Avoid All Entanglements

“I know what happened to you.”

She was wearing the Look, the downturn lips, the sympathy in her eyes and the way she kept shifting her weight foot from foot like she didn’t know how to position her body, these were all familiar to me. The only difference between her and the rest was how she was staring back unflinchingly at me. I half-wondered what I looked like to her. Did it make a visible difference to someone when you discovered their tragedy?

Dad’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. He was standing at the stairs, his hair rumpled from sleep. “Spence, who’s at the door?”

There wasn’t even a choice anymore in deciding whether to pretend that it wasn’t anyone I really knew and what my father would really want to see. Somewhere along the way, in the part marked After, I’d turned into a girl eager to please, to smooth things over. “It’s a friend, um, I forgot to tell you that she’s coming early today. Do you mind if she comes in?”

He smiled and for a moment, the knot in my stomach loosened. “That’s great. Invite her in, I’ll be down in a second to meet her.”

I waited until he went back up the steps to turn back and look at Natalie. “Come in.”

To her credit, she said nothing about the empty walls or how the house still felt like it was transitory. Instead, she followed me quietly to the dining room. I nodded at the table and filled a cup with water for her, handing it over to her and sitting opposite her. Mostly, I did these things because I didn’t know what else to do.

It was funny, how we turned to the mundane, the ordinary when everything else turned upside down. Maybe it allowed us to pretend, at least for a while, that your life hadn’t changed. The earth went on spinning on its axis and people went on doing stupid things to each other that they’d regret later.

She sipped the water, her face turning redder with each passing second.

“Why are you here?”

Natalie averted her eyes; focussing her gaze on the cup of water instead. “I couldn’t help myself, Spencer. I googled you and, uh well, some things came up. They were mostly stuff about how track and the meets that you won because you were that good. But right at the end, they mentioned...they mentioned how you’d quit because of what happened to Sara.”

I closed my eyes; wondering why it had happened so fast. I’d hope to be able to escape it for a while, the suffocating sadness, the endless pity and the way people had looked at me afterwards. The gawking, the relief that the tragedy hadn’t happened to their family but mine. But worst of all, memories of how when anyone saw me, all that they had really seen was my sister and I wished that hearing her name didn’t make me feel so furious, so confused.

“I’m really sorry about what happened to you.”

“For God’s sake, saying sorry doesn’t solve a fucking thing. I don’t want your apology!” The words rushed out on their own accord.

“Spencer, I-”

“No, you don’t understand anything.” The words were choked; I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes. I thought I had been done crying. I thought that I would be safe here. “Just don’t, okay, Natalie? I don’t want to hear anything else. Get out.”

For a second, she hesitated and later on, when I thought about what happened; I would be impressed. Most people I knew would have left; eager to escape from a situation they had no experience in handling. I thought that only people who knew you well, like Cora had, would care enough about you to hear what you were trying to say beneath all your insults. Natalie must have been a better person than I was to try and stay.

But she eventually left.

My hands covered my face and I tried to stop my body from shaking, from the sobs that threatened to be heard.

I rubbed hard at my face, wondering why the tears kept coming and especially why Now. I hadn’t cried at the funeral. I was too busy feeling surreal and disbelief; that it wasn’t Sara’s funeral I was attending. But everyone around me was crying and my mother, my mother was crying all out. Huge sobs that shook her body, leaning on Dad like she couldn’t sit straight without him next to her and later on, she had fainted.

No matter how I’d tried then, I couldn’t summon up a single drop of tear.

Right now though, I couldn’t stop even if I had wanted.

“Spence, is there something wrong?”

I startled, my arms dropped to their sides. I knew what I looked like. Bloodshot eyes and a runny nose, my face all blotched up. I had never been able to cry prettily, Sara had been the one who could weep gracefully. I had never been very good at hiding it either.

Dad stood at the entrance of the kitchen, staring at me like he didn’t know who I was.
“I’m fine.” My voice came out thick, choked up. I cleared my throat.

He nodded; turning away from me. In a pleasant voice, he added, “I guess your friend left too early for me to meet her, huh?”

I said nothing else as he shuffled away, wondering why I could still feel disappointed. Dad never did emotions well. There wasn’t any reason for me to expect him to ask me what I truly felt; no reason for me to believe that he would push me for a real answer.

No reason at all.



My head was on the table as I tried to avoid hearing the two girls next to me chattering about some pop star. I was already hoping for the day to end even though it had barely started. The tardy bell for Homeroom hadn’t even rang yet.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up.

“Hey, is there something wrong?”

Tyler was standing so close to that I could see the colour of his eyes. They were a curious mix of brown and green, something I guessed people called hazel. They weren’t as beautiful as Sasha’s but they were close. I noticed he was still looking at me expectantly and realised I had forgotten to answer his question. “Nope, nothing’s wrong.”

“You seem a little out of it today.” He slid into the seat next to mine and I didn’t bother telling him that someone sat there. Tyler was popular and nice enough that nobody would mind. “And I noticed that Nat’s car was in your driveway last morning.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m not a stalker, alright?”

I laughed, feeling strange as I did so. Laughing somehow felt wrong after not doing so for a while.

“It’s just that Riley wasn’t completely wrong you know.” His face was turning slightly red and he wasn’t looking at me anymore. Somehow I found it sort of cute that he was embarrassed. “Nat did have a crush on me before. But I told her that it wouldn’t work out; that we were friends and nothing else. I don’t think that Nat’s the kind of person who’d take it out on you, but if you guys fought or anything, I’m sorry about it.”

Amused that he was taking responsibility when it had nothing to do with him, I said, “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, so don’t worry about it.”

“You still look bad though.”

“Yeah, well, I have a lot going on, moving to a new school and all.”

For once, Tyler didn’t let me get away with the half-lie I’d told. Instead, he went, “Moving is hard, but you’ve had a while to get used to Rosewood now. Are you thinking about joining track?”

“Did Natalie put you up to this?”

“Um....no, it’s just that she mentioned that you were a runner previously. At the party, I mean. So I thought you might want to continue here.”

He looked like he had no idea what I was talking about and I regretted my outburst. I didn’t want him to become curious enough to ask her about anything, because she might just tell him about Sara. “I don’t think now’s the time for me to join. And really, I’m just tired and maybe kind of paranoid because of it.”

“Oh, trust me, I know how to deal with paranoid.” He smiled and I felt butterflies in my stomach. The good kind, not the type I had been feeling lately. As the tardy bell rang, he continued, “Anyway, you can join us for track today if you don’t mind.”

The butterflies seemed to have tripled all of a sudden and I could only smile at Tyler in reply. And from Homeroom till Lunch, that was all I could think off—how different an invitation from Tyler was from Riley, I didn’t have to second-guess myself and wonder if he was plotting something.

I grabbed a tray and got my food. Then I walked, feeling as though everyone was watching me though it couldn’t be because I wasn’t the new girl anymore, to Tyler’s lunch table.

Sasha’s side of the table barely looked at me. They were all tanned, toned and gorgeous but all different types of pretty. I was sort of glad that I didn’t receive any recognition from them, I didn’t want to deal with any kind of drama. But it stung a little how Sasha didn’t acknowledge me either. I thought that after what she said to me that day, we’d grown a little closer.

But then, I reminded myself, I wasn’t really here to make friends. It should be enough that at least Tyler made an effort. And Natalie had too, but I didn’t want to think about her.

I scanned the table, not seeing Tyler but noticing that Riley had dropped his arm from around Sasha’s waist when he saw me. When he caught me looking, he wore a tense smile. “Spencer, I’m surprised you’ve joined us so quickly again. After all that I’d told you, I thought you would stay away. Though if I remember properly... I haven’t told you everything, have I?”

Feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, I tried to avert my gaze from Riley to Sasha. She was trying to shoot Riley some kind of indecipherable look but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was still looking at me.

Refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I was curious, I cracked open my can of Coke and took a gulp. Then I started on my salad.

“I don’t appreciate you toying with Tyler. Whatever it is that you want from him, you can’t get it from him. Look somewhere else.”

“I don’t want anything from him.” The words came out from gritted teeth and I forced another bite of salad. It tasted rancid, maybe of my frustration mixed with confusion. “Why are you picking on me?”

“You think this is picking on you?” Riley laughed shortly. “You have no idea, do you, Spencer.” Then he leaned forward, his eyes cold. “Stay away from Tyler. You’ll only hurt him.”

Sasha finally laid a hand on his arm and said, quietly, “Riley, stop it.”

He seemed to soften at her touch and for once, I wondered if their relationship was more than it seemed. It looked like it was a typical high school relationship, the popular, good-looking but heartless guy dating the popular, pretty and airheaded girl. She seemed to understand him; in fact I wasn’t sure if she was misinterpreting everything he was doing since it seemed that he was a melodramatic asshole instead of a guy looking out for his friend.

But I knew enough not to judge people by their face value. Everyone had their own tragedies. It was only a matter of finding out what it was.

They were now communicating silently, with expressions I didn’t understand. Then they got up and went off.

The rest of the group didn’t say anything and I assumed that this was normal behaviour for popular kids. I didn’t know since I wasn’t part of them in my old school. I was with the jocks.
“Hey, where are they going?” asked Tyler, sliding into the seat next to mine.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t mention Riley’s hostility, figuring that Sasha could keep it under control.

We made easy conversation after that, talking about the best brand of shoes for long and short distances and from there, we talked about marathons and then somehow, to movies. It seemed like we didn’t run of things to talk about and that we had a lot in similar. It felt easy, familiar and even though it didn’t even last for an hour, I felt like the Before me again.