This Lullaby(66)

“I’m not afraid,” I said. “That’s not it. It’s just simpler this way.”

“So you’re saying we should just decide now that this summer doesn’t mean anything? Just use each other and then when you go or I go it’s over, see you later?”

It sounded so bad when he said it that way. “I have worked all my life to get out of here scot-free,” I said. “I can’t take anything else with me.”

“This doesn’t have to be a burden,” he said. “Why do you want to make it one?”

“Because I know how things end, Dexter.” I lowered my voice. “I’ve seen what commitment leads to, and it isn’t pretty. Going in is the easy part. It’s the endings that suck.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” he said incredously. “My mother’s had six husbands. I’ve been related to half the country at one time or another.”

“It’s not a joke.” I shook my head. “This is how it has to be. I’m sorry.”

For a minute neither of us said anything. After so many years of only thinking these things, saying them out loud felt so strange, as if now they were officially real. My cold, hard heart exposed, finally, for what it truly was. Fair warning, I thought. I should have told you from the start. I will let you down.

“I know why you’re saying this,” he said finally, “but you’re missing out. You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It’s not overrated. There’s a reason for all those songs.”

I looked down at my hands. “They’re just songs, Dexter. They don’t mean anything.”

He walked over and stood right in front of me, taking my hands in his. “You know, we only sang that tonight because we were dying up there. Lucas heard me humming it the other day and got all inspired and came up with that arrangement. They don’t know it has anything to do with you. They just think it’s a good crowd pleaser.”

“I guess it is,” I said. “Just not for me.”

I felt it then. That strange settling feeling that meant the worst part of breaking up was over, and now there were only a few pleasantries to exchange before you were done for good. It was like the finish line coming up over the hill, and knowing that what lies ahead is all within your sight.

“You know,” he said, rubbing my thumb with his, “it could have gone either way with us. All those marriages and everything. Another day, you’d be the one who believed, and I’d be sending you away.”

“Maybe,” I replied. But I couldn’t even imagine believing in love the way he did. Not with the history we shared. You had to be crazy to come out of it and think forever was still possible.

He leaned forward, still holding my hand, and kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes as he did so, pressing my toes into the grass. I took in everything about him that I’d grown to like: the smell of him, his narrow hips, the smoothness of his skin against mine. So much in so little time.

“I’ll see you around,” he said, pulling back from me. “Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He squeezed my hand one last time, then let it drop and started across the grass. His feet left fresh tracks: the ones from earlier were gone, already absorbed, as if nothing had happened up to here.

Once inside I went up to my bedroom and got undressed, pulling on an old pair of boxers and a tank top and crawling under the sheets. I knew this feeling, the 2 A.M. loneliness that I’d practically invented. It was always worse right after a breakup. In those first few hours officially single again the world seems like it expands, suddenly bigger and more vast now that you have to get through it alone.

That was why I’d started listening to the song, in the beginning: it took my mind off things. It was the one constant in my life, however I felt about it, the one thing that had remained a part of me as stepfathers and boyfriends and houses shifted in and out. The recording never changed, the words staying the same, my father’s voice taking the same breaths between lines. But now I couldn’t even do that. It was now stuck in my mind the way Dexter had sung it: mocking and sweet and different, carrying a heavier and stranger weight than it ever had before.

I kept thinking about how he’d kissed my forehead as we said good-bye. It had to be the nicest breakup ever. Not that it made it any easier. But still.

I rolled over and pulled the pillow tight under my head, closing my eyes. I tried to distract myself with other songs: the Beatles, my current favorite CD, old 1980s hits from my childhood. But Dexter’s voice kept coming back, slipping easily over the words I knew too well. I fell asleep with it still playing in my mind, and the next thing I knew it was morning.





August





Chapter Twelve




“Come on! Who wants to KaBoom?”

I looked at Lissa. It was over ninety degrees out, the sun was blasting hot, and somewhere over to my left, a barbershop quartet was singing “My Old Kentucky Home.” It was official: we were in hell. “Not me,” I said. Again. Two weeks into her job shilling a new sports drink/caffeine jolt soda, and Lissa still couldn’t accept that I didn’t like the taste of it. And I wasn’t alone.

“It’s . . . it’s like . . . fizzy lemonade,” Chloe said delicately, swirling the tiniest sip of it around in her mouth. “With a weird cheap cola aftertaste.”