I paused. I never knew what to say to that. Often, it sounded like an insult coming from guys, as if I was supposed to back-track and stutter, no, no, I wasn’t smart at all.
‘Chloe?’ Weber’s voice came. I turned, remembering.
‘The pie! I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry about it, I’ve got to get going.’ He tucked away his phone and rose out of the booth, shrugging on his jacket. ‘Damn kids spray-painting at the Seven-Eleven again. Broad daylight.’ He shook his head with a sigh. ‘What do I owe you?’
‘On the house.’ I waved it away.
Weber shook his head and placed a five-dollar bill down on the table. ‘You take care,’ he said. ‘And come over for dinner sometime this week. We should have a goodbye with you girls before you leave.’
‘I will.’ I moved to wipe down his table. He’d left the newspaper, so I checked the crossword: filled in, every box marked with neat black lettering.
‘Friendly town.’ Ethan spoke up when I returned to my spot behind the counter. ‘We’ve been moving around so much, I forgot places like this existed.’
‘I guess . . . ’ I nodded. ‘I’ve never been anywhere else. Not yet.’
‘You’re lucky. Last place we lived, I never saw our neighbours once. Except the time they tossed dead wood over the fence into our backyard, nearly knocked my brains out,’ Ethan added.
I thought of the world out there waiting for me, filled with cities where I wouldn’t know a soul and could lose myself on streets I didn’t know by heart. It sounded like bliss to me, but I knew that if I said so, Ethan would only ask why, so I busied myself with wiping down the rest of the tables instead, daydreaming in the warm, bright diner until he finished his sandwich and the afternoon rush (which was more of a trickle these days) started up, and I had to deal with the cluster of junior high kids all ordering bottomless dollar sodas and single portions of fries, cluttering the booths with their vibrant sling of bags and jackets and the breathless buzz of their cellphones.
‘Hey, Chloe?’ Ethan lingered awkwardly by the door as I delivered a tray of drinks, trying not to spill. ‘You, umm, maybe want to go out sometime?’
I stopped, taken by surprise. Behind me, I could hear a table of teenage girls burst into excited whispers, but I wavered, unsure, clutching my empty tray to my chest.
‘I don’t know . . . I’m leaving in a few weeks.’
‘So you’re busy every night until then?’ Ethan teased.
I smiled. ‘No, but . . . ’ I trailed off, not sure how to explain that I didn’t want to put down any more roots in this town, not when I couldn’t wait to cut my last ties loose.
‘Look, the way I see it, you can’t lose.’ Ethan grinned.
‘Really?’ I had to laugh at his confidence.
‘Sure, it’s zero risk,’ Ethan explained. ‘If it turns out you can’t stand the sight of me, you won’t have to. You’ll be hundreds of miles away. What do you say, dinner and a movie?’
My mind raced. He looked good, standing there, backlit by the afternoon sun, gold in his hair and a hopeful smile on his face. Solid and easy.
But I was already a hundred miles away.
‘I can’t,’ I mumbled, looking down. ‘But, thanks.’
He blinked, his face falling. ‘Well, here, take my number.’ He grabbed a napkin and scribbled it down. ‘In case you change your mind.’ I took the paper, slowly folding it into my pocket. ‘See you around.’
I watched him go, back out on to the sidewalk and across the street to where a brand-new blue pick-up truck sat waiting. He was unhurried and sure in the sunlight. I wondered if I’d made a mistake.
But the red marks on my calendar were counting down, closer to the life that was waiting for me in Connecticut. Men wearing thick cable-knit sweaters and parka coats, fall leaves, freshman dorms. I had weeks to kill here, sure, but what was the point in starting something new when part of me was already gone?
You can never really know someone.
Maybe you think that sounds trite, or perhaps you already learned it a long time ago. But me, I didn’t really grasp it until now: huddled in the corner of the ambulance, watching the medics try to shock life back into a motionless body.
The sirens are blaring, but everything drifts away from me. The noise and the blood, the hands tugging at my body; the light they shine in my eyes and the shock of pure oxygen from the mask strapped over my face.
We’re all strangers, in the end.
I remember something, from a book Oliver gave me months ago. It said that we’re all irrevocably trapped inside our own minds: just as it’s impossible for anyone to truly know us, we can’t begin to hope to know anyone else.
I understand it now.
You can be a part of someone’s life for years, your parent or brother or friend, and then one day they turn around and do something so unconscionable, a crime so great, that suddenly, they’re a stranger to you. You think that their goodness is innate, embedded in their DNA, so you take it for granted, right up until the terrible moment when everything changes. Only then do you realize, those good deeds were actions. Actions that can stop, change on a dime at any time.
You don’t know what’s behind that smile. You can’t imagine who someone will turn out to be. We assume the sun will rise every morning just because it has done every other day, but what happens when you wake up to darkness? When you open your eyes and find, today is the one different day?
I watch them fix the paddles in place on his chest, yell out, and stand clear. I watch the shock jerk through him, the flatline stretching on and on and on.
You can never know anyone at all.
I cycled home from the diner, looping slowly through the quiet streets of the neighbourhood. Our house was at the end of the block, sitting in the shadow of one of the old maple trees that slanted more precariously every year. My father had always threatened to get it taken down, lest another storm send it crashing through their roof, but me and Mom would protest about history and preservation until he let the subject drop. It was ironic that. in the end, he’d been the one to wreak destruction, more thoroughly than any freak storm could have managed.
The car was still in the drive, not moved an inch from when I left that morning.
I felt it hit me all at once: the heavy resignation, and bitterness too. I took a breath and braced myself as I unlocked the door and stepped into the house.
It was silent.