Every You, Every Me
Page 11
TO HER
—and jumped to the side.
Hit hard.
The train screeching by.
I rolled on the gravel. Pieces of stone in my skin.
Crushing the photos as I rolled.
Imagining the people watching from the train.
The photographer watching.
I lost my breath.
Deep breaths.
I lifted myself up.
Blinking. Breathing.
I wouldn’t have died. I wouldn’t have.
Remembering the third photograph.
Looking at it there, on the side of the tracks, as the train pushed past.
Every You, Every Me
Thinking: WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?
Aren’t there any other clues?
Hating life. You would say that all the time. I hate life. And I thought it was just something you said.
But I felt it. Down to my bones.
Linked to frustration.
I SAW
Linked to unfairness.
WHAT YOU
Linked to guilt.
DID
Linked to anger.
TO
Linked to helplessness.
HER.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
I dwelt within it as I walked home. I dwelt within it the whole night. The next morning.
Let it go, I imagined Jack saying. Just let it go.
And then I slipped the photos into his locker.
I wanted him to find them, too.
15
Do you remember the time the three of us got into a fight over Zeno’s dichotomy paradox?
Jack hadn’t known what it was, so you explained.
“It’s about infinities and motion,” you said. “I’m sure you’ve heard this. It’s about how if you try to get to somewhere by halves, or any fraction, really, you will never actually get there, because ultimately there will be an infinitely small distance between you and your destination.”
“The most common example is a wall,” I chimed in. “That if I go halfway to the wall, then halfway of the halfway, then halfway of that, on and on, always halfway, I will never actually touch the wall.”
“Isn’t that sad?” you said. “I mean, isn’t that really disturbing?”
“But why?” Jack said. “I don’t get it.”
“Because you’ll never actually get there. You will spend your whole life making progress, but you’ll never actually get there.”
“Infinity is against us,” I told him. “There’s no way for us ever to count it or control it or understand it.”
“Are you stoned?” Jack asked.
You didn’t appreciate that.
“No,” you said. “We’re thinking. We’re taking what we learn and we’re applying it.”
“But that makes no sense,” Jack said.
“It makes perfect sense,” you argued. “What about it doesn’t make sense?”
“Well, duh, isn’t the answer to never walk in half steps? I mean, putting aside the fact that it’s physically impossible to walk forward, say, a thousandth of an inch, in order to be trapped in this paradox, you’d have to agree to its terms. And we don’t have to do that. If you want to walk to the wall, you walk to the wall.”
“But those are human terms,” you said dismissively.
“Yeah, but aren’t we human? Last time I checked, we were human.”
You leaned into him then. Leaned in halfway. Then another halfway. Then another halfway. And kept slowly doing this until your lips were hovering over his, only a sliver of air away. You held there—until he pushed in and kissed you. You pulled away immediately, angry.
“Go to hell, Jack,” you said. “Maybe there’s more to the Truth truth than being human.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You might be human, Jack, but Ariel’s mathematics. She’s all mathematics.”
There are so many things I wish I hadn’t said.
15A
I thought he’d track me down. I thought he’d tell me right away about the photos he found in his locker. But instead it was Katie who tracked me down in study hall.
Katie could get away with things like walking into the library for study hall in a period when she didn’t actually have study hall. She was pretty, and she was a good girl, and thus the librarian didn’t need to see a pass from her. If she was here, there had to be a reason for her to be here. There was no way that Katie would disrupt the universe by being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.
We were friends, mostly because we’d grown up together. I liked her, and had good memories with her, but I wouldn’t have said she meant all that much to me. At least not until that moment.
She looked around the library first. Then, when she saw me alone at my table, she came straight over. I was staring in her direction, half in my scatterthoughts, half out, so I noticed her coming over without really making a move to acknowledge it.
“I have something for you,” she said, reaching into one of her textbooks. She was wearing dangling earrings, and I leaned to the left so they would bounce a little light my way.
“Here,” she said, putting a photo on the desk.
Every You, Every Me
“Where did you get that?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine Katie hanging out with a guy with a Mohawk. But for a second—a split second—I thought, Maybe it’s her. After all, she had a camera. She could’ve just asked some other girl to stand in for her, to throw me off. Or maybe you had somehow gotten to her. Maybe you were behind it all.
Katie sat down across from me.
“I knew you’d ask me that,” she said. “So here’s the thing—if you want me to tell you where I got it, you’re going to have to tell me why you need it.”
I didn’t trust her. She pushed her bangs behind her right ear and looked at me. I had to trust her. Waiting for an answer.
I thought: Ariel said you were one of the last girls to stop sleeping with her stuffed animals. She said you cared more about boys than girls. She said she missed you, but then she said she didn’t understand why.
“Somebody’s been leaving photos for me,” I said. “In my locker. Around. Whoever took this photo—she’s leaving photos for me.”
Katie tilted her head. “But why?”
“I don’t know why. If I knew why, do you think I’d be getting other people involved?”
“You’ve got to have an idea.…”
“I think it has to do with Ariel.”
This was the thing: None of us talked about you. Not months later. Not now.
For a moment, during her pause, my mind ran away and I was picturing Katie twenty years older, as an adult. Like we were sitting at some airport bar and had just seen each other for the first time in years. This was still what we were talking about. And then you were coming over to our table. You, older. But I couldn’t tell which one of us you were walking toward. Or if you were a ghost.
“What do you mean, it has to do with Ariel?” Katie asked.
“Some of the pictures are of Ariel. The photographer knew her. But I don’t know the photographer.” I matched Katie’s glance. “Unless I do.”
Katie shook her head. “It’s not me. But when you showed us that photo at lunch, it made me think of something.…”
“Where did you find the photo?”
Katie lowered her voice, as if this, of all the things that had just been said, was the biggest secret.
“It was submitted to the literary magazine,” she murmured. “About a week ago.”
I was close. So close.
“Who submitted it?” I asked, trying to remain calm.
“I don’t know. Submissions are anonymous.”
“What do you mean, submissions are anonymous? Someone must know who submits things.”
Katie leaned back. “Yeah, Mr. Rogers. But he keeps the list under lock and key.”
So close, but still not touching the wall.
I wanted to hit the table so hard that my hand would split all of its atoms. I wanted to cause breakage and explosions.
I slumped down in my chair, and Katie sat up, her whole body now dangling over me.
“Evan,” she said, “why do you always have to be so alone?”
I would have expected you to say this, or Fiona, or maybe even Jack, if he were angry. Not Katie.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Even after Ariel left us … you just wrapped yourself up in your pain, and the rest of us were all outside of it. I’m not saying you had no reason to be in pain—I’m not saying I was anywhere near as close to her as you were. But still. It’s like you and Jack have the monopoly on it, you know.”
“You thought she was a downer,” I reminded her.
Katie actually laughed at that. “She was a downer, some of the time. Hell, I’d even say most of the time. But there are things you don’t know, Evan.”
“Like what?” I tried to make it not sound like a challenge, but it was one, and it ended up sounding that way.
“I’m going to guess that you haven’t spent a lot of time in the girls’ room—have you?”
Did she really want me to answer?
“Well, you’d be surprised how much time Ariel spent in the girls’ room. Second floor, foreign language wing was her favorite, but she could also be found in first floor, math wing, and first floor, right off the gym. Not smoking. Not throwing up. Not doing what you usually do in there. No, she’d just be sitting in the stall. Sometimes with her music on, sometimes all quiet.
“We’d ask her what was wrong, and sometimes she’d answer, and sometimes she wouldn’t. Fiona tried real hard—we both did. One day I couldn’t take it anymore—it was obvious that she was just sitting there, and the locks are really easy to open from the outside, so I just let myself into her stall and closed the door again behind me. She wasn’t crying or anything—I could’ve dealt with crying. Instead she looked like she was arguing with herself. You could tell. And I told her she needed to get help. Like, serious help. I used to go to a therapist for some messed-up family things, and I told her I could go with her, or we could find someone else. But she said no. She didn’t get all into it—she didn’t try to defend herself or tell me there wasn’t anything wrong. She just said no. Then ‘Sorry, no.’ And that was it. I stood there, wanting something more. But she went back to wherever she was, and it was awkward to stay standing there, watching her. So I let myself out. And she stayed in there until after I left.
“That was the week before, Evan. It’s not like she didn’t know her options. She knew them. But she said no. Sorry, no.”
The week before. “The things you love are the things that will destroy you,” you’d said. And why hadn’t I heard? Was I so used to you making these pronouncements?
“She wanted help,” I found myself saying to Katie. Didn’t you? ANSWER ME. Didn’t you? “In the end. She wanted help.”
Katie took my hand in hers. “I know,” she said. “Which is why you did the right thing.”
I forced myself not to pull away, not to pull my hand back, not to run.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Holding Katie’s hand felt like betraying you, although I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t even sure why betraying you was something that mattered anymore.
“I’ll help you find the photographer,” Katie said. “If only so we can tell him or her to stop.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a her,” I said. If I hadn’t left the photos in Jack’s locker, I could’ve shown them to her.
Katie didn’t ask why. She just nodded and said, “Well, I’m going to tell Mr. Rogers I lost the photo, and when he takes out the list to see whose it is, I’m going to look over his shoulder. Or something like that. It shouldn’t take long.”
—and jumped to the side.
Hit hard.
The train screeching by.
I rolled on the gravel. Pieces of stone in my skin.
Crushing the photos as I rolled.
Imagining the people watching from the train.
The photographer watching.
I lost my breath.
Deep breaths.
I lifted myself up.
Blinking. Breathing.
I wouldn’t have died. I wouldn’t have.
Remembering the third photograph.
Looking at it there, on the side of the tracks, as the train pushed past.
Every You, Every Me
Thinking: WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?
Aren’t there any other clues?
Hating life. You would say that all the time. I hate life. And I thought it was just something you said.
But I felt it. Down to my bones.
Linked to frustration.
I SAW
Linked to unfairness.
WHAT YOU
Linked to guilt.
DID
Linked to anger.
TO
Linked to helplessness.
HER.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
I dwelt within it as I walked home. I dwelt within it the whole night. The next morning.
Let it go, I imagined Jack saying. Just let it go.
And then I slipped the photos into his locker.
I wanted him to find them, too.
15
Do you remember the time the three of us got into a fight over Zeno’s dichotomy paradox?
Jack hadn’t known what it was, so you explained.
“It’s about infinities and motion,” you said. “I’m sure you’ve heard this. It’s about how if you try to get to somewhere by halves, or any fraction, really, you will never actually get there, because ultimately there will be an infinitely small distance between you and your destination.”
“The most common example is a wall,” I chimed in. “That if I go halfway to the wall, then halfway of the halfway, then halfway of that, on and on, always halfway, I will never actually touch the wall.”
“Isn’t that sad?” you said. “I mean, isn’t that really disturbing?”
“But why?” Jack said. “I don’t get it.”
“Because you’ll never actually get there. You will spend your whole life making progress, but you’ll never actually get there.”
“Infinity is against us,” I told him. “There’s no way for us ever to count it or control it or understand it.”
“Are you stoned?” Jack asked.
You didn’t appreciate that.
“No,” you said. “We’re thinking. We’re taking what we learn and we’re applying it.”
“But that makes no sense,” Jack said.
“It makes perfect sense,” you argued. “What about it doesn’t make sense?”
“Well, duh, isn’t the answer to never walk in half steps? I mean, putting aside the fact that it’s physically impossible to walk forward, say, a thousandth of an inch, in order to be trapped in this paradox, you’d have to agree to its terms. And we don’t have to do that. If you want to walk to the wall, you walk to the wall.”
“But those are human terms,” you said dismissively.
“Yeah, but aren’t we human? Last time I checked, we were human.”
You leaned into him then. Leaned in halfway. Then another halfway. Then another halfway. And kept slowly doing this until your lips were hovering over his, only a sliver of air away. You held there—until he pushed in and kissed you. You pulled away immediately, angry.
“Go to hell, Jack,” you said. “Maybe there’s more to the Truth truth than being human.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You might be human, Jack, but Ariel’s mathematics. She’s all mathematics.”
There are so many things I wish I hadn’t said.
15A
I thought he’d track me down. I thought he’d tell me right away about the photos he found in his locker. But instead it was Katie who tracked me down in study hall.
Katie could get away with things like walking into the library for study hall in a period when she didn’t actually have study hall. She was pretty, and she was a good girl, and thus the librarian didn’t need to see a pass from her. If she was here, there had to be a reason for her to be here. There was no way that Katie would disrupt the universe by being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.
We were friends, mostly because we’d grown up together. I liked her, and had good memories with her, but I wouldn’t have said she meant all that much to me. At least not until that moment.
She looked around the library first. Then, when she saw me alone at my table, she came straight over. I was staring in her direction, half in my scatterthoughts, half out, so I noticed her coming over without really making a move to acknowledge it.
“I have something for you,” she said, reaching into one of her textbooks. She was wearing dangling earrings, and I leaned to the left so they would bounce a little light my way.
“Here,” she said, putting a photo on the desk.
Every You, Every Me
“Where did you get that?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine Katie hanging out with a guy with a Mohawk. But for a second—a split second—I thought, Maybe it’s her. After all, she had a camera. She could’ve just asked some other girl to stand in for her, to throw me off. Or maybe you had somehow gotten to her. Maybe you were behind it all.
Katie sat down across from me.
“I knew you’d ask me that,” she said. “So here’s the thing—if you want me to tell you where I got it, you’re going to have to tell me why you need it.”
I didn’t trust her. She pushed her bangs behind her right ear and looked at me. I had to trust her. Waiting for an answer.
I thought: Ariel said you were one of the last girls to stop sleeping with her stuffed animals. She said you cared more about boys than girls. She said she missed you, but then she said she didn’t understand why.
“Somebody’s been leaving photos for me,” I said. “In my locker. Around. Whoever took this photo—she’s leaving photos for me.”
Katie tilted her head. “But why?”
“I don’t know why. If I knew why, do you think I’d be getting other people involved?”
“You’ve got to have an idea.…”
“I think it has to do with Ariel.”
This was the thing: None of us talked about you. Not months later. Not now.
For a moment, during her pause, my mind ran away and I was picturing Katie twenty years older, as an adult. Like we were sitting at some airport bar and had just seen each other for the first time in years. This was still what we were talking about. And then you were coming over to our table. You, older. But I couldn’t tell which one of us you were walking toward. Or if you were a ghost.
“What do you mean, it has to do with Ariel?” Katie asked.
“Some of the pictures are of Ariel. The photographer knew her. But I don’t know the photographer.” I matched Katie’s glance. “Unless I do.”
Katie shook her head. “It’s not me. But when you showed us that photo at lunch, it made me think of something.…”
“Where did you find the photo?”
Katie lowered her voice, as if this, of all the things that had just been said, was the biggest secret.
“It was submitted to the literary magazine,” she murmured. “About a week ago.”
I was close. So close.
“Who submitted it?” I asked, trying to remain calm.
“I don’t know. Submissions are anonymous.”
“What do you mean, submissions are anonymous? Someone must know who submits things.”
Katie leaned back. “Yeah, Mr. Rogers. But he keeps the list under lock and key.”
So close, but still not touching the wall.
I wanted to hit the table so hard that my hand would split all of its atoms. I wanted to cause breakage and explosions.
I slumped down in my chair, and Katie sat up, her whole body now dangling over me.
“Evan,” she said, “why do you always have to be so alone?”
I would have expected you to say this, or Fiona, or maybe even Jack, if he were angry. Not Katie.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Even after Ariel left us … you just wrapped yourself up in your pain, and the rest of us were all outside of it. I’m not saying you had no reason to be in pain—I’m not saying I was anywhere near as close to her as you were. But still. It’s like you and Jack have the monopoly on it, you know.”
“You thought she was a downer,” I reminded her.
Katie actually laughed at that. “She was a downer, some of the time. Hell, I’d even say most of the time. But there are things you don’t know, Evan.”
“Like what?” I tried to make it not sound like a challenge, but it was one, and it ended up sounding that way.
“I’m going to guess that you haven’t spent a lot of time in the girls’ room—have you?”
Did she really want me to answer?
“Well, you’d be surprised how much time Ariel spent in the girls’ room. Second floor, foreign language wing was her favorite, but she could also be found in first floor, math wing, and first floor, right off the gym. Not smoking. Not throwing up. Not doing what you usually do in there. No, she’d just be sitting in the stall. Sometimes with her music on, sometimes all quiet.
“We’d ask her what was wrong, and sometimes she’d answer, and sometimes she wouldn’t. Fiona tried real hard—we both did. One day I couldn’t take it anymore—it was obvious that she was just sitting there, and the locks are really easy to open from the outside, so I just let myself into her stall and closed the door again behind me. She wasn’t crying or anything—I could’ve dealt with crying. Instead she looked like she was arguing with herself. You could tell. And I told her she needed to get help. Like, serious help. I used to go to a therapist for some messed-up family things, and I told her I could go with her, or we could find someone else. But she said no. She didn’t get all into it—she didn’t try to defend herself or tell me there wasn’t anything wrong. She just said no. Then ‘Sorry, no.’ And that was it. I stood there, wanting something more. But she went back to wherever she was, and it was awkward to stay standing there, watching her. So I let myself out. And she stayed in there until after I left.
“That was the week before, Evan. It’s not like she didn’t know her options. She knew them. But she said no. Sorry, no.”
The week before. “The things you love are the things that will destroy you,” you’d said. And why hadn’t I heard? Was I so used to you making these pronouncements?
“She wanted help,” I found myself saying to Katie. Didn’t you? ANSWER ME. Didn’t you? “In the end. She wanted help.”
Katie took my hand in hers. “I know,” she said. “Which is why you did the right thing.”
I forced myself not to pull away, not to pull my hand back, not to run.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Holding Katie’s hand felt like betraying you, although I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t even sure why betraying you was something that mattered anymore.
“I’ll help you find the photographer,” Katie said. “If only so we can tell him or her to stop.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a her,” I said. If I hadn’t left the photos in Jack’s locker, I could’ve shown them to her.
Katie didn’t ask why. She just nodded and said, “Well, I’m going to tell Mr. Rogers I lost the photo, and when he takes out the list to see whose it is, I’m going to look over his shoulder. Or something like that. It shouldn’t take long.”
