by Holly Ryan
He ruffles his hair. “I don’t expect you to understand, and I get it if you hate me now. But I just can’t.”
Ok, Avery. Don’t overreact. The guy hasn’t shown any signs of crazy up to this point – I’m sure he has a perfectly reasonably explanation for what he’s saying. Some mysterious reason that he probably won’t share with me now. Because doesn’t it always turn out that way? Two people with something unspoken between them? When it comes to my relationships, it sure does.
Despite that, I need to keep my cool. That’s all.
He’s a good guy. He wouldn’t hurt me. He’s not Cole. He’s not my attacker. He’s totally, wonderfully and completely different.
Looking at him now, the whole of him, I see I’m right. He’s still standing there, his powerful hands at his sides, watching me with concern. That’s one thing that gets me about him: he’s always watching me, concerned, making sure I’m okay. And there’s a gentleness about him that goes against his strong, muscular appearance. Why? What is it about me?
“Okay,” I say calmly.
I hope he’s proud of how mature I’m being right now, because it’s sure taking a lot of effort. It’s taking everything inside of me to not pull out a defensive attitude in response to his rejection. It’s what Cole and I would have done.
“Okay, Ethan,” I say again. I tuck the long sleeves of my shirt over my hands. I cross them in front of me. My body, which was so warm from his flesh just moments ago, is now chilly. I do my best to give him a weak smile and say, “I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
He returns my pained smile. “Definitely.”
And so, with nothing left to do, I approach my door and slide the key inside. As I turn it open, something not-so-deep within me hopes he’ll change his mind. That he’ll suddenly touch my shoulder – right now – and pull me back around. With him still standing behind me, I close my eyes and I will it to happen. I want to feel his fingers against my skin again. I don’t care where they touch, but as close to my face or mouth or neck again as possible would be great. That’s all I want. That’s all I know; I want him, in the simplest, most innocent and loving way possible. I don’t want any more than that because I don’t need more than that. Just his touch was enough.
What he just gave me for those precious few moments was enough.
The door pops open. Damn. I’d been hoping that by some miracle that wouldn’t happen.
The porch light clicks back off, the only sound in all this silence around us.
And when the door snaps closed behind me, I slide to the floor. I hear his steps leave my house in that steady thump I’ve already come to know. I rest my head on my crossed arms.
This healing thing is hard.
“Avery.”
My head shoots up at the sound of my mom’s voice. She’s there, at the base of the stairs, blocking the way she probably thought I would have tried to take immediately after coming inside.
“Mom,” I say. I stand and brace myself. I’m ready for the onslaught.
She relaxes her shoulders and starts to turn around. Before I can say another word, she says, “Lock the door,” and heads up the stairs, lifting the bottom of her old-fashioned nightdress as she goes.
“Don’t forget you have physical therapy on Wednesday.”
I haven’t gotten over how weird she’s been acting. Maybe she didn’t see anything. Maybe she even forgot. It’s possible.
For once, my mom’s actually not rushing around to get something done or leave for somewhere more important than here. It’s a miracle. She’s actually home, with me, relaxing in the living room with a novel in her hand and a soap opera blaring in the background. This is strange. I don’t think I’ve seen her so laid back like this since before my attack.
Now that she mentions it, I did forget about physical therapy. I sigh to make sure she knows I’m just about done with all this.
“How many more sessions?” I ask, taking a swig of orange juice.
She doesn’t look up from the book she’s holding in both hands. “Only two. Today and next week. Then if you’re cleared by your doctors, that can be it.” She looks at me just as I’m taking another drink. “What–will you put that back? After last night, you really don’t want to be pushing my buttons.”
Nope. She didn’t forget, and she probably saw.
I take a seat next to her and stretch out my leg. It hasn’t hurt at all today, and I didn’t even managed to forget about my injuries completely last night. Of course, that might have been because I was distracted by other, more handsome and delicious-smelling things. Like, you know … the handsome boy who I regretfully let walk away from my front porch.
“I think I can be cleared,” I say, successfully avoiding the elephant in the room.
She glances over the side of one page. “Do you?”
I stroke my leg up and down in the familiar massage-like technique I was taught in the hospital. I nod. “No pain yesterday.”
“Really? I’m so glad to hear that.” Her voice is monotone, and although her words were kind, I can tell she’s not really listening to me. She’s still reading and she’s got that focused, otherworldly look in her eyes. Her look of avoidance.
Suddenly, she slams the book shut. She shifts her weight toward me and rests her head on her elbow, her other hand gripping her knees which are lifted onto couch. “How’s school?”
“It’s okay.” My usual monotonous answer.
Then, without warning, she comes out with it. And that it is something I didn’t even know she had within her to come out.
“Who’s the boy?” She’s playing with her fingernails, picking at them. I know what she’s doing. She’s pretending to be all absentminded so the weight of what she just said doesn’t hit me like a ton of bricks.
What move now, Avery? Should I try to pull off the whole, What boy? Since I know my mom, I think better of it.
Instead, I pull my legs up, too, matching her flexibility. I’m trying to show her that I am getting better, after all. Time is passing. I can do things now. I can stuff my once-injured leg into awkward positions, just like you. I can talk to a boy.
It turns out, maneuvering my legs does take a little more effort than I would have liked; I hope she doesn’t notice, but with the guidance of my hand cupped to my knee, I get it done.
I should have known better than to think the porch light could have been anything other than her from somewhere inside the house. And so the smartest thing to do right now is to just come out with it. “His name is Ethan.”
There’s a pause between us. I’m calm, but my heart is racing a little faster than I’d like.
Finally, she rubs her temple. “I’m disappointed in you, Avery.”
Oh, God. Disappointed? That’s the worst word she could have pulled out. There are a million other words I’d rather hear from her right now, kinder words that wouldn’t feel like a violent sledgehammer against my chest.
While I’m recovering from the blow, she continues, “I thought we talked about this. Didn’t we? Didn’t we talk about this?”
“I remember talking about staying away from a certain someone. And I have.”
“Honey, we talked about staying away from a certain gender. Didn’t we?”
If she says didn’t we one more time…
I slump my head against the couch. “I’m feeling better, Mom. And Ethan’s nice. Really, he is. I like him because he’s nothing like Cole. He’s … kind.”
She sighs. “Avery, that’s not the point. The point is you were supposed to be taking a break from this sort of thing so we can make sure you’re on the right track. There’s been a lot to deal with, and I want to make sure we get you back out into the world on the right foot.”
“I am on the right track,” I mumble. If she doesn’t cut this out, I’m going feel hurt. And then mad. In that order. I lower my head, ashamed to look at her. That whole disappointed thing is still getting to me. “I feel better.”
I try to distract myself f
rom her boring gaze by listening to the melodramatic hum of the television.
She sighs. Loudly. Just like my subconscious message I tried sending her that my leg is, in fact, okay, she’s trying to tell me she is, in fact, pissed. “I guess it’s a good thing you have that counseling appointment tomorrow, too.”
“That what?” Counseling appointment? This is news to me. It sounds foreboding.
“Oh, I’m sure we talked about it, Avery. It’s part of your discharge plan. Remember? The doctor said when you’re feeling better and ready to move on, you go through a session with the hospital’s counselor to make sure everything’s okay.”
“Oh.” No, Mom, I don’t remember that. And I’m pretty sure if that had in fact happened, it would have sounded so intimidating that it would have been imprinted in my brain.
I take a deep breath. Okay. So I’m pretty sure counseling won’t be that bad. But now, sitting here and thinking about actually having to go through with re-facing my demons, next to some stranger, in some cramped room full of cheesy inspirational quotes and earthy essential oils, my palms begin to sweat. I’m imagining some overly-sympathetic professional who knows nothing about me, but thinks that they do because they’ve read the latest hundred or so pages of my case file, all the while shaking their head and chattering about what they think I’ve been through. And then wondering to themselves how the hell am I going to get her out of this one?
“I think it’ll be good for us.” My mom flexibly stretches her leg out in front of her.
I watch in envy. I can’t do that one.
“Good for you, really,” she goes on. “But good for both of us.” She looks me over, studying me as though she knows me so well – because in all of her mysterious, motherly ways, she does. And it makes me want to cower.
“Look,” she begins again. “You go to this thing tomorrow and do it right. Talk to the counselor, get some of these things sorted out.” She wags her finger at me. “Don’t leave anything out. Make it count.”
I do nothing but watch her in obedience. What else can I do? I don’t want to go, but when it comes to her, I’m still a child. And I guess I should be thankful that she hasn’t come right out with you’re never to see that boy again.
“I’ll try,” I say with honesty. And I mean it. I’ll try. I can’t guarantee, though, that I’ll be physically able to do it.
I mean, what if the counselor brings up the night of the attack? What if they want me to talk about it, as though I’ve already moved on like nothing ever happened?
And what if, despite how much better my leg feels, I can’t do that?
The thought of breaking down causes tears to well in my eyes. I stand up and try to hide my face.
My mom says nothing else. She watches me leave, her sympathetic eyes creating painful holes in my back as I walk away. I disappear quietly into the stairway, heading toward my room. Just as I reach the top step, my leg locks up.
I stumble.
I reach for the banister and grab it just before I land face-first against the sharp protrusion of one of the stairs. I pull myself up with the strength of my arms, reeling in the weight of what could have just happened. The last thing I need right now is to go back to school tomorrow with a returned limp and a bloodied nose.
I pause, listening for any sign that my mom heard that little mishap.
It’s silent downstairs, but that’s not saying much. She managed to fool me last night, so there’s no telling with that woman; for all I know, she could be at the bottom of the stairs, right around the corner, mentally registering this fall so she can report it to my doctor before my appointment on Wednesday.
I guess I’m not doing as well as I thought.
Ethan
You’ve got to tell her.
I see her from across the cafeteria. It’s lunch hour, and she’s sitting in the same spot she always does, near enough to her friends but close to the edge of the table. I wonder if she does that on purpose, as though she needs to keep a way out available to her as a quick escape should she sense another threat. You know, just in case.
Truth be told, even I feel that way. Sometimes I’ll be sitting at my own lunch table and if I’m there for too long, my mind will start to race and my leg will start to bounce because I know that I’m trapped. There’s a person on either side of me, and if shit should go down, I’m not in the best of positions.
I guess we are both victims of the same criminal, after all, at least in some way. I’m not about to put myself on some kind of pedestal and equate my suffering to hers, because God knows I couldn’t do that. In no way is it the same. And yeah, there are different degrees of suffering. But my point is we were both impacted, and I’m here, struggling, trying to live with it, too.
I wish I could tell her all this. I start to walk up to her. Her hair’s done up the same way it was last night, before she let it down – carefree and with miscellaneous, highlighted chunks hanging down around her face. I love it; such carelessness is like the breaking free of her soul. Her luscious, genuine smile peeks through when she turns her head to laugh, and I want nothing more than to be able to tell her who I really am. I clench my fist at my side. You can’t, Ethan. Don’t you dare. You can never tell her. She’ll hate you forever, and then you’ll lose her. You’ll lose the one most beautiful, important thing to ever come into your life.
I doubt anything I say to her could explain my actions last night. I wouldn’t expect her to understand without a full-on story from me, one that I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear, and one that may very well result in a slap across a face. My face, of course.
As I close in on the air between us, I still feel what it felt like to be close to her last night. We were so close that the smell of her body invaded me in all the right ways, and all the right places. I can still picture her, the look of her clothes hanging off her body so perfectly; the smell of her clean skin floating through the air. I’m tempted to close my eyes, if only I wouldn’t more than likely trip and land flat on my face on the way over to her.
Both Avery and Mara are facing away from me. I don’t know the blonde girl sitting across from them; I’ve never seen her before. But she’s seen me, apparently. She’s eyeing me as I walk up behind Avery. I extend my arm, ready to touch her shoulder to get her attention.
“Hey.” A sultry Julia sidesteps in front of me, blocking my path before I can reach Avery.
I look around. Where did she even come from? She could have emerged from anywhere out of this mass of students. She’s small. I bet she crept through the crowd without so much as a hint of being noticed by anyone around her.
“Julia–”
“Hey,” she says again. Then, before I can answer, she adds, “stranger,” and nudges me on the shoulder.
Luckily for me, Avery hasn’t caught wind of any of this. And the cafeteria is too loud for her to hear our conversation; I just hope she doesn’t pick up my voice behind her.
I take Julia’s arm. I pull her as though I don’t have a care in the world for what’s she thinking right now, because I don’t – the only thing I care about is Avery, and the possibility of her seeing all this out of the corner of her eye. That’s what’s fueling the irritation inside me. We arrive in a hallway, one of the offshoots of the cafeteria, and when I turn to face her she’s smiling at me.
“What are you doing?” I ask. There’s force behind my voice. Good. I hope she gets that I’m less than happy with her right now.
“What do you mean?”
I see. She’s playing Forgetful Good Girl. That’s a new one. Her arsenal must be running low.
“You know what I mean.” I step closer, doing my best to intimidate. I’m pretty bad at it. “Now stop. Stop doing what you’re doing.”
She crosses her arms. “What am I doing, Ethan?” She takes a step forward, too, invading my space. “Huh? Tell me.”
There’s an anger in her I’ve never seen before, but I don’t blame her. Girls like Julia weren’t raised to handle rejecti
on well. I should have known it wouldn’t be as simple as leave us alone. “You know exactly what you’re doing, Julia. You’re getting in the way, and don’t think I don’t know why.”
“All I did was say hi.” She raises her eyebrows. “I’m not allowed to say hi?”
I should just walk away. After what she said about Avery, and how she acted at the party the other night, Julia doesn’t deserve anything from me. And I really don’t feel like explaining myself again.
So just like that, I do something bold, something I should have done the last time we had a conversation like this, before unknowingly giving her the chance to do it to me first. I walk away. I leave her standing in the hallway, all alone, and I hope that maybe she’s getting a glimpse of what Avery’s gone through – some cold, hard abandonment, with a little rejection thrown in for good measure.
I don’t regret a single step as I expand the distance further and further between us. All that stands out to me are those two nasty words that left her mouth: cripple girl. That’s it. None of the once-kind, friendly girl who I met my first day here, but who quickly morphed into something else entirely once meeting someone named Cole. That girl’s not there anymore.
Avery
I thought I saw him escape quickly into the hallway to my right. That must have been him, the streak of tall build and the ever-messy hair. He was towing Julia Crane behind him.
I see him come back because I’ve been waiting for him. And as soon as he appears, my body reacts the usual way it does whenever I see him – that flurry of heart flutters.
“Avery. What are you doing?” Mara’s watching me from across the table.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m letting my body take control for once. Though we haven’t talked since last night, I’m getting up, lifting my legs over the bench seat, and I’m walking over to him. My shoulders are back, my spine is straight, and I’ve completely brushed Mara off. I don’t know what’s come over me, but it might have something to do with the remembrance of what it felt like to be so close to him and the craving to experience it again.
