Fifteen: Goodness.
“Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can't fully understand.”
-Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon
We're really lucky in America, they always say, because we have so many rights and we can do so many things and there are places in the world that don't have that luxury. And I know that. Really, I do. But one of those right certainly can't be to walk into a school and shoot little kids.
Everything you said made me think—really made me think—and after you left, when it was late at night, I just lay in bed and thought for hours, wide awake. I wondered why someone would ever believe themselves entitled to commit a crime so terrible; I thought about how fragile life really is. And I decided that man, whoever he was and whatever walk of life he came from, was one of two people: he either didn't understand how breakable human beings are—or he did, completely, and just didn't care.
Thinking about it all made me angry. Really angry, angry like I was when that bus driver showed up at our doorstep with his condolences, and when that boy broke my sister's heart when she was eighteen. It was the kind of anger that you feel when someone close to you gets hurt, except that I didn't know these people or that man. But that didn't change the way I felt, did it?
It was sad, too. Sad because I'd been trying so hard since I met you to believe that maybe people were good, and things weren't lost. But I didn't understand people, and why they did awful things, so how could I decide that for sure?
It was always harder to think positively at two A.M., and harder to find goodness when there were human beings in the world who were so bad.
I felt swallowed whole by the next morning, running on half an hour of almost-sleep. As I sat there, hair sticking up, shirt wrinkled, I wondered if you were any better. You'd left the evening before still teary-eyed, but at least you were wearing a watery smile.
As I went through the typical Saturday morning routine, I thought about calling you, since that seemed like the kind of thing a concerned friend should do. But you ended up calling me before I could finish debating, just as I was rinsing off my plate of hastily scrambled eggs.
“Hello?” I answered quickly, balancing my phone between my ear and shoulder. “Ellery?”
“Hey, Sam,” you said, sounding tired. Maybe you had gotten as little sleep as me. You yawned between syllables. “I'm at the bookstore right now, the one on Burnside, and I wanted to talk so I was wondering if you'd meet me there?”
As if you even needed to ask. I said of course, sure, if I hurried I could be there in twenty minutes. You laughed a bit at my stumbling sentences, and that was so relieving because you weren't crying.
After I hung up and put my plate in the sink, I dashed through the living room, toward the hallway. The tree and lights were dormant now, dim, but I saw them still as they were the night before: beautiful, tragic, illuminating your tears.
You were at a table in the cafe, just like I'd seen you all those days ago, except this time you were waiting from me. You looked up from your book when I approached and sat down, then shoved a paper cup to me across the surface. There were two of them, and you had the other.
“I don't know if you drink coffee,” you admitted, blushing sheepishly, “so I just got you a cappuccino and hoped for the best.”
I smiled. “This is fine, thanks.”
I hated cappuccinos.
I drank it anyway.
We made idle chitchat for a while, discussing the lightest, most trivial topics we possibly could, until finally your lips curled up into a little smile and you reached into the purse balanced on your lap. When you pulled out your hand, there were three little pieces of paper between your fingertips. You slid them across the table.
“My family really wants to meet you,” you told me.
I swallowed, glancing warily at the papers. “Really?”
You nodded vigorously and pointed at the little slips. “My studio's performance of The Nutcracker starts tomorrow night, and those are three tickets for the seven o'clock show. For you, your aunt, and your uncle. You'll have seats right in the front row with my parents.”
Tickets. Performance. Seats. Parents.
Why does it matter that she wants you to meet her parents, Sam? I asked myself. It's only a problem if you're her boyfriend, which you aren't.
I wished I was.
“Well, Ellery, I—”
“Pleeease come, Sam! My family is looking forward to it, and it would mean a lot to me if you were in the audience.”
I looked at the tickets. Seven P.M. Sunday, December fifteenth. Keller Auditorium. I tried to imagine my aunt and uncle there, in such a nice place; Aunt Sheridan in lime-green sweatpants, Uncle Dill with his unshaven face. It just didn't fit.
But then I looked at you, really looked at you. I saw your smirk, one side of your lips pulling up and cratering a dimple in your cheek. And your hair, wavy and careless, slipping into your face. You usually wore makeup, but you didn't that day, so I could see the way your eyes were still rimmed with telltale red.
And God, you were so beautiful.
“Well?” You reached across the table, wrapped your soft hands around mine, and gave me a look that told me this was real, and it would really mean a lot to you if I went and saw your show.
How could I say no?
As I accepted the tickets, telling you that I couldn't wait and also trying not to worry about my oddball family, I felt some of that inner balance return. The world still wasn't good; it wasn't anywhere close. There was so much bad, so many bad things and people and places and events—but you were good. You were full of purity and morality, and you had a kind heart and a beautiful soul. I realized it quite clearly in that flicker of a moment.
The world wouldn't ever be good, not completely. It was sad, sure. It was true. But you: you had goodness, loads of it. And that thought was enough to get me through the day.
So maybe, I figured, if I was thinking about you, thinking a lot wasn't such a bad thing after all.
