Our Year of Maybe

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

We’ve never been enemies or had fights that ended in tears or slammed doors. But we’ve never bonded the way some sisters do.

“The doctor said it was okay as long as I don’t overdo it.” And I won’t. I know my body. But my body is different now.

Everyone else acted like if they dared lapse into pessimism, it might kill me. But in therapy, I yelled, and I cursed, and I cried.

It’s impossible to watch someone do what they love and not feel something, and what I feel for Sophie in this moment is pure and true. A familiar longing.

To me, “being Jewish” isn’t the same as “practicing Judaism.” I’m pretty sure there’s a difference, that I can feel part of something, that I can like that it makes me unique even if I don’t like going to temple.

I message Peter good night when what I really want to say is I’m in love with you and I want you and Is there any chance you want me the same way?

It reminds me I haven’t been cured. That my health is still a delicate thing.

“Okay. But if you need to talk about it, Soph, you can. Even though we disagreed about it, it happened, and we’re here for you. Or if you’d prefer to talk to a counselor, or another doctor, we could arrange that, too.”

burrow deeper into the couch, trying to understand. I’ve always had those opportunities, but I’ve never taken them? That I stayed close to home because that’s where Peter was? Is that what she’s trying to say?

I like you, but . . . and I love you more than anything, but . . . and It wasn’t that I didn’t like kissing you, but . . .

What if we broke up and she regretted ever having gone through with the transplant?

I couldn’t let that happen. Friends can’t hurt each other the way more-than-friends can, and being friends with Sophie is so much safer than being “more.”

My mess of feelings for Sophie has been invaded by something else: gratitude.

But above all that, she has this reliability to her that’s meant so much to me over the years. I can’t lose that, and I want to believe she wouldn’t want to either.

Chase and these near-strangers know a secret about me. Sophie, who sacrificed so much for me, doesn’t.

I stay quiet, unsure what to say. It’s strange to observe this very adult conversation between my younger sister and her boyfriend.

Except the ideal version of Peter-and-Sophie is handing out candy together tonight. That version planned costumes together and laughed while they painted each other’s faces. That version doesn’t need to text because they’re together right now.

I can’t understand, after what we’ve done, that he doesn’t feel the same undeniable tug toward me that I feel for him.

I’ve always thought my life had room for closeness with only one person.

I try to untangle his words, all the negatives in his sentence, hoping they cancel each other out, giving me a solution I could be happy with. They don’t.

And that’s the horrible truth of it all, isn’t it? Peter could slash me open and steal my other kidney, and I would let him. If it would keep him alive, I’d dig it out for him myself.

“Nothing’s going to change,”

I’ve had dance team and dance class and I don’t know why it feels different that Peter’s off doing something without me when I’ve been doing this without him—but Peter was never going to join dance team.

There was nothing Peter could do that would disgust me. His body was working against him. I couldn’t judge something he couldn’t control.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not scared to death every time I’m about to go on.” People think performers are all alike. That anyone who goes onstage must be a naturally outgoing, extroverted person. But that’s not true. When we perform, it takes all my brainpower to focus. It took me the longest time to be able to forget about the audience, to focus solely on the art.

What I don’t tell him is that sometimes I’m not sure I want him to be.

“I wish you could have a normal life, but it’s always going to be different for you. You must understand that.”

The only time I’ve felt like myself lately was with the band. The terrible truth: Sophie is both a reminder of everything I went through and everything I can do now.

But there’s something about big groups like this that makes me feel even more alone. I’ve always been like that.

I’ve been on teams and in groups my whole life, but I’ve never fully felt like an integral part of them.

Maybe I never joined in because I already had a best friend, someone I could share inside jokes with and laugh at the top of my lungs with.

I unclasp my Star of David necklace and lay it on the nightstand before sitting climbing onto Neeti and Taylor’s bed.

Montana moves along the conversation with an effortlessness I’ve never had.

“Like, you rarely answer a question without including him somehow.” “I do?” She nods. “That must be what it’s like when you grow up together, though, right?

transliteration,

“Descartes was trying to find a statement that couldn’t be doubted. He’d already disproved everything he used to believe in, but the fact that he was able to think meant that he existed, and that couldn’t be disproved.”

That no matter how terrible I felt, I existed. I could think.

It’s that I can tell exactly what Peter sees in him.

Gratitude. That’s how I should feel about Sophie. Our connection isn’t obvious to an outsider—which, in a way, is what Chase is—but it’s real to me, and to her.

There’s something else, though, something that takes me a few moments to identify—a pang of missing. Like I miss Sophie even though she’s right here, gliding along the ice in her gray beanie, fiery hair peeking out from beneath it.

What’s worse, though, is the fear that I’m losing Peter to Chase, to the band, to a world that doesn’t have me in it. I’ve been slow to let Montana and Liz into my life, but Peter threw the door wide open for Chase and his band. He has been solely mine for so long, and now I am terrified he’ll realize there are far more interesting people out there than the girl across the street.

If friendship is the only way I can have him, then I should take it.

So I blurt it out: “Why are you guys friends with me? You and Montana?” When she raises her eyebrows, I backtrack. “I mean . . . what do you get out of it?” God, I’m sweating now. Why did I ask that? I don’t need my insecurities validated, don’t need Liz to tell me it’s because they feel sorry for me. I’ve never done anything to indicate I’d be a decent friend. I don’t crack jokes; I don’t have insight to add to a conversation. I’m only like that around Peter.

“What do we get out of it?” Liz repeats. “We like you? We don’t have to get anything out of it. It’s not, like, a transaction.” My voice is small. “I thought you felt sorry for me? Or you wanted someone to come with you to this signing because Montana didn’t want to?”

And I want to be the best version of Sophie even when I’m not with Peter—someone as bright as the person he sees.

I’ve got to figure out how to stop this. How to fall out of love with him, how to unbind us when what I’ve done has connected us for years to come. Because this is what part of me, an awful part, still hopes: that if I give him enough time, Peter will realize I’m worth a relationship, worth giving a chance. That he barely knows Chase and I am the one who’s always been here for him. That the connection to him I feel, the one that vibrates beneath my skin when he’s near me, isn’t one-sided. And I can’t put that sliver of a chance in jeopardy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, gently brushing her knee. Because she’s too good. Because she didn’t want me to feel the way I do now.

“There’s something there. I don’t know if it’s that you guys have been friends forever or what, but . . . there’s something there.” There’s something there.

We’ve always been intertwined, our lives tangled. And now we are a great big knot.

“You’ve never tried to make me be anything I wasn’t. I was always enough for you, and you liked me because of that.”