Holding Up the Universe (41 page)

I've always thought you should be able to freeze time. This way you could hit the Pause button at a really good point in your life so that nothing changes. Think about it. Loved ones don't die. You don't age. You go to bed and wake up the next morning to find everything just as you left it. No surprises.

If I could freeze time, this is the moment I would choose, falling asleep on my dad's shoulder, George on my lap, like I'm eight years old again.

This is what I know about loss:

By the time I started eating—really eating—the loss was already so big it felt like I was carrying around the world. So carrying around the weight wasn't any heavier. It was trying to carry around both that got to be too much. Which is why sometimes you have to set some of it down. You can't carry all of it forever.

It's almost dawn by the time I get to bed. I lie on top of the blanket, wide awake, shoes on, clothes on, staring at the ceiling. I feel full, and also empty, but not in a bad way. Maybe empty's not the right word. I feel light.

I may love Libby Strout.

Not just
like
like her.

Love.

As in I love her.

I love her rollicking, throaty laugh that makes her sound as if she's got a cold. I love the way she struts like she's on a catwalk. I love the hugeness of her, and I don't mean her actual physical weight.

And then I start thinking about her eyes. If you asked me to tell you what Caroline's eyes look like, I couldn't tell you. Even though I can describe them when I'm looking directly into them, I can't describe them when she's not in front of me.

But I can tell you what Libby's eyes look like.

They are like lying in the grass under the sky on a summer day. You're blinded by the sun, but you can feel the ground beneath you, so as much as you think you could go flying off, you know you won't. You're warmed from the inside and from the outside, and you can still feel that warmth on your skin when you walk away.

I can tell you other things too.

And then I'm like,
Wait a damn minute.

I sit up. Rub my head. Maybe it's the booze, but…

When did I start being able to remember her face?

And suddenly I'm having this total
Sixth Sense
experience as my mind scrolls back over the weeks I've known her. I run through every single time I've seen her, every instance I've been able to pick her out of a crowd or find her out of context. I test myself.

Picture her eyebrows.

Slightly arched, as if she's always amused.

Picture her nose.

The way it wrinkles when she laughs.

Picture her mouth.

Not just the red of her lips, but the way the corners turn up, as if she's smiling even when she isn't.

Picture all the pieces together.

The way her cheekbones curve out and her chin curves in, almost like a heart. The fierceness and softness and glow of her that make her look so ALIVE.

All this time, I thought it was her weight that made me see her.

But it's not her weight at all.

It's her.

I'm up early, even though it's Sunday. I leave my dad a note and then I'm out of the house, bundled in a jacket and scarf. After a block, my hands are freezing, and I jam them deep into my coat pockets. I'm meeting Rachel in the park because I have something to tell her.
I know why I punched Jack Masselin.

There's a chill in the air that feels like winter, or at least the start of it. This is my least-favorite time of year because everything dies or goes to sleep, and there's too much death and stillness, and the sky turns gray for so long, you think it will never be blue again. Right now the sky can't quite make up its mind. It's blue in patches, gray in patches, with spots of white, like a faded quilt.

Rachel has brought us hot cider from the coffee shop by her house. We sit looking at the golf course, blowing on our drinks to cool them down. I tell her a little about Mick from Copenhagen and Moses Hunt and taking Jack home.

“Jack as in Jack?”

“Jack as in Jack.”

Before she can ask me about him, I tell her about the dance team I'm starting with Bailey, Jayvee, and Iris. “The best thing is, anyone can join. No weight restrictions or height restrictions or age restrictions or sex restrictions. No restrictions at all. If you can dance, even a little, you're in. And we dance for the joy of dancing, whenever and wherever we want.”

“Can I join?”

“Of course.”

“Will there be twirling?”

“Of course!”

“And costumes?”

“Yes, but each one will be different.”

She tells me about her new girlfriend, Elena, a graphic designer she met at Winkler's Bakery. She says they have a lot of silly things in common but also real things, important things, like they were the same age when they came out to family and friends. She blows on her drink, takes a sip. She eyes me over the cup. “You know, that's what you've been doing in a way—coming out. Coming out of your room. Coming out of your house. Coming out of your shell.”

“I guess I have.” I think about Jack, as alone in himself as I was in my room for all those years.

As if she reads my mind she says, “So why did you do it? Why did you hit him?”

“Because after all I've been through, I felt like he was trying to single-handedly pick me up and stuff me back into that house and lock me in. Like he was telling me I was right to be panicked and I was right to be afraid.”

“No one can lock you back in, Libby. You choose whether you let them.”

“I know that now, like really know that. I thought I knew that then, but I didn't.”

“So are you still friends?”

“He lied to me.”

“Or he might have been trying to protect you. I'm not defending him, but he probably thought he was doing the right thing.”

“Maybe.” And then I tell her about the letters.

She sets down her drink. “When was the last time you got one?”

“It's been a while. Since before I wore the purple bikini.”

“Did you find out who was writing them?”

“No, but I'm pretty sure I know. And I feel sorry for her because this person will never come out. She keeps who she really is locked away where no one can find her, where she can't even find her.”

Rachel picks up her drink again. “To Libby Strout, the biggest person I know, and I don't mean on the outside.”

We tap our recycled cups.

“And to Rachel Mendes, for loving me even though you don't have to.”

I almost say
And for saving my life
because for some reason I'm thinking of myself at eleven and then at thirteen. That girl feels like a different girl, someone from a lifetime ago, not anyone who has anything to do with the me I am now. Except that I know I wouldn't be me without her. I wouldn't be Libby Strout, high school junior, with my very own group of friends. I wouldn't have danced or twirled or tried out for the Damsels. I wouldn't have stood up for myself or worn my purple bikini. I wouldn't have gone to Bloomington or Clara's with a boy I liked.
Really
liked. I wouldn't have had my heart broken because I would have been too afraid. And even though the ache of that heartbreak hurts like hell, it's so much better than feeling nothing.

Another thing I wouldn't be doing: sitting on this bench, the cold biting my cheeks and nose, drinking hot cider with a good friend. And even though I didn't know this exact moment existed, I wanted to be out here in the world to see it.

After Rachel leaves, I leave my copy—
the
copy—of
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
on the bench with this note:

Dear friend,

You are not a freak. You are wanted. You are necessary. You are the only you there is. Don't be afraid to leave the castle. It's a great big world out there.

Love, a fellow reader