She doesn’t look back at me.
Some high school girls come up and singAmerica, the Beautiful, but I can’t even pretend I’m listening.I haven’t even talked to Clementine in eight years.When we broke up, she practically fell off the face of the earth.
I feel like I’m seeing a ghost, except I’m pretty sure she’s real.
The mayor comes back and talks more.I think about Clementine, years ago, the first time we fooled around in her parents’ basement.On that ugly green couch with yellow flowers, my hands under her sweater.
Thenoiseshe made when I unhooked her bra and pinched her nipples.I was a little more experienced than her, but not much.I swear that noise was a revelation.
The next time we were on that couch, when I got my hands under her sweater, she wasn’t wearing a bra at all.I still remember exactly the way she smiled when my fingers found nothing but skin.
Everyone around me applauds, and then they start standing.Someone’s calling my name, but it’s background noise.I stand and turn away from the table, already scanning the crowd over everyone’s heads, but I don’t see her at the table where she was sitting.
I don’t see heranywhere.
Shit.
I pick up the pace, dodging around old ladies who are slow to stand up, nearly tripping over some kids who dart right in front of me.A mom gives me a dirty look but I ignore it, glancing over her head, looking for Clementine’s dark hair and hazel eyes.
Nothing.
Did she run away from me?I wonder, and my heart sinks.I know our breakup was ugly — hell, I was there too — but I didn’t think it was avoid-me-eight-years-later ugly.For fuck’s sake, we were teenagers, and now we’re adults.
She can’t even say hi?
“Excuseme,” a very prim voice says, and I snap out of it to find a middle-aged woman in a button-down denim dress, sneakers, and a stern expression standing there, staring at me.
“Yes ma’am,” I say, and smile at her.
“The rest of your team is helping the Ladies’ Auxiliary clear the tables and chairs,” she says, pointing, but her voice has lost the grating quality it had before.
Even if she won’t come out and directlyask, I know exactly what she wants.I’m not stupid.
“Just one minute, ma’am,” I say, still smiling.Then I walk off before she can say anything else, her withering glare following me across the room.
She can glare ’til the cows come home for all I care.
I shoulder my way through the exit, still looking around at the people milling around the foyer, heading up the stairs to the cool night.No Clementine, but I’m not that surprised.
Back when I knew her, when she was upset, other people were the last thing she wanted to deal with.If she was angry, or embarrassed, half the time I’d find her alone in a dark room, sitting on the floor, staring out a window, and she’d tell me she just neededspace.
So I look for space.I walk down a hall, away from the throng of people, away from the ladies who want me to put away tables and away from the teenaged singers and the dads who smell like spaghetti.I turn a corner into a darker part of the church basement.
Near the end, there’s a closed door, light leaking out from underneath it.Behind me, a couple of the crew burst into laughter, and just from the sound, I can tell they’ve spiked their fruit punch.After this they’re heading to the Rusty Beaver, the only bar in town, and they’ll probably all go home with the town’s three eligible women.
I step forward into the dark hallway.I don’t know why I’m so sure, but IknowClementine’s in there, that she escaped here for a minute alone after her presentation.
Halfway down, I pause for a second and listen.There’s the hubbub of the crowd behind me, but there’s a sound from behind the closed door, too, and suddenly I pause.
It’s Clementine.
And I’m almost positive she’ssobbing.
She doesn’t want to see you,I think.She always hated it when people saw her cry.
I walk to the door anyway, drawn in, a moth to the light.
Inside, there’s a long, drawn out gasp, like she’s having trouble breathing, and I frown, my heart clenching.
