support of her theory: “You’re both adorable. You’re both single. You’re both lonesome. You’re drawn to each other like magnets. And you’re exactly the polar opposite of his misery. So were you one hundred percent guaranteed to pair bond? No—”
“Pair bond?” I interrupted, like Really?
“But looking at it statistically, yes. Mathematically, it works.”
“None of that is math.”
Alice gave me a look like I was pitiably naïve. “Everything is math.”
I sighed.
“I’m just saying,” Alice said, suppressing a little smile, “if I plotted your slopes on a graph, they’d intersect.”
I pointed at her. “Nope.”
But she was having fun. “If you were geometry, you’d have proved yourselves weeks ago.”
“Alice!”
But she couldn’t resist one more. “If you were algebra, you’d both be solving for X, if you know what I mean.”
“Cut it out!”
She straightened, hearing something real in my voice. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s bad,” I said.
She shifted gears. “Why is it bad, again?”
But I didn’t know how to answer that question.
Because it was too good. Because it made me want him even more, and there was no way wanting him was going to end well. Because he would never remember that kiss, and I would never forget it.
“It’s bad,” I finally said, “because it was so good.”
“Oh, Sam,” Alice said.
Did she understand? Could she? I wasn’t even sure that I understood. All I knew was this feeling I had—like I was carrying a terrible secret about myself … a secret that would always ruin everything.
“If you never let yourself want anything,” I said, trying to explain it without saying it, “then you’re never disappointed. But if you want something … someone…”
Alice leaned in, her eyes soft with sympathy now. “Are you afraid he won’t want you back? Because—I promise you—he does.”
“It’s not that,” I said.
I didn’t know how to explain. But this was why I hadn’t even tried to date anyone since my epilepsy came back. I said I needed stability, and that was true—but it was deeper than that.
The truth was, there was something wrong with me. Something I couldn’t fix.
Something disqualifying.
On the night my father had left my mother, when I was eight, I’d overheard them arguing. I’d had a grand mal seizure that night—I’d had them constantly back then—and this was a particularly bad one that made me lose all bladder and bowel control at a country-club party for some of my father’s clients. Back home, after my mother had cleaned me up and put me to bed in my favorite flannel nightgown, I had slept—you always sleep after a seizure—but the sound of them arguing woke me up a few hours later.
I listened for a little bit, but when it didn’t stop, I crept to the edge of the stairs, where I could peer down at the entryway.
They were just out of view, standing close to the front door. I could only see their shadows, but I could hear the voices loud and clear.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” my father was saying.
“None of us did,” my mom said.
“She’s not getting better, she’s getting worse.”
“We’re doing everything we—”
“I couldn’t believe my eyes tonight. I’ve never been so humiliated. You can’t take her anywhere.”
My mother’s voice broke. “Steven—”
“It’s too much for me,” he said, his voice tight. And then I heard the click of our front door handle.
“Don’t you dare walk out that door,” my mother said, her voice low and threatening.
“I can’t take it anymore,” my father said. “I never wanted this.”
“You did want this! When we decided to start a family.”
“You were the one who wanted to start a family. You pushed and pushed for a baby. And look what we got. I never should have given in.”
“How can you say that? She’s our daughter!”
“She’s also the thing that ruined our marriage.”
There was a long pause, and when my father spoke again, his voice sounded like it was made of wood. “I just can’t live like this anymore.”
Next, I heard the door shush closed behind him.
Then, it was quiet for a long time. I started to wonder if maybe she’d gone, too. If maybe they both had. I edged down a couple more steps, and from that angle, I could see my mom. She was pressed up against the door, totally still, almost like she wasn’t even breathing.
Mama, I mouthed—but without sound.
And then a deep, otherworldly sound started to fill the room, as she slowly sank to the floor, and I realized she was crying out—a kind of long, lowing, desperate sound of agony, like nothing I’d ever heard. When