“Well," Britt tucks one side of her blond bob behind an ear, “We don’t all have an Owen to protect us from the spirits of theundead.”
I peer around, hoping to find something interesting to warrant a subject change. We’re standing in a cluster of pedestrians on a busy street corner, and most people are wearing headphones. If they aren’t, their necks are bent at an awkward angle, staring at their phones and using a finger to scroll. Nothing interesting to commenton.
“Yes, I'm so lucky to have Owen," I murmur. The light changes, and we step off thecurb.
She walks with purpose, even though we’re headed to our apartment for an afternoon of absolutely nothing. Maybe some studying. Probably some badTV.
It’s not hard for me to keep up with Britt. I walk with purpose too. I always have. We pound the stairs to our second-floor apartment. Neither of us is out of breath, a welcome change from nine months ago when we first moved in. If Britt hadn’t been gasping for air each time she scrambled the stairs, she would’ve punched me for choosing the secondstory.
When I promised my dad I’d get the safer second-level apartment, I didn’t know Britt Pomeroy was going to answer my ad for a roommate. Nor did I know the wheezing, blond ball of sarcasm who knocked on my door was going to become the best friend I’ve ever had. What mattered was my dad and the promise I made to him. And promises? They mean something tome.
When we get home, Britt takes out her laptop and navigates to Facebook. “Yesterday was April fools,” she says without looking up. She scrolls through posts, laughing at some, and tossing chip after chip into her mouth. “I totallyforgot.”
Notme.
I haven’t told Britt that Owen broke up with me. I can’t stand to say the words. I’m humiliated. Mortified I even dared to be happy. Worse, I’m sad. The kind of sadness I promised myself I’d never allow anyone make me feel again. Through fake smiles and an early bedtime, I hide it all fromher.
By the next afternoon, the misery has seeped through the cracks in my walled-off heart, and Brittnotices.
“I’ve never seen you like this." She leans over, plucks a mandarin orange from an old, chipped fruit bowl on the counter, and tosses it in the air twice before her eyes come to rest on me. “What’s yourdeal?”
"I don't know what you mean." I say. Obviously I know exactly what she means. Call it a reflexive action, like putting your arms up when a ball comes flying at your head. No need to analyze the hows and whys of my automatic denial. Thanks to the therapist I stopped seeing long ago, I already know.Fear of abandonment, she said. When I left my session that day I told my dad he should get a refund. The only gem in our entire session was when she said it's a natural reaction to what I've been through, that she would expect me to push everyone away.If you didn't push people away, I'd wonder if you were facing an inability to feel. And if that were the case, our visits would be verydifferent.
I should have told my therapist not to worry, that I'm not facing an inability to feel. If anything, the opposite is my problem.I feel too much.I feel every part of my mother's departure like little stabs of pain all over my body. Most of the pain is concentrated in my heart. That's where the pinches and pulls hurt the most. Right in the center of my chest, where my breath stops in my throat and my chest tightens. Even after thirteen years, I can't get rid of what my mother left behind when she walkedaway.
So, no. I don’t believe in the ghosts of the dead. But the ghosts of the living? Yeah, those arereal.
* * *
That nightI tell Britt whathappened.
She flies off the handle, cussing and pacing, talking fast and making references to mob movies. Which is almost funny, considering she’s five-foot-two, and only when she straightens her shoulders. Hardly a formidablefoe.
“Nobody is going to sleep with the fishes.” I speak with my most placatingvoice.
My chest warms as I watch her from my spot on the arm of the couch. For once I feel cared for, like someone worthy ofdefense.
It’s not fair for me to think that way. My dad would defend me to his dying breath, if I ever gave him the opportunity—which I don’t. I like handling things on myown.
“Aubrey, we can’t just let him get away with this.” She throws a hand up in my direction. “You need to call him back. We need to call him names. Lot's of bad names.” She wrinkles her nose and makes a sound ofdisgust.
I shake my head. “Let it go." Calling Owen ranks very low on my list of things I want to do, falling somewhere near using pliers to pull out mytoenails.
Britt blinks twice. “Why aren’t you having the right reaction tothis?”
I give her an answer, something about having a forty-eight-hour head start on feeling angry. Truthfully, as devastated as I am, a part of me knew Owen would leave me eventually. On some level I’ve been mourning the demise of our relationship since the second I let his smile carry meaway.
“Owen is going to regret his choice.” She wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Ipromise.”
I smile because it’s what I’m supposed todo.
Just before I fall asleep that night, I see her. From behind, like always. I think maybe this time she’ll look back, because my heart was broken by a boy, something that’s never happened before. Shouldn’t mothers be there for theirdaughters?
Even my imagination can’t make her turnaround.
My mom was pretty.No, my mom was beautiful. A kind of beauty that belonged in the pages of the fashion magazines she kept stacked on the side table in the living room. My friends wanted to come to my house because they loved my mom, and I loved that they lovedher.
Not only was my mom beautiful, she could bake like Mrs. Fields and Betty Crocker all wrapped up in one. She made the very best blueberry muffins that anyone ever put in their mouths. They would sigh as they took a bite, saying things like, “It’s a crime how good theseare.”
