We meet up
at the track where he tells me
he really needs to run
at his own pace today.
I tell him to go ahead
and I watch as he becomes
a man possessed.
He laps me two,
three,
four times,
never slowing down.
After an hour,
I’ve done all I can do,
but the look on his face
tells me he doesn’t want to stop.
So, I quietly walk across the track,
and leave the gift I brought him
in his truck.
It’s a gift bag
with a plastic snake inside,
along with a note:
Dear Nico,
Please don’t be afraid—you ARE helping me.
As for snakes? You should be very afraid.
Love,
Brooklyn
Tues., Jan. 31st—Nico
When I see
the gift bag sitting on the seat of my truck,
something inside of me snaps.
A gift means something.
I open it and yeah, it’s silly and nothing special,
but even a silly little gift means something.
This is heading to a place it can’t go.
I’m not him.
I pound my hand on the steering wheel.
I’M NOT HIM!
Everyone wants him.
Not me.
Thurs., Feb. 2nd —Brooklyn
Yesterday and today
Nico didn’t show.
Yesterday, I swam without him.
Today, I ran without him.
I start to call him
to make sure he’s okay,
but I freeze up.
It’s not like he’s sick,
because I saw him at school.
So what’s he going to say?
That he got tired of my moods
changing faster than he can run?
That he got tired of trying
to lift me up all the time?
That he simply got tired
of me?
So I leave him alone,
because that’s obviously
what he wants.
But I still run.
I still swim.
Harder than I ever have before.
Because I want to do this thing.
Show him I am strong.
And that he really has helped me,
more than he’ll ever know.
Thurs., Feb. 2nd—Nico
I’ve messed up.
It’s like I was trying to make
something easy like pasta carbonara
and in trying to make it the best
pasta carbonara ever,
throwing this and that into it,
I’ve ruined it.
I feel like I’ve totally ruined this thing
with Brooklyn.
I don’t even know what’s happened,
but something’s changed.
It just feels different.
Leaving a gift for me,
that’s not workout partners.
That’s different.
Thurs., Feb. 2nd —Brooklyn
I run into Gabe’s sister,
Audrey, in the bathroom at school.
We wash our hands, side by side,
and I glance at her reflection
in the mirror.
She looks okay.
Normal.
Good, even.
Clear, blue eyes.
Nice color to her cheeks.
She smiles at me.
I smile back.
Just two girls in the bathroom,
doing what girls do.
I should say something.
But what?
And what good would it do anyway?
She leaves,
and I stand there,
studying myself in the mirror.
I look okay.
Good even.
My reflection tells one story.
My heart, a different one.
The difference is,
Mirrors do.
Fri., Feb. 3rd—Nico
As I run,
I find myself
running toward the cemetery.
I start to resist and then decide
to go with it.
The early morning fog seems to
swallow me as I run,
allowing me to see only
a few feet in front of me.
Arriving at the cemetery gate,
the morning light yet to appear,
all the elements of death
are here.
Darkness.
Solitude.
Pain.
All of it surrounds me and
I’m surprised when I realize
how familiar it feels.
I turn and run the other way.
Whatever it is I want or need,
it’s not that.
Fri., Feb. 3rd —Brooklyn
When I wake up,
I sense that
something’s not right.
I look around.
The light is still on.
The windows are still closed.
The room is still neat.
It’s just as I left it.
But as I get up,
get dressed to go run,
the feeling doesn’t leave me
Something’s not right.
As I go to my door,
it’s then that I see it.
My stomach tightens
and my legs shake.
On the full-length mirror
on the back of my door,
is a note torn from my notebook
and stuck to the mirror.
Across the words I’d written to Lucca,
in big, black letters,
it says:
WHY DO YOU RUN?
WHY ARE YOU AFRAID?
Fri., Feb. 3rd—Nico
After dinner,
I go to Lucca’s room
and shut the door.
I look around and think
about the bed he hated to make,
the clothes he hated to put away,
and the dishes he hated to wash.
He was a slob.
I can’t stand a mess.
I want things neat.
I’d never let my room get this messy.
Ma used to bug him about it
all the time.
Not once has she ever had to tell me
to clean my room.
It’s a little thing, I guess.
But it’s something.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Brooklyn
I dream of a room
crisp and white.
I’m at a party,
in a doll-like house
filled with porcelain-like people,
painted to perfection,
their smiles and laughter
buzzing like bees,
stinging my ears
because this is not at all
funny.
I see him
from across the room.
He looks at me,
and walks toward me.
Frowning.
He stands out among
the delightful dolls,
his grayish face
sunken and hollow.
But no one notices.
He just walks,
his eyes holding mine
across the crowded room.
If I turn and run,
where will I go?
If I stand and stay,
what do I do?
Closer
and closer
he comes.
The dolls keep
chattering away,
and laughing,
louder and louder.
“What’s so funny?” I scream.
Silence.
Stares.
Sadness.
My sadness
among their smiles
frozen in place.
Out of the corner
of my eye,
I see Nico,
one of the dolls.
“Help me,” I cry out.
“Please.
Help me!”
“No,” he yells.
“Help yourself!”
I sit up,
panting and sweating,
alone in my room,
the clock glowing 4:56 a.m.
I search my room,
looking for my notebook
needing to write in it.
Where is it?
When did I write in it last?
I stop and realize,
not for quite a while.
And I realize,
not once,
until now,
have I missed it.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Nico
Pop’s at the table
drinking coffee, reading the paper.
I sit down next to him with a bagel.
“Did you call about the job?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “Been too busy.”
He sets the paper down.
“Pop, I’ll get a job this summer, okay?
I’m training now. For a race in April.
It’s important to me.
I need you to understand, this is important to me.”
He’s quiet, his brown eyes thougtful.
“I didn’t realize,” he says. “You never told me.
What race is this?”
So while I eat my bagel
and he drinks his coffee,
I tell him.
And when I’m done telling him,
he says, “Well, Nico, that’s quite the endeavor.
I find it honorable that you want to finish what you’ve started.
I wish you good luck, son.”
He pats my arm before he picks up his paper.
I look at him and realize,
maybe I overreacted.
Maybe more than once.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Brooklyn
Mom calls me,
giving the notebook search party
a much-needed break.
When she asks what I’m up to lately,
I tell her about the training,
which prompts lots of questions.
When we’re done,
I hand the phone to Daddy
so he can talk to the boys.
Over and over again,
he tells them he misses them.
He loves them.
Like he’s afraid
he’ll never talk to them again.
The truth is,
we both understand,
you just never know.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Nico
I think back
to last Saturday
and how she shared
pie, pictures, and pieces of her heart.
Today, I get a seven-mile bike ride
alone.
Pretty pathetic.
Unless . . .
Sat., Feb. 4th—Brooklyn
Back in my room,
I tear everything apart
looking for the notebook.
It’s gone.
Vanished.
Taken by a ghost, I assume.
Damn him.
Damn him for coming in here
and messing with my life.
Damn him for giving me
cryptic messages
that make no sense.
I have to figure it out.
I have to figure out
what it all means.
And I have to figure out
what to do to get him
to leave me alone.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Nico
I used to work out
by myself all the time.
But this morning,
when I thought about not seeing her again,
it felt about as wrong
as going to school on a Saturday.
Her dad answers the door,
and invites me in.
I wait while he goes and gets her.
When she finally comes down the stairs
in polka-dot pajamas,
her hair sticking out on one side of her head
and smooshed flat on the other,
I fight the urge
to go over and hug her.
Because she is more
than a workout partner.
She’s become my friend.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Brooklyn
“Nico.
What are you doing here?”
“Thought we’d go for a ride.”
“I, uh, I didn’t expect you.
I mean, after last week.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.
Had some stuff going on.”
“You could have called.
E-mailed. Something.”
“I know. I’m sorry.
Forgive me?”
I start to pace the floor.
“I’m not sure I can go right now.
I’ve got some stuff going on myself.”
“Can I help?” he asks.
I want to say—
Help?
You want to help?
Get rid of him!
Just make him go away
and leave me alone!
But I don’t.
Instead I start to shake.
My whole body starts to shake
and I have to sit down.
Once on the sofa,
I put my head in my hands
and tell myself not to cry.
He doesn’t need to see me cry
again.
I take a deep breath.
Then I look at him.
“No, Nico, you can’t help.
I wish you could.
But you can’t.”
Sat., Feb. 4th—Nico
I sit down
at the other end of the sofa,
silence sitting on the cushion
between us.
Finally, I have to try.
Tell me,” I whisper to her.
“Brooklyn, please.
Just tell me.
What’s really going on?
You can trust me.”
I think about that.
Trust me.
Have faith in me.
And yet, why should she?
There’s nothing to prove she can trust me
except my words.
She trusted him.
She had faith in him.
And he left her forever.
Something tells me she’s not forgetting that
anytime soon.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Brooklyn
He’s giving me
an open door.
Do I go?
Do I walk through?
What’s on the other side?
Once I go through,
I can’t go back.
Once through, I’m there.
My nightmares become his.
My fears not my own.
Will it change anything?
Will it change how he sees me?
Will it change us?
He reaches over,
takes my hand,
and with his thumb,
gently caresses it,
trying to tell me
it will be okay.
I jerk my hand away
and stand up.
I slam the door
closed.
Sat., Feb. 4th—Nico
We go from zero to sixty
in about a second:
From sitting there,
going nowhere,
trying to get her to say something
to getting up,
her saying, “Let’s go,
I’ll change my clothes,
then we’ll hit the road.”
Just like
that we’re moving
and yet really
we’re right back
where we started.