The Remedy

  She looks at me, confused at first, but then she sees that I’m trying to lighten the moment, even if my comment is entirely true. She laughs self-consciously and takes a step back, trying to regain her composure. She smooths down her hair and clears her throat.

  “I like you better like this,” she says. “It was too hard to talk to you as Catalina; it . . .” She shakes her head and decides not to finish the thought. There’s a boom of thunder, and we both look up at the ominous gray clouds. Angie motions to her car. “Want to talk in there?” she asks tentatively. “It looks like it’s going to pour.”

  I smile, grateful that she’s letting me talk to her at all. In a way, I think she wanted to connect before, but was scared. Now that I’m leaving, it’s her last chance. We climb into her SUV, and she turns on the engine to get the heat running. For a moment we both stare out the windshield at the road, watching cars drive by.

  “I heard about the intervention last night,” she says quietly, looking over at me. “Kyle told me she hit you. She felt terrible about it.”

  There’s a sharp stab of humiliation and hurt, but I shrug like it didn’t matter—even if the cruelty of it all still stings. “They were worried about Isaac,” I say. “I understand.”

  “You’re worried about him too,” she says, like she’s figuring me out. “Is that why you’re leaving early?”

  “No,” I tell her. “I’m leaving because your parents don’t need me anymore. They’ve accepted that Catalina’s gone. They need you. They need to get their lives back on track.”

  Angie lowers her head, thinking that over. After a second she turns to me, her eyes slightly narrowed. “But you liked him, didn’t you?” she asks, turning the subject back to Isaac.

  “I liked the way he loved your sister.”

  She closes her eyes, overcome by the statement, but when she opens them again, she flashes me a watery smile. “They were sickening together,” she says. “So gross.”

  We both laugh, and I can only imagine how happy Isaac and Catalina had been once. Before Virginia came into Catalina’s life. “What happened?” I ask. “What changed?”

  Angie rests her arms over the steering wheel and leans forward, staring outside once again. “I don’t really know,” she says. “They were inseparable, but then Catalina wanted to be around him less and less. One time Isaac came to me for advice, and when I told Catalina, she got pissed. Called me a traitor. Said she couldn’t trust anyone.”

  “Do you think she stopped loving him?” I ask, unable to figure out why she was trying to cut Isaac out of her life.

  “No,” Angie says easily. “In fact”—her expression clouds over—“the day she died, she came to my room and gave me a set of pages. Asked me to hide them for her. When I asked her why, she said she couldn’t bear to destroy them. She didn’t want to lose the memories. I ended up stuffing them into her mattress. Stupid place, I know, but what else was I going to do with them. I read the entries and they were basically about how much she loved Isaac.” Angie pauses. “And then . . . those damn spirals. She’d draw them everywhere those last few weeks. Just absently draw them. I asked her once what they meant, and she told me they represented her soul lost in a deep, dark nothing.”

  “Did you know that she was going to kill herself?” I ask gently. Angie scrunches up her face like she’s about to cry, but she fights and keeps her composure.

  “No,” she says, her voice thick. “But I should have. She was my sister. And I should have.”

  She lowers her head, and I reach to put my hand on her arm. I tell her it wasn’t her fault, tell her all the things she needs to hear. I give her closure, even though I wasn’t hired to do so. When we finish talking, Angie wipes the sleeve of her jacket over her lips to wipe away the tears that have settled there. She sniffles hard, and looks over at me.

  “You’re not horrible, you know,” she says, her pretty brown eyes rimmed in purplish red skin, raw from crying.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry for being a total bitch to you,” she adds. “It’s just that what you do is sort of . . .”

  “Creepy?” I suggest.

  “Yeah. But you’re a counselor, too, right?” she asks.

  I tip my hand from side to side. “Kind of. I mean, I’ve been trained, but mostly I’m a mimic, a representation of loss. Think of me as an empty vessel for your emotions.”

  Angie widens her eyes. “Sounds like the worst job ever.”

  “It is sometimes.” I pause. “But it’s not all bad. Like now, here with you. Meeting your family and Isaac.” Now my own emotions threaten to boil over. “It was the best assignment I ever had,” I say, trying to oversimplify it. Before I can embarrass myself, I pat her leg and tell her I have to go. She looks stricken for a moment, but then she nods. Again she surprises me by reaching over to give me a hug.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for helping my parents.”

  “It was my pleasure,” I say, staring out the window over her shoulder. Wishing I could have stayed a little longer. I move to get out of the car, but then pause and look back at her.

  “Angie, have you ever met your sister’s friend Virginia?” I ask.

  “No,” she says with the shake of her head. “Catalina mentioned her a few times, but she never came over or anything. Why?”

  “Just tying up all the loose ends,” I say. The truth about Virginia is still a mystery—one Angie doesn’t need to be involved in. She has a chance to rebuild with her family now. I won’t leave her with any lingering doubts.

  My resolve to find Virginia is strengthened by my want to set things right. Learn her part. I tell Angie good-bye, holding up my hand in a wave, and then I close the door just as the first drops of rain start to fall.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ISAAC MUST HAVE KNOWN SOMETHING was wrong, I think as I drive toward his house, the windshield wipers on my car streaking against the glass. He must have been worried if he went to Angie, upsetting Catalina even more. During this assignment I thought I was learning about Isaac and Catalina’s relationship, but really, I was seeing his idealized version of it. Maybe even my idealized version of it.

  Isaac’s house is on the other side of town. I’ve never been inside, but we’ve stopped there a few times so he could grab his baseball gear. When I pull up, his truck is the only vehicle in the driveway. I’m glad his mother isn’t here, because even though I’ve successfully avoided her during my time, the woman terrifies me. I flip up my hood and jog to the door. I freeze there, afraid to knock.

  How do I tell him good-bye? How can I give him closure when I’m not even sure he’ll talk to me again? I close my eyes, trying to imagine a way to set him at peace, but all I can see is the way he’d smile when we were together. How happy it made him. How heavy his grief was last night when he told me to get out of his truck.

  This is it, I tell myself. The true test of your abilities. I look at the doorbell, fear making my hands shake, and then I press the button. I curse immediately and spin around, watch the street. The wind is cold, but it’s nothing compared to the cold reality of this situation.

  The door opens, and I straighten my expression before I turn around. Isaac’s lips part when he sees me, surprised. He’s a mess, though. Pale and drawn. I wonder what he’s been doing since I left him last night.

  “Can I come in?” I ask. The sound of my voice, my regular voice, makes his eyes widen with a flash of confusion. But then he nods and steps aside so I can walk past him. I glance up when I do, and find him watching me intently. Trying to figure me out.

  He closes the door, and stands awkwardly like he doesn’t know how to greet me. Everything must look new to him, the way I stand and my expressions, the blue of my eyes and my freckles. I’m not trying to be Catalina anymore.

  “I . . . um . . .” I look around the house, nervousness growing in my gut. “I wanted to talk to you. About Catalina.”

  He sways slightly and then motions to the couch. “Okay,” he says,
sounding distant. He walks ahead of me and takes a seat, blinking quickly as if his eyes are already starting to sting with tears. I sit next to him, wondering if he’ll open up at all while I’m Quinn.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, guilt gnawing away any clinical thoughts that try to rise up. “I fucked up.” Isaac watches me, and he’s an open book. I can read all of the emotions as they play across his face. It’s always been so easy with him. “I got attached, Isaac,” I explain. “I let it go too far, and then last night . . . it was my fault. I’m sorry your friends had to step in. I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “Stop,” he says, shaking his head. “Stop apologizing.” I wait a beat to see where this conversation is heading. I wipe under my eyes, feeling tears about to brim over. “I was there too,” Isaac says. He lowers his head to stare into his lap. “And I’m not sorry.”

  My heart skips, and there’s a small sense of validation. My default is to take the blame because I should have known better. I’m the professional. But part of me wants to believe the relationship was mutual, at least partly.

  “Being with you,” Isaac says quietly, “it took away the pain. I wasn’t ready to be reminded of it—not like that. And now it’s back.” He looks up at me with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. “But you’re not going to fix it this time, are you?” he asks.

  I press my lips together to keep from crying, and slowly shake my head no.

  “The counselor called and told me you were leaving,” he continues. “But what if I’m not ready for you to go? Would you stay?”

  His emotions bleed over to mine, and everything I felt for him over the last week floods in. Without thinking, I reach to take his hand, needing to comfort him. Needing to stop his pain. He closes his eyes when I do, maybe hurting more because of my touch.

  “You deserve better than this,” I tell him. “You deserve something real.”

  “Maybe,” he says, meeting my eyes. “But it was a lot easier to pretend. Especially with you.” There’s a flutter of attraction still there, but now that I’m thinking clearly, I know it’s just that—attraction. Isaac doesn’t even know me.

  I take my hand from his, fold my fingers together in my lap. My training tells me that Isaac’s avoiding Catalina’s memory, filling up her space with anything he can. He’s afraid. But if he wants true closure, he has to be honest. And he has to let her go.

  “You need to talk about her, Isaac,” I say. “The real her. No one’s going to replace her—no one can. But I know something went wrong with your relationship. What secrets are you keeping for her? What happened to Catalina?”

  He winces like he’s going to refuse to answer. But then, slowly, I watch him turn it over in his head. Work through the things he wants to share, but doesn’t because it feels like betrayal.

  “You can tell me,” I assure him. “I’m here so that you can tell me. I’m here for you.” My words seem to comfort him slightly, and he sits back, staring straight ahead as if looking into his memories.

  “Catalina and I were in love,” he says, as if I’d argue. “Madly in love. We wanted to go to college, get a place. Shit. We even talked about our kids’ names. I wanted that, even if other people thought it was stupid. Said I had too much to experience. But why? If I loved her, why should I end it to screw around with people I didn’t care about? I . . . never understood it.

  “Then one day,” he says, “Catalina told me about a couple she met, found them on some forum. They wrote dark shit, poems about death and stuff, and she would tell me to read it. See how good it was. I’m a not a big reader,” he explains. “Things started to change. After a few weeks, I asked Angie if she’d noticed Catalina’s mood shifts at home. When Catalina found out, she accused me of spying on her. Said I’d been watching her, and what was I, some kind of handler? I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. I told her that she needed to drop those new friends. That they were messing with her head,” he says, sounding defiant.

  “We didn’t break up, but she’d stare at me sometimes, like she stopped trusting me.” Isaac squeezes his eyes tightly shut. He’s quiet for a moment before continuing. “I’d find these pages,” he says. “Lying around her room and in my car. Black spirals. I hid them.” He looks at me. “That’s the thing—I didn’t mention her darkening mood to anybody, even though she was getting worse. But I didn’t want her to be upset with me.” His voice cracks, and he cries the last few words. “I knew she was suffering; I saw it. I thought I could make it better, so I didn’t tell anybody. I kept her secret. I kept her fucking secret and then she killed herself. It’s my fault, my fault for not getting help. Tell me,” he begs, staring at me with tears dripping from his eyes, “tell me how she could ever forgive me for that.”

  I cover my mouth, absolutely overcome by his guilt. I jump forward and wrap my arms around him, holding him so tight I don’t know how he can breathe. Isaac doesn’t pull away, and I hold on to him, especially when I feel him shudder. Hear the first hitch of a cry.

  “It’s okay . . . ,” I whisper close to his ear, running my fingers gently over the back of his neck to comfort him. “It’s not your fault,” I say. “It’s not your fault.” He whimpers into my shoulder, broken and lost. I absorb his guilt, telling him that he didn’t know what she was going to do. And that she would never, ever saddle him with this misery.

  “I miss her,” he says miserably. “I don’t think it’ll ever be okay again.”

  “It will,” I promise him. “So many people love you. And they need you, Isaac. They need you. Please trust that Catalina loved you, but something happened to her. She got sick and she didn’t tell anybody. Nobody knew, Isaac.”

  “I did.”

  “Not the extent of it,” I tell him, pressing my cheek to his. “You didn’t know how bad it really was. You’re not to blame. You have to let that guilt go. It’s not yours.”

  “She’s the only one,” he says, sniffling back his tears, his body starting to calm. “The only one I’ll ever love. Did she know that?”

  I want to tell him that she did, tell him anything he wants to hear just so he’ll smile again. Isaac Perez is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and he loved his girlfriend. He truly did. But I can’t lie to him. I won’t lie to him anymore.

  “No matter how much you told her,” I say, “I don’t know if she believed it. I don’t know if she could at the end. But you’re still here, and I have to trust that if she could see you, if she was no longer in pain and could see you, she would only want good things. She loved you too, Isaac.” I pull back to look at him, running my hand over his cheeks to clear his tears. “I know that for a fact.”

  He catches my hand, holds it on his face. For a minute I worry that he’ll kiss me, that he hasn’t been listening. But then in his eyes I see that he has. I see that he’s ready to let go of Catalina Barnes. It hurts a little. Because I know it also means he’s saying good-bye to me.

  * * *

  “It’s time to say good-bye,” I say, standing in the middle of the room. Isaac asked me to go through the motions in the typical way, said he was curious about how it worked. A weight seems to have lifted from his shoulders, and I see a hint of the guy I met those times when we were with Jason.

  Isaac stands in front of me, and it’s all very formal. Very awkward. He nods, and for a minute it’s almost like we’re about to say our wedding vows. He smiles. “Would it help if we sat down?” he asks.

  I exhale. “Yes, please.” I walk back over to the couch, relieved to not have to stand in front of him. Isaac sits, fascinated by me, the closer, now that the brunt of his guilt has left him.

  “This is where you say all the things you wanted her to know,” I tell him. Isaac looks down sadly, but in his face I see a bit of nostalgia, and I imagine he’s thinking about the good times they had together. Thinking more about the love they had, and less about the pain he felt after her death.

  “It’s weird,” he starts, “because I still love her so much. What can I do
with that kind of feeling—where can it go?”

  “To yourself,” I say. He presses his lips together, and turns to me. “Love yourself and your memories. It doesn’t have to go anywhere.”

  “I’ll always love her,” he says simply. “I’ll love her my whole life.”

  In that instant, I wish she could be here to see him. To see how much he loves her, would have done anything she asked. I think about what she would tell him. I close my eyes, and when I look at him again, my expression has changed. My voice is different. “I wrote about you in my diary,” I say. Isaac’s breath catches, and he watches me. “How much I loved you. All of our private moments. They’re in the closet in my room. Up high. You should have them. I . . . I think I left them for you.”

  “Catalina, I’m sorry,” Isaac starts. “I just need you to know how goddamn sorry I am.”

  “I forgive you,” I whisper. “I forgive you for loving me too much.” He sways, and tears race down his cheeks. My heart breaks, feeling the loss of Catalina and Isaac, their story cut short in the wake of a tragedy. I lean in and kiss softly at his lips, just once, and then wrap my arms around his neck to hug him. I close my eyes. “Good-bye, Isaac.”

  His voice is barely a breath. “Good-bye, Catalina.”

  We stay locked together for a while longer, not speaking because we know that this assignment is done, and that when I pull away, Catalina will be gone too. Isaac holds me, and then finally he lets out a long breath, and he moves back.

  His eyes are swollen, but there’s a sparkle behind them. I wait for him to tell me he’s going to be all right. He swallows, and looks toward the hallway.

  “I . . .” He stops to clear his throat. “I got you something for the party, but since you won’t be there, I wondered if I could give it to you now.”