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Chelsea’s father waved a hand out as they parted ways three blocks from Chelsea’s apartment. On cue, like some kind of circus performer, Chelsea sent her house keys in a parabola, directly into her father’s outstretched palm.
“Thanks, hun,” he said, just as automatically as ever, as though they’d done this key exchange more than just the week. “You get off tonight around eleven, you said?”
“Yeah, around then. But only if we don’t get a crazy rush.”
“Okay, and Xav?”
“He won’t be back till late.”
Tyler scrunched a hand into a fist and pumped it. “I guess I have your palace all to myself, then.”
Chelsea’s nostrils flared the slightest bit. Her father didn’t even notice it. “Don’t have any parties,” she told him in a sing-song voice. She wanted him to think she was cool with all of this, that his crashing for the previous week had been a wonderful reprieve, a beautiful reunion. And sure, there had been moments. They’d shared laughter and swapped stories and gone on long walks across the city, exploring. But all the while, Xavier had grown increasingly shadowed. He hardly looked her in the eye when he went to bed at night and got up in the morning. And when she texted him during his work shift, he waited hours to return her messages.
Now, she’d agreed to meet with him as he headed out of work and she headed in. She hadn’t told her father about this agreement.
Chelsea walked to Xavier’s work with her hands shoved deep in her pockets. She played music through her headphones, sad songs that made her heart shiver with sorrow and just before she arrived at the corner where they’d agreed to share a bagel, Olivia texted her yet again. It had seemed non-stop the previous week. Her mother was hungry to know the ins and outs of Tyler’s sudden arrival. It took every bit of strength she had to keep her mother on that island.
MOM: How are you today? You have a shift tonight?
Chelsea began to write back but soon deposited her phone back in her backpack and told herself to get to it later. She had bigger fish to fry. As if on cue, Xavier walked out from the door about a half-block away. When his eyes found hers, he didn’t smile. Chelsea forced hers to die immediately. When they met one another, face-to-face, in the center of the sidewalk, Chelsea wanted to make a joke about how they already looked like those constantly upset, near-divorce New Yorkers who walked their dogs around the park without saying a single word.
“Hey,” she said instead.
“Hey.”
They didn’t speak again for another eight minutes until after their bagel, cheese, and egg sandwich had been crafted and Xavier had paid the full seven-fifty it cost. They sat on a bench overlooking a little park, where a child stormed toward his mother, who texted, bored.
“Nature versus technology, I guess,” Chelsea joked.
Xavier didn’t laugh. This was normally the kind of joke he would have loved. Chelsea’s tongue felt sour, and she refused the first bite of the bagel. Xavier just held it upright as though they both waited for the other to speak first.
Finally, Xavier leaped.
“He’s been here the entire week, Chels.”
“I know.” She heaved a sigh. “I know.”
“And you didn’t even ask me before you told him he could sleep on the couch. You just let it happen.”
“I know.”
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“I don’t know.”
Again, silence. Xavier dropped his hands so that the bagel now sat gently on the bench between them. Only a few weeks before, they would have thrown themselves at one another on the bench, making out for all the world to see. Now, it was like they were strangers.
“Do you have any idea how much longer he wants to stay with us?”
“I haven’t asked.”
“Do you know if he’s talked to Casey at all?”
“I don’t think he has.”
“Jesus, Chels.”
Chelsea’s eyes filled with tears. She had resolved, a long time ago, never to lie to Xavier. There on that bench, she gave him only honesty and she hated it. All she wanted to do was tell him, “Just a few more days,” or, “I’ll go home right now and tell him he has to get out.” But she knew in her heart that she couldn’t. Where her father was concerned, she was handicapped. She loved him so completely; she needed him to love her with every ounce of who she was. It wasn’t bigger than her and Xavier’s relationship, exactly; it had just gone on a whole lot longer.
Xavier stood and began to pace in front of the bench. The child far beyond in the park had ultimately stolen his mother’s cell phone and banged it against the grass. The mother’s shoulders slumped forward in defeat, much like Chelsea’s did, now.
“This was supposed to be our big chance to start fresh,” Xavier said then. “Here in New York, just you and me. And now, this? And you’re just going along with it like it’s no big deal?”
“It is a big deal. I know it is.” Chelsea closed her eyes. Anger and fear and sorrow swirled in her stomach. “Why would you think I don’t think it’s a big deal?”
“You just let him walk all over you.”
“You mean, the way I’m letting you walk all over me right now?” Chelsea stood up and glared at him.
Xavier stopped pacing. They locked eyes. Neither spoke for a full thirty seconds.
“My father is in trouble,” Chelsea blurted. “I know you kind of hate your parents, or whatever, but I don’t hate mine. We’re all just people trying to figure things out, and we’re always supposed to have our family’s backs. Why shouldn’t I be there for him?”
“I just don’t think you understand how much he’s manipulating you,” Xavier blurted.
“Are you kidding me?” Chelsea’s eyes bulged out. “That’s so, so awful to hear. Do you know how awful you’re being?”
“I’m just telling the truth.”
“Yeah? Take your truth somewhere else,” Chelsea returned. She took a huge step away from him just as he reached out in an attempt to grab her hand. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“We came here today to talk about this. If we just abandon it, then what does that say about our relationship?”
“I don’t know, Xavier. What do you think it says?” Chelsea’s words were volatile. She grabbed her bag and shot away from him, headed for the main road. She shook violently as she walked. When she rounded the corner, she paused for a moment, listening for Xavier’s footfalls, but none came. He had decided not to come after her, of course.
He didn’t care. Not as much as she did. This was proof, and she didn’t need anything else.
Chelsea was at a total loss. She wandered the streets and pointed herself in the direction of Tiny Tim’s. But ultimately, when she reached the subway stop, she texted her boss, Marty, to tell him she was puking and wouldn’t make it.
CHELSEA: My doc says it’s walking pneumonia. I can’t come to work for about a week.
CHELSEA: I’m as upset as you are. I need that money.
CHELSEA: Please, don’t fire me.
It took Marty a full four minutes to text back, even though she knew he was perpetually glued to his phone at this hour of the day.
MARTY: You’re kidding me, right?
CHELSEA: ‘fraid not, coach.
MARTY: Okay. If it’s longer than a week, I have to take you off the schedule for good.
CHELSEA: Thank you.
Chelsea hustled down the steps of the subway station. She no longer had any control over her limbs. In a flash, she made her way into the relevant train, then gripped the side of the bustling car as it chugged her toward the bus station. She arrived at the bus just as the driver drew his doors closed. She banged on the glass, and he finally let her in, making sure to grumble about it the entire time.
She was off to Boston, where she would make a change-over, which would ultimately take her to Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
From there, she would take the ferry home.
Her mind went about a million places during that first bus ride to Boston. She sat with her forehead leaned up against the glass and thought about Xavier, about how much she had thought he was the one, the one to change her life for good. She thought about how he had looked at her back at that park, as though she was some kind of symbol of evil itself. She thought, too, of what he’d said about her father, about his manipulation. She knew he was right.
But she couldn’t face him or tell him that.
And she couldn’t fess up to it to Xavier, either.
Perhaps a few months ago, she could have. But just then, she felt exhausted, as though the world had decided to move onto her shoulders and press her down with all its might.
An autumn rain fluttered its droplets across the glass of the bus. She placed her hand over the glass and watched as the speed of the rain escalated. The clouds overhead were thick and rolling over the top of one another, in some kind of race. A man off to the left of her in the bus grunted about an approaching storm. Somehow, Chelsea had forgotten about these typical autumn storms — the ones that told you, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that summer and all its beauty had ceased. It was time to be inside and let nature take its course.
Chelsea checked her phone. It was just past four-thirty, but she still had a long journey ahead. Marty texted her again to say it was too bad she couldn’t come into work since one of her regulars had come. He always tipped her upwards of forty percent. Chelsea cursed herself inwardly; she needed that cash.
But, right then, she needed one person on the planet. She needed her mother. For too long, she had shoved Olivia as far away as she could and now it was time to change that.
She texted her mother just to get a sense of her schedule. It was better to surprise her, after all. She wanted to make those tears fall.
CHELSEA: Hey Mom! How’s your day going? I heard the east might get some kind of storm.
Olivia wrote back almost immediately.
OLIVIA: Hey, hun. Yeah. I got out of work a little while ago and I’m about to head over to the hotel. I’m watching the clouds now. Kind of ominous. How’s the city?
Chelsea knew her mother wanted nothing more than to ask, “How’s Tyler?” She’d held it in for Chelsea’s sake.
CHELSEA: Not bad. Are you going to be at the hotel all night?
OLIVIA: All night, every night. Your grandmother said I look “tired,” lol.
CHELSEA: Grandma has a way with words, doesn’t she?
OLIVIA: Something like that.
OLIVIA: Gotta run. I hope this storm doesn’t hit us too hard. Scary!
OLIVIA: Love you.
CHELSEA: Love you, too, Mom.
Chelsea pressed her phone against her chest. At that moment, Xavier texted her.
XAVIER: Hey. I came to your work to talk to you and they said you’re at home sick.
XAVIER: What the heck.
XAVIER: I called your dad. He says you’re not there, either.
XAVIER: Chelsea. Where are you?
XAVIER: Chelsea. Please.
Chelsea turned her phone on Airplane mode after that. She then stuck her air buds into her ears, leaned her head back, and continued to watch the rain. Just recently, she’d “run away from home,” from the island to NYC. Now, she ran right back.
But there was freedom in making this decision. Nobody could tell her it was the right thing or the wrong thing to do. It just was.
And soon, she would look her mother in the eye and tell her — well. She wasn’t fully sure she could muster, “You were right.” But maybe she could come up with something similar. Maybe.