I open it while I’m sitting at the breakfast table with my mom, eating cereal, and I crunch hard in shock. Then I sigh in relief. Carmen has driven me every single day since the accident, but I was worried since she was ignoring me. I was just about to ask my mom.
“Is everything okay?” she asks me now as I get up quickly to clear my cereal away.
“Yeah,” I say, rushing over to dump my leftover milk in the sink. “Carmen’s here. Don’t want to keep her waiting.”
She eyes me. “Okay, just checking. You seemed a little distracted this weekend.”
I smile. “I was just trying to finish Pride and Prejudice.”
After the last paper heart, I locked myself in my room the rest of the weekend. As I reread my favorite book, I was reminded why I love it so much. The characters. The sarcasm. The will they/won’t they love. I even enjoy how the chapters are broken up with letters—it makes me wish people still wrote them today. How great would it be to get one in your mailbox? I guess it’s not so different from receiving these paper hearts.
But as I started flipping through the pages, I realized something else I absolutely adore: someone had underlined their favorite passages and doodled on the pages, just like I do. My favorite is a pair of heart eyes when the reader meets Mr. Darcy. In other places, there are reactions and questions. At first, I examined the handwriting, hoping I’d recognize it, but it’s inconsistent. Sometimes it looks like the person was reading the story in a hurry; other times there’s a thoughtful note. In a couple of places, when they liked a quote, they would write it out in the margins. When I got to one, it felt like it was directed to me.
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
I read it over and over again. It was almost like they were telling me to stop beating myself up for not remembering—it’s not going to improve my future.
I wish life was more like books and someone could write margin notes for you along the way.
But I don’t tell my mom this, like I don’t tell her a lot lately. She smiles at me now, gently. “Just wanted to check and make sure nothing happened at that game. I know people can sometimes be insensitive about the accident.”
I cringe at the word check. My mom is what I call a checker. She’s never worried per se, but she likes to check up on people. It’s probably what makes her a good doctor. If I’m looking flushed, she’ll check my temperature. If I’m just hangry or in a weird mood, she’ll ask me if there’s something more going on and examine my face to see if I’m telling the truth. If she’s squinting, it means she doesn’t believe me. When I drive places I’ve never gone before, I’m supposed to tell her when I’ve arrived. All pretty standard Mom Behavior.
But after the accident, her checking turned a full 180. It was way too much. I couldn’t leave the room without her smothering me. Eventually, my psychiatrist thought it would be a good idea for me to bring her to a session to tell her how I was feeling. She made more of an effort after that. But every so often, she does her routine checkup with me. How are you doing? Any headaches recently? At least it’s feeling like things are going back to how they used to be.
Sometimes I wonder what’s going to happen when I go off to college. Will she expect to “check up” on me every day? But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
It’s weird. College is something I used to obsess about all the time. But now that I’m in, I wish I could hold on to high school just a little longer. Maybe that’s why when my psychiatrist suggested a gap year to take care of myself before being thrust into a stressful environment, I seriously considered it. Or at least on some days. The others, I think my mom put him up to it.
I shake my head. “I promise nothing happened at the game.”
Because I didn’t go, I think. But lying by omission is best. She’d be way more worried if I told her I was chasing paper hearts. I could see her mind jumping to worst-case scenarios like a stalker or serial killer because of all the criminal podcasts she listens to. It reminds me of what Andy said. I still can’t believe how jaded he is, even if some girl did break up with him. Maybe it has more to do with his parents’ divorce. But as frustrating as he is, I can’t think about that right now. I have bigger things to worry about.
* * *
Carmen barely looks away from the steering wheel when I say hi to her.
After Ashley and I buckle our seat belts, Carmen peels out of our neighborhood without talking, so we sit there quiet too. Carmen’s fingernails are short, which means she has been biting them. That’s how I know she’s really anxious. She only messes up her nails if something is chipping away at her too.
Say something to make this better, I think.
My eyes find Ashley’s in the rearview mirror. She shrugs at me as if to say what’s going on with you two? I haven’t told her Carmen’s mad at me, but it’s blatantly obvious now. Her lips are pressed together in a straight line. The music is off. The only sound comes from her jagged fingernails tapping on the steering wheel.
“Carmen—” I start, but she cuts me short.
“You know, the last time you started acting like this was right before the accident.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “What…what do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Saying you’ll do something and then completely bailing last second without a good reason. Wanting to do things without me and acting all innocent about it after. Were you even thinking about me at all when you decided not to come to the game?”
I open my mouth, but suddenly it feels dry, like cereal without milk, and instead of words coming out, my lips just form an O like a Cheerio.
“Exactly,” Carmen says, shaking her head. “Did you think about Pete either? He told me you texted him too. He was worried that you stopped responding and never showed up. We both were worried,” she says, gripping the steering wheel tight. When we come to a red light, she turns to me. There’s a glimmer in her eye.
“Sometimes it’s like you don’t even think about what we went through after the accident.”
That’s not fair! my brain screams. I think about the accident all the time. But do I think about what other people went through? Maybe not enough.
Carmen’s words are laced with pain, and after she says them it feels like the little string in me that was tying everything together is suddenly undone. I sit in the passenger seat silent, in shame. I can’t even bring myself to look in the rearview mirror at Ashley, who probably feels the same exact way as Carmen.
The light turns green and Carmen starts to drive again, but I still feel like my body is in slow motion.