Page 57 of Room for Us
“It’s time, Zoey.”
“No,” I gasp.
“I’m you. Only you.”
31
I wake to a sound I can’t immediately define, but that puts me on alert. The sun is shining in all its early-morning Idaho glory. Zoey’s gone from the bed, the empty space where her body was still warm to the touch.
“Zoey?” I ask, swinging my feet to the floor.
The sound stops, and only when it’s gone do I realize what it was—sobbing. Without the merest thought, I rush into the hallway, dim with shadows. But a light shines from beneath the closed bathroom door.
I want to throw the door open, but I hesitate and finally knock. “Hey. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she says brightly, the effort ruined by the thickness of tears in her voice. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Fuck that.
I turn the handle—unlocked, thankfully—and walk into the bathroom, then close the door and lean against it. Zoey sits on the floor with her back against the claw-foot bathtub, her legs akimbo across the patterned porcelain tiles. Her eyes are wide and panicked, her hair rioting. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of lace panties—but I don’t focus on that.
“I’m fine, Ethan.”
“No, you’re not. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She laughs, sardonic and jaded, a sound I’ve never heard from her. “I don’t think I will.”
“Why not?”
“Because—shit, let’s be real. This is a casual fling. I barely know you. So really, it’s none of your business if I cry for a bit in the privacy of a bathroom. Now go away.”
God, I love this side of her. The brass-knuckled voice and iron spine. Is she right, though? If this is so casual, then why do I want to dive inside her sorrow and rip it to pieces? Why am I inside this bathroom, my feet rooted, my head stubborn against the notion of leaving. Her face is swollen from tears, blotchy and free of makeup, but she’s still exquisite to me.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I slide down the door until I’m sitting adjacent to her. “You can keep crying if you want. I’m going to tell you a story.”
“What?” she blurts. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Many, many things.” I lean my head back and close my eyes, not quite admitting to myself what I’m about to do is something I’ve never done before. Better to ignore that fact. Better to not think too hard about any of this.
She gave me her truth, so I’m going to give her mine. Because more than anything, I don’t want her to be alone in her grief.
“I had a little sister,” I begin. “Charlotte Marie Hart. We were three years apart. As a baby she screamed and cried a lot. As a toddler she was only marginally better. I called her ‘princess’ because she had my parents wrapped around her pudgy little finger. Whenever she broke something or made a mess, I got blamed. I resented her, resented my parents for treating her like she was this fragile angel.”
God, this sucks.
I take a long, steadying breath. “When she was five, she started following me around like a shadow. I couldn’t use the bathroom without her pounding at the door. Most mornings I woke up to find her sleeping on the floor next to my bed. This kid.” I shake my head ruefully. “She worshipped me with a stunning single-mindedness—especially given that I wasn’t always nice to her. No, scratch that, I was rarely nice to her. To this day I have no idea why she wanted to be around me so much.”
“She loved you,” Zoey murmurs.
I nod. “Yeah, she sure did. And in my own dumb-kid way, I loved her, too. She… she had this stuffed animal, a bunny, that she named Brown Bunny because little kids are literal as hell, and that thing went everywhere with her. One day—she must have been around six—one of the bunny’s ears caught on a door hinge and tore right off. Charlotte was inconsolable. My mom wanted to sew it back on, but Char was convinced it wouldn’t help, that Bunny was dead. My parents spent hours trying to find that same brand of bunny online, but it didn’t exist. Eventually my sister fell asleep holding the ear-less bunny with the stuffing spilling out of the hole. It was the saddest, most pathetic thing I’d ever seen.
“That night, I wrote my first story. It was called Brown Bunny’s Next Adventure, and it was about what happens to a stuffed animal when it falls apart from being loved so much and for so long. I can’t remember exactly what the story was about, but there were pirates, possibly a robot, and it ended with Brown Bunny saving the day in his new world—the world in which he lives forever.”
“That’s amazing,” she whispers.
Even though it hurts, I smile. “When I read it to Char in the morning, she cried again, but it was different, like she was letting go. She was a tiny little thing but brave. Since she wanted Brown Bunny to have the afterlife in the story, we took him into the backyard and buried him. My parents came to the funeral.” I pause, then press on, “It was the last time I ever felt close to my parents. Charlotte died two weeks later.”
“I’m so sorry, Ethan.”
