Old Wounds

by N. K. Smith

  After lunch and a little bit of guitar strumming, I checked my e-mail and was happy to see that Sophie had replied.

  Elliott,

  If you did ask me why I was so sad, I would tell you I’m not so sad and that you shouldn’t waste your time wondering about things like that.

  Here are your answers:

  I volunteered to cook because it seemed like a good idea. If I’m forced to have dinner with Wallace, Dr. Dalton, and Tom, it might as well be tasty. I told you that I cook because I have to, and I decided a while back that if I had to cook, I might as well learn to be good at it. I like PB&J, but that’s pretty much what I lived on for a few years, so sometimes it’s nice to whip up a few days’ worth of lasagna or put together a fruit salad.

  I had short hair one time, and I didn’t really care for how it looked. Besides, it didn’t accomplish the reason I cut it in the first place, so I let it grow back.

  The scar on my forehead is from the corner of a wall. Like the skin on the lips, the skin of the forehead is amazingly easy to rip open. And walls, especially the corners, are unforgiving.

  I never knew Helen’s parents, but I spent time at my Grandma Catherine’s every summer when I visited Tom. His dad was never in the picture. Surprise, surprise. Like father, like son, I guess. Anyway, I usually got to spend a few days with her. I don’t remember much about her, since she died a long time ago, but I do recall she used to let me eat windmill cookies and she loved strawberries.

  Why do you have a fixation on the fork, Elliott? It’s a meaningless scar that most people don’t even notice. Forks are pointy. I am clumsy. It’s been established that skin can give way rather easily.

  Bonus: If we call Australia “Down Under”, do people in Australia call us “Up Over”?

  You’re entirely too funny to be locked away in some kind of medical research lab.

  I’ll be over in a few short hours, but I’ll give you my questions.

  Why do you want to know about the fork?

  Do you know your grandparents?

  The news said it could snow this week. Do you like the snow?

  Why do you like that picture in your art book? The Flaming June one.

  Do you ever wish you could be someone else? If so, who would you be?

  Bonus: How are our baby Brussels sprouts?

  I’ll see you soon, Elliott.

  S.

  “Just cut them the same size as the potatoes,” Sophie said, pointing to the vegetables on the cutting board with one hand and popping a piece of raw potato into her mouth with the other. She had shown me what she wanted with the potatoes. Now she would start preparing the chicken and leave me to my own devices.

  Her father was in the living room with Robin and Stephen. They were having a discussion about football. Every so often, I saw Robin go into the dining room and peer around the wall. I was aware that she was looking in on us.

  “Oh my God, that smells delicious!”

  I looked up to see Jane enter the kitchen, pulling open the oven to get a better look at Sophie’s apple crisp. She wore the long green dress she’d bought for Homecoming over two months ago. “Y-you look p-p-pretty, J-JJJJJaaane.”

  Closing the oven, she beamed at me. “Thanks!”

  Beets stain, so I went to wash my hands before continuing the cutting list. When I turned back around, Jane was at the cutting board, knife in hand. It was innocent. I knew that it was. On some level, I was aware she would not intentionally hurt herself today of all days, and especially not in front of people, but my lungs seized as I watched her eye the knife she held.

  Sophie was busy rubbing the chicken with herbs and I was grateful that she was distracted. Very quietly and quickly, I moved back to the cutting board and carefully took the knife back from Jane.

  She stepped to the side as her eyes stayed glued on me. It was clear that I had just hurt her feelings. As much as I hated when Jane’s feelings were hurt, I would hate it more if she stained her pretty green dress by cutting herself, accidentally or not. The sight of her with a knife was just too much right now.

  I looked back at her. There were tears in her eyes and I felt horrible. “D-don’t, Jane,” I whispered.

  She sighed and then turned to Sophie. “I wish I could eat dinner here. It smells unbelievable.”

  “Thanks,” Sophie replied.

  “If I’d known you were going all “gourmet” on us, we wouldn’t have made reservations.”

  Craning my neck, I saw Sophie give Jane a kind smile. “No worries. I’m sure there’ll be leftovers, and I can cook for you another time.” Despite being rough around the edges, Sophie was a good person. I wondered if she knew that about herself.

  Sophie’s meal was delicious, but I wished we hadn’t had to eat it with Robin, Stephen and Mr. Young. She and I were mostly silent at the dinner table, both only responding when spoken to.

  “This is an excellent meal, Sophie. Thank you for preparing it,” Stephen commented.

  “Yes, it’s wonderful. Where did you learn to make it?”

  Sophie looked at Robin and opened her mouth before closing it rather quickly. Her eyes flicked over to her father, then to Robin, then to me, and finally, they rested back on Robin. “The apple crisp is from a cookbook and the rest I just threw together.”

  Mr. Young’s voice was full of pride. “She’s a hell of a cook. She could go on one of those cooking contests on TV.”

  Sophie’s brow creased as she looked down. Shuffling a potato piece around on her plate, she shook her head. “It’s not that good,” she said under her breath. She was obviously not comfortable with compliments.

  The topic of conversation floated between humorous incidents at the hospital and the fire station, and the pros and cons of universal health care. Neither of us said a word. In fact, Sophie didn’t look up from her food until Stephen said something about a study he’d read concerning teenagers and sleep. Her face remained neutral as her father mentioned something about Sophie sleeping until the afternoon today.

  “I was tired,” she mumbled before taking another bite of apple crisp.

  “How has your blood sugar been, Sophie?” Stephen asked.

  She sighed and carefully rested her fork across the top of the bowl before taking a sip of her water. “Fine,” she answered, her voice sounding fairly tense.

  “Fatigue is a sign of…”

  “Yes, I know,” she cut him off.

  “A sign of what?” Robin asked.

  While Sophie sighed again, turning her head to the side, her gaze fixing on some invisible spot on the wall, Stephen finished, “Diabetic ketoacidosis.”

  Her father, who was a trained paramedic, said, “It’s a condition in diabetics in which the blood sugar is elevated to near-lethal levels.”

  Sophie’s father flicked his eyes to her. It wasn’t hard to see worry in them.

  “Tom,” Sophie said with yet another sigh, “I take my insulin, I monitor my blood sugar, and I’m fine.”

  “Do you know the symptoms?” Stephen asked an already irritated Sophie. I wish he’d just stop talking!

  “Fatigue, vomiting, dehydration, excessive urination, and sometimes confusion, which can lead to a coma.”

  Sophie was silent and didn’t talk until dinner was over and we had cleared the table. I told her that she didn’t have to clean up, but she shrugged and did it anyway. “Boy, who knew eating dinner with a doctor and a “fire medic” could be so much fun?” she said as she plopped down onto my sofa. I guessed that “fire medic” was fire station shorthand for firemen who were also paramedics.

  I smiled as I pushed play on my iPod.

  “Talk of vomit and urination during dessert was incredibly appetizing. Does he do that shit a lot?”

  Chuckling, I turned around to face her. Steph
en was fairly limitless and oblivious to how many disgusting medical facts and stories he told. Thankfully, she hadn’t had to endure the STD talk or the picture of the cancerous lung. “S-sssometimes.”

  I went to sit on my bed. She sighed and I looked at her quizzically, but she just shook her head. “W-w-what?”

  “Can’t you sit on your bed differently?”

  The confusion intensified. I had no idea what she was asking. “W-what?” I asked again.

  “Move back.” I blinked at her, but immediately did as she asked, scooting back into the middle. “Now fold your legs.” Again, I did as she said, and sat cross-legged. “Doesn’t that feel better? You look like you own that bed now.”

  I smiled, still not really understanding her and even though I was going to sound like a complete idiot, I asked again, “W-what?”

  “You always sit on the edge of your bed like it’s going to bite you or something. Now you look… chill.”

  Something about her tone and the relaxed way she was looking at me made me nervous. I ran a hand through my hair and tried to think of something to talk about, even though I just wanted to ask her to run her hands through my hair.

  “The s-sssprouts are doing w-w-w-w, g-good. Do you w-want to g-go sssee?”

  Although she smiled widely, she shook her head. “Not now that you look so comfortable.”

  I had to close my eyes for a moment and concentrate on breathing slowly. I forced myself to mentally play a Chopin piece in my head to relax my tensing body. All the signs had been pointing to my having a thing for Sophie. Knowing this was the case, made me anxious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I looked up and swallowed hard. How had we both worn green today? She was wearing a t shirt with the word “Boo!” on it and I was wearing the shirt that had been too small for David.

  “Elliott?”

  “Y-y-yes?”

  “I asked you what was wrong. For a minute there you looked like you just finished a marathon.” Cocking her head, she added, “But you look okay now.”

  “I-I’m fine.”

  As I sat there looking at Sophie, I thought about something Robin had asked me a long time ago about what I would attempt if I knew I could not fail. At the time I had no clue how to answer, but today my answer would be to try to get closer to Sophie. The powerful feelings I had for her I’d never had for anyone else.

  I had no clue how to “be closer” to Sophie, and the likelihood of failure was pretty high. I was nothing like the guys she seemed to like, and I had no idea what she really thought of me. I’d spent the majority of my life avoiding people in general. I was no student of human behavior, and was having a hard time figuring out if she really wanted anything to do with me or if she was just trying to make the best of being stuck with me in her involuntary quest to be less screwed-up.

  Either way, I still felt compelled to wheedle more information from her. She carried so much on her shoulders and she steadfastly refused to let anyone help. She refused to even acknowledge the weight was there.

  “S-Sophie?” She looked up at me and I looked away.

  “Hmm?”

  “W-why didn’t you g-go to the dance?”

  “I told you. They’re not my thing.”

  Shaking my head, I refocused on her. Her eyes looked exceptionally big and bright. “B-but you were in g-g-gymnastics. I-isn’t dancing almost the ssssame?”

  Pulling her hair to the side, she exposed her neck and I caught sight of the small scars. It reminded me of her e-mail. She had asked me why I was fixated on it. I truly didn’t know, but I felt bound to ask; like I needed her to tell me. She was always so guarded, and even though she knew my life wasn’t honeysuckle and roses, she still didn’t share any more than she felt she had to. It bothered me.

  I understood her silence, but I didn’t like it.

  It felt like if I knew that one piece of information about the fork, it would be a huge victory, and with that knowledge, we would finally realize we had something more with each other than just the verbally-acknowledged friendship.

  “It’s not the actual dancing that’s not my thing.”

  I drew my thoughts back to the question I had asked before I got sidetracked by my internal musings about the fork. I said, “Then w-why didn’t you g-go?”

  “A room filled with a bunch of people I don’t really like isn’t all that appealing, Elliott. It’s pointless. Stupid people subject themselves to rites and rituals they don’t believe in. I don’t want to go to a dance because everyone else does. I don’t want to go to the dance as some sort of status booster.”

  I took a deep breath and moved once more to the edge of my bed. If I knew I wouldn’t fail, I’d have gotten up off of this bed and sat next to her on the couch. It wouldn’t be the first time we were sitting close together. We shared a table in the greenhouse. There wasn’t anything different about that and sitting next to her on my couch. Absolutely nothing. So there wasn’t anything to be worried, nervous, or anxious about.

  A tingle in my chest told me otherwise, but my body rose off the bed anyway, even as my mind battled with itself. The couch wasn’t far, but it seemed like a long distance for my feet to travel. When I was sitting next to her, I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. I felt almost frozen in fear.

  It was incredibly new to me to actually want to be physically close to someone. I wanted to touch her face like I had last night, and I wanted her to run her hand through my hair the way she had before. I wanted this closeness because the currents of energy that flowed between us when we were close like this, felt so good; so right.

  When I finally looked at her, she had sunk into the couch a bit, her head lying back. Her eyes were closed and I wondered if she was tired, bored, or just comfortable. It seemed to be the latter because of what she said next.

  “I love your room.” Her voice was quiet.

  Remembering that it was only last night when she took my hand in the car, I thought that if I had no fear of failure, I would touch her hand this time. Despite the racing of my heart, my hand moved closer to hers, my fingers just brushing against the backside at first.

  Then they glided over her smooth skin, and I felt that same prickling feeling that made me shiver. Before I could let out a shaky breath just from the thought that I’d actually done something like that, my fingers curled around her hand.

  It was small, much smaller than mine, just as a woman’s hand usually is compared to a man’s. But it felt so fragile, like if I squeezed too hard, it would fracture into a million tiny pieces. There would be no squeezing though, since it took so much energy to even be able to do what I was doing now.

  It didn’t go unnoticed that she hadn’t protested my touch. Her eyes were still closed and I wondered if she’d even felt it. She nibbled on her lower lip as her chest rose and fell more rapidly than usual.

  As the current song faded away, I knew the next one was practically made for moments like this. If I thought I couldn’t fail, I would pull her up, bring her into my arms, and dance with her.

  But only if I knew my attempt wouldn’t fail.

  As Otis Redding’s rich voice singing of lonely arms saturated the thick air of my room, I suddenly felt emboldened, as if I truly knew I couldn’t fail. I was already holding her hand and she hadn’t pushed me away. It was incredibly easy to stand up, my hand still attached to hers, and pull her up with me. Sophie’s eyes popped open and for a moment, I saw a brief flash of something. That fear, panic, whatever it was, dissipated quickly as her eyes locked with mine.

  I was nervous, near panicking, and yet it seemed incredibly right and natural to bring Sophie this close to me; as if bringing her into me.

  She wobbled just a bit as I tugged her up, and she gripped my fingers. I stepped back just enough to pull her away from the couch and risked a look at her face.
Her eyes widened and she licked her bottom lip. I heard her sharp intake of breath and I steeled myself for the rejection that was sure to come.

  But it didn’t.

  Instead, she let out a long sigh and her expression changed. It looked as if she was confused.

  One of my hands slid behind her as I wrapped my arm around her waist. I was amazed how well she seemed to fit in my arms, as if she’d been made to be there. I swallowed hard and mentally forced my body to behave; to not react to the sheer nearness of her. If I allowed it, panic could overwhelm me at any second.

  She smelled so good.

  Slowly and very, very carefully, I moved just a little, bringing her with me in a soft sway. For just a moment, her head was pressed into my chest and I wondered what she thought of my rapidly-beating heart.

  “I can’t really dance, Elliott,” she whispered into my green button-down shirt.

  “N-n-neither can I,” I whispered back. I’d never done it before in my life.

  So we swayed in the middle of my room to the music her grandmother used to listen to while her father, Stephen, and Robin were downstairs and everyone else was at the Homecoming dance.

  I didn’t have time to wonder how long she would let me hold her, because she was already out of my arms and across the room before the song was over, her hand gliding along my books as she liked to do. I suddenly felt very empty, as though I’d lost a bit of myself.

  Rubbing my hands on the side of my pants, I watched her pretend to be interested in what was on my shelf.

  “I was putting the dishes in the dishwasher.”

  I blinked when I heard her quiet voice, wondering what it had to do with anything at all.

  “I’d been late coming home from school, so I didn’t get dinner done in time and it was supposed to be some kind of ‘special’ dinner for her and her boyfriend. I served it late and undercooked.” Sophie paused, taking a breath. “She waited until he left.”