by N. K. Smith
I nodded and he sat down at the table while I gathered food. I wasn’t high anymore, and I hated it. As my hands went to work cleaning the lettuce and carrots, trimming the fat off the steak, and prepping the oven to broil, my thoughts were on all the subjects I didn’t want to think about.
Today made it twice that Jason had asked me on what sounded like dates, even though I’d been clear with him that I didn’t do that shit. It made me uncomfortable to think that Jason somehow wanted something more than I did. I had no interest in him beyond his ability to make me feel good through sex and weed.
Now he wanted more.
I had no more to give.
I’d just stood up after grabbing the large ceramic bowl for the salad when Tom asked, “Why are you so sad, Sophie?”
I stopped moving and stood perfectly still, panic and fear rising as I watched him get up out of his seat and come toward me. What the hell? “What are you…?”
Tom extended his hand in my direction and I instantly dropped the bowl, hearing it crash to the floor. As he moved his hand dangerously close to my face, my arm instinctively came up to block it and I smacked it away quickly as I stumbled backwards until my back hit the counter.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Tom looked at me, his drunken face registering his shock. “I was just going to touch your hair, Soph.” He paused, his eyes on me as I wrapped my arms around my torso. “When you were little,” he began slowly, “you used to let me brush your hair.”
I didn’t remember that. I felt sick. His hands were slack at his sides as he just looked at me. Swallowing hard, I brought my hand to my mouth. “I’m not little anymore, Tom.”
Very, very quickly, I left the kitchen and found the bathroom, just barely making it to the toilet before throwing up.
Shit.
I rose up off the floor and grabbed my toothbrush. I knew that Tom didn’t mean to scare me. I knew that he wasn’t someone who wanted to hurt me, but I couldn’t just let him touch me. I didn’t care why he wanted to, whether it was to hurt or comfort, I wouldn’t let him.
My head pounded with horrifying thoughts. I felt so sick.
After brushing my teeth and washing my hands, I went to my bedroom, and heard Tom clinking around in the kitchen. Packing up my bat, I stuck my head out of my opened window and took two hits.
I grabbed a piece of gum, dropped some Visine in my eyes, and then headed back downstairs to finish cooking dinner. The pot was working, and I felt much better, but regardless, I tensed again as I entered the kitchen.
Tom was butchering the Romaine and all of the ceramic shards were gone from the floor. I wanted to cut the lettuce myself, but that meant I would have to stand next to him and take the knife. I didn’t want him to be that close. The thought of having to stand right next to him made my stomach churn, and I was suddenly struck by how unfair everything was.
It wasn’t fair for me to have these reactions to Tom, my own…father. It wasn’t fair that all he wanted to do was touch my hair and I had an involuntary, instinctive reaction. It wasn’t fair that I hated him so much for something he didn’t even do.
This shit wasn’t his doing.
But it didn’t matter that it wasn’t my father who did this to me. It only mattered that he was too close to me. It only mattered that he…
I felt sick again. I tasted bile and my throat burned. My cough alerted Tom that I was there and he turned around, eyeing me. He looked completely sober now as he placed the knife on the counter, and smoothed a hand over his trimmed goatee.
I pointed to the lettuce and managed to say, “Do you want me to do that?”
Although he nodded, I waited until he’d crossed back over to the table before I moved to pick up the knife.
“You okay?”
Breathing in deep, I bit back the nasty words that floated in my mind before they could get to my mouth. After I had filtered through all the snotty, bitchy remarks I could possibly say, I settled on a quiet, “I don’t really want to talk, Tom. Can I just make dinner?”
Yeah, Soph,” he responded softly. I was intensely aware of his eyes on me. It was different than when I was in my mother’s house. He wasn’t looking at me in the same way the constant flow of men that filtered through back in Tampa did. Every once in a while, I’d glance at him and could tell that he was mainly just trying to figure me out.
I wondered if he had yet, or if he ever would.
Once I knew Tom was sleeping, I stuck my head out of the window and took another couple of hits off my bat. I got entirely too fucking high. It was after eleven when I opened the e-mail from Elliott.
Sophie,
I hope you have an excellent time at the football fish fry fun-fest.
Via e-mail, Elliot’s whole tone changed. He was witty and I liked to imagine him taking great care to write things like “football fish fry fun-fest” just to make me smile.
I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to tell you what I would turn Anderson into. It’s not very nice.
Since you didn’t have time to ask questions, I’ll go.
If you could spend a day with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?
What’s your favorite holiday?
If you could magically have either unlimited wealth or unlimited health, which would you pick?
Why don’t you eat anything other than a Pop-Tart or an apple at lunch? Don’t you get hungry?
Is partying the only thing you want out of life?
Bonus: Did you learn anything new at the gathering today?
I’ll see you at school tomorrow. I assume that these questions and overall content of our e-mail correspondence won’t be mentioned there.
Elliott.
I smiled. Getting his e-mail was the bright shining spot in an otherwise stupid day. Even though I was insanely tired and incredibly high, I hit reply and wondered if he would check his e-mail before school tomorrow.
Elliott,
You’re all about the random questions, aren’t you?
Here goes:
Is spending the day alone an unacceptable answer? People kind of bug me. But again, if that’s a cop-out and you need an actual person, I do enjoy hanging out with you.
My favorite holiday? I don’t know. Maybe Columbus Day?
I would pick unlimited wealth. While I’d love magically ridding myself of diabetes, being poor sucks, and with money I can buy health.
I hate eating and not in the Andrea Tuttle kind of way. It’s because of my diabetes. It’s a pain in the ass to figure it all out, so lunch is the one time I try not to think too much about it.
I’m sure I could think of other things I’d like to do besides partying, but most of them I’ll probably never do, so why think about them?
Bonus: Did you learn anything new at the gathering today?
I learned entirely too much at the “fun-fest” today (btw, you forgot crab-boil). I will file it all in my “Things I Can’t Unlearn” folder.
My five (some of these are specific, so I won’t be able to reciprocate an answer, but you can ask me specific in return):
When did you discover music? Like when did you know you could play it?
Do you cuss? ‘Cause I’ve never heard you.
Do you believe in “God?”
Do you write your own music?
Why don’t you call Dr. Dalton “dad?”
Bonus: Have you ever been to a concert? I heard the Chili Peppers are playing in D.C. sometime close to Christmas. Could you be around that many people?
In regards to school and these questions…I don’t want or need other people knowing the answers, Elliott. We’re friends, like I said, but I don’t need someone like Anderson or Cierra knowing who I am, so I’d appreciate ke
eping our discussions at school about something other than our e-mails. Sorry, I’m fucking rambling because I’m slightly high and unfocused.
Shit. Should I have deleted that? Was it rude to mention getting high to him when his mother was a dead smack addict? Being friends was hard and to be honest, I didn’t want to offend Elliott. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have cared.
He told me that he wouldn’t judge me.
Screw it. Why was I continuing to put so much thought into this shit? I was going to send it as it was.
Is that cool about the questions being private, especially at school?
See ya.
Sophie.
Jason was quiet on the drive to school Monday morning, even as I rolled a joint out of my stash for the ride. I felt bad about the way we’d left things the day before and thought the joint would be appropriate.
It wasn’t that he was giving me the silent treatment, because he was talking, but he wasn’t talking much and he wasn’t saying anything.
As we pulled up into his usual parking spot, I said a quick goodbye, figuring that he would either get over it or not, but either way it wasn’t my problem. I’d been honest with him and I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with that.
I caught up with Aiden Montgomery in the hall before Photography and bought two Vicodins off of him.
I hadn’t slept much the night before and instead of being sleepy, I found myself wired. I figured that the Vicodin would help my body and mind relax just a little. Rationally, I knew I’d overreacted to Tom, but my irrational mind still made it impossible for me to stop the involuntary shoulder shakes that happened at irregular intervals.
Maybe the pills would stop it. I snapped one of them in half and downed both halves to make it work quicker. And work quick, it did. Pinny Dalton nudged me and my head slipped off of its precarious position, resting on my hands.
“What?” I looked around, my gaze finally falling on her left arm where she’d drawn pictures with her fine-point green Sharpie. She was an odd one to figure out. She seemed pretty pristine, but she was pierced and drew on her skin daily.
“Class is over, Sophie. Are you okay?”
“I’m fucking great. How are you?”
I took another half right before Study Hall, and then took the last half after smoking out with Jason. I was fairly incoherent during Horticulture and I was pretty sure that I nodded a hello to Elliott, but after that it was pretty much a crapshoot as to what else happened.
To be honest, it was nice. Painkillers always left me feeling like I was floating on a cloud, all the rough edges of the day smoothing out into a nice, warm and cozy fluffy pillow.
I should’ve gotten more from Aiden. I wondered if I would see him again before the end of the day. Maybe Jason could just lift one of Jerry’s for me.
“…o-okay?”
I blinked and raised my head off the desk, my lazy eyes easily landing on Elliott’s beautiful hazel ones. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. “Hmmm? Okay, what?”
He looked at me in concern. “A-a-are you o-okay?”
I nodded and his glance shifted toward the door. “C-class is d-d-d-d, o-over, S-Sophie.”
Looking around, I finally noticed that the room was nearly empty. “Oh.” I stood up and collected my notebook, the sheets of paper still blank. “Guess I forgot to take notes.”
“Y-you c-can borrow mine.”
I shook my head as I shoved the book into my backpack. “It’s cool, but thanks. I’m sure it was all soil pH this and microbe that.” The intensity of his stare made me glance away again. I didn’t understand why he was looking at me like that. “So we should do something on Saturday,” I said lazily
I looked back at him as I began to walk away. He was nodding, a small smile on his face. “What do you want to do?” I asked when his feet finally carried him toward me.
“S-S-SSStephen is inviting y-y-y-your d-d-d-dddd…”
Out in the hall, I stopped outside the door, giving the other students a little room to enter. “My what?”
“F-father,” he spit out, “and you for d-dinner.”
“What? On Saturday?”
“W-well the d-dance is on S-S-Saturday, ssssso it w-would just be mm-mmm-mmme a-and…”
I sighed. It was nice of Tom to tell me about all of the social engagements he’d signed me up for. “Well, what about Friday? The game and parade are on that night, so doesn’t that mean the whole Screw-Up Club will be cancelled?” I could hope, couldn’t I?
Elliott nodded, which made my day. It was then that my head began to feel like it was floating again, the blood inside of it seemingly swishing this way and that. For a moment, I let my eyelids droop and took in a deep breath.
I had eaten lunch, hadn’t I?
Shit.
I opened my eyes and suddenly everything slowed down. People were moving dangerously fast outside of my darkened bubble, but everything on the inside was slowed down and muted. The only thing I could hear was the thudding of my heart. Elliott’s lips were moving, but I had to strain to hear him.
I didn’t know if it was the low blood sugar or the Vicodin, but I felt like shit.
Involuntarily, my body rocked forward as my mind raced, yelling at it to respond. There were things I had to do when my blood sugar was low, actions I had to take, but my body was slow and sluggish so it wouldn’t let me.
Strong hands like vices grabbed onto my upper arms as I came crashing into Elliott’s chest. I pulled back and then came face-to-face with him.
It took a moment before my body caught up with my mind, and I took a deep breath, licking my lips. I pushed away from him gently and stood up as straight as I could. “Sorry. Just dizzy.”
His eyes narrowed as his chest rose and fell quickly. My body began to move now, and I shrugged off my backpack, sinking down onto the ground to search through the front pouch. I was vaguely aware that Elliott had crouched down next to me, but I couldn’t think about him or his eyes right now. I had to get sugar into my bloodstream.
When my sugar was low, my thoughts were slow and scattered; on Vicodin my thoughts were speedy, but this was entirely new and kind of scary. Usually I could do all of this faster, but today I was a river of mud. All my thoughts were shooting me in different directions.
Yes, I should get the sugar packets or the glucose tabs Tom bought for me. Yes, I should get them into my mouth as quickly as possible. Yes, Elliott was standing right next to me and we were in the middle of a crowded hallway. Yes, I wanted to kiss him, but the last time hadn’t turned out so great.
Crap. Focus. Blood sugar. Sugar. I needed to focus on the task at hand.
Still my hands fumbled with the zipper. They shook as they tore open the packet and I found myself hoping that I’d either just pass out or feel better already.
Then finally, there was sweetness on my tongue, and the instant placebo effect kicked in, making me feel minutely better. Even if it was psychological, I loved the hope it gave that really, really soon, I’d start to feel better. The world would begin to brighten again, the haze disappearing. I would be able to hear the sounds around me instead of being deafened by the thump of my heart. I could control my body again.
Probably two or three minutes later, I stood up, three empty sugar packets in my hands. I felt hot, but relatively okay. I knew Elliott was still next to me, but I couldn’t focus on him yet.
Shit. Had I even eaten breakfast today?
I breathed in slow and deep and finally gave Elliott a small apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
He shook his head, looking concerned. “A-are you, o-o-okay?”
“I have to eat.” Looking around, I saw that we were alone in the hall. “You’re late for your next class.”
Elliott shook his head again. “I-I don’t h-have one.�
�� He brought his hand to my elbow. “D-do you w-w-want to g-gggo to the n-nurse?”
I wasn’t sure if it was his question or some kind of instinctive reaction, but something compelled me to say “No,” very loudly while jerking my arm away. Nurses never led to good things, so there was no reason to go see one. It also registered that I felt a little sad he was no longer touching me.
I wondered if the day could get any weirder.
“I’m okay, Elliott.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I’m just going to go sit outside. The cool air will help.”
“D-do you w-want mm-mmme to g-go with you?”
Did I want him to come with me? No. I didn’t. Not because I was a bitch and didn’t like him or whatever, but because this shit was getting too deep already. I was fucking hanging on this e-mailing thing we’d just started. Hell, when we were next to that stream, surrounded by fallen leaves and wildflowers, I’d practically told him about Helen, and that was something I promised myself a long time ago I’d never tell anyone.
The feelings I had for him were intense, and I didn’t like it.
It was sloppy and I was an idiot for feeling that way. I needed to stop this infatuation. Things were always easier without all this emotion.
But even as I said that in my head, trying to convince myself that I didn’t need or want anything like this, my mouth responded, “Yeah, sure.”
Outside, the cool, crisp and slightly wet concrete of a low wall helped cool my burning face, while I focused on deep breaths. I was feeling better overall, but felt a little jittery.
“I-I-I’ll g-go get you ssssome more food.”
“No,” I said quietly, craning my neck to look him in the eye. “This is fine.” I held up my hand and waved the apple I’d swiped from the cafeteria before coming outside. “Just sit with me.”
Struggling, I sat up, my shoulder brushing his. I hadn’t realized that he was so close. Even though I knew I’d be sorry to lose the contact again, I automatically slid away a little and busied myself with my glucose monitor.
I wanted to tell him everything about me, but the thought that someone would know me, really know me, made me keep my mouth shut.
