My Only (12 page)

I didn’t hesitate; I took to the stairway leading to the basement. I wanted to reach out and grab her hand, the way she’d done to me just moments ago, but I didn’t. When we were downstairs, I turned to see her face.

She moved from the main aisle into the maze. Extending both arms, she ran her fingertips against the spines of the books on each side. I fol owed her, curious as to where she would settle. From my position, I couldn’t see how she was reacting, but I could see that she was turning her head from side to side to take it al in. She passed my favorite spot. It was a little area in the middle of the sci-fi section where the lighting was horrible, but there was a little V where the shelves didn’t quite meet. When I was alone, I would press myself into the tiny spot, a book always in hand, and stand for long minutes, secretly hoping I could stay there forever.

Just at the end of the section where I usual y made my home for hours, something caught Olivia’s eye. She stopped, but I was slow to react, so I bumped into her. It made her laugh, but being so close to her, in one of my favorite places, made me want to kiss her. As she stepped closer to the books, I thought about what it would be like. Her lips against mine, smel ing her skin so close, the taste of her flesh, the feel of her as I ran my hands down her arms.

Olivia pul ed a few books out, and then lowered herself to the floor, sitting cross-legged. I was thril ed that she did this, as it was something I would do. We were the only customers, at least in this area, so I sat down next to her, extending my legs out as much as I could. The soles of my shoes rested against the bookshelf across from us.

Craning my neck, I read the handwritten genre marker. Metaphysics. I took a thin book off of its resting place on her thigh and glanced at the back cover. It was a book about the afterlife. I took the other book she’d picked out, but wasn’t reading. It was on the same subject. Tilting my head and bending my body, I could see that the one she was flipping through now was also about what happened to the spirit once the body had expired.

“Something you’re interested in?”

The usual smile was no longer there. Instead, she looked somber—not as intense as when we spoke in the car, but definitely more serious than I’d ever seen her.

Her words took me even more off guard than her appearance. “How’d your mom die, Adam?” It took me a moment for the question to sink in. I wasn’t used to talking about it. While I suspected Aaron thought about her, quite a lot actual y, he never said anything to me. Likewise, it didn’t seem like it would do anything for me to have a conversation with him about it.

I licked my lips and swal owed hard. I wasn’t able to look into Olivia’s eyes because they seemed to bring up too many emotions. I trained my gaze on the blue book with gold lettering across the smal aisle. “She died giving birth to me.”

“So you never even met her?”

I shook my head and tried to push back the wel ing depression that always overtook me when I thought about that very fact. “No. She pushed Aaron out, but they had to cut her to get me out. I don’t know. My dad won’t say much. Just that her blood pressure dropped, and she was gone before she heard me cry.”

Olivia didn’t say anything, which I was happy for. Sometimes people felt obligated to fil the silence after deeply personal things were shared. I liked that she gave me the distance to feel what I was feeling and not have the additional pressure of al eviating the awkwardness.

“Sometimes I think my dad hates me because of it. Aaron, too.”

That was my voice. I’d said those words, but I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t even known that I wanted to. I looked down at my lap as I pushed a deep breath of air out. I held it in my mouth, bal ooning my cheeks as the breath escaped slowly through my lips. The thought I’d just expressed felt heavy, and I wished I’d felt lighter after having released it, but I didn’t.

Olivia sort of leaned into me, nudging me with her shoulder. “They might have complex feelings, but I’m sure they don’t hate you. Of course, I’ve only met your dad once, but I don’t think he could ever hate either of you.”

We were quiet again. She drew her knees up, putting her chin on them. I felt bad for making what should’ve been a fun time into a depressing, but she’d brought up the subject. We were sitting in the metaphysical section, surrounded by books on death, dying, and the afterlife, so maybe the conversation was more appropriate than anything else.

“What about you? How did your mom die?” I asked, turning my whole body to face her. I wanted to see her expressions as she revealed more of herself to me just as I had just done for her.

She took a deep breath, and looked me in the eyes. “We were grocery shopping and the store got robbed. It happened real y fast, but one of the two guys fired and one of the bul ets hit my mom.”

“Oh my God.” It always seemed like I didn’t know what to say to her, but this was different. What was there to say to that? It was horrible, and I couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through at al .

Despite the fact that I liked the silence she gave me after tel ing her about my mother, I couldn’t give her the same for long. There was so much to know and I felt drawn to learn it al . “You were with her?”

Olivia nodded, her face twisting up into some kind of a mask of pain. Her lips were pressed tightly together and her eyes closed for a moment.

When she opened them again, she turned away from me. I thought she might cry, but when I looked at her profile, I saw there were no tears.

“How do you process that?” I sighed when I realized I sounded more like a therapist than I’d wanted to sound.

“I
didn’t
process it. I accepted it and moved on.”

Her voice was too steady and her words were much different than I expected. “But I don’t—”

“Listen, life’s too short to let sadness overpower you for long periods of time. Like you said, ‘Everyone dies.’ I felt my emotions, cried my tears, and then came to peace about it. You don’t ever ‘get over’ something like that,” she said, adding air quotes. “Al you can do is embrace the experience and do your best to go on.”

I struggled to understand. Her mother was dead. So was mine. Her statement about never getting over something like that was incredibly accurate, in my opinion. Yet, her comment about simply embracing the experience was foreign to me. “I don’t know anything about my mom. How do I ‘embrace’ her dying as I took my first breath?”

She turned to me once again. “You know that she loved you enough to die to give you life. And if you want to be poetic about it—you took your first breath, she took her last, and together you breathe every day.”

The words bumped around my mind until I was able to dissect and study them then put them back together. Maybe she was right. Maybe my mom gave me my breath. Maybe she lived through me now.

Olivia had a way of making everything seem better.

She laughed and I realized the orange cat was rubbing the length of its body against her legs. She was petting it, her fingers moving in its fluffy fur. “Do you know his name?”

“No, but I cal him Beast.”

She laughed again. “Not the name I would choose.”

“What would you name him?”

“Buddha,” she said. She scratched him behind the ears and on the cheeks.

“He’s too evil to be Buddha.”

“He’s a lover. Look at him!”

I stretched out my arm to pet the thing and it reared back, hissing loudly. “See?” I withdrew my hand. “It usual y chases me through the store!” Worried that the Beast-Buddha cat wanted to hurt me, I stood up. Olivia did the same. The sudden movement must have bothered the cat because his ears were flat against his head and he growled. Scared, he jumped up, sticking his claws into my thighs. I cried out as the pain of twenty tiny punctures registered in my brain. I shook him off.

Before I knew what happened, Olivia grabbed my hand and tugged me down the aisle. Together we ran through the crowded shelves, escaping the wrath of the orange furbag.

To the right of the stairs leading up was an alcove of music books. She tugged me in then released my hand. I twisted and peeked around a stack. We had successful y lost Beast.

Turning back around, I saw that she was leaning over—one of her hands braced on her knee, the other holding onto a low shelf. Her posture was of someone who was winded, but we’d barely run a few yards. She stayed like that for a long minute. When she didn’t stand up straight, I put my hand on her lower back. “ ’Livie?”

She took deep, shaky breaths. When she final y stood, her hair fel away, revealing her face and I saw she was pale and sweating. “Are you sick?”

Without thinking, I pushed her hair back from her face. She tilted and turned her head to avoid my touch. Quickly averting her eyes, she swal owed so hard that I heard it. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal. “I’m fine,” she said. “The air’s just stuffy down here and the lighting’s . . .” I didn’t push her to finish. She turned and feigned interest in the books, but I wasn’t fooled. I had no doubt that she loved music, but her concentration on water-warped copies of Mozart biographies wasn’t genuine. Something was wrong.

“Ready to go?” I asked.

She pushed her rounded shoulders back before turning to face me. She looked much better, no longer pale and clammy. Almost back to normal.

“Want to go to my house?”

I knew her grandparents because I mowed their grass every once in a while when my father told me they were out of town, and sometimes I’d bump into one of them getting mail. But I wasn’t sure how comfortable I would be in their home. I would have rather gone back to my house, but the thought of seeing Olivia’s room decided it for me. “Sure.”

“Want to drive?” she asked as we neared her Toyota.

I chuckled. “You haven’t taught me how yet.” I glanced at her over the top of the car. She wasn’t looking directly at me. Her eyes were focused somewhere to my right. “Do you stil not feel wel ?”

She turned her brown eyes to me. “No, I’m cool. Maybe just need to eat something.” Then she just opened the door and got in. On the way home I watched her closely, but she seemed fine.

“Come on in,” she said, holding the front door to her house open for me. I stepped through and took a look at the foyer. I could tel that older people lived here. Everything was nice—like no one had ruined anything by touching it—and it al looked old—like antiques.

It didn’t look like a place where a vibrant girl like Olivia would live. But I supposed she didn’t have a choice.

When she’d closed the door, she kicked off her shoes then pointed at my New Balances. I pul ed them off and set them next to hers on the rug next to the old iron radiator. Our house was probably the same age as this one, but at some point the furnace had been replaced and ductwork was put in. We didn’t have these old things in our house, but I imagined that if they weren’t too hot in the winter, it would feel great to lie on the floor and put your cold feet against them.

I fol owed Olivia through the downstairs until we came upon her grandparents. They were quietly sipping coffee out of smal cups that looked far too dainty to be in use. The table was a smal tan and white four-seater nestled neatly into the homey kitchen. The room was decorated with floral wal paper, but it wasn’t busy or gaudy. It was a nice, soothing tan. Saucepans and skil ets hung down above the center island, and above the sink was lattice work that housed bottles of wine. The cabinets were al a rustic wood, painted white. At the end of the cabinets next to the refrigerator, a natural-colored wood shelf hung. Pictures in antique frames sat on top, while dish towels and oven mitts hung from the pegs below. It was the nicest kitchen I’d ever seen.

Even though the Cartwrights weren’t strangers to me, my stomach fluttered as two sets of eyes turned to me. I bit the inside of my lip, waiting to find out how Olivia would introduce me.

“Hey. You guys know Adam? He lives across the street.”

Her grandfather gave me a silent nod but her grandmother’s scrutiny was undeniable. After a moment, she said in a kind voice, “Your father’s a very nice man.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I can remember when he brought you home.” I dropped my eyes. “We watched your brother for him while you were stil in the hospital.” Reminders of how sick I was, of how different I was from Aaron, always opened a wel of emotion within me. I didn’t want to show any of it here. I nodded, but didn’t return my gaze to the kitchen table until I heard Olivia speaking again.

“Adam’s the one tutoring me in history.”

“How nice,” Mrs. Cartwright said.

“We’re going to go up and study now.”

We both turned to make our way back to the stairs, but stopped when her grandma said, “Keep that door open, Olivia.”

“Yeah, okay,” she answered casual y. She agreed, but when we got to her room, she shut her door anyway She must’ve seen the “we’re-gonna-get-in-trouble” look on my face because she said, “She has a bad hip. She can make it up the stairs, but rarely does, and as long as there’s no moaning, I don’t think Grampa wil care.”

Olivia flopped down on the bed and I looked around for some place to sit. Hearing her say “moaning” while alone in her bedroom made me too uncomfortable to think about sitting down on her bed when she was on it. There were no chairs in her room besides a stiff-looking desk chair, so I sank to the floor, drawing my legs up and wrapping my arms around them.

“So,” I said, voice cracking, “your grandparents seem pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Yeah. Grampa’s the best. Laid back, only talks when it’s important. Grandma can be intense, but only because she cares.

Sometimes I forget that.”

I took a moment to look around her room. It was easy to tel that it had been a guest room only a few weeks ago. It was wal papered the way a grandmother would wal paper a spare room. The curtains were a fril y lace that matched the canopy of the antique-looking four-poster bed Olivia was now lying on.

Olivia had obviously made some adjustments to the room. She had clothing strewn al over the top of her long dresser that took up half of one wal . In front of the window was the desk I assumed had been there. It was littered with books and papers. She’d tacked up pictures and photos al over the wal .