My Family Members Are Dolls That Never Respond To Me Chapter 09
Half a month later, Adrian finally tracked down where I was, and came to the seaport.
I was walking out of the library when I glanced down and saw him standing at the foot of the steps.
He had lost weight. Dark circles ringed his eyes.
The instant he saw me, something in him seemed to release, as if he had finally exhaled.
“Nora.”
He came toward me fast, his voice hoarse.
“I’ve been looking for you for so long.”
I stopped where I was. I didn’t run to him the way I used to.
I just looked at him. Very calmly.
“What do you want?”
Adrian faltered.
He probably hadn’t expected me to speak to him like that.
Because the old me, even one second after she was furious, would have softened her voice for him the very next.
He gripped the thing in his hand, his voice dropping.
“Nora, I was wrong. You could have gone to that school.”
He held out the postcard, taped back together, toward me.
The crease down the middle was deep.
The strip of tape ran across the bell tower and the lake like a wound that would never heal.
“Nora, I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”
“Annie’s health is fragile. I was just afraid something might happen to her again.”
“I thought, you’re so smart, you’d be fine wherever you went.”
“I’m sorry. I was the one who forgot our promise first.”
I looked at the postcard, and let out a small laugh.
That same reason again.
I’m smart. So I can be overlooked. So I can be left behind.
Annie is a little weaker, a little slower, and that makes it perfectly natural for her to take what should have been mine.
I didn’t reach out for the postcard.
“Adrian, do you remember my first night in that studio?”
His face went pale.
I kept going.
“The drunk next door was pounding on my door. I hid under the blanket and called you seventeen times. You didn’t pick up once.”
“Then the power went out. I messaged you and told you I was scared.”
“You wrote back and said not to interrupt you while you were tutoring Annie.”
“When Annie shoved me and I hit my head, you were standing right there.”
“You told her, it’s okay, no one’s blaming you.”
With each sentence, another shade of color drained from his face.
He opened his mouth, as if to explain. Nothing came out.
Because everything I had said was true.
The moments he’d brushed past so casually just now had been long, dark nights I’d spent alone.
“Nora.”
His eyes rimmed red. “I really didn’t know things were that bad for you.”
I looked at him. My voice was quiet.
“You did know.”
“You just thought I could take it.”
Adrian went rigid.
The silence after that stretched out for a long time.
Somewhere in the distance, someone walked by under an umbrella. The streetlamps came on one by one.
The damp night breeze off the seaport blew past, carrying a scent that was both unfamiliar and free.
Adrian finally rasped.
“Can I start over? Can I wait for you again?”
“You’re so smart. You’ll get into the top liberal arts program for grad school, easily.”
I lowered my eyes and looked at the postcard in his hand.
Once, I really had wanted to go to that school.
Not just because it was the best.
But because he would be there.
But I understood something now.
Someone who truly waits for you doesn’t turn his back on you, over and over, in the moments when you need him most.
I reached out and took the postcard from him.
Under his suddenly hopeful gaze, I tore it in half again. Slowly.
“Adrian, I’m not going to that school. And you don’t need to wait for me.”
The pieces fell into the trash can beside us.
He stood there. His face had gone chalk white.
I didn’t look back.
The road I was walking wasn’t going to lead to him anymore.