Page 114 of As a Last Resort
This was the right decision.I fit in a world of perfectly squared off city streets buzzing with life and electricity.Busy corners and traffic lights and merchants shouting at you.Magazine stands and tiny outdoor spaces a foot wide people convince themselves are big enough to be called patios, coffee shops on every block and an entire district of Korean takeout.Pencil skirts and work calls, conference tables and happy hour at O’Keefe’s.That’s where I belonged.
Not here.Not in this place that had only ever taken things from me.Not in this place where my heart swelled and hurt and leaped and felt everything I didn’t want it to.
In the early morning hours, I sat on the old vintage couch in Mom’s living room, the one that reminded me of grandparents I never had.I paid an arm and a leg to arrange for a private boat to pick me up and head to the airport and needed to leave soon.The clock on the wall ticked down second by second as I blinked through the pictures of me smiling on the mantel.
Me on the beach holding a crab by its claw.
Tick.
I remember the way the water pooled at my feet and made little swirls in the sand under the waves.
Tick.
Me smiling with a Lisa Frank Caboodle on Christmas morning under a tree of ripped wrapping paper with sleep still in my eyes.
Tick.
I remember walking into the living room with my hands over my eyes as Dad guided me out, Mom holding a video camera on her shoulder that looked like it weighed a hundred pounds trying to catch my reaction to Santa visiting in the night.
Tick.
Me and my mom smiling at graduation, my arm wrapped in a bandage and sitting in a wheelchair.
Tick.
I remember the way the rubber on the wheels whirred as I rolled across the stage for my diploma.Mrs.Peabody built a ramp so I could cross just like everyone else.Except I was no longer just like everyone else.
Tick.
I had slept, but barely.My eyes stung.Even Taylor Hanson winking at me from the back of my door couldn’t put a smile on my face.
Lexi’s name flashed across the screen as my phone rang beside me.
“I told you this was going to happen.”Her voice was kind but tired, like she had already talked about this at length with Austin.
“I can’t just pretend I don’t have a job and play house the rest of my life.”I tried to exhale the weight of the coming day.“I was never going to stay.He knew that.”
“Then you should have stayed away from him.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath.The house smelled stale.“Lexi, I can’t do this right now.”
“Oh, okay, cool, just hit me up in seven years and we’ll pick up right where we left off like nothing happened.”
A tingle crept toward the front of my face and the burn of tears stung my eyes.“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is you coming back, uprooting his life, and giving him hope for something you knew wasn’t going to be anything other than a fling.”
“I didn’t plan on it happening, Lexi.And by the way, it’s not like this whole situation is only my fault.”The tone of my voice surprised me.I was so angry.I was angry at Lexi for calling me out and for me realizing that’s exactly what I did.At Robby for being an asshole and still coming out on top.At Glenn for caring more about bourbon and golf than work ethic and intelligence.At Mom for collapsing when I needed her most.At having to make my own breakfast, and lunch and dinner because she couldn’t get off the couch.At being scared to cook bacon, for God’s sake.
At my dad for dying.
And at Austin for worming his way into my heart when I tried so desperately to keep him out.
“It doesn’t have to be that hard, Sam.”
I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but it made me feel worse.
“Love isn’t exactly a fairy tale for everyone else,” I spat back.“We all don’t get to bat our eyelashes from behind a bar where we’re slinging beers for tourists and have some college coach swoop inand rescue us from our shitty bartending job that we didn’t even need because our parents would float us the rest of their lives anyway.”My face felt hot and my hands were shaking.I was pacing in front of the fireplace.“You get to play house with your cute little Cinderella story and pretend you did something to deserve it all.It’s not like that for everyone else.”
