Incomplete (18 page)

I stand up, wary of the resolution emanating from her. She means this. She can’t mean this. I refuse to believe it.

“It isn’t only for you.”

“But it isn’t for you
at all
! We’ll be okay. Aidan and I will be okay. You have to do this.”

Realization slams into me, stunning in its devastation. “You knew you were going to do this, didn’t you? All along you knew we weren’t going to be together that long. Why did you agree to be my girlfriend then?”

“I never asked you to do this!” she cries. “To give up your dream for me. I would
never
ask you to do this, or expect you to, Grayson. I never wanted this,” Lily whispers.

“Then what did you expect? That I would just go off to college and leave you here waiting for me? It wouldn’t be enough.”

“It would have been, for me. I had faith in that—in us. You didn’t.”

“I did. I
do
.”

“You don’t.”
She shakes her head. “Or you would have gone to California. You didn’t trust us, didn’t trust this enough. Be honest with yourself, Grayson, if you can’t be with me. You were holding too tight because you were scared. And now look at us.”

I swallow thickly, not wanting to believe her words, but unable to deny the truth of them. I was terrified. I still am. Right now, I am so
beyond
terrified. I can’t lose her. If I don’t have her, I don’t have anything good.

“Why…did you tell me you loved me? Why do any of it? Why be together at all if you were just going to do this?” My voice is quiet with pain.

“I thought maybe you would change your mind, realize you can’t stay here. And when you didn’t…I—I just wanted a piece of you before I had none of you. These last few months have been the happiest of my life, Grayson, because of you. It has been…such a gift, loving you, having you love me,” she whispers, tears glistening on her lower eyelashes.

“I even managed to convince myself for a while that I could do this, let you stay for me, for us. But the guilt was—
is
—too much. I told myself it would be okay. You would be okay. We’d be happy and our love would be enough to keep it that way. But it wouldn’t. I was lying to myself. I can see you, Grayson, in my mind. Years from now. You’re bitter, jaded, miserable. That image of you, the future you,
haunts
me. I can’t let you do this. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need that
, I
don’t
. I just need you. It’s enough. And we’ll have endless months,
years
, of happiness. We’ll be together; we’ll keep loving each other. We’ll be okay.” I sound desperate. I
am
desperate.

“No. We won’t. I won’t let you. Because if I be selfish and let you stay, one day you’ll hate me. One day you’ll look at me and resent me. And I can’t bear the thought of you looking at me that way.”

“What about the way I’m looking at you now? Like you’re breaking my heart? You are, Lily, you’re breaking my fucking heart.”

“Do you think this is easy for me? It’s not! This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I want you to stay. I want to be with you, I want you here, but I can’t do this. I can’t let you stay. It would be for all the wrong reasons.”

My jaw clenches. “You don’t get to make my decisions for me. If I want to stay, I’ll stay.”

“You’re right. But I can decide not to speak to you if you stay. I can pretend you don’t exist. I can stay away. If I don’t end this, Grayson, you won’t go. I know you won’t. So you need to just try to pretend I don’t exist, like I’m going to do with you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would. I will.” She is serious. I see it in the set of her jaw, in the intensity of her ever-changing eyes.

Nausea hits me, fast and unforgiveable. I swallow against the sick feeling. “You’re doing the same thing to me that I did to you, only ten times worse. I didn’t give you a choice and you’re not giving me one. How do you validate this when I couldn’t make my actions justified? How is what you’re doing right when you told me I was wrong?”

“This isn’t about high school. This is about your
life
.”

I stare at her, seeing her and unable to digest what I am seeing. Who is this person looking back at me? “So us together
is high school shit? That’s what you’re reducing our relationship to?”

“
No
. That’s not what I meant.”

“Funny. ‘Cause that’s what it sounded like.”
In a low voice, I ask, “How can you say that? How can you belittle what we have so much by just…forgetting about me? Shoving me aside, pushing me into the high school box that means nothing once you leave high school. Why would you do that?”

She covers a sob with her hands, shaking her head. “Not forget, Grayson, never forget,” Lily whispers brokenly. “I’m helping you. I’m trying to help.” 

“Lily.
Please
. I don’t want you to try to help me. I just want…I just want
you
.” My eyes burn as I gaze at the girl capable of fixing me and now I realize, capable of ruining me as well. I fist my hands, wanting to grab her and never let her go. “Lily,
I love you
.”

She weeps against the hand covering her mouth. “I love you too, Grayson. I love you so much.” Lily’s hand drops away and she takes a step toward the door, already leaving me. “I love you enough to let you go. I love you enough to do what’s best for you and not me. I love you enough to say goodbye.”

“Lily,
stop
,” I plead, grabbing her shoulders.

“I am
one
person, Grayson,
one person
. I am nothing!” She flings her arms out, knocking my hands from her.

“You are everything. You are
everything
,” I whisper raggedly, trying to catch her hands, but she shrugs me off.

The tears are streaming down her face, one right after another. “I am nothing when there is a whole world out there waiting for you. I can’t be the thing that holds you back, some insignificant nobody. I
won’t
,” she states fiercely.

“I can’t believe what you’re saying. I can’t believe you think that. How can you do this?
To me? To
us
?”

She stares at me, red-eyed and miserable. “I’m being honest.”

“No. You’re not. You’re fucking lying!” I shout, incredulous and angry and hurting, hurting so badly. I swallow, trying to calm my racing heart, trying to find control when my heart is being demolished. “You’re the only thing…the only one…that makes sense to me, that makes me okay. You love me, I know you do.”

“I do. I love you and I know I always will.”

“Then
why
?”

“It doesn’t matter. What I think or feel—none of it matters. It’s over,”
she says in a trembling voice.

“Lily.”

“Goodbye, Grayson.”

As she tries to leave, I lunge forward, pulling her around to face me. Panic has me grabbing her face tightly,
then pushing my forehead against hers. I take a shuddering breath. “Don’t say goodbye. This isn’t goodbye.”

Lily draws away and glares at me, her eyes intense and her jaw clenched. “You do this, Grayson. If you can’t do it for yourself, then you do it for me. No matter what, even when you hate me, just remember why I’m doing this. I’m doing this for you.”

My eyes burn with unshed tears. “This isn’t how this is supposed to work. You’re not supposed to do things for me.”

Her sad eyes lock on me. “Only you can make sacrifices? What do you think love is about? When you realized you loved me, Grayson, didn’t you think maybe I could love you just as much as you loved me? Didn’t you realize maybe I could love you enough to be able to make sacrifices? If I didn’t love you as much as I do, I would be okay with you staying here. But I can’t do that because I love you too much to let you give up on yourself before you even try. Someday, you’ll know I’m right. Remember that.”

“Please, Lily—“

“I’m leaving now, Grayson. Don’t follow me.” Lily leans up and lightly brushes her lips against mine. They are wet and salty with her tears. She walks out of my house, taking my heart with her.

I breathe, my chest heaving with each one I take, feeling dampness trickle down my cheeks. I whirl around the kitchen, searching for something and not knowing what—something to destroy. I fist my hand and slam it into the wall, hearing a crunch, fire blazing from my knuckles. It’s not enough. I swipe an arm against the bowl on the counter holding bananas and apples. It crashes to the floor, shattering. I thought I could have happiness. I kick at the garbage can, toppling it over, garbage spewing onto the floor. I thought maybe I could forget all my problems and have Lily and that could be enough. I grab my head and squeeze.
Stupid.
I was so stupid.

Fury burns inside me—for myself, for Lily, for this piece of shit life I call my own. If this is to be my existence, if this is how it’s always going to end up—with me losing something I love, then fuck it. I don’t care anymore.

It’s amazing how freeing that kind of thinking is. A numbness descends, wiping away the pain of always wanting what I can’t or don’t deserve to have. I’ll just keep telling myself I don’t care anymore and maybe after a while I’ll even believe it.

I bend down and start to right the room.

***

It’s kind of ironic how fast things can go from great to horrible. Does it ever go the other way, really? I’m thinking no.
At least, not for me. I had a blip, a barely acknowledgeable moment of happiness and now it’s right back to suckiness. The time Lily and I were together won’t even register as significant on a timeline of life, but for me, everything else in my life thus far pales when placed side by side to the weeks with her. I barely had her before she was gone. How can it hurt so much? I’ve been apart from her already half the amount of time we were together and it isn’t getting easier. The ache isn’t going away. I wonder if it ever truly will.

Basically I’m sick of everything—me, my parents, this town. There is this burning ball of fire inside me that wants to burst forth and ravage everything and everyone around me. I’ve been living
with this numb fire for days now, close to a week, and the anger is there, always there, just beneath the surface, ready to explode. I hate
everything
. Anyone who speaks to me annoys me, everything I have to do feels like a burden. Even getting out of bed is a chore I’d rather not deal with. I’m suffocating.

I just…want…
out
.

I set a rum and Coke before a blond who’s been eyeing me since she entered the bar. “Thanks,” she purrs.

I absently nod and turn away to help another customer.

The pull to leave this town, leave this life is strong, unbearably strong. I have to go soon. I know I do. If I don’t want to fall apart, and in the process destroy anyone that’s ever meant anything to me, I have to go.

“What’s your name?” the blond calls when I cross the floor to the register.

“Grayson,” I answer without looking at her.

“I’m Zoe, Grayson. You look sad.”

My eyes lift to her face. I’ve seen her in here before. She’s pretty, the fine lines around her eyes showing she’s probably older than me. Most obvious
of all, she is not Lily.

“I’m good,” I lie, wishing I could stop thinking of her, comparing everyone to her, loving her. I wish I could go back in time,
not
move here, never meet her. Or maybe I just wish my mom had decided not to have me in the first place. Kill two birds with one stone and all that. Only I can’t do any of that. So I suffer.

When
I think of her, I want to cry. The loss is profound and the numbness I feel as the result of it is the one thing I am thankful for. I should write Lily a thank-you card and tell her that. I‘ve given it a lot of thought and decided it would go something like this:

Lily,

You broke my heart to the unalterable point where I feel nothing. I just wanted to say thanks for destroying me
and making me unable to have a single emotion other than rage. You rock like a sledgehammer against a beating vessel—the vessel that is my heart.

Sincerely,

Grayson

It’s Thursday and just about time for EY to start. Ana’s been riding me about performing at EY since she and her cousin caught me singing however many
Sundays ago. She has been especially relentless since I walked through the door of the bar tonight. Apparently she thinks it would be cathartic for me to sing. She’s a fool. A bullet to my head might be, but not singing. She means well so I take her words of advice and sorrowful looks and hugs and everything else Ana does in the name of friendship.

“Hey, Mopey.”

I smile tightly. “Yes, Ana?”

“I got twenty bucks says you won’t sing tonight.” Her blond eyebrows lift.