Two Roads (7 page)

Ruby and I just lie there for a while on our separate beds, listening to her rock music and letting all other thoughts disappear. It’s kind of nice, to be here with her, to not have to worry about her judgment. It’s something friends would do, like Ruby is actually… a friend. Of mine. Like I have a real, honest-to-god friend.

I feel a small smile curl across my lips at the thought. Of course, I doubt she really cares about me all that much, but it’s nice to pretend, to imagine, to hope.

“Have you thought about that convention?” Ruby asks after a while, once the silence has dragged on long enough. We’re both looking up at the ceiling still.

“Sort of,” I say.

“And?”

“I don’t really think I want to go.” The distant smell of barbecue smoke wafts into our room. I breathe it in, sighing because it reminds me of those normal-ish times before college when we lived in LA, when my parents and Ben and Logan and I hung out a lot and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. We used to have family cookouts every Sunday night and invite Logan, because he was pretty much adopted into our family at that point. It was a tradition we had, and we just sat there and laughed and talked and ate and sometimes even danced. It was nice. Fun. Happy.

I miss those carefree times.

“It can’t hurt to go, right? And you love poetry. I know you and I know you need to get out. Just try it! Worst case scenario, you bitch to freakish poetry nerd boys. Best case, you get laid by some hot poetry professor.”

I laugh. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re insanely shallow?” The truth is, though, Ruby is anything but shallow, and I can tell that much. She just pretends not to care, pretends to only judge skin-deep, but I know just from talking to her that she sees so much more. She doesn’t show it for whatever reason, and I guess in a way, that’s like me. We’re both excellent pretenders. We both act like we don’t care, even when we do.

Sometimes I wonder if Ruby realizes I pretend, too.

Ruby laughs with me, popping another piece of popcorn into her mouth. “What? Do you want me to be like a mom to you then?”

“Oh god please no.”

“Thought so.” There’s a pause. “You’re sure you don’t want to go to the conference?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

She nods. “Well, I won’t force you to go with me if you don’t want to, but maybe you should ask
Logan
to take you there instead.” She says his name like this is sixth grade and we’re giggling about the cutest boy in school. I narrow my eyes at her. God, Ruby seriously has no shame.

“That is the worst idea in the history of the world,” I say.

“Maybe, but I am
so
making it happen. You need to be kept on your toes,” she adds.

I make a face but don’t dare elaborate.

After a while the conversation changes to what’s up with her and Jaden, and as it turns out, they have not limited their hooking up to just yesterday. Which is surprising. Because Ruby never stays with a guy for more than a day.

I realize pretty quickly that their relationship may be more than just a means to annoy me.

We talk about food and TV shows and boys for a while longer until Ruby leaves for stat class, which she takes with Logan, promising to return to annoy me as soon as she can. I just roll my eyes. When she’s gone, I pull out my computer--one of those old PCs that no one but me ever uses or even knows exists--and immediately click over to my favorite poetry blog, the one I keep a secret from everyone, even Ruby.

I scroll through a few of the new blog posts from today, take a deep breath, and let the words wash over me. This blog, known simply as
Two Roads
after the Robert Frost poem, is my me space. It’s where I go when I need to get away, something that has occurred quite often in these last several months. The blog is run by an anonymous user who posts completely original love poems several times a day, and she is already tied with Robert Frost as my favorite poet ever. I don’t know how old this person is, or what she is like, or even whether her poems are fact or fictional, but it doesn’t matter. Whenever I read her poems, I have this weird feeling that I know her or at least that I’m meant to. As she calls herself in her bio in the corner of the blog, she’s a “poetry aficionado”--me--as well as an “undercover introvert”--me--and “words are the only way she can escape”--me. Sometimes I wonder if we are the same person and I’m like one of those freaks in movies who lives a second life but doesn’t remember any of it when I wake up the next morning.

According to her blog, the woman, who calls herself “The Roadkeeper,” attends the National Poet’s Convention every year--another reason I’ve always wanted to go. I have no idea if she is popular or if her blog is as big of a deal to others as it is to me, but in a way, I kind of hope it isn’t. Whenever I read her poems it feels like they’re speaking to me, even if they aren’t about me. They are so rich with language, so beautiful and touching and a total escape from reality, and it’s one of those things I just want to keep to myself. To cherish. To be for me, and only me.

There are three new poems on the blog since I last visited. I start reading them immediately, relaxing as their words and stories carry me away.

The first is titled
Rose
, about a girl whose name is Rose and who also has found peace by drowning her sorrows in roses. She has roses all over her house, in her bed, in her bookshelf, under her pillow--they make her feel better, so she keeps them close. She doesn’t ever leave her home, so the narrator, who is hopelessly in love with her, stays standing by her door for days, holding a bouquet of the same red flowers, waiting for her to step outside. But she never does. The narrator keeps waiting and waiting, trying as hard as possible to get her attention, throwing rocks at her window and singing and dancing and everything, but nothing works. Nothing gets her attention. So, right on the brink of giving up, the narrator stops waiting, throws open the front door, and rushes inside, not stopping until the roses are in the girl’s hand and she knows all about the narrator’s love for her. And then they hug. And sob. And live happily ever after.

I keep scrolling, already feeling the weight from the day lifting off my chest. Poetry just does that to me; it makes me feel free. It makes feel happy. I love the artistry to it, the openness, the daringness. I love that poets aren’t afraid to say what they have to say, or what needs to be said, and more than that, I love that through reading and writing poems, I learn that there are others out there. Others like me. Others who are self-hating, who have people in their lives trying to fix them even though they don’t want to be fixed, others who are broken and who pretend to be people that they aren’t. Others who are scared.

The next poem,
Note For You
, features a young orphan boy who always wanted a brother. He never cared about getting parents; he just dreams and dreams of one day finding a brother. He writes little notes to himself every day, every morning and every night, and lets them glide away with the wind as he wanders the streets with no home to go to. There is one girl he has always crushed on, a girl with “dark hair” and “gorgeous blue eyes,” and every time he passes her he wants to talk to her, to touch her, to kiss her, but he can’t stop his search for a brother. So he keeps going on like that, passing her and hoping, wishing she would notice him, but she never does. Finally, when he walks by her one day, he drops a note he wrote to her into her lap. She opens it up and he just jogs past her, too afraid to see the inevitable disgust in her eyes, to see the hatred he knows is there. But right before he turns the corner out of the alley, he looks back--just to see.

And she’s grinning at him.

I smile at the poem. It’s nice. Cliché, but nice. Not all of the poems on The Roadkeeper’s blog are perfect, and that may be the most beautiful thing about them: their flaws. Their rawness and honesty and perfection in lack of perfection. Poetry, to me, is a metaphor, an extension of life. It teaches lessons and morals in the most beautiful and unforgettable ways in the world, and poets aren’t afraid to voice opinions that need to be voiced, or to challenge issues that have gone unchallenged for far too long. I love the courage poetry gives me, and I love the characters it helps create, the issues, the fears, the lessons it explores. Poetry can be fluff, but it can also be stimulating; it makes you feel and it makes you remember that in the end, you aren’t alone. That in the end, there is always hope.

Ben was the one who initially got me hooked on poetry. He used to want to be an archeologist before my parents forced him down the path of becoming an engineer, and through his studying he discovered all of these ancient writings, many of which were poems. I would always look over his shoulder as he typed away at his computer and ask him to read those ancient poems to me, starting with
The Iliad
and
The Odyssey
and everything, and even though I never understand a word of the stories, I was always fascinated by the language, the beautiful and magical quality the words had. Soon Ben started showing me more modern poems, printing hundreds out for me and reading them aloud to me at night by my bed and sometimes even letting me read them on my own, and as I grew older, poetry became an inseparable part of me. Even when my parents forced Ben to study engineering instead of ancient history and archeology like he wanted, he always clung to me and my poetry. He still found me poems, still wrote some for me just like I wrote some for him. It was our own little thing through the worst of it all, and I loved it almost as much as I loved him.

After a while, my gaze drifts over to the last poem. It’s shorter than the rest, but the title,
An Ode To You, From Me, From Frost
, draws me in.

After reading the first few lines, it immediately gets my attention.

Frost once said that life always goes on,

that one’s song is never silenced,

so I should be fine continuing.

But Frost never met you,

he never saw your smile,

he never heard your laugh,

and he never knew.

He never knew like I know.

He never knew that you are the one

that you and all of your quirks have stolen my heart

that you are beautiful and not just in look,

that you make me feel like I matter and that I need you,

I love you.

Life does not simply go on without you,

my song does not live without yours,

I am not whole without you.

I often want to tell Frost

that he should shove it up his ass

which may not be the best idea,

but really what is there to do?

Because Frost was a moron

because goddammit he had issues

and he never felt what I feel,

never saw what I see.

There are not two roads when it comes to you;

there is only the road that leads to your love.

I can’t breathe the second I finish reading. My heart starts pounding and it’s like the words are reaching out of the computer and touching me, and everything from the last four years surges back to me. I should be making fun of how cheesy the poem is, but I can’t. I can only feel the hurt in my heart.

I want someone to write me a poem like that. I want to feel love like that. Or at least, I want to feel
something
. Right now, I’m just this near-dead-in-the-water, living-only-to-make-Logan-miserable waste of space. It’s like I find a way to ruin everything good in my life. I’m self-destructive, and I can’t help but think that no matter what I do, I’m only going to push people far, far away from me. I’m going to blow it. I’m going to live out my days like this: miserable and alone. Aside from Ruby, the only real relationship I have in my life right now is with Logan, and the only reason he doesn’t hate me is because--oh wait--
he already does
.

I hate what I’ve become. I hate how I have to pretend to be someone I’m not to escape the guilt. I hate how I brag about things that never happened, hate how I lash out at everyone who comes too close to me, hate how Logan Waters, my complete rival and part of the reason my brother is dead, is the one person I feel connected to anymore.

The tears are stinging in my eyes now, so I just storm around my room, kicking the chair and the TV desk and even my own bed. Pain shoots up through foot as my ankle connects with rock-hard wood, but I just suck it up and ignore it. I run from one end of the room to the other, letting out a partial scream and feeling like I could just collapse in the corner and cry for eternity.

But I won’t cry.

I won’t.

I crumple against the wall, my body trembling, and suddenly one word hits me like a punch in the gut: Ben.

I miss Ben.

I miss Ben.

I miss Ben.

I remember everything from the night he died. I remember the sirens flooding our neighborhood, the snowy December air freezing me to death as my parents, Logan, and I huddled together outside of our house. Investigators started seeping in and medics radioed to each other about whether he was still breathing, and I was just shivering and shivering and trying not scream. We all stood there and fought off tears, told ourselves we would be strong, we would get through this, we would stick together because the gravity of what just happened hadn’t hit any of us quite yet. My parents kept asking me if I was okay, if I needed anything, if I was ready to deal with the truth and I lied and said that I was fine, that I was ready. Mom kept covering her eyes with her scarf so that I knew she was crying, and Dad did this thing where he kept trying his best not to sob and so when he couldn’t stop them, his sobs were as loud as the sirens. As the snow fell down and the blue and red police cars lit up our normally pitch-black neighborhood in the dead of night, Logan and I just held each other tight and stood, frozen, hearts pounding, not believing what just happened.

It took three days before the fact that Ben was gone forever finally sunk in, and three more before the blame followed suit. First I blamed my parents, then Logan, and then, most painfully of all, myself.

I should’ve noticed the signs. I should’ve realized that all those nights where I heard crying from somewhere on the roof was actually Ben, Ben’s tears, Ben’s loneliness. I should’ve realized what was happening before it happened. I should’ve done something--anything--to stop it.

I remember things from the night it happened. I remember that no one was home when Ben died, that I was at a friend’s house and Mom and Dad were at a dinner party and Logan was watching TV in his family room. I remember how the house looked before I left it: dark and quiet and sad, as if it was warning me of what was about to happen--another sign I ignored. I remember the cold, the snow falling on the windowpanes, the slight but chilling breeze that whipped through me as I stepped inside my friend’s house and started gossiping with her about shit that felt all too important at the time. I remember Ben calling me a few hours later, his voice all tired and off. He kept asking me if I thought today had been good, if my life had been good, if he had been a good brother, and I just laughed because it was such a weird question and said yeah sure I was okay and of course he was a good brother and why was he asking? And I not only remember him ignoring the question, but I remember the grunt he made at that, the sad little noise before he hung up, like he was gone before he actually was. I remember the click of the phone hanging up, and then I remember nothing at all.