Push and Shove

by C. L. Stone

  He slid over close enough that I could feel the warmth of his chest near my back. "Can't sleep?"

  "I have a hard time with sleep," I said, not wanting him to worry about something that couldn’t be fixed. "I'll be okay."

  "Hmm," he said. "It's not the bed is it?"

  "No."

  "Do you want something for it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Did I mention I'm a doctor? They let me have sleepy pills."

  "I don't know..."

  "They might help with the dreams. You may not have any."

  That sounded good. "Is it okay to try one?"

  Dr. Green sat up and scooted to the foot of the bed. He walked over to the bathroom and flicked on the light, returning a moment later with a paper cup and a couple of blue pills. “You can try two.”

  I sat up, and accepted them from him. I admired the T-shirt he wore, an Ashley River Bridge Run ad on the front with a picture of a bridge. He wore gray cotton sweatpants, too. I’d never seen him so casual, and it made him appear younger to me. Totally not like a doctor. Now this was Sean Green, someone I could sit next to in class and talk with like the other boys.

  He waited until I had swallowed the pills and the water before he took the cup from me.

  I was down again before he tossed the cup and turned off the light from the bathroom. He approached my side of the bed, and crawled heavily over me, putting almost his full weight on me and squashing me before he rolled off onto the other side of the bed.

  I immediately started giggling.

  Dr. Green slipped under the covers and I turned on my side to face him, the mild glow of the streetlights coming through the windows and making his eyes shine. I locked eyes with him until my giggling started up again.

  "Don't," he said. He planted two fingers across my mouth. "Stop it."

  "You started it."

  I caught the outline of his smile. "I was trying to get into my bed. Someone's on my side."

  "Which side is yours?"

  "The top side." I started to sit up, but Dr. Green captured my wrist and tugged me back down. "I'm just kidding. Don't go anywhere."

  I pressed my cheek to the pillow. "I like your bed."

  "Comfortable, isn't it? Do you want one like this?"

  "You just bought me one."

  "We got you the bed we thought we could get away with so your mom wouldn't notice."

  "I don't need a new bed."

  He reached out, cupping my exposed cheek with his hand. He smoothed his fingers over my skin. "You can ask for things you like, you know. You can like different things than we do."

  "Sean..."

  "Sang," his hand stilled, warming. "Don't bat those pretty eyelashes at me and expect me to behave."

  A giggle escaped me.

  He chuckled. He released my cheek and shoved himself over until he was inches away. “Shut those pretty eyes, Pookie, before I do something stupid.”

  “Stupid?”

  His hand drifted to my eyes, catching the lashes until my eyelids closed. “Shush.”

  ♥♥♥

  Sometime around dawn, Dr. Green rose from the bed. I was awake but dazed, probably thanks to the sleeping pills. They seemed to have worked and I couldn't remember any dreams. Waking up was harder. I was groggy.

  Dr. Green moved to the bathroom quietly. The echo of a streaming shower started up.

  I slipped back into sleep. Heavy. Dark. It felt like a split second later that a body sat next to me, shifting the bed enough that I rolled over.

  My eyes fluttered open, spotting Dr. Green looking down on me. His face was freshly shaved. His hair was still wet from his shower. He had on tan slacks again, and a white T-shirt.

  His hand drifted to my head. He combed his fingers through my hair, brushing the strands away from my face. “How’re you feeling, little doll?”

  I swallowed to get the thickness of sleep to clear from my throat. “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Still early,” he said. “But we better get moving if we’re going to get to school on time.”

  I forced myself to sit up. I sucked in air and held it, yawning and releasing while stretching. The heaviness of the pills still weighed on me. I wanted to lay back down and go back to sleep. “I’m still tired,” I said.

  “I probably should have given you those pills right when you mentioned going to bed.” He planted his palm on my thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’ll get you a prescription, lessen the dosage. If you’re struggling to sleep, you should take one maybe an hour before you’re ready to go to sleep.”

  “I don’t want to take them all the time,” I said. I couldn’t forget the pills my mother always took, and what happened to her. I trusted him, but I resisted the idea of taking medications when I didn’t need them.

  “And for that reason, I trust you’ll take them responsibly.” He leaned over, and he dropped a kiss on my brow. “Now go get ready and if we can get out of here early enough, I’ll get you one of those coffees you like.”

  The thought of coffee stirred me enough to get moving. I kicked the covers back and found my book bag.

  “If you’d like,” he said, “there’s a bathroom downstairs with a bigger tub than this one. Victor mentioned you preferred baths. But don’t be too long.”

  I nodded, trying to hide my heated cheeks by turning my back to him and heading for the door. Victor thought to mention baths because he knew how I reacted to showers. He was still looking out for me. They all did. Dr. Green started making the bed, smoothing over the blankets as I left. He was looking out for me, too. How strange. It was so nice, yet still so foreign to me. All these little things I didn’t think to do because my old family never had.

  I padded my way down the stairs and through the hall, unsure of which door to open as there was more than one. I returned to the living room for a moment, contemplating curling up on the couch. The pills made me feel like I was fighting sleep where I was standing.

  I wobbled into the kitchen hoping a drink of water would wake me up, and stopped short, suddenly sure I was still in bed and this was a dream.

  Mr. Blackbourne sat at the breakfast table, holding the 3DS in his hands. His eyes were focused as he tapped at the screen. His hair was mussed and he was wearing the same clothes as last night, with a second button undone on his shirt, revealing the white T-shirt underneath. There was a whisper of coarse hair along his jaw line.

  It was the most handsome I’d ever seen him.

  "Mr. Blackbourne," I whispered. I hadn’t meant to say anything, but the words slipped out from between my lips.

  He looked up sharply. He stood up, the chair he was sitting in scraping loudly across the floor.

  He stared hard at me for a long moment. The shadows under his eyes were heavy. There was a smudge at the corner of his glasses as though he’d touched them frequently to adjust them. He pulled his shoulders back as he regarded me. "Miss Sorenson."

  I hovered on the tile, unsure. Part of me thought he must have gone home sometime last night. Now I was embarrassed for both of us. I thought perhaps I should have shrunk back and disappeared and left him alone. Now that I was here, I didn’t know how to escape. And part of me was still curious. He’d been here the whole time? Did he sleep here?

  Mr. Blackbourne rubbed a palm against the side of his neck, and held up the 3DS. "Did you know you were keeping fish worth less than ones you tossed back?"

  I blinked at him, unable to connect with what he was talking about. "I was?"

  "And if you go to the island, there is a greater chance you'll find a shark. And if you play the games there while you’re waiting for one, instead of completing the game, you can collect the fruit, and carry nine of those at a time. If all you did was collect fruit from the games and check for sharks between each one, you'll spend less than thirty minutes on the island and earn at least a hundred thousand of those bells each trip."

  "Oh." My tired brain wasn't ready to think about his advice yet. I stepped toward
him, drawn to this strange image of Mr. Blackbourne. "You were playing the game?"

  He made a noise that almost sounded like a huff. He held the 3DS out again for me to take. "You left an unpaid mortgage on your house. I paid it off and put away another nine hundred thousand in that bank run by that lady seagull. I wanted to put away a million. I was almost finished."

  I reached out slowly for the 3DS. The game showed the girl on her way to the shop with pockets full of fruit and sharks, and other fish.

  The red hair had been changed to blond, and where it once was pig tails, now had a neat style around the shoulders, like mine. Instead of a tartan skirt like the night before, she had on an elegant dress and gloves. Sophisticated.

  I bit my lower lip. Emotion swelled through my entire body, threatening to take over with tears, relief, and something else bubbling under the surface. Mr. Blackbourne had stayed up all night to play the game for me.

  “You shouldn’t have,” I said softly.

  His head tilted as he turned to me. “I’m sorry if you feel like I’m impeding,” he said quickly. “I only meant to play around a little. To understand what you liked about it. And then I noticed the mortgage.” His hand reached up to his neck, and brushed upward toward his hair, and I imagined this was why his hair was a mess. “If I disrupted a goal you had for yourself—”

  “Oh no,” I said. “It’s not that. I mean you... I...” I closed the 3DS, pausing the game. Words swept through my mind, but I wasn’t sure how to say what I was feeling.

  “Miss Sorenson?” he asked quietly, with an edge of a plea.

  With my heart threatening to burst through my ribs, I placed my palm carefully on his forearm. He locked his gaze with mine.

  “Thank you,” I said, forcing the words out, even though I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing.

  I think it was the first time I ever reached out to touch him. The feel of his skin under my hand sent waves through me, like the slice of a knife across my skin. It wasn’t painful, not cutting. Just the edge tracing, risky and thrilling. Mr. Blackbourne was perfection, impossible to reach, and I’d just crossed that boundary.

  Through all those requests of me to be perfect, he really did care. I knew he did. I saw it in moments we were alone. Sometimes, though, he backed off and I wasn’t sure why. But maybe he never really did stop. He just had a different way of showing it. I didn’t understand him completely, but I wanted to. I wanted to be better, to do what he said, to trust.

  My heart soared now for him, for what he had done for me.

  He was quiet and immobile for so long that I thought I was making him uncomfortable.

  His hand touched my shoulder lightly, then slid around until he was cupping my cheek. This gentle touch guided me to face him again. He held quietly to me for a moment, his palm warming.

  Then his face relaxed. The steel in his eyes was gone, replaced by shining silver.

  “You’re welcome, Miss Sorenson.”

  Perfection. I trembled from that light brush of air from his touch, and his words.

  He released me quickly, a hand returning to my shoulder. He backed up, his eyes boring steel into me again.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, the full strength of the commanding tone was back. He expected an answer.

  “Huh?” I asked, unsure of what he meant.

  “Why are you shaking?” he asked. “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you sleep?”

  I didn’t have any answers for him, except for a slight nod to the last question. I shook when I was nervous, or tired. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I suspected a lot of things. But I did sleep.

  His hand gripped my shoulder. His eyes were unwavering as he stared. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, unsure how to appease him. “I’m fine.”

  “Lying to me won’t tell me how to fix it,” he said. “You’re not fine.” He sighed and took a step away. He snatched up his coat and tie that had been placed on one of the other chairs, fixed the chair he had used until it was back in place. “But you will be.”

  “Mr. Blackbourne?”

  He turned to me, laying his coat and tie over his arm. When he was done, he reached for me, clutching my chin between his fingers and directing my attention to his face.

  “I promise,” he said. “Maybe I wasn’t clear before, but I want you to understand every word I say now. I don’t care what time it is. I don’t care where you are. If something is wrong, you call me. Tell me everything going on. If you’re concerned about where you live, or about vitamins, or your grades, or even ... even if the boys are bothering you about kissing or dates.”

  My heart burst and my body refused to hide it. I was forced to look at those eyes, the cold steel telling me he meant every word, and to not do so would be a disappointment to him. I couldn’t bear to think what would happen if I were to do so.

  He knew. He probably knew everything, from Dr. Green kissing me, to some of the other boys and that they were close, or had tried, in one way or another. Nothing happened to his team that he didn’t know about. I sensed in what he was saying that he was tired of hearing about me from other people’s lips.

  “Until the day you ask me not to,” he said quietly, but with the same concern and command. “I’ve promised you, and I’ll repeat that promise until the day you actually believe me.”

  “I believe you,” I said quietly, afraid to suggest otherwise, or to let the moment pass and not say it out loud.

  His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, and his lips tightened. The fingers at my chin lifted my head higher.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said. He released me and walked around me, heading to the door.

  I stared at that table long after I heard the front door of the condo open and close, and the start of the gray BMW, and it fading away down the street.

  I did believe him.

  I vowed to prove it.

  ULTIMATUM NEGOTIATIONS

  I bathed and dressed in a downstairs bathroom. I put on clothes from my bag, a sporty dark skirt, a T-shirt and the white angel hoodie. I wasn’t sure who picked out this outfit, but I thought perhaps Victor or Nathan. It was all Victoria’s Secret items, from the new clothing Victor had brought, but the style was sporty like Nathan often wanted me to wear. Were they all deciding which clothes ended up in my bag?

  I hurried and met Dr. Green at the door. The journey to the school was quiet, except for a short stop at Starbucks to pick up breakfast.

  Perhaps he sensed I didn’t want to talk. I kept thinking about Mr. Blackbourne, his words haunting me. At some point, I had done something wrong, and I didn’t know how to take it back. Now I was the one that broke something in him, and I needed to fix it.

  “I hate to do this to you,” Dr. Green said once the school was within sight. “But we should probably split up in the parking lot, and go in through different doors.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t want to start any additional rumors,” he said. “Not even ones that might be true.”

  Despite us being only three years apart, he still had to pretend to be my teacher, and us arriving at school together could be disastrous. “I understand,” I said.

  “And please forgive me if I’m a little distant,” he said. “If I don’t... I mean, I can’t just kiss you in the middle of class.”

  The corner of my mouth lifted. “You almost did once.”

  He laughed.

  We parted in the parking lot as he suggested. I headed straight for the courtyard where North, Silas and Luke were already waiting.

  After a cold Frappuccino and a breakfast sandwich which I split with Silas, I was leaning against Luke before class started. My nerves were jumbling from the coffee, but my body was refusing to use the energy, the effects of those sleeping pills lingering.

  And maybe part of me was worried about seeing Mr. Blackbourne later in the day. For some reason, I felt I should talk to him as soon as possible, but I didn’t know where to start or what
to say to him.

  I wondered about the other boys. "They're going to be late," I said, using my phone to check the time before tucking it back into my bra.

  Silas placed a hand on my back between my shoulder blades and rubbed slowly. "Don't worry about them, aggele mou."

  "Is something wrong? Is it Academy stuff?"

  North grunted. "Kota was trying to make sure your sister got to school."

  "Is she okay?"

  "Let's just say she's unmotivated. But they are on the way now."

  "How was Dr. Green's?" Luke asked.

  I was filling them in on dinner but stopped when Kota and Nathan arrived, trailed by Victor and Gabriel. But not even Gabriel's makeup could hide the swelling on Nathan's face.

  I started to jump up but Kota sliced a hand through the air between us. "Don't draw attention to it."

  I sat down hard on the bench. Nathan checked with Silas, who nodded, before Nathan sad down next to me on my other side. His white shirt that went with the faux school uniform was crumpled. His eyes were intense, the blue shimmering as he squinted at everyone. And the swelling almost forcing his eye closed.

  Despite Kota's warning, I couldn't stop my staring. "What happened?"

  Nathan grunted. "I had to go back to my house for some stuff. I thought he was asleep. He surprised me. Payback for putting him in the hospital. Guess he got it out of his system."

  I sucked in a breath. "We should show Mr. Blackbourne. He should..."

  "He already knows, Peanut. It’s why I slept at your house last night."

  "There's got to be something we can do. We have to... I don't know. Maybe now we have to move you out."

  Kota sighed. "Sang, we can't..."

  I interrupted, "You guys are trying to get me out, I know but Nathan's the priority. Was Mr. Griffin always like this?"

  "He used to be pretty bad," Nathan said. "But we managed to keep him at his job and it was a big salary jump for him to take those longer routes. When he works, he’s pretty calm. When I went in yesterday, after he’d been back from the hospital, there were whiskey bottles everywhere. He hasn't responded to phone calls from work."