Always Chloe and Other Stories by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Author:Catherine Ryan Hyde
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-11-13T22:00:00+00:00

I wake up in the middle of the night. On the couch. Scared that I even let myself sleep long enough to have a dream.

The dream was that I could hear somebody in the room with me, crying.

I sit up, sit still. Breathe as quietly as I can.

I can still hear it.

I reach over to our little lamp and turn it on.

Jordy blinks into the light.

He’s sitting out in the living room with me. On the floor. Wearing nothing but red boxer shorts. Leaning his bare shoulder on one of our big weird windows. Which I know has got to be cold. And he’s crying.

He turns his face away, like he doesn’t want me to see.

“Turn off the light,” he says. “Okay?”

So of course I do, right away.

My stomach is all icy and numb. This has got to be big. In all the time since I knew Jordy, I only saw him almost cry once. It was when he was burying this really nice old dog we knew. And even then, I never actually saw a tear run down his face. And it wasn’t the kind of crying you could hear, either. It was more that sense that he almost could cry, if he let himself, and even that seemed like a big deal at the time.

“Jordy. What’s wrong?”

He mutters something, but it’s too quiet to hear.

I wrap my blanket tight around me and go sit on the floor near where he is.

I say, “What did you say?”

He says, “I said, ‘Everything.’”

“But you’re getting married. You should be happy.”

“That’s just it,” he says. “I’m getting married. I should be happy. But how can I be happy when you’re so miserable? I have no idea what to do.”

Neither do I.

But I do the only thing I can think to do.

I let the blanket fall off me, and I reach out and put my arms around him and hold him as tight as I can. Even though that makes him cry even harder. I don’t let him go, either. I just hang on, and he just cries and cries.

And cries.

I feel like I’m holding his heart. Like there’s hardly any more Jordy wrapped around his heart anymore. He’s mostly just bare heart. And it feels like something that’s very easy to break. Like one of those dainty little china cups you wouldn’t let a kid use.

No. It’s even easier to break than that. It’s like one of those incredibly light, thin Christmas ornaments that just fall apart in your hand.

My stomach does this big lurch, like I might throw up, and then I have to think real hard about settling it down again. Until it almost works.

I remember now. That’s how I made my mother cry. I always remembered her crying, and that it was my fault. But I didn’t remember what I did.

But now I remember.

I was standing in front of the Christmas tree, holding this ornament. Waiting for her to take it and hang it on the tree. I swear I didn’t feel like I even squeezed it or anything.

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