I sink my teeth hard into my lower lip and then slowly lift my eyes to hers. There is so much I haven’t told Rene and I can see that she’s worried underneath that snotty shell of too cool to care about anything she has mastered. But Rene does care, she always has, in spite of what people think and say about her. She just doesn’t show it in the kind of ways other people do.
I feel my insides liquefy and weaken. I shake my head. “Nothing is going on, Rene. I’m just stressed and so ready to be done with this.”
Her eyes do another scalpel-like roam across my face and her lips tighten into a not-completely-held grimace. “Bullshit. Do you think I don’t know when something bad is going on with you? Is it Neil? I never thought I’d say this, but I really miss having the jerk around.”
I laugh, not in humor, but because of the way she says jerk. Almost affectionately. How quickly everything changes. From Rene despising Neil to missing him… I cut off my thoughts before they drift to my other quickly changing circumstance.
“It’s not Neil. It’s everything. It’s nothing. Can we just leave it alone?”
Rene stares at my face, sighs and then stands up, frustrated. “You’ll tell me. Eventually. You always do. It might help if you told me now instead of waiting until whatever this is becomes a disaster.”
I watch her walk toward the kitchen doorway. She stops and stares back at me.
“I love you, Chrissie. We’ve been best friends forever. Whatever it is, I’d help you if you’d let me.”
Moisture clouds my eyes and my lips curl inward in a tight pucker. I nod. She would help. But I can’t trust Rene with this. I can’t trust anyone. If anyone ever knew…if Jack ever knew…I stop the words before they form in my head…I’d die!
I suddenly feel sick, like I’m going to vomit, and I struggle to remain composed at the table. Finally, Rene turns and disappears into the living room. Her bedroom door slams a few seconds later.
I let out a heavy breath and fight to hold back the tears. There is no point in crying. Crying won’t change things, it won’t fix a single thing wrong in my life, and I’ve already cried enough over this.
I’ve made my decision and it is pointless to keep looking backward. Alan won’t speak to me, and this is my issue to fix. It’s stupid to agonize over this further.
I shake my head to scatter my thoughts and start to neatly reorganize my notes for this paper. I do a fast glance across the outline for my report staring up at me from my notepad, return my hands to the keys, and start to type.
Forcing myself to continue to write, I ignore the voice inside my head chiding that what I’m typing isn’t very good. Fuck it, I’m just going to finish it. What was it Jack said? Cs get degrees. Well, a D on this paper saves me from an incomplete in this course and gets me out of UC Berkeley.
God, I’m so ready to be out of Berkeley, even though I haven’t a clue where my life goes next. Probably nowhere. Probably back to Santa Barbara and Jack. Same old Chrissie. Same old life. Four years at Berkeley hasn’t changed a thing about me.
Three pages later, I’m still tunnel-focused on typing when the sound of the cordless phone ringing makes me jump in my chair.
As I cross the kitchen, my heart accelerates and my limbs grow shaky. It’s not Alan. I already know that, but I can’t make my body not react to the possibility that it might be him.
I click on the cordless and hold it to my ear. “Hello?”
A long pause where my heart ticks upward in tempo.
“Chrissie?”
Neil. Everything inside me calms with the instant deflation of my hope since it isn’t Alan. With my back against the cabinets, I slowly sink to the floor to sit.
“Hey, Neil. What’s up? Where are you?”
“I’m in Denver. Last gig of the tour. I should be in Berkeley in a few days.”
“Berkeley?” I repeat, a touch confused.
Neil laughs. “My stuff. Remember? I promised to get the last of it out of the condo when I came off the road.” Another moment of silence. Then, “Chrissie, are you OK? You sound funny.”
I close my eyes, willing myself to try to sound fine. “I’m great. You just caught me writing a final. I’m sort of mentally absorbed with it. American history, Depression-Era to the 70s. Not exactly cheery stuff.”
Neil gives a low chuckle. “Most definitely not cheery stuff. I know how you hate your courses in history.” Neil laughs in that sharing a memory way and I feel my heart jump against my chest since it’s sweet how many trivial things Neil remembers about me. “I’m glad you’re OK, Chrissie. I still worry about you, you know? Are you excited about being almost finished with school?”
“Ecstatic,” I say in a silly, heavily exaggerated way. “I hate Berkeley. I can’t wait to go home.”
“So that’s what you’re doing, then? Moving back to Santa Barbara after graduation?”
It sounds funny to hear Neil say that since I haven’t really put much thought into it. It sounds weird.
“Yep, moving back home. At least for a while. What are you going to do after you come off the road, Neil?”
“Visit home for a few weeks, see the family, and then back to Seattle.”
“Things going good for you?”
“Really good,” Neil says, and he sounds upbeat and very happy. For some reason that makes my emotional distress more jumbled. “We’ll catch up when I come to Berkeley to grab my stuff.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“I miss you, Chrissie.”
His voice is so soft I almost didn’t hear him and I debate with myself whether to pretend that I didn’t.
I let out a steadying breath. “I miss you, too.”
It’s the truth. Why does it hurt for me to admit it? Neil is always so calming to be with. My still-water pond. It would be nice to have him here for a while, especially now that every part of my life is a disaster.
“Maybe we can go out, Chrissie. Kick around. If you’re not too busy with your finals.”
Emotion makes it impossible for me to answer him.
“Just as friends. OK?” Neil continues. “I’m not going to push you for anything more.”
With the tips of my fingers I press hard on the end of my nose to keep the tears back. “OK. I’d like that, Neil.”
“However, if you want to push me for something more, I want you to know, that would be OK with me.”
The way Neil says that makes me laugh even though I don’t feel like laughing.
“Sorry. Bad joke, Chrissie. But I really do miss you.”
For some reason, I feel a little better. My laughter intensifies, leaving my body in a more comfortable flow. “It’s OK. I like it when you’re a conceited jerk, Neil.”
I can hear what almost sounds like a sigh through the receiver.
“Good night, Chrissie. See ya in a week or so.”
“See ya, Neil.”
Click. I stare at the phone, and fight to rein in my scattered emotions. Blending with the chaos that’s been consuming me for weeks is now a strangely good kind of feeling, an I’ve talked to Neil kind of thing.
I push the hair from my face, rise to my feet, and set the cordless back on the receiver. After I drop onto my chair at the table, without hesitation, I start to type again. I can finish this paper. I can make it through my last days at Berkeley. I’ve come this far, and I’m going to finish. I may have fucked up big time, I may be knee deep in mess, but I am not letting my mistakes take one more thing from me that I don’t want to give.
I can make it through all the things I have to so I can put the last three months of my life behind me forever. I continue to strike the keys, only this time my fingers are pounding against them with the force of my determination. Two hours later I am done with my paper. I staple together the sheets, shove them into my folder and scoop up my stuff from the kitchen table.
I wander down the hallway to Rene’s room and knock. “You can use the typewriter now,” I say through the wood door.