Ink & Interruptions

            The next Monday, second hour came the same way it always did. I felt lightheaded as I approached the door to Mrs. Whitaker’s room. It was wide open for passing period, allowing me to peer inside the room before having to physically brave the space that, for the past eight months, had been my reprieve. There he was. Henry. My breath rushed from me as I moved into the room, relieved to see him in the same desk he had sat in all semester, but when he looked up, I knew. My treasure, the secret I had clung to for the past eight months, was gone. Lost to the pain in Henry’s eyes, the tears shed in a bathroom stall, and the silent understanding that was slowly suffocating us both.

            We tried to go back to tapped out rhythms, jokes whispered between the life and death of long-forgotten historical figures. We tried, but after a week, it was too much. Henry never moved to another desk, but the space between our voices mingling with each other grew larger until one day all that was left was silence. The silence of longing, of acceptance, of defeat. I was familiar with all of them, and now Henry was too. I should have stayed silent on that first day in the doorway when his voice danced down my spine, warming my skin. Silence then would have saved us, but now it curled around our shoulders, bending us inward, pushing us further apart. I should have known, Kyle and I lived in that silence. It had been the constant force that moved us forward, breathing for us as our mothers continued to weave our lives together.

            Prom faded into graduation which faded into move in day at the college Kyle and I were both to attend. College dorms faded into our first apartment which faded into Kyle’s proposal at our weekly family dinner. Aunt Julia and mom had known. Of course they had. Mom had gone with Kyle to pick out the ring. Aunt Julia had “gifted” me a special outfit for the night. Every detail delicately set in place. Every slip masterfully explained. Kyle’s stuttering, nerves. My hesitation, happy disbelief. Nothing was unexpected, nothing out of order. Everything set into motion twenty-one years ago.

            We were engaged in the Spring semester of our sophomore year which gave our mothers one year to plan our June wedding, but then December came. The crash. I remember sitting around the dining table, my chair tucked neatly beside Kyle’s as we waited. Aunt Jules’s job was 30 minutes away, but the snow had clogged up most of the interstate and all the side roads through town. At the hour mark, chairs began to shuffle, the sound raking down my skin and settling in my fingertips. My hands drifted from my plate, to my lap, back to my plate, over and over again searching for somewhere to hide from the tension that was creeping under the door, seeping around the cracks in the windows, carrying the cold in with it. 30 more minutes, and Uncle George was pacing in front of the large picture window that faced the driveway. Each step felt heavy. Thump. Where was she? Thump. She should have called by now. Thump.

            Two hours later, the phone rang. My heart leapt into my throat as Kyle and I both sprang to our feet and moved towards his dad. Mom and Dad reached him first. The saliva in my mouth thickened, turning to mortar between my teeth, gluing my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Beside me, Kyle’s body went rigid as his father pressed the green call button and pulled the phone to his ear. We waited, and for the first time, the silence that surrounded me and Kyle enveloped us all. One moment of silence before the sound of my mom’s scream ripped through my bones.

            I reached for Kyle’s hand, but it was prom all over again. His skin was too hot, like the surface of a stove left on too long. Touching it sent a searing pain through me, a sharp reminder that something was not right. I don’t remember who pulled away this time, and it didn’t matter. I knelt beside my mom, my hands roamed over her body patting, pushing, seeking to comfort. I could feel my own tears pooling in my eyes. I slammed my eyelids shut, trying to force the tears back inside, but it was too much. My mom’s gasps, guttural intakes of breath, came in stuttering bursts, followed by sobs that broke apart as her body fought for air. My father’s quiet murmurs as he rocked her back and forth. Suddenly, the tears poured from my eyes, a dam giving way to a storm. I sank down beside my mom and clung to her, letting my father console us both.

             After that, January was a blur. Kyle and I made trip after trip home to visit my mom and Uncle George. Our evenings in the apartment were spent trying to find our normal, but the air stuck to every word, dragging it down until silence consumed us again. I tried to talk to Kyle about it, but every conversation felt broken, forced. Every endearment felt hollowed out, like a casket waiting for a body. Every lingering touch was misplaced or ill timed. Too close. Too far away. Too loud. Too quiet. The only sound being the hushed unraveling of the threads weaved together by Aunt Julia. By February, they were barely holding us together, and then one weekend while we were visiting my mom, they finally came undone.

            “I just don’t understand it,” my mom said as she shuffled the rice around her plate for the fourth time.

            “Sally, please. The kids didn’t drive into town for this,” my dad’s voice was soft as he placed his hand on top of my mom’s.

            “You are absolutely right,” sniffling she straightened her shoulders and placed her fork down beside her plate. “We asked y’all to come down because we thought it was time to start planning again. Jules,” her voice wobbled, and there was a long pause before she spoke again. “Jules would not want anything to derail the big day.”

            The words dropped through the space between Kyle and me, splintering us apart like a sledgehammer. I think we had both forgotten. Forgotten while we were trying to hold ourselves together, desperately grasping for the strings that tethered us to the familiar.  

            “Mom,” I managed to say, finding my voice before Kyle. “I, um, well we hadn’t. We just haven’t thought about that since, you know, since Aunt Julia. I don’t think Kyle—” It must have been my voice and his name that finally shook him from his trance.

            “No.”

It was a simple word, and I felt my heart stutter. I tightened the hold I had around my fork, willing my hand to stay still.

            “Oh, Kyle. Honey, I know it’s been hard, trust me I’m hurting too, but I also know that your mom—”

            “No.” Kyle’s voice was louder, more sure, and something cracked inside me.

I knew what was coming, and yet, my chest still split open. I watched as my mother’s face scrunched tight, the skin crinkling around her eyes and hard lines spreading across her forehead as she tried to understand what was happening. Kyle was breaking from the path—the one Mom and Aunt Jules had carved out for us.

            “What do you mean ‘no’?” Her voice sharpened, each word climbing higher, edged with panic.   

            “Son, what your Aunt Sally means to say is,” my dad tightened his hold on my mother’s hand as he spoke, “we were hoping that—”

            “No.” My heart pounded as the word left Kyle’s mouth again. This was it. My breath came quicker; my heart stung from the sudden exposure to the life Kyle was claiming for himself. “No.” I closed my eyes as Kyle rose from the table, placed his napkin and fork gently on his plate, and left. It was over.

            The next day, Kyle asked for the ring back. I never hesitated. Mom begged me to wait, to give him more time. She assured me that after Aunt Jules’s passing had settled, we could go back to the way things were, but after two weeks, all of my things were moved back into my old room, and I think my mom began to grieve another loss. A loss that was solidified and buried beside Aunt Jules the day Uncle George called and told us that Kyle wouldn’t be coming back.