Just fucking offer her your balls already. Throw in your apartment too, Christian.
If this was how I reacted to one kiss, I definitely had no business sleeping with this woman.
“I’m not sure you’d want to give me company.”
“Where are you going?”
“The cemetery.”
I dropped the pen I was holding, wheeling myself backward and turning to look at the calendar hanging on my wall. Shit. March 19. Arya and Aaron’s birthday. I pushed my chair back to my desk, where my phone was on speaker.
“The cemetery sounds fine. Which one?” I pretended not to know.
There was a pause on the other end.
“Why would you want to go with me to the cemetery?”
“Isn’t that what friends do? Be there for one another?”
“Is that what we are now? Friends?”
“Yes,” I said, even though giving her friendship in return for what she’d done to me was crazy, even by my standards. “We’re friends.”
Another beat of silence. I had no idea what I was doing.
“Mount Hebron Memorial.”
“Who are we visiting?”
“My brother.”
“Do you think he’ll like me?” It was a thing we’d done back then. Pretend like Aaron was still around. Argue, tease, and laugh with him.
Arya stopped typing and sighed. “I think he’d love you.”
Mount Hebron Memorial hadn’t changed. The giant weeping willow was still there, hovering above Aaron’s grave. I saw Arya’s outline curling above her brother’s tombstone like a question mark and had to stop and absorb her. Leggy and stylish in her designer pencil skirt and red-bottomed heels. Larger than life, and yet not much larger than the Arya I’d met almost twenty years ago. A firefly; small but glowing. I pushed the wrought iron gate open, a luxury I hadn’t had as a trespassing kid. Arya sensed my presence and turned around, throwing me a tired smile.
“It’s weird,” she sighed. “That you came.”
“Are you used to people not coming when they should?” I asked.
“Pretty much. Plus, I’m not your problem.”
“I’ve never seen you as a problem. Your clothes, maybe. But never you.”
“What’s in the bag?” She changed the subject.
I handed it to her wordlessly. I’d stopped at the bodega down the street to see if the dude who’d fed me all those years ago was still there. He wasn’t, but his son was. I asked the son to sell me all his expired stuff. After looking a little suspicious, he’d relented.
“Dinner for two. Hope you’re not fussy.”
“Not at all.” She grabbed the plastic bag and peeked inside. “Aww. Takis. Fancy.”
“There’s cheese balls and Almond Joys, you know, to offer you a full, nutritious meal.”
I sauntered over to settle on the same grave I used to sit on when we were kids, of Harry Frasier. I stopped when I saw there was another grave right next to him now. Of a Rita Frasier. Wife, mother, grandmother, and doctor.
“Not alone anymore, buddy.” I brushed a hand over Harry’s tombstone before propping myself against it. When I turned to Arya, I caught her looking at me strangely. Again, I found myself wanting to get caught. For Ari to call me on my bullshit. To recognize me. Her eyes flashed with something. I wondered what she’d do next. What would come out of that pretty mouth of hers.
Nicky, how I’ve missed you.
Nicky, I can explain.
Nicky, Nicky, Nicky.
But she just blinked and shook her head, turning back to the grave in front of her.
“Hey, Ar. It’s the other Ar. I . . . where do I even begin? Things, as you know, are a mess. Not only with Conrad. Mom is suddenly taking interest in me, probably because she’s scared to be homeless in half a minute . . .” She shook her head. “It’s stupid, complaining to you, when you have it so much worse. Sometimes I envy your lack of consciousness. Other times, it terrifies me. I still have entire conversations with you in my head. I still see you everywhere. In my mind, you grew up with me. You have an alternate life. You’re married now. With a kid on the way. Aaron”—she let out a chuckle, laughing and crying at the same time—“I absolutely loathe your wife, Eliza. I call her Lizzy just to rile her up. She is so stuck up.”
I bit down on my lip. Arya had been and remained a wonderfully odd girl. But for the first time, I also recognized that we weren’t all that different. That both our parents had sinned greatly, even if in different ways.
“In this alternate universe, I’m looking forward to you giving me a nephew. You know I love children. Even considering having one myself. What’s that? Have I met anyone myself?” She frowned, shooting me a quick look. I straightened my back, like a pupil.
“Nope. No one worth mentioning. I mean, there is this one guy, but he is off limits. He says the chemistry is stronger than us. But as you know, I flunked that subject in high school.”
She talked to Aaron a few more minutes before coming to sit beside me. I opened a bag of chips and passed it between us. She munched, extending her legs and lacing them at the ankles.
“How’d he die?” I asked, because I needed to. I wasn’t supposed to know.
“SIDS.”
“I’m sorry.”
“At least I didn’t get to know him. It’d have hurt a million times over, I assume.”
Depended on the person. I had yet to miss my mother.
“Do you visit him often?” I asked. We were both staring at Aaron’s grave. Looking at one another seemed too . . . raw.
“More often than I should. Or so people keep telling me. A part of me is angry at him for bailing on the shit show. I need someone to be here, you know?”
“You have someone to be here,” I said, with honesty and openness that should’ve frightened me but somehow didn’t.
Suddenly, I remembered something. I passed Arya the bag of chips, stood up, found two small stones by a flower pot, and put them on Aaron’s grave.
“So he’ll know we came to visit.” I heard the smile on Arya’s face behind me and turned to look at her. “I used to do that all the time. How’d you know?” Her eyes glittered.
“Who said I’m not Jewish?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Your name. Christian,” she laughed.