“I hope you don’t think,” she says, “that because of Jacob . . .” She looks at me for an indication that I understand. She gives up. “It’s not that I met him and forgot about you. I was trying to move on. You didn’t give me other options. The night before I was supposed to go out with him I tried sending you another text. Remember Nebraska? That’s what I wrote. I stayed up late hoping you’d answer me. I slept with the phone by my pillow. All it would have taken was one word from you and I wouldn’t have gone. I would have waited longer, but you shut me out,” she says. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I understand now. Really. But I just need you to know how it happened. I’m happy now, with him, but I wouldn’t be with him if you’d have answered me.”
The pain when she says this, it’s not her fault. Deep in my chest is still an aching hollowness, vacancy, fear. I can’t imagine opening myself up to the rush of kissing her, can’t imagine her hands under my clothes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know I’m the one who disappeared.”
I can still see the moon out the window. I can still feel the stillness of the night. I can hear Mabel saying that Gramps is dead—gone—sounding so certain and I try to feel that certainty, too.
I try not to think of her heartbreak, how I caused it, but I can’t keep it out and it rushes over me.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“I know,” Mabel says. “I understand.”
“Thank you for coming,” I say.
The hours stretch on, and I fall in and out of sleep, and at some point she slips out of bed and out of the room. She stays away for a long time, and I try to stay awake until she comes back, but I just wait and wait and wait.
When I wake up again at the first light of the morning, she’s back in Hannah’s bed, sleeping with her arm covering her eyes as if she could stave off the day.
chapter twenty-four
WHEN I OPEN MY EYES AGAIN, she isn’t here. I’m seized with panic that I’ve missed her altogether, that she’s already gone and I haven’t gotten to say good-bye.
But here is her duffel open in the middle of my floor.
The thought of her slinging it over her shoulder and walking out is enough to make me double over. I have to fill the minutes between now and then with as much as I can.
I climb out of bed and take out the gifts I bought. I wish I had wrapping paper or at least some ribbon, but the tissue paper will have to do. I put on a bra and change into jeans and a T-shirt. I brush my hair. For some reason I don’t want to be in my pajamas when I walk her down the stairs.
“Hey,” she says from the doorway.
“Good morning,” I say, trying not to cry. “I’ll be right back.”
I rush through peeing and brushing my teeth so that I can be back there, with her. I catch her before she zips up her suitcase.
“I was thinking we could wrap this in your clothes,” I say, and hand her the vase I bought for her parents. She takes it from me and nestles it into her things. She goes to reach for the zipper but I stop her.
“Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” I say.
“Shouldn’t I wait?” she asks.
“Lots of people exchange gifts on Christmas Eve.”
“But the thing I got you is—”
“I know. It doesn’t matter. I want to see you open it.”
She nods.
“Close your eyes,” I say again.
She closes them. I look at her. I wish her everything good. A friendly cab driver and short lines through security. A flight with no turbulence and an empty seat next to her. A beautiful Christmas. I wish her more happiness than can fit in a person. I wish her the kind of happiness that spills over.
I place the bell into her open palms.
She opens her eyes and unwraps it.
“You noticed,” she says.
“Ring it.”
She does, and the tone lingers and we wait quietly until it’s over.
“Thank you,” she says. “It’s so pretty.”
She slings her bag over her shoulder, and it hurts just as much as I expected it to. I follow her into the elevator. When we get to the door, the cab is waiting in a sea of white.
“You’re sure, right?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
She looks out the window.
She bites a nail.
“You’re sure you’re sure?”
I nod.
She takes a deep breath, manages a smile.
“Okay. Well. I’ll see you soon.”
She steps toward me and hugs me tight. I close my eyes. There will come a time soon—any second—when she’ll pull away and this will be over. In my mind, we keep ending, ending. I try to stay here, now, for as long as we can.
I don’t care that her sweater is scratchy. I don’t care that the cab driver is waiting. I feel her rib cage expand and retract. We stay and stay.
Until she lets me go.
“See you soon,” I say, but the words come out thick with despair.
I’m making the wrong choice.
The glass door opens. Cold rushes in.
She steps outside and shuts the door behind her.