Elevated Read online

  “She was fine when I left,” he says.

  “She was fine?”

  I cross my arms.

  “Trust me, she wasn’t fine.”

  I think of Honesty’s eyes when she opened the door.

  Red,

  Puffy,

  Bloodshot.

  I should’ve known something was off right away,

  But I wasn’t thinking properly by then.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say out loud,

  To convince myself.

  I rub my eyes,

  To erase the image of her tear-stained face.

  “I’m sorry, Elly.”

  He rests his hand on my elbow,

  But I yank away.

  “That’s not enough,” I answer.

  Besides, I’m right.

  It doesn’t matter.

  Forget that we’d planned to live together,

  Attend the University of Illinois.

  Forget that we’d been best friends for ten years.

  I kissed her boyfriend while she vacationed in France.

  I started dating her ex-boyfriend without telling her.

  Some things are unforgivable.

  Some things erase a decade of memories.

  Some things obliterate a lifetime of plans.

  THE OVERHEAD LIGHT FILTERS DOWN IN DIRTY WAVES OF YELLOW.

  Still, the elevator doesn’t move.

  Nothing in my life seems to move the way I want it to.

  That’s why I’m moving,

  Why I have to leave Chicago.

  I wish I could’ve been more like Honesty.

  In a lot of ways, actually.

  When she didn’t understand French,

  She switched to Spanish.

  When her previous boyfriend dumped her,

  She started flirting with every guy she saw.

  I envy her.

  More than I hate myself,

  More than I dream about Travis,

  More than I wish I could go back and erase the last twelve months,

  I envy her.

  Because she’s gone,

  And I’m still here.

  AFTER HONESTY’S ACCIDENT

  I cut Travis off.

  I blamed him as much as I blamed myself,

  As much as I blamed the snowstorm,

  As the driver of that van,

  As God.

  With Trav’s absence my isolation grew.

  I remember it like it was yesterday,

  Because I feel the same way now,

  Even though we’re sitting side by side.

  I’m not sure, but I think this crushing despair is loneliness.

  Even when I’m eating dinner with the twins,

  Sitting in a theater with hundreds of other people,

  The only time I don’t feel twisted inside out,

  Like my skin is on wrong,

  Is when Travis holds my hand.

  THE DIMLY-LIT ELEVATOR

  Holds a lot of secrets.

  “I told her everything too,” I say into the darkness.

  “I didn’t know she already knew most of it.”

  The tears surge upward,

  Start in my toes and fill

  Fill fillfillfillfill my body

  Until I’m sure I’ll drown from the inside out.

  “What’d she do?” Travis asks in a hushed voice.

  “She just sort of stood there,

  Staring at me like she didn’t know who I was.”

  Which I guess, she didn’t.

  “Then she screamed. Like, really screamed.”

  The sound of her voice,

  Animal and

  Raw and

  Rage and

  Betrayal

  Still echoes in my ears,

  Fills the elevator,

  Forces my eyes shut,

  Makes me shiver.

  “She raged,

  She wanted to know why.”

  I can still see the wildness in the whites of her eyes,

  Still see the tears streaking her cheeks.

  “Then she grabbed your keys from me,

  Yanked open her bedroom door,

  Said, ‘I can’t even look at you,’

  And ran out.”

  My voice sounds like I’m talking into a tin can.

  “I walked home. It was snowing.

  Honesty didn’t have a coat on when she left.”

  I open my eyes,

  Look at Trav.

  He’s watching me,

  Waiting to hear whatever I have to say next.

  My stomach clenches,

  But I ignore it.

  “It’s my fault.”

  The shards inside slice me open,

  Shredding until I’m hemorrhaging,

  And there’s no way I’ll make it to the hospital in time.

  “No, it’s my fault,” Trav says,

  But they’re just words.

  Words I’ve wanted to hear,

  Words I’ve heard him say in the quiet minutes before I fall asleep.

  Before,

  They healed the hurt,

  Calmed the escalating storm.

  Now,

  They’re just words.

  I don’t need a rhyme or a coin to decide what to do next.

  The secrets living inside must come out before I can heal,

  And now that things have been said,

  I can control what comes out of my mouth.

  So I speak.

  “If I hadn’t gone over there, she might still be alive.”

  “IS THAT WHY YOU STOPPED TALKING TO ME,”

  Stopped texting,

  Stopped eating lunch,

  Stopped coming over?”

  He sounds mad,

  But not.

  I squeeze my eyes shut,

  So I can speak more easily.

  “She said if I was her friend,

  Her true friend,

  If I was sorry,

  Truly sorry,

  I’d stop seeing you.”

  My voice breaks,

  My heart breaks,

  My promise breaks.

  “I told her I would,

  I begged her to try to understand,

  I promised I’d move on.”

  Now I know there is no moving on,

  There is no release,

  There is no resolution

  When you’re stuck.

  “HER DEATH IS NOT YOUR FAULT, ELLY,”

  Travis whisper-says,

  But I wish he’d shout it.

  I scuttle away from him,

  From those words I know he means,

  But that only sound like noise,

  A swirling mass of hopeterror,

  Lovehate,

  Joyfury,

  Cycling around me.

  White noise fills the elevator,

  Erases the murky light and glaring silver walls,

  Until all I see is Travis.

  Tears trail down his face,

  And somehow that makes me angrier.

  He has no right to cry.

  Everyone—including me—loves him.

  Five months after they broke up,

  Honesty still wasn’t over him.

  She said so at Christmas.

  I know how she felt.

  Five months after I stopped talking to him,

  And I’m nowhere close to over him.

  I haven’t said so to anyone.

  The sight of Travis crying rips through me,

  And I lunge at him.

  I’m hitting him in the chest,

  Noise erupting from my mouth.

  Every thought I have comes out unedited:

  I love you

  I hate you

  We should tell Honesty

  Don’t tell Mom, okay Daddy?

  I’ll tell her myself

  Myself

  Myself

  Please, Honesty, try to understand

  It’s not wrong

  You guys broke up


  Next week

  Trav

  We have to tell her next week.

  Travis grabs my wrists,

  Pins them against his chest.

  He’s shouting the same things I am,

  Both of us storming,

  Grieving,

  Hurting.

  “It’s not your fault,” he says,

  Breathes hard,

  His face a mess of wet streaks and that flush I used to find so endearing.

  Now it only makes me so, so, so angry.

  “It’s yours!”

  I yell in his face.

  “It’s your fault!”

  I know my words hit their mark when the blush pales,

  Leaving his face nothing but bleached sand and anguish.

  “I know,” he says. “I know.”

  But he doesn’t know,

  Because he doesn’t know all I blame him for,

  All I hate him for,

  All I need to forgive him for.

  “I know,” he repeats.

  I want to take those words,

  Form them into a knife,

  Stab it into his stomach.

  Everything would be so much easier if he didn’t know

  He’d done something wrong.

  The fact that he does makes the betrayal,

  The loneliness,

  The things I went through alone,

  So hard to bear.

  I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE

  When we passed the point of no return,

  When I knew I was in too deep,

  When I knew I’d do whatever was necessary to be with Trav.

  After Trav broke up with Honesty,

  I spent several weeks living my pseudo-life:

  A good student,

  A devoted best friend,

  A sister who cracks jokes with her little brothers before they go to bed.

  Honesty didn’t keep secrets from me.

  I’d become the expert at that.

  Trav and I had gone out three more times,

  And we had another date on the horizon.

  My insides felt like mush before that date,

  Like they did every time Trav looked at me,

  Held my hand,

  Pulled me into the elevator.

  The early November air held a crisp chill.

  I fiddled with my gloves while I waited for Travis,

  While my mind whirled.

  I’d told Honesty I was job-shadowing my mother at the hospital,

  But the truth couldn’t be more different.

  Trav and I were going to see The Nutcracker.

  He’d saved for months to buy the tickets,

  Though I told him I would help.

  He’d gotten his hair cut,

  Though I told him I liked it long.

  He’d insisted we go,

  Though I knew he hadn’t seen his mom since the Wednesday before last,

  When she left for work,

  And didn’t come home.

  HE SAID SHE’D BEEN GONE THIS LONG BEFORE,

  But I could tell from the way his eyes sunk into his skull

  That he hadn’t slept well in days.

  He never did when he didn’t know where his mom was,

  When he wasn’t sure how he’d pay the rent,

  Or buy food,

  Or survive one more minute alone.

  Jesse leaving had hit Trav hard,

  And the empty apartment reminded him

  Of how little he meant to his mother.

  He wasn’t eating,

  Or doing much of anything.

  Breathing took all his energy.

  WHEN TRAV KNOCKED,

  Mom stuck her head into the living room,

  Her hands sudsy and her eyes set on Eagle.

  “You kids have a good night.

  Be home by midnight, Elly.

  I’ll see you in the morning.

  Hello, Travis. You look nice.”

  She smiled,

  Wiped her hands,

  Gave me the look.

  The one that said,

  Be good,

  Kiss him goodnight and come home,

  Don’t make me get your father on the phone.

  My insides flipped;

  I nodded,

  Said, “‘Night, Mom. Love you,”

  Left.

  “LET’S GO SEE US SOME BALLET.”

  Trav’s voice strained at the seams,

  Almost fraying but not quite.

  He managed to look enthused,

  But he hated ballet

  The way I loathed seafood.

  We chatted easily on the way to the theater;

  I pointed out my favorite holiday decorations,

  But he seemed to deflate the longer the evening progressed.

  When I had to wake him at intermission,

  I said, “Let’s go home.”

  I didn’t care about the ballet,

  The music,

  The fancy dress I wore.

  I cared about Travis.

  All I ever wanted was to anchor him

  The way he grounded me.

  “No, no, I’m fine.”

  He wiped the sleepiness from his eyes,

  A guilty curve pulling at his lips.

  “I insist,” I said,

  Gathered my purse,

  Strode toward the exit.

  “I’m leaving, and I have the keys.”

  I dangled them from my fingers,

  Caused him to rush after me.

  “El, I’m fine. I don’t want to leave.”

  As I slid past someone in the lobby,

  He caught my elbow.

  My pulse jumped at his touch.

  “Trav, you were asleep.”

  He pulled on my arm,

  Forced me to stop.

  “I don’t want to ruin this for you. You love dancing.”

  I met his intense gaze. “I love you more.”

  The words came out easy,

  Natural,

  Casual,

  The way our relationship had always been.

  Saying I love you for the first time should’ve been scary,

  Daunting,

  Embarrassing.

  But with Trav,

  I felt invincible.

  “Come on, I’m driving you home,

  And then you’re going to sleep for the whole weekend.

  I’ll sit by you and force you back to bed if I have to.”

  “Promise?” he asked,

  Raised his eyebrows.

  The question felt dangerous,

  Wild.

  My breath stalled in my throat,

  Despite my command to breathe,

  Despite his kidding smile.

  I ordered my heart to stop jumping.

  “My mom’s doing a double tomorrow,

  The twins are at Mrs. Fischer’s,

  And I have nothing but time.”

  I crossed my arms.

  “So let’s go, sleepyhead.”

  On the way home,

  His sadness infiltrated the car,

  “I miss my mom,” he said to the passenger window,

  To his reflection,

  To me, his anchor.

  “I know.”

  Missing took every fiber of your being.

  I knew,

  Because I lived with the weight of

  Missing a parent every day of my life.

  The worst part about it

  Is you can’t identify exactly what it is you long for.

  A touch,

  A smell,

  A sound,

  A look,

  A smile,

  Or simply the fact that someone is there,

  And you know it.

  BACK AT TRAV’S APARTMENT,

  I gazed at Jesse’s half of the room—empty.

  Travis stripped to his boxers,

  Picked up a T-shirt from the cluttered floor,

  Turned away from me as he pulled the shi
rt over his head,

  Climbed into bed.

  His loneliness felt unbearable,

  Tangible,

  Thick.

  I stood in his bedroom,

  The air filled with missing and

  Wanting and

  Loneliness and

  Sadness so deep I thought it might bury me.

  I longed to comfort Travis,

  To make him smile again,

  To make his air breathable.

  He lay with his back to me,

  His shoulders rising and falling in perfect rhythm.

  Was it a trick to make me believe he was asleep—

  Or in control?

  A thousand possibilities danced through my mind,

  Most of them exactly what my mom’s look had warned against.

  I turned toward the door,

  Planned to sleep on the couch,

  Sneak back to my equally empty apartment

  Before Mom got off work.

  “Stay,” he whispered just as I reached the door.

  “Please, Elly, I can’t be alone.”

  His need pulled me across the room,

  Toward him,

  Toward the empty space in his bed.

  His need mirrored my own.

  I knelt next to his bed,

  Faced him,

  Sandwiched his hands between mine.

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Forever?”

  “Always and forever.”