Lost Cause

by Callie Sparks

  But I had other things on my mind this morning, during breakfast. The biggest one, of course, was trying to determine if my parents really do know nothing about where I’ve been the past few nights.

  I’m so confused.

  It’s not like Noah and I have done anything other than sleep in the same bed. We haven’t done anything more than cuddle. Though we both know that if my parents found out, we’d be in trouble, we can’t seem to stop. Last night, I told him we should probably cool it because my mom seemed suspicious, but I’d lain awake until midnight. When I climbed upstairs, he was awake, waiting for me, and peeled back the covers and wrapped me in his arms without a word.

  I’m prepared to be waiting the full hour, so when the door swings open after forty minutes, I’m surprised. Noah comes out, followed a small woman in jeans and a REM concert t-shirt, her hand already extended for me. “Ari?” She asks, as I shake it, bewildered.

  “Yeah,” Noah says. “This is Ari, my . . .”

  He looks flustered. I know what he’s trying to say, so I take it upon myself. I say, “I’m his friend.”

  “I’m Dr. Lindquist. Noah’s going to stay out here while I talk to you.” Her voice is very brusque and no-nonsense, kind of intimidating. Instantly, I’m afraid. Did I do something to convince her that I’m a nutcase? I exchange a glance with Noah. He gives me a shoulder rub and starts to pick up a Sports Illustrated.

  I walk into her room and observe what looks like the three little bears’ house—some chairs that look frighteningly hard and uncomfortable, some overstuffed, and a few in between. I take the in-between one nearest to her as she perches on the edge of an uncomfortable one. She crosses her legs and her clog dangles off her foot. “So,” she says, smiling at me. “Coffee?”

  I shake my head.

  “You’re here, in case you didn’t know, because Noah is deeply fond of you.” She clasps her hands in fond of her, on her knees. “And as you may have known, he hasn’t had many appropriate relationships, if any, in the past. He’s worried about losing you.”

  I exhale, relieved. “He doesn’t have to worry about that. He won’t.”

  “Still, because you mean so much to him, he wants very much for you to be a part of his therapy. He says that he wants to be open with you so you know what he’s dealing with, but a lot of times it’s been uncomfortable.”

  “Well, I tell him I don’t need to know, that it doesn’t matter what he’s been through—I won’t hate him or think any less of him,” I explain.

  “And that’s wonderful, but still . . . you can’t fully understand until you do know.”

  I nod. “I know a little. It’s just . . . hard. He was my best friend growing up. I care about him, and hearing those details . . . it’s horrible to think about. I’d rather . . . I don’t know. Try to move forward. Not look back.”

  “I can tell you that due to the nature of his abuse, he will never be able to forget his past. The thoughts may diminish with time, but it will always be there.”

  I look at the ground. “I understand.”

  “You feel guilty that you didn’t know what was happening?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I told Noah that I’d be happy to meet with you two together, in addition to our one-on-one counseling sessions. Does that make sense?”

  “Anything. If you think it’ll help him.”

  She leans over and grabs a folder off her desk. “And you. But let me ask you a question. Have you had a romantic relationship with Noah, now or in the past?”

  “Oh, no. We’re just friends,” I say quickly. “We can only be good friends.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well . . . I just don’t think it would work. He needs help. And I’m going to school. And my parents . . . well . . .” I stammer. “It’s not that I don’t love him.”

  “Well, if you’re worried about being there for his therapy when you’re at school. It’s not a problem. I Skype with many of my clients.” She marks something down in the file. “Does it come as a surprise to you that he wants to pursue that kind of relationship with you?”

  “I . . . No.” My face heats. “He told you that?”

  She nods. “He needs to pursue healthy relationships. I always try to give my patients realistic goals to achieve. And I needed to see how realistic a goal pursuing a relationship with you is.”

  “Oh.” I think of my father. “No. It’s not realistic. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she says. “It’s good you’re so certain about that now.”

  I am. Sort of. I cross my arms over my chest in effort to convince myself how certain I am. “Yes. I am. Honesty, after what he’s been through, I really don’t see how getting involved with anyone romantically now is a good idea. He needs to concentrate on himself, not anyone else, you know?”

  “It is a good idea if it’s right,” she says to my surprise. “The point is not to deny himself the healthy things.”

  Oh.

  My face blazes more as she continues. “It’s concerning, though, that he doesn’t have very much of a support system, does he?”

  “Well, there’s me, and my parents, and . . .” Okay. No one else. “He’s lost a lot of people.”

  “Well, it’s important to provide stability. You understand?” She smiles. “So whatever you’re going to be to him, be a good one.”

  “Things are a little complicated right now. But I’ll try,” I sigh, thinking of his arms around me when we slept. I could feel his fingers through the thin fabric of my camisole, brushing my breasts, making my nipples stand erect, and had to wonder if he’d done it by accident. I’d been seconds from rolling over and kissing him countless times, but each time, I’d think about those women he brought home. “I guess if I’d been a better friend, none of this would’ve happened. I don’t blame him for wanting to hurt me these past few days. Maybe I deserved it.”

  “Sounds like both of you could do with letting go the guilt you’re harboring. Men who’ve been in his situation struggle with their self-worth, too,” she explains. “They may hurt themselves, abuse alcohol or drugs, and deny themselves the very things that would help them, simply because they don’t think they deserve them.”

  She stands up and opens the door, then calls Noah in. When he comes in, I smile reassuringly at him, and yet I get this horrible feeling of betrayal. Seeing him again, I know I lied.

  Getting involved with him is not impossible. Not even close.

  She escorts us out of the office. In addition to his weekly one-on-one sessions, we make appointments to meet with her every week after my Tuesday shift at the Toad, since the office is only a block away.

  The sky is threatening rain as we leave together. “So, what do you think?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “Good. It’ll be fine.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a square of paper. As he unfolds it, I realize they’re a bunch of prescriptions: Zoloft, Trazodone, Ativan.

  “What are all those for?” I ask him.

  “Everything that’s wrong with me, I guess.”

  I take him to the pharmacy. He ends up with a sack of pills, and I can tell he’s embarrassed about it, and even more embarrassed that he doesn’t have an insurance card. The woman who checks him out stares at him like he’s nuts when he pulls out a roll of bills and starts peeling them off to pay for them. “Ouch,” he says to me as she hands him change.

  It’s pouring when we get outside. Even though the car isn’t far away from the entrance, we both get soaked. He gets it worse than I do, though, because ever the gentleman, he stops to open my door for me.

  When we’re inside and dripping all over the cloth seats, I look at him. He’s studying the bag of pills, looking like little boy Noah, the one who used to come home bruised and beaten every day.

  I take the pamphlets from him and start to read them. They’re to treat depression, anxiety, and night terrors. I run down the list of side-effects and cringe. Aggressive behavior. Suicidal ideation. Sexual dysfunction and lack
of sex drive. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah. I take these, I might not even be me anymore. But I think that’s their point,” he mumbles.

  “No, that’s not the point. It’s okay,” I tell him. “Lots of people take these pills. They’re nothing to be ashamed of. They’ll help you.”

  He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I know.”

  “She says that I should let you tell me everything, if you want. Or I should watch the interview.”

  He opens the door for me, as I lean back against the car. “Ari. I told you that before. I’m not out to hide anything from you. I’ll tell you, if you want me to.”

  I press my lips together, thinking. “When you have nightmares, what are they about?”

  His voice is soft. “About being powerless. Not being able to breathe. When I was in the commune, they’d punish me by ball-tying me, holding me down on the bed.”

  “Who, Annie?”

  He shakes his head. “The men.”

  “Oh. Uh, what is ball tying?”

  “Like, fetal position.”

  “Oh.” I should have more questions. I know I do, but right now, I’m thinking of what it must’ve been like, him tied up like that. How scared he must’ve been. And here I was, thinking the parties I’d been going to in his absence were tortuous.

  How stupid I am.

  He rolls up the sleeve on his t-shirt and points to the daisy chain. Then he shows me the other one, which is a vine of leaves. For the first time, I realize the skin underneath is a little puckered. It’s the scars from the ropes. He’s hidden them under the tattoos. “I’m still not really a tattoo person,” he says. “But one of the guys in L.A. told me he could take care of. So I went with it.”

  “Oh, God,” I murmur, tears springing to my eyes.

  He grabs my wrist fiercely. “Don’t, Ari. Don’t. I’m going to be okay. You got that? I’ll prove it. Ask me another question.”

  “All right. Did you love Annie?”

  He looks straight ahead. “I thought I did. Then. Not now.”

  “Because of what she did to you?”

  “Partly. But mostly because I know now that the way I felt then is nothing like how I feel now.” He clears his throat, then dips his head and wipes the droplets of rain from his cheek with his shoulder. “With you.”

  I shake my head at him. He knows exactly how to turn me into a puddle of goo. “Don’t say that,” I tell him. “Please. You’re just making it harder.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Noah. We can’t. I’m going to school soon.”

  He throws himself back on the seat, then looks at the pamphlet again. “Then maybe these pills will numb me to that, too.”

  #

  “Mom,” I said one Thanksgiving morning, after I’d turned sixteen. My parents had wanted to have a fancy sweet sixteen for me, but I knew it in no way would match up to Claire’s, which was on a yacht on the ocean, or anyone else’s. Plus, I knew the only person who’d ask me to slow dance would be my dad. “I’m wondering if I should go to the doctor.”

  She looked at me over the butt of the turkey she was stuffing. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

  I sighed. She’d heard my grumblings. She’d spent a small fortune in my completely unnecessary padded bra collection over the years. She’d bought me expensive bikinis when I complained that one-pieces were babyish, and yet she knew exactly why I still wore a t-shirt over them – because in order to work, push-up bras needed something to, you know, actually push-up.

  “I just . . . mom. I’m sixteen. And I think something’s wrong. Maybe I have a tumor. Blocking things.”

  She laughed. “I’ve told you this time and time again. Plenty of gymnasts and athletic types don’t get their periods at all!”

  “Yeah, mom, but do you see the problem in that? I am not nor have I ever been a gymnast or athletic type.”

  “Right, but you’ve always been skinny.”

  I threw myself down on the sofa. There were plenty of girls in school who were skinnier than me, and had gotten theirs. My freak flag, should I have flown it, was now seriously the freakiest of all.

  “And really, it’s an incredible pain. Consider yourself lucky!” she said, and I mimicked along with her, since I’d heard that about a million times.

  “Fine,” I say, as my father wheels himself in the front door. He looks worried.

  “What is it?” we both ask at once, and I brace myself, because I know that look.

  He shakes his head. “Nothing. I just . . . haven’t seen Russ Templeton around lately. I went over there to invite him to dinner with us. His truck is in the garage, but he didn’t answer.”

  My mother started to list all these possible explanations, but they all seemed weak. I went

  upstairs to watch the rest of the Thanksgiving parade. Instead, I remembered the “preparedness kit” I’d been given in middle school when they’d gone over sex ed. Mine was probably covered in cobwebs, somewhere under my bed. I threw up the dust skirt and moved a bunch of boxes around, and that’s when I saw it.

  It was a box of things from Noah. The Darth Vader bobble-head, the charm bracelet, the walkie-talkie. I picked each thing up, running my fingers over every one, feeling guilty because I hadn’t thought of Noah all month, not since the 3-year anniversary of his disappearance, when the newspaper ran a little article that had been buried among its pages.

  Downstairs, my father dialed the police. I picked up the broken walkie-talkie and whispered into the receiver, testing, testing. I tried to think of something to tell Noah, something that he might want to hear, but everything I thought of was disappointing or tragic. His dad was a wreck. The school had all but forgotten about him. I’d tried to keep the treehouse alive but a few of the planks had caved in during a storm this summer. I placed them back, but they were starting to rot.

  I refused to let them rot. I’d ask my parents for extra wood protector from their deck-staining job they’d done earlier in the year. If that didn’t work, I’d dissemble the boards piece by piece and take them inside.

  Something. I had to do something. He was my best friend. He wasn’t made for oblivion.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  You did not testify during the trial, but you provided a victim impact statement after Annie’s sentencing. What did you say?

  I told her that I would not allow what she did to impact my life in any negative way, that I would overcome this. I told her that she needed help and I hoped she got it in prison.

  You told her that you forgave her.

  Yeah.

  The woman who destroyed your family. Who you think killed your sister, led to the death of your father. People at home will be wondering how you could do that.

  Because I wanted to move on.

  Have you? What are you moving on to, now that the trial is over? Continuing your education? Reuniting with family?

  I guess . . . I have to figure that out now. It’s an easy thing to say but not so easy a thing to put into action. I’m a bit overwhelmed at the outpouring of support I’ve received. I . . . uh, want to thank everyone for their generosity. It’s overwhelming, like I said. But I’ll be fine.

  #

  Somewhere near the end of my shift at the Sticky Toad, I see Noah coming out of his appointment with Dr. Lindquist. There are no customers left, so Thelma waves me on. I tear off my apron and rush outside as he crosses the street toward me. “Hi, you. Hey. You got a haircut.”

  He pretends to fluff his new ‘do like a regular debutante. It’s close-cropped on the sides, a bit longer on the top, and it looks good on him. Not that anything could look bad; there’s way too much good stuff to work with. “I feel naked.”

  Oh, I wouldn’t be able to handle that. “How was therapy?”

  “Hey. Fine.” He’s studying me curiously. “So you’re talking to me now?”

  “Yeah, why?” I say, feeling guilty as I walk with him out of the way of Thelma’s prying eyes.

  It’s been a few days, and ev
erything’s been going well. He’s continuing with his appointments and has gotten a job at the Quik Mart. He even went to Bank of America and opened him up his very first checking account, complete with his own debit card. He’s helpful to a fault around the house, just like a regular member of the family.

  But I’m barely in the same room as him. That’s on purpose. I knew sleeping next to him was just confusing the issue, so for the past few nights, I’ve been lying awake, fighting the urge to throw back my covers and crawl in with him. For the past few days, we might as well have been strangers.

  He shrugs. “I thought you were ignoring me.”

  I smile. “I thought you were ignoring me.”

  “You’re the one who started it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  He bursts out laughing at the same time I do. What are we, six?

  “Whenever I go in a room, you walk out. You’re never around.” He digs his hands into his pockets and laughs. “I sleep like shit without you. And that’s while zonked out of my mind on Trazadone. No easy feat.”

  Guilty as charged. I lower my voice. “I didn’t think my being around you so much was a good thing.”

  He doesn’t answer for a long time. “I don’t know that. But I want whatever makes you happy. If this makes you happy . . .”

  I turn and look into his eyes, than wish that I hadn’t. My voice wavers. “It does.”

  “All right,” he says quietly.

  “Noah. It’s driving me crazy, too. Believe me. But I—“ I stop. I’m scared. Scared of taking that step.

  He holds up a hand. “No. I got it. I blew it.”

  I want to say something to make him feel better, but before I can, he puts his hand on my arm. “No, wait. I don’t get it. We can’t keep going in circles like this.” He scrubs his hand through his newly short hair. “You told me you loved me, Ari. And I’m never going to get you out of my system. I know that now. There is no one else for me but you. So if you ever decide to join me and stop denying how you feel, I’ll be waiting for you.”