Area Boy Incapable of Leaving Well Enough Alone We’re sitting side by side on the train, and even though it keeps jostling us together, I can feel her slipping away. No one is seated across from us; we watch each other in the window. My eyes slide to her face as she looks away. Her eyes slide to mine as I do the same. Her backpack’s in her lap and she’s hugging it to her chest like it might get up and walk away at any second.
I could reach out and take her hand, force the issue, but I want her to be the one to do it this time. I want her to acknowledge this thing between us out loud. I can’t leave well enough alone. I want her to say the words. We’re meant to be. Something. Anything. I need to hear them. To know that I’m not alone in this.
I should let it go.
I am going to let it go.
“What are you so afraid of?” I ask, not letting it go at all.
I HATE PRETENSE, BUT HERE I AM pretending. “What are you talking about?” I say to his reflection in the subway window instead of to him.
I ALMOST BELIEVE THAT SHE doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Our eyes meet in the window like it’s the only place we can look at each other.
“We’re meant to be,” I insist. It comes out all wrong—bossy and scolding and pleading all at the same time. “I know you feel it too.”
She doesn’t say a word, just gets up and goes to stand by the train doors. If anger were like heat, I’d be able to see the waves radiating from her body.
Part of me wants to go to her and apologize. Part of me wants to demand to know just what her problem is anyway. I make myself remain seated for the two stops left until the train finally screeches into the Eighty-First Street station.
The doors open. She pushes her way through the crowd and runs up the stairs. As soon as we’re at the top, she shunts us to the side and swings around to face me.
“Don’t you tell me what to feel,” she whisper-shouts. She’s going to say something else but decides against it. Instead, she walks away from me.
She’s frustrated, but now I am too. I catch up with her.
“What’s your problem?” I actually throw my hands up in the air as I say it.
I don’t want to be fighting with her. Central Park is just across the street. The trees are lush and beautiful in their fall colors. I want to wander through the park with her and write poems in my notebook. I want her to make fun of me for writing poems in my notebook. I want her to educate me on the how and why the leaves change color. I’m sure she knows the exact science of it.
She swings her backpack onto both shoulders and crosses her arms in front of her body. “Meant-to-be doesn’t exist,” she says.
I don’t want to have a philosophical discussion, so I concede. “Okay, but if it did, then—”
She cuts me off. “No. Enough. It just doesn’t. And even if it did, we are definitely not.”
“How can you say that?” I know I’m being unreasonable and irrational and probably lots of other things I shouldn’t be. This is not something you can fight with another person about.
You can’t persuade someone to love you.
A small breeze rustles the leaves around us. It’s colder now than it’s been all day.
“Because it’s true. We’re not meant to be, Daniel. I’m an undocumented immigrant. I’m being deported. Today is my last day in America. Tomorrow I’ll be gone.”
Maybe there’s another way to interpret her words. My brain picks out the most important ones and rearranges them, hoping for a different meaning. I even try to compose a quick poem, but the words won’t cooperate. They just sit there, too heavy for me to pick up.
Last.
Undocumented.
America.
Gone.
ORDINARILY SOMETHING like this—fighting in public—would embarrass me, but I barely even notice anyone except Daniel. If I’m honest with myself, it’s been like this all day.
He presses his forehead into his hands and his hair forms a curtain around his face. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or do now. I want to take the words back. I want to keep pretending. It’s my fault that things went so far. I should’ve told him from the beginning, but I didn’t think we’d get to this point. I didn’t think I would feel this much.
“I POSTPONED MY APPOINTMENT because of you.” My voice is so quiet that I don’t know if I mean for her to hear me, but she does.
Her eyes widen. She starts to say three different things before settling on: “Wait. This is my fault?”
I’m definitely accusing her of something. I’m not sure what. A bike courier hops onto the sidewalk a little too close to us. Someone yells at him to use the street. I want to yell at him too. Follow the rules, I want to say.
“You could’ve warned me,” I say. “You could’ve told me you were leaving.”
“I did warn you,” she says, defensive now.
“Not enough. You didn’t say you’d be living in another country in less than twenty-four hours.”
“I didn’t know that we’d—”
I interrupt her. “You knew when we met what was going on with you.”
“It wasn’t your business then.”
“And it is now?” Even though the situation is hopeless, just hearing her say it’s my business now gives me some hope.
“I tried to warn you,” she insists again.
“Not hard enough. Here’s how you do it. You open your mouth and you say the truth. None of this crap about not believing in love and poetry. ‘Daniel, I’m leaving,’ you say. ‘Daniel, don’t fall in love with me,’ you say.”
“I did say those things.” She’s not yelling, but she’s not being quiet either.
A very fashionable toddler in a peacoat gives us wide eyes and tugs on her father’s hand. A tyranny of tourists (complete with guidebooks) checks us out like we’re on display.
I lower my voice. “Yes, but I didn’t think you meant them.”
“Whose fault is that?” she demands.
I don’t have anything to say to that, and we just stare at each other.
“You can’t really be falling for me,” she says, quieter now. Her voice is somewhere between distress and disbelief.
Again I don’t have anything to say. Even I’m surprised by how much I’ve been feeling for her all day. The thing about falling is you don’t have any control on your way down.
I try to calm the air between us. “Why can’t I be falling for you?” I ask.
She tugs hard on the straps of her backpack. “Because that’s stupid. I told you not to—”
And now I’ve had enough. My heart’s been on my sleeve all day, and it’s pretty bruised up now.
“Just great. You don’t feel anything? Was I kissing myself back there?”
“You think a few kisses mean forever?”
“I think those kisses did.”
She closes her eyes. When she opens them again, I think I see pity there. “Daniel—” she begins.
I cut her off. I don’t want pity. “No. Whatever. I don’t want to hear it. I get it. You don’t feel the same. You’re leaving. Have a nice life.”
I take all of two steps before she says, “You’re just like my father.”
“I don’t even know your father,” I say while putting my jacket on. It feels tighter somehow.
She folds her arms across her chest. “Doesn’t matter. You’re just like him. Selfish.”
“I am not.” Now I’m defensive.
“Yes you are. You think the entire world revolves around you. Your feelings. Your dreams.”
I throw my hands up. “There is nothing wrong with having dreams. I may be a stupid dreamer, but at least I have them.”
“Why is that a virtue?” she demands. “All you dreamer types think the universe exists just for you and your passion.”
“Better than not having any at all.”
She narrows her eyes at me, ready to debate. “Really? Why?”
I can’t believe I have to explain this. “That’s what we’re put on earth to do.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “We’re put here to evolve and survive. That’s it.”
I knew she’d bring science into it. She can’t really believe that. “You don’t believe that,” I say.
“You don’t know me well enough to say that,” she says. “Besides, dreaming is a luxury and not everyone has it.”
“Yes, but you do. You’re afraid of becoming your dad. You don’t want to choose the wrong thing, so you don’t choose anything at all.” I know there’s a better way for me to tell her this, but I’m not feeling like my best self right now.
“I already know what I want to be,” she says.