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Five Years Ago
Carter
ICAN’TDECIDEIFTHE UNIVERSE loves me or hates me.
Maybe it loves to hate me. Maybe it’s mischievous. Maybe this is all karma. Karma for what, I couldn’t be sure, but I’ve done something to catch the Universe’s attention and I think it’s definitely fucking with me. Because I’m in love. I’m madly, deeply, painfully in love with a girl that I know I’ll never have. Because the heavens created arguably the most perfect creature in their repertoire, dangled her in front of me for my entire life, and chose to rip her away before I had the chance to tell her how I felt.
There is no other reasonable explanation for the series of events. Fate sucks.
I always thought falling in love would feel like flying, soaring, swimming through clouds. But being in love with her feels more like a punch to the stomach. A karate chop to the throat. A wipe out on a surfboard. The way she looks in that green dress. Pretty much anything that can knock the wind right out of you and make you forget how to breathe. It’s confusing and excruciating, an overall aching in your chest cavity. Living for the slight hope that maybe it’s all worth it because she can’t breathe either. Moments like that do exist, sometimes. Rare moments where I’m sure she feels the same way. Well, maybe not so madly, deeply, painfully; but maybe something’s there. When she looks at me in a certain light, or when she laughs at my jokes. When she smiles that smile that’s just for me.
I didn’t notice it at first–thatsmile. I watched her smile at everyone she knows. Her smiles were a little different with each of them, her special way of making everyone around her feel special too. We were nine years old when I found a penny on the ground and I gave it to her. I thought she needed luck more than I did because I felt lucky just to know her. That was the first time she gave me the smile that was just mine. A smile unique in itself, something she doesn’t give anyone else. That day felt like flying. Soaring. Swimming through clouds.
“You have to make a move,” Dom whispered in my ear. I rolled my eyes at my best friend.
I didn’t want a joint graduation party at first. Our parents insisted because that’s what would be easiest for them. They were best friends, after all. It made sense to celebrate the high school graduation of both Penelope and I at the same time.
Except, Penelope was going to the University of Oxford.ThatOxford.
I was going to Hawaii. Not to be confused with the University of Hawaii.
No, I was just going to the state of Hawaii. Not for anything in particular but just because my mother lived there and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I’d rather figure it out on the beach than in the rain of the Pacific Northwest. My plan was to have no plan at all, much to the disappointment of my father. The last thing I needed was all of his friends from the country club telling Penelope how impressive she is while patting me on the back in pity.
I watched it happen now as a group of her father’s doctor friends gathered around her asking her about her plans. When was she leaving? Where would she be staying? What did she plan to study? She looked uncomfortable, and I wished there was a way I could save her from this moment of unwanted attention, but unfortunately, I’m not the true Guest of Honor at this party.
She looked beautiful, though. Her thick auburn hair and the way it flowed down her back in waves, tapering out towards the bottom. Her skin looked like a painting, without a flaw. Little freckles sprinkled like cinnamon across her bare arms and the bridge of her nose. Her cheeks flushed slightly with embarrassment, but it tended to make her glow as her emerald eyes glistened in the evening sun. The most debilitating of her features was, without a doubt, her lips, resting in a perfect pout as she nodded her head in conversation. I was entranced as her tongue snaked out across her bottom lip. She pulled it down under her teeth, the way she does when she’s asked a question she doesn’t know how to respond to. I used to watch her do that in the middle of math, much to my distraction. She somehow always made math my favorite subject of them all. Most likely because it was her worst, and she spent a frequent amount of time biting down on her lip.
“Now is your last chance,” Dom said. He was right, but he was also wrong. Tomorrow Penelope would be boarding a flight across one ocean, and in two weeks I’d be boarding a flight across another. Oxford, England and Honolulu, Hawaii may very well be the farthest destinations we could possibly get from each other on this planet. So, he was wrong. My last chance passed a long time ago because that ship had sailed and I was not on it.
Penelope and I had always seemed to be on two separate planets, always orbiting each other but never making contact. We were neighbors, our parents were best friends. Most of our childhood was spent in-between the back doors of each house, coming and going as we pleased. We had joint family vacations, holidays, and parties– obviously. All of the situations that should force two people into something that would make us feel like siblings.
And while we were friends, it was never like that for us. I fell too early, too hard. I’d never be able to see her in the light I was supposed to see her in. But it was never quite like that for her, of that I was certain. I used to hope someday our planets would end up colliding either destroying us, or welding us into something completely new. I grew too afraid of either outcome, so I kept to my planet and she kept to hers.
“No, I can’t,” I said. Dom moved to stand in front of me, pity in his brown eyes. He was the only person on earth that knew how deep my feelings for her truly ran.
“Actually, I think you can. I think youshould. What is the worst that can happen? She leaves tomorrow. So, tell her how you feel, and if she tells you she doesn’t feel the same and things get awkward– well, you’ll never have to see her again.”
“I don’t want to never see her again.” We may have been on different planets but she was always a part of my solar system, and I could convince myself that was enough. My stomach tied in knots thinking about the fact that I would wake up tomorrow morning without her being just across the street from me.
“You don’t really have a choice in that, bud. She’s leaving whether she knows how you feel or not. You may run into each other from time to time, but she’s not going to be part of your everyday life anymore. You might as well get it all out there,” he said as he shrugged.
I began to think there may be a certain relief that may come with putting it all on the table, knowing there would be no real consequences. Except that it may break my heart. Rupture my soul. Punch me in the stomach, karate chop my throat, wipe me out.
Maybe that was exactly what I needed. The absolute certainty that would come with her rejection would allow me to move on. No more fear of collision, but an absence of her entirely. With that thought, my chest dropped to my knees.
“She’s going inside. Go.” Dom shoved me towards the doors that led from my backyard, where the party was being held, into my house. There’d hardly be anyone inside. Penelope slipped through the doors, likely needing a quiet respite from the chaos of a few dozen people wanting to know all the details of her future. That made me feel guilty because I was about to offer her no respite at all. Dom was right, though. It was now or never, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on with never telling her how I felt. I looked around to make sure nobody was watching her before slipping through the door myself. I had a feeling I knew exactly where to find her.
Our house held a sunroom off the entrance. It was a small space paneled with windows giving an abundance of light. Our family didn’t use it much other than my stepmother, Marlena, who kept her house plants there. Penelope would come over sometimes with her mother, who was an artist, and they would paint together. The sunroom gave off the best possible lighting. I knew it was her favorite place between both houses, except maybe the ledge of the roof outside her bedroom window. Sure enough, as I made it to the sunroom, I found her. Her back was turned to me and she was staring at a canvas of her mother’s.
“Pep?” I asked.
She turned around as if slightly startled, before shaking her head and letting out a breath. “Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
She shrugged. “You know, it’s just a lot. Everyone asking about our entire life plan and whatnot.”
I laughed. “Nobody is asking me.”
