“Some might call that falling in love though,” he says, so casually that I’m starting to believe he’s truly forgotten the past. “You know. Every day is just another pile-up until it gets too overwhelming, you can’t even move.”
Sounds pretty accurate, I think. “And then what do you do? Wait for rescue?” I ask softly.
“You get out,” he says simply.
And he got out all right. Without a single scratch to him, leaving me alone in the burning wreckage, leaving me to crawl out on my own.
That’s love for you.
“Unless you’re Pharell,” Anders quickly adds. “He’s got that ‘Happy’ thing going for him.” He glances at me, shoulders seeming to lift, brow softening. “So, how are…tell me about your family,” he says, playing along. “Do you have any sisters or brothers?”
I’m still smarting from his remark about love, but I’m grateful for the distraction, that he’s pretending to not know anything about my family when he does. “One sister, Hannah. She’s older and a pain in the ass. Do you remember…well, no you wouldn’t. In America we have these books called the Baby-Sitters Club Series and I used to be obsessed with them when I was little. There were hundreds of them, all written by ghost writers, something I learned recently that totally ruined my world, but anyway, one of the characters, Claudia, she had this older sister Janine. This complete nerd and not in the cute nerd girl way. She rarely smiled, didn’t seem to have a sense of humor, and spent all her days studying. She was supposed to be this genius, even though she was only fifteen and was pretty much the opposite of Claudia in every way.” I pause and take a breath, even though Anders already knows everything I’m telling him. “Well, that’s Hannah to a tee. Who knew I’d be able to relate to a ghost-written fictional character so well? Now she’s in college, getting her PhD already in some science sector I don’t understand, and lives with some older man in Boston.”
“Doesn’t sound like an easy person to relate to,” Anders comments.
I shake my head. “She’s not. We’ve got better since…well, over the years. But considering she was like my substitute mom throughout most of high school, you’d think we’d be closer somehow.”
“It doesn’t work that way with family,” he says. “Blood doesn’t bring you closer any more than distance does. I should know.”
I watch him. That grip on the steering wheel, the sparrow growing distorted and pale. “Oh yeah?”
He nods but presses his lips together and doesn’t continue. He’s always been that way. Getting information out of him was nearly impossible. Sure, he could recite you poetry or some wordy confession, but it had to come from him. You could never get it out of him on your own. He gave you what you wanted only when he decided to. It explains why throughout the eight months of us dating, he still remained a mystery to me.
To my surprise, he continues. “My father and I…before I was sent to America, my father brought me on board for a two-week fishing trip. At the time we weren’t doing so well. Our relationship, I mean. When my mother left us, we all took it hard and we all had to do what we had to do. Even if it wasn’t what we wanted.”
He licks his lips and gets a faraway look in his eyes. The air between us grows heavy and I think that maybe he’s done talking. “Anyway, I know what my dad was trying to do. To make me see how he made a living. To make me understand. The hardships, the sacrifices. All those things you don’t give a shit about when you’re young, not until you’re older and it’s too late. I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t bond with him. All it did was make things worse. We even fought one night and…” he trails off. Gives a quick shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter. Blood or not, relationships can’t be forced. More than that, empathy can’t be forced. Understanding. You know?”
I nod. “I know.”
We drive in silence for a few more moments, before taking a turn-off that leads between towering mountains, their peaks bald with rock and alpine shrub. They look like monks, deep in meditation, on their own eternal quest for happiness.
“Are you happy?” I find myself asking him.
He gives me a quick glance. “Such serious topics for people who have only just met.”
I smile expectantly and stare at him for an answer.
He looks back to the road, momentarily biting his lip in thought. “No.”
I don’t know why I’m surprised, considering what we just talked about. “Not even sometimes?”
“Oh, everyone is happy sometimes. Just like you said. But when those sometimes are few and far between, I think no is the only answer.” He glances at me again. “I can tell you I was happy this morning.”