Another Day

But it’s enough.

Rebecca wants me to go over to her house. Preston and Stephanie keep calling. Even Ben texts to say he hopes I’m okay.

There’s a part of me that wants to acknowledge the disaster I’ve caused, and take shelter with my friends.

But A is waiting. I know he’s waiting.

I return to that Starbucks. He’s cleaned up a little, but he still looks like a guy who’s lost a fight.

I see him. I see him seeing me. I go to get some coffee, to give myself one more minute to think.

“I really need this,” I tell him as I sit.

“Thank you for coming,” he says. Like he wasn’t sure I would. Like I’m doing him a favor.

“I thought about not coming,” I admit. “But I didn’t seriously consider it.” Up close, he looks even worse. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says. He does not sound okay.

“Remind me—what’s your name today?”

“Michael.”

I look at him again. I remember that this boy is supposed to be in Hawaii right now.

“Poor Michael,” I say.

“This is not how I imagine he thought the day would go.”

“That makes two of us.”

This morning seems like a million years ago. I was so mad at him. Now I’m just sad.

“Is it over now?” he asks. “With the two of you?”

How could it not be? I want to ask him. In what universe could Justin understand what I’ve done?

“Yes,” I say. Then I add, unfairly, “So I guess you got what you wanted.”

He does not appreciate this. “That’s an awful way to put it. Don’t you want it, too?”

“Yes. But not like that. Not in front of everybody like that.”

He reaches up to touch my face, but it doesn’t feel right. I flinch. He lowers his hand.

This makes me even sadder. What I’m doing to him.

“You’re free of him,” he says.

I would love for it to be that easy. It is not that easy.

“I forget how little you know about these things,” I tell him. “I forget how inexperienced you are. I’m not free of him, A. Just because you break up with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re free of him. I’m still attached to Justin in a hundred different ways. We’re just not dating anymore. It’s going to take me years to be free of him.”

I don’t know why I’m saying this to him. Why I want us to hurt. Maybe I just feel less guilt if I feel more pain.

“Should I have gone to Hawaii?” he asks me.

I almost lost him. I have to realize I almost lost him. The thing I feared the most yesterday almost happened today. He did everything he could to stay, and now I’m punishing him for it.

I have to stop.

“No,” I say, “you shouldn’t have. I want you here.”

His eyes light up with the chance I’m giving, with the possibility that even though everything’s gone wrong, it might ultimately be right.

“With you?” he asks.

I nod. “With me. When you can be.”

It’s the best we can do. He knows it. I know it. And we also know we could settle for much less. We could give up.

He asks me more about what happened after he left, and I tell him. He wants me to understand why he had to run—he couldn’t get Michael into even more trouble—and I tell him I understand.

We need to know there’s no way Michael can be taken to Hawaii, so we use my phone to make sure all the last flights have left. Rather than have Michael take all the buses back, I offer to drive him—it’s not like I’m in any rush to get home. I’m going to have to tell my parents I’ve broken up with Justin, before they hear it from someone else.

As we drive, I ask A to tell me more about who he’s been. The damaged girl yesterday, and other people before that.

He lets the stories range all over the place—some sad, but most happy. As he’s telling them, I realize that for each event, he has to remember two things, while the rest of us only have to remember one. Not only who he was with, but who he was. Like with his first kiss. I remember my first kiss with Bobby Madigan—it was a dare in fourth grade that both of us had secretly wanted to take. When Mrs. Shedlowe wasn’t looking, we sneaked at recess into the woods. I remember how soft his lips were. I remember how his eyes were closed. It hadn’t occurred to me to close my eyes; if this was going to happen, I wanted to see it.

A tells me his first kiss was in fifth grade. He was in a basement and they were playing spin the bottle. He’d never played spin the bottle before, but the other kids seemed to know what to do. He spun and the bottle landed on a blond girl. He remembers her name was Sarah and that, before they kissed, she said, “Keep your mouth closed!” I ask him who he was at the time. He shakes his head.

“I’m not sure,” he tells me. “All I remember is her. I can tell you she was wearing a dress—like a Sunday school dress—so maybe we were at a party for something. But I can’t remember who I was.”

“Not even if you were a boy or a girl?”

“A boy, I imagine—but, honestly, I wasn’t paying attention either way.”

It’s strange to think about: All this time we’re spending together, all of these days. I am trying to remember who he was each day. But A?

A will only remember me.

Eventually, the map on my phone tells us we’re getting close to Michael’s house.

“I want to see you tomorrow,” A says.

“I want to see you, too. But I think we both know it’s not just a matter of want.”

“I’ll hope it, then.”

I like that.

“And I’ll hope it, too,” I say.

I float on that for a while, driving home. Then I remember everything else that’s happened, and I start to sink. When I get home, I can’t bear the thought of telling my parents about Justin, so I avoid them. My mom yells something about missing dinner, but I can’t even begin to care.

I call Rebecca for a status report. She tells me, again, that everything’s going to be fine. It will all blow over.

After I hang up, I stare at my phone. I click on the photo folder and it’s like my whole history with Justin is there. He couldn’t rip that up.

I know what I told A is true: It’s not over.