The Half Life of Molly Pierce (12 page)

“The way I hold my shoulders.”

“The way you hold your shoulders, yeah. It makes you taller.”

There’s a long silence. We get to the bookstore and I park around the back. My parents are here; their minivan is taking up almost two spots. My dad must have parked it.

I turn the engine off.

Clancy makes a move to open the door, but I grab the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“Wait,” I say.

He waits.

I wait.

We wait.

“It’s like everything is spreading out in front of me,” I say.

I expect him to roll his eyes. Snort. Something. But to his credit, he manages only a small smile.

“What do you mean?”

“Like before, it was just black. I would look back over the past year and there would be these huge, gaping holes. But now it’s like I almost have a choice. Like I can keep going back and back and peel off layers until I reach the very beginning. It’s like it’s up to me. I don’t have to remember, if I don’t want to. Today, with Alex, I made that happen. I made myself remember. I was given a choice, and I made the choice to remember.”

A hand through his hair and a heavy sigh that could mean a million things or nothing at all.

Then: “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he says.

“Really?”

“With everything I know about you, yeah. That makes sense.”

With everything he knows about me.

He gets out of the car.

Everything he knows about me, I don’t even know about myself.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
can let the memories in whenever I want to.

At the bookstore Clancy takes the register, tidies up the front of the store, dusts the shelves, and throws open the windows to let in the brisk October air. My parents leave at six and I bury myself in the back room, pulling books out of cardboard boxes and entering titles and ISBNs into the computer.

This is my favorite room in the store and it might be my favorite room on the planet. Here, the carpet is thick and you can sit on the floor and surround yourself in the smell of old classics. Mystery novels, my father’s favorite. The memoirs my mother reads on Saturday mornings, refusing to leave her bedroom before noon. Drinking cup after cup of coffee that Hazel brings to her. Just cream. Lots of cream but no sugar.

Here, I can take my time. Clancy will leave me alone. Not even the occasional chime of the bell on the front door disturbs me. My father installed it himself to announce the arrival of each new customer. It’s only background noise. Everything fades away. I can close my eyes and let the images rush back to me. See myself doing things I can’t remember doing. Saying things I can’t remember saying.

I fall in love with Sayer.

Or, I remember falling in love with Sayer.

It’s hard to sort out the present and the past when you’re inviting everything in at once.

What is it like?

It’s like a movie screen.

I close my eyes and watch everything happen, and once it’s done, it’s done. It sinks into the background and it behaves just like a regular memory. It’s faded, just like a regular memory. You can never recall the exact colors. The exact smells. You can think about it, but it never replays from beginning to end.

But once it’s there, it’s there.

And it’s been so long since I’ve remembered things so clearly, at first I don’t know what to do with myself.

At first, I am so overjoyed I could cry.

But I don’t cry.

You learn not to cry when you’ve been labeled suicidal.

Would I have actually tried to kill myself? What if Hazel never overheard my threat or what if I never said it in the first place? If I never got help?

I think about that all the time.

And I have no idea.

And to say that.

To say I don’t know if I would have done it. Killed myself.

Not knowing—that’s a fucking awful feeling.

This is the next thing I remember.

We’re in Sayer’s apartment.

It’s a studio in a big old Victorian house his landlord converted. It’s small but it’s nice. The paint is peeling off the walls in some spots and the door to the bathroom doesn’t shut all the way and you have to light the stove with a match because the pilot’s constantly going out, but it’s a home. It’s Sayer’s home and I guess that makes it sort of like my home, too.

Sayer, he’s good with things. He always has his ladder out and he keeps his tools spread over the kitchen table. He works at night when he can’t sleep. He can hardly ever sleep. He fixes the drip in the bathroom sink. He changes the wiring in the ceiling fan so it turns on and off from a switch.

I like to watch him work because it’s foreign to me. If something breaks, my parents call a repairman. Clancy barely knows how to change a lightbulb and Hazel tends not to notice. She could spend an entire week bathing in ice-cold water, the thought never crossing her mind that something must be wrong with the heater.

Sayer’s been fixing up the apartment one area at a time in return for breaks on his rent. His landlord, Jackie, loves him because he’s polite and he’s never loud and he keeps everything clean. He’s even helped out with other apartments in the building. If the landlord gets a call and he can’t make it right away, he’ll see if Sayer can go over. Some months he works so much he doesn’t have to pay any rent at all.

“Forget it,” Jackie said one day. “Forget it, kid, I’m not taking a check from you. After all the work you’ve done.”

That night we went out to dinner, to the fanciest restaurant in town (which, truth be told, isn’t all that fancy). But I wore a dress and Sayer wore khakis and a brown tweed sports jacket and it was nice.

In those moments, I felt like I had my own life.

It was a secret life. I kept it secret from my parents and I kept it secret from Luka and Erie and from Hazel and Clancy. I kept it secret from Lyle.

It wasn’t their business. It wasn’t anybody’s business. It was only mine.

Could I have just this one thing to myself?

I knew I’d have to let it go eventually.

But for now. I thought I loved him.

I did love him.

I loved Sayer.

I loved his apartment and I loved his hands and I loved every memory I had of him.

And that’s why I kept them so secret. Secret even from myself.

It’s windy. The windows in Sayer’s apartment are old and they rattle in their frames and the wind keeps up a low, constant whistle. I’m supposed to see Lyle today. He wants to take me to a Mexican restaurant. He says it’s the best Mexican food I’ll ever have.

Sayer is scraping old paint from a doorframe. I’m on the couch, writing in a spiral-bound notebook. I keep these journals here; I keep this entire life here, locked safely in Sayer’s linen closet. Pulled out only when I want to. Only when I can slip away.

“Water?” he says. He’s off the ladder, in the kitchen. I must have been daydreaming.

“Sure, thanks.”

He pours us each a glass and hands mine over with exaggerated flourish. “When are you meeting Lyle?”

“Soon.”

“How long do you have?”

“A little longer than soon.”

He laughs. Finishes his water and puts it on the coffee table. “Parker has a show next week.”

“Where?”

“That coffeehouse I took you to. I’d like you to come.”

“If I can. I want to.”

“Try,” he says.

“I’ll try. You know I can’t promise much.”

“You can promise to try.”

He touches a strand of my hair, pushes it away from my face.

“Of course I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.”

“I wish I could see you more.”

I wish I could see you more, too. I wish I could see you whenever I wanted. But you know I can’t. I’ve told you why I can’t. And I’m stupid for letting it get as far as it has, but now we’re here and what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?

He’s very close to me. His breath on my cheek and my heart speeding up, beating irregularly. He’s kissed me before, but it’s still a shock. It’s a shock every time it happens. This isn’t supposed to happen to me! I’m not supposed to get this! I’m not supposed to be this happy.

His hands in my hair and his lips on my lips.

He can hear my heart. He has to be able to hear my heart. It’s the loudest, most awkward heart in the world.

Books and carpet and cardboard boxes.

Pull yourself together, Molly.

You’ve kissed boys before. You kissed Sam Mandel and that kid with the braces in seventh grade, whatever his name was. It was on a dare but you still kissed him. You kissed Zach Brayson in freshman year and in sophomore year you kissed Dan Flowers. And you kissed Will and you kissed Alan.

But did any of them kiss you like Sayer kissed you? Did any of them close their eyes like that, tilt your head up with their finger underneath your chin? Did any of them pull away and look at you like that afterward? Like you’ve just made their whole fucking life somehow perfect.

The next time you see him, Molly, he tells you he loves you. Has anyone ever told you he loved you?

No. No, it’s only Sayer. Sayer tilting my head up. Sayer kissing me. Sayer in a coffeehouse, telling me he loves me.

Well I guess I loved you, too, Sayer. I must have. I heard myself say it.

And remembering something is what makes it real.

Isn’t it?

I don’t know. I’m probably not the best judge of that.

I look at my watch. It’s almost eight and time to close up the shop. I get my phone out of my backpack and I have twelve texts from Erie, of course. A text from Hazel.

And a text from Sayer.

I open the phone and read it three times before I’m sure it’s real.

Molly. Are you busy tomorrow? I’m worried about you and I miss you.

I guess I do love him. I have to love him. The people we love get under our skin and crawl through our veins and find their way into our heart. They choke up our blood flow and mess up our breathing and tangle themselves through our bodies like wire. Like razors, like fire.

We remember them even when we don’t remember them.

We try and forget, but it’s pointless.

Even amnesia. Even comas and brain damage and traumatic shock.

Whatever makes us not remember, we still remember.

Our minds flounder like fish but our bodies . . .

Our bodies remember.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
walked with Sayer through forests alive with the colors of fall. Blazing flashes of red and orange and all shades of green and brown. He found a patch of wildflowers and pulled a yellow one from the ground, tucked it behind my ear, and pretended we lived a million years in the past.

“Milady, the flower suits you,” he said, bowing low and waving one arm.

I laughed and danced away from him, hid behind tree trunks, and covered my mouth so he wouldn’t hear me breathing.

But he found me. He always found me.

He kissed me with my back pressed against an oak tree, and the sound of squirrels chasing each other scared me nearly half to death. I was always scared of being caught. In the back of my mind I was scared that anyone who saw us would know.

You are not supposed to have this! You are not supposed to have him!

What are you doing with her! they’d say to him.

Don’t you know? Don’t you know who she is?

This is when I tell him.

I tell him in the forest.

I don’t know how he’ll take it. I’m so scared I think I’ll throw up, but I know I have to tell him. I have to be honest with him. You’re supposed to be honest with the people you love and I think I’m falling in love with him. I’m the stupidest girl in the world for letting it get this far, but what’s there to do now? It’s here. I’m here. We’re here in this forest and he’s put a yellow flower behind my ear and he’s kissed me with my back against an oak tree.

He asks a lot of questions. When I tell him, he is quiet at first like he’s trying to figure out if I’m lying. If I’m lying, Sayer, I have the worst sense of humor in the universe. We sit together on a fallen tree trunk and at one point I put my face in my hands because I don’t know.

Because I’m ashamed, I guess.

But Sayer, he pulls my hands away from my face and he never lets go of them.

He says my name. My name. And he asks a hundred questions. All about when it started, what it means. How I feel and how I break away and how I go back.

I tell him how I met Lyle and his face gets pale, and for a while he doesn’t say anything and he looks up at the blue sky through green leaves and I can almost feel him slipping away and so I hold his hands even tighter to keep him here with me.

You can’t leave me. You’re mine and you have to stay here.

I did it all for you! I want to shout it at the trees, claw it into my skin. Tattoo it across my arms.

I did it all for you, Molly, and now look what I’m doing. I’m undoing everything.

“Are you okay now?” he says.

“I’m okay now. I’m getting help.”

“I’m here for you,” he says finally.

He’s like Clancy. You know they’re being honest because they don’t rush anything. They consider their options. They’d tell you to fuck yourself, if that’s what you needed to hear. But they would never promise you something they couldn’t deliver.

After the forest we get grilled cheese sandwiches in a diner and Sayer finishes my fries.

I’m scared he’ll never want to see me again, but even the possibility never leaves his lips. And I won’t be the one to say it. I certainly won’t be the one.

Things are omitted.

What I told Sayer in the forest, I can’t guess. I know it shocked him and I know it terrified me to tell him, and I could hear my thoughts but they were only the thoughts that didn’t give too much away.

So I’m still keeping secrets from myself, I guess.

I thought I had control over my memories, but as hard as I search for them I can’t seem to grab on. It’s like something keeps them just out of my reach. Like something inside me is holding them above my head. Locked them in a safe. Buried them in a mason jar in the middle of a field of wildflowers. Given me a spoon instead of a shovel. Wished me luck and sent me out in the middle of a pitch-black moonless night to dig. We’re in Alaska and there’s no sunlight for four months.