Unforgivable

  I should introduce myself. I should tell her what happened. But I have a feeling she doesn’t even know I exist. I have a feeling she doesn’t want to know.

  The doctor named Jacobs enters the room and Evie’s mom immediately stands up. He hugs her and they talk in hushed tones so I can’t hear what they’re saying. It suddenly strikes me that I should leave. I should not be here.

  I stand up and start toward the door, but it’s too late. Dr. Jacobs points at me and I feel the air shift from sad to menacing. Evie’s mom’s eyes go wide.

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I turn my head to see how far away I am from the door, to see how fast I can escape.

  When I turn around, Evie’s mother is in front of me. Her eyes are crazed, murderous.

  “You!” she shrieks. All eyes in the waiting room turn to us. “You’re the one Evie’s been sneaking around with? You did this?” Her fists pound against my chest, but I do not feel them. They are nothing against the sting of her words. Evie said the same thing just hours ago, when she drunkenly blamed me for starting her on this path of self-destruction.

  “No,” I say, because the other option is unthinkable—yes, I destroyed your daughter. Yes, I destroyed the person I love most in the world.

  “My daughter’s in a fucking coma because of you,” she says with a final pound, then starts weeping.

  “Coma?” I choke. Our eyes meet, and for a brief moment, all there is between us is shared pain, shared love, our shared hearts breaking. This woman hates me more than anyone else in the world right now, but for some reason I put my arms around her. I do it without thinking, and I’m not sure if it’s more for her or for me, not sure which one of us is trembling more, if it is me or her holding the other up.

  Then she pushes me away. Hard.

  “Get away from me,” she growls. Low. Guttural. The primal sound of a mother who may lose her child.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Get out of here.”

  I step backward. She follows.

  “Get out of here!”

  She pushes me again. This woman can’t be taller than five four, can’t weigh more than 130 pounds. But right now, she could destroy me.

  “It’s time for you to leave,” Dr. Jacobs says. “Now.” His hand is tight on my arm, pulling me toward the exit.

  “But Evie,” I say. “I need to know she’s okay.”

  “You should have thought of that before you got her into this mess,” Evie’s mom says, then crumbles into a chair, crying. Dr. Jacobs pulls much harder than necessary, and I feel something tug the wrong way in my shoulder. He waves a security guard over from the reception desk and Evie’s mom sobs into her hands. The rest of the room watches the show, momentarily relieved of their own suffering. The sliding doors buzz open behind me and I give them what they want. I leave.

  I leave without knowing if I’ll ever see Evie again.

  there.

  THIS IS MY FIRST MEMORY: DAVID, MY BROTHER, SPINNING in our father’s desk chair. The office is off-limits, of course. But David isn’t afraid of Dad the way I am.

  “Faster!” he yells as I spin him. “Faster!” I make my arms move at warp speed.

  He could keep going forever, but my arms give out. I am only five; my arms are sticks. And he is eight, almost nine, and besides Dad, he is the biggest person I know.

  When he gets off the chair, he stumbles around the room. He bumps into things. His laugh has something new in it.

  “Your turn,” he says.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Trust me,” he says. And I always do.

  Books and drawers and file cabinets. These are the things at eye level. They blur into air as David tries to make me feel what he felt. The world is a tornado of chrome and dark wood.

  “Stop!” I cry. I do not like the feeling of everything moving. I do not like the loss of ground.

  “Wimp,” David says.

  I lie on the dark, soft rug. My hands dig in to make the world stop spinning.

  “I’m dizzy,” I say. “I feel weird.”

  “I know,” David says, climbing back on the chair. “Isn’t it great?” And he starts to spin again.

  A beach, a blanket, my mother and brother. Three pairs of hands entwined. Three sets of arms and legs, one pink and two brown, sun warmed, salt kissed. Stomachs full of farmers’ market strawberries.

  Mom is in the middle, David and I on either side. Her hands are in our hair, petting us. She calls us her pups. The world is a swirl of blue and green and love.

  Her hair is splayed out on the beach blanket, like liquid gold. I press my face into it, inhale the rainbow of her shampoo. I think, This is what happiness smells like.

  This beach is our secret paradise, a place we discovered, our tiny desert island. We are the only people who exist.

  I know the magnet inside David is stronger than the magnet inside me. I know it pulls Mom, just barely, toward him and away from me. I can tell she’s holding David a little tighter. But I’m not worried. It’s impossible to worry on a day like today, in a place like this. There’s enough of her for both of us. We are infinite.

  A pile of shells lies next to me, my great finds of the day. I will put them in my magic box back home where I store all my treasures, where I hide them away to keep them safe. David holds on to the line of a kite that floats high above us, halfway to clouds, halfway to heaven. I know he dreams of flying.

  Across the sea is a giant city called San Francisco. We have no need for a place that big. Here, the world is the perfect size. We make it small and manageable. It is just big enough for us. We are just big enough for it.

  “My boys,” Mom coos. “My perfect loves.”

  The world is a painting on a grain of rice. We are small, microscopic. The whole world is here, our little kingdom. Mom is the queen, and she is a good queen. There is something good in the world, and it is us.

  you.

  WE WANTED TO PRETEND WE NEVER EXISTED. WE THOUGHT we could erase the past if our love was strong enough. We wanted to create a brand-new world that consisted only of now, only of us, a tiny island in space and time, with no room for our baggage.

  But sometimes I feel like that’s all we were—our baggage, our secrets, our fear, our shame. We always talked about wanting to live in the moment, but maybe sometimes “living in the moment” is an excuse for being in denial about everything else.

  I’m sick of secrets. I’m sick of guessing what’s going through your head. I’m sick of watching what I say to you, of always being afraid you’ll get scared and pull away. I’m sick of settling for pieces of you, of only giving you pieces of me.

  But now you’re not here. Now there’s something entirely new to be scared of.

  here.

  I COULDN’T SLEEP LAST NIGHT. EVERY TIME I CLOSED MY eyes, I kept imagining Evie with her eyes shut, her face ashen, tubes everywhere, machines pumping life into her body. I called Evie’s cell, but it kept ringing and ringing. I called the hospital, but they wouldn’t even confirm that she’s a patient there. An hour later, I called again, hoping for a different answer.

  As soon as the sky starts showing the first signs of morning, I get dressed and jump into my car, the neighborhood silent except for me and the birds, singing as if everything’s still right in the world. The streets are nearly empty as I race the sunrise to the hospital.

  “Can you tell me what floor Evie Whinsett is on?”

  The receptionist looks at me like I’m crazy. “Are you family?” she says with her eyebrow raised, her lips strained into a thin line. She has already decided my answer.

  I want to say yes. My heart says the answer is yes.

  “If you come with a member of the family,” she continues without waiting for me to speak, “they will be able to sign you in as a visitor.” She says this without even looking at me, her gaze moved on to her computer screen.

  “But I need to see her. You have to let me see her now.”

  “Young man,
” she says over her glasses. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “You don’t understand.” My voice is gruff, wretched.

  “I suggest you discuss that with the patient’s family.”

  “No!” bursts violently from my mouth. The air shivers and stills.

  “I think you need to leave now,” the receptionist says sternly, one hand moving from her keyboard to the phone. “Or do I need to call security to escort you out?”

  Two days and already two threats of being thrown out by security.

  I leave without saying anything. It is time to go to school, time to try to make it through the day as if my world is not ending.

  I know this is crazy. I’m acting like a stalker. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’m desperate. I am the definition of desperate. You look up “desperate” in the dictionary and there’s a picture of me looking like a stalker.

  I only made it through half the day at school, and then left at lunch with the excuse that I wasn’t feeling well, which isn’t entirely untrue. I tried the hospital again, hoping for a different outcome, a different receptionist, but the same woman was sitting there. I turned around before she saw me.

  Now I’m standing outside North Berkeley High, waiting for Evie’s sister, Jenica. She doesn’t know I’m here. I’ve never met her. All I know about Jenica is her name and the fact that she’s a senior here and a good student. Evie told me so little about her family. The only reason I even know who I’m looking for is because I googled her name and found her Facebook profile. Total stalker move. But I had no choice. There are so few places where Evie’s and my world meet.

  The school bell rings its last note of the day, and for a brief few seconds there’s silence. I hold my breath when the front doors burst open and students filter out, filling the air with their chatter. I wonder how my life would be different if I had gone somewhere like this for high school instead of Templeton Preparatory Academy. I look around, and the student body is like an advertisement for diversity compared to the mostly rich, white, all-male population of my school. Every ethnicity and culture and style and sexual orientation is represented here, and no one seems to notice. No one looks twice at me, except for a couple of girls who meet my eyes and smile shyly. It’s the kind of place someone who never fits in could actually fit in. Maybe here I’d have found real friends. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent the last four years feeling like such a misfit. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so dependent on David.

  Maybe if David had gone here instead of Templeton, everything would have turned out differently for him. Maybe he wouldn’t have suffered the same overachiever burnout, wouldn’t have felt the same pressure to be perfect and exemplary, wouldn’t have been put on a pedestal in the same way by his classmates and teachers. Maybe he wouldn’t have had access to the expensive drugs that destroyed him. Maybe he would have had a chance at something like a normal life, could have tried a more civilized version of “smart” and “popular.” Or maybe trouble would have found him no matter where he went.

  I scan the crowd for signs of Jenica and see no one I recognize. I wonder how many of these people know Evie, if any of them are her friends. It’s strange to think that so many must have known her much longer than me. Some knew her as a little kid; they know her parents; they have a history with her beyond the last couple months. That’s all it’s been. A handful of weeks. That’s all it took for me to fall in love so hard I can’t think about anything else. A few weeks and I’ve turned into a crazy stalker.

  Maybe one of these guys has kissed her. Maybe one of them was her first love. Maybe she loved one of them as much as she loves me.

  The vague noise of voices suddenly condenses, a laser point of focus. Evie. I hear her name. I turn toward the sound and am surprised by the source—a small group of girls so unlike her, the sound of her name in their mouths makes no sense. Three cheerleaders in full uniform walk by, huddled in the throes of gossip.

  “Evie’s still in the hospital,” one of them says.

  “I heard she OD’d,” says another.

  “I heard she drowned,” says the first.

  “I heard she tried to kill herself,” says the third.

  I consider following them, to see if I can glean any truth from their gossip, but then I see a face I almost recognize coming from the opposite direction. She walks closer, oblivious to my presence. She is so close I could reach out and touch her, but she has no idea I’m even here.

  “Jenica,” I say, and it comes out sounding too harsh, too hostile.

  She jumps. Her eyes narrow as they size me up. Her features are sharper than Evie’s, more stern and severe, but they are undoubtedly sisters.

  “Jenica,” I say again.

  “Yeah?” she says with suspicion. “Who are you?” But before I have a chance to answer, her eyes widen and she seems to go through several emotions in a series of seconds. Shock, recognition, relief, sadness, and then burning, furious anger. “You’re the Templeton guy Evie was seeing,” she says, stepping toward me like she’s ready to fight.

  “Yes,” I say, reaching out my hand to shake. “I’m Marcus Lyon. I’m Evie’s boyfriend.” The word sounds so strange in my mouth. I’ve been on plenty of dates with girls I’ve met at parties or shows; I’ve hooked up more times than I’d like to admit, but never anything serious. I’ve never been anyone’s “boyfriend.”

  Jenica doesn’t take my hand. Instead, she steps forward and pushes me in the chest, like her mother. “You asshole,” she snaps.

  I open my mouth, but I have no words.

  “You fucking asshole.” I think maybe she’s going to hit me, but then the anger in her eyes loses strength, like a fire extinguished, and tears surface in its place. Without thinking, I put my hand on her shoulder, and she recoils from my touch. But as I’m about to pull my hand away, she leans into me, and I find myself holding her. Her arms are tight around me, her face buried in my sweatshirt.

  After a few moments, she steps away, wipes the tears from her eyes, takes a deep breath, and stands up straight. “Sorry,” she says.

  “Don’t be,” I say. “Are you okay?”

  “What do you think?”

  I say nothing. I’ve never been good at responding to sarcasm.

  “My parents think it’s all your fault,” she says. I open my mouth to protest, but she keeps talking. “They blame you for everything. They can’t accept that Evie got herself into this shit on her own.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be fine. You found her, right? In the water?”

  I cringe at the memory. It is still so fresh. Evie is still there, lifeless, facedown in the water, every time I close my eyes.

  “You got there just in time, apparently. Much longer without oxygen and she probably would have gotten brain damage. Not that her brain was working that well to begin with. What kind of idiot goes swimming in the bay?” Jenica looks at me, and her face softens. “My sister,” she says gently to herself, and for a moment, I’m not even here. Then she takes a deep breath, stands taller, and is all sharp corners and steel again. “Sorry,” she says, her voice strong and unfeeling. “I know I sound harsh. It’s how I deal with things.”

  Evie didn’t tell me much about her sister, except she’s a bitch. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. People come up with all kinds of ways to pretend they’re strong.

  “I love my sister,” she says, looking at the ground. “But I feel like I don’t know her. I haven’t for a long time.” She looks up and her eyes are kind. Tired. “She’s hurt us. My family. I don’t know if we can fix what she’s broken.”

  I nod.

  “She hurt you, too,” Jenica says.

  “Yes.”

  “She hurt a lot of people.”

  “Tell me how she is. Please.”

  Jenica sighs. “She was in a coma,” she says. “For, like, a day. Then she woke up. She’s still in the hospital. They say she’ll be there for a while longer.” She shrugs. “No
permanent damage. Evie gets off easy again.”

  “She’s okay?”

  “Yeah.” She laughs coldly, all signs of her former softness suddenly gone. “Of course. She’s totally okay.”

  “Will you tell her to call me?”

  Jenica shrugs. “I might mention it.”

  “Can I give you my number? So you can call me and tell me how she’s doing?”

  She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “I’m not going to call you.”

  “Can I have your number?” My desperation level has reached epic proportions. “I just want to know how she’s doing.” I am whining. I am begging.

  “I have to go,” Jenica says.

  “Wait,” I plead as she turns around. She walks away without responding and takes all my hope with her.

  you.

  I THINK I FELL IN LOVE WHEN I FIRST SAW YOU, BUT you were terrified. You were a small, wounded girl—alone, underground—and I was a dark figure emerging from the shadows. A black boy in a hoodie. A man in a place no one could hear you scream.

  You pulled yourself into a ball, your eyes closed tight, and even then, before I knew you, my first instinct was to put my arms around you, to rock you until you stopped shaking. I kneeled next to you and babbled until you calmed down. Somehow I convinced you that you were safe, that I wouldn’t hurt you, and the relief in your eyes when you finally looked at me took my breath away, like you had been waiting for me to find you.

  In that moment, I knew our lives would be linked. I knew I had been waiting for you to find me, too.

  there.

  THE WALLS OF DAVID’S ROOM HAVE BEEN REPLACED WITH mountains, volcanoes. His windows are trees. His posters are vines. The toys on the floor are all kinds of killing things—vipers, tarantulas, carnivorous plants, Tasmanian devils.

  “Hot lava!” nine-year-old David screams. I feel the heat in my feet as the carpet transforms. I leap to safety—the bed, a hovercraft.