Page 44 of The Way I Used to Be
“They won’t, though. They don’t even know about—”You, I was going to say, but he interrupts me again.
“You don’t get it,” he continues. “I’m talking about Actual. Criminal. Charges. I could get arrested, go to jail even, I’d lose my basketball scholarship and everything. Everything could get completely fucked up.”
He stops. I watch him take a few shallow breaths, watching me, waiting.
“Well?” he finally says, sweeping his arm in my direction.
“What do you mean, ‘well’?” I ask, my voice as harsh as his.
“I mean, don’t you care?” he yells. Then quieter, “Don’t you care about anything? About me?” His stare pierces me, searching to see if I remember any of what happened yesterday in the stairwell. Of course I remember, but since I’m really good at pretending, I just look right back at him—right through him. My face is a stone. My body is a stone. My heart is a stone.
“No.” That one syllable. The biggest lie. The worst lie.
“What?” he breathes.
“No,” I tell him calmly. “I don’t.” My words like knives destroying everything we had created. “I. Don’t. Care.” I repeat with icy precision.
You would think I just punched him in the face the way he looks at me. But that only lasts for about one, two, three... and a half seconds, and then he quickly resumes his anger. “That’s fine—great, actually! That’s great. Because we can never see each other again, I hope you know that, Eden. We can’t—”
“Puh-lease.” I laugh bitterly. “Listen, you know I had fun, but this was pretty much over anyway, don’t you think?” Some other person has taken over my brain and I’m screaming at her to shut up—stop talking now. But if it’s ending anyway, and it is, I can’t let him think he is in charge. I’m in charge, damn it.
His face sort of caves in a little around the edges. He looks so defeated I almost start apologizing, almost start begging him not to leave me, begging because I’m so fucking alone, and I do care about things, about him, especially. But then he straightens himself up and chokes out, “Yeah. Definitely over.”
I leave him in the bathroom. I push through the door effortlessly, walking tall and calm, and he stands there shaking his head at me.
CAELIN AND KEVIN COMEhome on Christmas Eve. They barrel through the front door struggling with duffel bags and sacks of dirty laundry and backpacks full of schoolwork and textbooks. Mom and Dad falling all over them. “Edy, can you help the boys with their bags?” they both ask me more than once. But I just stand there in the living room, cross my arms, and watch.
It takes a few minutes before the commotion settles, before either of them sees me there. Caelin walks across the room toward me, his arms outstretched, but something stops him in his tracks, and for a split second his smile gives way to a look of confusion as his eyes take me in.
“Edy.” He says it slowly, almost like a question. Not really addressing me, but as if he’s trying to make sure it really is me.
“Ye-es?” I respond, but he just stares.
“No, it’s just—” He forces himself to smile. “You look—” He turns his head to look at our parents, searching. Then back to me. “You just look so... so—”
“Beautiful.” Mom chimes in, smiling, even though I’m pretty sure she’s still as freaked out as I am about that slap, which neither of us has mentioned again.
He folds his arms around me stiffly, like he doesn’t want to get too close to my breasts. “You just look so grown up. I mean, how long have I been gone, right?” he says with a laugh, pulling away uncomfortably. He looks at me like he wants to say more, but he just walks off, carrying his bags into his bedroom.
And now Kevin stands before me, five feet away maybe, staring me down. Giving me the secret look he must’ve been perfecting over the past year. The look that is clearly supposed to deflate me—make me shrivel and wilt and retreat. And even though my legs feel flimsy and boneless, like they might give out at any moment, and my heart is racing and my skin feels like it’s on fire, I don’t flinch, I don’t run, don’t back away this time. I want to believe that somewhere beneath that knifelike stare he can see just how much I’ve changed, how different I am from that girl he once knew. I don’t move a muscle, not until he walks away first.
“Okay, Edy!” My mom claps her hands together twice. “We have to get to work here. Grandma and Grandpa will be here in the morning so there won’t be any time tomorrow. We have to get everything that can possibly be done ahead of time, done ahead of time.”
I follow her into the kitchen, dreading the next eight hours of my life. She’s in her manic, deceptively chipper, but just on the verge of a nervous breakdown mode—there’s something about Grandma and Grandpa coming over that always sets her on edge. I watch as she slips into the laundry room and neatly unfolds the stepladder into an A at the front of the junk closet. I know what’s next. She pulls her ancient radio/cassette/CD player out by its handle and sets it on the kitchen counter.
“Oh, Mom, do we have to?” I moan. I can’t take it—cooking all day while listening to Christmas music.
“Yes, we do. It’ll put us in the spirit!”
I get started chopping up insane amounts of celery, onions, and garlic. Next, the butternut squash. Just as I’m in the middle of struggling to cut it into little cubes like Mom wants, the rhythm of her chopping is interrupted. “Oh my God!” she shouts. I nearly cut the tip of my middle finger off.
“What?”
“Goddamn it!” she gasps, “Silent Night” playing softly in the background. “I knew I forgot something. The goddamn cream of tartar—I always forget it! The last thing I want to do right now is fight my way through the grocery store the day before Christmas!”
“Do we really need it?”
“Yes.” She braces herself against the counter and breathes deeply, closing her eyes. “Yes, we do. Okay, new plan. I’m going to run to the store. You keep chopping. And when you’re done with the squash, put it in the big bowl in the cabinet above the fridge. Then, will you do these dishes so they’re not piling up while we’re trying to work?”
