I woke up and I missed Ana. I hit the snooze button and continued to lie in bed, my sheets tangled around my bare legs, staring at the ceiling and wondering what I was feeling. It wasn't like I wasn't going to see Ana anymore just because she had kissed me. As a matter of fact, I was going to see her in an hour at art class. The problem was that I knew relations had to be different between us now. There would be no more escapes from the heat into my air-conditioned house to draw on my bed; nor drinking lemonade in the backyard while listening to Ana's favorite bands. I could probably spend all of those lost afternoons with Bridget, but I was totally aware that it would not be the same. I was missing Ana's company before I was even deprived of it.
My alarm clock sounded again, reminding me to get out of bed if I wanted to see Ana at all. I turned it off, noting that there were now only fifty-five minutes left until class.
My heart skipped a beat.
I peered through the glass pane in the door before entering the classroom but couldn't spy Ana from the doorway. I opened the door and moved quickly to my usual seat, trying to look nonchalant. It wasn't until I sat down that I noticed that not only was Ana not within eyeshot, but she wasn't in the classroom at all.
"Good morning!" Derek piped up, startling me. I hadn't even noticed that I'd sat next to him out of habit. "You okay?" he asked, leaning in to look at my face.
"Um...yes. Where's Ana, do you know?"
"Probably on her way. Class doesn't start for five minutes." He pointed his pencil at the clock over the doorway and it indeed read five-to-nine. I gave an acknowledging grunt.
"You seem really...distracted," Derek said as he watched my eyes follow the second hand. I shook my head and sighed.
"Sorry," I replied. "I had a weird night last night."
"Ah," Derek sighed sympathetically. "Hangover?"
"Um, no." I turned to look at him. "Derek, it's...it's a Tuesday."
"Just thought I'd ask." At that moment Ana walked into the room and made her way to us, half-smiling. Bob was following on her heels, so no one had a chance to say anything before we were drowned out by his boisterous voice. He talked to us for what seemed to me like a very long time before setting us free to work on our individual drawings. As soon as there was a silent moment Ana leaned over to me and murmured,
"You don't have to sit with us. It's okay." I looked at her, but she was staring out the window.
"I want to," I said. Ana's eyebrows flickered down and she sat silently for a beat before excusing herself to go to the bathroom.
"What is going on between you two?" Derek asked as soon as she'd gone. "Did you get in a fight or something?"
"No, not really," I responded. A moment passed before I said, "Hey, Derek?"
"Yeah."
"Did you know that Ana's gay?"
He ran his fingers through his blonde hair. "Did you...not know that Ana is gay?" he asked carefully.
"I had no idea!"
"Ouch. Fuck. That sucks. She comes on strong sometimes. What'd she do?"
"Wait, so you knew?"
Derek laughed. "Most definitely. She's not exactly a closet case."
"I had no idea," I repeated, stunned. I looked down at the table and then admitted, "She kissed me." Derek sat up straighter, his face brightening.
"No kidding? Wow, she has guts. So, come on." He nudged me with his elbow. "You interested?" He paused, waiting for an answer, but reconsidered when he saw the expression on my face. "Fisher, wait...do you like girls?" I opened my mouth to reply, and then shut it. I thought about Simon.
"I definitely like guys," I said firmly.
"Well, good for you. But that means absolutely nothing," he assured me.
"What're you talking about?"
Ana had returned and was walking toward us. I watched her jeans as she walked, not wanting to look into her face, my heart pounding.
"I just mean that you can like guys and still like girls, too," Derek muttered, breaking off as Ana sat down. "Hey, Sunshine," he shot in her direction.
I spent the rest of the class in silence, feeling as if my whole reality was twisting with the decision that I was about to make. As Derek, Ana and I left the classroom I gathered my resolve into a tight ball in my chest and squeezed it.
"Can I talk to you a second, Ana?" I piped up.
"And this is where I make myself very scarce," Derek replied with a grin, breaking away from us. Ana and I slowed as we walked down the hallway, letting the stream of students from the classroom trickle by us on their way out.
"What's up?" Ana asked. Her tone of voice betrayed no nerves.
"Okay," I said, struggling to remember the intricate details of the speech that I had rehearsed in my head for the majority of the morning. "So. Okay. We both know that last night was kind of weird; I guess we were both pretty surprised and it was late and I was tired. I mean, I barely knew what was going on. Well, that's not really true, I mean, I knew what was going on, I just wasn't sure..." We had come out of the hallway into the sunlight and Ana stopped walking.
"Fisher. Out with it," she demanded.
"Okay," I said. "I think I made a mistake earlier."
Ana groaned. "Oh, please, Fisher, no." she begged, "Don't apologize. I'm embarrassed enough as it is."
"I'm not apologizing! I'm...I'm saying I think that I like you." There were at least five very solid seconds of silence in which I wished with all my heart that Ana's eyebrows would move, would give up some flicker of emotion. They did not.
"What?" Ana asked. My shoulders sagged. It had been hard enough to say the first time. "You said you weren't gay," she stated bluntly.
"I know. I...don't think I am." I looked down at my feet, self-conscious.
"I am." Ana countered.
"Um...I noticed." There was silence again.
"I don't get it," Ana said. "You are or you aren't gay?" Her tone of voice was defensive, which was understandable when taken into consideration that I had snubbed her earlier.
"I don't know!" I exclaimed. "I don't think I'm gay, but I do think I like you." Ana didn't seem to be taking the news as well as I had expected her to. She stepped closer, reached out and touched my arm gently, seeing that I was troubled.
"I'm sorry," she said kindly. "I honestly thought you were gay the whole time. You definitely acted like it."
"And, you? You've dated girls and stuff?" I asked. Ana laughed quietly.
"I have had crushes on girls since I was in second grade."
"Oh. Wow." It was funny how Ana had a knack of making me feel out of my league.
"But I've only seriously dated three, actually. And none veryrecently. But I would...I did want to try it out with you."
I stared at the grass. "Um, I don't know," I mumbled, panicked.
"No, you get me wrong," Ana reassured me urgently. "I wanted that before I knew that you don't usually like girls. Don't worry about it. No pressure. Let's just start over, okay? From scratch."
But as soon as I knew Ana wasn't pushing to start a relationship I felt infinitely better. After all, I knew that I wanted her, even if I didn't know anything else about it.
"How about not completely from scratch?" I hinted. Ana smiled, one eyebrow rising in a question.
"That works, too."
I follow at Lauren's heels as we climb up the stairs like I hadn't stepped up this same stairwell hundreds of times previously. I watch my feet as I climb, noting the shadows that I cast across the sharp angle of the wood. I imagine that these shadows are my past self padding up these same stairs. I wonder what I was thinking at that moment, if I was happy. If I was with Ana. A part of my brain acknowledges that Ana's shadow is also on these stairs, somewhere with mine. That my past self will always be, at some point, climbing stairs with Ana. Or at least our shadows will be.
The hallway at the top of the staircase is no less familiar to me than the rest of the house, but I am content to trail behind as Lauren leads the way. I am not sure that if I were in front I would have made it past the kitchen at all.
The door to Ana's bedroom is ajar slightly, as Ana always left it, but I know that it has been entered since it was vacated. Lauren gives the door a small push, and it swings open, not bothering to emit the cliché creak. Ana's room is kept just as mine is—a state of ordered disaster, clothes spread on the floor but never in the way; books shelved but un-alphabetized. No drawings cover the walls, but I know precisely where she keeps them.
Lauren and I stand like a drawing of The Evolution of Man, the shorter behind the taller in single file, both staring into the small yet gaping expanse of Ana's bedroom. Lauren, the model of a proper human, moves into the room; but I, ape, have not yet learned to walk upright. I am not even sure that I can exist in Ana's room without her. Wherever her shadow is, it isn't in there.
I realize that Lauren also knows where the drawings are as she kneels down and pulls open the bottom drawer of Ana's bureau, which squeaks loudly. With a massive rustling, Lauren lifts up a great stack of loose-paper sketches in her arms and carries them over to me.
"Mom has her sketchbooks," she explains. I nod, but I'm staring at the uppermost drawing. My own face looks out at me, a drawing that I don't remember ever posing for.
Ana was a very straightforward person. If she wanted something, then she would clearly make it known to me. I didn't always give it to her, but paradoxically, Ana was just as ready to comply to my wishes as she was to express her own. It always seemed strange to me that with her blunt nature she had carefully crept around the issue of her attraction to me for so many weeks.
She explained to me that she was in the habit of letting other people make the first move. She didn't like to be the one initiating any relationship, but she was adept at singling out the type of person who would be attracted to her.
"Has anyone ever said no to you?" I asked her one evening as she attempted to creep my shirt up over my head.
"You do," she answered, kissing me. "All the time."
"How frustrating that must be for you."
"You've no idea."
Ana's habit of talking while she worked had rubbed off on me so that we could hardly go a minute without saying something. We didn't whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears, but actual conversations were often held between kisses. Ana also had no problem with discussing our relationship openly in front of Derek during art class, which at first was more difficult for me. Far from being ashamed of Ana, however, I grew more comfortable with it as time went on. My parents, however, were still in the dark.
"I can't!" I complained to her as she tried again to lift my shirt. "Mom could come in any second!" It was Saturday and we were lounging in my bedroom, but my parents were right down the stairwell. My mother's knocks would give us enough time to stop kissing, but no one could put a shirt back on that quickly.
"Blah, blah, blah," Ana murmured, kissing me again shortly and then sitting back against the headboard of my bed. "I guess we shouldn't be kissing at all if you're that worried." She started combing her fingers through her short brown hair, attempting to straighten it.
"Wow," I said. "Ana Carson is actually being rational for once?"
She made a face at me.
"Sarcasm does not become you, my dear." Ana was wearing a red t-shirt and ragged denim shorts, splaying her bare legs out on my bedspread. "In any case, this only gives me the opportunity to lecture you further on gay culture." She settled herself into a lying-down position as I groaned. Since Ana had found out that I'd never heard of Geography Club, she'd taken it upon herself to teach me all the knowledge I was apparently lacking in the gay culture department. She clapped her hands together.
"Pop quiz! Okay, let's start with Elton John."
"Ana!"
"No? How about Virginia Woolf?"
"Stop it."
"Okay, okay. Tegan and Sara. Extra credit point: Why are they a terrible band?" I hit her in the face with a pillow just as my phone rang. I crawled over Ana to pick it up, hushing her with my hand.
"Hello?"
"Fisher?" The voice on the other end made me freeze. "Hey! It's Simon."
"Oh. Oh! Hi," I managed, turning my back on Ana. I hadn't heard from Simon since the day that he broke up with me. It had only been a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't thought about Simon more than once or twice in that time. Now here I was: sitting on my bed with a girl. I licked my lips self-consciously as I thought this, and Ana suddenly piped,
"Jane Lynch!"
"What?" Simon asked, as I shook my head at Ana sternly and put a finger to my lips.
"Nothing. How are you?"
"I'm...good. I'm actually very good. I'm in town for the weekend."
"You're—no kidding!" Even as I said this I worried that my voice sounded too fake, so I cleared my throat.
"I thought maybe we could see each other? I mean, maybe tomorrow afternoon?"
"Tomorrow. Yes, yeah. Yes, I think I can do that. Yes. I mean...well, yeah." Behind me, Ana sniggered at my word choice.
"What time is good for you?"
"Noon, I guess."
"Okay, I'll come by."
"Cool. Alright. Bye."
"See you tomorrow."
"Right." I hung up and stared out the window with the phone still sitting in my palm.
"Who was that?" Ana asked. "And how come you say yes to them? Like ten times?" Despite myself, I had to laugh.
"That was my ex-boyfriend," I said.
"No kidding?" Ana asked, looking delighted.
"His name's Simon."
"Huh," Ana mused, smiling to herself. She stretched one long leg upwards and pointed her toes at the ceiling for no apparent reason. Then she began to giggle.
"What?" I asked.
"It's just so funny to think about you being with a guy. I mean, you are just so gay, Fisher. I met you and my gaydar went absolutely haywire."
"I don't have gaydar," I said sullenly.
"No. No, you do not," Ana chuckled. "I still can't believe that you didn't know I'm gay. I just don't know how that happened."
"I know now," I said, trying to be coy as I leaned over her upturned face. The door opened, and I jerked upwards, almost falling off of the bed. Bridget stood in the doorway, her eyebrows raised. "Hi!" I practically yelled. Ana sat up coolly and gave Bridget a friendly smile.
"What's, uh, going on?" Bridget asked, looking from Ana to me.
"Well," I said. "Well. Bridget, this is Ana; Ana, this is Bridget."
"Nice to meet you," Ana said politely, but she stood up and started to gather her things. "I should go, though," she explained, "but I'll see you tomorrow morning." She squeezed past Bridget, who still took up the threshold of my room. There was silence for a moment.
"Your mom let me in," Bridget said by way of explanation, walking over to my easel and pulling out the wooden stool to sit on. Inwardly I cursed at my mother and her disregard for privacy. Bridget watched me expectantly. "So?" she finally said. "Are you going to tell me what's going on between you and that girl, or what?"
"Ana," I automatically corrected.
"Right." Bridget didn't move a muscle. She had always been an extraordinarily difficult person to read. She had white blonde hair that was often mistaken for being fake. Men would approach her expecting the typical dumb blonde and were always surprised to encounter Bridget's cold, calculating stare. She overanalyzed situations and was overbearing, but most of all she was my best friend. As harsh as she was with other people, she tended to be easier on me because she understood me, just as I forgave her for her seriousness because I understood her. All the same, I hesitated before answering the question.
"There is something," I admitted. Bridget rolled her eyes.
"Fisher, please. I'm not stupid. You've been blowing me off to hang out with her for weeks. I mean, that alone doesn't really mean anything, but now..." She trailed off, gesturing at the bed where I still sat, the phone in my hand, my hands in my lap.
It had only been two days since Ana and I had talked after art class, but two days was a supremely long time for me to keep something so enormously important from Bridget. The truth was, I felt that telling her was giving up something that I had to myself for the moment, that was only mine. I didn't want Bridget's knowledge of Ana to taint what I had. And, just maybe, I didn't want Bridget to look down on Ana, for Bridget was rational in every way that Ana never was.
"She's basically my girlfriend," I finally managed. Bridget narrowed her steely blue eyes in thought, but said nothing. "You don't even seem surprised," I added. Bridget only nodded a little as if she weren't listening to what I was saying. Then she blinked.
"Well, okay." She said this very definitely, as if the conversation had ended.
"Okay?"
"Yes. That's okay." But now that I had started to talk about it, I didn't want Bridget to dismiss the subject.
"You think it's a phase, don't you?" I prodded. Bridget sighed.
"No, not really. Not at all, in fact. Fisher, you are one of the least impulsive people I know. You worry about everything. You live in your mind, trying to learn about yourself. It would be completely unlike you to follow a whim, or act out, or whatever. I think if you're with this girl, then you must really like her."
"I do. I like her."
"Well, I mean, that's all that matters." She smiled.
"Well...thanks," I said, stunned.
"She's pretty," Bridget added congenially.
"Thanks," I said again, chuckling. Suddenly I remembered why I was still clutching my phone. "Bridget. Simon called." Bridget shrugged.
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"It is a bad thing! He's back for the weekend and he wants to see me and I'm here with Ana—"
"Fisher. Please," Bridget interrupted. "Do yourself a favor and calm down He broke up with you, remember? It's none of his business if you are suddenly a lesbian."
I started to argue that I wasn't 'suddenly a lesbian', but then let it go as I mulled over what she had said. I wished that I had paid attention to Simon's breakup speech more carefully. I couldn't remember anything that he said specifically, and I worried that somehow there had been a loophole, that I had inadvertently promised him something by agreeing with him at the end.
"Do you think that he wants to get back together?" Bridget asked. I chewed on my lower lip.
"It doesn't really matter," I replied. "I wouldn't anyway."
Lauren offers to give me the drawings, but I know they aren't mine to have. At first there is a quiet but heated discussion, but Lauren sees that I really mean it and she puts them back once I have looked at all of them. In so many I see my face peering out at me, or smiling, or sleeping. It seems that my past self, tiring of the staircase, snuck past us into Ana's room and onto her paper, not wishing to be forgotten.
As if I can forget. My memories are one and the same with shadows; they hang over my head and darken everything around me until I can only see the world in blacks and whites. Looking out at the rest of the world from within my shadows it all seems so incredibly vivid, like a cartoon. Life is only a cartoon that hasn't been shaded in properly until you lose someone that you love. Then come the shadows.
When I get back to my own house I head straight for my bedroom, slap open my sketchbook, and stare at Ana's portrait. It pales in comparison to those that she has done of me. Everything pales in comparison. I rip out the page, something that I have never done in my sketchbook before. Behind that drawing is another, and then another, and then I am tearing pages out as fast as I can until my sketchbook is empty. My body feels exhausted, so I crawl into bed with my clothes on, though it's only two in the afternoon. My drawings are scattered on the floor, leaves of paper like fallen leaves of trees. I regret what I have done, but not enough to fix it.
"I wanted to surprise you when I called," Simon said as we strolled down the street, nearing my house. Coffee with Bridget had already been consumed, assurances of well being exchanged. Simon had offered to walk me home, as I hadn't driven the few blocks to the coffee house, and Bridget had conspicuously taken her leave to let us speak privately. I found myself anxious, hoping that Simon would not bring up the one subject I desperately did not want to talk about. I could feel it, though, hovering somewhere near.
"So, are you going to be heading back soon?" I asked.
"This weekend, actually."
"Busy, busy, busy."
"Yeah. Look, Fisher. I actually want to talk to you about something while I'm here." Simon stopped in his tracks three houses down from my own. With dread, I halted next to him.
"Okay," I managed. Simon didn't waste any time. He took a deep breath and said,
"I'm not coming back in the fall."
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. "What?" I asked.
"I like working with my uncle, and I like the town. I think I am going to take a year off before I start college and earn some extra money. They could really use me."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. It's what I want to do. I know we'd hoped we might be able to get back together, but I don't think...that's not going to happen."
I blew out air from between my cheeks. I had completely missed that part of Simon's breakup speech the first time, but this was the price I paid for not paying attention.
"You're really quiet," Simon remarked.
"If that's what you want to do," I replied, "I think it's great." He was probably just glad that I wasn't crying all over him. Simon had always treated me as if I were much more emotionally unstable than I actually was.
My good luck with Simon that afternoon only made the feeling of lying in Ana's bed the next night all the more glorious. I felt suddenly free of something that I hadn't known was holding me back.
Neither Ana nor I were asleep, but her eyes were softly closed. Her arm was thrown over my body as she lay on her belly; her face nestled partly in her pillow, partly in my shoulder. I watched the dim night light from the window as it slept on her face. Her eyebrows were only still when she was falling asleep. Ana mumbled something.
"What's that?" I asked.
"I'm glad you worked things out with your boy. Simon."
"Oh. Right."
"He doesn't think I am some kind of psycho dyke who is going to corrupt you?"
I laugh, but suddenly remember that I hadn't told Simon about Ana at all. "Hardly. And by the way, don't fool yourself into thinking that you have corrupted me in any way." Ana pushed herself up onto her side to talk to me with more ease.
"Can I ask you a question?" she said, and then continued without waiting for a reply. "Have you really never thought about girls in a romantic way before? Think about it, though, before you answer. It might not be obvious." I thought about the subject for a moment.
"Not that I can think of," I replied. "But then again, I guess I wouldn't have known at the time. I didn't know with you."
"Until I kissed you."
"Yeah. So, do you ever like guys?"
"Definitely not," Ana sighed with resignation, "I experimented a little, but it really did nothing for me."
"Experimented? Like what?"
"I had sex with one," she said, looking past me pensively.
"Really?" I asked, shocked.
"Yeah, it was absolutely too weird for me. Men are so much more hairy and large and, I don't know, hard."
"That's disgusting."
"You would know better than I," Ana laughed. "And that wasn't what I meant."
"Not really."
"Not really, what?"
"I wouldn't know better than you," I admitted. Ana gazed at me.
"Fisher...you never had sex with Simon?"
"No." Ana sat up, half laughing.
"No kidding? Holy shit." At the look on my face she stopped. "Oh, come on, Fisher. I don't care, I think it's sweet." She gathered me into her arms and kissed the crown of my head.
"I just never wanted to," I grumbled sullenly. Ana chuckled.
"You might be gayer than you think," she told me.
"And you? Sleeping with a guy made you decide that you liked girls?"
"Nah, I mostly knew already. I like tits too much." She squeezed my breast quickly and I slapped her hand away.
"You are so inappropriate," I complained.
"Aw, you like it," Ana returned. She kissed me on the nose and as she did, thunder rolled in the distance. She climbed out of bed to look out the window. "Something wicked this way comes," she remarked. She dropped the sash.
I wake up and I miss Ana. I have no idea what time it is because I unplugged my alarm clock yesterday. It's still light outside, and sunbeams lie lazily on the floor atop my drawings like a cat. Anger flares up in me at the thought that my drawings are napping on my carpet with such peace, so I purposely step on them on my way out the door. I stop in the doorway and look back at them where they now crouch, damaged. Guilt fills me and I retreat back into my room to gather them up. Seeing Ana's face again pulls out an intense longing to be with her, to see her again. I can hardly stand it, so I head out of the house to the place that I know she'll be.
I never could coerce Ana and Bridget into really getting along. If I was to be honest, it was mostly Ana's fault. Although she was never openly hostile or rude, she made absolutely no effort to get along with Bridget. The only fights that Ana and I ever had were spats about Ana's behavior toward Bridget. She apologized, but in the end Ana still thought what she thought, which was that Bridget was uptight. I soon realized that I had been lucky that Bridget and Simon had got on so well. Friends and significant others are a natural recipe for bad. That aside, I managed to split my time between them fairly well. The other fifty people I had known upon graduating high school had seemed to blow away with the summer breeze, but frankly I was okay with that for the time being. My attention was well in demand, and I liked splitting it between Ana and Bridget.
As for Simon, I never told him about Ana at all. I couldn't bear the idea that he would think that somehow his act of breaking up with me had something to do with why I was with Ana. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. Simon and Ana were so separate in my mind that I couldn't imagine comparing them, besides to think that I was happy with Ana, happier than I had ever been with Simon.
Summer was coming to an end as August drew to a close slowly. The heat, rather than dissipating, chose to stagnate in the air. The time spent with Ana and Derek in art class seemed ludicrously short, as if something was slipping out of my fingers. Ana and I spent as much time as possible together outside of class, sometimes with Derek, but usually without him.
"Wow," Ana mused, her voice accompanied by a strange rattling sound.
"Hm?" I asked, not paying attention. I was working on the final project for art class and Ana was screwing around with the items on my desk.
"There are 1.9 calories in a tic tac," she continued, shaking the container again. I looked up.
"Ana, have you even worked on this project yet? At all?"
"Oh, look. It actually says that on the front. 'Less than two calories per mint'. Do mints usually have a lot of calories?"
"Do you usually suffer from such ADD?"
Ana placed her hands on the back of my swivel chair. "Stop working," she commanded, and spun me around. "You need to sort out your priorities. Here, let me do it for you. Ahem," she cleared her throat daintily, "Number One: Ana Carson. Number Two: Entertaining Ana Carson. Number Three—" I stopped Ana's mouth with a kiss and she grinned triumphantly. "You learn quickly," she joked.
"Yes. But I have to work on this before we meet up with Derek. So just give me a second."
"Ah! Oh. Oh, I just remembered something. Look, I can't go with you guys today."
"What? Why?"
"Ah. I'm sorry. Look, an old friend called me this morning and said that she really needed to see me as soon as I was free, and I just told her that I was free, you know, during that time."
"Is she okay?"
Ana sighed. "Yeah, probably, knowing Di."
"Di?"
"Dianne. She's overdramatic. I don't know. I should see her, though."
"Do you need a ride?"
"Oh, nah. No, I'll take the bus. Go with Derek." Derek, Ana and I were going to have what Derek and Ana called, "Epic Cooking Adventure Awesomeness Night: The Sequel" tonight, and the three of us had planned to go grocery shopping for it this afternoon.
"Are you sure you want us to go without you?" I asked hesitantly. "We can always just wait until you get back."
"Don't wait, I don't know how long I'll be."
"But you'll be back by tonight, won't you?"
"Yes, I promise." Ana leaned in close. "Promise, promise, promise."
I see Lauren approaching from a long distance, and feel surprised. Until this moment I had never considered the possibility that anyone knew about this meadow but Ana and I. It is a while before her sound carries to me, muffled by the murmurings of the wind shrugging through the grass and the leaves of the tree. I can hear the soles of her shoes as they crunch down the dry summer grasses. I wait for her to come close enough for speech, shifting my back so that the bark of the tree rests more comfortably between my shoulder blades.
Lauren stops ten feet away, looking down at me. She seems infinitely tall to me from where I sit. The sun angles from behind her, casting a long shadow that spills from her toes and stretches across the grass and into my lap, where it is lost, seeping into the fellow shadows of the whispering leaves above us. Her hands find a home in her pockets and live there.
"Did you want to be alone?" she asks. I can't decipher whether she is speaking in past tense or present tense. It doesn't matter either way.
"No," I answer. I hadn't been alone anyway. Lauren sits where she is, not bothering to move closer. "How do you know this place?" I ask. She tilts her chin up toward the sky.
"The same way you do, I suppose. Ana and I came here all the time as kids. I used to catch frogs in that creek." I peer where she indicated, having been unaware that a creek existed nearby. I realize that I can hear frogs croaking distantly.
"Ana brought you here," Lauren says. It isn't a question as much as a statement, but it hangs in the air, waiting to be answered.
"Yes. Once."
"I haven't been here in years. I didn't realize how much I missed it, out in the city."
I don't feel the need to speak, so I stare up at the leafy branches crowning the tree. Whether she feels the need to fill gaps in the conversation or she actually wants to talk to me, Lauren continues speaking.
"It's strange being here without her." I frown.
"Her shadow is here," I say. Lauren stops looking at the sky and gazes at me with a look filled to the brim with suspicion. Lauren's looks make me feel as if she can see what is happening in my very soul. There is a long pause before she speaks.
"Do you mean her spirit?" she finally asks cautiously.
"No. Her shadow. Ana has been here in the past, so some shadow of her will always be here, doing what she was doing. On some level, she exists, just not on one that we can access, because we have already passed that moment in time. At this moment in time Ana does not exist. But she did. They all overlap."
A thick silence seems to close upon us. Lauren's gaze eventually flits away from mine, losing itself in the tall, brittle grasses.
"Do you really believe that?" she finally asks.
"I don't know. I can feel her shadow on me. All the time. Always."
"A shadow is nothing but lack of light." Lauren's lungs expel air. "You aren't feeling her shadow; you're feeling what's blocking her light. We all are."
We look at each other, saying the same thing without speaking at all.
Derek and I meandered down the aisles of the grocery store. I pushed the shopping cart as Derek danced from item to item, inspecting them each. "What exactly are we looking for?" I asked.
"No idea. No idea. This! This, I want this." He tossed a box of Spanish rice into the cart with a clang.
"What the hell?"
"Fisher, the point of Epic Cooking Adventure Awesomeness Night is that you buy a hell of a lot of random food and then cook it all and put on three pounds. It's a time-honored tradition." He turned a box of macaroni upside down and then replaced it on the shelf.
"I thought that this was only the second time you guys have done this."
"Yes. That is true. Okay, it will be a time-honored tradition. Are you gonna pick something, or what?"
"I get to pick things?" Derek gave me a withering look. "Okay, okay," I said. I looked around and saw that we had come out near the dairy products. "Um, brie?" I asked, holding it up.
"Good choice," affirmed Derek, snatching it from me and putting it in the cart. "But we need fruit to go with that."
"I wish Ana could have come with us," I remarked as we made our way to the produce section.
"Yeah, what the fuck? Epic Cooking Adventure Awesomeness Night is always supposed to be three people! Shopping included!"
"Really? Who was there last year besides you two?"
Derek made a face. "Dianne Strongholde. You don't know her."
"Dianne?" A bell went off inside me. "I think that's who Ana's with right now." Derek stopped in his tracks.
"No. Dianne Strongholde?" I stopped with him, concerned at the expression on his face.
"I don't know her last name."
"It must be her. Crap." Derek started walking again, pensively.
"Wait, what? Who is she?"
"Ana's ex-girlfriend," he replied.
"Oh. The one who designed her tattoo?"
Derek frowned. "Did she? Huh. That's right, I'd forgotten that. Yeah, that tree. They used to go there and smoke all the time."
"Ana doesn't smoke."
"Pot? Yes, she does."
"Oh. Pot. Oh." We emerged into the produce section and Derek put an apple in the cart, then took it out again, saying,
"Apples are gross in the summer. A pear. A pear is what I want."
"So, what's wrong with her?" I asked, prodding him.
"With who?"
"Dianne."
"Oh. Nothing. I mean, she's a bitch. She dumped Ana last winter. I remember 'cause Ana didn't come to class for like three days. It was insane. Dianne was just kind of...ruthless. And constantly, constantly high."
"So why is Ana seeing her?" I asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine." He put a yellow pear carefully into the cart.
I suddenly notice a figure standing hesitantly on the edge of the clearing, watching Lauren and I.
"Who's that?" I asked, pointing. The figure is female, has light brown hair, is short. I don't recognize her. Lauren turns around and the person changes their mind and turns back into the forest, seeming to dissipate among the trees' dappled shadows.
"Dianne. I'll bet you anything it was Dianne," Lauren says softly as we watch her disappear .
"Why is she leaving?"
"She probably didn't want anyone to see her here. She must be too ashamed."
"Why?" I ask. I feel like a child, full of questions. "It's not her fault."
"Who do you blame, Fisher?" Lauren asks sharply. 'There has to be someone. You're human too; you blame. We all blame. Do you think it was your fault?"
"No," I answer quietly. A breeze stirs the grasses.
As soon as the night had ended and Derek had made his exit, I began to question Ana about the day's events. We stacked dishes into her dishwasher as we spoke, our sentences punctuated by the clink of the plates.
"What happened?" I asked, not surreptitiously. Ana, who was rinsing the dishes in the sink, looked at me suspiciously as she slid a blue plate under the water.
"What'd Derek tell you? There's nothing to worry about."
"He didn't really say that there was. I mean, he told me that Dianne's your ex-girlfriend, so I figured that she probably wanted to see you for a reason." Ana nodded, her eyebrows looking forlorn.
"She was really upset. She just got dumped by her boyfriend." She handed me the plate, which I accepted slowly.
"She's...not gay?" I asked.
"Should the concept of bisexuality really be beyond you?" Ana pointed out.
"Oh."
"Yeah. Actually, this was the guy that she dumped me for." She practically growled in frustration. "God, it was the most ridiculous thing. Anyway, now she thinks that she can just get back together with after half a year—"
"Wait," I interrupted. "She tried to get back together with you?"
"Yeah, I sort of expected that going in. It's just typical Dianne." She offered me a rinsed plate but I just stared at her, wondering how she could be so nonchalant. "Don't look at me like that," she said defensively. "I know how to deal with her. She was just being really irrational, which is frustrating beyond belief. I thought maybe we could fix things between us, but she freaked out when I told her I'm dating you."
I took the plate from Ana, feeling a little conceited. "Freaked out?"
"She basically accused me of being, I don't know, wish-washy or something. Except she screamed it."
"She screamed 'wishy-washy' at you?" I asked, half-laughing.
"No, no," Ana replied, a smile tugging on her lips. "I think she screamed, 'Stupid cunt', but I got her meaning."
"What'd you do?"
"I left." Ana shrugged and handed me the last plate, which I stowed safely into place. She began to dry her hands on a dishtowel thoughtfully. "Of course, now I have to go back," she continued.
"Why would you have to do that?"
Ana looked at me as if it were obvious. "Well, I mean, if I don't go back then she'll just always be angry with me. She'll just always be stupidly and irrationally mad."
"So let her be mad," I argued, closing the dishwasher with more force than was really necessary. "What do you care? She was a bitch to you, she dumped you. You don't owe her anything." Ana lowered her eyebrows at me and I could tell that I had entered into dangerous territory.
"There's no reason to be jealous, Fisher."
"I'm not jealous!" I spat back.
"Then why are you acting like this? What the hell?"
"I just want to know why you care! Why the fuck do you care?"
Ana's eyes blazed. "Listen to me, Fisher, 'cause I think you need to learn this: you do not stop caring about someone just because you aren't with them anymore. A relationship isn't just a commitment for the time you're together, it's for as long as you know each other. If she's upset, I will try and make things better because I care about her. Do you understand? And I am going to care about you, too. Even if you don't care about me back, since that is apparently not a concept you understand."
"Don't treat me like a child," I said. Ana slapped the dishtowel down onto the counter, her infamous temper flaring.
"You're acting like a child, Fisher. I just don't know what to tell you. I mean, just—look. I can't blame Dianne for being the way she is. I can just try and get along with her and try to help her out. I don't just have sex with someone and then never speak to them again."
My face flushed red. "You had sex with her?" Ana rolled her eyes.
"Fisher, please. We were eighteen, and in college. Don't be naïve." I couldn't answer, speechless with rage. "Look," Ana continued, "I don't want this to be something to fight about, but I am going to Dianne's apartment tomorrow night to sort things out. You just need to deal."
Without saying a word, I turned and walked out of the house. As I closed the door behind me I caught a glimpse of Ana's face, and I will always remember her expression. She looked so disappointed in me. And it's so hard, now, to get that out of my head, Ana being disappointed in me. The disappointment overshadows the good parts of what we had, so when I think of her it is always that last night that gets in the way, that last moment I looked back. In a way, that last moment will always mean more than the rest, no matter how much I wish it weren't true.
"Whose fault, then?" Lauren prods, as persistent as Ana always was.
"No one's! There's no one to blame! It just happened!" I shout, and the frogs that are croaking in the distance suddenly silence. "It's not important because she's gone, and it's not important because it happened, and that's just the way it is! It's not going to make me feel any better!" I yell, my voice breaking on the word 'feel'. Lauren stares at me in shock and I take a deep breath. "I just...all I want is to be close to her now. As close as I can. And she's is here somewhere. Was." Lauren just shakes her head.
"Where?"
I look down and we are both enveloped in the shadow of the oak tree as if it were trying to swallow us. That, or, it dawns on me, as if it were trying to wrap its arms around us. As if the tips of its branches were reaching for the forest where Dianne had disappeared. I turn and stare at the tree. The breeze shimmies through the branches and the leaves dance with suppressed energy, rustling and chuckling with all their might. Lauren follows my gaze and soon we are both watching the tree without saying a word. The lower the sun sinks in the sky, the longer the shadow stretched out: reaching for us, reaching for the forest, reaching into the grasses and across every tall blade. It's only a shadow, I know, but relatively it is so dark.
