My stomach plummeted all the way to my knees. Warmth drained from my face and I’m sure all my color went with it. I shrugged. “I haven’t done anything. Just brought over some food and stuff.” Mrs. Wallace reached her hand over and placed it on mine, squeezing it gently.
“Just having you here helps, McKenzie. When I lost Cory, I knew I’d lost you too, in a way. You’re the closest thing to a daughter I’ve ever had, and I was looking forward to the day I could call you mine officially.”
Oh, God, no. My eyes flitted to my mother’s and she looked like a combination of sad for her friend and worried about me. Mrs. Wallace’s words were landing on my shoulders like boulders, pinning me down in a way I hadn’t felt in weeks. Hayes’s foot unhooked from mine and it was as though he’d cut the rope to my life raft, sending me out to sea to fend for myself.
“Mom,” he said, his voice soft but rough.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, waving one hand, dismissing him, while the other wiped a tear from her face. “I know you’ll marry someone one day, but it won’t be the same. McKenzie and Cory were meant to be, from day one.”
All the oxygen in the room was being sucked out by her words, my lungs shriveling in my chest, aching for air.
“Chelsea,” my mom whispered, slowly shaking her head. Mrs. Wallace looked at her, then seemed to wake up a little, as if her mind had been somewhere else. She looked around the table, probably taking in my stunned expression and Hayes’s face, which looked like a cross between angry and murderous.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes darting back and forth between Hayes and me. “I think,” she started, but stopped, looking at my mom. “I think I want to get some fresh air. Will you go for a walk with me?”
Everyone was silent. Besides doctor’s appointments for sleeping pills, Mrs. Wallace hadn’t left the house since the funeral. For her to ask to leave, to offer to go for a walk, was surprising. I was floating somewhere between being happy for the milestone and relieved she was leaving and giving my mind and body a chance to deal with the effect of her words.
Hayes and I both sat in silence while our mothers pulled on their jackets, tied their shoes, and left the house.
I had no words, so I was glad when Hayes spoke first.
“She doesn’t understand what she’s saying.” His voice was still low and raspy, like his throat was doing everything it could to hold back his screams. It was the kind of control that you knew was just seconds away from being lost, like he could snap at any moment. “She’s drowning, Kenz. In grief. She can’t understand the effect her words are having. You can’t take what she says to heart.”
I sat in my chair, mouth tightly shut, hands clasped tightly around each other in my lap, jaw tense, with emotion simply squeezing me to the point of rupture. I was trying to hold it all in, trying to let the wave of anger and sadness pass over me, to feel it crest and wane, but it just kept building until I couldn’t take it any longer.
My elbows came to the table, my face went into my hands, and I erupted in cries. It was not even two seconds before Hayes had his arms around me, holding me, his hand running soft circles on my back. And I simply cried. The very last thing I needed in that moment was for Mrs. Wallace to walk in on her other son touching me in a way that indicated anything more than friendship.
I stood up quickly, my chair scraping against the linoleum floor, and I ran to the bathroom. I shut the door behind me, locked it, and didn’t even bother with the light. I didn’t particularly want to look at myself in that moment anyhow.
I was the worst kind of person.
Again, not two seconds after I’d made it into the bathroom, Hayes was on the other side of the door, pounding on it.
“Kenzie, don’t do this. Don’t push me away. We have to stick together.” His words were punctuated by thumping on the door. I could picture him on the other side, breathing hard, waiting for me to open the door, to open myself up to him again.
It was so easy to forget that what we were doing was wrong. So easy. I let the way I felt around him, the way every part of me cried out for him, overshadow the fact that there’s no way for our relationship to be right.
He was my boyfriend’s brother. The brother of my boyfriend who died thinking I loved him, thinking that I would spend the rest of my life with him. And he was my History teacher. I couldn’t think of one single other person who I could choose to start a relationship with that could cause as much destruction as Hayes and I could if anyone found out about us.
“You don’t have to mourn him the way other people think you should, Kenz. You don’t have to stay home, you don’t have to be single forever, you don’t have to act any certain way. My mom wants you to be sad without him forever, because that’s how she thinks she’s going to feel. Sad. Forever. But that’s not true. And it’s not how you have to feel either.”