The Road You Can Take

He’d only met her once, and that was because Kennedy had asked her to Homecoming when they were sophomores. She’s said yes, but in the week between Kennedy asking and the actual game, something had come up, and she wasn’t able to make it. Garrett had been a little irritated, because Kennedy complained about her missing it the entire game and even at the party afterwards, but he never said anything.

Garrett thought she was okay – maybe a little unreliable, but okay. She was average looking – brown hair, brown eyes, and in the one class that they had together, she didn’t do much to make herself stand out. She just seemed average – maybe a little smarter than him, because they only had one class together, and that was economics. He wasn’t overly fond of her, but he didn’t dislike her either. She was just there, a constant in the background.

She was the type of girl that seemed to lay low, her name never popping up in rumors, so when Pat came running over Thursday between first and second period, panting her name and some gibberish, Garrett was surprised.

“What?” Garrett was trying to get Pat to speak up, but he was bent over, hands on his knees, trying to gather a breath.

“Sorry -,” he sighed. “I just ran from the two hundred hall, ‘cause I needed someone to tell.”

“Tell what?”

“Do you remember Evelyn?” Pat asked.

Garrett nodded. “We have Econ together.”

“Oh. Well, she’s dying.”

“Dyeing what? Her hair? Wow, Pat, that’s really sprint-worthy news right there. I have to go.” Garrett rolled his eyes, and started to turn away.

“No, she’s dying. Like, her life is dwindling away and soon she will no longer breath or think or be alive.”

“Everyone’s dying, Pat. Shit, do you not pay attention in health?” Once again, Garrett tried to turn away and head towards his classroom, but Pat moved to block his path.

“But she’s dying quicker than everyone else! She has a disease!” Pat was trying really hard to convince Garrett, and he got his point across. Garrett stopped fidgeting and looked at Pat dead on.

“What disease?”

Pat shrugged. “I dunno. I heard Liza talking about it right before English, right? And she must not have been paying attention, because she walked right passed Sam, who’s Evelyn’s best friend, and Sam got really irritated and told Liza to keep her mouth shut about things that weren’t her business. That means that it’s true!”

Garrett blinked. “Okay. What’s the big deal, then?”

“Evelyn is dying! That’s the fucking big deal! Don’t you care that one of our classmates doesn’t have as long to live as us?” Pat was agitated.

“Yeah, I care, I guess. But it’s not our business. If she wanted everyone to know, she would have told everyone herself.”

Pat looked defeated, his shoulders shrinking as he turned away. “Whatever, man.”

Garrett just rolled his eyes again, and started towards the classroom.

The big deal wasn’t evident to him. It didn’t really matter much – well, it did. He wasn’t a total dickhead, and he did feel remorse for the dying girl, but if she hadn’t told a lot of people, that meant she didn’t want a lot of people to know. Making this into something much bigger probably would make things worse. There was only about a week and a half left of school anyway.

Garret spent the next few days watching as the rumor unfolded into something huge. Some people said she had cancer, others said that her liver was bad from being an alcoholic. Some people were nice about the whole thing – sympathetic. They would talk to her at lunch and hold the door open and act like they really cared for her, all along.

Garrett didn’t mean to be cynical about the whole thing, but he thought that the way they were acting was stupid. Did they really think that she would appreciate their friendship now, when she was going to die? Maybe it was different because he wasn’t in her shoes, but if he had been, he thought that maybe he’d want people to treat him the same way they had before. It would be easier if people didn’t know.

It was the end of the day – the bell had rung a minute earlier, but his math analIt was the end of the day – the bell had rung a minute earlier, but his pre-calc teacher held them in afterwards, as per usual. He was walking swiftly to his locker, dodging crowds of girls and the annoying person playing their own game of red light, green light. He has about to exit the new building of the school, heading to the nine hundred hall, when he saw her walking a few feet ahead of him. Maybe he should have said hello, but he didn’t.

He kept a steady pace, passing her. When he reached the end of the hall, he pushed through the door. He didn’t hold it open for her. If she wasn’t dying, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Garrett swore that he was going to treat her normally – he was going to be one of the few people in this school to act like nothing was really going on.

Because, to him, until she died, nothing really was going on. Maybe that’s why, on the day that Garrett let the door fall behind him, not bothering to treat Evelyn like a piece of glass, everything changed.

That door made him in it for the long run.