Tobias hasn’t come back to see me, and the text messages between us are strained at best.
Sitting in the family room, I flick the television off, completely disinterested in anything. I just want to see Jared, and know how he’s doing.
He sounded terrible when I called him yesterday. His voice was flat and emotionless. I know Jared so well, and I know things aren’t right with him.
The bandages are still on, but the wounds are healing. Dr. Estrada came in and talked to me several times. I was surprised, because I assumed that once she called in the mental health calvary, she was done with me. She asked me how it was going with the shrinks, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a complete waste of time. I lied to her, and said that it was helping a bit. She believed me. She also gave me a number of a psychologist who deals with survivors of trauma, someone I could contact after I left the hospital. “If not for you, do it for your dad. He’s worried about you,” she said as she was leaving the room.
I took the number and shoved it in my pocket. I didn’t throw it out when I got home, either. Instead, I put in the top drawer of my dresser. One day, I might call it. But I’m fine for now, and don’t need it.
The number is etched into my mind, as are the words the doctor spoke about Dad. Dad lost Mom when I was young, and I don’t want to cause him worry.
There’s a blank space in my mind. A huge part of it is like white noise and static. Nothing happening. But another part is filled with wonder and confusion. There’s also a gaping hole in my heart too. Something inside me isn’t right. It could be the mind-numbing void in my heart or the persistent hissing inside my head that keeps me from thinking clearly.
A knock on the door drags me out of the fog filling my mind. Dad puts his glass down and walks over to the door.
“Jared, how are you?” Dad’s voice is heavy.
“I’ve seen better days, Mr. Jones.” Jared’s tone is laced with a grief so thick, he’s barely recognizable.
Standing, I head toward the front door. The moment I see Jared, my feet stop walking, and my mouth falls open in shock. “Jared,” I whisper.
It’s only been days, but he’s changed so much. His hair is unkempt and he has dark circles beneath his eyes. He looks like he’s lost ten pounds from his already lanky frame since I saw him last.
“Jared.” I launch myself at him, and he catches me in his arms. My arms snake around him as I hug him tightly. “You look like crap,” I whisper as I start to cry.
“So do you,” he says through his own tears.
Both of us cry as we hold onto each other. Something passes between us, a private acknowledgement for surviving the tragedy we’ve gone through.
It takes a long time for us to break apart, and when we do we’re still joined by our hands. His fingers are entwined so tightly around mine, it gives me comfort to know we share this together. “I’m sorry,” I say before we reach the sofa to sit.
“What are you sorry for?”
I sit, and Jared sits beside me, our legs are touching. “I should’ve called. We need to stay together.”
The flatness in his voice carries over to his eyes. He lifts his hand to scratch at the scruff on his chin. “I didn’t know what happened.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure what was happening. All I knew was I wanted to live. I was praying he wouldn’t turn the gun toward me.”
“I think it’s safe to say everyone was praying for the same thing.”
“You don’t get it, Ivy. In that moment, I was the most selfish person I’ve ever known. I didn’t care about anyone else, not even Mrs. Richards. Just myself.”
“That doesn’t make you selfish. That makes you human.”
“I saw you. I saw what you did. You had no regard for yourself. Instead, you ran straight to Mrs. Richards to help her.”
I scoff and roll my eyes. “It didn’t work so well, did it?”
“You ran to her, I didn’t. I hid and I prayed.” Tears well in his redden eyes, and my heart just crumbles for him.
“We all respond differently in a situation so intense.”
“But I saw the person I was in those few minutes, and I hate him.” He buries his face in his hands and cries loudly.
“That’s not fair, Jared. You can’t be so hard on yourself.”
He lifts his head and wipes the tears away with the hem of his shirt. “Why? I was a coward. I wasn’t a man. I didn’t run toward her, or try to stop Tyler. I shielded myself and prayed I wasn’t going to be killed.” His eyes roam over the bandages on my arms.
Suddenly, I feel exposed and all my feelings of shame flood back.
I turn toward him, grabbing both his hands, and encompassing them with mine. “Please, don’t do this to yourself. We all went through something traumatic. Everyone reacts differently, and this isn’t something we will get over quickly. It takes time.”
His thumb gently strokes over the bandage on my right arm. “It looks like you’re not handling it either.”
He’s got me. He’s right, but I’ve been drowning for years, and the shooting just added another foot of water over my head. “Are you going to ask me about it?”
“I don’t have to. I know why you did it. It’s the same reason I keep looking at the bottle of pills I stole from mom’s medicine cabinet.”
Fear instantly rises inside me. It’s trapped and it wants to come out, but I have to be careful how I react, too. “You have to talk to someone.”
“I am, and they’re helping me.” Tears well in his eyes, and one escapes, slowly rolling down his face. “He’s also the reason I don’t take the pills. Every morning I wake up ashamed, and feeling so heavy. But when I see him, he puts everything into perspective for me and the heaviness starts to fade. It’s like I have a movie playing in my head.”
“Me too,” I whisper. “It keeps playing over and over again. The look in Tyler’s eyes, watching Mrs. Richards die.”
“My movie shows me running away and hiding. I cover my ears, tightly close my eyes and pray.”
“Our movies are the same, Jared. Yours shows someone who fought for his life, and mine shows someone who couldn’t look away.”
“I’m not a man.”
“Of course, you are. You’re only seventeen, how did you expect to react?”
“With more honor.”
“Who’s filling your head with all this crap?” I bark at him. “We did what we had to survive. We didn’t use anyone as a human shield, we didn’t pull the damn trigger.”
“But, I…”
“No, you shouldn’t. You did what you had to do to protect yourself. Please, stop beating yourself up.” The air is thick between us. I stand, grab onto his hand, and lead him out to the back yard, where we sit in the sun and with the breeze dancing around us. “It’s nice out here,” I say in a gentler tone.
“It is.” He lowers the sunglasses he had pushed up atop his head. “Tobias isn’t doing too good. He’s been coming around my house or calling me to see if I’ve seen or heard from you. Did you two have a fight?”
I don’t want to tell him. “It’s complicated,” I say.
“Yeah, right.” He sounds disappointed with my answer.
“We had an argument in the hospital, and Dad interrupted us before we could resolve it. I haven’t spoken to him since.”
“Hmm.” He turns his head, lowers his glasses for a second and looks at my bandages. “I promise you to not take those pills if you promise me not to do that again.” He makes a circular movement with his finger, indicating the bandages.
I don’t want to promise him something I can’t keep. I know my demon will be back soon, and when he does, I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to resist him. I know his promises are empty, but the allure of peace is so strong that it will be nearly impossible to resist him. But I have to say something to Jared. Because if I don’t, he might try to take those pills, and he needs to be in the world. “I promise
not to cut my wrists again.”
His lips pull up into a small smile. He believes me, and I won’t ever cut myself on my wrists again. I promise. “Now, what are you going to do about Tobias? You know he’s in love with you?”
“He told me he loves me.”
“And what? You think he’s lying?”
“No, I know he loves me.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug and look at Jared.
“You don’t love him?”
Again, I lift my shoulders in a shrug. “Everything seems to be coming at me with the speed of a freight train. I don’t know if I love him, or I’m learning to love him. And with everything that happened at school, I feel like I’m a failure at everything life throws at me.”
Jared chuckles. “You need to take your own advice. Swallow your pride, Ivy. Work out if you love him, and tell him.”
“What if I don’t love him, and I just really like him?”
“Then tell him. Do you think he’ll be disappointed or upset if you don’t love him? No matter what, he needs the truth.”
“If our roles were reversed, I’d be totally cut and I wouldn’t want to see him again.”
“Tobias is old enough to deal with however you feel. But you know what I think?”
I take a deep breath and smile. “No, but I think you’re going to tell me.”
“I think you feel the same way toward him, but after what happened at school, your brain can’t deal with it. You lost your Mom when you were young, and maybe your brain is putting up a barrier because it doesn’t want to lose someone else.”
“I have Dad.”
“That’s different, and you know it. Tyler doing what he did, he pushed our version of reality to its brink. Here we are, normal kids going to school, looking forward to finishing and going to college. Then Tyler comes along and kills our teacher right in front of us. That’s fucked with our minds. It skewed what we knew as reality. Now we know disaster can happen to any of us at any time. And that’s scared the shit out of me. So I dare say, it’s affected all of us, regardless if you were in that class or not. But our class, we’ve been hit the hardest. Because we’ll remember everything.”
“How do we get over something like this?”
“Like every person in the world gets over hardship. We keep breathing.”
“I gotta tell you, you sound like you’ve got it together.”
“Today I sound like I have it together. Tomorrow may be a different story. I’m still only comprehending it. But, my counselor is good. Really good.”
“When I was at the hospital, the doctor gave me a number for someone too.”
“When’s your appointment?”
“I haven’t made one yet.”
“What? How is your dad not on your case about getting help?”
“He is, but I’m not ready yet.”
“Ivy, do yourself a favor and call to make an appointment. Every day is a struggle. Every day I feel guilty because I coward away. Then I feel guilty that I survived. My number one emotion for ninety-five percent of the time I’m awake is guilt.”
We remain quiet for a few minutes, his words really sinking into my soul. “Do you think I might be feeling guilty because I survived?”
“I’m feeling it and I ran away. Maybe you’re feeling it too. I do think though, you ought to call the number and make an appointment. What Tyler did didn’t just take one life. He took an entire classroom of lives. We might be living, but I can guarantee we’re all feeling dead inside.”
“How do we get past this?”
“We keep breathing, Ivy. You pick up the phone and make an appointment, and I hope everyone else in the class does the same thing.”
“I’m not sure I can go back.”
“Then don’t. See if you can finish school another way. It’s not worth putting yourself in a situation where your feelings overwhelm your ability to concentrate. I’ve already talked to my parents, and I’ll be transferring to another school. I can’t go back there.”
“Maybe finishing my senior year at a different school is a good idea.”
“Now, what’s really happening with Tobias?”
“He…” I exhale and stare at the back fence. “He cares about me.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I tried to get some answers from him, and he started shutting down.”
“Shutting down? How?”
“I was asking him some questions, and he was avoiding them.”
“What were the questions?”
“I can’t, Jared. I can’t tell you, it’s not fair to him. Just like I wouldn’t tell him anything about you.”
“Okay. Look, I have no idea what you two fought about, but remember, he threw himself on top of you to protect you. Whatever you two have going on, sort it out, because that’s one of the bravest acts I’ve ever seen—along with you running to help Mrs. Richards. He’s a good guy, Ivy. And even though he’s handling it differently than you, that doesn’t make him unworthy of being in your life. I can tell you right now, that guy will be my friend forever, because of what he did for you.”
The sun moves further overhead, and we both remain quiet.
You know when you’re around people and suddenly it goes quiet and it feels weird? Jared and I can be quiet the whole day, not say a word to each other, and still feel connected.
We sit outside for ages, until finally Dad calls us in for dinner.
Jared’s going to be okay. Already, the stress on his face has eased. He’s going to fight his way through it.
I hope I can find peace too.
And I pray Azael never comes back to me.
Can we talk?
Tobias’s text says.
I can’t avoid him forever, and I think he wants to set everything right with us. It’s time. It has been nearly two weeks since the day in the hospital where nothing was resolved, and even though we’ve been talking through text, it’s been light and impersonal.
Okay.
I respond.
Want to go out somewhere?
Sure.
I know I’m not saying much, but I think when we go out I’m going to get everything off my chest.
I’ll pick u up in about an hour?
I’ll be ready. Nowhere 2 loud.
K.
“Dad,” I call as I leave my bedroom.
“Garage,” he yells. Heading out through the kitchen, the garage door is open and Dad’s sorting out some boxes. “What’s up?” he asks as he’s looking through a box.
“Tobias is going to come and pick me up so we can go out.”
Dad looks up from where his focus was. “You sure you’re okay to go out?”
I pull my sleeves down over my arms, hiding the bandages and fidget in the doorway. “We’ve got to talk about things, Dad.”
Dad regards me for a few seconds. I know he’s not happy about me going with Tobias. But I need to do this, for me. “What time is he coming over?”
“He’ll be here soon. About an hour or so.”
He walks over to me, and rubs his hands up and down my arms before placing a kiss to my forehead. “Take your phone and if you need me, call.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Let me know before you leave.”
“I will.” I turn to go get ready, but before I go, I return to the garage. “You can go back to work.”
“What’s that?”
“I said you can go back to work. I’m okay now.”
“Are you?” he asks.
“I am,” I say with no conviction. “You can’t stay home and watch over me forever. So, it’s okay, you can go back to work.”
“I’m not going back to work until I know you’re really okay, and truthfully, I don’t think you are. It’s only been a couple of weeks since… that day. And until I know you’re okay, and settled back into school, I’m not going to risk anything else happening to you.”
“I won’t try to hurt myself
again,” I say.
“I want to believe you, and I want to say ‘I know,’ but this is all still so raw. Not only for you, but for me too. I’m not ready to go back to work, any more than you’re not ready to go back to school.”
I avert my gaze from his, but I understand his logic… kind of. He’s protecting me and himself. “I’m going to go get ready.”
“Okay, sweetheart.”
I walk into my room and begin to pull myself together.
I hear the car driving down the street.
Standing from his favorite seat in the family room, Dad heads over to the door. He opens it and waits for Tobias.
The engine of the car dies, and I hear him take the steps up the porch. “Mr. Jones, how are you, sir?”
“I’m well, Tobias. How are you?”
Dad opens the door fully, and Tobias heads inside. The moment he sees me, his eyes light up and he smiles at me. “Better now,” he honestly admits. He walks over to me, and lays a kiss on my cheek. “Hi,” he says in a low voice.
My stomach does that flip-flop with elation when he leans in to kiss me. Every part of me comes to life when his sweet apple pie aftershave invades my senses. His aroma is familiar, and will never be forgotten.
“Hi.” I drag my gaze across his beautiful face. He looks how I’ve been feeling. Sad.
“You look perfect.”
I give him a small genuine smile. “Thank you.”
“Are you ready?”
“I am.”
“Take your phone, Ivy,” Dad says.
“I’ve got it in my pocket.”
“Do you need money?” Dad asks.
“I’ve got some.”
Drowning Page 17
