Has to Be Love (20 page)

I flip over another book. “Thanks.”

I want to write Rhodes and tell him I'm in “his” library. I want to FaceTime Elias so I can show him the inside of this incredible building. Instead I breathe in again. I close my eyes and listen to the sounds of people moving past me. Books being removed from shelves, slid across desks …

The whole
feel
of this place is exactly what I pictured. I picture Mom standing where I'm standing. I picture what it would be like to be able to call her and tell her how excited I am.

“There you are!” Lachelle tosses her arm over my shoulder, making me jump. “Let's blow this joint and find some grub,” she teases.

“Okay.”

I follow her, running my feet across the worn floors and breathing in the book smell. A new kind of wanting ache takes over. This time it has nothing to do with Elias or Rhodes or scars or doctors and everything to do with me.

25

As I move up the sidewalk with Lachelle, I realize it doesn't get dark here for a totally different reason than in Alaska. Too many cars, streetlights, stoplights, store lights …

Lachelle's hair is up in one of those messy updos that makes her look like she tossed her hair together, when in reality it took her like twenty minutes. Mine hangs straight around my face, and I tug my bangs forward again. Smooth my lips together. They're used to ChapStick, and the gloss feels thick and sticky.

“They're up here.” We push through a door into another narrow hallway.

Nerves dance through me. Will I stand out as the high-school kid? The scarred girl? Will I manage to fit in?
Please let me blend enough so I don't feel like an imposter.

After what feels like seconds while my feet just keep moving forward, Lachelle's dragging me through a door and into a room that's filled, but not packed with people. Cigarette smoke burns my nose, but it's not so thick it's hard to breathe.

“I'm Edgar and your host.” A guy yells over the pounding music. His shoulder-length brown hair falls forward as he does a mock bow. He holds out his hand and I take it, grateful for the dim light in his apartment.

“Clara.”

“Dude. She flew down from
Alaska.”
Lachelle grins like it's something interesting.

“Oh wow. Nice.” His brows go up. “Holy
scars,
girl. I'd love to hear that story.”

Someone's hand is on his arm, and he's being dragged backward with a smile on his round face. A group in the corner of the small living room erupts in laughter, and a guy jumps on another guy's shoulders and then snaps a picture of me and Lachelle in the doorway.

“Seriously!” She smacks his leg. “Knock it off!”

Some girl jumps between Lachelle and me, swinging an arm over each of us. “Can I get you two a drink?”

“Um …” I start but my phone vibrates in my pocket. And then again. I slide it out and slip out from under the girl's arm.

Elias.

“Hey!” I say, but the music drums into my ears too loudly to hear his response.

“I can barely hear you!” I call into the phone.

Lachelle steps next to me and points to an open window.

“Just a sec!” I yell again, wondering how these people live in an apartment building that lets them play music so loud.

“Step onto the fire escape,” Lachelle says.

Right. I ease down until I'm sitting on the windowsill and then slip my legs through the open window. All I can see from here are the building next door and several other fire-escape platforms with people sitting outside. The buildings are only a few car widths apart, and window after window shows life after life of people living in the city I've wanted to see and feel and breathe for as long as I wanted to be a writer.

The night breeze sends goose bumps across my skin.

“Clara!” Elias yells. “Can't you go somewhere quieter?”

I jump at the sound of his voice.

“Um … I'm already outside on the deck.” Which is really a fire escape, but whatever.

“Where
are
you?”

“It's just a little …”
Party.
“A few literature students.”

“I … still … why … Clara … love …”

“Elias. I can't hear you,” I yell again, my heart sinking a bit. “I wish I could share this with you.” But how could I? Even if he were here, would quiet, calm Elias understand what I love? I'd be surprised if he did.

“Never mind!” he hollers into the phone, obviously annoyed, which pinches at my chest. “Call me when it's quiet!”

“Okay!”
Crap.
I send him a quick text.

Sorry so loud. Love you. Miss you. Wish you could have come.
Even though I can't imagine Elias in this place.

I get a response almost immediately.

Love you. At work. Talk soon.

At work? Oh, right. Four-hour time difference. Four hours and a different universe.

I look back into the party. Think back on my afternoon. Scan the building next to this one and the masses of people in every direction. My cheeks hurt from smiling. Elias said we'd work it out, but how … How could we live in two worlds that are so incredibly different, both love those respective worlds, and still be two people who should be together?

I can't answer that question now, so I tuck the phone in my pocket. Lachelle reaches through the window, grabs my hand, and announces that we've decided to run through the city on a scavenger hunt. “Groups of four, and I've picked our other two, so we're good.”

I pause for a half second before remembering it was Dad's idea to send me and I've already talked to Elias, so there's no reason to even pause and wonder if it's okay that I do this or not. “You sure they want me along?” I ask.

Lachelle gives me a sideways squeeze. “Why not?”

“I'm so in.”

“She's in!” Lachelle yells as she drags me back inside.

“Grab your phones, ladies,” a guy I sort of met at the party says. “The list this time is pretty craaazy.”

And three minutes later, we're running up the streets of New York looking for a diner in hopes of snatching a picture of someone eating fries for Item 8.

I'm just here. Walking up the streets and listening to everyone vent about professors and how glad they are to have survived another semester and what they want to do with their summers … It's all so much more normal. Being here should feel like a different world with how much has felt off lately, but it doesn't—at least not in a bad way. My chest is tightened in excitement, and I'm smiling like an idiot as I listen to everyone talk, but yeah … belonging here doesn't seem like the impossible task it used to.

“You should totally be a zombie for Halloween,” one of the guys says, pointing at my face. “Pale you up a little bit and darken up those scars. Killer.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” I try to suck my smile back in because I know it doesn't look quite right, but maybe we're past that now.

“You're a friend of Rhodes?” the other guy asks. His eyes skim over my face before he looks away, which is much more what I'm used to from new people.

The memory of the kiss flashes in my mind before anything else. “I guess. Yeah.”

He snorts.
“I guess,
as in yes, or
I guess,
as in more than friends but I won't tell you?”

“I guess
as in he's my teacher right now, only my dad insists on him coming to dinner at my house, and I have a boyfriend who is not him.” All true and much safer.

The two guys laugh and high-five.

I didn't realize I could be so far away and still be me,
and
be enough for this experience. The longer looks are going to happen no matter where I am. And maybe no matter how much surgical work I put into getting my scars removed, I'll get looks. I hate it, but I at least feel like I know what I'm fighting now. I'm fighting how I react to the way people see me.

Lachelle loops her arm through mine and drags me faster across the street. Laughter bubbles up as excitement pushes me forward. Middle of the night. Students who are smart enough for the Ivy League but still know how to have fun, and a city that I don't think I'll ever get enough of.

I'm going to be making another hard decision sometime very soon.

I write and write as I sit at the airport to go home. If I'd hated New York, so many things would be so much simpler. The poem tears at me a little as I get it down, but it feels good.

Before giving myself too much time to think about what I'm doing, I send it to Rhodes. I'm Clara. A writer. I can send my poems to people who go to Columbia.

It's an odd thing to be broken

Inside. A place where most can't see.

But the cracked bits inside of me seem to be my token.

And trapped in my body, a silent plea

For wakeful hours less filled with messes,

And thoughts unhindered and laid bare.

The touch of the familiar somehow lessens

The thrill of finding my heart there.

Minutes, days, hours planned.

Wishing for guidance to overtake,

To know the place my soul should land

Before my heart finds need to break.

The mess in me and mess in him,

My soul, transparent, unfilled, and dim.

I can't be torn. I can't live half in one place and half in another. I blink and a few tears slide down my cheeks. How is it possible for me to feel even more undecided and torn apart now than before I came?

Rhodes sends back a message right away:
You knew I'd love this one. I hope you found what you were looking for in New York.

I did, I tell him.

And I'm now in the biggest mess of my life.

26

Jet lag and New York lag have me stumbling over my feet by the time Dad and I make it home. My throat is sore from dry airplane air, staying up all night with Lachelle, and trying to recount every detail for Dad on the way home.

The house feels the same. But different. I look at our wooden walls and rustic dining table and … Why does it look different? I know this place. I know the chairs. The dents. The scratches …

“I'm so glad you had fun, honey,” Dad says as he hangs up his coat. “You must be wiped.”

I am wiped, but I'm also amped.

“Sounds like you love the city every bit as much as your mom.” He gives me a small smile.

“Did she miss it?” I ask as I stare at the inside of the house—still feeling like I'm looking at it from the outside in for the first time.

Dad wanders into the kitchen. “I asked her all the time if she was sorry for marrying me instead of finishing her degree.”

“And?” I prompt as I follow.

Dad grabs me in a sideways hug. “I was always sorry for her, but she wasn't. We were happy. We were in love. And we had you.”

My heart is feeling hollowed out and unsure.

“Do you know what you want to do yet?” Dad asks. “For school?”

I shake my head, and his brow gets all wrinkled with worry.

“Okay.”

“I'm …” What am I going to do with myself? “No Rhodes for dinner?” I ask.

Dad chuckles and the worry on his face relaxes. “I figured you'd be exhausted.”

I nod once. Of course I am, but Rhodes knows New York and Lachelle and Columbia. We could talk about the chaos of the city and how it feels to wander the streets in the middle of the night … The campus library. Maybe he'd have some ideas of books I could start with. I'm tired but bursting at the seams.

“I'm gonna unpack and get stuff ready for school tomorrow.” Where I'll see Elias. Who I don't know what to do with after my weekend away.

I hoist my bag and head upstairs. My stairway isn't too different from the one in Lachelle's apartment building, but it's … I notice the scuffs on the walls and the dings in the wooden steps that I don't see when I'm here every day.

Will I end up with my own apartment in New York? One with its own dings and quirks and imperfections? I'm sure there's no way I'd get into student housing at this point—I'd have had to put my name on that list ages ago.

Am I
ready
for my own apartment? Utility bills and roommates and contracts … this fall? It feels so soon. So grown up. So faraway. Even though I was just there.

I flip open my jewelry box and stare at the ring Elias gave me. Sliding the gold band between my fingers, I wonder why he had to do this now. I can't conceive of Elias understanding any part of what I loved about my trip. I can't imagine Elias understanding why Columbia is a big deal. He'd understand the part about my mom, but would he understand why I want it for
me?

He won't understand if I go. Not really. I'm not sure if I will even. My mind is still stuck on the idea of spending a year at home first. The truth is that I still don't know what I want. I don't know how to tell if my decisions are my own or if I'm being influenced. Is that normal?

I flip the ring over in my hands again.

This is too permanent.

Lachelle talked about dropping everything to go to the Sorbonne.

Rhodes talks about traveling and being somewhere new for long enough that the newness wears off.

I want to write. I want to write everything. Read everything. And for that, I need experiences.

I want to find a way not to feel sick when people stare at my scars. I want to find a way for people to see me as something more than the scarred girl.

I flip the ring over again. It's the finality that this ring signifies … That's what's weird about this ring. Dad said that I need to feel like our love could get us through anything, and I don't feel that. I'm so uncertain. I'm so afraid that what I feel for Elias will taint everything else. If I were actually ready to get married, I'm not sure I'd care how tainted my decisions were.