I see myself in the reflection of the glass. I look different than before. Bigger somehow. I’m standing up straighter. I’m not as thin. My time in Aspen changed me. I think I am more myself than I ever was. The next few months are going to be the worst of my entire life, I’m sure of that. But I’ve survived it before. I’ll make it again. And then I’ll be free. As soon as the contract is over, I can do what I want.
The Paisley from back then doesn’t exist anymore. I am stronger. More self-confident. I won’t let anyone do anything to me. My body belongs to me.Ibelong to me. My decisions belong to me. I am enough and always will be. After all this time, after all these years, I have finally understood that the only person I have ever needed, the only person who’s got to have my back, the only person I lost butso desperately needed, was me.
I know that now. I’m going back because I have to, but it won’t be the end of me. It will be the beginning of a long story that I myself can write.I’mthe one with the pen in my hand.I’mthe one who can erase and edit—even write new things and make it better—if I want.
The curtain slips out of my fingers and covers nighttime Aspen again. As I make my way through the room to gather my things, my steps are no longer wobbly. They’re sure.
I make my way downtown on foot. It takes a long time, but I enjoy every step, every crunch of the snow beneath my boots, every cold breath of air, every white snowflake that falls onto my tongue. The first houses are coming into view, and I move way too quickly through the streets that have become so familiar to me over the past number of months. The streetlamps are shining dimly down onto the sidewalks. There’s a light on in The Old-Timer, and for a second I wonder what William’s doing in his shop already but then I remember:it’s William. He looks up as I make my way past his window. I quickly look away and walk faster. At some point the corner building with its winter-themed shopwindow and butter-yellow string lights appears.Kate’s Diner.
Kate was the first person I got to know here. I can still remember how she smiled when she brought me her pancakes. I can remember the sad look on her face as she looked me up and down and her glance caught the blue spots on my face. I gasp for breath; it issopainful thinking about all these things. I wipe my gloved hand across my runny nose, look up the side of the building, and recognize the old stickers on the slanted windows. Most of them have been scratched away and now only suggest what they once were. I think about Gwen who, at this moment, is asleep on her yoga mat beneath the window, think about Bing Crosby sprawled out in his house, pressing his damp nose against the plywood. It hurts. Really bad.
I think of my mother being left by one of her endless boyfriends. They’d been together a few months, and I thought that they were happy because they laughed so much. But once it was over and Mom was cooking and humming, dancing and smoking her cigarettes in front of the old beaten-up TV, I asked her if she was sad. She just flicked ash on the trailer’s nasty floor in response, blew out a big cloud of smoke, and said, “What,because of him? That wasn’t evenreal.” I asked her how she knew whether something was real, and she said, “When it hurts like you was going through hell. When it tears at you, and you think you’re going to burst into flames because of the pain—that’s when it’s real.”
I didn’t know what she meant. But now, looking up at the scraps of stickers on the windows, now I do, and the hot tears stream down my cold face.
This here is real.
“You getting on, or what?”
I slowly turn around. The bus driver is a lanky guy with three-day stubble and dark circles around his eyes. He’s chewing gum. A cup of coffee in his hand. Disgusting combination. Nodding, I have to force myself forward and not turn around.
One step after the other. Just one more. And one more after that. Just keep on moving.
There are four other people on the bus. A couple around my age, way in back; a man around thirty; and an older woman who is knitting and reminds me of Ruth. She watches me as I walk past and casts me a smile full of wrinkles. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve experienced so far this morning, so I stop next to her and shoehorn my bags into the space above the seat. I arrived with nothing but a jute tote, now there are two big sports bags, stuffed to the brim. The doors close as I sit down, and the bus moves off down the street in the direction of town square. Not a soul about.
Leaving Aspen, it’s like my body is paralyzed. The whole time I’m thinking,It’s all good. I’m still here, no reason to be sad. But then we’re on the highway, and I feel like someone’s ripped my heart out of my chest. Now there’s no going back. The most beautiful time of my life is behind me.
I undo the laces of my boots, slip out of them, and pull my legs up beneath me. I lean my back against the dirty window so as not to see the spots on the glass, and because I can’t handle the fact that we’ve left Aspen.
On my phone, I open the photo of Knox and play with the pendants of my charm bracelet. The bird glides through my fingers.
“Sweetheart,” the woman across from me says. “Why do you look so sad?”
“Because Iam.”
Her knitting needles clack against each other. “But why?”
I shrug and lean my head back. “Because I had to leave people behind who I love.”
“Are you sure that you had to?”
For a moment, all I do is listen to the crackling of the radio. “It’s not that simple.”
“Nothing is simple,” she says. Her ball of wool falls out of her handbag and rolls across the floor. She doesn’t pick it up. “The gardener sows his seeds, but do you think everything’s easy peasy until harvest comes?”
“That’s something else.”
“I think it’s the same. First you sow, and then it’s up to you to see what happens.”
“Sometimes that doesn’t work,” I reply. “Sometimes a wild animal shows up, or people who don’t care about your harvest at all, and they destroy everything.”
She shrugs her bony shoulders. “And? Then what becomes of your harvest is still up to you.”
“How so? It’s been destroyed.”
“Just because something’s destroyed doesn’t mean you can’t plant new seeds.”
I don’t know what to say, so I close my eyes and inhale Knox’s smell that’s still on his sweater. My tears trickle into the fabric.
