Page 57 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
Minutes later I jumped to my feet and flipped on the light switch before also drawing back the curtains to allow more sunlight in. I needed to be sure that I’d read the entry correctly. I read it again. And again. Holding my breath and sinking to the ground I cried and laughed so hard I couldn’t tell the difference between the two. I splayed myself out like a snow angel and breathed through the bricks floating away from my shoulders. For the first time in almost a month, I thought about my future in terms other than not thinking I could live through it. And then I curled up and cried and laughed some more, eventually going into the bathroom to splash cold water over my puffy face. I gazed at myself in the mirror and with a nod, I told myself, “Okay. You’re going to be okay.” And then I went to Theory’s house.
Chapter 19
Sebastian
“Man is a being in search of meaning.”
~Plato
After the Winter Formal
I’d convinced Emily to move. We were lucky to find something a few towns over with immediate availability. A rent-with-an-option-to-buy single story farmhouse. Winning a debate with an attorney wasn’t the easiest thing, but even she couldn’t deny that consistently climbing a flight of stairs wasn’t ideal for her condition. This pregnancy was delicate, and we were committed to getting it right this time.
Seeing Phoenix’s bedroom window boarded up had given my heart a jolt. The kind that happened when a splinter embedded itself into your skin. Or after receiving a papercut. My hand had instinctively reached for my phone to confirm that he was okay, but I’d promised myself I wouldn’t make things worse by contacting him. That might’ve proven to be the hardest promise I’d ever had to keep.
We hadn’t lived there long enough to accumulate junk and all of my belongings were at my rental, the one I’d shared with Phoenix, and already boxed. So the move happened quick and easy.
I did a final walk-through of the house while Emily talked to the moving men. The desk and chair in her office hadn’t been removed yet, and my old journal was lying face down on top of it. The one I’d left behind. The one Emily read.
On unsteady feet, I uncrossed my satchel from around my back and rested it down on the desk as I sat. It was open toward one of the later entries, and a handwritten note from Emily stuck to the page. I read the entry first.
I rolled in the grass today, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Grass had always been a serious affair growing up in my household. Like the good furniture that was there only for show. Our manicured lawn with its shrubs cut just-so was there to impress not to play on. God forbid I nicked an immaculately cut blade by hurling my body jubilantly against its softness. Even as an adult I fight the urge to peek over my shoulder before walking on it. Old habits die hard.
But today I rolled in it. The air left my lungs through a laugh and the wind carried me part of the way. Because of him I’d experienced a feeling I hadn’t before. It’s hard to name a feeling you’ve never had, but I suppose if pressed to, I’d call it...giddy.
I read Emily’s note next.
Before we were married, I was in love with a painter—and not the Picasso kind. Anyway, father didn’t believe Miguel and I were well matched. I don’t need to explain to you what it meant for my father to disapprove of my choices. He and your father were friends after all. Two-peas-in-a-pod as the saying goes. You know what happened next. Our stories are not so different, and the weight of the blame for where you and I went wrong is not so different either. It’s equally distributed amongst us. You’re not the only one that stayed too long, Sebastian.
Miguel and I used to talk about having enough children to start our own rugby team. And then I left him, like you left Alex. And then to discover children would most likely never be in the cards for me. And then there was hope, and then it died. Our son died. What more proof did I need that I didn’t deserve happiness?
I’m tired of living a lie, Sebastian.
I could imagine her giving that long-suffering sigh she gave whenever tired but there was more work to be done.
After reading your journal, I thought: I know him now. We can get this right. But watching you this past week has shown me how wrong I was, again. The idea of trying to right what was never whole to begin with for the sake of our child is the very definition of insanity, Sebastian.
I have a new proposal for you. One I knew you’d never think to suggest, because one thing I do know about you is that you believe a life of purgatory is all you’re owed. You can’t see any further than your wrongs to ever dream bigger for yourself. And for a while I couldn’t either. Good thing I’m enlightened now, eh?
Let’s start over as friends. There’s so much about you I hadn’t known after all these years. And I suspect there’s much about yourself that you don’t know as well. We truly are strangers to ourselves as well as each other.
Time is finite, and we’ve wasted so much of it already. Let’s be the guiding light for each other on our paths to reclaim who we were always intended to be, had we been granted the freedom to do so from the start. And let’s raise our child from a place of love, honesty, and friendship.
Let us all be giddy, Sebastian.
Emily watched me from the doorway, her red hair cascading over her shoulders, and something equivalent to a silent deep breath passed between us. “The moving men are waiting to take the last of the stuff,” she said, aiming her gaze to her desk. She stepped forward and rested the divorce papers, with her signature, next to my elbow and left me alone again.
I hurried to capture the moment. To get my feelings on paper while they were fresh.
They say the sum of a man is measured by how well he takes care of his family. We can be a family without being together. We can be a family without being in love. Of course I’m smart enough to have known that, but what I didn’t know was that I could have it all. Or that I deserved it all. I didn’t even dare to try. Maybe Emily was right. Maybe I don’t believe that I’m worthy of a good life. Of being whole. And that truth is one of many reasons keeping me from vaulting over the faulty fence in my backyard and falling to my knees under Phoenix’s window like some poor imitation of Romeo. There is still much to be done. And there is still much at stake.
We’ve signed the divorce papers—
I paused to actually sign them in order for that statement to be true.
—but that doesn’t change the fact that she is my family. She needs me now,theyneed me now, and my focus needs to remain steadfast. I also need to find myself. To make peace with my past. To create a new bond with Emily. Something different than what we’ve so far had.
My future depends on the choices I make now, on the work I put in now. I want to be stronger. I want to be free. Free to rise from the ashes with my phoenix.
