The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(10)

*

I was about to give in for the night and resolve to wake up early when I got another subjectless e-mail in my inbox:

Hey.

Thanks for today. I know Brian would be very grateful.

I’m sorry if I was cold last night—it’s been an extremely hard few days for me, obviously. But I ought to acknowledge this is also hard for you.

I’ve attached a document with some thoughts you might be able to use tomorrow. No pressure if you’re all set, but I figured I owe you one.

L

I opened the attachment. There were lyrics from his favorite songs, a copy of a poem he wrote freshman year. Things he’d said about what he wanted to be when he “grew up,” a link to a funny op-ed he wrote in the school newspaper. There were also bullets she’d written up describing him—endearingly confident, full of a genuine wonder, contagiously enthused.

I didn’t want to be, but I was grateful. I kept it open beside my other document and began writing. I clicked on the link to his article, listened to the songs she mentioned, and jotted down lyrics. I was so relieved and distracted by the new material that it wasn’t until thirty minutes later that I thought about Lauren for the first time without also thinking about myself. She loved Brian. It was so remarkably, indubitably clear. And whether or not he understood it, he’d loved her back. At first I’d thought it was a favor, some kind of thank-you for picking up the journal. But as I scrolled through her document again I realized it had nothing to do with helping me. Nothing.

*

I finished a draft of my remarks and took a shower for the first time in two days. My hair was tangled and matted in the back, and it took me nearly twenty minutes to pick it apart with my pruned fingers. Halfway through, I became exhausted and sat cross-legged on the floor of the shower, the water pelting down on my hunched back, echoing up and filling my head with nothing but its steady pounding. When I got out, I put on Brian’s sweater and got back into bed. I was going to tell her. Let her know what Brian had written—let her read it for herself. Just so you know, I would write in an e-mail, he still loved you all along.

But before I opened my computer I leaned over and pulled Brian’s journal out of my backpack. It was long, enviably full, and this time I opened to a part near the beginning. I was tired and hurt and the headache behind my left eye had never quite vanished—but I read the love story of Lauren Cleaver and Brian Jones until 5:30 that morning.

*

The service was uneventful. Five or six hundred students gathered on the main green at 7:30 the next night and the chaplain’s office handed out small candles tucked inside paper cups. I wondered if they recycled these from vigil to vigil but abandoned the thought when I was led to stand with William, Adam, and Brian’s parents. They said their pieces and I said mine, his mother struggling to contain herself when she briefly addressed the students and thanked the school. When I took the podium, I was worried people would whisper or wonder why I was speaking, but they didn’t. I’m not even sure they distinguished what I said from the others. I’d spent the first half of the vigil searching the crowd for Lauren’s face but I couldn’t find her and wondered if she’d decided not to show up. But just before I began speaking, I saw her strawberry blonde hair somewhere near the back left—illuminated and glowing from the light of her small candle. When I quoted his article, the audience emitted a small laugh, and when I read from his favorite song, they got quiet. Endearingly confident, I said, full of a genuine wonder, contagiously enthused. I looked right at her when I said that, and she nodded.

When it ended, they had these bagpipes play, and I waited around with the others as the students slowly blew out their candles, walking over waxed grass to their dorm rooms and libraries. Lauren came to say good-bye to his family but I could see now that she felt as uncomfortable with her role around them as I did.

I chased her down before she had a chance to leave the gate.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi.” We stood there for a second, silent.

“Thank you. That was . . . he would have liked it.”

“Thank you,” I said awkwardly. “For the stuff.”

“No problem.” She looked down. “I wasn’t sure you were going to use any of it. You didn’t get back to me.” I didn’t say anything. I looked at her and realized that she’d started crying again, silently.

I thought about the things he’d said about her in his journal. The morning after they first kissed when he’d spent forty minutes writing her a three-line e-mail. The game of bowling where they got high in the bathroom, the way he’d described her collarbone and her smile and the first time he saw her band play in the basement during the storm. The first time they had sex and didn’t use a condom and the first time he came home with her for Thanksgiving and met her alcoholic mother and the discussion they’d had about it afterward. How he’d said he held her and told her it’d be okay and that he’d always be there. The bad poem he wrote for her and the good song she wrote for him. The time they thought she was pregnant and the time his grandfather died. How they’d said how much they loved each other and how they always would. How he worried he loved her more than she loved him and that she had a crush on a boy named Emmanuel. And I thought then of how he’d described things growing old. Growing similar, habitual. How he’d begun to wake up in the morning without rolling over to kiss her. How he’d started to resent the time away from his friends, her nagging habits. How he’d begun to look at other girls and compare her to the hypothetical. How she’d begun to ignore him too and how they’d gone along anyway for another six months, another year. How it’d ended and how he’d felt free and young and energized. But then how he’d begun to miss her. And doubt himself. And worry that they’d screwed things up forever. How he’d loved her, still, whether or not he understood it, and how, when it came down to it, I could never really compare.