Exceptional short story People We Once Knew : Maze by estory

I woke up early in the morning again, in a cold sweat, out of the same nightmare I had been having. I had gone over to Julie's house. Someone there told me she had moved. They gave me directions that took me to a strange, urban neighborhood, with menacing people sitting on the steps of the stoops, watching me. I kept driving around in circles. Finally I pulled over and this tough looking guy walked up to my car with his hands in his pockets. When I rolled down the window, and asked him if he knew where Julie was, he pulled out this hand gun, pointed it at me, and fired. I couldn't sleep, and after a couple of hours of tossing and turning, I finally got out of bed, put some cereal in a bowl, and made a cup of coffee. I sat at the table and looked up at the picture of Julie on the opposite wall. It was taken in happier times. She was smiling, waving at me. I couldn't tell if it was hello or goodbye. Julie was in rehab. It was the second time she had been in, and this time she had been in for a little over a month. I missed her, I wanted her to come home; but sometimes it felt that she would never be really back. There was this side of her, you know, this part of her that seemed like something dark that I would never understand. And even if she did come back, I could never really be sure that it was 'her'; you know what I am saying? If you haven't been in love with someone who does drugs, or don't have a brother or a sister on drugs, you probably don't know what I am talking about. Julie and I met at work. I was stocking shelves on the overnight shift in a grocery store, and she was the overnight cashier, and if there were no customers, she was supposed to help stocking shelves. She looked lonely to me, someone who needed somebody. She was always asking for help trying to find where things go on the shelves. I would go and help her. She had these soft looking brown eyes, I thought, and whenever she saw me, she smiled, like she was glad to see me. When there was nobody in the place in the dead of the night, we got to talking. She liked music. She wanted to go places. I told her I would take her away, to Florida, California, anywhere she wanted to go. When I told her that, she smiled. I think I liked the fact that she seemed to need me. We started going out, after work, first for coffee at this late night diner, or maybe out to one of the fast food restaurants on the strip. We would sit there at one of the tables, past midnight, looking at each other and talking. She told me she didn't get along with her parents, that she wanted to move out. She didn't like it at home. I told her everyone's got to move out sometime. I met her parents once, when I went over there to pick her up. Her father seemed cold. He was sitting in his living room recliner watching a game on TV, drinking a beer. I don't think he shook my hand. He looked at me like I was trouble, you know? He frowned at Julie and told her not to stay out too long. When Julie came downstairs from her room, her mother lectured her about cleaning her room and doing her laundry, and Julie just looked at me and got red. She ushered me out the door and when we were outside, she grabbed my hand and told me she didn't want to come back home. Sometimes we'd go to a movie, but mostly we just drove around. We'd park somewhere in a lot and listen to music, or just talk. We started talking about saving money and getting an apartment together, one of those basement places in a house. We could split the rent and save, and someday we could go to Florida. We'd leave her parents behind. There would be no more winter. It would be summer all the time. We could get married if we wanted to. My mother was always asking me when I was going to get married. "Someday," I'd answer. I asked her what she thought of Julie, and she shrugged her shoulders. "What do you think of her?" she asked me. "I love her," I said. "What do you love about her?" I thought for a moment. Then I said, "She needs me." "Do you need her?" My mother asked. "Everybody needs someone," I said. Even now, I'd say that was true. After breakfast, I cleaned off the table and looked out of the window. It was a grey, overcast day, but still, it was brightening. I looked out over the rooftops of all those houses, over the grid of the streets, and it seemed like the world stretched away forever, around me. I could go anywhere. I could get another apartment. I could meet someone else; someone beautiful, young, and different. Someone who wanted to have kids. But then I thought of Julie sitting in that little room in the rehab, waiting for me. She would be looking forward to it. I had to go up there and see her. She always smiled when she saw me. She would say she was feeling better. She would tell me she was almost ready to come back home. But I couldn't be sure if she was telling me the truth, or not. She did a good job of hiding the drugs while we were going out. It was pot and coke she was on, by the way. She never did them when I was around. I would have never imagined it. Maybe it was because I didn't want to believe what she was doing. I had this image of Julie, like all people have visions of the people they love. We'd get married, someday. We'd have kids. We'd decorate the Christmas tree together, she would make Sunday dinners, wrap the kids birthday presents like my mother had done when I was a kid. We would take our kids to little league games and make burgers in our backyard and play board games like Scrabble and Parchesi. I didn't see this broken part of her. This girl that ran away when someone tried to get close to her, and wouldn't let anyone touch her. Or hold her. And I wanted to hold her. I needed her. I got dressed and made some brownies. Julie liked brownies. We made them a couple of times on rainy days while we were living together. I liked bringing her something. She didn't like flowers or balloons. I felt funny going up there empty handed, so I brought brownies. While the brownies were in the oven, I looked out of the window again, It was a grey, cold day, a little windy. It looked like early November. It felt like early November. Last year, when Julie and I started dating, it was great. I felt like I was in love, and she was in love with me. She seemed happy. She sang along to songs with me, she laughed when I mimicked the managers in the store. We talked about Florida and living like hippies on the beach, going to concerts and sitting under the palm trees. One night, I put my arm around her and kissed her. She smiled at me, but then she got quiet. Then the next night, she called and said she couldn't see me because she was sick. A couple of nights later, it was her mother. Then it was her grandmother. I didn't think anything of it at first. She would be back a couple of days later, looking tired, but then after work we'd go out to the diner and she seemed fine. She'd laugh. The manager of the store would get mad and call her to the office, but she would tell him how sorry she was and how it wouldn't happen again and he would just shake his head and tell her to get back to work. She would walk passed my aisle and flash me a smile. She would come up to me in the aisle, pick a can up off the shelf, and put it back up there with the label facing out, like it was supposed to look, and ask me if we could go to the diner. She would tell me how sorry she was that she had missed our date. I would tell her to forget about it. "Maybe you should see a doctor," I told her. "Get yourself checked out. Find out what's wrong." She would put her hand over her heart. "Maybe I should," she told me. But she never did. Then came the time I bought her that gold necklace. It was on the anniversary of our first date. I spent a lot of time picking it out for her, I wanted it to be something special. I kept imagining how she would look when she saw it. How she would smile. Then, when she opened the box, she looked at me and started crying. "What's wrong?" I asked her. I reached out to hold her, but she leaned away, like she was scared, or something. "Nothing," she said. "It's beautiful." Then she gave a quick kiss and smiled. But she got quiet after that. That weekend she called me and said she had to help a cousin move. She wouldn't be able to see me. I was a little mad. I had made reservations at a restaurant. I wanted to take her to the movies, and then get a bottle of wine and go back to my apartment. I was looking forward to it. I was thinking of asking her to move in with me. I thought it was something she wanted. "Julie," I said, over the phone, waving my hands in the air. "You keep doing this." "I know," she said, on the other end, softly. "I'm sorry." "Sometimes it feels like whenever we are getting somewhere, you pull away from me." She was silent for a moment. Then she said, "I have to go." I had thought of leaving her, of breaking up with her. I asked my mother about it. "If you don't think the relationship is getting to where you want it to, then you have to think about leaving her, and finding someone who will get you there." she told me. I folded my arms and leaned on the table, staring out of the window at the wide, but empty sky. "Find someone else," I murmured. I could picture Julie, sitting in her room, crying, after I broke up with her. Seeing all her dreams disappear. Wondering what she would do without me. "Where do you want to go in life?" My mother asked me. "What kind of relationship do you want?" The trees outside the window were empty of leaves. I shrugged my shoulders. The brownies were done and I took them out of the oven to let them cool. I looked at the picture of Julie on my kitchen wall, then I stared back at the brownies. It seemed sometimes that I was doing a lot for her, that I was the one who was reaching back for her, and getting nothing in return. I was wondering if I should go see her or not. I looked back up at the picture. It seemed she needed me and I couldn't let her down. Then came the night we were going to this coffeehouse to start planning our trip to Florida. It was back in the spring. She called me an hour before we were supposed to meet and told me that her aunt had been rushed to the hospital, and that she couldn't come. "Julie, this is what you said you wanted to do forever," I told her, "This is what we've been talking about for months. Getting away. Starting over." "I know," she said, on the other end. "I don't know what to think anymore," I said, my voice rising a little. "I don't know if I believe you anymore." "I have to go," she said, and hung up. I don't know why, but after an hour, I drove over to Julie's house and parked down the block. Her car was gone. I didn't know what to think. I looked out of the windshield at the stars above the streetlights and the telephone wires. They seemed impossibly far away, out of reach. I wanted to tell her to make up her mind. I wanted to tell her to tell me if she wanted to go with me or not. To tell me what was going on. After a while, I saw her car pull up. She didn't see me. She parked ahead of me, and turned off the lights and then she turned off the car, but she didn't get out. She just sat in there. I was beginning to wonder what she was doing, what she was up to. I waited another five minutes. She was still sitting in the car. So I got out and walked over there. I bent down and looked in the window. She rolled down the window. "What the hell are you doing here?" she exclaimed. On the seat next to her was a mirror with a rolled up dollar bill and a razorblade, and two lines of coke on it. So that was how I finally caught her. She just looked at me. I turned around and walked away and got into my car. I could hear her calling after me. During my drive back home, I decided to break up with her. I told myself that I couldn't trust her. I couldn't deal with the problems of a drug addict. How could she be the mother of my children? When I got back home, Julie called. The first time, I paced back and forth in the living room, and didn't answer it. The second time, I heard Julie's voice in my head, pleading with me to answer the phone. I remember looking out of the window at all the stars in the sky that stretched beyond the skyline of the buildings around me, and for one moment, all that space, the freedom to go anywhere I wanted and meet someone else, seemed to rush into the room with me. It was like a wind, at once fresh and exciting, but as it picked me up, I could feel my feet reaching for the ground. I could see that look in her face. I answered the phone. Julie was crying. "I'm sorry," she said, "I need help." I sat down in a chair at the kitchen table. "Julie," I asked her, "Is this what you've been doing all those times you said you were sick?" "I'm sorry," she said, "I know I have problems. I need help." "I don't know if I can help you," I told her.' "Please," she said. "Don't leave me. I'd die. I need help. Call somebody." So that's how she went into rehab the first time. I called this place, a place that took her in, no questions asked. We had to use the money we had saved for Florida, but the insurance from work covered the rest of it. Her parents were mad. She packed up her things and I waited outside in the car for her. Her father came to the door and yelled at her. Then I drove her over there. I don't think they came to see her; maybe they went once when I wasn't there. I went over there every other day. If I didn't go to see her, I'd sit in my apartment and imagine her sitting in that room by herself, waiting for me. She did alright. It was a three month program, and she seemed happier as it went along. They taught her how to play the guitar. They gave her painting classes. Things to express herself, they said, when she couldn't talk to people. She had a counselor, and he talked to her and got her to come to grips with all these things with her parents. He said it would be best if she moved away from them. So I told Julie she could move in with me. It would be a new start. Everyone needs a new start sometimes, the counselor said. She could go back to work, and we could start saving for Florida again. At first, things were great. She was sober. She moved in with me, and went back to work like we planned. We opened a bank account and started putting money in for our trip. We looked at maps. I showed her how to cook things. We cleaned the apartment together. One night we went to the diner, had a few beers, and went back to the apartment. We were alone. I kissed her. I thought she kissed me back. Then we went to bed and made love. Making love to her was strange. It felt like making love to someone who had cheated on you, and afterwards I had to wonder if she loved me more than the drugs. She got quiet again. She started coming home and telling me she had headaches. She told me to sleep on the couch. Then one day, she didn't come home from work. She didn't call. I kept walking back and forth in the apartment, looking out of the window, looking for her car, as the night grew darker and darker. I called her parents, but she wasn't over there. Eleven o'clock and twelve o'clock passed, and when I went to bed, I started thinking the worst. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, imagining her out snorting coke somewhere in a parking lot, getting arrested, passing out on the street somewhere, alone. She had left me. I was angry at her, and angry at myself for trusting her. I told myself I had to move on. I had to break up with her and find someone else. That morning, I woke up half hoping to find her in bed with me. But she wasn't. I got dressed and looked out of the window. Her car was still gone. No message on the answering machine. I got something to eat, made a cup of coffee, and still there was no call from her. I got in the car and went down to the bank. Sure enough, the teller told me that a young woman had withdrawn the money from our account yesterday afternoon. She had taken our Florida money. I got back in the car and just drove. I felt like getting as far away from there as possible, far away from Julie and all the things and places that reminded me of her, and the time I had wasted with her. When I got back home, there was a message from her. She said she had messed up, she knew she had messed up, she didn't know why, but she would make it up to me. She sounded like she was crying. I wiped my eyes and deleted the message. Before she could call me back I put on my jacket and went out to the diner. I had a beer there, feeling sorry for myself, and looked around for some company. I was looking for someone new, I remember, someone that would take my mind off of Julie, someone with whom I could go off in a new direction. Then, I saw this pretty brunette come in, and she sat at the bar and looked at me and smiled. All I had to do was buy her a drink, say something, tell her she was pretty, ask her about her day; anything would start me down that road. I know part of my wanted to, said I deserved it. But somehow in the face of that moment, I thought of Julie. Sitting somewhere waiting for me to call. Her only hope. Crying. I left a tip, put on my jacket and walked out, without saying a word. I went home. When I got home, Julie's car was parked in front of my house. My heart was pounding. I got out of the car, and saw her sitting on the stoop, waiting for me. When she saw me, she started running over to me. She was crying. I just stood there and waited for her. "Julie," I said, "How could you? What the hell were you thinking?" "I don't know, I don't know," she said, "I'm sorry. I know I messed up. I'll make it up to you. Just don't leave me, OK? You're all I have." "You took our Florida money, Julie!" I yelled. "Please," she said, "I still have some of it left. I'll give it back to you. Here. I'll go back into rehab, anything." She looked at me. She looked at me like I was her only hope. "Oh Julie," I said, embracing her. And that's where we are now; her second rehab. I picked up the tray of brownies and put on my jacket and headed outside to drive over and see her. The sky was still grey. It looked like it would never clear. I got in my car, started it up, and started driving. I knew I could go where I wanted to. I could leave her. But then I would leave her in that room, waiting for me, bowing her head when she realized I wouldn't be coming. And I knew I would go and see her. The rehab center was big, brick building; it looked like a prison. In a way, it was. I went in and said hello to the nurse at the desk, and smiled back at her when she checked me in. The halls of the place went around the corners of walls, in their endless pathways, passed the open doors of rooms where you could see kids waiting for their parents, husbands waiting for their wives, wives waiting for their husbands, and people sitting in their rooms by themselves. I thought to myself that at least, Julie and I had each other, and my step got a little lighter. Her door was open. She was sitting in a chair by the window, reading a book. I knocked on the door and walked in. She looked up and smiled. "You brought me more brownies," she said. "I did," I said, sitting beside her. "How are you doing?" "Good," she said. "They say I can go home soon. I want you to know, I'm glad you didn't leave me when you could. It saved me. I've been doing a lot of thinking. I want to stay clean, for you. I love you." She put down her book and leaned forward, and I kissed her. "Julie," I said, "I need to know. Are we ever going to get out of here? For good, I mean?" She looked out of the window. I looked out of it with her. Outside, it seemed, on the western edge of the world, there was a thin, bright break in the clouds. "I hope so," she said. Author Notes This story of two people who need each other is one my favorites. It's a story of compassion, through the struggle of drug addiction, of two people holding onto each other as they walk through the maze. Will they ever get out of it? I think everyone ends up rooting for them; maybe we'll never know, but we end up rooting for them, and their compassion and need for each other. Love is about forgiveness, about giving up yourself for the other person, about hope, about light in the darkness. I wrote the story in a stripped down minimalist style, inspired by the short stories of Raymond Carver and his many incredible stories of suburban America. I wanted a believable, conversational style, one that draws you in and makes you feel that this could happen to you. To anybody. And in this maze of life, and its struggles, our only hope is each other, and the love we have for each other. estory

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