Her words equate to a drop in a bucket, something I can’t hear right now because they don’t ring true. I can appreciate the message she’s trying to send, how she’s trying to parent. But this heartbreak feels like a permanent eclipse.
Still, I know what part I need to play.
“Thanks, Mom.” I lean in to hug her, and it does make me feel marginally better. “I think I will join you for dinner.
Maybe if I fake feeling better, then I actually will be better.
Except with every step I take, with each vibration of movement through my body, my heart splits a little further. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this.
32
Kennedy
Almost two months after Everett leaves, in the middle of March, the letter finally comes.
I’ve already gotten into my three fallback schools, which really aren’t fallbacks but to me rank lower than my top choice. It has the best nursing program, the campus I love, and is far enough away that I can establish a bit of independence.
So I’ve been waiting, impatiently, for something to go right in my life. Because I need some sort of future that holds promise, that holds possibility.
I still think about him all the time, but Mom was semi-right. In the past month, the pain has dulled a little. Though, not to the point where it doesn’t stab at me and wake me in the middle of the night. I can’t go days without thinking about Everett, or even hours. He’s constantly there, his cold expression on the day he left haunts me awake from my sleep. He still hasn’t returned my calls or texts, and no one around town seems to know where he is.
There is no way I can even consider any of the other guys at school, though Logan Myers is still trying. My friends are sympathetic, but they also want me to pick a prom date and go back to being the old Kennedy. The fun, albeit responsible, friend who wanted to make senior year count.
I just don’t think I’ll ever get back to her, or at least it doesn’t feel like it.
The only thing I can look forward to is getting into my top choice college. I’ve been checking the mailbox every day, the second I pull into the driveway.
So as I pull in, and see the little red flag that was up on my family’s old-fashioned mailbox this morning is now down, my heart begins to pound. It’s here, I just know it.
My parents aren’t home from work, and I’m glad, since I want to be alone while I open this. It seems like such a significant moment in my life, and I’ve always been more independent than anything. This is my accomplishment, the one I worked for. I want it to sink in in solitude.
The walk to the mailbox feels a hundred miles long, and as I fish through the envelopes and junk letters as I make my way through the garage inside, I’m frantic. Then, my eyes land on it.
My top choice. The envelope is here.
I set my bag down and shrug out of my coat. Steadying my hands on the counter as I look the envelope square in the face, I imagine feeling a thousand times happier than I am this time next year.
My nails slice the envelope. I pull out the letter. And begin to read.
Oh my God. Oh. My. God.
I didn’t get in. Oh my God, I … I didn’t get in.
Black dots start to cloud my vision, and I know that I’m probably having a panic attack. The world feels like it’s getting smaller, colder, and all hope ceases to exist.
It’s just one thing after another. Up until this point in my life, it feels like most things have gone my way. Or, I’ve been in control and worked hard to make them go my way. But the two catastrophic events that have now pummeled me into the earth? They were out of my control.
Maybe that’s how I should have always been living. Out of control. Not so responsibly.
Because clearly, it didn’t matter anyway.
I feel untethered, like I’m floating outside of what my normal life used to be.
I’m still reeling when I call Rachel, but I need a distraction. I’ve never been the sort of girl not to deal with my problems head-on, and aside from a few rough EMT shifts, I don’t mask pain with alcohol.
But tonight, I need to. “Let’s go to Everdeen.”
A squeal comes through the other end of the phone. “Oh my God, yes! Genius idea. You want Scott to pick you up anything?”
I love that Rachel is the sort of best friend who doesn’t question a spontaneous decision, even though she probably hears the upset in my voice. She’s been so caring and kind in her own way through this Everett breakup, as has Bianca. They got me drunk, had candy, and movie marathons, offered to burn pictures of him at a barn party in the bonfire.
“Vodka. I want a lot of vodka.”
For all I’ve been through in this new year, I deserve to go a little crazy.
And drown my problems along with it.
33
Everett
About three days after the visit from the burly man and slim guy, I went to talk to Dr. Liu.
I told her I couldn’t disclose my op, that I’d been on a mission and it had gone terribly wrong. She didn’t push me. When I questioned whether I could spend some time away from Brentwick, maybe at a college, sorting my shit out she’d hesitantly agreed it might be good.
While she told me that running from my problems, from my demons, wasn’t the answer, there could be something to experiencing a normal college experience.
I didn’t tell her that I was trying to run from the government. That I might be in real danger, whether it be legal or otherwise. I didn’t tell her that in order to keep Kennedy, and everyone else I love, safe, I had to leave them all behind. I didn’t tell her that an hour after I left her office, I smashed Kennedy’s heart into a million pieces.
Two and a half months later, I find myself waking up on the shitty college bunk in an unoccupied room in Graden’s fraternity. I’m lucky they even had a bed, much less are allowing me to stay here as a non-student and non-brother. But Graden has some pull and understood the look on my face when I showed up telling him I needed to get away from Brentwick.
“Morning, douche breath.” Someone wraps on the door, and it sounds like Graden’s frat brother, Riley.
This house is loud, disgusting, often crowded and you have to scrounge for food. I’ve been sitting in on some of Graden’s business courses, to see if college is for me, and thus far I’m unimpressed. I’m unimpressed with everything about campus life, but at least it isn’t home.
At least I don’t have to answer questions that people don’t want answers to.
Not that it matters anymore. I broke Kennedy’s heart for nothing, or so it seems. A month after they visited my house, the Marine Corps Criminal Investigation Division settled their investigation. It seems that the American government doesn’t want to openly admit they were about to bomb a village full of innocent people, and so they can’t tie me to tampering with the mission because it would go sideways on them as well.
I walk away with my silence paid for by fully intact military benefits, and no one speaks of what happened for the rest of time. My discharge is honorable, but the military wants to erase that I ever existed in their ranks.
I should go back for her, explain … but I can’t. What happens when the next person comes after me. If the enemy who held me captive finds me. A lot crazier shit has happened in this fucked-up world, trust me I know firsthand, and I don’t want Kennedy anywhere near that.