Love in the Time of Cynicism (32 page)

I half-ass my way through the boring class assignment even though I know he’ll give me full credit for making an effort. It’s that kind of class. Minutes before the bell rings, I drop off the new revisions to my reply on Sullivan’s desk and wait by the door.

The bell rings and Rhett rushes past me through the crowd, hood still up, before I can get a look on him. He slows once I’m comfortable behind him, frantically hoping he’ll actually talk to me about whatever’s happening here.

He runs down a far set of stairs and I follow. When he sprints over the courtyard and across the street, I dash after him even though I can’t even run a mile. Something is so wrong here and we have to get through it.

He’s standing, facing me with the hood pulled over his forehead like it can hold back all his secrets.

I close the gap between us and stand on my toes to look in his eyes. They’re shrouded and pained and ringed in red. “What’s going on with you right now?”

Carefully, he leads my hands to the back of his neck and I pull his hood down.

My throat closes. My heart stops.

His beautiful black curls, the ones I’ve run my fingers through and longed to touch on a thousand moments of us, are gone. They’ve been replaced by a shorn scalp of patchy bristles. It’s obvious he did the shaving job himself simply by how erratic and fitfully his hair’s been cut.

“Oh, Rhett,” I barely breathe.

Then I’ve got my arms wrapped tight around his shoulders and he loses it. Sobs wrack out of his body and this boy who has always dwarfed me is a child in my arms. We sink to our knees and I hold him up with my frail human arms. The hollowness of his raw and gut-wrenching shaking breaks my heart in shards of shattered glass until I find myself biting back tears as I hold him tight to me.

We’re there in the dying grass under the weighted gray clouds when his body finally stops convulsing against mine. I drag my fingers over the smooth and sharp ends of his barely-there hair, missing its softness under my palms and wondering what could have possessed my exuberant boyfriend to do this to himself, what else he might do if I leave him alone today.

His breaths are ragged as his low and choked voice breaks out into my ear, “Everything is wrong.”

“Tell me what happened,” I insist.

His head is on my shoulder like mine has been on his for so many days and nights.
Everything is wrong
.

“I didn’t get in at NYU.”

I pause and pull back slightly from him. “Is that what this is about? Rhett, oh my god, Rhett. That doesn’t matter. There are so many other schools and there’s so much time and I haven’t even sent my approval letter to
The New Yorker
yet-”

“No,” he cuts me off sharply. “You’re going to send them that letter and you’re going to leave because that’s what you’ve wanted to do since you’ve lived here and.”

“And you’ll come with me,” I assure, panic rising in my voice. “Come stay with me for a year and apply again. We’ll be together. It’s only November, Rhett, there are so many options.”

“I brought you something,” he says abruptly. “Because I love you.”

“Rhett, what are you…?” I can’t stop saying his name like I’m suddenly unsure how many more times I’ll get to say it.

He reaches into his back pocket and produces two things I recognize without a moment’s hesitation: the collection of Sylvia Plath poems he’s been carrying throughout our relationship and the small, leather bound poetry notebook he writes in constantly.

As he tries to hand them to me, I stop him and say, “Why now? Why don’t you wait to give these to me until you’re finished with them?”

He shrugs noncommittally as anxiety warps my chest into hard knots. I’ll admit it now. The day after I found out about Rhett’s suicide attempts, I did research. Unexpected gift-giving. Sudden, drastic changes in appearance. Swinging emotional highs and lows. The signs are here and I see them.

“Cordelia Kane,” he says like it’s a farewell, one last song he wants to sing. “You know I love you, right? You’ll always remember that?”

“No,” I protest. “I don’t. Prove you love me. Talk to me. Stay at my house tonight until this passes and everything will be clear tomorrow.”

He shrugs again and damn it I could punch him if I weren’t so wound up. “I’ve got plans.”

“Like hell you have plans.”

Then Rhett kisses me like nothing’s happening and I let him because I don’t know what else to do. “Please, my love-” those words I always adore hearing are a venomous attack against me “-let’s drop this whole thing. I’m sorry I’m such a mess sometimes and you have to deal with it.”

“Don’t be,” I whisper reverently. “I
love
you; what don’t you understand about that? Anything else that matters to me pales in comparison. Anything you need, I’ll do. Just
tell me
what you need.”

“Skip class with me. Spend the afternoon with me until your shift at Ebony’s tonight.”

I nod hesitantly because I don’t know what else to do. His amber eyes are shrouded in tears and pain and things I’ve never seen there and hope will be gone soon. What else can I do but stay with him?

I drive us to our willow tree and we sit at our bench. He plays absently with my hair and reads his poems aloud to me as if everything is okay and normal and not falling apart. But I try to convince myself things
are
normal. That maybe, if I can be enough for him today, everything really will be clearer and brighter tomorrow.

My shift at Ebony’s starts at five. At four thirty Rhett breaks the tangible tension between us and says, “My dad. He was mad about the whole NYU thing. Said I wasn’t trying hard enough. Then he told me I was holding you back, that a-” his voice falters and cracks “-good-for-nothing waste of a person like me would only hurt you and I need to focus on my work so I can do something with my fucking life.”

I rocket to an upright position and hold his bitingly cold face in my hands. “That’s bullshit and we both know it. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I love you so much.” I kiss his forehead like he does for me when I’m upset. “Come with me to my shift and back to my house. We’ll avoid your dad entirely until things calm down, okay?”

“I can’t come to your shift at Ebony’s; I have this thing for my SATs and it’s important, but I’ll drop by your house around nine?” It’s an empty promise, I know. But it’s what I have to hold on to. “Don’t worry your pretty little head over someone as useless as me.”

“Stop that,” I reprimand. “Without you, what would I be? Some washed-up suburban going to Baylor next fall to get a horrible job and waste my life. How can you be useless when you’ve shown me who I am and who I want to be?” Honestly falls from me with me tears as I look into his eyes, focused far away on the horizon because he refuses to look at me. “Without you, Rhett Tressler, there’s no me.”

Throughout my shift I’m paranoid and shaky and I spill about twelve drinks before Tracy tells me to go home early. It’s seven o’clock when I pull up outside the Tressler’s house and knock on the door. Susie answers, smiling and bright and big-haired until she sees my wide eyes. “What up, darling?”

“Is Rhett home?”

“No,” she answers, face falling, “he told me he would be with you until late.”

“Oh my god.”

I rub my stinging eyes as she goes on, “I’m sure he’ll be home soon. Sometimes he does things like this to clear his head for a few hours.”

Not in the least bit comforted by this thought, I ask, “Can you, ah, call me or something when he gets home? Like, please?” Not thinking, I pick a pen out of my bag and scribble my number hastily on her hand. “Please. I really need to talk to him as soon as possible.”

“Yeah,” she says warily, “I will.”

I nod and get back in Trent’s truck.

For the next hour and a half, I drive around town anywhere I think he might be. I even stop by Brian Ward’s house. It’s stupid, I know, expecting him to turn up when he’s obviously avoiding me, but my thoughts keep turning in horrible directions. I can’t stop images of his wrists slit in the bathtub of some motel or him hanging from an unmarked tree in the woods a hundred miles away from penetrating any other semblance of calm I might’ve had. He’s not there in Memorial Park. No sign of him at any of the places in town. I even drive about forty miles outside the city limits combing the highway for his thumb sticking out. Sky has no idea where he is but says she’s sending good thoughts my way.

The entire time, I have one of his hard rock CDs playing and my fingers are drumming nervously against the steering wheel, knuckles white and tense as I turn to sharp and too fast. My heart won’t calm and I wonder briefly how to tell if you’re having a heart attack at seventeen.

It’s eleven when I finally trudge back to my house, giving up. He’s going to turn up eventually, I promise myself. He’ll be at school tomorrow and we’ll be together and everything is going to be okay, I tell my panicky self.

“Where have you been?” Michael demands when the door slams behind me.

I’m too numb to hear it but his voice manages to break my false, adrenaline-pumped calm. “Out.” He bars me from going up the stairs and I think I might break down right there. I haven’t actually cried yet but I can feel them beginning to slip from my control. “Please leave me alone. I had an awful day and I need to get upstairs.”

“Talk to me, Del.”

“Michael!” I shriek, shrill and loud, because I know a strong reaction will make him give up on the interrogation, “Leave me
alone
for one goddamn second! Jesus!”

His hands drop and it feels like another loss on a pile of broken victories. I rush up the staircase and plug my fast-dying phone into the wall charger. No new messages.

Chapter Twenty One – Phone Calls

At one forty eight, my silent phone finally rings. The ringtone, the first song I ever heard on his dad’s radio station, belongs to Rhett and I snap to attention. Somehow, I managed to slump to sleep for a few hours, but everything falls away and the panic returns as I bring the phone to my ear.

“Rhett?”

His voice is raspy on the other end. “Cordelia Kane. Love of my life.”

Questions pour our as I listen to his battered breathing.“Are you okay? Where have you been? Where are you now because I can be there in a minute?”

I stand, turn the light on, and stand by the window as he answers, “I needed to go for a drive. I’m sorry. I love you.”

I try to be calm and reassured by this. “I love you, too. More than you’ll ever know.”

He laughs hollowly and says, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Tell me where you are and I’ll come see you.”

“There’s no point. I’m sorry, alright? Please, god…” His voice breaks and slips through the phone. “I don’t want to-” Pause. “I love you. Please forgive me.”

My stomach drops.
Oh god oh god
. No. No this can’t be happening. I yank on a sweatshirt and demand, “Where are you?”

He admits defeat with a cynical laugh, “Out on the golf course. Behind your house. I wanted to see you another time through your window. You’re beautiful, you know that?”

This compliment is a dull knife in my ribs. It’s a goodbye and I know it. Barely able to see with my glasses on, I charge out of my bedroom and fly loudly down the steps. Who cares if someone hears? There’s no thought in my mind but to get to him, to hold him and tell him it’s okay no matter what he’s done and he’ll get through it.

Michael follows me quietly and shouts, “Where the hell are you going?”

I speak into my phone, “Baby? Rhett, are you still there?”

“For now,” he answers morbidly. He’s reached the point where he doesn’t care about how much those few words kill my, the knife twisting as I say, “Stay on the line, alright? I’m almost to you. Don’t leave.
Please
don’t leave me.” I turn to Michael and say, “The golf course. I’ll be right back, I swear.”

“No!” He blocks me from the door and glares through the dark. “You have been way too irresponsible recently to leave here for some rendezvous with that snarky boyfriend of yours!”

“Please,” I beg. There are no words as my throat closes on me.

As I hold back my tears, he asks heatedly, “What’s so important out there?!”

No time to be poetic. “Michael, listen. I don’t know what’s going on with Rhett right now but it could be really bad and I swear to god if he dies I’ll be home every night for you. I’ll go to Baylor and stay in this hellhole and do everything I’m supposed to.
Please.
”

This shuts him up and he moves to the side. “Be safe.”

I sprint past him and my bare feet slide across the dewy surface of our lawn. It’s winter cold and my breath swirls around me like an omen. “Rhett?”

He speaks into my phone and I can hear his voice out loud, “Go to New York. Be happy. I love you.”

When he hangs up, I let my phone fall to the ground and race faster than myself. The country club is lit up against a starless, moonless sky. My arms are frigidly cold and impossibly hot as I rush and slip down the slick hills of the course. I’m in hysterics, hyperventilating because my lungs physically cannot get enough air until I see him. My lungs are on fire and every beat of my heart is painful until I reach him.