Lily of the Valley (21 page)

“I won’t, but it’s not because I want to live.”

I haven’t tried to explain it to anyone except once with Alana, who freaked out and got so drunk she couldn’t remember the conversation the next day, and one therapist who seemed nice for three sessions – until she suggested Lithium.

“When the feelings came that first time,” I continue, “I had no idea what they were. But after that attempt, I realized I would keep fucking it up. So I stopped. Later, I found ways that were less – definitive.”

“How so?” Sandee asks.

“The first time, I tried to hang myself. Clearly, if it had worked, I would be dead. The second time, I took off on my bike. I went up to the mountain and I took the roads up there fast. It was barely spring and they were still slippery in places. I didn’t bring a helmet and I just flew. I decided that if the cosmos wanted me dead, I would die. If they didn’t, I would be alive.”

“That’s incredibly stupid,” she says. “What if you’d died?”

I laugh, because the question is so sweet, but I also feel so weak. Sandee is another one like Alana. She has every reason to do the same things I do, but she doesn’t. “That was kinda the idea.”

“I understand sadness, Jack. I understand the kind of sadness that crushes you and makes you think the next breath will be the one that kills you. I know how it feels to wake up in the morning and think you just can’t handle one more day of this. I’ve woken on a Tuesday and the idea of Thursday was impossible. I couldn’t make it that far.”

“So how did you?” I really want to know. Because medication, therapy, alcohol – none of it has worked.

“I love my son. My life may be bad but he’s in it. When I wake up and feel like that, I picture him waking up without me. And I drag my ass out of bed. Because when you love someone that much, you just have to.”

“I’m not selfish,” I argue.

“I didn’t say you were. I don’t believe suicide is selfish. I do, however, believe that you of all people know how it feels to be the one left standing. Do you want other people to feel like you did? Like you still do?”

“No one would.”

“Alana would.
I
would. And I bet that Lily girl would.”

I shake my head. “She wouldn’t even know.”

“Let me ask you something. What if she is in fact with her boyfriend? How would she feel if she found out you killed yourself? Don’t you think she’d see herself as the cause? How do you think she’d live after that? You said she made you believe in something beautiful. Even if she isn’t it, do you think there’s nothing else that’s beautiful? And do you want to take away whatever it is that makes her that kind of person? Because the girl you love? If you kill yourself, that girl dies with you.”

“I won’t do it. I won’t hurt her. I won’t be any more of a burden on people than I am,” I say.

“It’s never a burden to love someone, honey. Do you think it’s easy putting up with what I do with Mikey and the school? Or his father, who doesn’t help us? Of course not. It’s hard and some days, it’s almost impossible. I wanted to go to college. I wanted a life. But my son
is
my life. And he will
never
be a burden.”

I wish I could tell her how much it hurts me to hear her say these things. Not because I don’t believe her or because they aren’t wonderful things. But because my own mother never saw it that way. Maybe it was because my grandparents were always fighting and she was never taught how to be a parent. I know my grandmother is full of regret about letting things get out of control with both my grandfather and my mom, but it’s how she is. She just wants everyone to be happy, even if the happiness is found at the bottom of a bottle or at the end of a needle. I could resent her, but I don’t. She came from her own abusive family and she swung to the opposite end of the pendulum.

It’s so depressing to think of my family, because it just reminds me that I’m not the kind of guy who wins in the end. I don’t get to be with girls like Lily.

“I really love her, Sandee. But she’s so much better off this way. And I won’t ruin her chance at happiness, just because it destroys me that I’m not a part of it. I refuse to be the reason the light in her eyes goes out.”

Sandee stands up and I look at my watch. Shit. I have to be on the clock in like two minutes. “Jack,” she says quietly, “I really hope that somehow or other things work out with this girl.”

“Thanks, but they won’t,” I say.

“You never know.”

I nod. “I do. But she gave me a glimpse of something. And who knows? Maybe someday I can be even a small part of what I was with her. Because it was good with her.
I
was good with her.”

“It sounds to me like you have something worth hanging onto if the chance comes up. Anyone who can make you love yourself, even a little, is worth fighting for.”

I have nothing to say to that. Lily walked away from me last night. I would fight for her, but she doesn’t want me. I just need to be thankful that she was even in my life for the breath of an instant.

Chapter 22

I force myself to get through each day that follows. I throw myself into school and into practice. We got another gig for the weekend after Thanksgiving and this time we headline. It’s a big fucking deal and the band really helps me to drown all the thoughts.

At first, I look for Lily everywhere. I think I see her a few times, but each time, I feel pieces of me shatter again, and soon I stop looking because it hurts too much.

I have a huge programming project coming up for my design class and I work on that for days, barely sleeping, and it makes me feel more human again. It isn’t a replacement for anything, but it’s a distraction and I probably put together the best project I have in my entire academic career.

Sober and celibate, I don’t have a fucking clue how to be alive. But some stupid voice in my head continues to tell me that someday, maybe she’ll come back. And I want to show her that I’m worth it. I know it’s delusion, but it gets me from day to day.

Alana comes up to visit a few days before Thanksgiving. She’s been trying to give me my space, which after a week of her constant attention, I demanded. When she arrives, I have to fight my own damn body. As always, she looks fucking fantastic and she’s wearing a short ass skirt. My mind may still be living in a dream world where Lily is present, but my cock is happy to take what it can get. I don’t move to touch her though and she sits on my bed, crossing her legs.

“I have no intention of fucking you,” she says and her eyes go to my ridiculous erection. Girls have no idea how much it sucks to be a guy sometimes. I’m still heartbroken but my body is totally ready to move on.

“My body’s dumb. I can’t stop thinking about her. But yet, your legs look fucking great in that skirt.”

She smiles. “Well, I’m happy at least part of you is ready to rejoin the living. But control it. I have some big news.”

“Yeah?”

She nods and takes out her cell. She passes it over to me and I look at the text she has open.

We miss you. When are you coming home?

I miss you, too. I’m actually getting a short leave for the holidays. I have to spend most of it with my family, but maybe…

It’s a date.

She signed off with a smiley face. I don’t understand. He hasn’t spoken to us in years.

“But how?” I ask.

“I got his number from his mom. You know, neither of us asked. For two years. We just dwelled on the fact that he left us. I wonder how many times he came back for leave, and how many times we could’ve gone back. Made it right again.”

“It’ll never be the same, Alana. You can’t make it the same,” I argue.

“Maybe not, but I can fucking make it something. Which is more than you’re doing, I might add.”

“Not cool. She doesn’t want me.”

“We thought Dave didn’t want us either. Maybe you need to try.”

“It’s been almost a month.”

She shrugs and holds up her phone. “It’s been two fucking years.”

“Let’s just drop it,” I say, because it’s different with Lily. She’s not in some country across the globe; she’s down the hall. If she wants to come back into my life, she knows where I am. “Anyway, you coming over for our big Thanksgiving feast?” I ask.

“Wild Turkey and Smirnoff Cranberry?”

I sigh. It’s been our Thanksgiving tradition for nearly five years now. Since the first time, when Alana broke into her stepdad’s liquor cabinet and snuck over after he passed out. For a few years, Dave was also a part of it.

I’ve been trying to behave, trying to be the kind of person Lily would want, but Alana’s my friend. It might be a stupid and self-destructive tradition, but it’s still a tradition. “Yeah,” I reply.

“Awesome. I’ll be there as soon as my mom’s new boyfriend stops trying to pretend we’re a family.”

She gets up and goes to my Xbox and grabs one of the controllers, tossing the other one to me. We spend the rest of the night shooting zombies and I almost forget.

****

On Thanksgiving, Alana does come over, but she’s pissed when she arrives. And she’s sans alcohol. I’m a little relieved, because my pointless oath to Lily will be upheld now, but I’m also sad, because Alana and I don’t come from homes with traditions. Even if it was a stupid, fucked up one, it was still ours.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

“My mother’s new boyfriend. He’s fucking intolerable,” she complains and throws herself onto my bed. I sit on the end next to her.

“He didn’t try any shit, did he?”

She rolls her eyes. “No. Not Owen. Fucking goddamn
Donna Reed
shit. He cooked an entire fucking Thanksgiving dinner. With stuffing. The homemade shit. Not even that stuff in a bag.”

I laugh. “And?”

“And then he wanted us to fucking talk about being thankful. He even thought I was going to stay in tonight. He brought board games, Jack. Fucking board games.”

I shrug. “I like board games.”

She rolls over and kicks me. “I’m twenty fucking years old. The only guys in my life have been assholes, drunks, pedophiles, or fucking train wrecks.”

“And me,” I remind her.

“You’re included in train wrecks, my friend. Right at the top of the fucking list.”

“Nice. At least I’m good at something,” I say.

“Jack, you need to save me. He wants us to go out tomorrow, all three of us, to buy a Christmas tree. And to decorate it. The last time I think I saw a fucking Christmas ornament was when my stepdad threw one across the room at my mom because she bought the wrong eggnog. We don’t
do
Christmas.”

“Maybe you should,” I say and it’s said before I even realize it. I say it like it’s obvious, as if I wouldn’t be packing my shit and getting the fuck out were the situations reversed. I relent. “You can stay here for the weekend if you need to. I didn’t even see my grandmother today. She spent all day at the prison helping with the meal.”

“That sucks. Weren’t you invited?”

“Yeah. Have I ever gone?”

She sits up. “I don’t know. I thought you were all about being normal now or something.”

“That seems to be your current dilemma,” I tease. “But seriously, if you need a place to stay…”

She shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll go buy a tree. But if the word caroling even leaves his mouth, I swear to God…”

“Alana, it’s the 21
century. No one carols anymore. They send singing ecards.”

“Yeah, you tell Owen that. I bet he fucking carols.”

She’s complaining, but I know a part of her loves it. Because as much as it’s easier to hate everything and everyone, Alana isn’t all that different from me. And we both still have an inherent need to belong to someone. Her mother has always been so worried about her boyfriends that Alana learned a long time ago to be alone. But I can tell that she secretly loves the idea of buying a tree with a family, even if it is a dysfunctional one.

I don’t even remember the last time we had a tree. Or Christmas for that matter. Usually my grandmother buys me a couple things and we have something to eat, before she takes off to see my dad – and I go see my mom. But it isn’t Christmas. Other than the fact that I get up at the ass crack of dawn, it could be any other day. Last year, my presents were wrapped in baby shower paper. I teased my grandmother that she was going senile and she played along, but later, I saw the receipt and realized it was half off – and Christmas paper was too expensive. There’s something really sad about knowing that you’re so poor you can’t buy wrapping paper. Meanwhile, I’m off at school, living off a scholarship. These are the things that motivate me to do well in classes.

“I didn’t get any booze,” I tell Alana, changing the subject and feeling a little empty.

She shrugs. “It’s okay. I probably shouldn’t be hung-over tomorrow. Owen mentioned pancakes. Do people eat pancakes after noon?”

I lie down next to her and hold her hand.

“Are you all right?” She rolls onto her side and looks at me.

“I’m fine. It hurts a tiny bit less every day.”

“You know, Jack, if it’s meant to be…”

“No, don’t give me that shit. Because I know what is ‘meant to be,’ and Lily and me? We’re not it. But I like thinking maybe that’s a stupid cliché and there is no meant to be.”

“Come with us tomorrow?” Alana asks. “Buy the tree. Have some cider or whatever shit you drink when you have a tree. Hang that silver shit with me.”

“It’s called tinsel.”

“Yeah, tinsel. Come over tomorrow. Please?”

I wonder if I can. I wonder if being at her house with her mother and Owen acting like normal people, doing normal things, will hurt too much. I can’t even picture these things. As far as I knew, they only happen in movies. But I don’t have to work and my grandmother will probably be tired from spending the day serving Thanksgiving dinner at the prison. What the fuck else am I going to do?

“Sure. I’ll come over and buy a tree,” I say.

****

Owen’s a nice guy. Like a genuinely
nice
guy. He talks to me like we’ve known each other for years, showing real interest in my major and telling me about his friend who works for a game studio. It’s surreal. I knew theoretically that people like Owen existed – people who are optimistic because they have a reason to be, people life has been easy for but who feel apologetic that it has. But I’ve never met one. I know nice people at the café, but most have been through their own shitty stories. Owen’s an only child, his parents are still alive and married, and he has always had good things happen to him. And yet, he is so excited to share with Alana, her mom, and me. As if he doesn’t see how far out of our realm of experience his whole life is.