If I Fix You

by Abigail Johnson

  Because it would make him happy to hear it, I said, “You do look like him.”

  Another shrug from Sean, but he played it off with a smile. “Enough about how amazing I look. Let’s talk about how you look this good after getting deep-fried.”

  I swallowed my heart back after that, not wanting his empty compliments any more than I wanted genuine ones. “Don’t, Sean.” I turned and he followed me inside.

  Sean’s smile slid away, as though he couldn’t tell if I was being serious or not. “I can’t notice you look good? Since when?”

  I hesitated for the tiniest moment. “You know exactly when.”

  The muscle in Sean’s cheek twitched as his jaw locked.

  “Besides, aren’t you dating Cami now or something?”

  Sean looked at me like I’d just grown a third eye. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

  “Oh, please.”

  “I’m serious. I’m not dating Cami or anyone else. I told you that when we ran into her in the parking lot weeks ago.”

  An ugly response was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it. “Maybe you should tell Cami that.”

  Sean moved in front of me, cutting off my retreat to the living room. “I did. We talked after we all went to the movies. She is one hundred percent clear on me only wanting to be her friend.” His voice slowed. “I know what I want and it’s not Cami.”

  If there was suddenly a Spitfire behind Sean and he was offering me the keys, I’d swear I’d somehow slipped back into my dream from months ago, only this felt more like a nightmare.

  I slid back a step. A small step, but it was enough. “Whatever it is you’re doing, stop. You have no idea how bad your timing is. I couldn’t be nice right now if I tried, and I don’t feel like trying.”

  The longest silence in the history of Jill and Sean stretched between us. And I didn’t know how to fill it.

  He crossed to lean against the wall opposite me, but kept his gaze on me. The brown paper bag he held crinkled at the movement, distracting us both. “Oh, here. My mom sent this.” He passed it to me. Inside was a box of baking soda and what looked like a container of homemade soup. There was a little Post-it note stuck on the lid.

  Split lentil. Feel better, sweetie. —Mrs. A.

  The garlic and onion scent drifted up from the bag, and I imagined Mrs. Addison dicing up vegetables and adding herbs, then holding out a wooden spoon for whichever one of her kids was closest for a taste test. None of them liked split lentil, but Sean must have told her it was my favorite.

  I pulled the note free, and I started to cry.

  I was dimly aware of Sean prying the bag from my hands and looking inside, frowning when he couldn’t spot anything obviously traumatizing, then abandoning the bag entirely when I started to curl in on myself.

  Standing wasn’t worth the effort, so I sank down to the floor. Sean’s warmth seeped into me as he followed me down, and when I didn’t move away, he gathered me in his arms. It felt so good to let him hold me. Good enough to ignore all the reasons I shouldn’t let him. I could barely remember the last time he’d just held me without anything messed up between us.

  His mom made him hug me at his eighth birthday party when I’d wanted to leave because no other girls had shown up.

  When we were in fourth grade, I twisted my ankle at the park by my house. It was getting dark and I freaked out when Sean mentioned going for help. So he stayed. It was three blocks to my house, and he ended up carrying me the whole way. He never once complained about getting tired, although I’m pretty sure I outweighed him back then.

  The last time was when we danced together at his oldest brother’s wedding that past November. We didn’t know how to waltz, so we mostly just tried not to step on each other’s feet, laughing off disapproving looks from his stodgier relatives until the song ended.

  I was so in love with him then.

  I kept my eyes shut and tried to soak in the comfort from his body. So much better than a bath.

  When I ran out of tears, Sean tugged up the bottom of his shirt to dry my cheeks. The gesture could have been awkward, or even comical, but it was neither of those things. It made me look into his eyes, pleading silently before I could find words. “How can we be like this? How can we still be friends?”

  I jumped when Sean found my hand, tugged it into his lap, and trapped it between both of his.

  “How can we not?”

  I shook my head.

  “My mom has pictures of us playing T-ball together.” He moved one hand to the soft skin inside of my wrist. “Those pegs on the back of my old bike? I got them so I could give you rides home from school back in elementary school. Jill, you used to pee in my pool and I still wanted to swim with you more than anybody else.”

  I twitched when he began tracing my veins with his fingertips. “We both used to pee in your pool.”

  “A lot of people did, but I still liked you the best.”

  “You like everyone, Sean.” My voice cracked. “Everyone.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t. Some people I’ve never liked.”

  Why was it so hard? Why couldn’t I just say it? I stared at him, but he wouldn’t look at me. I imagined the words passing through my lips. I imagined him finally hearing them and then...

  I couldn’t imagine an answer that didn’t end us.

  I tried blinking rapidly, but two fat tears spilled over onto my cheeks. “I saw my mom today.”

  Sean squeezed my hand like he was trying to keep something from tearing me away.

  And that’s when I heard myself tell him about her wanting me to come live with her.

  About her saying my dad wasn’t my dad.

  We were going for our second record of silence when the doorbell rang.

  There was a moment of unspoken communication between us where we both had the same fear—my mom—and reacted in wildly different ways. I shot to my feet. Sean rose up almost in slow motion and backed up at the same speed.

  “Leave it,” he said.

  But I was already peering through the peephole.

  Mom wasn’t standing on my porch.

  Daniel was.

  CHAPTER 29

  I think I hated everyone on the planet as I curled my fingers around the doorknob. I hated the obvious people for the obvious reasons and the not-obvious people for reasons that slapped around inside of me.

  I hated Mom for being my mom and for never being a wife to Dad. I hated Dad for marrying her. For every year of our lives that he wasted on her. For making me doubt the only thing that mattered. I’d hate him forever if it was true.

  I was so tired of hating and loving and still hating Sean. I hated that he made it hard to hate him when I should. I hated the most that he brought me soup. That he didn’t want Cami. That he’d been looking at me in the wrong-stupid-too-late way.

  I even hated Claire. My outsides hurt almost as much as my insides because of her.

  I hated Mrs. Addison for not being mine.

  I hated Daniel’s mom for being worse than mine.

  I hated Daniel for not kissing me when he should have and for kissing me when he shouldn’t have and leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Literally.

  I half opened the door, hating both of us for making me think that fixing him would fix me.

  Glancing behind me, I gave Sean the slightest shake of my head—it wasn’t my mom on the porch—and watched the tight coil of his muscles release. He ran both hands through his hair and walked off into the kitchen.

  One down.

  “Your dad?” Daniel asked.

  “Sean.”

  Daniel’s face contorted into something painful as he looked at me, all of me, but the expression flickered like a lightbulb burning out. “Look at you.”

 
; I could only imagine what he saw. Red, puffy skin. Even redder, puffier eyes. It was as obvious that I’d been crying as it was that he was hungover.

  “Yeah, well, it’s been a sucky weekend.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He was backing up as he spoke, turning away as the litany continued.

  My apology. There it was. Sort of. The hateful part of me wanted to let him go, wanted to let him head home to drown in his own self-loathing—his expression promised as much. But Daniel hadn’t given me nearly enough fuel to feed the hatred Mom had ignited and so many others had stoked. Because I didn’t really hate him. And for that reason and a lot of others, I couldn’t be responsible for hurting him, even after he’d hurt me.

  “Daniel, wait.” I stepped closer, pulling the door with me so I was half-outside, and lowered my voice. “Stop, okay? This.” I looked down as I waved a hand toward my tearstained cheeks. “It’s not about last night. It’s not about you.” And saying it, I realized that I’d barely thought about him all day.

  “Why are you so good to me?” His chin locked tight. “Why? You shouldn’t be. I never gave you a reason, not from that very first night. Never.”

  “Because you and I know it’s not about reasons.” Why did saying that make me want to cry again?

  He didn’t say anything, but he looked like I’d hit him somehow.

  “Am I supposed to say sorry?” I went on. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  His head snapped up. “You’re supposed to leave me alone. Don’t help me. Don’t be nice to me. Don’t—”

  “So I should have left you on the side of the road when you were too drunk to walk?”

  Daniel was inches from my face then, and the low volume of his voice in no way mitigated the force behind it. “Yes.”

  I blinked at him because part of what he was saying was right. I needed to stop trying to help him. There was a line that I shouldn’t be crossing—we shouldn’t be crossing. The world went on around us; hiding up on my roof didn’t make things better for either of us. In a lot of ways it was making things worse; last night had proved that. Last night... I looked away from Daniel, wrapping one arm around myself, and wished for...things to be different.

  “Jill.” The way his voice broke forced me to meet his eye. “Touching you like that when I was drunk...” He was close enough to touch me. Which he did, grazing my forearm with his fingers. His hand moved and hovered just over my lip. “I should have stopped when you told me to. Maybe I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  I doubted that last drink I’d tried to stop him from having in his kitchen had done much. “Maybe,” I whispered, watching Daniel step back and hang his head.

  He never saw Sean wrench the door from my hands, moving faster than any warning I could give. I glimpsed Sean’s eyes, so wide there was a complete ring of white around his irises, a heartbeat before his fist slammed into Daniel’s face.

  It happened fast, not like in the movies where the camera pans to each person for that perfect reaction shot to draw out the moment of each hit. There was no slap or cracking as fists hit. Nothing but sneakers skidding on the concrete, grunts and the sound pain makes when mingled with breath. And Sean’s spit leaving his mouth. Spit and blood.

  I never thought I’d be the kind of person to freeze in a fight, to stand still like a helpless spectator, but I was; I did. Until Sean hit the ground.

  And then came the sound. The crunch of Sean’s nose breaking from Daniel’s fist as he followed him down. And me screaming.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  I didn’t think about Daniel in that moment—what must have been going through his mind, being attacked like that—or even register the trickle of red at the corner of his mouth. All I saw was Sean on the ground and the blood pouring from his nose...soaking into the fabric of his shirt. And Daniel rearing back to strike again.

  I collided with Daniel before he could hit Sean again. He jerked free, leaving me to drop to my knees next to Sean. I dived at Daniel again. “Get off him!”

  I don’t know if it was the phrase, so similar to the one I’d used last night on his couch, or the sight of Sean jerking up and putting himself between us, but Daniel froze.

  He took in the blood smeared on his hands, Sean with a protective arm thrown out across me, and something like horror touched his eyes. The muscles in his cheek twitched and he stumbled back a step.

  And then his face lost all expression until it was like he wasn’t even there anymore. Just a hull, a husk, something hollow and empty and gone.

  He left.

  CHAPTER 30

  I turned away before Daniel was fully out of sight, unable to look at his retreating form any longer. When he’d hit Sean, I’d felt the impact. And even though Sean had been wrong to charge out and throw the first punch, it was his blood, his pain that called to mine. Not Daniel’s.

  I moved in front of Sean and blanched at the blood running from his almost certainly broken nose. My tone was as soft as the fingers I brushed under his split lip. “Sean, are you... Your face...”

  He drew his knee up to stand, then thought better of it when the movement made him hiss. He flinched when I started to wipe the blood off his chin and nose as carefully as possible with the belt from my robe.

  I was going to run out of belt long before he ran out of blood. My chin quivered. “Why? Why did you start that?”

  The one blue eye that wasn’t swollen shut focused on me. “Jill, I heard what he said about hurting you...that you tried to stop him.”

  My eyes fell shut, a rock of guilt weighing in my gut. I let what Daniel said at my door replay in my head, listening for wording that Sean could have misinterpreted so badly.

  Touching you like that... I should have stopped when you told me to.

  The concrete of my porch was cool under my palm, and the warmth from Sean’s hand sliding over it made me jump. “What did he do to you?” Just those few words caused beads of blood to seep up over his lip and smear, making them look impossibly red and wrong. He’d been hurt because he thought someone hurt me.

  “Me? Nothing.” I wasn’t the one bleeding, he was. “But your face... I’m so sorry.”

  When I tried to dab at his upper lip again, Sean caught my wrist. Again, the same question delivered with almost zero inflection. “What did he do?” A muscle tensed in Sean’s cheek, betraying that he wasn’t nearly as calm as he was pretending. “He said he hurt you.”

  I grabbed for Sean’s hand, needing to remove that fear immediately. “No. Sean, no. Nothing like that. That was—” There was no good way to sugarcoat what Daniel had done, especially when I couldn’t justify it to myself. I stuck with the bare-bones facts. “What you overheard, he didn’t mean it like that. It’s my sunburn and...he came home drunk. I helped him get inside and he kissed me. That’s all.”

  I looked away, remembering the things I’d relayed to Sean about Daniel before I knew him. The arguing, that he belonged in prison, the way he destroyed the shed in his yard. But nothing about him protecting his mom or the years of abuse he’d suffered as a result. Nothing about the scars left on him inside and out.

  And then I sucked in a breath. For Daniel, with the life he’d had, I knew he’d reacted on instinct from Sean’s first hit. He had to fight back, put the other guy down or he’d get put down himself. And then seeing someone have to protect me from him...

  “I can’t believe he did this.” I couldn’t look at Sean’s face anymore, not when I felt responsible. “You shouldn’t have hit him. He’s not like you.” Daniel didn’t have the huge loving family Sean had. He didn’t have a father or grandfather to inspire him or show him by example and legacy what a man could be. Daniel had abuse and disdain. He had his proffered love spit on, struck down again and again until he no longer expected anything else.

  I pulled my hand
free and curled it into my lap. “What you did...” I sat back on my heels and looked at the blood splattered around my porch. “Sean...I cannot believe you did this.” I swallowed the rest of my words because I could believe that. He’d defended me without a second thought, had physically put himself between me and Daniel at the end even after he was beaten.

  I stood and dropped down on the porch swing. The air was suddenly too thick and I felt like I was chained to two cars driving in different directions.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t. Some drunk guy kisses you, hurts you, and you don’t brain him with a crowbar? What the hell, Jill? I almost lost my mind when I overheard him trying to say he was sorry.”

  Daniel had looked so heartbreakingly pitiful. “You don’t understand—he was reacting to you hitting him. I don’t think he even registered what he did.”

  “Then he’s a psycho.”

  “He’s not.” I lifted my head. “Sean, he came over to apologize to me. You just hit some guy you don’t know, for reasons you didn’t have in the first place. I told him to stop drinking, not...anything else. He stopped the rest as soon as I pushed him off me.”

  Even the swollen eye made an appearance then. “Off you? He was on top of you?”

  The heat in my voice died an instant death. The air in my lungs escaped in an audible rush remembering Daniel’s weight and the panicked surge of my heart. “I don’t want to talk about any of that with you. I left, okay? He’s never done anything like that before, and I’m never going to be in a situation again where he could. I don’t want to be put in a position where I have to defend any of that, because I can’t. I’m not going to try.”

  “Hey, I hit some guy who forced himself on you then beat the hell out of me. I need you to stop defending him for two seconds.” Sean lifted his forearms and clenched his fists. “Listening to you about this guy, this—” He ground his teeth, looking for a word, and came up blank. “If your dad had been here instead of me, you’d be digging a grave right now and you know it.”