The doorbell rings and my heart leaps into my throat, falls out of my mouth, and bounces down the hall. No. Not really. It just feels like it.
The doorbell has rung only a handful of times since Elle and I broke up three weeks ago, and every single time I’m shanghaied by my physical response. Madden no longer rings, he just barges in, but a huge assortment of people, ranging from Mrs. Wheeling next door to the mail carrier to the Girl Scouts, have rung my doorbell and nearly killed me.
This time it’s Brooks with an armful of cardboard boxes, and I can’t help myself—I give him a dirty look.
“What?! I’m here to be useful. I brought boxes from the store. For your packing.”
“I thought you might be someone else.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You thought I was Elle.”
I sigh, heavily.
Jonah patters down the stairs. “Hi, Uncle Brooks! What’s those?”
I see disaster coming a moment too late, try desperately to signal to Brooks, and fail.
“Boxes. For packing,” Brooks says cheerfully, unwittingly.
Jonah may be only nine years old, but he’s no dummy. His gaze swings to me, his eyes already full of confusion and anger. “We’re moving?”
I’ve been meaning to tell him. In fact, I was planning to take him and Madden out for ice cream this afternoon and break it to both of them together.
I suck in a deep breath and manage to wedge my words in ahead of his next burst of outrage. “We’re not moving far, Jonah. Just across town. You’ll still go to the same school. And Madden can come over anytime.”
“But he can’t walk over. We can’t walk to each other’s houses all the time. We won’t take the bus to school together.” A ragged edge is creeping into his anger; another couple of sentences and he’ll be in tears.
I wince. “That’s true, but—” I’m about to launch into my semi-prepared speech, about how I’ll drive him to Madden’s house whenever he wants, pick up Madden at his house, how they can take the bus home together. It’ll be just the same as it is now, I was planning to tell him.
A lie. A convenient parental lie. But what else can I do?
He stomps his foot. Hard. “I’m not moving. I like it here. This is where we’re supposed to live. Madden is here. And Elle. And if you would just stop having your dumb fight with her, everything would be fine. You’re acting like a kid.” His face is red with anger. “No, that’s insulting to kids. Kids are better at fixing problems than you are.”
He storms out and runs hell-bent for leather toward Madden’s house, disappearing inside without knocking.
Given how well he and Madden handled the situation at school, he may have a point.
Thinking about that, about the friendship that grew up between the two boys without any effort at all, wrenches me back to reality. Of course it won’t be the same if we move across town. Who did I think I was fooling?
Jesus, what an asshole I’ve been, to put off telling him for so long. Suddenly I’m furious with myself, and not just for that.
“Nice job, Dad,” Brooks says.
I round on him. “Thanks. Thanks a fuck-ton. That’s just what I need right now.” I leave him standing on the stoop, still clutching his armful of boxes.
He follows me into the house, kicking the door shut behind him and dropping the boxes. “The boy has a point, Sawyer.”
“Shut up.” I put my hands on the kitchen counter, bracing myself. I’m going to fly apart, pieces of me sailing off into space.
“No, seriously, dude, what’s the big rush? Why do you have to bail out of this house? I thought you loved this neighborhood. You’ve done all this work—” He gestures at the recently refinished living room floor, visible through the kitchen doorway, and the new kitchen countertops and cabinet doors, which I’ve been working round the clock to finish. “Jonah’s obviously happy here. It’s not like she’s going to come over here and suck you back in.” He snorts. “No matter how much you wish she would.”
My chest feels like an overinflated tire; I’m too young for a heart attack, right? “Is there a reason you’re still in my house?” I inquire, as politely as I can.
“Is that any way to treat a guy who just brought you cardboard boxes? And I’ll help you pack up the kitchen, too, if you’re nice to me.”
“As long as you promise not to talk.”
“No can do,” Brooks says. He comes around the other side of the kitchen island so I have no choice but to stare at his ugly mug. “Seriously, Sawyer. What’s this move about? You’ve got cheap rent, you live in a great neighborhood, you love the elementary school, Jonah loves Madden—are things so awkward with her you have to run across town? What are you running away from?”
“I’m not—I’m not running—”
But I can’t choke the words out. My throat’s so tight, suddenly, I can barely breathe. Brooks must realize something’s wrong, because he comes around to my side, touches my arm. “Dude, you okay? Oh, Jesus, Sawyer—”
Brooks’s voice is alarmed—panicky.
“C’mon, man, don’t cry—you know I can’t stand that shit. For me, man, don’t.”
“I’m not crying,” I insist, damply.
“Just don’t think I’m getting you tissues or anything.”
“No. No tissues.” I swipe the back of my arm across my eyes and pull myself together. “I just miss her, you know?”
“We all miss her,” Brooks says quietly. “But falling in love with someone else, it’s not going to make Lucy, um, more dead, you know what I’m saying?”
Strangely, I did. I really did. I nod.
“I mean, I know it must feel really weird to be moving on without her, but I know she’d want you to be happy, and I bet she’d like Elle. Or she’d like how much you like Elle, at least. Jesus, I suck at this shit. How did I pull this job? I was just supposed to be dropping off cardboard boxes.” He throws his hands up, with the intended effect—I laugh, weakly.
“And Elle’s not dead,” Brooks continues.
I look at him, startled.
“She’s next door. She’s right fucking there, dude. No, no, no, that’s not supposed to make you feel worse—oh, shit, Sawyer, I’m going to have to go get the tissues, aren’t I?”
And Saint Asshole, to his very great credit, does just that. Or, you know, the man equivalent, which is to bring me a whole roll of TP from the nearest bathroom. I wipe my face and blow my nose.
“It’s just all mixed up, if you know what I mean,” I say, sounding very much like an nine-year-old, because, let’s face it, when we fall apart, when the big shit hits the big fan, we are all nine-year-olds. “I don’t want to love Elle.”
“Because it hurts like a mofo,” says Brooks sagely, as if I’ve just said red is red or two plus two is four. “Every time you look at her and feel how crazy you are about her—and it’s obvious to anyone in their right mind you are—your snake brain just throws up a big ol’ wall, because loving someone that much means they’re going to die and wreck you, and—who can blame you for not wanting any of that? But unfuckingfortunately, this is one of those choices you don’t get to make. You didn’t get to make the choice about Lucy dying and you don’t get to make a choice about loving Elle. You just do.”
This is so completely and totally true that I actually manage a real laugh, which loosens the awful tightness in my chest, just a little. I poach a little more TP from the shrinking roll and try to mop my eyes as discreetly as possible, but it’s not like I’m fooling Brooks.
“I’m crazy about her, huh?” I ask.
“You know you are.”
I do. I don’t want to be crazy about her, like Brooks said, and like he said, I don’t have a fucking choice in the matter. I only have a choice about what I do about it.
“So what you’re saying is, I should get my ass over there and tell her that I love her and that I want to be with her.”
He puts a finger to the end of his nose and points it at me.
And then, just in case I didn’t get the message, he throws the zinger at me. “Because life is short, Sawyer. That’s the whole point of your pain. To remind you that life is way too fucking short. And if you ignore the reminder, it’s just fucking pain.”
That’s when the doorbell rings.