Zan
I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways. My eyes traced the letters, and I closed the book of Rumi poetry Miss Carole had given me, along with a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, Slaughterhouse Five and Pride and Prejudice. All of her essential reads, she said. I’d read all of them multiple times. I’d been really into books when I was younger, but the passion had waned due to the influence of things I considered better, namely pot and pills and booze. And girls.
Rumi had a lot to say about silence, and Miss Carole had helpfully marked those passages for me with little sticky flags. I really missed her. I’d have to make a trip down sometime. I made a mental note to get a bus schedule.
I knew it was her when I saw her hair and the way she walked. Even a hundred feet away, I knew it was her. My plan had been to run past her and pretend like I didn’t know she was there. I figured she’d be so lost in thought she wouldn’t even see me. I was just about to pass her when she tripped and my stupid instincts kicked in, and I had to catch her, even with my bum hand.
I knew she wasn’t normally that clumsy, it was just shit luck. At least she hadn’t broken her pretty face. That would have been a damn shame.
I swallowed hard as I held her, the rain pounding down around us, oblivious.
She wanted me to let go, and pulled, but I knew she’d just go backwards, so I yanked forward and she ended up mashed into my chest. How the hell that happened, I still couldn’t figure out. The other thing I couldn’t figure out was why my chest had felt like it was going to explode. Well, I knew the reason. I also knew the reason I wanted to suck the rain from her lips, and peel her clothes off and lick the rest of the rain from her skin. I fucking wanted her. So much that my pants got tight walking behind her, and I had to take care of myself afterwards in the shower.
She put up with me walking behind her, and then getting into the elevator, so that was a step, right? One step forward. Maybe tomorrow she would meet my eyes. Maybe tomorrow…
Oh, who the fuck was I kidding? Just because she hadn’t called campus security and had me arrested for stalking, didn’t mean she was going to be jumping into bed with me.
Fuck, I had to stop thinking about jumping into bed with her. It just made me hard again. I hadn’t jacked off so much since I was twelve and didn’t have a girl to do it for me.
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, willing my dick to stop doing what it was doing. I picked up To Kill A Mockingbird and started reading. If there was anything that could kill a hard-on it was small-town prejudice and racism.
Lottie
My effing ankle ended up just being bruised when I got back, so I iced it and told Will I wanted to order in. He complied, knowing that I was PMS-ing and that all I wanted to eat when I was PMS-ing was pizza and salt and vinegar chips and chocolate-covered pretzels. I hobbled down to his room, and consumed all three without him noticing that I didn’t get up, and that when I left I grimaced.
I put the rain incident in a box and shoved it deep in the back corner of my mind in the same place I kept all those embarrassing moments that made me want to die. I threw a cloth over it and shut my brain door.
I woke up on Saturday with Katie sacked out in her bed. I didn’t hear her come in, and she reeked of cigarettes and alcohol and she had a dress on that barely qualified as a dress, with monster high heels. Her mouth was open and she was snoring like a bear.
Someone had a good night.
I left as quietly as I could and didn’t mention it when I saw her again after breakfast and she was still in pretty much the same position.
“Hey, how are you?” I said, closing the door.
“Can you shut the curtains?” she said. It was more of a moan. Her arm was thrown over her eyes and her dress was hiked up so far I could tell she was either wearing the smallest pair of panties ever, or none at all. I really didn’t want to know, so I averted my eyes and closed the curtain.
“Did you have a good night?”
“I have no fucking clue.” Wow, I’d never heard Katie swear before, but I hadn’t spent all that much time with her, either.
She licked her lips and tried to sit up.
“Do you want some water or something?” I’d taken care of Will and Simon on enough occasions to know the Hangover Drill.
She shook her head, but I got out a bottle of water from the fridge and some crackers I had on hand for just such an emergency. I got some pain medication into her and she finally noticed her skirt and pulled it down.
“Where’s my phone?” She looked around, and I searched under the bed before we heard her ringtone. She’d been sitting on it.
“Hey, babe,” she said, answering and holding the water bottle to her forehead. “No, I just got up… No, I’m fine, how are you? Aw, poor baby. Want me to come make it better?” Her voice got deep and throaty and my stomach churned in revulsion. “Just let me get sexy for you and I’ll be right down… Okay… Love you, too.” She scrolled through her phone and typed out some messages.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” she said, her eyes locked on the device as she chugged the water and shoved a cracker into her mouth. I didn’t have any doubts about that. She seemed like a girl who went balls to the walls. At least she did when it came to pink. Why would this be any different?
“All I need is a crazy fattening breakfast and a few glasses of water, and I’m good to go.” She stuck her legs straight out, swung them until they were hanging over the edge of the bed and levered herself upright. It looked difficult.
“Whoa,” she said, wobbling a bit and clutching her head. She had a crazy pillow mark on one cheek and her hair was all smashed to one side of her head. She had that Ke$ha thing going on.
My doubts about her being able to make herself presentable again were crushed when she managed a rapid shower and re-makeup job along with straightening her hair and getting dressed in under a half hour. I wanted to give her a round of applause.
“How do I look?”
“Fresh as a daisy,” I said, appraising her.
“Good,” she said, primping one last time in the mirror. “See you later.”
“Bye,” I said, and she gave me a tight smile before closing the door, but it opened a second later.
“Thanks for the water and crackers.”
“You’re welcome.”
What I should have said was that she shouldn’t be getting drunk with the likes of Zack Parker, but the words wouldn’t come out. Why did there have to be two of them? I’d barely thought about Zack lately, given all the drama with Zan.
Zan.
The lid on his box had come loose, so I slammed it back on and went to breakfast with Simon and Will, piling heavy thoughts and boxes on top of the Zan box to keep the damn thing shut.
***
Sunday I did have something that put the Zan box in the back of my mind. I’d called Mrs. Davis on Saturday to make sure it was okay to come.
“She’s much better, and she can’t wait to see you. She’s gotten obsessed with the zoo lately, so we’ll probably have to go to make her happy.” Kay didn’t sound like it would be a very happy affair. Sometimes I wondered if she resented me for being normal. Or as normal as I was.
For being what her daughter could no longer be.
Such morbid thoughts spun in my brain as I drove Will’s truck to Lexie’s house. Her father was an accountant with his own office, and when we’d been younger, they’d lived very well in a nice house with a pool and nice cars and Disney vacations. The accident had sucked all that away, including the nice house and the pool and the vacations.
I pulled my truck down the narrow road that led to their house. I was forced to park halfway on the lawn, since there wasn’t much room for the truck.
The one-story house was coated in the same dingy yellow paint as it had been last time. Mr. and Mrs. Davis’ cars had gone from sleek black luxury cars to pre-owned generic models that had rust problems.
/> “Lottie!” Lexie opened the door and shrieked my name.
“Lexie, slow down,” Mrs. Davis said, holding her back from throwing herself down the rickety steps that led from the front door to the yard. Lexie’s balance was still off, so her mom was never farther away than a few feet.
“Hey Lex!” I skipped the rotten step and dashed to the front door and into Lexie’s waiting arms. Sometimes she hugged, and sometimes she didn’t. Today was one of the former.
“We’re going to the zoo!” She sang, trying to spin around in a circle. I looked at Mrs. Davis, who gave me a tired smile. The sun caught a few gray hairs she hadn’t had the time or maybe the money to get fixed at the hairdresser’s.
“Let’s go,” Lexie said, grabbing my hand and trying to drag me back out the door.
“Lexie, why don’t we sit and talk for a while. You can show Lottie your pictures.”
“Come see my pictures,” Lexie said, changing directions and trying to drag me to her room. I held onto her elbow to make sure she didn’t fall. The entire house had been Lexie-proofed. The hard corners on furniture had been covered with foam, the knives had been put in a locking cabinet, and anything else that Lexie could use to hurt herself had been gotten rid of, or put in a place she couldn’t get to.
Lexie’s room always made me choke a little when I walked into it. In an effort to try and help her keep continuity or some such crap, they had left everything as it was on the day of the accident. Not just the things on the walls, but everything else. Lexie’s dresser was like a shrine, with her endless tubes of lipgloss, the pictures of the two of us in frames that she’d painted, a movie ticket from the day she’d gotten her first kiss from none other than Joel Ostrander. That boy got around.
But her room wasn’t the same. There were now finger paintings that she’d done as part of her therapy that covered the posters of half-naked guys and bands and pictures of Paris. Lexie had always wanted to go to Paris. Now her poster of the Eiffel Tower was covered over with what was probably a kitty. Or a dog. Or a giraffe. I couldn’t really tell. Not that it mattered.
“See?” Thrusting a picture in my face, she flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling.
“It’s gorgeous, Lex.” It wasn’t really a picture of anything, just a swirl of colors, but it was really pretty. Before the accident, Lex had been our art teacher’s pet student. Some of her paintings were still hung around her parent’s house. Another shrine to who she had been.
“Lex?” She didn’t answer. Sometimes she got lost in her head and went into a semi-catatonic state. The only thing to do was wait for her to get out of it.
“You ready to go?” Kay poked her head in, holding Lexie’s coat. She saw Lexie on her bed and I could hear her sigh, even though she didn’t.
“Lexie, baby? You want to go to the zoo?” No response.
I always wonder where she went, in her head when she got that still. You could never get her to talk about it after she’d come out of it. She’d just snap, and be back.
It was a short episode, only lasting about five minutes. In that time Kay called her name at least twenty times, snapped her fingers in front of her face and tried anything to get her to come back from wherever she was. No response.
Chapter Thirteen
Zan
“Zack said you hurt your hand,” my mom said when she called me. I should have known that Zack would squeal. I’d told him that I’d fallen or some such shit, but he knew better. I was grateful Devin was gone again, or else I wouldn’t have answered the phone.
“It’s fine. It was an accident.”
She sighed.
“Zan, are you taking your medication?”
“Yes, Mom.” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice so she wouldn’t think I was being defensive. Defensive people were most often lying.
“Alexander, I know that things have been hard for you, but you don’t have to take them out on me.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“Steve and I were thinking of making a trip up to see you and Zack. What do you think?”
“Yeah, sure.” I would be in deep trouble if they came up. Steve missed nothing, and he would know I was off my medication. I’d tried to stop taking it a number of times in the summer, but he always caught me. Steve and I didn’t see eye-to-eye and it wasn’t because I was taller.
“So I was just making some of those coconut cookies for Steve’s work party and I thought I might send some up to you. Would you like that?” The hope in her voice made me feel like an asshole for snapping at her.
When I was little and Zack would be off blowing things up in the backyard, I used to bake with her. Wow, I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.
“Yeah, I’d love that. Thanks.”
There was a pause as both of us tried to find something to say. “Call me anytime you need to, okay? I miss you,” she said.
“Miss you too.” We hung up and I pounded my non-busted fist into the wall, only realizing seconds later that the wall I’d banged on belonged to Charlotte’s brother and his roommate. I heard one of them exclaim and then there was a knock at my door.
A very pissed Will Anders glowered up at me. I had at least two inches on him.
“What the fuck is your problem?” I didn’t answer, instead dissecting his face and finding all the similarities to Charlotte’s. There were quite a few.
“Did you, or did you not just bang on my wall?”
I wasn’t sure there were any words that I could use that would make him back down. He had come for a fight. “Yes.”
“Yes you did, or yes you didn’t?” His eyebrows puckered just like hers. I seriously needed to stop, or things were going to get weird.
“I did.”
“Listen, I know you’ve served your time and all that, but you being here is making my sister upset. No one makes my sister upset, not even me. So I swear to God, if you purposely do anything to make her more upset, I will fucking kill you. Understand?” His words were fierce, as was his love for Charlotte.
“I understand,” I said, nodding. I understood more than he could comprehend.
“Good.” He rolled his shoulders, as if he had accomplished something he’d been thinking about for a while. I almost smiled, but was able to hold it back.
“Sorry for banging on your wall. It won’t happen again.” He seemed stunned that I’d apologized. His bewilderment was also kind of funny.
“Okay,” he said, sort of rocking from foot to foot. Then he gave me a jerky nod and went back to his room. I couldn’t help the laughter that came out of me a few seconds later. I tried to hold it in, but it burst from me at the irony and the sheer fucking ridiculousness of life.
Lottie
“Again!” Lexie said after nearly every ride. I’d decided to give Kay a break, so she was on a bench reading a book while I took over for a while. The park was small, and nearly all of the rides were kiddie rides, but Lexie didn’t care.
While we were getting on a train that took us around the entire park, she stumbled, but I was there to catch her. A couple of pre-teen boys snickered behind us.
Lex was oblivious.
As we rode, she pointed out and tried to name every animal, but she couldn’t come up with some of the animal names.
“Lottie! It’s a…a…d…d,” she said as I tried not to say it for her.
“It’s called a fucking deer you retard,” one of the boys said. Oh no, that was so not okay with me. If Lexie hadn’t been sitting next to me, it would have been ON. Lex didn’t hear them, and the train moved on, but the boys continued.
At the end of the ride, I turned slowly and gave them each a sweeter-than-fucking-sugar smile, holding eye contact and not looking away. That seemed to make them a little nervous, but they laughed nervously and nudged each other.
I winked before I strode up to the person supervising the ride, who happened to look like an ex-football player who was a bouncer in his spare time. I’d left Lexie on the little train.
His eyes narrowed and he yelled out to the three kids, who were busy shoving each other and laughing about their exploits. I knew just what kind of men they’d make, and it made me sick to think about.
They froze when he walked up to them, and their eyes got wide for a second before they puffed up, accusing me of lying. Yeah, because I get my kicks by throwing little pricks like them out of zoos.
The guy snapped his fingers and another guy in a park t-shirt appeared and escorted the boys, who were yelling about injustice, away.
“Thank you,” I said as I got Lexie off the little train. The man looked like he wanted to help, but I waved him off. “She doesn’t like to be touched by strangers.”
“You left me,” she said, and I sensed an episode coming on.
“Just for a minute. I’m back now, see? I’m not leaving you again,” I said, taking her arm. “Best friends never leave each other, right?”
“Right,” she said, her face breaking into a smile.
“You have a nice day,” the guy said, nodding. “I have a brother with Down syndrome.” I gave him a tight smile before taking Lexie back to where Kay was lounging on another bench, feeding one of the tame peacocks that wandered the park.
“Did you have fun?”
“I’m hungry,” Lexie said. Kay laughed and started pulling snacks out of her bottomless purse.
Lexie fell asleep on the way home, which gave me a chance to talk to Kay.
“Her violent episodes have been getting worse. Her therapist can’t figure it out, so they’ve been doing some more tests. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”
She leaned her head on the hand she wasn’t using to drive. I wanted to say something, anything that would make sense, or make it better, but I’d learned a long time ago that words for things like this were useless. Even for me.
Deeper We Fall Page 10
