Affective Needs

by Rebecca Taylor

  So what? You can’t read it.

  The microwave beeped so I moved to take the lasagna out.

  No, I absolutely couldn’t read his file. That was wrong, on so many levels. Possibly even illegal. Not that anyone would know, of course. But if my mother found out?

  I placed the plate with the now-steaming lasagna on the counter and waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

  And really, did I want to know what was in that file anyway? Was that file really who Porter was? Could a pile of paper, a series of reports, reports made by other people, really explain Porter Creed to me?

  Granted, it was a huge pile of paper.

  The smell of fresh-brewed coffee filled the kitchen as the last of the boiling-hot liquid dribbled into my mother’s cup. I ripped a piece of paper towel off the roll for a napkin and headed back up the stairs to my mother, and Porter’s file.

  A file I had almost 100 percent concluded I would not be reading. Besides, did any of those reports explain why when I watched him working the math problem my insides turned upside down? Maybe what I needed was not so much an explanation on Porter Creed, but an explanation about myself.

  With the boiling black coffee in one hand and the plate of steaming, gooey lasagna in the other, I used the toe of my shoe to push the door open. When it swung inward, I could see my mother still sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, but now she had her cell phone pressed between her shoulder and ear while she typed on the computer in front of her.

  I took a deep breath and sighed. The food would probably go cold before she got around to eating it. Carefully, I placed the coffee on her bedside table and the plate of food on the bed with all her files. Maybe if it was close, the aroma of spicy Italian sausage, melting mozzarella, and tomato sauce would remind her to eat.

  She looked at the food, then up at me. Thank you, she mouthed before turning her eyes back to the screen in front of her. “Yes, three days and we’re concer . . . I see,” she said into the phone. She reached over, began flipping through the open file next to her, and pulled a sheet from somewhere near the middle.

  I glanced down at where Porter’s file had been, but it was gone. The one she was using, the open file with all the pages—his name was on that file.

  “Mr. Creed, I assure you . . . well, will he be at school Monday?”

  She was on the phone with Porter’s father. I should leave, turn around, walk away—instead, I stood transfixed while my mother’s forehead wrinkled and her mouth set into that flat line that showed how angry she really was even if her words didn’t.

  “Hello?” she asked and pulled the phone from her ear for a second before checking again. “Hello? Mr. Creed?” She sucked air through her nose and let out a giant sigh while she put the phone down. “He hung up on me,” she shook her head. When she turned her head to me, she smiled with her mouth but I could tell from her eyes that she was completely irritated with Porter’s dad. “Thank you,” she picked up the plate but didn’t take the fork. She just held the plate in front of her like she was trying to figure out what to do next.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  She nodded, but her mind was somewhere else. I considered asking her a question, directly, about Porter. Did she know he was in my class? Yes, he is, also . . . he’s my partner for our year end calculus project. I would skip over the whole ditching school, taking a pass off her desk, and forging her name so I didn’t have to sit in detention the next day thing, but she might like to know that I knew Porter Creed.

  “He’s in my class,” I blurted.

  My mother turned her head to face me. “I’m sorry?”

  “Porter Creed,” I pointed at the open file lying next to her. “He’s in my Advanced Calculus class.”

  Her brow furrowed again and she narrowed her eyes. “Really?” Her hand moved and closed Porter’s file. I could tell she was thinking about what she had said in front of me, how much confidential information had I heard.

  “He seems nice.” I shrugged.

  “You know him?”

  “Well there’s only six of us in the whole class; it’s kind of hard for us to not know each other.”

  She nodded at this, but I could tell her brain was still trying to wrap around several things at once. She picked up her fork, paused, then put it and the plate back down on the bed. She pursed her lips the way she did when she was preparing to say something but still working out exactly how she should say it.

  I jumped in before she had the chance to shut the topic down. “He’s really smart.” I shrugged again, hoping she would think that Porter was nothing more than a curiosity to me. “Super smart . . . you don’t really expect kids like Porter to be in special education.”

  My mother stared at me. She looked like she was both processing what I had said and trying to be really careful about how she responded.

  She took a breath. “It’s difficult.” Her words came out as a whisper. “Doing what I do, at the same school you go to . . .” She shook her head. “There were a lot of people in the district who said I shouldn’t.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “And maybe they were right. I thought I wouldn’t have any problems, at least not any I couldn’t handle by being professional, and open with you. In your four years at the school, you haven’t had any friends who have needed to see me.”

  Because I don’t have any friends besides Eli, I thought to remind her—but didn’t.

  “And you’ve turned out to be a huge help in the severe needs room,” she added, but then went silent again.

  I could guess what she would say next.

  “Is Porter Creed your friend?”

  I did my best to look incredulous—friend, was she kidding? “I hardly know him.”

  My mother watched me. It felt like an examination, a lie-detection review. She pulled Porter’s file onto her lap and glanced at her screen. “I don’t like to tell kids who to be friends with . . . especially when one of those kids could really use some friends.”

  I realized she could have just as easily been talking about me even though I knew she meant Porter.

  She returned her eyes to mine. “But my gut tells me I need to address this as a mother, not the school psych. I’m asking you to keep your distance from Porter.”

  “There’s only six—”

  “I’m not saying you have to ignore him completely. But don’t . . . get close to him either, okay? I have a feeling this one is going to get a lot more difficult before it gets any better—if it gets any better. And I can’t risk dealing with the ethical entanglements of a dual relationship.”

  Meaning, she couldn’t ethically be the psychologist for someone who was also my friend. “I told you, I hardly even know him.”

  She nodded. “Okay, that’s good then. Just make sure it stays that way—okay?”

  “Fine.” I raised my eyebrows like I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was in the first place. “No problem,” I added for emphasis, and turned to leave as if this conversation meant nothing to me. “Make sure you eat that.”

  “I will, and thank you.”

  I nodded as I left her room. It wasn’t until I was across the hall, sitting at my desk with my piles of homework spread all around me that I stopped and considered the huge lie I’d just told.

  I didn’t want to stay away from Porter Creed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Whatever my mother was able to say to Porter’s dad on Thursday must have had some effect, because Friday Porter walked into calc. Maybe because I had overheard the phone conversation, I had been expecting him to show up. Or maybe I only hoped he would. Either way, right before he walked into class, my entire nervous system jumped into overdrive. If I didn’t know better, I might have suggested that I could feel that Porter was close. Absurd, but still, when he walked past my desk, my hand trembled so hard I had to stop writing.

  With my eyes glued to the paper in front of me, I could only hope that the outside of my body gave zero indication what
was happening on the inside of it. My heart beat so hard against my chest, I swear I could feel my rib cage expand with each rapid pulse. Stop it, Ruth, right now. You have to stop this. But it was like my body didn’t care at all what my brain was ordering it to do. Deep breaths, three big ones. I closed my eyes and sat up straight in my seat.

  My mind raced obsessively. Was Porter, right now, sitting behind me and watching my every move? Did he know what was happening? Could he somehow feel this, sense it? Was my body radiating some kind of electric current that shot out in every direction, announcing my seemingly rampant attraction to Porter? Was it obvious, not just to him, but to everyone in the room?

  I put my pencil down and dug my fingernails deep into each of my palms. Control. I needed to regain control, because what I had to do next would require me to have a fully functioning body, capable of both coordinated physical movement and intelligible speech.

  I needed to go talk to Porter before Mr. T came in and started class.

  I opened my eyes and stood up, my legs watery and unreliable, but I turned around anyway, half expecting to see Porter staring back at me with a look of complete understanding. He knew what I felt—maybe that look would tell me that he felt it too.

  When my eyes landed on Porter, I instantly understood that not only was I a complete idiot, but there was no way in hell my body was sending covert energy signals anywhere. Slumped in his seat, with his giant legs sprawled out far past the desk in front of him, Porter’s chin rested on his chest as it rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

  He was fast asleep.

  I dared to look around the room, to check and see if maybe anyone else had detected the emotion hurricane that had just been happening over my desk.

  Every single person either had their head buried in their work or was copying the equations from the white board.

  I sighed quietly and walked slowly over to Porter, trying to ignore the thundering sound of my racing heart rushing in my ears. But the closer I got to him, the more I wondered if this was a mistake. Maybe I should have waited till after class started? Mr. T would probably have given us time to collaborate on our projects. Now, I would just look like a fool standing here in front of him when Mr. T would probably be walking in the door at any moment.

  Only a few steps from his desk, I stopped, Porter wasn’t waking up. His arms were folded over his chest that continued to rise and fall, rise and fall. His face looked soft, relaxed, and his messy hair hung over his—

  His eye.

  It was swollen, an ugly yellow-and-purple bruise circled his left eye and ran down the side of his cheek bone. His bottom lip had been split open. Had he been in a fight?

  “Porter?” my voice caught in my throat and came out too soft to wake him up. “Porter,” I tried again, louder this time. His head jerked slightly and his good eye, his right eye, opened all the way while the left one peered through swollen, discolored skin.

  He shifted his gaze to me and seemed to take a second to register where he was before he let out a deep sigh and tried to sit up a little more. “Yep. What’s up?”

  “What’s up?” I snapped. I hadn’t anticipated my nervousness being replaced so quickly by annoyance. “How about our project, for one. And second, you just take off for almost an entire week with zero communication. . . . Look, I offered to do this on my own, you’re the one who—”

  “Ruth.” Porter sat all the way up now, put his hands in the air like he was surrendering, and shook his head. “Things have changed.” He looked at me. “I was wrong. You are just going to have to do the project yourself.” Porter shook his head and slumped back in his chair as if he couldn’t wait to get back to sleep.

  “What? Now you expect me to do all the work while you sit by and take credit—”

  “No,” he sat up fast and looked around to see who was listening. In my anger, my voice had gotten loud and some of the others were taking furtive glances in our direction. He lowered his voice so they couldn’t hear. “I don’t expect to take credit for anything Ruth. It’s your project, alone.” He leaned back and let his shoulders fall. “My name won’t even be on it—happy?”

  No, I wasn’t happy. Maybe last week I would have been happy with all of this. Last week I probably would have been thrilled to just work on the project all by myself and take credit for all my amazing hard work.

  But last week, I had never watched Porter run his hands through his hair.

  “Why?” I hissed.

  “Why do you care? It’s what you wanted, and now you get it. Things have changed, that’s all.”

  “So what . . . you’re just not going to do it?”

  “Nope.”

  I didn’t know what to say to this. “But . . . you’ll fail the class.”

  Porter actually smiled, and a short burst of laughter erupted out of him. “Probably.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “It’s not like it would be the first time. Look Ruth, you don’t need to worry about this. Just do the project yourself; you’re more than capable. I’m not even going to be around long enough to worry about failing . . . again.”

  “What does that—”

  The door to the class opened and Mr. T walked in. “Ladies, gentlemen, good afternoon.” I turned just in time to see Mr. T’s gaze land on me standing over Porter’s desk. “If we could all take our seats,”—he nodded at me as he placed his coffee on his desk—“we will get this circus started.”

  “Did you give him his jacket back?” Eli asked me at lunch.

  “I didn’t have a chance to. When class was over he was out the door before I even had my stuff in my bag.” We were both ignoring the overcooked raviolis swimming in their watery tomato sauce in front of us while Porter inhaled his a few tables away.

  Eli picked up an apple wedge and toyed with the idea of actually eating it. “Well, so go get it and give it back to him.” He shrugged. “Then you’re done, right? You get to do your project, your way. Which is always your preference anyway.”

  I nodded absently. All afternoon I had been thinking about what Porter had said, about not being around long enough to worry about failing. I needed to know if he actually meant what I was worried he meant. And if so, should I go tell my mother?

  “Well, go get it.” Eli shoved me gently.

  Porter was getting up from his table and dumping his trash in the large cans near the entrance.

  “Look,” Eli said. “He’s probably going to take off again, and who knows when he’ll be back . . . if he’ll be back.”

  I was only half listening, but I shook my head, “I can’t . . . not today anyway.”

  Eli stirred his soggy raviolis, made a face, and pushed the whole tray away, “Why not? Look, and there he goes again.”

  Porter pushed the double doors and headed out into the courtyard. We both knew he wouldn’t be coming back.

  I turned back to Eli as if I couldn’t care less what Porter Creed or his jacket where doing for the rest of the day. “I’m leaving early today. Appointment.” I stood up and grabbed my bag. “I’m visiting Caged Karen today up at Harmony House.”

  “Right now? They’re letting you leave school to go up there?”

  “Research trip.” I grinned.

  “You never said . . . I would have—”

  “Hey,” I shrugged and smirked at him. “I offered. You could have totally come with me as my assistant but, as I recall, you seemed to object to traveling in my . . . what did you call Vader, ‘bucket of bolts’?”

  Eli made a face that told me to go screw myself. “I believe it was ‘death trap.’”

  “Yes, that’s it! Death trap!” I leaned forward and kissed Eli on his forehead. “I’ll see you later, dear.”

  “Hmm, if you survive the trip. Call me later.”

  “Of course, my love.”

  “And next time, if you’re missing school . . . I may be willing to risk it. Remember that!”

  I waved at him from over my shoulder and headed, quickly
, for the front doors of the school. If I hurried, I could probably time it just right, but I didn’t want Eli to know.

  In the parking lot, I opened Vader’s door, tossed my bag onto the passenger seat next to me, and slid onto the driver’s seat. The worn and split leather was ice cold beneath me and a thin dusting of snow had settled onto the windshield. “Crap,” I said, and watched the steam from my breath float up in front of me. I really wished I had found a good way to get Porter’s jacket back to him—or at least had thought to bring it with me now.

  He must be freezing.

  Out of gear, I turned the ignition and pumped the gas a few times while Vader made choking noises before finally turning all the way over. I pushed the clutch, switched on the wipers to clear the windshield, shifted into first, and hoped I wasn’t too late to still catch sight of Porter.

  He was halfway to the library before I saw him.

  Leaning into the wind, in a short-sleeved black T-shirt, his hands shoved down into the pockets of his jeans while his shoulders rose up high against the cold. Light flakes of snow landed in his hair and on his shoulders.

  A wave of guilt rolled over me.

  I had half a thought to drive back to the school, get his jacket, and drive it back to the library. Didn’t he have anything else—a sweatshirt at least? When I got close to him, just outside the public library, I pulled over on the side of the street like I was parking but turned on my blinker so I could flip around to get his coat, but when he reached the steps to the library’s entrance, instead of turning left and rushing the steps two at a time like he had the day I was with him, he kept walking on past.

  Where was he going? If I turned back now, I would have no idea where to find him anyway—jacket or no jacket. At the next corner, Porter took a left and disappeared behind the Walgreens.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the time. I hadn’t lied to Eli; I really did have an appointment to observe Caged Karen up at Harmony House this afternoon. If I spent much more time stalking Porter—because let’s face it, this was legit, full-on stalking I was engaged in here—I would be late.