Only Mostly Devastated

by Sophie Gonzales

A guy who’d convinced me he really, really liked me. A guy who’d better have been abducted by goddamn aliens. So maybe a little bit of clinginess from me was justified. As long as it didn’t come across as clingy, of course.

Experience told me I’d best play along. Fighting would take longer than giving in at this point.

How did you start a conversation again? I was about to settle for so, you like stuff? when she saved me the severe embarrassment by speaking first.

I’d been doing well for a second there, too. A part of me suddenly understood why people drank at parties. It wasn’t to have fun. It was to forget how much of an idiot they made of themselves.

They broke out in grins. It was that easy. So that’s how you got through a social situation without repelling everyone within ten feet of you. Speak as little as possible, and fill the silence in with music. Note to self: carry bass around everywhere and break into impromptu solo whenever anyone tries to force you into conversation. Foolproof.

So I watched my phone in silence until the call ended. Sorry, Will. Too busy. Just like you’ve been.

“I think everyone cares what people think, a little. Even if they don’t want to.”

“Ugh. Don’t be that person. Figure it the hell out, okay? I can’t stand people who float around, wringing their hands and hoping someone sees how goddamn special they are. If you want him, go after him. If you don’t, find someone else, and make sure you flaunt it in his face for good measure. It’s sure as hell what I’m gonna do.”

“I was told I wasn’t beautiful when I was little. But they’re the most beautiful children in the world. They’re smart, and funny, and creative. I won’t be here to remind them, so you have to. Both of you. Daily. Okay?”

“Of course. You’re always there when people are upset or hurt, and you’re the one trying to make it better. Every time. It’s basically that, but in job form.”

I couldn’t possibly feel awkward about it. Except, yes, I could, because it was me, and I would probably feel awkward at my own ninetieth birthday party, surrounded by a room full of people that I’d loved and raised.

“Nope. Apathy is incompatible with hate. Love works okay.”

All this time, I’d been wondering when my needs would start to really matter to him. Maybe I hadn’t spent enough time wondering when my needs would start to really matter to me.

“Darnell is an idiot,” Lara said, pointing a french fry menacingly at Niamh. “Besides, the problem isn’t the city. If he got a job offer there I bet you he’d move in a heartbeat. He’s just intimidated by the thought of following around a strong woman while she chases her career instead of the other way around.”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry! I didn’t want an apology. I wanted you to think of me, and care about how I’d feel, before you did something horrible. But you didn’t. So how can I keep doing this if I know the thought of breaking my heart isn’t enough to stop you from doing something no one is forcing you to do?”

“You treat me like dirt. You’ve noticed that, right? And every time you apologize, I think it’ll be different this time, but it’s never different. You genuinely do not seem to give a shit about whether I’m okay.”

“It’s true, Will! I would never do something I knew would hurt you. Not to save myself from embarrassment, or to throw people off my tracks, or anything. I just wanted that from you.”

“I just wanted you to care,” I cried. My throat felt clogged up, and I knew I’d start crying any second now, so I chose anger. Better than sadness. And hurt. “But you didn’t, and you don’t. So, get the fuck out of my car and leave me alone.”

I always have as much fun as I can. What’s the point otherwise?

Any song that came out from this week onward, Aunt Linda would never hear. Not once. Everything she was ever going to know about had already happened. Britney Spears could be voted the new president of the United States, and Aunt Linda would never know. The government might finally admit they have aliens in a warehouse, and Aunt Linda would never know. The world would keep moving, and tragedies would happen, and beautiful things would happen, and we’d invent things and grow and Aunt Linda would never see any of it.

And … God, I was so selfish and self-absorbed, but while I was completely devastated about Aunt Linda, I was also scared for myself. I mean, I knew about death, obviously, but it had always been in the abstract. Now it felt startlingly real. Real people I knew would die. All of us. Every real person I knew would die. And I would die, too.

“This isn’t beautiful. It’s ugly, and pointless. That’s the thing, Mom. There was no point. She’s dead, and there’s nothing fair about it. She had one life, and it’s done, and that’s it for her, and that’s it for us. It didn’t make anything better that she died. How can you still believe there’s meaning to all of this? What, what you think something out there in the universe looked down from the clouds and found our family and said, ‘Hmm, you know what? Fuck this family in particular.’ Crista and Dylan don’t get a mom anymore, and Uncle Roy lost the person he loves, and she doesn’t get to ever be old, and there is no. Reason. For. It. It was just a waste. The end. Sorry if I’m not happy about it.”

I’d never even gone to one of his basketball games. And he’d never guilted me about it. Not even once. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t gone out of my way to do something just for him that didn’t benefit me in any way. I’d been so focused on what I wanted from Will that I’d never really stopped to think about what he might want from me. What did that say about me?

Now that I thought about it, the way he’d asked me to go along was way too casual. The kind of casual that only comes out when the speaker wants to sound like something that’s really important to them doesn’t matter at all.

How many times had I said to Will that I just wanted him to do something because he cared about me, not because I asked him to? So why hadn’t I done this for him because I cared about him? I should be there tonight.

I shrugged like I didn’t know, but I did. Because after a year of everything being uprooted again, and again, and again, I was constantly bracing myself for something else to fall apart so I could somehow preempt it.