These Gentle Wounds

by Helene Dunbar

  “Just look through the viewfinder and then use that little ring in front to zoom in and out.”

  It all seems pretty easy, but I’m so distracted by the weight of her arms on my shoulders that my hands are shaking. I freeze, with the camera pointed straight ahead. I’m afraid that if I move, I’m going to knock us both off the train’s roof.

  “Gordie, the cloud is up there,” she says, laughing. I try to stay focused on the assignment, but it’s hard. I could just watch the snowflakes for hours, but Sarah is distracting in a good way, too. I don’t mind it so much. It just means I have to work really hard but not show it. I’d love to believe she thinks I’m normal, but I know that’s impossible. Everyone in this stupid town knows everything about me.

  I redirect the camera under her guidance and then she moves her hand on top of mine. “You just click this button when you’re ready,” she says. The wind moves her hair and I can smell some sort of flowers that must be her shampoo. It reminds me of my mom’s lilacs and I inhale and hold it all in before I snap a few photos in the direction of the dark cloud.

  She moves back and takes the camera from around my neck, playing with some buttons on the back of it.

  “See.” She flips through the images one by one. It’s pretty cool, actually. I can see why she likes taking pictures. It freezes things in time. The cloud has already moved from where it was when I snapped it and it will never be back there again. I wonder if she could do that with me. Just freeze me in a moment when I’m not spinning off so I can stay here with her.

  “What else do you want to shoot?” she asks.

  I’ve thought about it, but really, I don’t know. The only bad omens I can think of are really, really bad ones, ones I don’t want to deal with. Ones that don’t have anything to do with Moby Dick.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. Any ideas?”

  “No, but we don’t have to rush and do it all now, anyhow.” She pulls her knees up and wraps her skirt over them. “It’s so nice to be outside. I think I could live outside. Like when you’re camping. You ever been?”

  “Kevin and I used to camp in the backyard.” I tell her about how I remember us sleeping out under the stars, eating chips right out of the bag and telling each other silly stories with just flashlights for light.

  “That kind of counts,” she says. “And it sounds like fun.”

  I don’t know what it is, but it’s both so easy and so difficult to talk to her. Being the town freak should get you over worrying about having to say the right thing all the time, but it doesn’t work like that.

  “Camping was always such a production when we were little,” she says. “You know, it had to be the right tent and someone usually forgot the directions on how to put it up. And then there was the food and gas for the stove. Something was always left at home and we’d all blame each other.”

  She squints into the sunlight and tips her head back to look at the sky. I do too. Then she pauses and says, “We’re going next Saturday night. Camping. Luke and Jessie and I are going to Ross Park. You could come if you wanted to.

  I hate when it’s just them and me. You know what they’re like.”

  Two things hit my brain at once, like trains colliding.

  First, I realize that Sarah’s brother is Luke Miller—the captain of our team.

  Second, I realize she must be screwing with me. Why else would she invite me camping with them? Had the photography thing not been my idea, I’d be sure she was only here with me to win some sort of bet or something.

  I feel myself inching away from her as my hand starts to twitch.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. Before I can even think about answering, she puts a hand on my arm. “You don’t have to come with us. You’re allowed to say no.”

  I shove my hand under my leg and look at her. Really look at her. She doesn’t seem like someone who is just trying to win a bet.

  But if that’s true, then she really wants me to come with them. And I’m not sure that makes a whole lot of sense either.

  I want to say that I’ll go, but can’t imagine how much it would suck if I started to spin—not only in front of her but in front of Luke, too. I haven’t even thought of sleeping over at anyone’s house since That Day. But at the same time, I don’t want to say no.

  I swallow hard. “I need to ask Jim.”

  “Is that your dad?”

  For a minute, I wonder if she’s asking just to hear me say it. But maybe she really doesn’t know, although I’m not sure how that could happen.

  “No. Kevin’s dad,” I say, giving her the benefit of the doubt. In front of me is a pile of blue threads from the hem of my jeans, which I didn’t notice I was pulling out. “But I live with him.”

  She looks confused but doesn’t ask anything else. I’m sure Luke or any of the kids at school can fill her in on whatever she wants to know.

  “Well, tell him that Luke invited you. I mean … he’d be cool with that, right? Since you’re on the team together and everything.”

  I shrug. I guess he’d be cool. I’ve never asked to do something like that before.

  “Are you and Kevin close?” Sarah asks. “I’ve seen him at some of your games, but I’ve never really talked to him.”

  It’s probably a normal question, just not one I’ve ever been asked. I tie some of the threads in knots and then toss them into the air. How the hell am I supposed to explain my relationship with my brother to anybody? There are times he makes me crazy and times when I’m sure I make him crazy. But I can’t imagine what I’d do without him. I don’t want to imagine it.

  “He’s my best friend,” I say, because I don’t know the words for the rest and that sums it up as well as anything.

  Sarah smiles. “That’s nice. I used to feel that way about Luke, but then we got to high school and he turned into a pain in the ass. All he thinks about is sports and girls, you know?”

  I nod, because that pretty much describes almost every guy in our school.

  “I think he and Jess are pretty serious, though. At least they think they are. My parents probably have their wedding all planned out already.”

  In truth, Luke and Jess scare me a little. I’ve seen them after games in the hallway outside the locker room. I’ve seen the way she looks at him, like he’s her own sun, and how he touches her like she’s the Holy Grail. It makes me jealous and uncomfortable, but I can’t not watch them. When they kiss, they’re like wax melting into each other.

  Sarah opens her mouth and catches a snowflake on her tongue. She smiles like she’s just eaten the best candy in the world, and I feel my whole body flush.

  “I wonder what it’s like,” she says. “You know, to be with someone and think you’ll be with them for the rest of your life. I mean, how do you know?”

  I laugh. She could have asked the monks and gotten a better answer than I’m going to be able to give her.

  “Maybe you just meet someone, and … ” I know I’m failing to get what’s in my head out of my mouth, so I try again. “Maybe it’s like a best friend. They just get you and you don’t want to let that go. And if you’re lucky, neither do they.”

  She tilts her head to the side, the snowflakes landing in her hair. “You make it sound a lot less scary,” she says. And then she reaches over and puts her hand on my leg. It feels like all of my nerve endings come alive at once. “I hope you’re right.”

  I nod because I don’t trust my voice to work. I hope I’m right, too.

  “Okay, so let’s talk about the rest of your photos,” she says.

  I don’t want to. I don’t want to think about gloom and doom, or anything bad. Or even school. I just want to watch the snow; to watch her. I want her never to move her hand.

  But she’s waiting for me, so I don’t have a choice.

  In Moby Dick, there’s all this superstitious stuff. All these dreams a
bout hearses and things you supposedly need in order to have good luck. And there’s a story about a hawk. We decide to go with the bird because it’s the easiest. There are always hawks flying around here. Maybe because it’s the only open space for miles and miles. Besides, the thought of going to a funeral home to take pictures of a hearse makes me physically sick.

  In fifteen minutes, we’re done and back on the ground. I only realize how quiet my head has been all this time when I start to feel an edgy buzzing. I wonder what happens next. It’s been so long since I’ve talked to anyone besides Kevin, or about anything other than hockey, that I want it to keep on going. But I’m clueless about how to do that.

  Sarah says she’ll print my photos along with hers and bring them to school. She gives me a quick hug and then walks off.

  Our goodbye is over so fast that I kind of miss it, and I stand there until she’s just a tiny speck in the distance.

  Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. It’s just school, I tell myself. But this time, even I don’t believe it.

  Ten

  It isn’t until I get to the house that I realize I’ll have a mountain to climb when trying to convince Jim to let me go camping. Actually, when trying to convince Kevin, because if I don’t get through him, I won’t even get to Jim.

  And Kevin’s reaction, not surprisingly, is to laugh at me.

  Sometimes, regardless of how great they can be, brothers suck.

  “Camping? Like setting up a tent? And pissing in the woods? And building a fire? That sort of camping?” He isn’t bothering to hide his amusement.

  “Give me a break,” I mutter under my breath.

  “Camping, like with bugs? And scary red food like hot dogs? And people you have to talk to?”

  “Fine. Forget I mentioned it.” I throw myself into my desk chair, which somehow ended up on his side of the room, and roll it back to mine. I grab a history book and do my best to ignore him, which turns out to be impossible because Kevin is cracking himself up.

  He follows, sitting down on the edge of my bed and struggling to stop laughing. “Okay, seriously, let’s talk about this.”

  “No, let’s not.” I’ve already given up. It was stupid of me to think it was a good idea to begin with.

  “Hey, Ice, I’m not necessarily saying you shouldn’t go,” he says while I lose myself in the politics of the Civil War. “I’m just surprised.”

  South Carolina is trying to secede when the book is pulled out of my hands.

  “It was a stupid idea. Drop it.” I’m pissed off and resigned to not going. The last thing I want is to talk about it. But I should know better. Kevin never ever gives up and never lets anything go.

  “Look at me,” he says, spinning my chair around and around. My eyes are clamped shut and I don’t open them, so he spins harder. I give in only to keep from feeling like I’m going to throw up.

  “If you really want to go, then you should. There’s just one thing … ”

  There’s always one thing with him, and I don’t want to get my hopes up until I find out what hurdle he’s going to say I need to jump. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish Jim was really my dad so that Kevin could act like a normal brother and ignore me.

  He leans over and grips the arm of my chair and stares into my eyes. “If you can hold it together on Thursday with your father, I’ll talk to Jim,” he says. Then he pushes me back so that my chair goes sailing across the room.

  I close my eyes again and wait to see if I’m going to crash against the wall. The floor is slightly sloped and all of our furniture is at the edges of the big room, so there’s a lot of space to fly through.

  “So, what do you think?” Kevin calls as I hit his bed with my outstretched feet.

  I can’t tie what’s going to happen on Thursday to anything to do with Sarah. I know if I do, they’re going to be knotted that way in my head forever and I won’t be able to be her friend without thinking of him and The Night Before, and I can’t do that.

  So I shrug. And get up and grab my book from him.

  “Thursday is going to happen whether you want it to or not,” Kevin says. “Wouldn’t it be better to have something to look forward to on the other side?”

  This is how Kevin’s mind works. There is now. And there is later. And then there is later still. One comes after the other after the other. He should hate my father more than anyone, but it’s all divided up for him.

  I never take anything for granted. Who knows what will happen on Thursday?

  So I don’t answer him. I go back to reading until he comes and rotates my chair around and around again and somewhere in the room I hear the air say, “You’re a pain in the ass. You know that, right? Fine. No promises. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  I don’t know if Kevin talks to Jim, because every time he brings it up, I walk out of the room.

  Sarah brings the photos to school and the four of us work on this cool Moby Dick storyboard that we’ll present at the end of the week.

  I keep waiting for Luke to say something to me about staying away from his sister. It seems so strange that I have all of this stuff going on with my father and Sarah, yet nothing else really seems like it’s changed. Until Coach waves me over to the side of the rink on Wednesday.

  I use the last of my practice energy to skate over to the boards.

  He compliments me on a pretty awesome glove-save I made and then gets to his real point. “I heard you’ll have to miss practice tomorrow. You know I’d love to break my own rule and let you play on Friday, but if I do that for you … ”

  “Yeah,” I mumble. “I know. I get it.”

  Coach nods his head and pats me on the shoulder. “That’s okay. There are plenty more games in your future, and this way we can give Walker a good send-off.”

  I’ve been doing a good job of pretending Thursday isn’t going to come. But now that Coach knows about it, it seems real.

  I move out of the way to let Walker onto the ice. I’m about to ask Coach if I can skip the game instead of sitting on the bench when I hear a string of swear words and a bunch of the guys cracking up.

  I turn around. Walker is spilled on the ice, trying to pull clear tape off his blades. “I’m going to kill you, Bowman, you freaking … ”

  Cody is in the stands, dressed in his street clothes because of his suspension. He’s wearing the same fake-innocent expression I’ve seen on him before. “Wasn’t me, loser. I’m up here, remember?”

  Coach sighs. Someone always plays a prank on senior players at the end of the season. Only Cody is stupid enough to do something that could get his own goalie hurt.

  “Both of you, over here. Now,” Coach yells. I take the opportunity to slip into the locker room.

  I hit the showers and try to wash all thoughts of Thursday out of my head, but no matter how far I turn the knob, the water isn’t hot enough to do the job. By the time I give up and towel off, I’m as red as my jersey.

  I can’t believe this was my last practice of the season. I can’t believe I’m missing hockey to see my fucking father.

  I throw my clothes on and sit down to tie my shoes, but my hand is shaking and I keep dropping the lace. I’m sure I look like a total idiot who can’t even handle something as stupid as shoelaces when Luke shows up at my locker.

  Here we go. Get the freak away from your sister.

  “Nice play out there.” He shakes his wet hair into a towel. “I almost wish I was going to be here next year. You guys are going to be awesome.”

  “Thanks.” I give up and shove the laces down the sides of my shoes. Even that’s hard because I’m so freaked out by the thought of losing it in front of him.

  Luke stands there looking like somebody who just stepped out of a magazine. All dark hair and pressed shirt.

  “Look, Gordie,” he says seriously. “I wanted to talk to you about this w
eekend.”

  Crap. I exhale breath and hope. Of course.

  “I know Sarah didn’t give you much notice. And you’re probably busy, but it would be great if you could come with us.” He shoves his practice stuff into his bag and sprays himself with expensive-smelling cologne.

  “Why?” I ask before I can stop myself, then cover my mouth before I can say anything else embarrassing.

  Thankfully, he laughs. “I think Sarah could use a friend here.”

  I want to ask him “Why?” again. I mean, Sarah is smart and talented, and so, so, so pretty. I’m sure she has a million friends. But before I can say anything, the door bursts open and Jessie comes in without knocking. I say a silent word of gratitude that she didn’t come in while I was still half-naked.

  Standing here in front of them makes me wonder if it really would be possible for me to go camping with them. I don’t belong with them and their easy, normal lives.

  “Gordie, right?” she asks. Her honey-blond hair drapes around Luke like a scarf.

  I nod. “Hey,” I think I say back, but I know I’m turning red just watching them, with their skin touching in so many places they might as well be melding into the same person. Her cheek fits perfectly into the crook of his neck and his hand is running absent-mindedly up and down her arm, which is wrapped around his chest.

  I run my thumb over the strap of my equipment bag and try to concentrate on breathing.

  I’m still watching them, but trying not to, when I hear a sound behind me. I turn to see Sarah’s camera firing rapid photos of the three of us. I duck down to try to escape but she follows, leaning over and snapping photos inches away from my face until I tumble away, out of her reach.

  Luke and Jessie seem oblivious to anything other than each other, so I get up and go over to where Sarah is leaning against one of the training tables, looking into her camera at the pictures she’s taken.

  I still want to leave, but I want to be close to her more. I crane my head over her shoulder. “Can I see?”