“Take care of yourself, Melissa.” I look at her one last time before heading toward the door. I don't look back, but I can feel the weight of her gaze on me as I leave. The hallway is colder than before. I walk out into it and hear the door click shut, softer than I expect. Down in the lot, the rain has stopped but left everything damp and shining. I get in the car, close my eyes, and let the sound of Diane’s voice fills the space where Melissa’s used to be.
40
Diane
When I next surface from writing, the house has gone dim and quiet. A black river of words flows behind my eyes, and my hands ache from typing too long. The light at the windows is a faint pink mush, September dusk. For a dizzy half second I’m unsure where I am, my spine pressed into the sofa’s seam, my notes sliding to the carpet like scattered feathers.
I have written fifteen pages without stopping, the kind of jag that only comes once in a blue moon and leaves you both triumphant and hollowed out. I type the last line of the chapter, hands shaking from fatigue and some animal thrill, and for a long time I just stare at the words.
I want to cry but don’t. Instead, I let myself feel the high and crash of it—the way a story, when it finally cracks open, can swallow you whole.
I scroll back and read the last paragraph, needing to see it as a reader would:
She did not know if the leap would end in flight or in the sea, but the not knowing was the point. She stepped forward, her heart loud in her ears, and decided that some risks were worth the fall.
I read it again, slower. Some risks were worth the fall.
Outside, a branch taps the glass, a wind-shivered warning. I ignore it. The words pulse in my head.
I think of Nathan, of all the ways I have kept myself safe from wanting things I might not get. I think of the other women I have envied, those who go after what they want, who risk embarrassment, who call in the middle of the night just to say I miss you. I have never been that person, not really.
But maybe I could be.
I close the laptop and stack the loose pages of my notes, aligning the edges with unnecessary care. I brush crumbs from the desktop, then rise, stretching until my spine cracks. The room is a cave of blue shadows, my reflection barely visible in the window.
I shut the window, sliding it closed with a firmness I rarely permit myself. The house settles, the wind turns, and I breathe in the evening, letting it fill every corner. When I leave the library, I am still scared, but it is a new kind of scared, the kind that comes with wanting something you might actually get.
In the hallway, I pause and run my hands over my hair, flattening the wild strands into something almost presentable. I feel taller than I did this morning. Lighter, too, like I’ve been quietly refilled with helium.
Somewhere out there is Nathan, wondering, just as I am, what happens next.
I head for the door. For the first time in years, I am ready to find out.
41
Diane
The door clicks shut behind me with a sound that belongs to another life. I stand in the entryway, socked feet, heart still hurling itself at my ribs as if my body were a cage. The wind hisses around the house, and the thin glass of the storm window vibrates with a persistence I find both irritating and weirdly encouraging.
I should go. That’s the point. Don’t think, just do. But my legs aren’t getting the message. I drift instead to the bedroom, where the ceiling is so low I can touch it if I stand on tiptoe. Cassie’s glitter pens spill off her desk like a handful of candy. My own notebook, half-filled with sentences I may never let anyone see, lies open on the comforter, the ink still damp. If I leave now, it will be here when I come back. I pretend this is a metaphor for bravery, but mostly it just makes me want to never leave.
I sit on the edge of the bed, running my thumb over the grooved cover of the notebook. For weeks, I have moved through the days with the exactitude of a sleepwalker—breakfast, school drop-off, writing time, errands, dinner, bedtime, insomnia. The hours have been pale and identical, each day no more or less difficult than the one before. But tonight there is a static in theair that I can’t ignore, as if the sky itself has been loaded with a charge.
I stand, pull open the closet, and stare at the contents for longer than is healthy. I try on a shirt, change my mind, swap it for a dress, lose confidence and switch again. I turn sideways in the mirror and inspect my profile. My shoulders are too round, hair refusing to lie flat no matter how much I smooth it. I catch myself sucking in my stomach and immediately let it go, ashamed of the reflex. What am I trying to prove, and to whom?
There is a comfort in rituals, even ridiculous ones. I put on the blue sweater Cassie gave me for Mother’s Day, the one with the slightly lopsided collar. I swap my sweats for jeans, but in the end, I am still myself, every flaw outlined in high relief by the last fading stripe of daylight. I stand in front of the mirror, take a breath, and try out a few opening lines:
“Hey, can we talk?” Too abrupt.
“I just wanted to—” Too desperate.
“I know about Melissa.” There is a flicker in my reflection’s eyes, a brief suggestion of the woman I want to be.
But the mirror, of course, is a traitor. It knows I have no idea what I am doing.
On my dresser, the shell necklace sits coiled like a question mark. Cassie made it, threading white-and-amber chips onto fishing line and tying the clasp in a way that always pinches my skin. It is ugly and perfect, and Nathan was the one who showed her how to use the pliers without slicing open her thumb. I fasten the necklace at my throat, surprised at the weight of it. I let my fingers linger there, as if by pressing hard enough I could smother my nerves.
Sara would laugh at me, if she could see me now. She’d say, “It’s only love, Diane. It’s not a hostage situation.” She’d remind me that life is a finite resource, and hoarding happiness is the fastest way to waste it. Sara was never afraid to ask for whatshe wanted. Even when her voice shook, she said the thing that needed to be said.