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She’s reading a book, and doesn’t even notice me until I sit down next to her. Then she looks up and smiles.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say back.
“How was your day?”
“Okay.” I don’t want to come right out and say all the things I’ve been thinking. So instead I tell A about class, and about the homecoming game that everyone’s excited about tomorrow, and how Rebecca is insisting that I go, even though I don’t really want to go. A asks me why, and I admit it’s partly because I don’t want to see Justin and partly because…well, it’s a football game.
“It’s supposed to be good weather, at least,” A says before launching into the forecast for the weekend.
I have to interrupt. If we start talking about whether or not it’s going to rain on Sunday, I am going to scream.
“A,” I say, even though A’s not finished. “There are things that I need to say to you.”
A stops. And it’s not like yest
erday, when he felt so distant inside the body. Now he’s floating to the surface of this girl. So nervous. So scared.
I wish I could tell him it will all be okay. I wish I could ask him to the homecoming game. I wish I could have him meet all my friends. I wish I could say that I want to kiss this girl as much as I want to kiss everyone else. I wish I could say what he wants me to say.
But I refuse to lie. That’s the one thing we can have—honesty between us. Everything else—whatever it is—can be built from that.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I say.
He knows what I mean. He doesn’t say What? He doesn’t look confused. Instead, he asks, “You don’t think you can do it, or you don’t want to do it?”
“I want to. Really, I do. But how, A? I just don’t see how it’s possible.”
Now he asks, “What do you mean?”
I spell it out. It hurts to do it, because I know it’s not something he can control. But he has to see that I can’t control my own self, either.
“I mean, you’re a different person every day. And I just can’t love every single person you are equally. I know it’s you underneath. I know it’s just the package. But I can’t, A. I’ve tried. And I can’t. I want to—I want to be the person who can do that—but I can’t. And it’s not just that. I’ve just broken up with Justin—I need time to process that, to put that away. And there are just so many things you and I can’t do. We’ll never hang out with my friends. I can’t even talk about you to my friends, and that’s driving me crazy. You’ll never meet my parents. I will never be able to go to sleep with you at night and then wake up with you the next morning. Never. And I’ve been trying to argue myself into thinking these things don’t matter, A. Really, I have. But I’ve lost the argument. And I can’t keep having it, when I know what the real answer is.”
This is it. As honest as it gets. But he doesn’t give in when I force him to face it.
“It’s not impossible,” he tells me. “Do you think I haven’t been having the same arguments with myself, the same thoughts? I’ve been trying to imagine how we can have a future together. So what about this? I think one way for me to not travel so far would be if we lived in a city. I mean, there would be more bodies the right age nearby, and while I don’t know how I get passed from one body to the next, I do feel certain that the distance I travel is related to how many possibilities there are. So if we were in New York City, I’d probably never leave. There are so many people to choose from. So we could see each other all the time. Be with each other. I know it’s crazy. I know you can’t just leave home on a moment’s notice. But eventually we could do that. Eventually, that could be our life. I will never be able to wake up next to you, but I can be with you all the time. It won’t be a normal life—I know that. But it will be a life. A life together.”
I want to be the girl who can believe this. I want to be the girl who can run away from her life and do this. For one person. For the right person.
But right now, I don’t think I’m that girl.
I try to picture it. I can see living in New York City. Having an apartment. Living a life there.
The problem is, when the door opens and A comes home, it’s my mental image of A. He’s that guy. The guy he’ll never be.
I can’t picture it with a different person every day. That doesn’t feel like a life. That feels like a hotel.
I know he wants it so badly. And it kills me that I can’t give it to him.
“That will never happen,” I say, trying to make my voice as comforting as possible. “I wish I could believe it, but I can’t.”
“But, Rhiannon—”
I’m crying now. It’s too much. “I want you to know, if you were a guy I met—if you were the same guy every day, if the inside was the outside—there’s a good chance I could love you forever. This isn’t about the heart of you—I hope you know that. But the rest is too difficult. There might be girls out there who could deal with it. I hope there are. But I’m not one of them. I just can’t do it.”
A is crying, too. I mean, the girl sitting with me on this bench is crying, too.
