Another Day (6 page)

He nods. “Look,” he says. His hand is still on my wrist. “Would it be weird for me to ask you for your email?”

I wouldn’t have thought it was weird, except for him asking if it was weird.

“Don’t worry,” he adds. “I am still one hundred percent homosexual.”

“That’s too bad,” I say. Then, before my inner flirt can make more of a fool of herself, I give him my email address, take his pen, and write his email address down on a receipt.

The basement is nearly empty, and there’s the sound of sirens in the distance. Stephanie isn’t making it up—we really need to leave.

“Time to go,” I say. We’re both staying in the space we created, not wanting to leave it even though the lights are on.

“You’re not going to let your boyfriend drive, are you?” Nathan asks.

“That’s sweet,” I say. “No. I control the keys.”

There’s chaos at the top of the stairs, and we’re separated before we can say goodbye. Justin isn’t in the kitchen, so I figure he’s already at the car.

Sure enough, he’s pacing there, waiting for me.

“Where were you?” he accuses as I unlock the door.

“The basement,” I tell him when we’re in the car. “You knew that.”

He curses a little, but I know he’s cursing at the cops, not me. I pull out, relieved that we didn’t park in the driveway, where things are all backed up.

“We’re going to make it,” I assure him.

“You’re beautiful,” he slurs.

“You’re drunk,” I say.

“You’re beautiful anyway,” he tells me. Then he puts back the seat and closes his eyes.

I wait a few minutes. Then I discover a song I like on the radio and sing along.

As Justin snores, I find myself hoping Nathan made it out okay.

I know Justin’s not working on Sunday, so I’m hoping we’ll hang out at least a little. But he doesn’t wake up until one, and from what I can tell from the texts he sends, he’s not in good shape. I offer to come over and make him whatever hangover cure he wants. He texts me back two hours later to say that all he can do today is sleep. He can even sleep through his parents yelling about all his sleeping.

Get shitfaced, then face the shit—I know the routine. It’s not like I’ve never been there. I just don’t go there as often as he does.

I asked him about it before. Not confrontational. Just curious.

“I drink to feel better,” he told me. “And if I feel worse the next day, it’s still worth it, because I still got to feel better for a little bit, which is more than I would’ve done sober.”

There are times I can make him feel like that, too. There are times when I know he’s drunk on me. Not just when we’re making out—there are other times I can make him forget about everything else. Which is a power nobody else has with him. I know this.

Because my day is empty of him, it’s empty. My mother asks if I want to go to the grocery store with her, but I know if I do, I’ll only want to buy things I shouldn’t eat. My dad is on the computer, doing work, avoiding us to provide for us. I think of emailing Nathan from last night, but that thought passes. I doubt I’ll ever see him again. Whatever we shared is gone, because it was destined to be gone from the minute it started.

Distraction. I turn on the TV. Housewives and nature shows. An episode of
Friends
I’ve seen a hundred times. Nothing I want to watch followed by nothing I want to watch followed by nothing I want to watch. I imagine doing this forever. An infinity of nothing I want to watch.

It’s a day like that.

I call Justin. I can’t help myself. I want to talk to him so bad. I know I won’t convince him to stop being hungover. I won’t convince him to get out of bed and do something with me—or even stay in bed and do something with me. I would be happy to lie there next to him.

“I’ve decided that whiskey is not my friend,” he says.

“Still bad?” I ask.

“Better. But still bad. The day has completely crapped out.”

“It’s alright. I’ve been catching up on my TV watching.”

“Fuck, I wish I were there with you. Being sick is so fucking
boring.
”

“I wish you were here, too. I could come over if you want.”

“Nah. I just have to ride this one out. It wouldn’t be fair to ask you to be around me when I’m so sick of being around me.”

“I’m willing.”

“I know. And I appreciate it. But it’s not going to happen today.”

The fact that he sounds disappointed makes my own disappointment a little easier to live with. Even if it still leaves me alone for the rest of the day.

Alone. The only thing that prevents me from feeling completely alone is knowing that I have someone, that if I really need him, he will be there.

“I’m going to go now,” he says to me. I don’t point out he’s not actually going to go anywhere. Neither of us is going to go anywhere.

“See you tomorrow,” I say, because I know we’re not going to talk again tonight.

“Yeah. See ya.”

My mother comes home and I help her put away the groceries. We make dinner. We don’t talk about anything. She talks, for sure. She talks and talks and talks. But we don’t talk at all.

When I get back to my room, I check my email on my phone. I am surprised to find a message from Nathan.

Hi Rhiannon,

I just wanted to say that it was lovely meeting you and dancing with you last night. I’m sorry the police came and separated us. Even though you’re not my type, gender-wise, you’re certainly my type, person-wise. Please keep in touch.

N

I smile. It’s so…
nice.
I wonder if he’s single, even though I can’t really imagine Preston going for him. Preston likes guys who are trendier. Or at least don’t wear ties to parties.

I also wonder about being his type, person-wise. What does that mean, really? Where does that get us?

Shut up,
I tell myself. A nice guy tries to be friendly with me and I immediately think,
Why bother?
There is something seriously wrong with me. The reason to bother is because he’s a nice guy.

I hit reply, but I don’t know what to write. I feel I need to make an excuse for not writing to him first; I’m sure the piece of paper with his email address on it is still in my pocket. I also want to sound like someone who gets this kind of email all the time.

It’s weird, because the Rhiannon who comes out in what I write doesn’t sound like I normally sound.

She sounds like she’s really enjoying herself.

Nathan!

I’m so glad you emailed, because I lost the slip of paper that I wrote your email on. It was wonderful talking and dancing with you, too. How dare the police break us up! You’re my type, person-wise, too. Even if you don’t believe in relationships that last longer than a year. (I’m not saying you’re wrong, btw. Jury’s still out.)

I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Steve has another party soon. If only so you can bear witness to its evil.

Love,

Rhiannon

I don’t know why I write “Love” like that. It’s just what I always write. Everything else seems cold.

But now I’m worried I sound too eager. Not eager in the same way I’m eager with Justin. Just eager for…whatever’s next.

As soon as I hit send, the emptiness returns. I’m back into the day I was having. Maybe this is what alone really is—finding out how tiny your world is, and not knowing how to get anywhere else.

I go on Facebook. I read Gawker. I watch some music on YouTube, including the Fun. song from the day with Justin, the one Nathan sang back to me. I feel stupid doing that. I know Nathan wouldn’t find it stupid. Somehow I know that. And I know Justin would find it stupid. I asked him once if he thought we had a song. I mean, most couples have a song. But he said he had no idea, and that he didn’t even understand why we’d want one, anyway.

I’d told myself he was right. We didn’t need one. Every song could be ours.

But now I want one. It’s not enough that every song can make me think of him.

I want one, just one, that will make him think of me.

The hangover hangs over Monday as well.

It’s like his personality has spoiled from lack of use. He’s in school, but he still thinks he’s in bed. I can’t take it personally that he’s not happy to see me, because he’s not happy to see any of us. He won’t say more than two words in any sentence, and after a few minutes I decide to leave him alone.

A lot of our Mondays are like this.

Our Monday at the beach seems like much longer than a week ago.

What is wrong with me?

“How was your weekend?” Rebecca asks when I get to third period.

“How
wasn’t
my weekend?” I reply.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I just mean that not much happened.”

“How was the party?”

“It was fine. I danced with Steve’s gay cousin. Justin got shitfaced. The cops came.”

“Steve has a gay cousin? I didn’t know that.”

“I don’t think they’re close.”

“Well, if he’s still around, Ben and I were going to hang out with Steve and Stephanie during assembly period this afternoon. Just get coffee or something. Wanna come?”

I notice she hasn’t invited Justin. It’ll be a triple date, only I’m not being asked to bring my date.

“Can I get back to you?” I ask.

Rebecca’s not stupid. She knows why I’m not committing.

“Whenever,” she tells me. “We’ll be there either way. Although it would be great to have some time with you. I feel I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Now it’s clear that Justin’s being deliberately excluded. Because Rebecca sees me all the time. It’s just that he’s always by my side when she does.

I find him right before lunch.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asks back.

It looks like he is switching his books in his locker. It looks like he’s about to head to lunch.

“What do you want to be doing?” I ask.

He slams the locker shut. “I want to be playing video games,” he says. “That work for you?”

“Wanna get out of here and do something? There’s that assembly seventh and eighth period. Nobody will notice we’re gone.”

I am looking for that spark. If it’s gone out, I am trying to relight it. Because I have a spark inside of me, too. And right now it wants to be bright.

“What the fuck has gotten into you?” he asks. “If we could just leave, don’t you think I would’ve done it by now? Jesus. It’s bad enough to be here. Why do you have to keep pointing it out?”

“That’s not what I meant,” I tell him. “I just thought it could be like last week.”

“Last week? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“The beach? The ocean?”

He shakes his head, like I’m making things up. “Enough, okay? Just
stop.
”

So I stop. I swallow the spark and feel it scratch as it goes down.

We eat with our friends. Preston asks about the party, and Justin tells him it sucked. In his version, skank girls kept crowding the kitchen. Stephanie yelled at him for putting his feet on a table. Then the police came, because the police clearly have nothing better to do.

Preston then asks me how my night was. I tell him that my night sucked, too. I don’t tell him about the basement, or about the dancing. No, my version transforms itself into Justin’s version. He doesn’t even notice, but I do it anyway.

I am disappearing. This is the thought that occurs to me:
I am disappearing.
Like nothing I say or do matters. My life has become so tiny that it’s completely unseen.

The only way I can think to fight this is to text Rebecca and tell her I’m free to hang out after school.

He doesn’t care. I tell him I made plans for during the assembly, and he genuinely doesn’t care. He doesn’t ask to be invited along. He doesn’t even ask me what the plans are. He’ll go home and play video games. He won’t text me unless I text him first. I know all this—but why do I still feel surprised, as if it isn’t meant to be this way?

Rebecca decides she’s in the mood for ice cream, and convinces the rest of us we’re in the mood for ice cream, too, even though it’s not summer and the nearest good ice cream place is about twenty minutes away. It is, as we expected, surprisingly easy to get out of the assembly—we figure the visiting author won’t miss us too much, since none of us have ever heard of him. Rebecca, Ben, and I pile into her car, and Stephanie and Steve meet us there. Steve is wearing the effects of the weekend more obviously than Stephanie is; she looks like she spent the past two days at the gym.

We get our cones and head for a table. When we start talking, it’s not about the party, but everything that happened after—all the cleanup that had to be done, all of the bullshit with the police, who didn’t end up arresting anyone. They just wanted to break up the party and they did a good job of it.

Stephanie admits she was a little relieved. “There are
some people,
” she says, “who will never leave a party unless the police come.” From the sound of her voice, I know I’m supposed to know who she’s talking about. I have no idea.

“I really liked your cousin,” I tell Steve. “He kinda saved the night for me.”

Steve looks confused. “My cousin? When did you meet my cousin?”

“At the party. Nathan.” I almost add
your gay cousin,
but then I realize I have no idea if Steve knows.

Now Steve laughs. “At my party? I don’t think so. All my cousins are, like, eight. And none of them are named Nathan.”

I don’t understand what he’s saying.

“But I met him,” I say lamely.

“Oh dear,” Rebecca jumps in, patting my hand. “It sounds like you met someone who said he was Steve’s cousin.”

“But why would he say that?”

Stephanie shrugs. “Who knows? Guys are weird.”

What’s hurting me is how honest he seemed. How real. Now it’s like I’ve made him up.

“He was wearing a tie,” I say. “I think he was the only guy wearing a tie.”

“That dude!” Steve laughs. “I totally saw him. He’s not my cousin, but he was definitely there.”

I wonder if Nathan is really his name. I wonder if he’s really gay. I wonder why the universe is doing this to me.

“I can’t believe he lied,” I say.

“Again,” Stephanie chimes in. “Guys are weird.”

“And certainly you’re used to a little lying?” Rebecca adds. “This guy probably liked you and didn’t know how to deal with it. That happens. It’s not the worst kind of lie.”

I think she’s trying to make me feel better, but I’m stuck on that first part—
certainly you’re used to a little lying.

“Justin never lies to me,” I say.

Rebecca plays dumb. “Who said anything about Justin?”

“I know what you meant. And I’m telling you—Justin can ignore me and say the wrong things and go into his moods, but he never, ever lies to me. I know you don’t think we have much, but we do have that.”

Rebecca and Stephanie shoot a look at each other, clearly not believing me. Ben is checking his phone. Steve still seems amused that some guy crashed his party pretending to be his cousin.

I hate this feeling—my so-called friends thinking they know my life better than I do. And I hate it even more this time because I thought I’d had the opposite with Nathan. Stupid, for sure, after one conversation and one email exchange. But still. Whether it was real or an illusion, it makes a rip when it goes.

Steve starts to argue with Stephanie about who was the most wasted guest at the party, and my questions about Nathan seem to have been quickly forgotten. We finish our ice cream and then don’t know what to do—we’ve only been hanging out for about fifteen minutes, but the reason we’re here no longer exists. Stephanie proposes a trip to the secondhand store down the street, and even though Ben and Steve protest, nobody can think of anything better to do.

I am disappearing again, this time into silence. As Stephanie and Rebecca try things on and Steve looks through old records, Ben and I hover on the sidelines. He keeps checking his phone, but then, as Stephanie and Rebecca argue over who looks better in a fifties sundress, he says to me, “I know it probably doesn’t matter, but I’d bet good money that the guy who said he was Steve’s cousin had a reason for doing it. Guys act weird, sure. But it’s usually for a reason. And it’s rarely to be mean. It’s much more likely that he liked you.” Then he goes back to his phone and writes another text.

I go onto my own phone, wanting there to be an email from Nathan explaining everything. But there isn’t. So I write to him instead.

Nathan,

Apparently, Steve doesn’t have a cousin Nathan, and none of his cousins were at his party. Care to explain?

Rhiannon

Almost immediately, I get a reply.

Rhiannon,

I can, indeed, explain. Can we meet up? It’s the kind of explanation that needs to be done in person.

Love,

Nathan

That “Love” hits me. I know it could be a taunt or a tease. And I also know it isn’t a taunt or a tease.

Rebecca is calling me over to decide who gets the dress. Ben is pulling himself farther into the background, not wanting to get involved. Steve is holding up a Led Zeppelin record and asking Stephanie if he already has it.

I don’t reply to the email. Not yet. I need to think.

Rebecca gets the dress. Steve gets the record. Stephanie finds another dress that she says she likes more than the one Rebecca has. Ben spots a dictionary and starts talking about whether or not dictionaries, physical dictionaries, will exist in twenty years.

When everyone’s done shopping, they make some noises about hanging out more and eventually getting dinner.

I tell them I have to go home.