Breakaway (22 page)

The National Mall was beautiful at night. The marble buildings, grimy during daylight hours from the exhaust fumes of a million tour buses, were luminous at night under the strategically placed spotlights. The long, shallow pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument reflected shimmering points of light and echoed the distant noises of the busy D.C. streets.

Raine pulled out her phone and scrolled through her Spotify until she found a playlist that she wanted. “Volcano” by Damien Rice filled the space between us, as if filling our own private room with noise. I wasn't a big fan of his music, but it was the exact right song for the moment.

“I was at Sylvia's funeral,” Raine said suddenly, like a confession of guilt.

My face burned with embarrassment and I was glad for the darkness. If Raine had been at Sylvia's funeral, then that meant I didn't need to have told her. She saw me lose it, step back and let Mario carry the casket for me because I was too much of a pussy to do it myself.

“I didn't really know Sylvia,” Raine went on, “but there were a lot of people at the church who weren't really her friends, just people from school.”

She paused as if waiting for me to say something but I didn't speak. The ache in my gut was starting up again, not as bad as it had been in the past, but it was there.

“I'm sure you didn't even notice I was there,” Raine said.

“I didn't notice anyone,” I said dully.

“I watched you that day—at the cemetery,” she said, sounding apologetic. “You looked so … lost. So alone. I felt terrible for you. I mean, I know you have your mom and Mario and Jordan.… Anyway, I guess I felt sorry for you.”

I was too tired to work up any anger at her for giving me pity I didn't want.

“Sylvia was all my mom really cared about,” I said, more forcefully than I had meant. “She hates the shit out of my dad and I remind her of him. And now my mom wishes I had been the one to die, instead of Sylvia.” Since Sylvia's death, I had thought this many times, but it was the first time I had said it out loud to anyone.

“Don't say that,” Raine said quietly.

“Why not?” I asked. “It's the truth.”

“She's your mom. I'm sure she loves you,” she said lamely.

“I'm not saying she doesn't. I'm saying that if she had to choose, she would have picked Sylvia over me. Let's say your mom had to choose between you or your brother dying, which one of you do you think she would pick?” I asked.

“Definitely me,” she said without hesitation. Then she laughed. “God. So twisted.”

“My mom was young when she had me. Not much older than I am now,” I said though I hadn't really thought of it that way before now. “I was a mistake. An accident.”

“What about your dad? Was he at Sylvia's funeral?”

“No,” I said. “My mom would have flipped if he had shown up. Like I said, she hates him.”

“Is he awful?” Raine asked.

“He's not a bad guy. Just wasn't much of a dad. When I was a little kid it was harder. He never paid child support on time and was always blowing off his visitation times with me. Now he does all right. He sends my mom a check every month and he tries to be like a dad in his way.”

“Parents suck,” Raine said.

“Most do,” I said, nodding in agreement.

“You're a good person, Jason. You look out for Chick. He wouldn't have any real friends without you.”

Her comment sent another stab of guilt through my gut as I conjured the mental image of Chick's crestfallen face when Raine and I didn't include him in our plans.

“What about you and Mario?” Raine asked. “I never see you guys together anymore.”

“Yeah, he's so burned out, I don't have much interest in talking to him lately.”

“You're not into that? Drugs, I mean.”

“Nah. My life's fucked up enough,” I said as I sat up and brushed the dust from my hands. “I don't need to be smoked to the filter to make it worse.”

“That's too bad. About you and Mario, I mean,” she said, and she sounded like she really was sorry about it. “I had him as my lab partner last year in Chemistry. I like him.”

“Yeah,” I said because I didn't know what else to say. Mario felt lost to me, like the person I had known since first grade was a complete stranger to me now. I realized then that my whole life had been a succession of people leaving me. Eventually Raine would leave me too. I had to be careful or that would hurt me as much as anyone else leaving, if not more.

Raine was talking and I realized I hadn't heard anything she had said for the last couple minutes. When I caught up with what she was saying, she was still following the same trajectory of our conversation.

“Not that I'm so into getting drunk or anything,” she was saying, “but I figure my brain is already fucked up enough so I don't mess with drugs either.”

“You seem to me like you have your act together pretty well,” I said. “Why do you think your brain is so fucked up?”

The look she gave me was impossible to read and she didn't answer me right away. I waited patiently, and when she finally did speak she was looking off into the middle distance instead of looking at me. “My family are all crazy overachievers. My dad is a successful lawyer, a founding partner in his firm. My parents both went to Ivy League schools. For someone looking at us from the outside, we're perfect. Except for me. But even with their perfect educations, perfect careers, perfect genes, my parents still managed to have a daughter who is stupid.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked scornfully. “I know plenty of stupid people. You aren't one of them.”

“I'm dyslexic. That's why I have so much trouble with school,” she said as she lowered her chin and took up a sudden interest in picking at a hangnail. She dropped her hands back into her lap and sighed, a long, weary exhale, and said, “I've been a disappointment to my parents from the beginning.”

“I doubt that's true,” I said. “I mean, it's not like you can help having…” Awkward pause as I realized what I had been about to say.

She smiled in understanding at my hesitation. “It's okay. You can say it. A learning disability. That's what it is. It was almost impossible for me to learn to read. I still struggle sometimes, like I'm always two minutes behind everyone else. I don't know. I can't explain it.”

“Well, you play it off well. I never would have guessed you were anything other than perfect.”
Shit
. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realized I had said something stupid again. “Not that, you know, being dyslexic makes you bad or anything. You know what? I should just stop talking.”

“Yeah, that was offensive,” she said, but without any real feeling, and I could tell she wasn't really bothered by what I had said.

“When I was a kid I was always getting in trouble at school,” I said, maybe to make her feel better, maybe because I just like telling her things. “I couldn't sit still, couldn't concentrate. I was bored, I guess. Never could stay interested in one thing for very long. It drove the teachers crazy. My mom too. She took me to some special doctor and he said I was smart but that I had ADHD, was too impulsive, and offered to put me on some kind of meds. But my dad had been a big drug user and the idea of it bothered my mom. She didn't want them putting me on anything.”

“So, what did they do?” Raine asked as she sat listening patiently to my story, her hands tucked between her thighs for warmth.

“My mom sent me to some stupid camp for kids with ADHD,” I said, dimly remembering now an experience I hadn't thought about for a long time. “I think I was only there two weeks but it felt like fucking forever. The counselors would do activities with us, like hikes and shit, I suppose to give us something to do with all of our energy.” I laughed to myself. “They would take us on these hikes and each kid would get assigned a llama.”

“Wait, a what?” Raine asked with a small frown. “A llama?”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “An honest-to-God fucking llama. We had to lead them on the hike, keep them under control. Mine was the smallest but he would bite and kick and never wanted to go the direction I was trying to lead him.”

“A llama camp?” Raine said with quiet wonder. “What the hell?”

“I know,” I said, and after a beat of silence, “My llama's name was Bud.”

She laughed out loud at that. “Did it help? Were you cured?”

“I guess not,” I said with a shrug. “My mom still always told me I made her crazy. I guess I was supposed to learn something from it. Like my mom and my teachers felt the same way I did trying to manage me as I did trying to manage that fucking llama.”

“Well, it seems like you turned out okay. Maybe Bud made a big difference and you just never realized it.”

“They put labels on us to help them manage their own stress and disappointment,” I said. “I'm ADHD, you're dyslexic. We just think differently from the way most people do. It scares them.” I didn't know exactly who “they” or “them” was, but Raine knew what I meant—our parents, teachers, other old people who couldn't remember what it was like to think for themselves. “At least that doctor said I was smart, I guess. I have that going for me.”

“You are smart. Unlike me. I guess I could never be an astronaut like you,” she said with the flash of a smile in my direction. “It's true. I accept it.”

“I don't want to be a fucking astronaut,” I said as I pushed her shoulder to tell her to shut up, and she elbowed me in the ribs. “Ow,” I said, though it didn't really hurt.

“Big baby,” she said, and when she tried to dig her elbow into my ribs again I grabbed her arm and held it so she couldn't. She tried to pull away but she was laughing.

I thought about kissing her right then. Pulling her onto my lap and kissing her under the moon and stars and the stern gaze of Abraham Lincoln.

After a minute I realized I was still holding her arm, my gaze fixed on her full lower lip. I could feel her holding her breath as she waited to see what I was going to do.

I released my grip on her arm but allowed myself to give her hand a brief squeeze. “We should go,” I said.

“Really?” she asked, sounding surprised, confused, and maybe a little hurt.

“Yeah,” I said, then took in a deep breath and blew out my disappointment. “Yeah, we should go.”

 

 

On the drive home to my house I was preoccupied, thinking about what I was supposed to do when we finally said good-bye at the end of the night. Though Raine had made it clear when she asked me that this wasn't a date, I knew she had expected me to kiss her when we were at the Lincoln Memorial. She had stayed quiet for most of the ride back on the train, talking only as much as was necessary. I couldn't tell if she was mad or sad or what, and there didn't seem to be any way to ask her.

When she pulled the car up in front of my apartment building, she turned off the car headlights but didn't shut off the engine.

“I had a good time tonight,” I said as I rubbed my palms against my jeans in a nervous way, like I was trying to rub warmth into my legs, but it wasn't chilly out at all.

“Me too,” she said. “Thanks for coming with me.”

The seconds ticked by as the engine fan shifted into high gear. If it had been any other girl, I don't think I would have hesitated. Either I would have gone in for the kiss I wanted or I would have opened the door and left without another thought. With Raine I was always second-guessing myself, afraid to put too much out there and get shot down, or not say enough and let her walk away without telling her that I liked being with her.

Raine laughed softly and startled me out of my private thoughts.

“What?” I asked.

She just shook her head. “Nothing. Just … this,” she said as she gestured at the space between us with a wave of her hand. “Awkward silence.”

“Oh,” I said, and then I took the plunge. “I was just trying to decide if I should kiss you good night. Thought maybe I'd get hit again.”

“If you kiss me, I promise I won't hit you,” she said.

“Wow. That was almost … romantic,” I said. She was laughing again when I leaned over the console and put a hand on the side of her face. The kiss I gave her was quick, almost missing her mouth entirely as my lips caught just the corner of hers. But I pulled away and didn't linger on her side of the front seat.

She leaned her elbow on the door handle, her body angled toward me as she slid her left hand under her hair and raked her fingers through it in a nervous way. “The fall cotillion at the club is this weekend,” Raine said, her gaze on the windshield. “My mom organizes it so I have to go.”

“Cotillion? What's that?” I asked. She said it as if I should know, but I had never heard the word before.

“It's a dance. A really lame dance,” she said, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “Ballroom dancing.”

“Oh. I guess that does suck.”

“I was thinking—,” Raine said, and shifted in her seat so that her body was angled toward the front of the car now. “I was just going to go to the dance by myself, just see my friends there, but most of them are going with a date.”

“You saying nobody asked you to the dance?” I asked skeptically.

She didn't answer, just kept raking her fingers through her hair as she seemed to be thinking. Finally she said, “I was thinking I would ask you to go with me.”

“Does that mean you're still thinking about it?” I asked, my eyebrows raised in question. “Or are you actually asking me?”

The corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. “I guess I'm asking you. Will you go to the cotillion with me?”

“You sure about that?” I asked. “I mean, I know it wouldn't be like a date or anything,” I added quickly.