by Rae, Nikki
I don't know what to say to my sister. Am I supposed to tell her the truth: that I don't know? Or am I supposed to lie?
“I think so,” is what pops out of my mouth, though I'm not sure if I even believe it.
She shrugs her tiny shoulders. “Okay.”
Just like that, everything's better.
Before I can say anything else, there's a knock at the door, which is probably Myles. So I stand up and head toward it, Leena following me.
He's standing there wearing different clothes—A dark blue t-shirt and jeans with his usual black and white converse.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” There's no smile, and honestly, it would look too forced if there was one.
Leena hugs him immediately. “Myles! It's my birthday!”
Picking her up and walking into the house, Myles says, “I know. How old are you turning, thirty?”
My baby sister giggles in response, and it's the most welcome sound I've heard in over twelve hours.
I decide that instead of trying to act like I’m okay in front of Myles, I should find the balloons I told Mom I would blow up. Once I get to the kitchen, I find a helium tank that Mom must have rented for the party. I sit down at the table and start breaking open the plastic bag filled with brightly colored rubber. There’s matching, pre-cut ribbon in a separate bag next to it. Mom plans everything with parties. Down to the ribbons.
Instead of sitting with me, Myles follows Leena into the living room where she shows him her fort. I can hear her giggling, him saying encouraging things about her handy work.
Just as I’m about to start on the first balloon, the back door slams open, and Laura is coming inside in her shorts and tank. She wipes a fine sheen of sweat from her sun kissed forehead.
“What are you doing?” she asks, pointing to the balloons. “There's like, twenty humongous tables I need to set up out there.”
I shrug and stand up to help her.
“No, that's okay,” Myles swoops in, motioning for me to sit down. “I'll help you, Laura.” He gives her a tight smile, but it's not impolite.
“Whatever.” She sighs, turning toward the back door again, letting in a warm blast of air that cuts through the arctic setting Mom has the air-conditioning set to. “As long as it gets done. Do you have any idea how hot it is out there?”
Myles smiles almost apologetically at me as he follows her.
“Go on.” I motion with a free hand as the other grabs at multicolored rubber. “I'll be fine.”
I blow up half of the bag with the helium that comes out of the metal tank, securing them with different, brightly colored ribbon, then tying them to the chair next to me so they don’t float away. Leena helps out by trying to blow up a few the old fashioned way.
“Easy,” I say when her cheeks get red and she starts huffing and puffing.
“I want to help.” But she throws the purple balloon, not any more filled with air than when she began, onto the wooden table.
“Hey, you know what would help?” I ask. “If you folded up your fort so Mommy doesn't have to do it when she gets home.”
Without saying another word, she hops up and runs back into the den to disassemble all of her hard work.
Then I'm alone with the balloons and the helium.
The air conditioner kicks on for a minute or two then goes silent.
I fasten an end of a red balloon to the nozzle of the tank, twist it to let in the chemicals, cutting off the supply once it’s full. Then I tie the balloon with its matching red ribbon.
This is what keeps my mind from thinking.
Concentrating on getting the helium in, tying up the balloons, red to red, yellow to yellow, green to green. The air conditioner hums back to life a few times to interrupt, but the sound always fades away.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, causing me to jump and release a pink balloon, which goes flying across the kitchen, landing in the sink.
JADE: Get here. Now.
My heart jumps into my sinuses.
I try texting him back a “What happened?” and an “Is everything okay?” But I wait two minutes and get no response.
I am starting to get a huge, horrible, foreboding knot in my stomach.
Maybe it’s that, or maybe it’s from the lack of sleep and answers over the past few days, but I don’t realize that I’m jacking Laura’s car until I’m halfway to the hospital.
It’s an afterthought to look in her center console for sunglasses, which I put on quickly, wondering how I haven’t gone blind from driving without something protecting my eyes this far.
I don’t even pause when I get to the hospital and park the car. I race through the main entrance and down the three halls we took yesterday to the ICU. I don’t stop until I’m in that tiny, private, quiet room again where Jade is standing in the corner, talking to a doctor in light green scrubs.
And he’s crying. He’s crying and heaving and shaking his head and I don’t know what to do.
“Jade.” My voice comes out in the form of a mouse, skitters against the linoleum tiles between us.
My brother’s eyes connect with mine for only a second before someone else barges through the doors. When I glance in that direction, I see Myles standing there, waiting with his arms out on either side of him like he’s preparing for something bad. He must have seen me leave, or had a feeling about something.
The look on his face tells me that he knows. He knows what I don’t want to know.
Myles’ eyes shift from me to Jade, and as I’m turning back in my brother’s direction, I hear him speak in the same small voice I had used moments ago, but it’s directed at Myles.
“Get her out of here.”
Before I can force anything out of my mouth that could sound like a plea or a protest, Myles’ cold hands are around my arms, pulling me from the room, and my legs feel so wobbly that I can’t stop it. I can’t stop anything.
“No,” I say when we’re out of the room. As I watch my brother and the doctor walk away through the tiny glass window and into another room—Stevie’s room—I say it again, louder this time.
“Sophie.” I can hear Myles trying to talk to me but it’s only background noise. Everything else has consumed my brain, swallowed it up and begun to drown out anything else.
“Stevie’s okay, isn’t he?” Even I hear how stupid it sounds without my high pitched voice adding to the question’s absurdity.
Myles says my name again, but his tone has changed to something else. He answers my question without having to say anything more.
All at once my breath stops coming in regular intervals, my palms begin sweating, my head starts pounding and my legs give out beneath me.
I’m not sure if I should be thankful that Myles is there to catch me.
“Jade,” I say between sobs and gasps and snot.
Myles’ hand is on my back, his face against mine so we’re in a crumpled ball in the hallway outside of the Intensive Care Unit, but I don’t care.
“He doesn’t want you to see,” Myles whispers.
“No.” This time, I don’t know if I mean to say, stop saying these things, I want to stay, or some different sentence that I can’t form.
“And you’re burned,” Myles points out softly. “You need to get that looked at.”
Though I can feel the heat coming off of my neck and temple where Leena’s sunglasses couldn’t keep me protected from the sun, I shake my head. Words aren’t coming anymore.
We sit in this crunched, awkward embrace. I cry, and Myles holds on through each rise and fall of terror, sadness, and ache that runs through me.
It’s only when there’s nothing left, when I can’t cry anymore and my limbs are shaking that he speaks again. “Do you want me to take you back to your mom's?”
“Do they know?” I whisper.
“No,” he says. “Only we know right now.”
I barely grasp anything as it is. Going home to spend Leena's birthday with her and my family without
spilling it is going to be impossible. Should I tell them? Should Jade? What do people do when things that aren’t supposed to happen happen?
I shake my head.
“Okay.”
I’m barely conscious of standing except for the fact that I have to lean against Myles so I don’t fall over. He makes me wait inside the building so he can pull up, so I don’t make whatever burns I have worse by walking to the car.
I don’t even feel sick, or hurt. Physically.
Mentally, I feel like I’ve shattered but I’m still together, like bullet proof glass.
It doesn’t register that I’m even in the car until it’s stopped in front of Myles' house. Robotically, my hand reaches the handle of the jeep.
“What are we going to do about the car? Laura's going to be pissed.” My voice sounds small and pathetic again.
“I'll take care of it,” Myles says, climbing out and walking around to the passenger’s side. When I’m out, he walks too close to me, but I don't feel like telling him so.
I reach the house first, opening the door and walking inside. No one else is home.
“Where's your mom?” My voice, for the moment, has returned. If I keep talking, keep getting Myles to answer questions, I won’t have to think about it.
“She's on vacation,” he says. “She won’t mind if we hang out here for a while.”
I blink a few times. I'm not sure what to do with myself now that I'm not at the hospital. Now that my brother doesn't want me there, that there's no reason to be there because there is no longer anyone in the hospital.
Where will they take Stevie now? Morgue? Mausoleum?
Does it matter?
To the left of me, the door to Myles' bedroom is open. A green glow comes from inside, making me turn my head in its direction. Without noticing, I'm walking inside and toward the window, where dark green shades are drawn against the afternoon sun. It doesn't totally block out the light, but it’s enough to make me safe.
“Hey,” Myles says from somewhere behind me. “Why don't you sit down?”
I turn without looking at him to sit on an armchair near one of his bookshelves. I take a quick glance around the room. It's just how it was the last time I was here. His bed is neatly made with a blue quilt, there are posters for bands I've never heard of hung on the walls. It looks like Phyllis kept it this way in case he ever wanted to come back.
It’s a big difference compared to the lone mattress in my old room.
I turn my attention to a plain spot on his white wall. It's easier not to think this way.
The throbbing in my temples has already begun, but I can barely feel it. Myles kneels down in front of me, resting his hands on the arms of the chair. I know he's staring at me, but my eyes are fixed to the wall behind him.
He pushes the strap of my tank top over and moves my hair to the side. I guess I burned more of my neck and shoulder than I thought.
“Does it hurt?” he asks softly.
My skin is hot; I know there must be blisters forming. I feel detached from it all. Like when you see someone skin their knee and you know it has to hurt, but you can’t feel it.
I shrug when no words come.
Myles gets up and walks down the hall, but I only notice when he's coming back into the room. There's a crinkling noise as he kneels down in front of me again.
“You left this stuff here after the beach last December,” he says practically to himself.
I feel the cold, creamy crap that the hospital gives me every time I have an accident being applied to my shoulder. Then my sunglasses—Laura's sunglasses—are removed so my face can receive the same treatment. It stings despite how gentle Myles is being, and I'm beginning to feel dizzy, but I keep my eyes forward. The wall is blank, the way I want my mind to be. Forever.
Soon, he's taping gauze or Band-Aids on top of the gooey white paste. Myles smoothes my hair away from my forehead, forcing my head back the tiniest bit. It's a small movement, but it's enough to break my concentration on the wall and make eye contact with him.
“You feel warm,” he says by way of explanation. His hand doesn't leave my face.
Everything comes rushing through my head. Jade, Stevie, the hospital, Michael, the nightmares, and all the things Myles hid from me.
“I lied.” I hear it, but I don't realize I've said it until Myles' eyes are directly in front of mine.
“Lied to who?” he asks quietly.
“Leena.” My eyes dart to the floor.
His hand leaves my face and finds mine, which is in my lap. He's probably trying to get me to look at him, but we both know I'm not going to do that right now.
“About what?” he asks.
“I told her everything was going to be okay.” Once that’s out, I can't stop talking. Now I'm crying. Great. “And . . .” I sob. “Things aren't okay. Nothing's okay and I can't make it better.”
I don't even try to stop Myles when he wraps his arms around me and lets me cry into his chest. He strokes my hair as my pulse beats loudly in my temples and I gasp for air, only to use it up in more useless sobs.
All of it is useless. Stevie's dead. Soon everyone will know. There's no point in crying or being upset, but it's all I can do right now.
I wait for Myles to tell me that it's alright, the way people do when other people are crying over things they have no control over. But it never comes and I'm grateful for that. Instead he kisses my forehead and my cheeks.
After the tears finally stop, it's my lips that find his first.
Myles kisses me back, hesitating before he does.
I don't give him a choice. It's not me doing these things, but some piece of myself that's been hidden away until now and has taken advantage of my current mental state to emerge. A part of my brain, or heart, or soul that needs to keep my lips moving against his, that's running my hands through his smooth, soft hair, that's pressing my body against his.
And it wants more.
In an instant, I’m standing, moving closer to him. I'm sure Myles is going to pull away any second but I push my body harder into him, circling my arms around his waist as his hands stroke my hair gently, like he's not sure what else he's supposed to do with them. He's close. So close I can feel every muscle in his chest, every whisper of a breath he lets in or out.
I don't know how we end up on the bed.
I barely realize that I'm on top of him, my fingers inching up his dark t-shirt.
“Sophie” His voice is hoarse and just above a whisper when he pulls away far enough so I stop kissing him, but our foreheads are touching.
I hear him, but I don’t stop. My hands grab onto the soft cotton of his shirt again, pulling it up until his hip bones are exposed.
That's when he stops me.
His hands firmly grasp mine, untangling them from his shirt.
“Sophie,” he repeats into my ear.
I'm thankful for this because I doubt I'd be able to look at him right now.
One of his hands cups my jaw. “I want to do these things with you,” he says in a low voice. “But you're confused right now. You don't really want this.”
I back away and scoot off of him so we’re no longer touching. I stare at the blue quilt under my knees. He's right. What the hell was I doing?
“I—” it comes out of my mouth, but no other words follow it.
I stand up again, resisting the urge to rip the bandages off of my shoulder and temple. I don't deserve them.
Myles doesn't move or make a sound and I walk over to the glowing green window. I lean my head toward the sounds I hear outside through the curtain.
Children laughing. Lawn mowers. Birds singing.
Life.
“I don't know what to do with myself.” I swallow again.
I stare at my hands, knotting them together and trying to keep them from shaking. Myles is so quiet that I don't notice him stand until he's in front of me. I wrap my arms around myself.
“What else?” he murmurs near my head.
<
br /> “I don't belong anywhere,” I barely say as I shrug. I'm not aware I feel that way until it leaves my mouth.
I can't go back to New York, I can't go to Mom's, or Boo and Trei's. None of them know. The only other person who knows besides Myles and I is Jade. And he wants to be alone.
So I come here to Myles' empty house and the sound of people living outside, only to be reminded of what a horrible and selfish person I am.
Myles has my hand in his again. I glance at him briefly, a flash of his eyes searching my face, before I stare down at the carpet.
“You belong with me,” he says softly. “And your family. And Boo, Trei, and Jade.”
I squeeze my eyes shut at the words. “I can't do anything.”
He moves closer. “None of them can,” he says slowly. I want him to hug me, but I don’t dare make that move, still afraid of what I might do. “They'll do what they think is best. What they think will help.”
“But nothing will. It's all screwed up,” I whisper.
“I know.” I hear him take a deep breath.
We stand like this for I don't know how long. Long enough for the green glow to fade into darkness, for the lawn mower and birds and children sounds to fade into sounds of crickets chirping.
I'm starting to feel sick from the burns. If I move at all, I know the shaking and the nausea will start to get worse. So I let Myles guide me to the bed, and we sit down next to each other. I'm ready for the whole horrible conversation of what's wrong with me and why did I do what I just did, but it never comes. Myles feels my neck with the back of his hand.
It's so quiet.
Staring down at my legs, I know that new feelings are going to start forming. The skin-crawling-sweaty-palmed -nightmare is just around the corner. It's good that I'm not alone.
“Thanks for letting me stay here.” My voice comes out raspy and small. “Thanks for—” I start, but I don't know how to finish the sentence.
Myles leans down to unlace my boots, never taking his eyes off of my face. “It's okay,” he says as one of them falls to the floor. “We don't need to talk.”
I nod, already leaning back on his bed and resting my head on his pillows. The other boot drops to the floor as I do this, and I curl my legs up so I can reach under me to cover myself with his blankets.
