These Are the Moments (14 page)

Chapter 34

Then

A great part of her wanted to quit.

The first week, she couldn’t sleep. She just lay there, wanting to fall asleep more than anything, but unable to get past the shocks of memory and what-if’s that pulsed through her. There was sleep, she knew. There had to be. But if you sleep, and your mind still feels awake, did it even count at all?

Then, there was the crying. The crying would begin in the morning and return in the night, or maybe, it was the other way around. The crying hurt. She didn’t realize how much physical effort it took to cry, when your body really got into the whole thing. The heaving. The swelling eyes and cheeks. The way your whole face felt raw.

At night, Mom would come in to check on her, and she would stroke her hair until her body calmed itself down. Sometimes, Mom would bring a cool, wet rag to fold over Wendy’s eyes. “For the swelling,” she’d say. Then Wendy pretended to fall asleep, so Mom could worry a little less.

There wasn’t much of an appetite for a little while, either. She was fairly sure she was hungry, but every suggestion sounded wrong and vomit-inducing. So she didn’t eat much. Crackers. Soup. Things you eat when you’re home with the flu.

People like to tell you what first heartaches feel like. They like to say things like
it’ll get better
and
this will feel so small in a few years
. But Wendy didn’t believe any of it, just as she was sure those same people hadn’t, either. People say hopeful or typical things because they have nothing better to say. She wished they’d say i
t’s going to hurt like hell, and there’s really no improving on that.

Then, maybe she’d believe them.

Mom and Dad didn’t say any of that stuff. Mom mothered her, but she did it in a way that didn’t make Wendy feel like
some teenager with some teenage heartbreak
. Mom would say what Wendy wanted to hear, and she would say them in a way that made sense.

“You know, he’s not okay. He’s going to be the least okay,” Mom said, one afternoon over hot tea. “He loves you. And going away won’t change that. Being away from you has never changed that.”

Wendy’s eyes pooled with tears. Early onset today.

“This isn’t the end. It’s not even close,” Mom said.

Wendy nodded. In some ways, she wanted to believe this. In others, she couldn’t let herself,
just in case
.

A few weeks later, when it was almost time for school, Wendy went to buy supplies. It was junior year already, two years beyond the small, shy girl who stepped onto a bus and changed her life indelibly.

Mom took her to get textbooks, then to get more school skirts, then to get a backpack.

There was a list.

There were check marks.

Most everything Wendy bought was blue.

“Mom?”

They were in the car, shopped-out.

“Can I get some more paint?”

“Paint?”

“Yeah. I want to paint.”

Mom nodded. “Paint. Yes. Absolutely.”

That night, Wendy painted her first complete work. There were so many shades of white and gray and blue, blended and abstracted into nothing at all. But Wendy didn’t care. It was beautiful, in the messy sort of way.

The crying stopped shortly after that. And eventually, she finally fell asleep all the way.

Chapter 35

Now

The way Wendy saw it, she didn’t have anything to lose.

On Thursday at 2:35, she loaded her paintings in her car. She’d told Donald that she needed the afternoon off, to which he’d casually nodded and said, “Excellent, see you next week.” He had a camping trip and was too busy hovering over his new tent to worry about her casual disappearance from work.

She waited in the parking lot across the street for a decent opportunity to walk over. She didn’t want to be too early, but it was better than being too late. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She held the air inside her cheeks.

When she decided she couldn’t sit any longer, she got out of the car, and mulled over the paintings in the trunk. She’d brought a good selection.

The boat landscape.

The front porch painting.

The painting of the Christmas lights with the roller coaster in the distance.

Raven would like them, Wendy thought. She’d pitch it as a Southern series.

Local girl paints scenes from real life.

Yeah, she could see that. She could see the marketing, the publicity. And then she stopped seeing it, telling herself to slow down.

“Wendy?”

Turning, Wendy saw an unlikely, familiar face. Mrs. Helen, a bag of groceries in her arms, standing at the car beside her.

It was bound to happen. It was a small town. People run into each other. However, they weren’t usually carrying around a trunk-load of incriminating memories at those times.

“Mrs. Helen,” Wendy swallowed. “How are you?”

Mrs. Helen went in for a hug. Her body felt small and breakable, like she was all bones. “It’s so good to see you. I heard you were back home, but it’s just . . . well, it’s so good to see you.”

“You, too,” Wendy said.

“Are you working?”

“Yes,” Wendy said. “Well, not right now, but yes. I’m actually, uhh, I have an appointment with Raven DuBois.”

Mrs. Helen looked over her shoulder, pointing to the studio. “So you’re still painting?”

“Yes, I am,” Wendy nodded.

“That’s fantastic,” Mrs. Helen said.

Wendy always liked Helen Guidry. She always bought Wendy a Christmas present, even if she hadn’t seen her in months. She’d text Wendy sometimes, asking when she would come over again. Wendy wondered what Mrs. Helen thought of her now.

“How is your family doing?” Mrs. Helen asked.

Wendy awkwardly leaned against the back of her car, half hiding the contents. “They’re good. How about . . . yours?”

“The same. Morgan’s enjoying her time at LSU. Mr. Guidry is working hard as always,” she said. Then, shifting the bags in her arms, she added, “And Simon’s back home.”

Wendy nodded. “Too much traveling, huh?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Helen said. “So he gave up his apartment and decided to come back home for a while. It didn’t make sense to pay rent for a place he barely uses.”

Back home
. She hadn’t put that together right in her head. He wasn’t just home for the weekend or a few days. Simon was back in Covington.
Back at home
.

“Oh,” Wendy said, sure the shock was caked over her face. “That’s great.”

“Yeah, we’re happy to have him back,” she said.

Wendy looked down at her watch.

“Well, it was so wonderful to see you,” Mrs. Helen said. “I know you have a big meeting to get to.”

“I do. Yes. Thank you.”

“Good luck, and please, let us know if you ever have a show or anything. We’d love to come see you. You’ve always been so gifted.”

Wendy wanted to cry. Or run. Or something. “Thank you. I will definitely do that.”

She wouldn’t.

Then, Mrs. Helen hugged her one more time before getting in her car and driving back home. Home to her husband. Home to her son.

Simon’s home
.

But she couldn’t worry about that. Not now. Not here.

She took hold of her paintings, carefully by their backs, and carried them inside. She would be a painter. She would make this thing work. Whatever it took, she would not fail.

She thought about Mom and Mom’s signs. What would Mom say about this? The car. The paintings. Mrs. Helen. The bridge between what was happening and what
could happen
.

God
, she thought,
what are you trying to say?

Chapter 36

Then

He’d said he’d be there at noon.

Wendy stared out of the window, crouched in the corner of her bedroom. Through the faded glass, the day looked inviting and perfect, the way postcards do. The sky was the bluest it had been in weeks, not an ounce of cloud in the air.

The street was dead.

11:58.

When the gray SUV pulled into sight and turned into the woods, she felt a shooting pain in her side, reverberations of aching she’d experienced over the few months, weaving across the time that led her here. It could have killed her, if she’d let it. The whole year had been a conscious effort to forget him.

It was March.

Eight months since she’d last seen him.

And still, it wasn’t working.

Wendy walked with precision, left right, left right. It gave her shaky legs something to do. When she reached the edge of her family’s property, she could see the glint of light off his car and still, she walked closer.

What if he’s different,
Wendy thought.
Or worse, what if he’s exactly the same?

There he was.

He faced away from her with his hands buried in his pockets, his back perfectly straight, gazing out into the trees.

Turn back now
, Wendy told herself,
Just go home
.

“Hey,” she said. Her words scratched against her throat.

When he turned around, the wind picked up around them. Simon looked good, older in some ways, but exactly the same too. His hair swooped across his forehead, an unsure smile over his face, and she could see the slightest patch of stubble on his chin. He smiled deeper. This was her Simon. Except, he wasn’t.

“Hey.”

He moved in for a hug. The concept of him actively moving threw her off balance, and touching him made it that much harder. She didn’t know how to react. Leaning in and off center, he patted her back and pulled away.

It was easier to pretend he was someone else.

“It’s good to see you,” Wendy said, trying.

He fixed his eyes on the ground. “Yeah, it’s been a while.”

They stood there, planted.

“Want to walk?” she asked.

He looked relieved. “Good idea.”

They were walking. He matched her steps, and the ground caved under the weight of their emotions: a jumbled mix of anger, hurt and confusion. Possibly something else, too.

“So . . . do you come home often?” Wendy asked, for herself mostly. At first, she found herself subconsciously searching the streets for his car. After months of no results, she’d given up.

He shrugged. “Not too often. Maybe once a month or so? You know, it’s funny. I actually saw you once, over Christmas.”

She swallowed a gulp of air. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I walked into Pizza Express with Mom and saw you at the counter. We ducked out of there pretty quick.”

Because you didn’t want to be around me
, she wondered,
or because you were too scared?
“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” he said, playing with the keys in his hands. “I just . . . didn’t want to upset you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to see me.”

But what if I wanted to?

Once they started talking, they found their rhythm again. Every word was more important than the last. And soon, they were back and forth, bantering like they hadn’t missed a single minute of each other.

But she had missed him. She’d missed a whole year of him. The unpredictable nature of his hair. The sound of his voice.
Could you miss a voice that much?
She tried to inventory every piece of him now, so that in a few hours, she’d have something great to go back to. Something to remember.

“I’m a chain smoker now,” he said to her, relaxing his back, kicking at pinecones, “and a raging alcoholic. Also, I ran from the cops.”

They were playing two truths and a lie, the getting-to-know you game where you had to guess the lie from the truth.

“Raging alcoholic seems extreme,” she said. “Not to doubt you, but
raging
sounds a bit exaggerated, even for you.”

“Even for me? What’s that mean?”

“Oh nothing,” she said coyly. “I can’t see you smoking. You’re too smart. I’m going with alcoholic criminal.”

“Correct,” he said, a pinecone crunching beneath his heel. “That’s my life now. Booze and delinquency. Oh, and schoolwork. Can’t forget schoolwork.”

“Delightful,” she said. “I’m a paid artist. With a rap sheet. And I crashed the neighbor’s car.”

He looked at her, studied her face. It was like he was searching for the lies right on her skin, and she half-believed he could. “Paid artist with a rap sheet. What’d you do?”

“I got a detention. Too many tardies.”

“That’s the lamest rap sheet ever. Try a little harder, won’t you?”

“Well, it’s no
running from the police
.”

“Okay, to be honest, it wasn’t so much
running
as it was ducking in a ditch and waiting for them to drive away.”

Wendy laughed. “We’re pathetic. Even our truths are lies.”

She wanted to touch him. She wondered what would happen if she just reached for his hand or let her fingers brush up against his.

But then he said, “I’m glad we’re doing this. I didn’t want to see you for the first time with all of our friends. With Sarah.”

Hearing her name fall out of his mouth made
that
part of the truth more real. He was with Sarah, Blondie/Sarah, a fact she’d chosen to ignore. In a few weeks, all three of them would be together at retreat, and everything would change.

Wendy couldn’t stomach it.

“Me, too,” she told him, trying to control her resurfacing anger. “It’s good to see you.”

“Is it . . . good?”

Simon should’ve been a fisherman,
she thought. He was the master of throwing out bait and waiting for her to take it, reeling her in and casting her out.

“Of course,” she said, dissolving. “Things are really different here . . . now that you’re gone.”

“I miss it,” he said, “More than I thought I would.”

It.

Whatever that meant.

“Yeah, well,” she said, walking a few steps ahead of him, “at least you get to go away. Must be nice.”

She could hear his feet behind her slowing. “Trust me. It’s anything but nice.”

“You got to move on,” she said, turning toward him, feeling her face going hot. “Everything here? It’s the same. It’s like living in our graveyard.
Here lie Wendy and Simon, and also here and here and here
. So no, Simon. I guess I don’t get it.”

He stopped walking, staring at the gravel beneath his feet. He looked tired. Eyes circled. Hair tousled. “You think it’s easy for me?”

“You sure make it seem that way,” she said. She couldn’t look at him either.

“I’m
miserable
,” he said, sitting his tongue over the word. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to move away. I didn’t want to . . .”

Wendy held her tongue between her teeth. He’d made it seem so easy. Cut it off. Clean and done. But she could see in the way he held himself, hunched and sunken, that he was anything but okay.

Her will to fight billowed up in smoke.

“What are you saying?” she asked him.

She walked up to him, bridging the space between them, needing to just be near him again. Her hand found its way next to his, just barely latching on.

“Don’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

She knew why.

“What are you saying, Simon?” she asked, letting her hand wrap itself all the way around his. “
What are you saying?
”

If she could have Simon back, if she could get Simon to try again, she would do things differently. She would stop overreacting. She would be okay that he was gone. She would see him on weekends, and call him on weeknights. And maybe, if he really tried, he could be different, too.

“I can’t do this,” he said, not looking at her.

“That’s not an answer,” she said. “Do you . . . do you still love me?”

She couldn’t push Simon, but she wanted to. Poke, prod and then shut down. That was the way it worked. But now? What did she have to lose? He was already gone.

“Look at me,” she said, tracing her hands up his arms to his face, cupping his jaw in her hands.

And he did. His eyes weren’t Simon eyes. They were drained of their blue, leaving behind a dead gray.

She’d never expected him to love her still, since, or in spite of. That was the thing about loving Simon. There were always modifiers around it. It was never just love; it was a love with strings.

“I love you,” she said.

He rubbed his cheek into her palm. “I . . . I can’t.”

He was there. And he wasn’t.

So she did the only thing she could do. She let it go.

She wheeled her body back in the direction of the car, telling herself three very important things:

Simon is gone.

Simon is gone.

Simon is gone.

But mid-turn, Simon caught onto her hand. She held her breath. He pulled her body back toward him.

For a moment, there faces aligned, and they traced their eyes over each other. Paused. Broken. And Wendy let go, just as Simon kissed the breath out of her mouth, wanting and hurting and needing.

Breath by breath, the flood of feelings spilled through her system. This was Simon. Her Simon.

“Jesus,” he said, pulling away from her. “I’m not this guy. I’m not doing this.”

Sarah, he meant. Right. Sarah.

“Simon,” she said to his back, “there’s a reason we’re here again. Obviously, this isn’t over.”

“Nothing’s changed,” he said, the muscles in his back stretched tight. “You’re still here. I’m still there.”

“We haven’t even tried,” she argued. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Exactly. Why do you think I’m so
fucking
scared?”

She leaned her body against the nearest tree, her back bracing itself against the bark. “Okay, then.”

“We’ve moved on.”

“Clearly.”

“What do you want from me?” he asked her. “Really? What’s your plan here?”

“I don’t have a
plan,
” she said angrily. “If you want to move on, then great. Let’s do that. I don’t want it, but I can accept it. But you have to let me move on, too.”

It sounded crazy out loud, in their place. How do you move on? How do you just will yourself to stop feeling the way you do? Wendy wanted answers.

“I don’t love her,” he said, looking at her again. “You know that, right?”

She nodded, tear-stained and exhausted. When Simon fell in love, it was with his entire being. That’s why it had only happened once. He walked back up to her and wiped the water away from her skin. He didn’t kiss her, but he held her close to him, gripping her tight.

“We could do this,” she whispered.

“How? Just tell me. How?”

Simon needed a plan. He based his life on logical, fool-proof decisions. But what he needed was not something she could give.

“Simon,” she whispered. “If I could promise you that everything will work out exactly as you want it to, I would. But life doesn’t work that way. I want you to choose me not because you know it’s going to work, but because you’d still try, even if it didn’t.”

“Wendy,” he said, “I can’t break up with you again. I won’t go through that anymore.”

“We could be different,” she said. “We’re already different.”

“And the fighting?”

“Everybody fights sometimes.”

She glanced up at him, his face soft as he processed. “You actually think we can do this?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her face. “I love you. God, Wendy, I never stopped loving you. Not for a moment. And being away from you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And even though it’s going to be hard, I think you’re right. I want you to be right. I want to try this.”

For a moment, she let herself be happy. She let herself believe him, believe in them, believe in the signs.

That moment could stretch into forever.

Until he called the next day.

And told her he’d changed his mind.