Who I Was with Her

by Nita Tyndall

Her face lights up, and for a moment, she is just my mom, like she was before. She’s the mom who went and got pedicures with me and we talked and I could tell her anything.

I kissed another girl this weekend, a girl who wasn’t her, and that—that feels like a small betrayal. So I need to be here, need to remind myself of what we had, of who she was to me.

If I go to her grave I will never, ever see her running ahead of me again. And I’m not ready to lose her like that. Not yet, anyway.

My mom drank too much and is passed out on the couch, and I hate that I am disappointed.

I hate her. I hate that she doesn’t see what she’s doing to us. That if she wasn’t drinking I’d be able to visit more. This is all her fault, and suddenly I want to blame her for everything.

“She’s not my responsibility anymore!” he yells. I step back from him. Responsibility. Like she’s something to be passed around, like she’s a burden, like she’s not my mother.

“I get that all the time.” “You do?” She stares at me then, hard. “I do,” she says. “So does Chris. So do any of the other people of color in our school.” “I . . . I haven’t noticed.” “No,” she says. “You wouldn’t.”

“I know you said you don’t notice that stuff, but . . . I need you to notice. It’s really fucking hard to deal with that shit by myself and if you notice or say stuff, it keeps me from having to constantly do it. Because sometimes? Sometimes I’m just tired.”

But that sense of wonder, of awe, of belonging I’ve heard the other girls talk about when they talk about college, all the things I feel like I’m supposed to feel? Nothing.

But here, now—if I can make it to State like she always wanted to, then maybe . . . What? Maybe I can bring her back.

They want this, the race, the feeling of winning. I just want my girlfriend back.

Hypothesis: I could kiss her. Here. Right now. I could apologize and I could kiss her and the world would stop.

She kisses me. She leans in and kisses me under these bleachers where anyone could see us if they looked hard enough and her mouth is firm against mine and my body is still full of adrenaline from this race and from her lips

“Tell me everything later,” she says, and I can’t stop the grin from spreading over my face because for the first time I have someone to tell everything to later.

And in this moment, I genuinely belong with these girls. I’m not faking my way through it, not laughing at jokes I don’t get just so I can fit in. I belong here.

She has laugh lines around her eyes. I want to look like that when I get older. I want to laugh enough to have permanent marks on my face from it.

This is what I wanted, right? This is how I get out of here—by running as fast as I can.

What would it be like? To be out with her, to hold her hand as we walk down the street, to do all the things with her that I never did with Maggie.

Why don’t you love me? Why don’t you want to be out with me? Are you ashamed of me? Are you scared? Are you? Are you?

She should be here. She wanted this, she wanted to be invited, and I—I just wanted whatever she wanted.

And for this moment I’ve crossed the finish line with air in my lungs and Maggie’s scrunchie in my hair, I am the one who wants this.

I am not a girl who pushes herself. I am a girl who stays in the middle and doesn’t draw attention, and now that I’m getting better, now that I don’t fit, they don’t know what to do with me.

I am terrified down to the bone of what everyone else will think of me. I do not make waves.

I am the cause of that grin, and butterflies start in my stomach.

I have always been a girl who goes along with what everyone else wants. Who keeps her mouth shut and her opinions and needs and wants tucked inside where no one can get to them.

Maggie took what was left of my heart with her, shattered in pieces on I-85. I’ve kept the remnants guarded in my chest in their cage,

her mouth is on me and my hands in her hair and I want this I want this I want her I want—

She is not my responsibility, I tell myself on the drive home. My mother is not my responsibility. I am not the one who is supposed to check on her, to take care of her. Then why do I feel like she is?

My heart thrums in my chest, muscle memory at the acrobatics it did when Elissa touched me.

She’s asleep next to me, the warmth of her back pressing into my side, and I know. I have to break up with her.

And I hide my stupid treacherous traitorous heart.

Somewhere in the crowd is Maggie, watching, jealous that she could never get here.

If I run hard enough today, then I will stop chasing Maggie, she will stop showing up at the corners of my vision, she will be gone and I will be brave enough, finally, finally brave enough, to talk about who she was to me.

I wanted Maggie. I’m sorry I never told her how much. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the girl she saw me as. I loved her, I loved her, I loved her. I don’t know who I am without her. She wanted me to be all these big, grand things; she had these dreams for us and— That’s not me.

Maggie had dreams and plans and goals and all I wanted to do was to follow her to the ends of the earth.

“My sister died without anyone knowing about the one person she cared about most in this world and it’s all your damn fault.”

“Why can’t you just be with me?” she yells, her cheeks splotchy and red and her eyes shining. “I want to!” “No, you don’t,” she spits. “You’re too scared of what everyone else will think.”

I wish I could be braver for her. But I’m not. I’m a coward. And we both know it.

“I just don’t get what you’re so damn afraid of!”

I want to be out with you. I really do. And if—if that’s too hard for you, then you need to tell me.”

Are you ashamed to be with me? It was never her I was ashamed of, never her I was ashamed to be with. It was me. My fear.

Dylan drives up to this remote area, puts his car in park, and for a second I’m worried something’s going to happen, even though it’s Dylan, because that’s what we do, we girls—a boy drives you somewhere alone and it doesn’t matter how much you trust or know him because you can never tell.

And she doesn’t even wait for me to walk up before the words are out of her mouth and she’s telling me about this girl she’d met and how she was so excited about her and how wonderful she was.”

“She wasn’t some martyr,” I say quietly. “You should know that.”

“You really are a bitch.” “And here I thought we were having a moment,” I say.

“She loved you more than she loved running.” And maybe I love running away more than I loved her.

I love her. This is going to hurt her, hurt me, but I’ve hurt her enough the past few months. I love her so, so much, and that’s why I have to let her go.

I want to kiss her. I will keep running if it means I get to run after her.

I don’t want to run. I’m tired of running, tired of chasing the ghost of a girl who can’t love me anymore. Tired of chasing someone else’s dreams for me.

What if I don’t know what I want right now? What if I don’t have big dreams for myself, big dreams for what I want, at least not right now?