“No,” I say when I find my voice. “Get your coat. There’s something I need to show you.”
52
Lennon
Thedriveisn’tlong,but it feels like it is. It feels like an eon. Like driving back in time. Familiar landmarks come into view and flit by, and houses and landmarks greet me like old friends that are happy to see me, even though they’re upset that it’s been so long.
The whole way, the tin digs into my thigh.
I park the car and get out, looking across the intersection and down the street beyond it as bad things come rushing at me. The street looks the same as it always did. Quiet at this time of night. Dark, except for the sickly glare of streetlights and the jarring contrast of warm light glowing from living room windows.
There’s a sycamore tree in front of the house. It’s lost its leaves for winter and looks naked and angry about it. It reminded us of the tree Havi had in his yard growing up. I said so, and Havi agreed when we came to view the house with Caroline and Mia.
Back when we lived here, we had a problem with parking. There’s no garage, and we had four cars between us, so we usedto stack them in the driveway. Every single goddamn morning, the people who were parked in were the ones who needed to leave first. It drove us all crazy.
Now, there’s only one car in the drive. A red SUV that isn’t mine, Havi’s, Caroline’s, or Mia’s.
My heart beats faintly, with regret, with despair, with other things too, as I lower myself onto the curb. The concrete beneath me is cold and hard. An unforgiving icy edge that causes a wave of bile to rise in my throat.
Connor sits too, half an arm’s length away from me, and looks at me expectantly. His hair looks neat and I can tell he’s oscillating between being supportive of me and upset by my behavior. Because he’s Connor, supportive wins out.
I’ve played this conversation out in my mind a hundred times, a thousand times, and I still don’t know where to start. It’s one of those things that has such a long history and is woven so deeply into the fabric of everything that matters that it’s hard to find a thread that leads all the way back to the beginning.
“Havi,” I start, and my voice cracks because, ultimately, the end of this story and the beginning are one and the same. I clear my throat and try again. “The thing with Havi and me was complicated and also really simple. He felt something for me that I didn’t feel for him.”
I rub my palms on my thighs, wiping away sweat that immediately beads again. Dread pools in my belly and it feels strange to hear my voice. Strange to hear myself saying Havi’s name aloud, here of all places. With Connor of all people. “It was always there, but most of the time, it wasn’t a big deal because our friendship was way more important than anything else. Most of the time, it was something he spoke about in the past tense, with a shithead grin that robbed his words of their tension.”
I lean back and straighten my leg, digging the tin out of my pocket and holding it in my hand. Dread flows from my belly to my knees and pools in my ankles.
Now that it’s here, now that I’m here, the tin looks different. It looks smaller, less bright. Less threatening. Quieter and inoffensive. Almost harmless.
My hands shake as I open the lid. I pry it open a crack and hold it like that, more closed than open, as I take a careful breath to steady myself. It doesn’t work.
I sense Connor moving in my peripheral vision. A tilt of his head that lets me know his gaze has shifted from my face to the tin. I throw the lid back angrily, as though it’s hot, yanking it wide open before I lose the courage required to do so.
It’s empty except for a single piece of paper.
Good cardstock. Satin finish.
A piece of paper that has been carefully folded back at both ends so it fits into the tin perfectly, and the image on it is perfectly centered.
I take it out and let the empty tin clatter onto the asphalt at my feet.
In my hands, Havi peers up at me. Blond hair standing on end. A cocky grin frozen in time. Big, dark eyes sparkle with indisputable mischief.
I took the photograph the week we opened the store. I took it with his camera, and I used a preset he created, so really, I can’t take all the credit, but still, Havi made a big deal of it because I’m normally crap at photography.
But he liked this picture of himself. He said it made him look like the person he saw when he looked in the mirror.
My ears ring from the memory, and my hands start feeling uncomfortably hot.
Something big and tight winds around my chest and squeezes so hard my nose begins to run and my eyes sting.
I take several big breaths and continue. “He’d say things like, ‘You know I had a huge thing for you in high school, right?’ or, if he saw me wearing something tight, he’d say, ‘Damn, no wonder that body was my sexual awakening.’ He’d say it in a way that was almost a joke, but we both knew it wasn’t. Not really. I knew it hurt him that I didn’t feel the same, but most of the time, it was okay because we were friends first, you know? Friends forever.”
My voice cracks again because before the big fight, that’s what Havi used to say whenever we disagreed.
“For a long time, many years, most of our childhood and even for a few years after school, it was fine. It was there, and we both knew it, but it wasn’t a problem. At least, I didn’t realize how much of a problem it was for him. I tried to be considerate about it. I think it was harder for him than I realized, and as time went by, it got even harder. Something changed a while back.
