Are You Mine

Chapter 22


Fox


“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s been trying to break up with me ever since we got together.” I turn to my mother like she has the answers.

“My Foxy is sad, but I told him she was a spy.” She’s taken to referring to me in the third person today, but it’s better than her not recognizing me or thinking I’m a demon.

“I don’t think she was a spy, Ma. I like her.”

“I liked a spy once, and he promised to give it all up and come away with me. He said he could hide us where no one would find us,” she said. My mother won’t look at me. She keeps her eyes fixed on the line of trees in the distance. “But spies can’t change. They are like the sky. The blue might darken into gray and black, but it always becomes blue again.”

Ma is surprisingly sensible this morning. Maybe it’s just because I’ve had such little sleep that her irrationality has become rational to my tired mind. After I left Saige’s last night, I went back home, but I couldn’t focus on much of anything. All of the drawings and paintings of her stared at me until I got up and tagged some more bridges. I didn’t paint the green leaf though. I left that out but put a silvery tear at the corner of the foxes’ eyes.

The foxes didn’t look as cool as I thought they would.

A warm breeze blows and tries to ruffle my mother’s hair, but all it can do is make the knots flutter a bit. I pick up the hairbrush I’ve brought outside with me and stand up behind her. It always takes a long time to untangle her hair, but it’s almost therapeutic in a way. I start at the bottom and just concentrate on getting one patch of hair straightened out before moving on to the next patch. Through this process I lose about a half hour of my day, but I gain a little peace as well.

When I’m done, I sit back down, face my mom, and tuck her hair behind her ears. “You look like a painting.” I feel better now, almost like I am painting instead of grooming my schizophrenic mother.

“Am I a painting?”

I try to take her hand just to hold, but she slips it out of mine. Our palms slide against each other and suddenly I’m swept away by sadness again. “No, you’re not a painting. You’re very real.”

“That’s what my Fox says, but he doesn’t know.”

“I’m flying to England in a few days, Ma, so be nice to Pop, okay? He’s going to visit and brush your hair while I’m—”

“Only Fox brushes my hair.”

She lets me run my hands through her dark, silky locks. “It’s going to be a crazy mess by the time I get back,” I say.

“They have spies in England, too, but they are called agents. My Fox will be careful not to step into their trap. He will remember how to get away. He has to bring me back the prize.”

“What’s the prize?”

Now my mother looks at me. “Fox is the prize, and it’s better if not everyone knows it. Fox is hidden in plain sight, and only the most extraordinary agents and spies can see him for what he is. That is why his spy couldn’t see. She was not gifted enough.”

Some visits with my mom are harder than others. This one is tearing at my heart more than usual. Beneath her words of spies and agents, she’s telling me how special I am. That’s what mothers do. Mine just can’t use regular terms or patterns of speech.

I think about what she said the entire ride back to Pechimu. I’m the prize, and Saige just can’t see it. Other girls will, but I don’t want other girls. I want Saige and her patched together heart and the fortified concrete walls she hides behind. It doesn’t make sense that I want her, especially since she’s so hardened, but I don’t think love is supposed to make sense all the time.

My world is filled with love that defies all wisdom and logic. My father loves my mother even though she’s violent half the time he visits her. I love her even though it would be easier not to. Gage falls for women all the time. He won’t tell anyone, but I know he does. Gage just doesn’t want the world to know he’s human with feelings like the rest of us. And Myka and Valentine are an odd couple. He’s an earthy guy who likes to dye his hair black and put eyeliner on and she’s a transplanted Wild West saloon girl in the middle of prim and proper London. I guess they make sense if I look at their theatrical presentations, but otherwise it doesn’t seem like steampunk chicks would go for gothic hippie dudes.

Love doesn’t have to make sense, and I don’t have to understand it to know how I feel. As soon as I get home, I call Saige, but it goes to voicemail, so I let a few Avett Brothers songs play until the recording cuts off.

I’m not giving up my trip for her, not because I wouldn’t, but because there’s no reason to give it up beyond proving something to her. No matter what I do, I don’t think we’re going to get over this because it’s not actually about going to England. It’s about Saige making a choice—a hard, solid choice about what she wants in her life.

Days move fast when important events are speeding toward you. The day before I leave, I realize Saige will come to regret her decisions and actions, but I can’t live my life hoping she’ll choose me. She doesn’t direct her life. She’s just a bystander waiting for life to lead her, and if she can’t step outside her comfort zone for one second to tell me I matter to her, then I can’t hang around waiting for life to make up Saige’s mind for her.

My heart is broken, but at least I made the choice to try. I’ve never been one to linger on all the things that bring me down, and I won’t be doing that this time either. I finish the painting on canvas I’ve been working on for over a month, then turn it to the wall so I don’t have to look at it as I pack my bags.

I barely sleep the night before my early flight. Pop is up when I drag my suitcase and the painting up the stairs.

“Sure you don’t want me to drive you to the airport? It’d save some money on parking.” He hands me a cup of coffee when I set everything down.

“No, Pop. I’m going to do this all on my own. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“I’ll worry about you whether your car is at the airport or here.” Pop’s expression is long, like he’s saying goodbye forever, so I give him a one-armed hug and he thumps my back with his hand. “Can’t believe you’re grown up enough to go to a whole other country by yourself. Seems like just yesterday your mom and I brought you home from the hospital.”

I pull away and take a sip of the coffee. Just the smell of it wakes me up a bit. “Don’t get mushy. I’m just going to England, not the moon.”

Pop gets into his wallet and pulls out some cash. He thrusts it toward me as he says, “Bring me back a Liverpool banner, will you?”

“Put the money away, old man. I’ve got a budget, and I’ll do much better than a banner. I’m going to get you a jersey, and I’m not going to leave Anfield until all the players sign it.”

This makes him laugh. “Knowing you, I think you could pull that off.” With two steps, he’s next to me. Pop pushes the money into my hands. “I know you’ve been saving for this since you were a kid, but I’ve been saving too. Take the money, Fox.”

“You’re awesome, you know?”

He smiles at me before returning to the table and leaning against it. “Not half as awesome as you.” Pop looks down at the canvas. “Taking this across the pond, are you?”

“No. Dropping it off before I go.”

With the tip of his finger, he touches my signature at the bottom. “I’m proud of you, and if she can’t—”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. She’ll either be here with a new perspective when I get back or she won’t.”

“It’s okay to be sad about—”

I cut Pop off again. “I’m fine. My heart’s a little tender at the moment, but life goes on, right? I’m a better person for having known Saige. Not everything’s meant to be, and if she can’t see how stupid she’s being, then there’s nothing I can do. The ball’s in her court. It has been this whole time. Like you said, I’m awesome. Ma said I was a prize, but awesome prizes need to be earned, they need to be won, and if she’s not going to work for it or compromise just a little, then she’s not the one for me.”

I give my dad a smile and hope it’s more confident than I feel. I don’t believe my words yet, but I know in time they’ll be the truth. “And who knows, maybe there’s a beautiful girl waiting for me in the stands of Anfield. Maybe sitting in the seat next to mine, or maybe we’ll bump into each other on the way to our seats, and I won’t be able to look at anything else. Maybe we’ll sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” together, and maybe this girl will get the meaning of the song.”

Pop taps me lightly on the cheek and says, “You’ll be late. Go have fun.”

That’s how we say goodbye. I finish my coffee, grab my things, give him a nod, and walk out the door. I only make one stop on my way to the airport, and I make sure it’s quick. It’s not until I’m waiting in line to board the plane that I take out my phone and type a slow message to Saige.

I wont bother u agin but I left something outside ur door. I love u saige.

Without rereading it, I know there are probably a lot of errors, but I don’t care. I just want to get the point across without having to listen to her voicemail message in order to leave mine. From the flight to Chicago with Saige, I know I have to power down my cell phone before takeoff, so I do before I board. I may never get over Saige, but I’m not going to delay my plans or my life to wallow in the sadness I know will fade with time.

When it’s my turn to board, I step up to the lady, hand the boarding pass to her, close my eyes, and take a moment to just breathe. Once I get on this plane, my whole life changes. It might only change a little, but maybe everything will change.

“Have a good day,” the woman says to me.

I open my eyes. “You too.”

Each step I take toward the plane sends a shiver of adrenaline through me because this is the beginning of my life.