Of course, she’s thinner. There’s something almost somber about the way she’s dressed. All black. Or maybe dark gray. All those festive, thrown-together, mismatched, kicky outfits are out the window. Now it’s just make do, I guess. Now it’s just whatever happens to be there when she rolls out of bed. Now it’s just whatever covers her arms.
I see her, but I don’t say anything. I mean, what am I supposed to say?
She is all manic energy and cheer. “Hi! Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
She steps in and looks around. Books, papers everywhere. The room of a girl possessed.
“Wow, you’re really going for it here, I guess.”
She really doesn’t look that different from how she did that night at the Lamplighter. Clammy. Purple. Sick. “I could say the same for you.”
“What?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Look! Look what I got us!”
And this I can’t believe.
Remy is standing in front of me, all eighty pounds of her, gray skin, sunken eyes, and showing me something on her phone.
“What is that?”
“Paris! Two tickets—I just booked them. I thought we could leave right after graduation. You know, for, like, the whole summer.”
I feel like I’ve just lit down in an alternative universe.
“Remy . . .”
“And I found a place in Le Marais, just like we talked about. You’re gonna love it. We’ll take the Eurorail. Go to Italy. Maybe even Amsterdam.”
And there she is, pleading with me, with that clammy skin and those sunken eyes. This is the same Remy who appeared behind the tree that first day I got here. The same girl. But not the same girl.
I miss that girl.
“Remy . . . stop.”
“What? Oh, is it Amsterdam? We don’t have to go there, I can—”
“We’re not going to Paris.”
“What do you mean? Of course we are. I’ve got the tickets.”
“Remy. I’m not going to Paris with you. Or anywhere.”
And this look. This look that washes over her face. Like the last hope. Last train out of the station.
“Why not?”
“Remy, look at you.”
“What?”
“You think it’s not obvious?”
She doesn’t say anything for the longest time.
And then, “Why?”
“Remy. I can’t go with you. Where you’re going.”
I am looking at Remy and then I realize. I realize it this second. This is the last time I will ever see her. It’s like I’m looking at her, but I’m looking at a person who is getting smaller and smaller, fading and fading more, until there’s just an image, then the trace of an image, then nothing.
And a part of me wants to be mad at her. A part of me wants to reach out and shake her. Just shake her until she comes back to her senses.
But that would be like trying to grab a shadow.
There’s a silence. The sun is starting to set, and the light in the room is a hazy lilac. Little bits of gold on the wall.
It’s soft now. It’s gentle.
“Are you sure? You could change your mind, you know. I mean, the ticket’s in your name . . .” She trails off.
And the air in the room, heavy as stone.
Then, “Y-you said you would never leave me.”
It’s a sucker punch.
And it’s true.
But I feel like she left me a long time ago.
“I wanted to stay with you . . .”
We both just stand there.
And I’m looking at her. There she is. That lost little girl that I would do anything to save.
But I can’t. I can’t save her.
“I’m sorry, Remy. I’m really fucking sorry.”
And that last part comes with tears. They just come out of nowhere. And I want to grab her and bring her back, just bring her back to me. Just get her back.
This is the moment it hits her.
That this is it for us.
She nods. A kind of terrified little nod. Nothing I’ve ever seen before.
And now she’s out the door, down the hall, down the stairs.
And there she goes, walking across the green into the setting sun. I can see her through the arched windows, making her way toward something far away from me. There she goes, and I am jealous of the world for getting to have her, jealous of all the nights and days that get to have her. There she goes, someone great and singular and unlike anyone ever invented and the best person in the world and the worst person in the world. And, oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.
I stay on her until she is tiny in the horizon, a little dot, turning the corner by the arch. And then almost gone, hidden by the gray-green stones.
There she goes, and I might as well be watching a ghost.