Free Every You, Every Me by David Levithan Page B

That’s not what I mean.”
    “Then what do you mean? Letting go. Do you really think it’s there because we’re holding on to it? Do you really think it’s that easy? I’m not holding on to it, Jack. It’s holding on to me. And it’s holding on to you, whether you ignore it or not.”
    Jack’s right hand curled into a fist. Not to hit me—just to be a fist.
    “Look, Evan—I wasn’t good at this with her, and I’m not good at it with you. I can’t fight you over it. I can’t. Call me whatever you want— heartless was a favorite of hers. And you know what, I’ll have to take it. But I’d rather be called heartless than keep living in this mess she created. I thought it was going away, and now this evil girl is doing whatever she’s doing with the photos and trying to pull it all back. But I can’t play that game. It’s a game, Evan. And sometimes you have to walk away. Don’t play it.”
    “You’re not heartless,” I said. “She never called you heartless.”
    The fist unclenched, then went back to being a fist.
    “Of course she did, Evan! I was there. There are times you have no idea about. You weren’t always there. Just like I wasn’t there when she was alone with you. She would disappear in front of me. And then she’d reappear and she’d say the most awful things—about me, about herself. Mostly about herself. Of course, now I know what it was, but I didn’t know then. I was too caught by it. It hurt to hear those things, Evan. She would tear it all apart to find her ‘truth.’ If I tried to hold her, she’d tell me to get off. And if I just sat there, she’d say, ‘Why aren’t you holding me?’ Long hours of this. And I’d be afraid to go, and I’d be afraid to stay. ‘Just moods,’ she’d finally say. ‘I’m sorry—I was in a mood.’ Well, yeah. That’s what we both thought. That’s what all of us thought, right? Because we didn’t want to believe anything else.”
    “But, Jack—”
    “No—let me finish. It’s time we had this conversation. Because I don’t think you’ve been angry at her yet—and you need to be angry at her. You think it’s about what you didn’t do and what I didn’t do and maybe what her parents didn’t do and what her other friends, whoever they were, didn’t do. You might even think it’s about what she didn’t do. But mostly it’s about what she did. Whether or not it was under her control, she did it. And if you’ve done any reading about it, you’ll know that there isn’t anything we could have done to stop it. It was inevitable. We were just lucky—or unlucky—enough to be there when all the pieces fell apart from each other.”
    A fractal is generally a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be broken into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.
    “Evan, listen to me. I don’t want you to fall apart, too. You understand? If this photographer shows up, I will gladly put her in her place. But you can’t let it happen. And if you follow her, you’re letting it happen. You are.”
    His voice was trying to be calm, but I could hear the fractures, I could feel him gluing the calmness together. I wanted to say I need you, but I figured you’d said that, too. I wanted to say This has to be done, but I knew it didn’t have to be. Not to him. Because he was separating himself. And I couldn’t.
    “I’ll go without you,” I told him, gambling that he wouldn’t let me go alone.
    He tilted his head, disappointed. Then he slapped his hands on his thighs before standing up.
    “You’ll do what you’re going to do,” he said. “I’m not going to stop you. I just want you to realize that I tried. And that you can stop playing the game at any time. I can help you with that. But I can’t help you play it. Not anymore.”
    “Is this because of Miranda?” I asked, not getting up.
    “No,” he said. “I had to let go of some of it before I could even talk to Miranda. I