Mary

It hit me like a knife. The words pierced my skin and tore at my insides. Every syllable bled out my heart. I don’t understand how they could just roll off the tongue for them, his own parents. They must be even more worse off than I am, but I envied them for keeping their composure so well. I was feeling weak in the knees, and my head started to hurt. I didn’t know where I was anymore. All I could think of was how it was too late.

“Hello, is this Mary?” I heard through the receiver.

“Yes.”

“Hello, my name is Jack. I’m Andy’s father.” It was too late to tell him anything. Too late to even leave a note by his locker.

“Last night, Andy went out drinking with some friends. One of his friends got too drunk…and decided he was still sober enough to drive all of them home…and…well…they hit a tree…” I always thought that I still had a couple months, and it would only be too late if I had waited until he graduated and went to college. If only I had known how much of a blessing that would be.

“Andy didn’t make it.” Now it really is too late. I never said much to that beautiful boy, but I knew so much about him. I knew he had a slight silver lining around his icy blue eyes. I knew his long, semi-curly brown hair turned blondish in the summer time. I knew he chewed on his pen caps when class got really boring. I knew he was an artist, because his doodles on the back of his tests were always so detailed. I knew a lot about him, but I never told him. We’ve only had three different encounters with each other.

“Hey, do you get this?” Our first encounter was when I used a desperate attempt at getting his attention. I mostly admired from afar until that day, nearly a year ago. I was leaning over his desk, my finger pressed on a triangle lined with numbers. I was never good at trigonometry, and I used this weakness to my advantage. But he didn’t do anything. He just stared at me, probably thinking I was weird for asking. I had never spoke a word to him before that, so I don’t really blame him. After quite a while of just staring, he finally said something that broke my heart.

“No.” That was all he said. Then he pressed his lips, and looked back down at his worksheet. I glanced down at it and saw all of it was completely finished. He did get it, he just didn’t want to talk to me.

“How did you know to call me?” I said when I was able to catch my breath. On the verge of tears, I tried my best to keep my voice sturdy. I wasn’t doing very well, but I imagine he was expecting me to cry.

“I think you should come over and see why for yourself.” Jack said. He peaked my curiosity. He gave me the address and we hung up after saying goodbye, but I didn’t leave right away. I dropped the phone, and collapsed on the kitchen floor first. It wasn’t long before there was a clear puddle on the linoleum, dripping from my soaked palms as I buried my face even deeper in them. I thought of my second encounter with Andy, our most confusing encounter. At least, for me.

It was 5 months after our first encounter. I spent the last couple months of the last school year pretending not to look in his direction, pretending not to bump into him in the hallway almost once a week, pretending I walked with my friend to her locker just to talk to her and not because it happened to be right next to his. Then I spent the summer, the very long summer, trying my best to ignore my feelings. When I felt the pain of seeing him the last day of school and realized I had to go a couple months without making excuses…I knew I had a real crush going on inside of me. I spent the summer trying to get over it, because it was only a crush and crushes aren’t very strong. Nonetheless, our senior year began, and our second encounter happened only a couple weeks into it.

It was the night of another one of Lola’s parties. Lola was one of the most popular girls in our high school. Everyone was invited to her parties, and everyone got plastered - except me. I was a good girl. I never touched alcohol if I could avoid it. Plus, I never wanted to risk driving afterward. I don’t know what gave me the impulse to go to one of her parties. None of my friends ever go there, and it’s mostly a bunch of drunk guys trying to get me to go home with them and really loud music. Maybe I wanted to try drinking for a night. Or maybe I was hoping Andy would be there, because that’s what I ended up finding out.

I saw him leaning against the wooden kitchen counter, one arm at his side and the other holding a beer. He was by himself, staring at the ground. He looked upset. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand that night, and one of them was what came over me to approach him near that counter.

“Hey, Andy, is it?” I said. His face automatically lit up when he saw me and he put his beer on the counter.

“Mary!” He yelled. He kind of caught me off guard. I did nothing but stand there like a board and slightly nod and smile.

“You were in my junior math class!” He exclaimed, pointing at me now. I had never seen this side of him before, and I repeated my previous timid movement.

“Oh man! I can’t believe you’re here!” He yelled again, but this time, he hugged me. He hugged me very tightly, and it came to such a surprise that I didn’t hug back. I regretted it so much later. I had pictured it in my head a million times, and I never thought it would happen this way. When his face was close to mine, I could smell the alcohol on his breath, so I could tell he was really drunk.

We spent a lot of time together that night. When everyone else was dancing to some rapper, we were sitting on the couch just talking. I found out that Andy was a happy drunk, so that’s why he was so enthusiastic to see me despite that he’s never really met me. I found out a lot of other things too. As it turns out, he also happens to be one of those drunks that spill out all of their secrets for no apparent reason. We were talking about movies when he told me that he was depressed after finding out his girlfriend had cheated on him. That’s why he drank so heavily the rest of the night.

“She was the whole reason I came to this dumb party, and then I see her tongue down some other guy’s throat.” He took another swig of the third beer I had seen him chug down.

“I’m really sorry, Andy.” I tried to be sympathetic, but I smiled at the idea of him being single. He took another swig.

“It’s alright, man. I kind of was thinking of breaking up with her anyway, you know? I kinda fell for somebody else.”

“Really? Who?”

“Ahh, you wouldn’t know her. She’s a real beaut though, I’ll tell you that.” We sat there in silence a few moments after that. I was disappointed, but I knew he had no interest in me anyway. And I definitely knew he wouldn’t refer to me as a “beaut.” I had stringy red hair, ugly freckles, and boring brown eyes. I was far from beautiful.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” He asked me after the silence started to get awkward.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to drive home.” He explained.

“Sure. Of course.” We left the house without a single person noticing. Andy left his beer on the coffee table. I opened the door to the passenger seat in my car for him, but he declined and said he preferred the back. But when I opened the door to the backseat, he pushed me in instead. He climbed in after me, and I couldn’t stop laughing.

“What’s so funny?” He questioned.

“Nothing.” I said after catching my breath. “I’m just happy.”

“I am too, Mary.” He replied. My laughing had died, and I saw his eyelids drift lower. His face started slowly moving toward mine, and I suddenly didn’t know what to do. My heart started racing. I felt cold. I started to close my eyes, right as Andy’s face was crushed into the crevice of my neck. He had passed out. I let out a deep sigh and rolled my eyes at my falsely risen hopes. I let him sleep in the backseat when I drove him home.

After that night, I knew two things. One; I didn’t get over my crush during the summer. Two; It wasn’t really a crush at all - I was in love with Andy.

I never would have guessed that the next time I would be driving to his house would be after his death. It was hard to pay attention to the road, and I swerved several times enough to hear the sound of a high-pitched horn. I eventually had to pull over, to have yet another breakdown. I clutched the wheel and whispered to myself, why didn’t I just tell you. Andy, I love you.

My third and final encounter with Andy was just a few months ago, and I was doing the same thing. I was crying over him. I saw him in school, and I let my feelings get the best of me. I let my mind race to the things I wish we could do together, and how much I wanted him to be mine, and I knew my heart couldn’t take that. I ran away from him and to the corner of the hallway, where I fell to my knees and started crying. That’s when I felt a shadow over me.

“Mary?” I looked up, and I saw Andy’s sympathetic face looking down on mine. He knelt down next to me and laid a hand on my knee. I tried very hard not to cry even more.

“You don’t have to stay here.” I was able to say through my whimpering.

“What happened?” He asked. He seemed sincere. I trusted him.

“I’m in love with someone who doesn’t love me back.” I started crying again. It was hard to hold the tears back when he was sitting right there, reminding me of what I couldn’t have.

“Who is it?”

“That’s not important. He just isn’t mine and he never will be.” He watched me cry for a few moments, unable to find something to get me to calm down. I wanted to scream in his face that he’s a coward and a jerk. I wanted to tell him how much pain he’s put me through for the past year and a half. Yet, at the same time, I only wanted to hug him again. I’ve only ever felt it once, and it was half a year ago. I was starting to forget what it felt like, and that frightened me.

“You know, I know what you’re going through.” He said. I just looked at him.

“I’ve been in love with the same girl for nearly a year now and I know I’ll never have her. No matter how hard I try, she doesn’t really notice me.”

“Is this the same girl you told me about at the party?”

“Yeah. Same one.” The girl that I “wouldn’t know.” The “beaut.” The girl I was jealous of the most.

“I’m sorry.” I said. He didn’t look at me. He just stared at the floor tiles and pressed his lips together.

“I hope you feel better.” He said, coldly. then he left. That was my last encounter with him.

When I finally arrived to Andy’s house, my eyes were dry. I don’t think I could’ve cried again if I wanted to. Andy had a nice house. It was small and cute, just like I’d imagined it to be. There were sunflowers outlining the front of it, and a brick stoop leading to the front door. I knocked using a big golden handle in the center of the door.

“You must be Mary. I’m Jack.” A man with grey hair answered the door. He was dressed professional. He let me into the house and I took in my surroundings for only a moment before he led me up the stairs. He opened the door to Andy’s room. A twin bed was in the center next to a computer desk with a closed laptop sitting in the middle of it. The chair was knocked over. His bookcase was completely packed with everything from Shakespeare to sportswriters. His walls were littered with posters of Jonathon Toews, Eli Manning, Steven Stamkos, and some other athletes I didn’t recognize. On his bed, there was a cd case.

“I’ll leave you alone. Take your time.” Jack said, and closed the door. I sat down on the bed and looked inside the cd case. There was a handmade booklet inside. I wrote it all for her it said, in Andy’s handwriting. The cd was silver with the words “For Her” written across it in sharpie. I placed it into the boombox on the floor and listened to what sounded like the strumming of an acoustic guitar. That’s when I noticed one sitting on a stand in the corner of the room. I flipped through the booklet only to see that most of it was vacant, save for the very last one which had all the titles of the songs on it. There were only five. The first one was called ”First Glance.” It was about looking at a girl from afar but never saying hi. I skipped past it, feeling my heart start to hurt again. The second one was called “Trigonometry.” I froze when I read the name, and listened to the song.

She asked me to solve a problem today

But I can’t proudly say I was there

Her diamond eyes broke my voice

And I couldn’t say nothing but “no”

I quickly skipped to the next song, convincing myself it was only a coincidence. The next one was titled “So Close.”

Tonight was the night I almost told her

And I could’ve been so straight forward

But I didn’t know what to do

I just couldn’t say “baby, it’s you.”

My eyes were able to muster up some moisture as I skipped to the next song. It was titled “Angel.”

Please don’t cry, my angel

It’s your smile that keeps me warm at night

Please don’t cry, my angel

It’s your smile that makes me learn to fly

I buried my face in my hands. I was too scared to look at the title of the next song. I had to force myself to read it, telling myself it could all just be a simple coincidence. The last song was titled, simply, “Mary.” I knew I would regret it, but I began to play the last song.

Oh, Mary, Mary, Mary

You’re the one I want to marry

You’ve got big brown eyes and beauty too

I just want to say that I love you.

Those last lines rang in my head millions of times before I knew what they meant. I love you. I love you. I love you. He had loved me all along. Every time I thought he was ignoring me, he wasn’t. Every time I thought he was being cold, he was just being shy. The girl he was talking about was me. He’s been in love with me for a year. He’s been in love with me all along, as I have been in love with him.

…But now, it’s too late.