As Far as You'll Take Me Page 20

She laughs and joins me.

  “You wrote that piece!” I say. “I could tell.”

  “Because it was awful?”

  “Because it was you. God, Dani, I’m so impressed.”

  She lifts up the hat, and pokes through the change.

  “We’ve got, like, twenty-five euro here,” she says. “We should make this a daily habit.”

  “Yeah.” I nod. “That was fun.”

  She looks at me, hard. “No, really. We can get a busking license or something—we could really make this work.”

  I stare off in the distance, things clicking in my mind. If this was my main source of income, I would love my job. And it would be a great way to extend my time here. But I’d never make rent on that alone.

  “Is it like that when you and Pierce play together?” she asks. “I mean, I’ve talked to him about it a little, but he’s so defensive about his playing.”

  “We still haven’t practiced together.”

  She sighs, and chills—the bad kind—claw up my body.

  She breaks eye contact first. “I was worried that was the case. He told us you’d been working together on that piece for weeks.”

  “What? When? Why?”

  She turns away, just slightly. I see the rise and fall of her chest. “He said it to shut us up, and make us stop asking questions. This is so typical.” She trails off. “Fuck, Marty. I need to tell you something.”

  My body constricts. Anxiety’s burn spreads through my shoulders. The tone’s serious, and she’s avoiding my gaze. I feel myself zone out, starting to disassociate with the situation, but I snap back. Take a breath. I can’t disconnect. I force myself to be present, to listen to what she says and deal with it. I clench my fists, tense my core.

  I’m here, and I’m ready.

  “Pierce is one of my close friends, and he’s a good trumpet player, whether or not he believes it. But I think he’s only doing this”—she gestures to me—“to bring up his status at school.”

  “The recital, you mean?” I ask. “That’s what Sophie thought, but I—”

  “Yeah, that. But also, your relationship.”

  12 MONTHS AGO

  DIARY ENTRY 5

  It seems like the only times I’ve been calm this trip have been when I’m writing in this diary. So thanks, Mr. Wei, for assigning this, I guess. As the world crashes down around me (it’s my diary, I can be as dramatic as I want), it’s good to know I have something to turn to.

  I’m having a hard time processing everything that just happened, that’s happening, so maybe I should make a list about everything that’s causing me anxiety. I love lists.

  I am late to the audition, but they were able to slot me in for another time since I’m in the waiting area, but I have no idea how much longer I’m going to be waiting.

  The fight between Mom and my aunt started right after Aunt Leah got to the restaurant. Immediately, Mom started being nitpicky about her being late, but then the real issue came out. She thinks Aunt Leah chose a restaurant close to the pride parade on purpose.

  Pride parades, according to my mom, are evil? Like, straight from the devil, a celebration of temptation, that sort of thing. She made it clear that she’s “okay with me” but … apparently she isn’t okay with them. That’s not a wildly shitty viewpoint at all. Cool.

  Mom said she’s not letting me come live with them next year. How could she trust her sister after being tricked like this? How could she let her son live in a place like this, with so many obvious temptations? Melodrama aside (I’ll spend the rest of my life processing those two rhetorical questions, no big deal), that means I’m at this audition for no fucking reason.

  It turned out Aunt Leah did do this on purpose. She wanted me and Shane to be able to see pride, and it came out that she didn’t think my parents would let me experience it any other way, so she set up a meeting spot where pride was unavoidable.

  But her doing this didn’t bring out the fun, carefree side of my mom like she thought it would. It brought out the devil.

  Aaaaand shit. I forgot to soak my reed, so I need to do that right now and hope I don’t get called. Fuck this trip.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  My neck’s tense to the point of near spasm. I almost drop my oboe. It’s the warning I’ve heard from Sophie, the fears I’ve had lately, but it’s different coming from Dani. I can’t rationalize it away when his best friend tells me I’m being used.

  “I mean … does he like me at all?”

  “I like you a lot,” Dani says. “And I think Pierce likes you too. But he’s not a relationship kind of guy. After Colin, he promised us he wouldn’t do that. He put everyone through a lot of pain, because we were all becoming friends with Colin too. He was in my section, and I saw him crushed on a daily basis.” She pulls the headjoint out of her flute, grabs her case off the ground. “I told Pierce I wouldn’t let him do that again.”

  “I’m not like Colin,” I say. “I wouldn’t just disappear.”

  But I don’t know if that’s true.

  “Well, either way, when he said you wanted to do a duet with him, we were really uncomfortable with it. He’s a fine player, but he’s desperate to get in Baverstock’s good graces. I’ve never seen him so desperate.”

  Our kiss outside the Southey hangs in my thoughts. It pushes everything else out. It crowds out all the bad, and it has been doing so for a long time. I still feel the butterflies, the rise in my chest and the ease in my shoulders. How could something so perfect fall so fast?

  “He was so nice to me,” I say.

  “He’s also been a dick to you.” She shakes her head. “Thin walls in the Airbnb.”

  “You don’t under—” I stop. I’ve said it before. I’ve thought it countless times.

  Context is important. If people only see the good, or they only see the bad, they can’t understand any of the complexities of any relationship. And ours has its complexities. But she understands how I’m hurting. I see it in her gentle expression and hear it in her hushed voice. I can’t cling to the only good memories we have anymore.

  My cheeks feel flushed. “I’ve got to talk to him.”

  “He’s going to be so pissed at me,” she says with a sigh.

  “I’ve had some shitty experiences with this in the past, so I want to know: Are you my friend? My real friend? With no attachments?”

  “Of course.” She laughs. “Like I told you—I like you, Marty. And I don’t want you to be even more hurt in the long run. And I don’t want your music career to suffer.”

  I clench my fists when I realize I believe her. I’m wounded from Megan, eviscerated by Pierce. But I can’t let that keep other friends at bay. I can’t fear being close to anyone. I want to keep her as a friend.

  “Okay.” I give her a hug, and her thick hair bunches in my face. I whisper through it. “I won’t tell him you said anything, then. I’ll keep this focused on me and him.”

  I pack up my oboe and hold it close to my side. My feet lead me down the jagged alleyways, to my destination. I see the espresso bar through the window, and through the window I watch Ajay and Pierce chat. Well, I watch Ajay chat and Pierce nod. His posture’s wrecked, like he’s trapped in a fishing net that’s pulling him under the table.

  I walk in and then order an espresso from the bar. I hate this. I hate this. But I have to do this.

  I take a seat with Ajay and Pierce.

  “Dani wanted to show you something,” I say to Ajay. “She’s at the tacky souvenir shop next door.”

  “Right, okay.” He hesitates, then stands.

  His footsteps echo through the bar, and there’s a part of me that wishes he would turn around, or Pierce would follow, or the espresso machine would explode, so I didn’t have to have this talk.

  The feelings are back. The constricted chest and lightheadedness, and there are only a handful of people in here, but it might as well be Trafalgar Square. The breaths don’t come easy anymore. Ajay is out the door, so I turn.

&nbs
p; I look at Pierce, who looks down. The act brings back the fire from before, the clenched fists and tense shoulders. I flip so fast between panic and rage it’s like I give myself whiplash. I don’t know how to feel. I’ve never googled how to have a serious conversation with your asshole boyfriend, but I know what it’d say.

  The chair legs groan as I make room for me at the table. Across from Pierce, not beside him. He looks to me, and I take my shot.

  “What are we doing?” I ask. “Look at you! Hunched shoulders, eyes glued to the ground. You don’t even like being around me.”

  He looks down in response.

  “I don’t know what changed,” I say, “but all you care about is minimizing your time with me, or forcing me to do stuff I don’t want to. And making me feel bad for it.”

  “That’s not fair,” he says. His voice sounds off. Too low and scratchy to belong to him. “I haven’t been feeling it lately.”

  “Lately? Pierce.” I sigh. “You never felt it. Why are you acting like you did?”

  “I’m going through a bad time right now,” he says. “And if you can’t stick with me through it, you might as well not even be my boyfriend.”

  I clench my fists again. I feel my pulse skyrocketing, but I grit my teeth.

  “You’ve never stuck through anything with me, Pierce, and it’s clear you never will. This isn’t an even relationship; it’s not a relationship at all. You can’t talk your way out of it. You can’t fuck your way out of it.” My fist pounds the table. “Tell me now, did you ever actually want to be my boyfriend?”

  He hesitates, but his gaze drops again. Silence.

  I think I have my answer.

  A rush of emotion flows into me. I want it to be anger, I thought it would be anger, and I beg for denial or rage or anything.

  But that’s not what’s coming.

  I tear up, and the breaths come hard. And god, the pit in my chest. It’s like someone’s squeezing my lungs and I’m begging for them to pop. For it to just be over with. I hold my stomach—my dumb stomach that is slimmer, but at the expense of so much.

  “Why would you toy with me like that? It’s not fair. You’re not that desperate; you’re not that callous.” I blow air through my mouth carefully, like I’m blowing on soup, but I’m really trying not to pass out from over-oxygenation. I clench my abs. I have to be strong, while he’s still weak and sulking. For a little longer. I can do this.

  “I can’t believe it,” I finally say.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to …” He shakes his head. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry.”

  He reaches out to take my hand, and I hate myself for wanting his touch. He hesitates, and I feel the tips of his fingers brush over mine. It makes me hurt that much more. I pull away. I find my strength.

  “You may have started this,” I say, my voice wavering, “whatever your intentions were. But now, I’m ending it.”

  I leave the café, and loneliness hits me like a truck. I walk in the opposite direction of the others; I need to be alone. I need to go home.

  Flying to London was scary. I left everything behind, everything I knew, everything that was safe and secure. And for the last six weeks, I thought I was replacing it with better things. More secure things. But that’s not how it works.

  There’s only one thing that can offer security: me. If I make my own decisions, if I follow my own path and still let others in along the way, I’ll be protected from this.

  Heartbreak happens. I looked it up.

  I tried to imagine what it felt like, even though I’d read it in dozens of books and articles. But it’s nothing like that. There’s no way to describe it in words, except maybe if you repeated the word “fuck” for four or five pages.

  That’s what heartbreak is, an endless string of “fucks” shouted from your heart, making it hard to hear, hard to see, impossible to breathe. It’s melodramatic, sure, but what isn’t about this moment? I’m literally sitting in a gutter.

  My eyes must be bright red, because I can’t stop rubbing them.

  Tears are coming out so fast I can’t even dry them on my shirt.

  I know I’m not far enough away from the others, but I can’t go on.

  I can’t go on.

  People are staring. People are definitely staring. But if they knew what was going on, how much I’ve lost, how hard I’ve hit the bottom, maybe they’d let me carry on. Or maybe they’d judge me. I don’t know. It’s hard to experience anxiety when I’m crying. It’s hard to worry or fret or whatever it is that takes up my whole day. I’m all out of fucks, and I want to be left alone. This gutter is my home now, and no amount of concerned Italian chatter is going to change that.

  Some time passes. I think of Sophie and how I need to apologize to her for her pointing out the awful things I was doing to my body. I think of Megan and the scrapbook that I haven’t even acknowledged. I think of Shane and how I haven’t been supporting his potential big break nearly enough. I can’t help but think of the opportunities I missed—I could have shown the world, or at least London, my talent.

  But I let Pierce eclipse all that.

  The thoughts lead me back to myself. I need to make things right again. I need to make a change.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I divide my thoughts into two parts: old Marty and new. When I think of something that old Marty would do, I do the opposite. Even if it makes me uncomfortable, I do it. At least, that’s my plan.

  My panting’s stopped, and I’m sort of held together now. That’s good. There’s a lot of good in this situation. I’m in a beautiful country. I’ve shed my attachments. I’m free to do as I want, as long as my newfound confidence doesn’t get the best of me.

  I put my palms to the gravelly road and prop myself up. I stand, dust myself off, and raise my arms to stretch. The bad feelings threaten to pull me back as a haze falls over me. That’s what this sadness is, a haze that makes me move slowly, interrupts my train of thought, and makes me all-around uncomfortable.

  But I press on, because old Marty wouldn’t.

  Siena’s not hard to figure out. The center is the piazza, and out from there in a semicircle will get you to where you need to go. I need to go to a bus station, and I can find it if I go outside the city.

  But that’s not what happens. In minutes, I’m lost. Siena’s small, but made of hills—I scale a hill and look out between buildings, but see nothing except another street. Siena is taller than a corn maze, more complex than those extreme sudoku puzzles. I walk by a large brick wall three different times, wishing and begging for the bus station to appear, but nothing does. All at once, I realize I’m not panicking. I know I could just ask someone, but I’m determined. My breaths aren’t shallow; my palms are only wet from the residual tears.

  I’m almost too crushed to worry about being lost. The realization makes me sad.

  Suddenly, I turn a corner and the brick maze releases its hold on me. I’m free.

  To reward myself, I stop by a small market for a Fanta and some crispy M&Ms. I try to keep my thoughts light. I even half smile when I finally make it to the station, and think about getting home early in the day. Old Marty would go straight to bed. New Marty is going to do whatever he can to stop sulking. He won’t be that person.

  I won’t be that person.

  Not now.

  I get back into Florence about seven hours early for my flight, but I go straight to the airport. Florence is beautiful, but I’m on a mission right now, and I’m going home.

  Home! It’s still weird to think about. But it is my home, damn it. And it’s time I stopped acting like an intruder and started acting like someone who belongs. I can do this.

  At the ticket counter, I try in vain to exchange my ticket, and I’m stuck buying a new one. It drains a lot of my funds.

  I connect to the airport’s Wi-Fi and shoot out a message to Dani.

  Sorry to bolt like that. I’m in Florence now, flying out soon. But you’ve probably figured that out by now.
Wanted to catch you before you got on the bus in an hour or so, thinking you left me behind. Thanks for talking to me.

  P.S. I’m in. Let’s try for that busking license.

  I hope that’s enough as I hit send. They still have time to get the message, so they don’t freak out too much. Pierce will have an empty seat next to him on the flight where he can store all his bad attitude, all his assiness. I feel okay.

  For a while.

  I board the plane, and once we take off, I stare out the window as all of Italy grows smaller beneath me. I’m starting to get used to this—this flying thing.

  Before we even hit cruising altitude, I start to cry.

  There was a part of me that knew Pierce could’ve been my first love, and thought he actually was. Will he be the one that got away, like you see in movies and books? The guy who sticks with me, always in the back of my mind, for the rest of my life? I might have loved him, the times he was sweet to me. The way he picked me up at the airport and welcomed me to London immediately.

  Fuck, some part of me loved him when he took me to Big Ben.

  I pull my knees to my chest and lean against the window, and I let it out. As quietly as I can, but I don’t care about the people around me. I don’t care about anyone else. Old Marty would’ve cared. Would have been strong to save face and not embarrass himself. New Marty cries in public. New Marty makes an ass of himself and doesn’t care, because they don’t know about the hole that was just punched into his barely beating heart.

  I close my eyes, and I don’t open them until I’m in London.

  I land, and shoot a text to Sophie right away.

  It’s over. You were right. Sorry.

  A breath escapes me, and I feel the tears start to come. But I’m not letting it happen again. Later, maybe. Now, I’m getting off this plane a new person. After we deplane, I sit on a bench and take my oboe case out of my bag. I drop my reed into the small cup of water I kept from the flight.

  I walk through Heathrow, slowly, taking in how alive it feels here. People always in a rush, dashing back and forth. I maneuver through the airport until I get to the tube. It’s here I know what piece I’ll play. I put my oboe together, leaving my case open—might as well start making money to pay for that flight now. Then I play. I start off with “Gabriel’s Oboe,” and it makes me think of Sang. Which makes me think of Shane.