Come Back to Me (17 page)

The Ryan’s
front door opened.  It took a moment to process the familiar face.  I blinked a
couple of times at her and then—

“Irina,” I
said to Katie’s housekeeper.  My fingers trembled, and I folded my arms around
my middle.  It was weird to think of Irina still there.  Obviously, there was a
house to keep, but thinking of Irina pushing the vacuum cleaner around Katie’s
house, well it seemed so . . . normal.  Impossible.  But there she was, wearing
the same thing she always wore—khakis and a polo—her uniform of sorts, as if
nothing had changed.

“Hi,” I said,
taking in her dark hair, the same blonde regrowth at her part.  Irina looked so
familiar, it was almost as if she weren’t real, like my Katie vision.

Irina drew
me into the foyer, gripping my arms in a quick hug.  “You look good, Whitney. 
Good
. 
Not so pale.”

Around me,
the Ryan’s house pulled at me, begging me to notice it and see Katie in every
corner, but I focused on Irina.

She pressed
a hand to my cheek.  It was warm, and I almost leaned in toward her palm. Instead,
I cleared my throat and said, “I’m giving my liver a little break.”

Irina knew
about the drinking.  She once told me if I didn’t stop, I’d pickle my liver or
something.  Maybe if she told me that drinking would make me kiss my best
friend’s boyfriend or make Swiss cheese out of my memories, I would’ve
listened.  Maybe, maybe not.  I thought I had a handle on my stress.  I had
Katie as a role model after all.

“That’s good.”
She stepped back and placed her hands on her hips.  “Maybe make it a big
break.  You look good with color in your face.”

My smile
drooped.  No colors left for Katie.

Shit.  Standing
inside Katie’s house, there was no way I could push thoughts of her aside.  I
handed the book to Irina.  “This is Katie’s.”

Irina took
the book.  Her penciled-in eyebrows moved upward, then she looked at me.  I
waited for her to ask me to take the book back, but she didn’t.  Instead, her
eyes turned misty.  She set the book face down on the foyer table and shook her
head.

Her reaction
was completely normal.  Irina loved Katie like she was one of her own
children.  The ebb and flow of her grief was as natural as water lapping at the
shores of the quarry pond.

Mine was so
complicated, so jagged, the edges always caught on something.  But watching
Irina wipe away her tears, I felt something shift.

“I miss her,
too,” I whispered, the thought bubbling up before I could check it.

She nodded.

“I feel like
she’s here . . . sometimes.  I saw her.  I think.”

Irina sniffed,
taking a tissue from her pocket, her face revealing no evidence that I said
anything abnormal.

“You girls
were two peas in a pod.  I remember when . . .” She launched into a story about
us when we were ten, when she first came to work for Katie’s family.

“Don’t stop
remembering, you should talk about her when you can.  Don’t let your heart go
hard,” she said, squeezing my hand.  “That was something Katie had trouble
doing.  Her papa went to the cemetery every Sunday, but Katie always said no. 
Sometimes I wonder if I could’ve pushed her.”

Katie spent
almost all of her Sundays at my house.  I only asked her once why she didn’t go
with her dad to the cemetery, and she’d said, “My mom isn’t really there.”

I opened my
mouth to say no one could’ve pushed Katie, but Irina continued, “But then after
your big fight-”

“It was my
fault.”

Irina waved
away my protest.  “It takes two, and Katie, she was so tough.  Yes, it’s very
difficult to lose a parent, especially a girl’s mother, but Katie didn’t allow
much room for softness in her heart.  I think she almost started hating her
mother for dying.”

I felt my
face scrunch in confusion.  Katie didn’t hate her mom.  If anything, she
revered her.  Sure, Katie was angry, but not at her mom.  No way.  She was
angry at cancer, at death, even whatever fates deemed that it was her mother’s
“time.”  She even put her anger on the people in Bloom who tried to help.

“But when
Katie shut you out, I think it left something empty, and she finally went to
see her mama at the cemetery.”

My stomach
dropped, because now I knew the extent of Katie’s anger for me.  She was so mad
at me that there was no room for her to be mad at the universe anymore for
taking her mother from her life.  The thought did nothing to penetrate my
numbness, because the overriding factor in this scenario was still that I was
the suckiest friend in the world.

And that
apparently was written all over my face, because Irina added, “Oh, I don’t mean
it has to do with you, Whitney.  Katie may have thought she was in control of
everything, but eventually, she let her emotions get the best of her.  I think
most of it was because of that letter she got from her mama on her birthday
last year.”

“What
letter?”  I was at Katie’s eighteenth birthday.  Red velvet cake with cream
cheese frosting.  Candles.  A new laptop from her dad.  Katie never said
anything about a letter.  I shook my head.

Irina looked
surprised, then her face shifted back to her steady calm.

“Her mama
wrote her a letter before she passed, asking Mr. Ryan to hold on to it until Katie
turned eighteen. Her mama wrote what was in her heart for Katie.  That Katie should
follow her dreams, but Katie was barely fourteen when Mrs. Ryan wrote that
letter.  She wrote about graduation but also of falling in love, marriage, and
babies.”  Irina clucked her tongue.  “All the things not on Miss Katie’s radar
in her quest for perfection.”

I closed my
eyes.  Suddenly, Katie’s attitude before everything happened made sense.  She
was moody and distracted.  Had she started second-guessing everything she’s
worked for?  Was that why it was so easy for her to drop me?  Because she
wasn’t sure about what she believed anymore?

“Why didn’t
she tell me?”  I asked, but even as I asked the question, I knew—Katie only
recognized forward action, never backward.  She didn’t do second-guessing—or
wouldn’t admit to it anyway.

Irina patted
my hand.  “That letter wasn’t telling Katie what to do with her life.  Her
mother simply mentioned for Katie to follow her heart.  But I don’t think our
Katie understood how to do that.  I think by going to the cemetery she tried,
but she needed more time.”

Time—she ran
out of it.

I was so
confused.  Irina had filled in blanks that I didn’t even know were missing.  Sure,
something had been going on underneath it all, but really, I’d chalked it up to
college application stress.  Now, part of me felt a little relieved at hearing
the explanation for Katie’s change, but at the same time, it made me feel like
an ass.  We were best friends.  Why didn’t she tell me about the letter?  So
what if we busted on the “Living Dead” of Bloom all the time.  Did she think I would
do the same for her mother’s letter?  Did she really think that little of me?

I was mad.  She
always judged me for being angry at my mom’s acceptance of my dad’s cheating. 
Yet, she walked around like she didn’t have one ounce of doubt or confusion
mucking up her insides, as if she had a handle on everything.  She was perfect—and
she demanded perfection around her, too.  But I would never be perfect.  And
the fact that she couldn’t confide in me meant she dumped me as a friend long
before I ever kissed Kyle.

Unknowingly,
I proved I was unworthy with the Kyle mistake, but would Katie have ever come
clean with her own struggles?  Would she ever have leaned on me?  Katie was my
best friend, and, I thought, my forever friend.  We were practically sisters. 
It was sad to realize that in her last year of life, I didn’t really know her
at all.  All I got for sure was that my life was a mish mosh of fragmented
memories and false assumptions.

The guilt
inside me shattered, replaced by anger as I realized our friendship was as fake
as everything we hated.

My shift at
TEA the next day passed in a blur.  I was so angry at Katie.  I felt so stupid
for believing in our friendship, for admiring the ease with which Katie knew
what she wanted and how to get it.  For wanting to be like her.

It was a
façade.  And I had put all my faith in it.

Evan found
me after my shift, sitting in a chair in the corner of TEA, staring at a basket
of books.  I’d brushed him off for the last four days, but tonight, we were
supposed to go to the movies, and there was no hiding my black funk.

“It’s a dog
party, Whit,” Evan said, opening up the book
Go Dog Go
from the basket
beside my chair.  I nodded, hardly matching his cheerful attempt at hello.  I
tamped down a wave of unwanted anger and frustration.  I needed to shift gears.
 I wanted to go out and enjoy Evan, but I was already failing.  Because I
didn’t know how to coast, or exist in between the suck.  Going full throttle
left me in the middle of my backyard in the middle of the night, and doing
nothing meant hibernating in my room with a vodka-stocked boot.  I had no idea
how to deal.

I looked at
the Dr. Seuss book in his hand, focusing on the bright primary colors.

He was
totally going to think I was bipolar or something.  Especially after the way I
practically attacked him on my front porch the other night.  I wanted to kiss
him forever, and now I couldn’t even smile at him?

What was
wrong with me?

I took a
deep breath and tried at least to be normal, if not the twinkly-eyed girl from
our date.  I couldn’t let my anger at Katie destroy everything.

“And obviously
a
big
dog party—in a tree,” I said, taking the book from his hand.  “Plus,
a rude girl dog who is oddly critical about hats.”

Rudeness I
mirrored.

Evan
shrugged and sat in the chair in front of me, shifting until his knees almost, but
not quite, touched mine.  I think he sensed my need for distance.  “I guess she
just knows what she likes.”

“She’s a
bitch,” I said, only partially referring to the dog in the book.

Evan laughed,
and I unhinged from the funk a little.  I lowered the book.  His face stretched
into a grin.  His eyebrows rose, and I couldn’t help but smile in return.  It
was hard to stay mad, holding a Dr. Seuss book and watching Evan laugh.

“But you’re
right.  A little kindness can go a long way.”  He squeezed my knee.

I jumped, startled
by his touch.  Evan sat back, something flashed across his face.  Confusion
maybe, so I reached a hand out to his.  Unlike Katie, I could be open—although,
Evan made it so easy.  One minute in his presence and my funk dissipated,
replaced with anticipation.

The other
night, when I woke up in my backyard, guilt made me feel like I didn’t deserve
him, like I didn’t deserve happiness.  After my date with Evan, I’d been giddy
and high, like a million helium balloons—balloons ultimately targeted by my
sharpshooting guilt.

But now? 
There was no guilt.  I was so angry with Katie that I could just forget it
all.  I could eventually be happy as is.  There was no need to remember
anything.

I looked
back down at the book.  It was open to the last page.  With my free hand, I
pointed to the illustration, where dozens of dogs partied in a big Dr. Seuss
tree.  “What would life be like without this?”

I pushed
myself into the moment.

Evan shook
his head and sighed.  “Luckily, we’ll never have to know the darkness of life
without a big dog party.”

I scooted forward,
placing my other hand in his.  His skin felt warm and smooth as his fingers
slid between mine.  Then he kissed my palm.  I swore the world around me went
all silly and colorful like a picture book.  I closed my eyes, trying to
capture it.  No, not capture, but
savor
.  I didn’t have to live like
every moment was going to be taken away.

My phone danced
on the wooden table next to us, buzzing wildly.  Kyle’s name appeared on the
screen, and Evan’s hand slipped from mine.  He pushed the phone closer to me.

Where are
you?
  Kyle’s text
shouted.

Evan closed his
messenger bag.  Kyle’s timing sucked.  The rude dog from the book popped into
my head: 
I do not like your hat, Kyle
.  I felt annoyed at his
intrusion, especially when a tiny part of me thought our friendship was
completely one-sided.

Still, I tried
to be a better friend.  After all, I was angry at Katie, not him.  He’d never
pretended to be anything he wasn’t.

“I need to
call him back,” I said.

Evan nodded,
but his face was blank.  Well, maybe not blank.  There was something brewing
behind it.  “I’ll just be a second. . . .”

I smiled,
but it fell when his face remained unchanged, a mask of seriousness.

Okay . . .
what now?  I stood and rubbed my damp palms down my jeans.

“Why do you
keep running to him?”  Evan asked.