lena-haloway

They couldn__ have known that even this was a lie__hat we never really choose, not entirely. We are always being pushed and squeezed down one road or another. We have no choice but to step forward, and then step forward again, and then step forward again; suddenly we find ourselves on a road we haven__ chosen at all.But maybe happiness isn__ in the choosing. Maybe it__ in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.

Sympathizer.It__ only slightly better than the other word that followed me for years after my mom__ death, a snakelike hiss, undulating, leaving its trail of poison: Suicide.A sideways word, a word that people whisper and mutter and cough: a word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or murmured behind closed doors. It was only in my dreams that I heard the word shouted, screamed.

I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind.

I feel as though I__ in a dream, where strange things are happening but they don__ feel strange. Everything is cloudy__verything is wrapped in a fog__nd I__ filled from head to toe with the single, burning desire to get closer to the music, to hear the music better, for the music to go on and on and on.

As soon as she sees me she swings forward and hits a key on her keyboard. The music cuts off instantly. Strangely, the silence that follows seems just as loud.

You can__ cheat if there are no rules

I thought you were dead,_ I say. __t almost killed me.___id it?_ His voice is neutral. __ou made a pretty fast recovery.___o. You don__ understand._ My throat is tight; I feel as though I__ being strangled. __ couldn__ keep hoping, and then waking up every day and finding out it wasn__ true, and you were still gone. I__ wasn__ strong enough.__e is quiet for a second. It__ too dark to see his expression: He is standing in shadow again, but I can sense that he is staring at me.Finally he says, __hen they took me to the Crypts, I thought they were going to kill me. They didn__ even bother. They just left me to die. They threw me in a cell and locked the door.___lex._ The strangled feeling has moved from my throat to my chest, and without realizing it, I have begun to cry. I move toward him. I want to run my hands through his hair and kiss his forehead and each of his eyelids and take away the memory of what he has seen. But he steps backward, out of reach.__ didn__ die. I don__ know how. I should have. I__ lost plenty of blood. They were just as surprised as I was. After that it became a kind of game__o see how much I could stand. To see how much they could do to me before I_____e breaks off abruptly. I can__ hear any more; don__ want to know, don__ want it to be true, can__ stand to think of what they did to him there. I take another step forward and reach for his chest and shoulders in the dark. This time, he doesn__ push me away. But he doesn__ embrace me either. He stands there, cold, still, like a statue.__lex._ I repeat his name like a prayer, like a magic spell that will make everything okay again. I run my hands up his chest and to his chin. ____ so sorry. I__ so, so sorry.__uddenly he jerks backward, simultaneously finding my wrists and pulling them down to my sides. __here were days I would rather they have killed me._ He doesn__ drop my wrists; he squeezes them tightly, pinning my arms, keeping me immobilized. His voice is low, urgent, and so full of anger it pains me even more than his grip. __here were days I asked for it__rayed for it when I went to sleep. The belief that I would see you again, that I could find you__he hope for it__as the only thing that kept me going._ He releases me and takes another step backward. __o no. I don__ understand.

I tear down Baxter, which loops around the last mile down to Back Cove.And then I stop short. The buildings have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and run-down road. Beyond that, a short strip of tall, weedy grass slants down toward the cove.The water is an enormous mirror, tipped with pink and gold from the sky. In that single, blazing moment as I come around the bend, the sun__urved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold archway__ets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, and then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away instantly and leaving only dark.Alex was right. It was gorgeous__ne of the best I__e ever seen.

You__e angry at me,_ she says.I stop crying at once. My whole body goes cold and still. She squats down beside me, and even though I__ careful not to look up, not to look at her at all, I can feel her, can smell the sweat from her skin and hear the ragged pattern of her breathing.__ou__e angry at me,_ she repeats, and her voice hitches a little. __ou think I don__ care.__er voice is the same. For years I used to imagine that voice lilting over those forbidden words: I love you. Remember. They cannot take it. Her last words to me before she went away.She shuffles forward and squats next to me. She hesitates, then reaches out and places her palm against my cheek, and turns my head toward hers so I__ forced to look at her. I can feel the calluses on her fingers.In her eyes, I see myself reflected in miniature, and I tunnel back to a time before she left, before I believed she was gone forever, when her eyes welcomed me into every day and shepherded me, every night, into sleep.__ou turned out even more beautiful than I__ imagined,_ she whispers. She, too, is crying.The hard casement inside me breaks.__hy?_ is the only word that comes. Without intending to or even thinking about it, I allow her to draw me against her chest, let her wrap her arms around me. I cry into the space between her collarbones, inhaling the still-familiar smell of her skin.There are so many things I need to ask her: What happened to you in the Crypts? How could you let them take you away? Where did you go? But all I can say is: __hy didn__ you come for me? After all those years__ll that time__hy didn__ you come?_ Then I can__ speak at all; my sobs become shudders.__hhh._ She presses her lips to my forehead, strokes my hair, just like she used to when I was a child. I am a baby once again in her arms__elpless and needy. ____ here now.__he rubs my back while I cry. Slowly, I feel the darkness drain out of me, as though pulled away by the motion of her hand. Finally I can breathe again. My eyes are burning, and my throat feels raw and sore. I draw away from her, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand, not even caring that my nose is running. I__ suddenly exhausted__oo tired to be hurt, too tired to be angry. I want to sleep, and sleep.__ never stopped thinking about you,_ my mother says. __ thought of you every day__ou and Rachel.

Hana?" Lena says softly. "Are you okay?"That single stupid question breaks me. All the metal fingers relax me at once, and the tears they've been holding back come surging up at once. Suddenly I am sobbing and telling her everything: about the raid, and the dogs, and the sounds of skulls cracking underneath regulator's nightsticks. Thinking about it again makes me feel like I might puke. At a certain point, Lena puts her arms around me and starts murmuring things into my hair. I don't even know what she's saying, and I don't care. JUst having her here__olid, real, on my side__akes me feel better than I have in weeks. Slowly I manage to stop crying, swallowing back the hiccups and sobs that are still running through me. I try to tell her that I've missed her, and that I've been stupid and wrong, but my voice is muffled and thick

Alex, please.__e balls his fists. __top saying my name. You don__ know me anymore.___ do know you._ I__ still crying, swallowing back spasms in my throat, struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare and I will wake up. This is a monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together, broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and whole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his even as he tries to pull away. __t__ me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember 37 Brooks, and the blanket we used to keep in the backyard____on__,_ he says. His voice breaks on the word.__nd I always beat you in Scrabble,_ I say. I have to keep talking, and keep him here, and make him remember. __ecause you always let me win. And remember how we had a picnic one time, and the only thing we could find from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And you said to mix them____on__.___nd we did, and it wasn__ bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were so hungry. And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me._ I__ gasping, feeling as though I am about to drown; I__ reaching for him blindly, grabbing at his collar.__top._ He grabs my shoulders. His face is an inch from mine but unrecognizable: a gross, contorted mask. __ust stop. No more. It__ done, okay? That__ all done now.___lex, please____top!_ His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. __lex is dead, do you hear me? All of that__hat we felt, what it meant__hat__ done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.___lex!__e has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. __ don__ love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.__he air goes. Everything goes. __ don__ believe you._ I__ crying so hard, I can hardly speak.He takes one step toward me. And now I don__ recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. __t was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.___lease._ I don__ know how I stay on my feet, why I don__ shatter into dust right there, why my heart keeps beating when I want it so badly to stop. __lease don__ do this, Alex.___top saying my name.

I want to apologize to you,_ she says calmly.__h yeah? For what?_ I don__ have time for this. We don__ have time for this. I push away thoughts of what will happen to Hana even if I manage to escape. She__l be here, in the house . . .My stomach is clenching and unclenching. I__ worried the bread will come straight back up. I have to stay focused. What happens to Hana isn__ my concern, and it isn__ my fault, either.__or telling the regulators about 37 Brooks,_ she says. __or telling them about you and Alex.__ust like that, my brain powers down. __hat?"__ told them._ She lets out a tiny exhalation, as though saying the words has given her relief. ____ sorry. I was jealous.__ can__ speak. I__ swimming through a fog. __ealous?_ I manage to spit out.____ wanted what you had with Alex. I was confused. I didn__ understand what I was doing._ She shakes her head again.I have a swinging, seasick feeling. It doesn__ make any sense. Hana__olden girl Hana, my best friend, fearless and reckless. I trusted her. I loved her. __ou were my best friend.___ know._ Again she looks troubled, as though trying to recall the meaning of the words.__ou had everything._ I can__ stop my voice from rising. The anger is vibrating, ripping through me like a live current. __erfect life. Perfect grades. Everything._ I gesture to the spotless kitchen, to the sunshine pouring over the marble counters like drizzled butter. __ had nothing. He was my one thing. My only__ The sickness surges up and I take a step forward, clenching my fists, blind with rage. __hy couldn__ you let me have it? Why did you have to take it? Why did you always take everything?

I came to find you last night," Lena says more quietly. "When I knew there was going to be a raid...I snuck out. I was there when__hen the regulators came. I barely made it out. Alex helped me. We hid in a shed until they were gone..."I close my eyes and reopen them. I remember wiggling into the damp earth, bumping my hip against the window. I remember standing, and seeing the dark forms of bodies lying like shadows in the grass, and the sharp geometry of a small she shed, nestled in the trees.Lena was there. It was almost unimaginable."I can't believe that. I can't believe you snuck out during a raid__or me." My throat feels thick again, and I will myself not to start crying. For a moment I am overwhelmed by a feeling so huge and strange, I have no name for it: It surges over the guilt and the shock and the envy; it plunges a hand into the deepest part of myself and roots me to Lena.

It__ for the best. But no matter how many times I repeat it, the strange, hollow feeling in my stomach doesn__ go away. And ridiculous as it is, I can__ shake the persistent, needling feeling that I__e forgotten something, or missed something, or lost something forever.

My aunt just stood there, and in that second it was as though the world and the future collapsed down into a single point, and I understood that this__he kitchen, the spotless cream linoleum floors, the glaring lights, and the vivid green mass of Jell-O on the counter__as all that was left now that my mother was gone.Suddenly I couldn__ stay there. I couldn__ stand the sight of my aunt__ kitchen, which I now understood would be my kitchen. I couldn__ stand the Jell-O. My mother hated Jell-O. An itchy feeling began to work its way through my body, as though a thousand mosquitoes were circulating through my blood, biting me from the inside, making me want to scream, jump, squirm.I ran.

Is it true?_ I ask him.__s what true?_ His eyes are the color of honey. These are the eyes I remember from my dreams.__hat you still love me,_ I say, breathless. __ need to know.__lex nods. He reaches out and touches my face__arely skimming my cheekbone and brushing away a bit of my hair. __t__ true.___ut . . . I__e changed,_ I say. __nd you__e changed.___hat__ true too,_ he says quietly. I look at the scar on his face, stretching from his left eye to his jawline, and something hitches in my chest.__o what now?_ I ask him. The light is too bright; the day feels as though it__ merging into dream.__o you love me?_ Alex asks. And I could cry; I could press my face into his chest and breathe in, and pretend that nothing has changed, that everything will be perfect and whole and healed again.But I can__. I know I can__.__ never stopped._ I look away from him. I look at Grace, and the high grass littered with the wounded and the dead. I think of Julian, and his clear blue eyes, his patience and goodness. I think of all the fighting we__e done, and all the fighting we have yet to do. I take a deep breath. __ut it__ more complicated than that.__lex reaches out and places his hands on my shoulders. ____ not going to run away again,_ he says.__ don__ want you to,_ I tell him.His fingers find my cheek, and I rest for a second against his palm, letting the pain of the past few months flow out of me, letting him turn my head toward his. Then he bends down and kisses me: light and perfect, his lips just barely meeting mine, a kiss that promises renewal.

The butterflies are working their way up from my stomach into my head, making me feel dizzy, and I try to calm myself by imagining the ocean outside, its ragged breathing, the seagulls turning pinwheels in the sky.It will be over soon, I tell myself. It will be over soon and then you__l go home, and you__l never have to think about the evaluation again.