The Love That Split the World(77)
“Nat,” Megan says, the pounding of her feet against the treadmill slowing. “We don’t have to talk about this.”
“He does make me feel warm,” I say. “And safe. He’s . . . even. I doubt I could ever shock him. And he knows about Grandmother and the two worlds, and that makes me feel understood. Like, less alone than I’ve ever been. Like we’re somehow two parts of the same thing.” That’s what I’ve been scared to say. That’s why I’m afraid to want him, and also why I can’t make myself stop. “I don’t know. He’s gentle. He’s so gentle that I feel like crying when I think about it, and I don’t really understand that but it’s the truth and I don’t want to lose him but I’m going to, and somehow, even with the guilt about Matt, it’s still worth it to me to spend every minute I can with him.”
Megan’s silent for a long moment before she murmurs, “I changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“Denial,” she says, “I don’t want to live there after all. I want to feel everything so much it hurts.”
I take a deep breath and fumble over my words. “Did you ever think you and Matt might . . . you know.”
“Might what?”
“Date.”
She snorts. “You mean throughout the years of him staring at you like a desperate-to-please Labrador puppy? Yes, naturally. The biggest turn-on in the world is someone who’s obsessed with your best friend.”
“I’m serious, Meg. You’ve really never thought you guys might work?”
“In a group project or flag-football scenario, yes. But in a romantic relationship, only if you died shortly after having Matt’s baby and, in my resulting psychotic break, I began to wear your old clothes and only eat your favorite foods and continue your life à la Stevie Nicks’s marriage to Kim Anderson, and even in that situation I don’t think I’d make it as long as Stevie before returning to writing songs for mothers and wives rather than being a mother and wife. Hey, speaking of psychotic breaks, any reason why you’re trying to set me up with your ex-boyfriend who’s in a coma?”
Despite the way the word coma slices through me, I laugh in relief. “Sorry. I don’t want to live in Denial either. I want to live in a world where you get everything you’ve ever wanted. And cheese fries. I want cheese fries.”
“Always.”
Thursday’s hypnotherapy is a bust, and Alice won’t speak to me when it’s over. “I’m going to ask my parents tonight,” I tell her as I’m leaving. “About missing the family trip.”
“We’ll see,” she says sharply.
“I just need a little more time. It’s more complicated than it seems, but I’m going to ask.”
“Everything on this entire planet is complicated,” Alice says coolly, and with that, I nod and leave.
I hate to prove her right, but when dinner comes and we’re all peacefully sitting around the table, I start to feel like there are hands grasped around my trachea. It doesn’t help when the trip comes up in conversation naturally, and Mom starts giddily describing all the pre-trip research she’s done. I promised myself I was going to ask to stay home, right after dinner, but now the thought of actually doing it makes me visibly shake.
Then, halfway through the meal, Coco sets down her fork and clears her throat, immediately summoning all of our attention.
“I don’t want to transfer,” she announces. “I want to stay at Ryle.”
Mom sets her own fork down and stares at her, mouth agape, but Dad just half shrugs and keeps eating. “If that’s what you want, baby,” he says. It’s what he’s always called Coco, but now it elicits an eye roll. Mom shoots him a We have to talk about this before we say such things! look, and he clears his throat exactly like Coco just did. “Any particular reason?”
She shrugs and toys with her hair. It’s like watching a Twilight Zone version of tennis in which hereditary mannerisms are being volleyed back and forth. “I just don’t.”
“Coco, you’ve worked so hard for this,” Mom says. “A performing arts school—”
“You let Natalie quit dance,” Coco says, and now even Dad looks up.
“You want to quit altogether?” he says.
“No . . . I just don’t want it to be my whole life, is all.”
Jack officially checks out of the conversation when he starts dropping linguine noodles under the table for Gus, who’s always on top of our feet while we eat. Mom sighs and runs her hands through her hair before addressing Coco again. “Well, your father and I will have to talk.”
Per usual, Mom’s fighting for a serene expression, though it’s obvious that internally she’s sobbing and wondering what anti-dance god has cursed her family.
At the end of dinner, Jack ambles off to play video games, and Coco goes to pack for a sleepover at Abby’s, leaving me to help Mom and Dad carry the dishes into the kitchen. When the dishwasher’s loaded, I lean against the island, send a prayer to Grandmother, and force out the words “Can I talk to you guys for a second?”
“Sure, honey,” Mom says. They must think it’s bad because Mom leads the way to their bedroom. The rest of the house is clean and quaint, carefully designed to look homey without being cluttered, warm without being stifling, and country without being hick, but Mom and Dad never bothered giving their own room the same attention. It’s clean but not neat, the dresser covered in mail and the plaid chairs beyond the bed loaded with clean laundry. The walls are the same eggshell color they were when Mom and Dad bought the house, and the bedding, curtains, side tables, and lamps are so unintentionally mismatched that the aesthetic can’t even be called “eclectic.” When Mom picks up new pieces from estate sales and antique stores, the furniture being replaced typically comes up here to die. If Pier 1 Imports sponsored a production of The Lion King, this is where the hyenas would live.