I nod.
He scrutinizes my face, and I can tell he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t push further. “OK,” he says. “Well, ah . . . make yourself at home. The takeout menus are in the top drawer to the left of the sink. I turned the water back on, but you might want to give it a while to heat up, if you want to take a shower. There are towels in my bathroom. Clean sheets in the closet. You can have my bed tonight.”
I nod again but don’t raise my eyes to him.
And then, just like that, he’s gone.
THERE ARE TWO couches in the den where Aja and I lie down after Eric leaves. Aja turns on the TV but he passes out within minutes and I’m left to my thoughts, my mind still reeling about what he said.
At first I was mad—how could Eric not have told me he was leaving? How could he have allowed me to get so comfortable with him, to feel so close? But then reality sets in and I have to acknowledge the truth: Why would he tell me? It’s not like he owes me anything. I’m just some girl he’s been giving a ride home for a few months. His words to Stephanie ring in my ears. I’m just a librarian. A friend. And I’m suddenly embarrassed that I ever thought it was anything more. But then another part of my brain chimes in: He tried to kiss me. And last night—his hands. His hands were . . . where they were. I shake my head to rid myself of the memory. No—what does any of that even mean? I’m old enough to know that kisses aren’t contracts. And almost-kisses, well, they mean even less. And a hand on my breast, over my shirt? Well, more happens to fifteen-year-olds under the bleachers at football games. I can’t believe that I thought so much of it. People get caught in the moment, but that’s all they are—moments. They don’t mean anything. I realize with Eric, I’ve just been seeing what I wanted to see this whole time, what I hoped was happening. But I can’t be touched—not under my shirt, not anywhere, really. And he knows that—so how could we be anything more?
And really, I should have known he was leaving. And not just because he’s a good dad and he would obviously choose to be near his daughter, but because Mr. Walcott used to say: “Look for the pattern.” Of course, he was talking about solving math problems, but it’s a strategy that works for life, too. The pattern is: everyone leaves. Or more specifically: everyone leaves me. And I don’t mean it in the pathetic, sad, self-pitying way it sounds (although I acknowledge that it is, in fact, pathetic, sad, and self-pitying). It’s just facts, the pattern of my life. My father. Mom. Hell, even Louise. If I remotely find myself caring about someone, they will not stick around. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before Madison takes off.
At some point in my meanderings, I must have fallen asleep, because I wake later on the couch, groggy, with the TV still on. Aja’s awake and watching it.
“What time is it?” I ask, noticing my throat feels a little better. Small favors.
“Five,” he says.
“P.m.?” I ask, a little stunned I slept that long.
“Yeah. I’m starved.”
“Me too,” I say.
I get up to find the takeout menus and about thirty minutes later Aja and I are eating greasy noodles and chicken in some kind of thick, overly sweet sauce on the floor of the den. There’s a dining room table and chairs in the room adjacent to the kitchen, but you can’t see the TV from there and Aja wanted me to watch X-Men. He points out the character Jubilee when she’s on-screen.
“She’s not a main character in this one,” he says, his mouth full of rice. “Or the next two. But you’re going to have a bigger part in Apocalypse. Well, not you. But you know.”
“Apocalypse, huh? That doesn’t sound too promising.”
After X-Men is over, Aja flips channels, stopping on Discovery. It’s some ocean-mysteries show and an underwater camera is focusing up close on a blue whale as he filters plankton through his big grille of a mouth.
Seeing the whale reminds me of something. “Did you know there’s this whale scientists discovered that sings at a higher tone than any other whale in the world?” I say to Aja. “They measure the sounds in hertzes or something like that. Anyway, he just swims around the ocean by himself, unable to communicate with any other whales.”
“Really?” he asks.
“Yep. Read it online a few years ago.” I pause, and then add: “It was one of the saddest things I think I’ve ever read about an animal.”
Aja’s quiet for a minute and then says: “I don’t think that’s the saddest thing.”
“No?”
He sits up straighter on the couch. “Do you know how koalas die?”
I narrow my eyes, trying to recall any vague information I may have accumulated over the years about koala bears. “No. I don’t.”
“Their teeth are built for eating eucalyptus leaves, right? But after years and years of eating it, their teeth get worn down to these little nubs and they can’t chew it anymore, so they starve to death.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I think that’s the saddest thing.”
I think for a minute. “Did you know that chimpanzees don’t swim?”
“That’s actually not true,” he says.
“Wait—what?”
“Yeah. It’s a commonly believed falsehood, but a couple scientists documented chimps swimming a few years ago,” he says. “So, they can swim. They just generally choose not to.”
“Huh,” I say, genuinely surprised by this new information. “Well, anyway, I read that if one of them falls in a river or something, another one will go in after it to try and save it, even though it means they’ll both die. It’s happened at a couple zoos—chimps drowning in the moats surrounding their enclosures.”
Aja nods, taking this in.
“I’ve always thought that was really sad, too. And also, kind of sweet.”
Aja’s quiet for another minute. And then: “I still think the koala one wins.”
I smile at the way his mind works and turn back to the show.
And then a fresh wave of anguish flows through me, as I realize when Eric leaves, Aja will be leaving, too.