Second Chance

  All around the room I’m reminded of love, so why do I feel like it’s being yanked out from under my feet?

  GRAY

  I’ve been avoiding Dylan. It’s difficult to look at her. I watch Travis flirt with her like I’m not standing in the same room. At least he’s smart enough to keep his hands off of her. I watch Coach Clark talk to her and I hear him laugh as she gestures wildly with her hands. She leaves a trail of smiles everywhere she goes. Guys give her second glances. Most of the girls stare with a jealous edge to their eyes. This is the most entertaining thing for me. If only they knew the real Dylan, the one that scampers around in holey socks and tattered clothes and gets more out of the dirt on the ground than the clothes in any store. But they don’t see Dylan this way. Because this isn’t her.

  Suddenly she’s next to me and I feel her soft hand crawl inside mine. I look down at her and she’s studying me.

  “I have a theory,” she says.

  “Does it have something to do with changing the legal marriage age to at least twenty-one?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “You’ve been hiding in the back corner all night. There could only be three possible reasons for this.”

  I straighten my back. “Which are?”

  “That you’re either avoiding me because I’m almost as tall as you in these shoes and it makes you feel emasculated.”

  “A woman can never be too tall,” I inform her.

  “Or you have IBI,” she says.

  “IBI?”

  “Insane butt itch. It’s okay. It happens to everybody. It’s usually because you don’t wipe thoroughly after you go to the bathroom.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” she says. “It always happens at the worst possible moments. You just need to find a corner where you can scratch without being too obvious.”

  “Have I ever told you how classy you are?”

  “Third,” she pauses and leans in close to me. “There’s something on your mind.”

  I look in her eyes and swallow. The party is dwindling down now, and I feel suffocated in all this packaged happiness. I ask her if she wants to go for a walk. She nods and while she changes out of her heels into a pair of sandals, I give Miles my car keys and tell him we’re walking home. He regards me for a moment because he sees the stress in my eyes but I turn away before he gets a chance to ask. I follow Dylan out of the party and I have to focus on breathing because it’s the only thing that’s making my legs work.

  ***

  We walk down the street and we’re both quiet. There’s no way to transition. There’s no easy way to say it. So I get straight to the point. Make it fast. It will be easier this way.

  “Dylan, I want to say goodbye to you tonight.”

  I feel her watching me and I know she’s registering something, but she tests me. “You mean you don’t want to sleep over?”

  I take a deep breath. “I mean, I think you should leave Albuquerque.”

  She stops walking and faces me. “I haven’t bought a plane ticket yet,” she says. “Besides, why does it matter when I leave? I’m coming back—”

  She cuts herself off. I stare at her and she reads my eyes.

  “Oh, my gosh. You don’t want me to come back, do you? That’s what you’re trying to tell me.”

  I nod. She stares at me and the silence of the night presses against us. A car drives up the road, so we move onto the sidewalk. Dylan’s still absorbing my words.

  “How long have you felt like this?” she asks.

  “Since you announced your crazy plan to live here,” I say.

  She chooses her words slowly. “Why do you want me to leave?” she asks.

  “I barely recognize you anymore. Everyone thinks you look great and your life couldn’t be better, but I’ve never seen you more unhappy. The only time you’ve been yourself in the last month is when we were riding on the train. Getting out of town.”

  She looks down at the ground. “Why don’t you want me to come back next fall?”

  “Because you’re only doing it for me,” I say. I turn and face her and I pray she’ll understand. “I love you more than any of these people, but I don’t want you to come back here.”

  “I am really confused right now,” she says.

  “You only think with your heart, Dylan,” I tell her. “So I’m going to be your brain. Because you’re about to make a huge mistake.” I pause for a second before I try and explain this. “Don’t you remember anything you said last summer? You told me you didn’t want to live my life. You told me you’d have to pass up all your dreams and you’d resent me. Well, you’re right. And if I let you stay now, I’ll resent me.”

  I watch her face change. I know she agrees, but she’s fighting it. “People say I’m selfish for always wanting to leave,” she says.

  “Selfish? Dylan, look at all the people you’ve changed in the last few months. Miles and Cat wouldn’t be so happy. Lenny wouldn’t have a new best friend and be starting nursing school this summer. You even brought down Toolshed’s ego. Liz follows you around like a puppy. You made my mom smile more than I thought she was capable of. Look at all the people you’ve had an impact on and ask me again if you’re selfish.”

  I see something like relief pass over her eyes. There’s a small grin on her face. Just like that, I pumped life back into her. She really was fading.

  “You need to call that photographer,” I tell her. “You have to go Australia—you don’t give up an opportunity like that.”

  Her smile grows. “You could always come with me,” she says. “Or meet up with me when you have time off.”

  I shake my head. “We have completely different dreams. I don’t have a mission to see the world. That’s not my calling. I just try to make it one day at a time. But I’m not going to be the one who holds you back.”

  “You really mean it?”

  I nod again. “Dylan, you’re one of those rare people that has an endless supply of love. Don’t use it all on me. It’s like you said, it’s your mission to spread yourself out. I can’t keep you all to myself. I can’t waste you.”

  She smiles. There’s already a bouncier step to her walk. We turn the corner onto Sage Street and she squeezes my hand in hers. It makes me want to cry.

  “So, what happens next? Are you going to get mad if we go a few months without seeing each other again?”

  I shake my head again and my throat tightens, but I have to hold myself together. Just get it out. “It’s over,” I hear myself say. “We’re over.”

  Her hand slips out of mine like water dripping off of something melting.

  “Wait. Did you just break up with me?”

  The words make me wince. I stare in her eyes, shaded in the darkness. The color in her face drains out. Her skin is the palest I’ve ever seen.

  “You’re breaking up with me,” she says, again. I hear her breathe.

  I look away from her face. I can’t look at something I’ve broken. “This isn’t meant to be. You shouldn’t have to change your life for another person. You, of anybody, should get that.”

  “But you don’t even want to stay in touch?” she asks, her voice uneven.

  I shake my head.

  Her voice trembles. “Why can’t we be friends?”

  Friends? I glare at her. She knows better than to ask me this. “I can’t just be your friend. We tried that, remember? And I don’t want you in my life for short bursts of time. I told you when you showed up here, I can’t do that.” My voice rises reflexively because I’m barely holding on right now.

  “So, let me get this straight. I’m the love of your life. I’m the best thing that has ever happened to you, and you’re throwing it all away?”

  “I’m doing this for you,” I argue, my voice rising again. She surprises me and shoves me like she’s trying to wake me up out of some kind of trance. Then she shoves me again and I back up a few steps. I look at her and I’m angry now because her eyes are blurring with tears an
d it’s all my fault.

  “Don’t do it,” she says. “I love you. I don’t want to break up. Ever. We can make it work.”

  She starts to really cry now, so hard she’s shaking and I rub my hands over my face. My own eyes start to burn. I want to fix her. I wish I had all the right words.

  “Dylan, the best thing I ever did was walk past you a year ago in that courtyard in Phoenix. You changed my life. And I’ll never regret letting you go. But you need to let me go, too.”

  She chokes out her words and hangs her head. “What if I never see you again?”

  “You’re the one that always said to leave this to fate.” I cup her cheek against my palm and stare into her eyes, magnified behind a pool of tears. “Don’t ever change for anyone. Promise me?”

  Tears are dripping off her chin. She covers her hands over her face and cries into them. I watch this angel I broke. A silver light falls over her and makes her skin look like stone, but I turn to walk away. I hate that this is my last image of her. It’s not what I wanted at all. And I don’t shed a tear. My voice never quavers. It’s like somebody pumped lead into my heart and steel into my brain. I walk away like a machine. I keep moving before my thoughts make me collapse.

  I don’t dare look over my shoulder. I hear whimpering behind me. I need to hold it together. The sky’s falling in around me. Stars are burning souls. Melting planets. Flying comets spiraling towards a crash landing. Clouds are ghosts. The moon is a lonely, unblinking eye.

  I swear at the ground. Life is never a perfect story book. It isn’t happily ever after or one fine day or love everlasting. It’s twisted and warped and it peels and tears and your heart just becomes this piece of shredded fabric sewn over with patches.

  I can hear people pass me on the sidewalk, but I can’t see them. They’re floating shadows. I feel the tears start to stab my eyes.

  Not yet, Gray. Deep breaths. Hold it together. Just a little longer.

  I turn at the next block. A drooping streetlight sprinkles a golden hue down a lifeless street.

  A few more seconds. Hold on.

  I pick up the pace and make it into the empty alley that leads to my house.

  Okay. Now. Cry your eyes out.

  DYLAN

  I drag myself out of bed the next morning to face a future I never planned. To face a moment I don’t belong in. I feel like a stranger in my own skin. I turn on the bathroom light and a glum, puffy eyed girl stares back at me. I barely recognize her. She looks like she could be related to me. The same eyes, the same chin and nose. The same freckles and skinny, long neck. But she slipped into an identity that doesn’t fit her, like a pair of shoes that are too tight and limit your movements. It isn’t complementing, it’s constricting. But sometimes it’s hard to see until someone points it out.

  I stare down at the pajamas that Liz gave me, a matching cotton T-shirt and draw string shorts that are perfect and pretty and plain. What was I doing? I look like all of you now.

  I glare back at my appearance and tighten my lips. I almost lost my identity. I blend in. Why was I trying to become one of you?

  Why do some people try to trap me? Don’t they get that it’s in my anatomy to fly?

  I look down at the basket of makeup on the counter. I don’t want to hide behind anything. I don’t want to disguise my imperfections just because people tell me they’re flaws. I think they’re what make me unique. My blotchy skin. My boring hair. Don’t try to make me beautiful. I already am. And I don’t want to be idolized for something so temporary as outward beauty. It never lasts.

  I stare at this girl who has been crumbling for the past month. Who almost lost herself. I straighten my shoulders.

  The first thing I do is wash her face, where a smudge of black mascara colors dark rings under her eyes. The next thing I do is grab a pair of scissors from the drawer and go to work at her hair. It’s thick and I have to cut small sections at a time, but I eventually make my way around her head, throwing handfuls of long hair into the garbage and cutting until the ends fall short, just below her ears. It’s jagged and uneven and it suits her. I grab a baseball cap I inherited from Gray, a red cap with the Lobo mascot decorating the front. I pull it over her forehead and it’s soft and worn in. It hides the bags under her eyes from staying up half the night crying. I start to recognize her again.

  I touch the ends of my messy, uneven hair spilling out from under the cap.

  It’s me. I’m back. It’s been a while.

  I throw all the makeup in the garbage and snap off the bathroom light. I pack up the rest of my clothes, but realize, as I’m folding, I don’t want any of them. I throw the coordinated outfits, the trendy tanks, the cropped jeans, and the high heeled shoes, on a heap on top of the bed. I figure Catherine can find something to do with them. I decide to keep the dress Clair bought me. I genuinely like it, and it will always remind me of a generous heart. I get dressed in an old, baggy pair of jeans with a recent rip in one knee. I pull a yellow tank top over my head. It’s soft and faded and perfect.

  I walk down the sidewalk, squinting against the bright glare of the late morning sun. I wish it was rainy and cold, something better suited to my mood. All the sunshine and beauty and the smell of freshly cut grass makes my head pound. No one has the right to be happy today. Gray broke up with me. The world should mourn my broken heart, not rejoice in sunny, June weather. I frown at a shirtless guy mowing his lawn and want to say, “Hey, how can you just go on with life like that? Don’t you realize my world just fell apart? And you’re worried about your lawn?”

  I try to live life one day at a time. Don’t focus too far into the future; don’t hang too closely to the past. But how can I live day to day without him? I can barely go ten minutes without thinking about him. A day, one whole, entire day is impossible. So I’ll go moment by moment. One second at a time. One breath. That’s what I’ll have to do. And maybe I’ll be okay.

  I learned something today. I learned that the heart, our most vital organ, turns out to be our weakest link. It’s scary to think something so necessary to sustain us, protected in a cradle of ribs and flesh and muscles, is so fragile, so easily broken.

  I swing the door open to the Brew House and I can tell by Lenny’s sympathetic face that she’s already talked to Gray. She force feeds me coffee and a muffin and tells me I look terrible. I appreciate her honesty.

  “What happened to your hair?” she asks as she stands next to the table and studies me.

  “I tend to take out my emotional stress on either my nails or my hair,” I tell her.

  “Actually,” she says. “I kind of like it. It’s more you.” I swallow down the hot coffee and begin writing farewell letters. Cat’s out of town to play a show so I can’t say goodbye to her in person. Liz is working today and the last thing I want to do is walk into her boutique looking like this. I’ll give her a panic attack. I consider writing letters to Gray’s roommates, even Travis, but I know when Gray shut me out of his life, it included his friends. When I’m done, I stand up and walk over to the counter.

  “What are you going to do?” Lenny asks.

  “I booked the first flight I could get on,” I say in a voice that’s so monotone it doesn’t sound like me. “I leave in a few hours.”

  Lenny’s quiet and she doesn’t try to sugar coat my thoughts. That’s what I love about her. You can just be around her. You don’t have to wear a fake smile or say everything’s fine because she knows. She’s like Gray, she can see through the artificial masks so many people dress up in. She keeps it real, and there’s a comfort in this.

  I hand Lenny a stack of letters and ask her to hand them out. I tell her to keep up with Sunday night dinners. It’s a great tradition.

  She fidgets with the string of her apron. “Yeah, but it won’t be the same. You were the one that made it happen.”

  “Liz can take my place,” I say. Lenny looks down at her feet and slowly nods.

  “Well, I’d say keep in touch but,” Lenny starts.
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  “Yeah,” I agree. It’s not going to happen. Lenny surprises me and grabs me in a tight hug. She smiles at me, a warm, genuine smile.

  “Good luck, Dylan” she says. “I’m really glad I got to know you.” I nod and walk away without turning back.

  I head downtown, my conscious state wavering somewhere between reality and a dream. I have three hours to kill before I need to be at the airport to catch my flight. So I do the only thing that comes naturally. I lift my camera to my eye and let my mind escape.

  When I look through the lens, I look outside myself. And that’s when I really start to see.

  I turn down a shaded sidewalk to Lily Park and find a cluster of people sitting outside, enjoying the sunny afternoon. I walk around the outskirts of the park, watching people. I pass an older man talking on his cell phone. He looks about sixty and he’s smiling. I notice the gorgeous laughter wrinkles around his eyes. I crouch down and just as he leans back and laughs, the light hits his face and I take a picture of his profile. Every wrinkle on his face curls up in the sunlight, like a face full of a thousand smiles. It makes some of the dark spots in my chest lighten. I grin and keep walking.

  I notice a girl stretching out on a quilted blanket in the sun. She’s highlighting a textbook page. Next to her is an opened spiral notebook with coffee stains on the paper. I stroll by and, over her shoulder, take a picture of the coffee stained notebook.

  Across the street from the park, I see an old, rickety blue house with a white front porch that holds a green, swinging bench. The white paint of the porch is crackled and peeling, but in a warm way. In a way that makes it look used, loved, lived in, and worn in with movement and feet and bodies. It looks like home, so I steal a permanent image.

  I study a man eating a sack lunch by himself on the sidewalk, alongside a utility truck. He’s wearing steel-toed tan boots, and a yellow hard hat lies next to him. His face is deeply tanned. I notice his jeans, faded and streaked with heavy dirt. When he looks away, I click a picture of his dirty jeans, his strong, muscular arms resting on his knees.