1 White Lies 1 Light of my life I was a freshman at Halston College in 2017, six hours from home, three hours from Jack, my steady high school love, an adolescent eternity from writing this story. I thought you were far away too until I found you on the first page of a packet passed back to me by a faceless peer in an acrylic desk. Probably a fall breeze hurried through the window, late for an appointment on the nearby lake. Probably I tapped my foot, just as impatient as the changing season. We were studying famous opening lines. The first, Vladimir Nabokov. Edgy, infamous but beautiful all the same — it’s hard to deny. I thought so the first time I read it all the way through and still do today. Nabokov is the college English professor’s bread and butter. It goes like this. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. I wish I could remember what I felt in this exact moment. Truthfully, I can’t but I imagine I was intrigued. I was always one to seek out deeper meanings for everyday happenings, the reason behind catching 11:11 repeatedly on the clock, butterflies floating past. Any strange pattern or coincidence would do. This one was not too different from the rest, but it’s a good place to start. I was placed on the Intro to Creative Writing roster thanks to a survey I filled out before move-in day. What classes did I take senior year of high school? What was my intended major at Halston? Any special interests? Sure, I loved to read and by extension, liked to write. As I’m writing this story now, I haven’t written in a long time — one or two scrapped poems, a nonfiction essay that won a runner-up prize. The products of a few frustrated moments of mine. I’ve always dreamed of writing something good, something profound, something with teeth, and this might be one of my only stories worth telling. Others have done it. I’ve read and reread my favorites too many times to count. I’m far enough away now to see and I hope, to feel. I picture this story like a cup of white hot tea, finally cool enough to sip after years of blowing ripples on the surface, made to taste with a spoonful of honey and a squeeze of lemon, honesty and pain respectively. 2 I’d told the Halston survey my major would be serious and practical because I was serious and practical. Or at least, I wanted to be. I’d go with Biology, I had the memory for the names of the organelles and the taxonomies. I’d probably be a nurse like my Mom, a doctor maybe. One better. But as much as I liked being serious and practical, I also thought of myself as something of an artist. I’d grown up a dancer, specifically a student of ballet, but had given it up when the going got tough. I could be called a passerby creative, labeling writing a hobby rather than a serious path for my future. Older me smirks now, the me who never became a nurse, the me who still isn’t sure if I’ll be brave enough to claim this story as my own, but arrogant enough to write it anyway. My parents remain blissfully unaware, my current boyfriend willingly ignorant and a few others burdened with half-truths shared over glasses of shimmery pink wine thrown up later, forgotten. So, Intro to Creative Writing squeaked its way onto my first semester schedule. I wrote about my parents' embarrassingly blasé divorce, a childhood bully who died in a tragic accident when we were in second grade. The scar I have on my knee from him. I wrote nonsense fiction based on books I’d brooded over in middle school. Not fiction at all. I wrote about ballet. I didn’t write about you, Mr. Biel, even though you taught me how. In fact, you wrote my letter of recommendation for this very school. But I couldn’t give you away just yet. How could I? If I wrote about you, I’d have to write about me. 2 Boys and girls I would describe myself as lonely, but not alone. I’ve never had many female friends, really only one that’s hung around until now. I’d like to think it’s because none of the women in my family had any either. Certainly not my Mom. Again, only one for her that’s stood the test of time. In her family, my Mom was the youngest of five by a wide margin and the only daughter. She lost her father at 15 and her mother at 16, to lung disease and a brain tumor. It’s possible she was afraid of losing anyone else, distrustful of the universe’s intentions for her life. She was just a kid, sad and out of control. She reflects in bits and pieces now. She calls herself emotionally volatile, insecure, anxious. Who could blame her? Not me. An odd presence in her oldest brother’s house alongside his new wife and baby, not unwanted but definitely not wanted, either. When she remembers my birth, she remembers relief as I gazed up at her. Relief not from pain but relief because I was the first in a long time to truly need her. Not a fleeting want, but a more permanent, soothing need. Daunting to most, but not my Mom, this small baby who would not abandon her. 3 She told me, you’ll think you love your husband but for your baby, you’d push him in front of a train if you had to. She laughed like this was the funniest joke in the world. One of those jokes that’s funny because it’s true. She met my Dad fast and married him faster. He cheated on his live-in girlfriend shortly after they met, but he was in love. His parents alive, but seriously aloof, unavailable for comment. He was looking for someone to take care of, she was looking for someone to take care of her. It made sense. But in the end, they grew up like kids always do and parted ways when I was 10, my sister Fallon, just three. Today, they have better suited partners. I have a half-sister, Colbie, twelve years my junior. My parents reminisce and embrace like old friends. They sat side by side when I graduated from Halston. They love me unconditionally, they always have. They loved me so much that other missteps didn’t rattle me so badly. I struggled to understand girls my age, but tried my best. In elementary school and middle school I kept up appearances. I was invited to sleepovers, to dances and camping weekends. But anyone who looked closely could see I was on the fringe, tending to bond to one particular person rather than the group as a whole. My chosen few all eventually fell away for one reason or the other. Boyfriends too, although easier for me to manage. Before Jack and after, younger than me and older. With girls, I was always guessing. It felt like taking tiny shuffling steps in a dark room, hoping not to knock anything over, but always hearing that inevitable crash. Boys are much more direct. I look back at old conversations and don’t recognize myself in the words. This story isn’t about them. I’m not the victim or the perpetrator. I imagined myself tuned into a different frequency than everyone else. I obsessively compared myself to Bella Swan from Twilight . I hoarded every copy in the library. I clicked through photos of one of the ex-best friends on Facebook. She has two babies now. Boys. Why can’t I remember what happened between us? I tell myself I was set up to fail. I miss her. Am I misunderstood? Weird? Self-absorbed? Lazy? It’s so hard to see yourself clearly. These definitions matter and don’t, at the same time. I wanted to be special. This story is my justification that I am special. My love letter to me. I’ll call myself Summer, like the months I’m going to write about. My small stature, slender frame and narrow oval face are cute, but not threatening. My looks have never matched my actual age and still don’t. I have straight brown hair, the color of coffee gone cold and dark eyes, almost black. I have full lips, a bright smile and graceful hands with long fingers. I’m pretty, but not overwhelmingly so. Beautiful in the right light, depending on your taste or your mood on a Wednesday. 4 You, Mr. Biel, could likely smell the loneliness on me like a sweet vampiric perfume, mingled with the wonderful blend of naivety, cockiness and longing that only teenagers can so perfectly possess. Jack by my side did not do much to dull the scent. Humbert Humbert wrote that one must be a madman and an artist to see the lurking power in a girl before she knows it’s there, if ever at all. But I shouldn’t give you that much credit, should I? You found me, but I wanted to be found. 3 Cleaning The events of this story all happened one summer just like I said, after I graduated high school. Arguably the weightiest summer of them all. I was still crystallized in the sugary candy coating of childhood, but diligently laying in the sun by my parents pool, trying to melt it off. But we all know this residue never truly comes clean, sticking to the palms of our hands and the soles of our shoes. Leaving stains on everything we touch. I have a May birthday, spring into summer. I wanted to wear a nametag that said “Hello, I’m An Adult”. I had a hard time finding a job, not quite ready for something as studious as an internship and traumatized from my stint in a local bakery the year before. You would have thought the place was being run under martial law. Flour and bullets everywhere. I couldn’t eat any more cupcakes. Anyways, the grocery store across the street was hiring a part-time maintenance worker. My step-Dad saw the sign. I interviewed with the surly old supervisor who didn’t balk at the thought of a five foot tall, newly-minted 18 year old girl hauling bags of trash to the dumpster and running his electric floor scrubber. He needed help and I became, for lack of a better word, a janitor. The hours were early but the shifts and commute were short. I often went back to bed for hours when I got home. I could wear headphones if I wanted and pour myself a free coffee after I’d wiped down the machines. Only Patty from produce and Steve from management were there at the same time as I was. We traded nods and waves, not much else, which was fine by me. I had a damp closet for an office but it was mine, and I liked the fact that you were up early too, Mr. Biel, to keep me company while I worked. The job was mundane and predictable and I liked that I could peek at my phone between sprays of mirror cleaner, concealed by the propped open bathroom door. You liked to get a workout in before breakfast. I found out your twin sons were vastly different from one another, in not only looks but intelligence too, a point of incredible stress for the whole family. You were quite the accomplished baker, and I complimented you on the pristinely golden loaves you pulled from 5 your oven each weekend. It figures, you made the pizza dough by hand the first time I went to your house. I listened to your acoustic guitar music released under a moody pseudonym. Some of your songs were actually quite good. I had a playlist. I learned that your Dad, Polish, was distant and your wife, German, was the same. In my closet you admitted to me that you were addicted to porn, but ashamed. It meant a lot that you trusted me with this confession, Mr. Biel. It was a clever move, one I didn’t see coming. You confided so much in me I can’t seem to recall everything, but I’m trying. Rather than scroll all the way back through the messages I close my eyes and see what comes to me. It’s more fun that way. A bit of flash, a bit of drama. Maybe it’s a cop out. Maybe I’m scared of the girl I’ll see in hindsight, always 20-20, the steady exhale of recognition. Memory is a fickle thing. I remember when the first message came in, the day after graduation. I sat at my kitchen island, flowers still posed in their vase. It was expected, like the first drop of rain in a summer storm. Predictable as the squeak of the mop and the hot bitter taste of coffee in a paper cup. Biel in Polish means “white” or “brightness”. I enjoyed that I was right about you all long and I’m sure you enjoyed that you were right about me, too. No need for the messiness of dangerous games played over long months, Mr. Biel, you followed the rules and won. 4 The monster I fell in love with Jack because he fell in love with me. I loved to be loved, didn’t question it when it chose me. Why shouldn’t it, choose me? I was 15. A sophomore. But I was very lucky as it goes for girls with this predicament. Jack was kind and sensitive, he followed my lead. He was a middle child, through and through. He had unruly black hair and warm blue eyes, he wore beat-up sneakers with Sharpie drawings on the rubber and a leather cuff around his wrist. He played the drums. I didn’t need friends if I had Jack. On our first year anniversary, he scrimped and saved to buy me a sterling silver locket, on our third, a soft leather purse the color of a beach seashell. He was gentle and sweet when I lost my virginity to him at 17, he kissed my cheek for photos at senior prom. He loved his Mom. He made me laugh until I nearly fell on the ground. He’s getting married this year, to the girl who mended his broken heart, courtesy of yours truly. I’m not sure what Jack knew, thought he knew, or even what he suspected. We never discussed in detail. Mr. Biel, you were his teacher too for a time, since our highschool was so small. You taught English to the whole junior class. I continued on but Jack chose science books over poetry. You were even my faculty advisor senior year, so I saw you each morning at 8:20. It was clear to me, to Jack, to most I assume, that I was what you’d call a favorite. But you were careful, Mr. Biel, and hid me innocuously among others. 6 But what’s high school without these types of half-erased lines? The Latin teacher that took a select few to breakfast at the diner down the road on a Friday morning. The Math teacher who shared some compromising photos of his post-college trip to China. Jack house-sat on occasion for our history and art teachers, a married couple. I came along. We found a jar of pot in their spice cabinet. We pawed each other on their pool table. We never told anyone. I try to picture a sinister moment between us, Mr. Biel and I can’t. Once I snapped a selfie with you in homeroom but that’s all. You with a quizzical grin, sitting behind your desk and me in front. Boundaries. It’s all fun until it’s not. There was a freshman whose parents found texts on her phone. Another English teacher — I swear, I can’t make this up. I’d never met this teacher, but the girl, I’ll call her Laura, had developed a reputation as his classroom pet. It happens. The details were vague, they’d exchanged cell phone numbers, he bought her some gifts. Expensive makeup, a giftcard or two. Her family was pissed. He was promptly investigated and quietly resigned. There were murmurs, but they dissolved. I checked recently, he was never charged. It didn’t get that far. I would die to know what you were thinking when this was going on, Mr. Biel. I was a junior at the time. You told me you were fantasizing about me already but still six months from sifting through my social media profiles, mindlessly clicking on photos and silly “Like for a rate” posts from my past. Sheepishly hovering over the “Add Friend” button you wouldn’t hit just yet. Maybe you considered this lesser colleague of yours to be a form of divine warning, a reminder from the Gods above, be patient, they chided. There was one incident years ago you told me, only one. At a camp in the woods you and your wife taught at each year for extra money. Completely innocent, a pet name you’d used in an email. The girl was skittish, you got a light slap on the wrist. Another important lesson. While you waited I grew bored of Jack. Is that horrible to say? I grew antsy and cagey. Ready to leave the monotony high school behind. I was sick of his passivity. He agreed with me so often I started testing what he would go along with, just for the hell of it, attempting to pick small fights. Would he drive with me in the passenger seat on his junior operator’s license? Would he lie to his Mom? I wanted him to challenge me, but he didn’t bite. I dictated what colleges he applied to, even though I know now he didn’t really want to go. Were you just another piece of wriggling bait for me, Mr. Biel? When you invited me over for dinner with your family, Jack held his tongue. When I began to lie and sneak and lean forward so my hair fell over my phone screen, Jack laid his land on my leg and told me he loved me. His eyes gazed into mine with complete faith and sincerity. It did nothing for me. There’s something going on, I wanted to scream at him, something wrong, something dangerous and I’m the target! I wanted him to save me from the monster that was wedging itself between us, but whether that monster was you, Mr. Biel, or me, I can’t say for sure. 7 I let things drag out with Jack for too long. Until the end of first semester at Halston. We broke up over the phone. I just need time to figure out who I am outside of us, I told him. I’m not sure our lives are going in the same direction. He told me he would always see me as the 15 year old girl he fell in love with. He would always be rooting for me. I can’t remember if I cried. I hope I did. I saw him one more time, after school ended and after we ended too, Mr. Biel. We had sex, but when he looked at me I knew he knew then, I wasn’t the same. He unenrolled from college two weeks later. 5 Family affair You invited me over to your house for dinner sometime in June. I told my parents it was a graduation celebration for all of Mr. Biel’s advisees that year, and even some of his wife’s too. She was a special education teacher at our school’s second campus. What a lovely thing to do, my Dad said. They hoped I had a nice time. I couldn’t use this lie on Jack though — too risky. I told him I didn’t want my parents reading into anything, but the dinner was no big deal. Like I said, he held his tongue. I picked out an outfit and a pair of gold hoop earrings, casual but put together. Dressier than what I would typically wear to school. I had my own car and I felt like I was flying over the bridge that led to the sleepy town where you lived. A place I was sure no student had seen before me. I was so curious. Your twin sons were just 3 years younger than me, you’d been with your wife for nearly twenty. I never heard how you explained my coming. I felt welcomed like a family friend you hadn’t seen in a while, your sons examined me with mild suspicion. Your wife seemed pleasant, albeit reserved. You were making pizza bianca from scratch. There was some kind of refreshing salad. A bubbly drink in a can. We sat on the patio and chatted about college, travel, your years in the Peace Corp. The upcoming senior class who would never be as great as mine had been. We exchanged jokes. You strummed your guitar a bit and when the sun dipped below the horizon, I got in the car and drove home. I can only guess at your motivations for this charade of a dinner. It could have been to show me around this place where you existed outside of school, to take yourself out from behind the desk. You were a man with passions and hobbies, you wore pajamas and did the dishes. Come back another time, it’s safe here. Maybe it was all for the benefit of your wife. Would you so callously wave this waif under her nose if you were up to anything unsavory? No. You couldn’t be that stupid. Maybe you said I had a school girl's crush and this was your tender way of saying goodbye. Maybe it was a taunt and I was a pawn in a private war. I don’t know. Or maybe it was just the last string of your restraint coming loose, Mr. Biel, like the final chapter of a book speeding toward its inevitable close. You couldn’t bring yourself to turn the page. I understand. You said you held back tears as I crossed the graduation stage, feeling a crushing 8 sense of anxiety at the thought of not seeing me again. This could have been your liferaft tossed into the ocean, floating in perilous waves, an arm's length away. You would make time write one more chapter, the last that became the first. 6 Lavender I’ve been avoiding writing this part of the story. It’s uncomfortable for me to remember, but remember I must. I only saw you three times the entire summer. That dinner was the first. The second was also at your house a few weeks later, only this time, no pizza bianca , no family to greet me. They’d all be out of the house for the day, you said, gone to visit your wife’s sister who you didn’t like much. You were staying behind to get ahead on some house projects. Did I want to come over? I pictured you typing out this message to me and deleting it over and over like a cowardly teenager, agonizing over the order of the words before hitting send. Would your intricate, silvery web hold up or would it give way under the pressure, and drift away? You were a master weaver, Mr. Biel, there was no need to worry. I don’t think I contemplated the decision to go to your house again much longer than I contemplated anything those days — bagel or English muffin, beach or pool, gold hoops or silver studs. I chose you quickly Mr. Biel, because I felt like I might disintegrate if I didn’t. I had to know the story ended. Conveniently, my Mom was working at the hospital that weekend and I was at my Dads. He didn’t so much as blink when I said I was going to Jack’s for the afternoon. This was usual. He trusted me to a fault. Maybe this story is about men who should have protected me, but didn’t. Speaking of Jack, I gave him a flimsy excuse as to why I wasn’t coming over, maybe that I was going shopping and out to lunch. I wouldn’t be on my phone. I felt completely crazy shaving my legs in the shower, smoothing two coats of mascara over my eyelashes and typing your address once more into my GPS. It was an out of body experience, like they all say. But after all, how many of those do you get in life unless you seek them out? I was exhilarated but not afraid. You didn’t scare me Mr. Biel, I knew you so well. We were just two close friends, hanging out. One thing I couldn’t figure out, Mr. Biel, was why you never seemed worried about getting caught. When I arrived at your house, I parked right in front and you met me at the door. There was no glancing around for nosy neighbors peering through blinds. When I asked when your family would be back, you said you weren’t quite sure. Sometime later. After all, I was 18, which meant there was no crime for the neighbors to call in. No highschool principal to inform, as I was no longer a student there. It’s not like I was a virgin. Maybe, Mr. Biel, you simply didn’t want to alert me to the fact that this was anything other than perfectly normal. 9 I remember one of the harder questions I asked you after this second visit — how did you feel about cheating on your wife with me? You appeared unmoved by my bluntness. You asked me the same question right back. How did I feel about cheating on Jack? I paused. I hadn’t really thought of it as cheating on my part, Mr. Biel, only yours. But you were right and I was a cheater. I didn’t like thinking that. Maybe you really loved me and didn’t care about the rest. We moved around each other politely in the kitchen for a few minutes after I came in the house and you got me another drink. The same can I’d had last time. We chatted to fill the empty space where your desk would normally be. Would I like to sit on the couch? I knew the way to the living room already. When you kissed me it was light and tentative, like you were asking permission and I was vaguely disgusted. I held still and followed your lead, happy to drop the reins I held so often with Jack. I retreated into my head when we walked into your bedroom down the hall. I don’t know that I believed this would ever truly happen, Mr. Biel, and now it was. I felt like a child leaning over the side of a rickety dock to get a better look at a fish swimming below. I leaned and I leaned until the thing was just an inch from my nose and then I fell. I was shocked when I broke the surface of the water even still, totally surprised that I wasn’t catapulted backwards by some invisible force whose only purpose was to protect me from myself. But at least I knew the fish was really there and not just a figment of my imagination. It was real in the water and so was I. I stayed in my head when you took off my clothes, Mr. Biel, so no shame came over me. The fear I’d been waiting for never showed either. It’s probably worth mentioning I was not attracted to you, not in the traditional sense anway. I don’t know if I’d ever said that before now. Your hair was gray and your eyes were rather small and flat blue, like a hard enamel that’s lost its shine. No like Jack’s. You were tall but pale and even your early morning workouts couldn’t hide the loose weight and wrinkle of age that were making their home in your body. I was attracted to you because you were attracted to me. I let you touch me as long as you wanted, and I touched you the best I knew how. You couldn’t really get it up though, Mr. Biel, after all this tension, all this patience. You gave it a valiant effort but it just didn’t work. I think you were shaken but I knew enough about boys not to make a fuss, I smiled and pulled my clothes back on a different girl. An adult at last. Your room was boring and mostly white. At first glance, not much to see. But did I remember that your wife was distant? That you didn’t feel she truly understood you, Mr. Biel, couldn’t give you what you needed. Especially after your sons were born. Too busy, too old, too tired. No wonder the porn was a necessary escape. It's her fault you couldn’t get hard and it’s not like you didn’t try to please her. You opened the bottom drawer of your dresser in that unassuming room with a flourish, Mr. Biel, and showed me an array of sex toys in a full rainbow of colors, shapes and sizes. You’d spend 10 hundreds of dollars trying to get her interested but she would not acquiesce. To this, Mr. Biel, I didn’t know how to respond. You wanted your wife to have fun with you, but she wouldn’t. And now look what's happened. Before I left, you coyly handed me a small white box. A gift you said. Inside was a dainty vibrator you’d picked out, especially for me. Lavender, the girlish color of a late spring bloom. I hope you think of me when you use it, you said. I nodded gratefully and hid it underneath the spare sweater in the trunk of my car. 7 August The third and final time I saw you, you came to me. I was home alone. No shift at the grocery store until the next day. I was at my Dads again, a rented single floor house on a gravel road with dark wood flooring that always seemed to be covered with dust. It was a weekday, dry and hot. My Dad was at work, my sister at theater camp. The summer was winding its way to a close. It was early August, when the grass starts to whisper about September nights soon to come. I had just begun packing for Halston and would drive the six hours upstate at the end of the month. I was happy to spend my days filling bins with laundry detergent pods and clicking through web pages of matching cotton bedspreads in neat floral prints. That’s a nice thing about being a teacher, you too have the summers off to do as you please. You asked me what I was up to, to which I said nothing. Show me, you said. I leaned over the railing again. It was too tempting. I sent back a picture of myself smiling widely in a thin tank top that rode up my stomach, sticky with sweat. I was in my bedroom. My shoulders were bare. You said you were working on those darn house projects — still not done. In fact, you needed to pick up a few things at Home Depot. You called the store in your town but they were out of stock. What you needed was at the store 30 minutes away, in my town. You told your wife you’d like to take a drive, and would be back in a couple of hours. You asked me if, after the store, you could stop in to see me. It’s amazing that you had no qualms about driving to another mans home and stepping unapologetically across his threshold to his waiting daughter. Did that feel wrong, Mr. Biel? You didn’t have a daughter, so it might be hard to imagine. Could you imagine my Dad coming home early from work and smashing you over the head with a lamp? No, I couldn’t. I wanted to. But my Dad wasn’t that kind of guy, not anymore. You stayed less than an hour, more confident in your purpose this time. You were able to get hard for my hot pink sheets and stray dirty socks on the ground. The bag of half eaten candy on my nightstand. I snapped another photo of us before you left, I’m not sure why. Evidence from the scene of the crime that wasn’t a crime. Something to show this happened, you were here and I knew it. 11 You never told me not to show anyone. Not to say anything. Maybe you wondered if that would make me want to. I’ve fantasized about writing to your wife or to my high school but it's not that I can’t. It’s that I won’t. This story will have to suffice. As you kissed me on my Dads doorstep, I think we both knew this was goodbye but pretended it wasn’t. There might be another opportunity, another magic moment that might offer itself to us. I love you, Summer, you said. And I love you, Mr. Biel. I love that you love me, my heart reassured my brain. I arrived at Halston before September had a chance to brown the grass as promised. I sent you pictures of the square dorm room I shared with a girl called Lexi who wore too much blue eyeshadow. We continued to text like friends clinging to a safe and familiar past, unwilling to navigate the uncertain future alone. Me, on the sprawling lakeside campus and you back in the same old classroom with new faces reflecting back at you. I sent you the syllabi for my classes and you even read first drafts of my pieces for Intro to Creative Writing. But I was busy getting to know myself in the context of this place and badly wanted not only to succeed but to be liked. Our conversations became punctuated by trips to the communal showers or dining hall, cut off all together by dance team tryouts and the first parties I attended. You, like Jack, could feel me fading from your grasp. You resorted to tactics you probably scoffed at years before, when they were used by the other English teacher, the one who was caught. When my coffee maker broke, you sent me a new one, purple to match the other gift now sitting untouched in my underwear drawer. When everyone was wearing Birkenstocks, you sent me a pair in sandy taupe that I wore until the soles gave out. A baby blue stuffed hippo tucked between my throw pillows, a couple of packages of my favorite candy. I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty accepting these presents. I should have answered you more, but what else did you want me to say? I asked Jack this same question point blank. He didn’t have an answer. 8 Endings and beginnings I remember searching for Lolita in the library later that year and devouring the yellowed pages in my free time. I was enchanted by the prose, it’s exquisite descriptions and raw observations of the world. I thought Lolita should have been more appreciative of the adoration she received, the pure devotion and the marked distinction that she was special — different in some way, from all the rest of her kind. I looked for myself in her, looked hard, as I’ve heard other girls like me tend to do. I looked for her pain. I didn’t find it but I loved her story anway. I find it comforting and listen to the audiobook with my eyes closed whenever I’m alone and it’s raining and the day is right for remembering. Our last exchange was near the end of winter, Mr. Biel, in late March when I was worried about an exam I was sure I would fail. I was never good at chemistry, but it was a necessary credit for 12 the Biology major. I nearly ran through the blustery cold to the amber-hued warmth of the library, the wind at my back ushering me forward, impatient as usual. Your last message to me was a plain one — assurance that everything would be okay. I rolled my eyes at the platitude. It was something my parents would say and did not nearly encompass the magnitude of emotion I was feeling. I set my phone face down on the table and when I picked it back up, I was again a different girl than a few hours before. That happens, when you’re young. And I was young. I am young. I grant myself that. I never made any promises to love you forever, Mr. Biel, only for a while. You knew I’d leave you eventually and let me go with dignity, like a newly hatched butterfly you held delicately in your palm before it’s first flight. I think you were careful in your own way, Mr. Biel, not to crush my paper wings in your fist but some things are so fragile in their beginnings that any touch at all might last a lifetime. If you took the time to look closely enough, you would see the etchings of your eyes and your hands, bright and foreign on my skin like hieroglyphics of a lost language. I don’t feel much toward you anymore, Mr. Biel, no real resentment or sadness or nostalgia for summers gone. I’ve gone on to love and be loved again. Who I am now is a different story. One I won’t be able to write until much later. But I’ll carry on knowing and not telling what happened between us, as so many girls do for so many men, and in this, I’m unique and I’m not. I’m special on these pages and on others I disappear into the white. What was the end of you was the beginning of me and so on and so forth into the web of time. If you ever read this, Mr. Biel, I wonder if you will recognize yourself in the words. I hope you will read this and remember that I am real.