The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(11)

I had their story in my bag. The secret that he, too, had never let things go. Had it tucked inside his journal with a note I’d slipped inside. Thanking her. Telling her I didn’t want to talk to her again because it would be too hard. But I looked at her then, with the tears dripping slowly down her thin cheeks, and I knew, in the end, it’d be better if I kept it. Better if she never knew.

“I’m sorry,” I said. It was all I could get out. “I’m so sorry,” I said. And walked away.

*

That night I went out again. Charlotte, Kyle, and I went to a party down on Pear and I saw this guy named Marshall, who I knew from my Russian lit class, when we were both on the fire escape, getting some air. I usually don’t smoke but I bummed a cigarette off him and when he gave it to me he half smiled. Marshall was handsome. Smart. And suddenly, more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life, I wanted him to love me. I stayed out there with him for nearly an hour and we talked about a lot of things and moved closer and closer together. Eventually, we were both shivering and he asked if I wanted to go back to his apartment with him. I did. I’d never wanted anything more. But as I watched him smile back at me and zip his coat, I saw everything in the world build up and then everything in the world fall down again.





Winter Break

I was stoned when I saw the eskimoed figure crunching down the street with a flashlight and a cocker spaniel. The iced trees hung in on the road and my dazed synapses made suburbia look like a cave. The figure trudged ahead as I flexed my stiff fingers, watching mutely from my hot box of dry heat and public radio. I’d forgotten Michigan’s stillness while I was at school—the way houses slept and trucks made patterns in the snow. So I turned off the speakers and let my car slow to a stop. All that moved was the yellow beam of my mother’s flashlight, flicking up and down as she walked, jerking my dog away from pinecones and driveways and someone else’s pee.

I told my parents I’d be getting in at ten so I’d have time to visit Sam before they knew I was home. When I got to his house we went straight to his room and got in bed with our clothes on, pressing our faces together without even kissing. “I’m here,” I said, and we curled in disbelief. It was our first long-distance reunion and I finally understood the addiction of self-deprivation.

We stayed there for an hour before I dragged myself out of bed and back into my car, lingering with him in the passenger seat as the windows frosted and we passed a thin joint. “Don’t leave,” he said, biting at my shoulder. “You’re always leaving.” I exhaled slowly and leaned my head against his neck. The thought of sleeping in his bed tore at the image of my mother waiting in the kitchen with baked goods that were already cold.

“Tomorrow,” I said, squeezing his hand and sitting up. “I have to spend my first night at home.”

For a while, she didn’t see me. I’m not sure why I waited in my car but for some reason I didn’t feel like moving. Winters turned our town into a black-and-white wonderland and I liked watching my mom pad through its tunneled core. She was overdressed, peering out from an astronautic parka, two scarves, and a pair of thick leather mittens. Yet she managed a kind of mid-road grace, unconcerned that a car could disturb her migration. She did it three times a day. Strapped up my spaniel and circled the block. When my brothers and I begged for the dog, we’d sworn to switch off in rotating shifts. But by the time it was big we were busy with homework or friends or that project we had to start now.

I rolled down my window and felt a flood of cold air on my face. My dog let out a small howl, twigs cracked in the woods, and something about the stillness or my state of mind reminded me of the world’s remarkable capacity to carry on in every place at once. I thought of my mother circling suburbia while I drank in dim fraternities or video-chatted with Sam or slept lazily in my dorm while it snowed out my window. I loved her at that moment in a way that twisted my stomach.

“Mom!” I shouted from the side of my car. The dog barked and she snapped around, frozen like a deer in my car’s white light. She stared for a second, struggling to see through the blinding headlights. I saw something then that I hadn’t seen before, or if I had, I’d chosen to ignore. There was a frailty to her posture, a thinness in her cheeks. She looked tired and cold for the instant before she lit up in motion, jogging slightly toward the hum of my car. But I didn’t think about it because I was happy and I loved her and for the most part, I don’t like the kind of revelations I have when I’m high.

When I woke up the next morning, my mom was in the basement sorting socks. I was glad to be home and it was nice to be reminded of the places our floors creaked. My semester at school had been decent but I’d missed home in a new way I could only attribute to Sam. We’d met that summer while working at the lake, and I’d romanticized Michigan so much that it hung on our phone calls. My dad liked to say we were in the center of the center, but upstate Erie wasn’t exactly downtown. In August, Sam and I took the eighteen-hour train to New York, curling on window seats and sharing an iPod. After that I craved the camaraderie of cities. Energy and art and all-nighters. When I told my dad he said New York was cheap and my parents laughed about never going back.

But this was the time when I found everything romantic. I granted the world a kind of strange generosity. Ideas convinced me and ordinary activities had an almost giddy newness. Part of it was probably the pot. Smoking before anything gave an excuse for a good time. We could go skating or bowling without feeling lame. So we passed bowls in the back of my car and alternated between overanalysis and blank stares. In July I’d get home late and my dad would be in the kitchen, drunk and finally eating.