“I know what she did isn’t my fault. But she tried to tell me. And I left her. I didn’t see. I’m too—there’s too much in my head right now. Everything’s … It’s like particle acceleration in here. I can’t right now. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. But I can’t be with you.”
Every mission requires focus. Anything that is not mission critical needs to be set aside. Ben is not mission critical. Hannah is.
He stares at me. “If you need more space, okay. Take it, as much as you want. But breaking up with me isn’t going to make her better.”
“But it will make me better!” I’m shaking now, and this day has to end, it has to. I see Drew, his palm pressed flat against that glass window, watching my sister come back to life. “I think about you … about losing you, and then I make mistakes with my sister because I’m worrying about the what-ifs. And every time I’m with you, I can’t help thinking about it. There are so many ways to die, Ben.”
“Yes. But there are so many ways to live. Together. For as long as we have.”
“You don’t get it! We don’t have time. And River, her telling me to live in the present, just accept whatever is going to happen. Screw that. All that got her was a dead brother. But she’s right about one thing: I need to let go. To not be so attached. So that’s what I’m doing, Ben. I’m too … I’m clinging to you, clinging, and I—”
“Mae. That’s not what she’s saying, not what that means. She’s talking about unhealthy clinging, like with Hannah. Fixing her is becoming your own addiction. And you know how addiction plays out. That’s what she’s talking about.”
I pull my jacket around me tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“Mae.” His voice, gravel and crashing rocks, tunneling to Earth’s core. “I’m not him.”
“What?”
“Your dad. Is that what this is really about?” He steps closer. “I know what he did freaks you the hell out. But I’m not him. I love you.”
I wish this were just about being afraid to be cheated on.
I see Drew, his face ravaged as he leaves Nah’s room. And I see my sister in that room. In that hospital bed.
I don’t know what to say. So I don’t say anything at all.
Ben grips the back of one of the chairs. “You’ve never said it back.”
“If you perform an experiment,” I say, “and every time you do it, no matter the variables, you get the same results, what can you conclude?”
He blinks. “That your hypothesis is either correct or incorrect.”
“Every person I say those words to dies, Ben. That’s the result of my experiment.” And then I tell him what I was telling myself in the elevator on the way down to the lobby. “You told me I wasn’t being healthy—with the way I’m handling things with my sister. And you’re right. Just not in the way you think.” I swallow. “Before I met you, I trusted myself. I knew how to work problems and solve them. I could maintain focus. And knowing you has put me in this uncontrolled spin, and I have to recover, Ben. I have to.”
Because I’m not afraid of heights. I’m afraid of falling.
I move toward the door. Out of his orbit.
“Before you met me,” he says, “you had two parents. Your sister was sober. You hadn’t been forced to move across the country and take care of that sister all by yourself.” He crosses to me. “If you’re spinning, Mae, and I agree that you are—it’s not because of me. If you really want to end this, that’s your choice. I’ll accept it. But don’t make me the fall guy.”
I memorize his face in the moonlight that streams in through the window. The faint trace of freckles beneath his eyes, the thick brows, those long, dark lashes, the bleached tangerine hair. I know I will forget these details, just like I can’t remember if Mom’s teeth were straight or if Dad’s lips were thin.
Everything, everyone, becomes a watercolor left out in the rain.
“You are like him. In the good ways,” I say.
I could drink a case of you. Mom’s Joni Mitchell song about Dad. Italian wedding.
It was grief soup—that last pot of soup Mom made. Dad’s favorite, and he didn’t get a bite.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss Ben’s cheek. Then I turn toward the elevators to take me back up to my sister.
I’m saving him.