Page 4 of The Last to Let Go
“Okay,” I hear myself reply as I follow behind him.
FRESH MEAT
THE FIRST TIME I METCarmen was at school in ninth grade. She was older than me, a senior like my brother should’ve been. He had been held back in his freshman year, so he was a year behind. Dad was furious, told him he was stupid, useless, never going to amount to anything. I knew that wasn’t true, though. Aaron was really smart. He just didn’t care about school, not the way that I did. I was actually happy that he’d been held back because that meant we’d be together for an extra year, and then I didn’t care so much about transferring out.
When I walked into the cafeteria the first day of high school, I was hoping I’d see him. We’d compared our schedules that morning and he’d assured me we were in the same lunch. But, as I would soon learn, he spent so much time in in-school suspension for one thing or another that it hardly felt like we even went to the same school at all. After one lap around the cafeteria I gave up and sat down at a table in the corner by myself. That was when Carmen came over and introduced herself, inviting me to sit with her. “This is Brooke,” she told her table, which was filled with seniors. “It’s her first day, so be nice.”
“You’re a freshman, right?” one girl asked as she slid over to make room for me.
Then the guy next to her cupped his hands around his mouth and megaphoned, “Fresh meat.”
Before I could answer, Carmen intercepted the conversation and told the guy, “She might be fresh meat, Mark, but she’s already a million times more mature thanyou.”
Carmen tried to include me in the table’s conversation, asking about my classes, whether or not I was planning to join any teams or clubs. I was not. I could feel myself blushing, all awkward and plain and boring, the complete opposite of everything she seemed to be: confident, smart, beautiful. I barely spoke. I was too stunned that she had even noticed me in the sea of fresh meat, let alone singled me out to take under her wing. There must have been something about me, something she saw that I couldn’t, I thought. Something special, even.
For all of five minutes I thought she actually liked me.
“Dude!” Mark shouted, looking somewhere behind me. “What is up, man? We thought you got busted already.”
I turned to see my brother leaning over Carmen, wrapping his arms around her like he was going to scoop her up and take her away. She turned her head and smiled through the words “Hey, you,” and then they kissed. A deep, serious one.
Something inside of me ground to a halt. Of course this wasn’t about me. I was stupid to think otherwise. After they disentangled themselves, Aaron straightened up and grinned, patting me on the back before tumbling into the last open chair. “Thanks for rescuing my kid sister,” he told them. Then he looked at me. “So, how’s the first day so far?”
I shrugged while I tried to find my voice. “Okay, I guess.”
“Dude, she’s really chatty,” Mark interjected. “Couldn’t get her to shut up this whole time.”
“Yeah, maybe you should take a lesson from her,” Carmen said, blowing on the end of her straw so that the wrapper launched across the table, hitting Mark square in the forehead.
“She’s just a loner, is all,” Aaron said. I gave him my deadliest eyes. “What? Nothing wrong with that.” Then he added, hitching his chin to point in Mark’s direction, “Some peopleshouldbe loners.” He knocked his shoulder into mine, and then everyone started laughing.
Mark looked around, taking a second too long to get it. “Fuck you,” he finally said, hesitating before he joined in the laughter at his expense, which, I realized, was for my benefit.
I was grateful to Aaron, of course. He was only trying to look out for me. But damn, it had felt good to think that I’d made some friends all on my own for once, to think, for even one minute, that someone had actually, voluntarily, wanted me.
It was weird to see Aaron like this. Part of me wondered if he was only pretending. We never laughed like this at home anymore, never joked around or even spoke too loudly. But when I saw the way that Carmen and Aaron looked at each other, I knew, somehow, this wasn’t pretend. He had friends, and a girlfriend who clearly cared about him enough to gather up a lowly freshman on his behalf. He had a life. He had all the things I never thought I’d have.
I was envious; I knew that even then. I thought he’d found a way to get out from under the weight of our family, found a way to be happy. It gave me hope that maybe one day I could too.
But now I know he was never out from under anything, that weight was just building pressure, slowly crushing him, like it was crushing all of us. I just didn’t see it then, didn’twantto see it.
SHUTTING DOWN
THE SMELL OF HOSPITAL:a sickening combination of disease, disinfectant, and stale vending machine coffee. Carmen drove us here in her mother’s car.
After we filled out Callie’s paperwork in the ER, we were directed to the seventh-floor waiting area, the psych unit. Aaron sits across from me, gnawing on his thumbnail like a cannibal, jiggling his leg up and down at warp speed. Neither of us mentions the last time we were here.
Carmen sits next to Aaron and takes his hand. I wonder if she’s thinking about the last time too. That time when Aaron almost died.
That time two winters ago when no one had heard from him the entire day and no one else except for me seemed to be worried. When he didn’t show up for dinner that night, a strange sick feeling told me to go to the roof. I knew sometimes he would smoke cigarettes up there, and sometimes, if I managed to be quiet enough, I could sneak up behind him and punch him in the arm as hard as possible, as many times as possible, before he’d spin around and yell, yet we’d both be laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe.
I found him up there, but he wasn’t smoking. He was lying there, passed out and cold as ice because it was December and he was wearing only a T-shirt and jeans with holes in the knees, and socks without shoes. His lips were purple. He was barely breathing by the time the ambulance got there. Even though it was pretty obvious what he had done, I convinced myself it was some kind of freak accident. But that wasn’t the truth, and as much as I wanted to pretend, deep down I knew it was never that simple.
They pumped his stomach, and he had to stay here in the psych unit for a week. Then he came home and everyone acted like he was okay. But he wasn’t really okay, I knew. He was simply alive. Things changed after that. I had to be careful with him, like he was made of porcelain. I had to watch what I said and how I looked at him. He moved out a few weeks later. And he’s lived with Carmen’s family ever since. We’ve never talked about it. I don’t know why. It felt off-limits. Still does.
As I watch Aaron and Carmen sitting here together, I become very aware of this dull, steady pain in my chest, throbbing, aching for something—someone. I’ve never been in a relationship. Never been kissed, either. Not unless you count that time in seventh grade when some random kid ran up and gave me a dry, papery peck on the lips at my locker on a dare, which I don’t. I’ve had infatuations, fantasies, a few crushes, but that’s as far as it ever goes. Maybe I even had a crush on Carmen at one time. I try not to think about it, though. There’s no point anyway. Because how would I have time for that with everything else that’s always going on? How could I ever find the space for another person in my life when I barely even have enough room for myself?
I check the time on my phone. Another hour has passed. I don’t understand how time keeps doing that. Moving forward when all I need is for it to stop, to give me a chance to work back through all that’s happened today, which is impossible to do when the seconds keep marching ahead, piling new minutes on top of all the old minutes, building a landfill of lost time.
