Three Novels- Check!

I finished my novel yesterday! Sadly, I'm too sick to really write anything right now.

Sadie has just decided that she is going to reject her offer of admission to Berkeley to move in with Brett in New York City, and apply to grad school closer to the city.

Sadie is sitting in front of her computer screen, willing herself to move. She needs to reject UC Berkeley’s offer of admission to the Charles and Louise Travers department of political science. This has always been what she wanted, long before the idea of Brett had even occurred to her. While one could argue that Berkeley can keep you warm at night because California is considerably warmer than Boston is a lot of the time, that obviously isn’t what that phrase means. Berkeley political science won’t marry you. Berkeley political science can’t love you back.

But if the choice was so obvious, why could Sadie not move her hand about two inches to reject the offer? Why hadn’t she told anybody? Why was she full of this feeling of dread, knowing that everything had somehow gone wrong?

Of course this isn’t an easy decision, she tells herself. But is it supposed to be this hard?

“I’ve made a huge mistake,” she says to herself.

“What?” Brett asks from the other room.

“Oh, I, uh, put in the wrong password.”

“Don’t you think that you’re being a little too critical of yourself?”

Sadie was trying to calm herself, but she felt that she was drowning. Drowning in her own mistakes. When did she become like this? Like someone who gives up their dreams for love? And not just any love, either; love that is completely unreliable and undependable. She couldn’t breathe anymore. It felt like everything in her life was slipping away as she tried to hold on to this one thing. But this love that she was holding onto was just as slippery. Maybe she could hold onto it for now, but the only thing that she could really count on Brett to do was to do what he always did whenever things stopped happening exactly the way that he wanted them to. Brett is like a kangaroo, or perhaps a shark; neither can move backwards. Neither does Brett. He doesn’t think about where he’s been, or anything that has happened in the past, because to him, it’s a waste of time. Sadie, on the other hand, is more like an owl, or that girl who is possessed in The Exorcist. She has an uncanny ability to turn her head all the way around to enable her to always dwell on the past. Brett simply steps over his mistakes, while Sadie stares at them until they are so far away that it is nearly impossible.

Maybe Berkeley won’t keep her warm at night. But it won’t wake up and tell her that it doesn’t love her anymore, either.

“I can’t do this,” she said out loud. Brett had moved into the kitchen, sensing that something was terribly wrong.

“Did the internet time out?”

“No, Brett. I can’t move to New York with you.” Sadie begins to shake and cry, cursing the world for never making anything easy, least of all love.

“Why not?” Brett is disturbed by this sudden outburst of emotion, and not quite sure how to comfort Sadie.

“How could I? Do you really think that you’re a safe bet? That you’re the kind of person that I can commit to? That I can move for?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly.

“How can I throw everything else away on someone who doesn’t even know? On someone who may love me now, but can’t guarantee that they will even love me a week from now?”

“That isn’t fair. Can you say that you will love me forever?”

“Honestly, Brett? Yeah, I think that I will. But that isn’t something that you can understand. You don’t feel things the way that I do. I used to think that it was a curse, but after all of this, I would much rather be me than you. How can you be so indifferent to everything? How can you stand to never be happy or sad? How can you be happy to just exist like that?”

“How can I answer that? I don’t know what it’s like to be anything else. It’s just the way that I am.”

“Exactly!” Sadie shouts. “You have always been that way! And you always will be that way! I keep on thinking that I can change you, and maybe if I love you enough, you will love me the way that I deserve. But you can’t. You never will. And that’s okay, because it’s just the way that you are. But this is the way that I am. This isn’t going to work, and it isn’t our fault, and it’s all our fault, all at the same time.”

Brett stares at her as if she is a wild animal at the zoo; not quite sure what it will do next, but wanting to stay, just for the show. He manages to drop himself into a chair at the kitchen table after grabbing a bottle of beer from the fridge. He takes a long drink with his eyes closed, sets the bottle down quietly, and continues to look at her with a mixture of confusion, annoyance, and heartbreak.

“You’re fucking crazy, you know that?”

“Yeah, I do. And loving you has made me even crazier. I can’t believe some of the things that I did. Considering turning down Berkeley was one of those things.”

“You’re sure that’s what you want? I can give you everything.” Brett always was one for negotiating.

“You can give me a lot, Brett. But you obviously don’t know me at all if you think that what you can offer me is what I truly want. You could propose to me right now, we could get married at the Plaza in Manhattan, and we could honeymoon in Ibiza while I grate cheese off of your abs. You could tell me that you love me every day before you go off to work to make obscene amounts of money and rob the poor of everything that they have. Of course that sounds nice. I hear that Ibiza is lovely, and honestly, I have never even set foot in the Plaza, let alone even considered a life in which I could get married there. But Brett. Come on. When it comes down to choosing between making my own way through the world one seldom read academic paper at a time, or staying with someone who I can’t trust even loves me today, let alone will a year from now, you have to know which one that I am going to choose. I can’t choose you. My heart couldn’t take it. You have to understand that.”

“I don’t,” he exhales loudly. “But you never really made sense to me anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” Sadie says. “I’m sorry to have confused you and told you that I would move to New York with you and then backed out like this. I bet that we could have been together for a long time. It’s terrible to say this, but this is better for us both. I don’t think that you could be happy with me either.”

They say goodbye and make promises to each other to keep in touch, though neither of them really believes that they will. She walks out of the apartment, and the sun is shining brightly, warming her face and reminding her what it feels like to be alive. Sadie isn’t crying anymore. She never thought that she could feel this way, or show this much strength; she almost wants to smile. Brett was like a weight, holding her down and dragging her places that she just shouldn’t go. She almost feels as if she can do anything, and she wants to try. Sadie can’t wait to accept Berkeley’s offer of admission and move to California. Even though she is almost twenty two years old, it is almost as if her life is just beginning.

California, here we come. Right back where we started from.

She almost runs through the North End, garnering curious looks from passers by who are wondering what could have possibly happened to make her feel this happy. None of them get it right, because few can understand how something such as this could make someone so happy: it is freedom, and making your own choices, and finally feeling like yourself again.

She had stopped being Sadie for so long that she almost forgot what it was like; she was always Brett’s girlfriend, someone that she surely wouldn’t have liked if she had met her on the street. But now she remembers who she is, and knows how much she always hopes that it stays that way. Sadie isn’t needy or hysterical or wishy-washy. She isn’t a dog that you can kick, an owl that turns its head all of the way around, the fiery colour red, or a hearty minestrone soup that is filling and comforting.

She is Sadie Desman, and that is, and always will be, more than enough.

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
More about the war
And the bloody changes
Oh will you take me as l am?
Strung out on another man?
California, I'm coming home!