Flat-Out Love

  For so many reasons, it was going to be hard moving out. There was no pretending that it wasn’t. The emptiness loomed over her, powerful and unrelenting.

  Julie found herself scanning the shelves and then moving to the display cases with jewelry. She tried to focus. A small gift for Celeste would be a nice thing to do, for both of them. A momento of their year together. Her eyes skimmed over beaded necklaces and gold bracelets, none of which was right. She walked to the far end of the case.

  Something silver caught her eye. Maybe she should have been surprised to see it, but she wasn’t. It was almost as if she were expecting that it would be here.

  A saleswoman appeared. “Did you want to look at something?”

  Julie kept her eyes on the case and pointed. “Yes. That one. Right there.”

  The woman unlocked the sliding cabinet door and handed Julie the item.

  Julie looked down at her hand and studied the familiar silver barrette. Celeste’s barrette. The one Finn had sent from far away. She turned it over in her hand a few times. This one had a yellow stone instead of turquoise. Otherwise it was identical. “Everything here…” she started. Did she really want to ask this question? Yes. She had to. “Everything here is made by local artists, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Nothing is imported?”

  “No. We’re here solely to support New England artists. We have very limited quantities of each item. No two are exactly alike. That hair clip is made by a woman from Martha’s Vineyard. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? We’ve sold a number of her pieces.”

  “I bet you have. It’s lovely.” Julie set it down. Her hand was trembling, and she turned and rushed out of the store.

  The walk home felt both eternal and not nearly long enough. The volume on her iPod was set high, and she tried to stop herself from thinking, losing herself in the music as she slowly walked home. Or to what would be her home for only a short time more. Dr. Cooley’s words replayed over and over in her head. Maybe you’re missing something obvious. Don’t overanalyze what you see. She’d missed everything. It had all been right there, but she hadn’t been able to see the big picture. Maybe she had known for months now, and she just had not wanted to accept what the world had been screaming at her. Denial had made her blind and stupid. Perhaps pathetically so.

  The Watkins’ house looked strange to her today. The front lock gave her the usual trouble, and the stairs to the second floor made the same creak that they always did, and yet nothing felt right. Matt was at school, which was good. Julie opened her laptop and scooted the chair close to the desk while she typed.

  Finn-

  I’m so crazy about you. You know that, right? This thing between us over the past year has been everything that I never knew I wanted. You made me brave and adventurous. You made me laugh. You were charming, and sweet, and charismatic, and you pulled me in.

  I fell in love with you. I couldn’t help it, and I couldn’t stop it. But now I have to.

  We both know better than to pretend any longer.

  We both know that this is over.

  I had such a strong sense that I knew you and what it was like to be with you. Because I did. Maybe a part of me knew all along. I don’t know when I realized it, but there had to be a point where I figured it out. Maybe I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me, because I wanted more than anything for this connection between us to be real. It’s so clear to me now, and the truth is more painful than I imagined. You must think I’m incredibly foolish to have fallen for this charade. I am. It’s true. I took a risk—I jumped—and you let me fall alone. I wanted to land with you, Finn. You.

  I’ll miss that boy that sent me pictures, protected me from monsters, and talked me through deadly elevator rides. I’ll miss the stories about protecting wild animals, coaching football in Ghana, and scuba diving in exotic places. I’ll miss the way you make me laugh, and comfort me, and heal me. I’ll miss all of that. Mostly I’ll miss you. The way we feel together.

  But I suppose that I’ve already started missing you over the past few weeks. I could tell that I was losing you. Now everything is about to get so much worse.

  I needed to write you just one more time before this all blows apart.

  -Julie

  She turned off the computer and went to the bottom drawer of the dresser. The T-shirt was old and washed-up, and she touched the fabric with her fingertips. She felt numb. There was one more thing that she had to check. Just to make sure. Just so she would really believe.

  Julie left the bedroom and went into Erin and Roger’s room. She stood in the center of the room and turned slowly, looking for what would bring her proof. It wasn’t in here. But the woodcarving sat on a shelf, right-side up now. Mom. Julie thought about the little boy who had made that for his mother and how disconnected and oblivious Erin had been.

  The house was eerily quiet. Hollow. Isolated, Julie thought, as she walked to the living room. She started at one corner of the room, looking closely at all the books on the tall shelves. Slowly she stepped to the side, making sure not to miss what she knew must be here. When she reached the last shelf, she saw it. The photo album sat on the very top shelf, just below the ceiling. She pushed a chair over to the shelves and reached up, pulling the dark leather book from underneath an atlas. The other books on this high shelf were dusty, but the album cover was clean.

  She sat on the couch for a while, just holding the book and putting this off.

  Finally she opened it, gingerly turning the pages as she looked at the photographs. She knew these pictures. She had seen some of them before. It was hard not to smile at the ones of Finn. His handsome face, the way his clothes hugged his lean build, that mischievous smile. She touched one of the photos. She would miss the thought of those arms around her. The versions of the photos in her hand were slightly different from the ones she had looked at so many times this past year, but she still knew them.

  As much as it hurt to turn each page, she was grateful that Erin and Roger were not the sort to store all their pictures digitally. Not like Julie was.

  And not like Matt was.

  It was too hard to keep looking, so she shut the album.

  An hour passed, maybe more. Julie wasn’t sure. He would be home soon. He would check his email and come home.

  Finally, the front door opened.

  “Julie.”

  She stared at Matt and waited. He took his time before speaking again.

  “You know, don’t you?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Yes. I know.”

  Matt hung his head. “I don’t know how this got so out of hand. I never meant—”

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  “Julie—”

  “Say it, Matt,” she said loudly. “I want you to say it.”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you for months.” He looked at her now, both fear and melancholy shadowing his face. “I tried at Christmas. And then after New Year’s. But I was in too deep. I thought maybe it would be easier after you moved out.”

  “Screw you.” Julie stood up and hurled the photo album at him. “Screw you! Enough with the bullshit. Say it, Matt!” she yelled. “Tell me the goddamn truth for once!”

  He stood silently for bit, trying to delay this moment. His eyes glistened as he spoke. “Finn is dead.”

  She nodded, calmer now that he had confirmed what she knew. “Your brother is dead. That’s why Celeste has Flat Finn.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been pretending to be Finn. Everything he wrote to me was from you. You pasted old pictures of him into other photos.”

  “Yes.”

  Julie shut her eyes. She had been piecing this together, but the confirmation hit her hard.

  “Do you want to know how he died?”

  Julie nodded.

  “Two years ago, during the winter. In a car accident. My mother was driving, and the car slid off the road on Memorial Drive, just outside H
arvard Square. She hit a tree. The car crumpled from the impact, and Finn was thrown through the windshield. He died instantly.” Matt inhaled audibly, bracing himself before continuing. “Her airbag went off, so she wasn’t hurt really. So that’s why nobody drives except me. And we don’t walk past the river.” Matt tucked his hands in his pockets, waiting for Julie to say something. But she didn’t. He reached down and picked up the photo album from the floor and flipped through a few pages before tossing it onto a chair. “You know what’s really unfair? Like this wasn’t unbearable enough by itself? Like this wasn’t cruel and awful already?”

  “What?”

  “Did you know that Celeste used to play the piano? She was very good. She used to take lessons. In a gorgeous old building near here, off Memorial Drive.”

  Julie couldn’t figure out where he was going with this.

  “Guess who was walking home from her lesson just in time to see the accident?”

  “Oh, Matt…” Julie could hardly speak.

  “Yeah. It was perfect timing, really. Celeste got to see the fire trucks and ambulances. She got to see the smoke billowing out of the family car, and best of all, she got to see her brother’s lifeless, bloody, mangled body.” Matt was speaking quickly now, the words spilling from his mouth as if pausing for too long would leave him even more unprotected than he already was. “The smoke? That’s why Mom doesn’t like having fires in the house. Or matches. We can’t light matches when she’s in the room because the sulfur smell gives her flashbacks. Airbags, I guess, have a similar odor. Ironically, Celeste likes having fires in the house. They make her feel closer to Finn.”

  Julie stood up, and Matt walked away, turning his back to her. He leaned his shoulder against the window frame and stared outside.

  “So the perfect family with the perfect son fell apart. Mom’s depression got totally unmanageable, and she checked herself into a psych unit for six months. Dad disappeared into his godforsaken ocean studies, and Celeste became nearly catatonic. I did what I could for her. I got her up in the mornings, I helped her get dressed, I fed her. I loved her. But it wasn’t enough. Don’t get me wrong. Celeste was never your typical kid. She’s always been eccentric. But Finn’s death destroyed her.” All Matt’s walls were crumbling. All the secrets and the emotion that he had worked so hard to protect this year were coming out. Julie almost didn’t recognize the person in front of her. “And then, smart girl that she is, she ordered Flat Finn. Unbelievable. She just went online and ordered a replica of her brother. And that stupid cardboard thing brought her back. When Mom got home from her inpatient treatment, I tried to get her and Dad to do something for Celeste. Get her help.” He shook his head. “But they loved Flat Finn almost as much as Celeste did. Maybe part of me did, too. Because it kept him alive for us, in some sick, insane way. At some point, Celeste insisted that Finn would be on Facebook, so I did that for her. The Finn is God name was probably my jealousy. He was so damn perfect. Everybody worshipped him.”

  “What about you, Matt? What happened to you?”

  “Me? Nothing. I didn’t get to grieve because I had to take care of everything that my parents couldn’t. I don’t hold them accountable for that. There is no right way to react. Mom, in particular, didn’t like when I did anything that reminded her of Finn. He hated math and physics. In fact, he hated school. He wasn’t a bad student. Academics just weren’t where his heart was. So I did, and do, the opposite. I excel at school in ways he never could have.”

  “Celeste made up the story about him traveling?” Julie asked.

  “Yes. It’s actually something Finn would have done. He was just as great as she says he was. Those made-up stories about Finn helped her, and Flat Finn gave her something tangible to hold on to. And at the same time, while that goddamn one-dimensional picture has been keeping her afloat, he’s wrecked all of us. When we’re around Celeste, we have to act like Finn is alive, like his brains were never smeared all over the sidewalk.”

  Julie flinched. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There was no obituary in the paper. My mother claimed it was because she would have felt obligated to print his real name, Anatol Finneus Watkins, and she wouldn’t do that to him. Finn hated his first name and only went by Finn. There was a tiny, private funeral.

  “Nobody comes into the house. I know you’ve noticed. How could you not? Whatever my parents can do to keep up the pretense that their son is just away, that someday he’ll be home… Other people would ruin that scenario. My parents don’t talk about Finn’s death, and friends of the family and colleagues know not to bring him up. Mom and Dad pretend they’re doing it for Celeste, but it’s for them, too.” Matt spun around and let out a sad laugh. “It’s insane. I know that. It’s all entirely insane.”

  “Why did your mom let me come into the house that first day? Why did she ask me to stay?”

  “She felt a loyalty to Kate, I guess. I don’t know that I understand it. Maybe she was… I’m not sure. Looking for a way out of this. Looking to get caught. She could trust you because of her connection to your mother. You know how you feel about Dana? If you two didn’t talk for twenty years, you’d still be there for her if she needed you, right?”

  Julie nodded. “Of course.”

  “I didn’t mean to lie to you. I didn’t think you’d be here that long. Nobody stays in our lives anymore. We’re all alone. So when you emailed Finn, I wrote back. You were easy to talk to, and I needed to feel close to someone. To you.”

  “You should have told me. After you knew I was staying, you should have told me.”

  “I know. My mom and I fought about that. I didn’t want you living here because she didn’t want you to know the truth, and I thought you should. But she saw what we all came to see. That you are brilliant with Celeste. With all of us. You were this life force that we needed so desperately. I didn’t stop things between you and me—you and Finn—because it was the first time that I’d felt anything in so long. I got to be myself for the first time in years, with no constraints and no labels. You freed me.”

  Julie crossed the room until she was standing in front of Matt. Her heart broke for him. She stepped in closer and took his head in her hands, making him look her in the eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  He didn’t say anything, and she could feel him trembling. God, he looked so drained.

  “Why aren’t you yelling at me? You have to be angry,” he said quietly.

  “I’m too sad to yell. I don’t get to be angry with you, do I? Your brother died, so I don’t get to be angry.”

  He reached up and put his hands on her arms. “I never meant for this to become so complicated. I didn’t plan this.” His voice shook.

  Julie touched his cheek softly and then ran her fingers over his lips. “This was never going to end well. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “It could.”

  “No. This is too messed up,” she told him.

  “I know,” he said.

  “And you’re so broken.” She wiped a tear from his cheek.

  “I know.”

  “And you hurt me.”

  “I know. I never, never wanted to hurt you. You have to believe that.”

  “I understand. I really do,” Julie managed to say. “But what Finn and I had was real. And you wrecked that.”

  “There was no you and Finn. There was you and me.”

  “No.”

  “This,” he said gesturing between them, “is real. You and I are real.”

  “No, we’re not. We’re not anything, Matt. Not after this.”

  “Don’t say that. Julie, please don’t say that. I fell in love with you. And you fell in love with me.”

  She brushed the hair from his face and stepped in closer. There wasn’t anything she could do to fix this—she could put hinges on Flat Finn, but there were no hinges for grief and deception. Anyway, she was too shattered now to pick him up from this. Her heart was broken. She missed Finn. She missed the Matt she used to know.
He looked so completely spent, so full of anguish. She stroked his hair as she cradled his head in her hands. If there were a way for her to take away his suffering, she would. He would do the same for her, she knew that.

  She lifted her mouth to his, kissing him deeply. Deliberately this time. She knew what she was doing. Matt’s lips moved with hers, his emotion tangible, his aching too much. Julie let herself disappear into the moment. It was easier than thinking, than trying to understand what had happened. The words he had written to her as Finn played over and over: You can look back now and see how you should have known, but you were focusing on the facts instead of the feeling. Matt had been trying to prepare her.

  But now she didn’t know who this boy was, this damaged, lost boy who was kissing her like he’d never see her again. Like she was everything he wanted. Now her own tears poured down her face. Julie kissed him harder, endlessly, not wanting this to stop, but knowing it had to. For just a few more minutes, she let herself drown in the feel of him, because his mouth, his lips, his tongue, his kiss... This moment overshadowed the real world and took her away from misery. His hands roamed her back and her arms, desperate to show her how much he wanted her. She fought back a sob and pulled her mouth from his, kissing his cheeks, his neck, snuggling against the fabric of his shirt. Her hands moved down his chest, then wrapped around his waist, hugging him. She just wanted to hold Matt, even if this was the last time. His arms encircled her body, and he hung on to her. There had been days over this past year when he had made her feel safe and protected when he had held her. It had been so natural to let him hold her, so easy. So easy that she had stupidly never questioned it. None of those times mattered, though, because everything before today had been a lie.