Something Real (46 page)

SEASON 18, EPISODE 3

(The One with the Letters)

Living with the Lees is an adjustment, but I couldn’t have asked for a better interim life. Mr. Lee is gregarious and kind; Mrs. Lee is an amazing cook and probably the smartest woman I have ever met. Tessa’s little sister, Casey, is sweet, too—but she makes me miss the triplets. Though Tessa wanted me to share her room, I insisted on being in the guest bedroom with Benny. I didn’t want living together to affect our friendship, and I knew I’d be underfoot if I invaded her space like that. Besides, it’s comforting when I wake up in a strange room to see my brother a few feet away. He and Mr. Lee clicked right away, and for the first time, I realized how hard it must have been for Benny to grow up without a real father figure around. I often walk in on them playing cards, talking politics, or discussing Benny’s college options. I’d never seen him like that with Kirk or Dad.

It’s been three weeks, and I still haven’t heard from my mom. Lex says to give it time, but I don’t know if I can ever forgive Mom for the life she chose for us. I’m so angry, so bitter. The day after my birthday, Benny and I were careful to take anything we didn’t want to part with out of the house. We didn’t say it, but I think both of us knew this was a forever kind of thing. It was hard leaving. I spent half the morning writing notes to my siblings and putting them on their beds with chocolates I’d bought at the gas station up the street, and I left my winter formal dress on Lex’s bed—I knew she loved it, and she’d get way more use out of it than I would. Benny and I cried the whole way to the Lees’ house. They welcomed us with open arms and pizza.

It’s hardest at dinnertime. It’s weird, sitting around this little table of six people, calmly discussing the day’s events. I’m so used to the pushing and shoving and there never quite being enough food to go around, so you always have to raid the cupboard after dinner for a snack. Not to mention dinner preparations; at my house, the kitchen was an industrial hive, where all of us were put to work and had designated duties. At the Lees’ house, each night is a little different, but deviating from a routine doesn’t create total chaos.

I watched the show last week for the first time since the notebook-throwing episode. I was so homesick that I had to check in, even if it was only in the way millions of other Americans could. Benny didn’t want to, so I went over to Patrick’s house, and we watched it in his room. I cried the whole time. They talked about us a little, but the show was all about deciding who was going to get our rooms. Someone from the home improvement network came over and redesigned all the bedrooms, too. I was glad Benny hadn’t watched it—part of me was certain Chuck had organized that episode for the express purpose of hurting us.

My dad and I have talked a few times since I left. Suddenly he’s part of my life. He’s insisted on helping Benny and me out financially, which is something I’m not too proud to refuse. I know my college fund is going to be used eventually, but since I don’t even know if I’m going to college, I’ve stopped obsessing over it.

“Guess what?” Mer bounds into Schwartz’s class, looking even peppier than usual.

“You’ve just won the lottery?” asks Tessa.

“No…”

“You found the cure for cancer?” I ask.

“Not quite…”

Patrick shrugs. “I’ve got nothin’.”

Mer waves a piece of paper she’d been hiding behind her back. “I GOT IN!”

“Ohmygod!” (Me and Tessa)

Mer starts jumping around. “NYU, NYU! Can’t you picture me on the subway? Ohmygod, I’m gonna live in the Village and get a hot poet boyfriend and go to diners at four A.M.”

“And be on Broadway,” adds Tessa.

Mer starts belting a Broadway tune about her being
one singular sensation
, and we laugh and applaud.

I really am happy for her, but my smile is plastic, a mannequin’s too-shiny grin. Any day now, the rest of them will have their letters. They’ll be clutching their bright futures and dancing around. Except me.

Smile. Nod. Repeat.

I try to ignore the fluttering in my chest and the beads of sweat that scatter across my forehead—my body’s version of an early warning system. Halfway through Schwartz’s class, I know I’m about to have a full-on panic attack. I raise my hand, surreptitiously wiping the sweat above my lip on the sleeve of my shirt.

“Can I get the pass?”

Schwartz gives me a concerned look, then nods. “Sure.”

I get out of the room as fast as possible and burst into the infamous stall where I first saw the tabloid and slide down to the floor, pressing my back against the cool tile. My chest tightens, and I struggle to catch my breath. I wish I’d had the guts to be honest with my mom back in November and tell her I needed help with these, but I’d been afraid of my panic attacks being the subject of one of the episodes: “The One with the Psychiatrist.” So for months now, I’ve been pretending I don’t get them when actually I feel like I’m having a heart attack about once a week. Sometimes Diane Le Shrink’s breathing thing helps, but it doesn’t always. I count to ten. Exhale.

I check my phone—it feels like I’ve been in here for hours. Another minute of deep breathing and then I’m back on my feet. The walls are still closing in on me, but I think I’ll be okay. I splash some water on my face and dry it with the brown paper towels that smell vaguely of baby spit-up. When I get back to class, everyone’s in the middle of some activity with partners. Patrick’s eyes follow me with concern, but I smile smile smile and, “So what did I miss?”

The next week it’s Tessa. Stanford. Benny and Matt both get into USC by the time spring break rolls around. Each time it happens, I Smile, Nod, Repeat. Patrick doesn’t say anything about Columbia, and I’m terrified to ask. But it’s no use. I’m living on borrowed time. In a few months, he’ll be gone.

“So why didn’t you apply to a school?” Diane Le Shrink asks me this a few days before spring break.

“I don’t know,” I wail. “I couldn’t think, with all the cameras around. It’s like I didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with it or something.”

“But what about now? I’m sure there are still some schools that would consider you.”

I twist Patrick’s ring around and around my finger. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And what would I major in? And how would I pay for it?”

I’m not great at school, but I’m not bad at it, either. I’m sure if I tried I could get into a semidecent one. Something beyond community college. But I’m not ready to do it all again—meeting people, lying about my past. Maybe that’s what it comes down to. It’s too daunting being me.

Diane gives me a spiel about financial aid and scholarships and don’t I have a college fund, but I’m tuning her out. I think she can tell because she switches tactics.

“What about a job?”

“Yeah, I’d love one, but I can’t work here because of the show. So then I have to go somewhere, like maybe another country, and find an apartment and live by myself and get a cat—”

“Why would you get a cat?”

“Because it’s my destiny.”

Diane gives me a long, thoughtful look. “What about traveling?”

I open my mouth to reject this, when something stops me. Out of all the things she’s mentioned, I finally feel something lift inside me. A shift. And the burden I’m carrying feels a little lighter.

“Where would I go?”

Diane shrugs. “Anywhere. Do you have a passport?”

“Yeah.” In season seven, my family went to Paris, and in season eleven, we went to Costa Rica. My heart falls a little as I realize I’ll have to beg Lex to be my go-between to get it.

“Okay,” Diane says. “Then you could go abroad—maybe learn a language or volunteer. Or you could travel around the States. Do a road trip with a friend.”

“Ride into a sunrise,” I whisper.

“Pardon?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

That night Patrick and I go to the park. Now that it’s spring, the weather is mild. A slight chill gives an edge to the night, but the air smells like grass and flowers. We haven’t been here together since our very first date, which feels about a million years ago.

“Hey, where are you?” he whispers.

We’re up in the jungle gym, cuddling under a thin blanket. My eyes slide to his, and I let myself get a little lost in them. With just a street lamp to see from, they look like two black pools. I already feel like I’m saying good-bye.

“I’m here.” I smile, knowing that’s not what he meant.

Patrick takes a breath. “I got into Columbia.”

And I know, duh, I
know
he did, but hearing him say it is the last nail in the coffin, the icing on the cake, the last straw, and oh, hell, I hate my life so much.

“That’s great. I knew you would. I’m so proud of you.”

I throw my arms around him, but his muscles are tense. I look up, rest my hand against his cheek.

“What’s wrong?”

“Chloe, you’re killing me.” He sits up, pulling me with him. “You can be fake with everyone else, but not with me, okay?”

I nod. “When did you get in?”

He hesitates. “A month ago.”

“
What?
” This comes out a little more forceful than I’d intended. “Why are you just telling me now?”

He throws up his hands, frustrated. “Because I knew this is how you’d feel, and it was sort of a bad time then.”

A month ago … that would have been the week before my birthday. “Yeah, okay.”

We fall into one of those loud silences where there’s so much to say but you can’t say any of it. The darkness softens the sharp lines of his face, makes him look like a memory. I’ve never felt so utterly, completely, totally alone in my life.

“You know, I think we have bad luck in this precise spot in the universe,” Patrick says.

At first I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then I realize … of course. This is where we first kissed and I freaked out and ran off.

I look down and play with my ring. On. Off. On. Off.

“Yeah, you might be right about that.”

He cups my face in his hands. “This doesn’t change anything. I wish you could see that.”

But it does. Change everything.

I let him kiss me, and just the feel of his lips on mine hurts too much. I feel like each kiss is numbered. I’m renting him until he finds a non-screwed-up, intelligent, motivated girl at Columbia who keeps him on his toes in all the best ways and has zero baggage and a normal family. And I’ll be—where, what? I’ve lost everyone. Benny’s going to LA, Tessa to Palo Alto, Mer and Patrick to New York, my family to MetaReel, Dad to Florida. I feel like I’ve been banished. What did I do wrong?

Maybe this is what I deserve. You can’t screw up your own suicide and then expect the universe to give you presents wrapped in the skin of a wonderful boy. That’s just not the way it works.

I pull away. “Patrick, I—”

“I want you to come with me,” he says quickly. “We’ll get an apartment; it’ll be amazing. We can wake up next to each other every morning. We can hang out with Meredith, and you can apply to a school once you figure out what you want to do. And then maybe in a couple years, we can…” He pauses, his eyes hopeful as they read the misery in my face. “We can make it official. If you want.”

My eyes widen. “Are you…”

He brings his forehead to mine and nods. “Someday, when the time is right, yeah.” That crooked grin. “I want to make an honest woman out of you.”

“Patrick…”

“Just say yes,” he whispers, his voice rough.

“To what?”

“All of it.”

He kisses me again, more fully this time. For a while, I give in to the taste of spearmint and the way his hands move confidently along the dips and curves of my body. I let myself imagine we have that apartment in New York as I run my fingers through his hair and slip them under his shirt.

But it’s all a fantasy. That life has too many ways it could go wrong. I pull away, and he looks at me, expectant. I am so in love with him that it physically hurts.

“Patrick, I can’t just be your lame-ass girlfriend while you’re at Columbia.”

He takes my hand. “First of all, you could never be a lame-ass anything.”

I sigh. “You know what I mean.”

“I know you’ve been depressed the past few weeks every time someone mentions college. I know you’re still confused about what you want.” His voice grows softer. “I just thought
I
wasn’t part of that confusion.”

“You’re not! You’re the only thing I’m sure about.” I bite my lip. “It just feels like everyone’s moving toward something, and I’m treading water.”

“What do
you
want?”

I shrug, my voice betraying me. “I don’t know.”

He clears his throat. “Do you love me?”

“I’m crazy in love with you—you know that.”

He smiles. “Then we’ll figure this out together.”

“Patrick, it’s not that simple,” I say.