
not
let her get away with brushing this off.

I’m seething by the time I arrive, but then her face cracks open in a grin when she sees me and part of me cools off.

“Do you want to explain what happened?” I say as I sit next to her on her bed. I don’t touch her, even though I’m sort of dying to.

She shrugs. “I needed to think.”

I shake my head and the anger flares again. “So you went to lay on the fucking ice?”

“It seemed as good a place as any.” She seems so small that I almost regret what I’m about to say to her, but I know that if I’m going to be all in, we need to clear the air.

“No. You do not get to do that. You do not get to make this not a big deal when you scared the shit out of me and part of me died when I saw you on that pond.” I take her hand now and she squeezes, but she won’t look at my face. “Libby?”

A tear drops onto our entwined hands and finally she looks up. “I know it was a big deal.”

I reach to brush the tear away with my free hand. “I love you. I know that you must know this. And not just in the friend way. I love all of you. And I cannot lose you. Do you even understand that?”

She nods, but more tears come. “I’m not worthy of it.” Her chin trembles.

“You are. You’re worth everything. You make me want to be spectacular. But you need to help me. I want to take care of you. I’m in for whatever this roller coaster is, but I can’t do this alone. I can’t be the only one.”

“
What if you want to leave?”

I release her hand and c
up her face. “Listen to me. I am
not
going to leave. I’m here and I love you. But you can’t push me away. You have to take care of yourself. You have to take your meds and you have to get outside help. I’ll do everything I can, but I’m just a guy.”

She puts her hands over mine. “Why do you want to get involved with my mess?”

I smile. “Because one day of your mess is worth a lifetime of my normal. You are this beautiful amazing light and everyone wants to be around you. I want to be around you. Your energy. Your honesty. Your way of looking at the world. I’ve never known anyone like you. And I don’t want to lose that. Ever.”

“I’m scared, Toby. I’m
untethered and I’m worried I’ll float away, just like my dad.”

I drop a kiss on her forehead. “You won’t. I won’t let you. I’ll take you to your appointments and I’ll help you the best I can. I’ll make myself worth keeping. I’ll be the anchor for you.”

She laughs and then circles her arms around my neck. “Don’t you realize, you already are.”

And then her lips are on mine and I’m falling into her. Opening my mouth and tasting all of her
, and she breathes life into me and I breath life back into her and neither of us can stop kissing. She clings to me harder when I try to shift away, when my head clears long enough to know we have a lot more to talk about and figure out.