Savage Delight

by Sara Wolf

  Sophia’s face flares pink, and she looks at the ground.

  “He loves you, Sophia,” I say slowly. “Don’t ever doubt that. I mean, I can’t remember most of him, but there’s a sliver of him I remember now, and my gut tells me he loves you, without a single fricking doubt. My gut isn’t wrong. Except when it has diarrhea. Then it is very, very wrong.”

  Sophia looks up, her deep blue eyes welling with the softest of tears. She chokes back a laugh.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse you – or anyone. I just…sometimes I’ve been with him for so long, it feels like I can’t tell anymore. And ever since you transferred to his school, his letters –”

  She looks my face over, like she’s searching for something in my expression. Then she shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry. Nevermind. Thank you.”

  Before I can say anything more stupid, she walks through the door and takes the steps two at a time, leaving me to the wind and the birds.

  I look down at my hands. The memories were so vivid. The smell of stir-fry Jack made. His mother’s face, his mother’s painting. Their dog, Darth Vader. Jack’s room – the smell of sleep and boy and honey and mint, a smell so familiar it comforts me.

  Comforts?

  I make a face and throw that trash-thought in the brain-trash. The dude is clearly an asshole. He kissed me when he had a girlfriend! Me! I’m not even kiss-worthy! Not compared to someone like Sophia. He had Sophia and he kissed me, so he clearly must be a blind idiot as well as an asshole.

  I take the stairs two at a time. I don’t see Sophia anywhere in the lobby, so I go back to my room, turning over the semi-what-the-fuckery I’d just encountered. The memory of that Jack-smell hits me again when I turn a corner for no reason. I furiously shake my head. Nu-uh. Whatever I had with him is over. As soon as I find out the details, the past is going in a vault and never coming out again. Sophia is too nice. And she’s my friend. Sort of.

  And Jack is the only thing she has left.

  “Besides, I don’t even like him. I don’t even know him. How can you like a carbon-based cootie-machine?”

  “Who’s a carbon-based what?”

  I look up to see Wren standing by my bedside, holding a stack of papers. His green eyes shine behind his horn-rimmed glasses, his floppy hair even floppier. The second I register it’s him I open my arms and run towards him, but when I spot the papers are math worksheets, I back up to the wall.

  “What are those?” I whisper accusingly. He blinks.

  “Your make-up work for Algebra II?”

  I hiss and arch my back. Wren sighs and puts the papers on my bedside table next to a vase of wilted sunflowers my mom got me.

  “You have to do them sometime if you wanna graduate with the rest of us.”

  “Yes well, in case you haven’t been paying attention I’m not one to follow the conventional traditions of the masses. Also, there are roughly four hundred people in our graduating class and I like maybe three. You being one. Kayla being the other.”

  Wren looks expectantly at me.

  “And Knife-guy.”

  He exhales. “Still not fully recovered, I see.”

  “Actually! I am. So now I can ask you!” I grab his collar. “Why didn’t you tell me about Jack?”

  Shock paralyzes his face for a second.

  “You seemed sort of traumatized, Isis! How could I tell you when you were lying in bed with that huge blood-stained bandage around your head? I was just happy you were alive! We all were!”

  “Yes, I appreciate being alive and well and all, except you forgot the I-love-my-brain-and-would-like-to-know-what’s-going-on-with-it-at-all-times-jerkwad part!”

  “Look, I’m sorry, alright?”

  I back up. Wren takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes.

  “It’s my fault. I’m…wary of girls in fragile states. I don’t know how to help them. I’ve never known how to help them. All I do is hurt them. And with Sophia here in this hospital too, I’ve just been on eggshells. I’m sorry. I was wrapped up in my own head, and I forgot about you.”

  I feel the anger drain out of my body when Wren grins sheepishly.

  “You’ve really…I haven’t told you how much you’ve helped me. But you have. You really have. Before you came, I just stayed friends with people on the surface. I didn’t feel comfortable getting to know people for who they really were. I was fine with them just liking me superficially. But then you – I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. So I didn’t tell you. I should’ve. I’m sorry.”

  There’s a terse quiet. Finally, I lightly punch him. In the ear.

  “C’mere, you piece of shit!” I yank his head under my arm and noogie him. “You think you’re so cool, worrying about everyone else like a dumb worry warty ass. I’ll show you –”

  “Ahem.”

  I look up. Sophia stands there. Wren goes white down to his roots and pulls out of my headlock all in a split second.

  “S-Sophia,” He stammers.

  “Wren.” She smiles. “It’s good to see you. Tallie misses you. So do I. But Tallie misses you the most.”

  Wren’s white face gets green-tinged as he struggles to speak.

  “I’ve been…busy.”

  “Too busy for Tallie and I?” Sophia cocks her head. “Busy for three whole years? Jack and Avery visit her, but you don’t, anymore.”

  The tension in here is hells thick and no attention is on me, so obviously I have to rectify this situation by asking annoying questions.

  “Who’s Tallie?”

  Wren won’t look at me, or Sophia, his eyes riveted on the floor instead. Sophia just keeps smiling.

  “A good friend of ours. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I barged in. I’ll come back later.”

  When she’s gone, Wren lets the breath he’d been holding out.

  “I thought you two were talking while you were here?” I ask. “Why are you so shook up?”

  “If you can call it ‘talking’,” Wren whispers. “She just stares at me from across the room, or the hall, and smiles. We don’t actually talk. That was the first time in…years.”

  “Is Tallie someone important?”

  Wren knits his lips shut, and I know I won’t be able to wheedle it out of him.

  “Ah, look, nevermind. It’s cool. You got some secrets, I got some secrets. Our secrets should get married and have babies.”

  Wren looks shocked.

  “Platonically,” I add. “Entirely platonic baby-making.”

  “Is that…a thing?”

  “Everything is technically a thing!”

  I turn and hop in my bed, smoothing the covers to feign a modicum of decency like a proper lady would. Wren looks like he’s having some internal battle with himself – his mouth’s all screwed up and his shoulders are shaking.

  “Hey? Are you okay?”

  “I told you before. I had the camera,” he blurts.

  “Camera?”

  “Avery gave me the camera that night in middle school. She wanted the whole thing on tape.”

  The thing. I remember it vaguely, but the second he says it in his own words it comes flooding back – Jack, with a baseball bat. Middle school. Avery, Wren, and Sophia were all there. Two? Three men? Avery said she hired those men to get back at Sophia, because she was jealous.

  “She bullied me. No. Back then I let myself be bullied,” Wren spits the sentence. “We hid in the bushes. It was up by the lake – Lake Galonagah. The nature preserve. Avery’s parents had a cabin up there. She invited us all, and then lured Jack and Sophia to the woods, where the men were waiting.”

  My heart beats in my ears. Wren clenches his fist.

  “I got it all on the tape, Isis. It was horrible. I should’ve stopped – I should’ve put it down and saved Sophia. But I didn’t. I was a coward. I was frozen. All I could do was stare at that screen, and as long as I stared at it, I could pretend it wasn’t happening, that it was a movie instead of real life –”

 
; He gives a shuddering gasp. I leap out of bed and put my arms around him.

  “Hey, hey, shhhh. It’s alright.”

  “It’s not.” Wren chokes. “It’s not alright. Jack saved her. I couldn’t do anything, but he saved her.”

  I pet circles on his back. “What about the men? What happened to them?”

  Wren looks up, eyes red on the edges. The fear takes over again. Reality seeps in - I can see it in the way his expression fixes itself. He rearranges his face, his body, so that he’s standing straight.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice much firmer. “It’s been a rough day. I need to get home. Try to do some of that math work, okay? Text me if you have questions.”

  “Wren, I –”

  “Don’t, Isis. I’m still…you’re recovering. And I’m recovering. Just – just don’t. Not right now.”

  I take a step back. “Alright. Get home before it’s dark, okay? And don’t forget to eat something.”

  He smiles. “I won’t.”

  I watch him pull out of the hospital parking lot from my window. After a half hour, I text him; EAT SOMETHING YOU MASSIVE DOOF. He responds with a picture of a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s not nearly enough, but it’ll do for now.

  Mom comes to visit after dinner. I’m picking at rehydrated saltwater crocodile slash Frankenstien’s butt jerky slash chicken, so when she holds up a bag of fast food I run into her arms imagining roses all around us.

  “I love you,” I say. “Truly, my love for you has never been larger than this moment. Except that moment you pushed me out into the world screaming and covered in goo.”

  She laughs. Her trenchcoat is still chilly from the air outside, and her hands are cold. I rub them with mine to make them warm. She sits at my bedside, and we quietly eat French fries and burgers, enjoying each others’ silence. The hard stuff doesn’t get talked about until we’ve had a good laugh or two. Some normalcy has to be put between the darkness and us. That’s how you get enough strength to face it.

  I wave the yellow slip Mernich gave me. Mom’s eyes go wide, and she dabs the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

  “How did you get that?”

  “Blackmailed a few congressmen. Bribed some drug lords. The usual.”

  “Isis!”

  “I got it from Mernich, how else?” I laugh. “You need to sign off on it, and give it to the front desk. And like, I guess they’ll do one last CAT sign of my head or whatever, and take the bandages off.”

  “I wouldn’t let you leave unless they did,” Mom says sternly. “I’ll give it to them when I leave tonight. I’m surprised – Mernich said you wouldn’t be ready for another week.”

  “I managed to win her over with my svelte charm and palaces full of money and boys. Mostly boys.”

  Mom barely hears me, her focus all on the slip. She looks up and grins. “Are you ready to go home?”

  I can practically see the relief on her face. The bills always stick out of her purse when she comes to visit. I’d taken a peek at some when she went to the bathroom – the amount of money is ridiculous. Now she won’t have to worry about it as much, though. Praise the J-man.

  “Are you kidding? I’m ready to bellyflop into the driveway of home! I’m ready to smear my soulful existence all over the roof of home. I’m ready to corporeally merge into the walls of home. I’m ready to graft the windows of home onto the skin of my butt.”

  Mom tactfully ignores my superlative theatrics and nibbles a tomato. But I know the look in her eyes. She’s nervous.

  “Something wrong?” I ask.

  “The trial,” she swallows. “Leo’s trial is this Friday.”

  “You told me.” I nod. “I’ll be there with you, okay? If I could just testify, if your lawyer would just let me testify –”

  “You remember what he said.” Mom shakes her head. “Even if you did, the defense would argue your head injury and rule it as inadmissible.”

  I snort and down a pickle. “What about Jack?”

  Mom looks startled. “Jack? What about him?”

  “Is he testifying?”

  “Yes, of course. You’ve never mentioned him before. Why now?”

  “I remember him. My session with Mernich made me remember him.”

  “Oh, that’s fantastic!” Mom smiles.

  “Why didn’t you tell me I’d forgotten him?”

  “Honey, I’d been meaning to. But Mernich advised me not to. She wanted you to come to the realization on your own. She said it’d be healthier.”

  “It’s not healthier, it’s just more fricking confusing!”

  “I wanted to tell you so bad,” Mom says. “Believe me. But I was so scared for you. I did everything the doctors told me to so nothing would go wrong. I didn’t want to take the chance I would mess up your healing process.”

  When I don’t say anything, Mom sighs.

  “He’s a nice boy, you know – ”

  “I don’t know what he is, Mom. Because I can’t remember him.”

  My voice is sharper than I meant it. Mom flinches. I eat a fry and exhale.

  “Sorry. Today has been so weird.”

  She gets up and kisses my head. “I know, sweetie. Try to get some rest. You’ll be out by tomorrow, and at home, where I can take care of you.”

  Mom leaves, and Naomi comes in for her final night check a few hours later. I pick at the last stubby French fry and let the mindless cartoons on the TV lull me to sleepland.

  “I heard you’re leaving,” Naomi says.

  “Yeah.”

  She quirks an eyebrow. “No cartwheels? No screaming?” She crosses the room and feels my forehead. “Are you feeling alright?”

  I lean back. “Everyone lied to me.”

  “Yeah? Why’d they do that?”

  “You did too.”

  “I most certainly did not!” Naomi looks offended.

  “You could’ve told me I had amnesia.”

  “I had no idea! I’m in charge of your basic health. That head stuff is up to Dr. Fenwall and Dr. Mernich.”

  “Oh.” I frown. “Sorry.”

  Naomi sits on the bed and crumples my hamburger trash into her palm.

  “Why do you think they lied?” She asks quietly.

  “Because they wanna see me squirm.”

  “Nonsense. They wanted to protect you. They wanted to see you get better.”

  “Even Sophia knew.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised – that girl knows everything. Sometimes it’s like she can see right through people.” Naomi shivers slightly, but the room isn’t cold. “Now, promise me you won’t sneak into the kids’ ward tonight, alright?”

  “But…I gotta say goodbye to them.”

  “I’ll take you in the morning to say goodbye. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Be specific.”

  I huff. “I promise I won’t scale the wall and pull myself up over a precarious windowsill ledge into the kids’ ward.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  She readjusts my IV, and taps the monitor. After a quick check of my chart, she closes my blinds and turns the light off.

  “Goodnight, Isis.”

  “’Night.”

  The hospital bed is comfortable enough, but too much comfort nags at you after a while. Makes you feel useless and lumpy. But I’m leaving. Tomorrow is the last day I’m here. The real world is out there waiting for me. My real memories are out there, waiting for me.

  -3-

  Isis’ front porch is as run-down as ever.

  The windchime clinks pathetically in the night air. The lights are on; warm squares of golden light fighting off the darkness. I pull my keys from the ignition and grab the still-warm lasagna from the backseat. Mrs. Blake’s decorated the front door with a Christmas wreath and a string of white lights. I smooth my hair and knock twice. The mottled glass on either side of the door has been repaired since that bastard broke it, but seeing it still makes my throat twist unpleasantly.
r />   Mrs. Blake answers, in a sweater and yoga pants. But she looks happier and more clear-eyed than my previous visits.

  “Jack!” She opens the door. “Come in, quick! You must be freezing.”

  I step into the warmth of the hall, and she takes my coat and fusses over the lasagna.

  “Did you make this yourself? It smells lovely. It must’ve been time-consuming!”

  “Not extremely difficult. Just some meat and sauce.”

  “Nonsense. I can’t make a good lasagna to save my life. Thank you so much.”

  “Eat it while it’s still warm.”

  She laughs. “I will. Let’s sit in the kitchen. Do you want a piece?”

  I ignore the gnawing in my stomach. “I already ate.”

  “Well, have some juice at least. Or do you want soda? I could make you some heated eggnog!”

  “Water would be fine.”

  She makes a ‘tsk’ noise that sounds so familiar. Isis does the same thing, in the same tone, when she’s disappointed in something. She fills a glass and slides it to me, and dishes herself a portion of the lasagna. We sit at the table and I watch her eat – her wrists are thinner than I remember last time.

  “Have you been eating?” I ask softly. Mrs. Blake shrugs.

  “Oh, you know. Things at the museum are so hectic lately, I don’t cook as much as I should.”

  “You forget.”

  She smiles sheepishly. “Yes. Isis is so good about that – she always packs me lunches, and puts them in the car so I won’t forget them in the morning.”

  Her eyes light up as she takes another bite.

  “You really are a wonderful cook, Jack. This is amazing. Thank you.”

  “It’s the least I could do.”

  “No, no. You didn’t have to do this at all. The visits, the food, all of it. I’m…I’m very grateful. You’ve helped us so much.”