by Eden Butler
There was so much blood. It covered us. Both of us.
Everything hurt. My body felt ripped apart, severed. But the pain was nothing compared to my fear.
“Mom! Mom, please wake up.”
She stared forward, straight at me, but couldn’t see anything. Her brown eyes were unfocused, empty. Her head laid against the seat and blood covered her face.
She stared right at me. She kept staring.
“Mom! Mom please!”
“Autumn. Autumn, wake up!”
Sayo’s voice rips me from my dream. She kneels next to me as I shake on my sofa. My yoga pants and tank top stick to me like paint, but I know the sweat on my body doesn’t come from the run I took this morning. It is the dream. It’s always the dream. “You were screaming. I heard you in the hallway.” She lays my extra key on the coffee table. When I sit up, try to orientate myself, she scoots next to me and rubs my back. “You alright?”
“Yeah.” I drag my hands over my face and inhale. I hate the memory. I wasn’t one of those lucky crash victims that forgot their accidents. With the exception of a few details, I remember it all. The crash, my mom with blood covering her face, the excruciating pain that radiated in every inch of my body, the hospital, Ava and my friends back from the funeral, all in black, their eye makeup smudged under their lids. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
I can feel her watching me and don’t want to hear what will come next. It’s our practiced routine. I don’t need a babysitter.
“You know, Autumn—”
When I hear the lecture coming, I need a distraction, head into the kitchen to grab a water. The air from the open refrigerator cools my hot skin as I grab the bottle. “I’m fine, Sayo. I don’t need to see anyone and no, you don’t need to stay with me again.”
I take a long drink and wait for her reaction. The top of the fridge door is moist when I rest my chin on it and look around my kitchen, loving the emotions it invokes in me. There are reminders of my mom helping me paint the cool gray walls, her sanding down the knotty butcher block countertop, even her exuberance when she scored a vintage farmhouse sink from an antique dealer makes me smile. She’d been so proud of me venturing out on my own and this place whispers with memories of her—small traces of her are everywhere. My grandparents had left a nice inheritance for me and this place was a result of that. Mom had been proud that I’d invested that money and not blown it all on frivolous things like first edition novels or life insurance. She had weird ideas about what was “frivolous.”
The refrigerator door closes with a small pop and I return to the plush regency style sofa, a lucky find that Mom and I reupholstered together. Sayo relaxes against it, watching me as I sit next to her. I’m certain her eyes haven’t left me since she walked into my apartment.
I never thought I’d get her to leave after the accident. She stayed here with me, nursed me back to health, let me cry on her shoulder, took me to physical therapy, and handled the funeral arrangements with Ava. Sayo saved my life, but she is a fusser and after a while, when I was able to take care of myself, all I wanted was some space.
She is silent for a beat and keeps worrying her fingernails, peels the polish off, bites on a hang nail. I know her moods better than she does and can guess what’s on her mind. Sayo and Ava. They act as though I’m a fuse waiting to be lit, as though this episode with my mother has irrevocably shifted my reason, my control. That may be partly true, but I don’t need those Mama Hens fussing over me every time something upsetting happens.
“Spit it out,” I say.
She glances at me and finally pulls her finger away from her mouth. “Ava called me.”
“Ah. She told you about Brady being in town.”
“Yes.” She starts to chew on her finger again, but drops her hand into her lap when I clear my throat. “Well, shit, Autumn, I know how you get about your dad.”
“My father, not my dad. He stopped being my dad when he walked out.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean.” She turns to face me and laces her fingers into her dyed pink hair. I can’t help but smile at the latest insane outfit she wears. Today it’s black leggings with horizontal tears that expose her tan skin, a long, black baby doll dress and some Victorian-looking pink jacket that falls to her thighs. She sets this off with silver flip flops and a pageboy hat. This is our Library Director. Such a professional.
“What’s your point? He’s here, but if history repeats, and let’s be honest, it will, he’ll take off again. I just have to avoid him. Shouldn’t be hard.”
Sayo gives me that pathetic little Oh, I feel so bad for you stare of hers and my temper rises. That expression is familiar so I set my bottle on the table before heading into the bathroom to grab a hair tie.
“I just think maybe you should hear him out,” she calls out from the other room.
I stop pulling my hair back and walk back into the living room, one hand full of my hair, the other holding a brush. “Excuse me?”
I know my tone isn’t light, that my best friend picks up on the annoyance flirting behind my question. She hurries to explain, jumps from the sofa and sags against the doorframe. “I just mean that, well, with your mom and all,” she looks up at me once, then quickly back down, “I’m just saying that he’s the only family you have left.”
“He’s not family. He’s a sperm donor.” I turn back into the bathroom and finish pulling my hair up. “And I cannot believe you would even suggest—”
“Everyone needs family, Autumn. Family is important.”
The brush cracks in half when I slam it against the sink. “No, Sayo, you need family. Family is important to you. Not all of us grew up with a house full of brothers and sisters and parents who act like newlyweds. They picked you. They made you their daughter on purpose.”
She stands up straight and her dark, hooded eyes narrow. “Don’t act like you understand what it was like for me. Do you have any ideas what an adjustment it was, being a five year old and put into a family where I was the only Asian kid?”
“I imagine just as much of an adjustment as it was for your brother being the only black kid in that same family.”
The bathroom goes dark when I hit the light. Sayo’s face is flushed, and I fall onto the sofa, catching how tense her lips are. I know she’s angry, annoyed by my stubbornness. She sits down on the coffee table and leans back on her palms.
My voice is light, less petulant when I continue. “My point is that you were surrounded by the noise of a huge family where everything was intentional. Joe Brady had a wife and a daughter who were crazy about him and he just decides one day to take off? No reason, no explanation, just ‘I’m gone,’ and that’s it? My childhood wasn’t like yours, Sayo. And yes, he’s technically the only family I have left, but there’s a big damn difference between family and people you are related to. You’re my family. So is Ava, Mollie and Layla. That’s family enough for me.”
She exhales and lowers her shoulders. Her anger melts away as her body relaxes. “I know that, Autumn, I do. I’m just scared you’re intentionally closing everyone off.”
“Because I don’t want to meet with the man who abandoned me?”
“No, because since your mom died we are the only people you let get close to you.” She grabs my hand. “It’s not healthy. You’ve got to open yourself up.”
“I’m open. My God, I didn’t backhand Nichols when he said hello to me yesterday.”
Sayo doesn’t laugh. She sits up straight and crosses her arms, giving me a blank, wholly unamused glare. “You haven’t had one date since Tucker left. Not one in the past year.”
“God, don’t remind me.”
“He got to you, didn’t he?” I should have never called her yesterday to vent about Tucker showing up in my classroom. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her yell quite so loud.
“No.” I don’t want to discuss him. I pull my water bottle from the table and pick at the seam on the label. I know Sayo means well. I know she’s worried about me
and I’m certain the phone call she mentioned with Ava included a lengthy discussion about my singledom. They really are so damn nosy.
“Did he at least look like shit?” I glance at her, shaking my head. “Well that’s disappointing. He’s going to ask you out. You know it’s coming.”
“He already has.”
Sayo’s eyes narrow so thin that I can barely make out the chocolate color in her irises. “What did you say?”
“You know I said no.”
She sits next to me on the sofa and rests her head on my shoulder. “You need a date.”
“I need a less nosy best friend.” I smile when she elbows me. We enjoy a comfortable silence for a moment before I find myself admitting, “It’s weird. I thought about him for a long time after he left. What I would say if he came back.” I lean up against the armrest, facing Sayo when she nods. “I thought maybe I’d be nervous or something. Maybe I’d be cool and act like it didn’t bother me that he was back.”
“And?” I don’t answer her for a moment. I just watch her lift her arm to the back of the sofa and finger the button on the fabric.
“I didn’t feel anything really. Anger mostly and he acted like I should have been happy to see him. He actually said ‘don’t be so cold to me, Autumn.’”
“Dick.”
“Right?” I was lying to say he hadn’t affected me, but thinking about his impossibly blue eyes and his distinct smell, like grass and the wind and sandalwood soap, doesn’t erase what he did to me.
The night he left had been one of the most difficult in my life. Of course, that was before the accident, before my mom, but Tucker’s leaving did one great thing. It opened my eyes.
“Pack your things. We have to go to Europe,” he’d said. Not, “Will you go with me?” or “Let’s take an extended trip.” Just “Pack your things” and then he’d waited for me to bustle around my apartment throwing together a suitcase, grabbing my passport. When I reminded him that I had a job, a family and life in Cavanagh, that I had plans, he scoffed, thought I was being selfish. “Really, Autumn, that stuff will be here waiting for you when we get back. Hurry up, you’re going to make me late,” he’d said. I’d never been angrier. I’d given up so much of myself to Tucker, so much of who I wanted to be and it still wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He always wanted more.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell Sayo. “Tucker thinks he came back to the same stupid idiot that followed him around like a groupie. That’s just not me anymore.” Her face relaxes and I know she agrees. “You say I’m closing myself off and maybe I am. But don’t you think, after everything that has happened to me, that I have a right to guard myself?”
“Guard yourself, yeah, of course, but not close yourself completely.” I smile when Sayo takes the water bottle from me. She doesn’t like it when I peel the label. “I know he hurt you. I know your father did. And I know that the past year has been suckage of epic proportions. But, Autumn, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about the next bad thing that might happen. If you live your life so guarded, so protected, then you aren’t living at all. You’ve got to try to relax and enjoy yourself. I’m not saying you should get back together with Tucker.” Sayo pinches her mouth into a tiny scowl. “God, no, but you can at least try to have some fun.” She scoots next to me and we fall back against the sofa. She gives my hand a squeeze and I play with the silver ring on her pinky.
“We haven’t done Halloween at Fubar’s in forever.”
“We went last year.”
“We didn’t dress up, remember? You were still ‘I hate all men in life’ and when that senior from Cameron hit on you, you threw your drink in his face and told him you were a lesbian.”
She was right. I’d ruined our favorite holiday because I’d spotted half of the rugby team at the bar. Which reminded me of Tucker. Which only pissed me off. My friends didn’t speak to me for three days afterward.
“Are you going to make me dress up?” Instead of answering, she squints at me with that weird, scathing sneer of hers. I give in. “Fine, but I’m not being the slutty fairy this year.”
“No. We’ll think of something cool.” She sits up and instantly becomes all giggly girl, all dreamy romantic. “It’ll be fun and this time you aren’t all upset about what he did or man hating so there will be no excuse for not hooking up.”
“Sayo, why are you trying to get me laid?”
“Reasons. Besides, I’m not really trying to get you laid. I’m trying to get you to stop the ‘don’t come near me’ vibes you always give off.”
I flip her the bird and she returns the gesture. Then her smile leaves her face as an idea comes to her. “Hey, what happened with that jackass who attacked you?”
“Yeah, I forgot to tell you. Tucker is making him help in the library tomorrow morning.”
Sayo’s expression is dubious, worried. “You think that’s safe? He did try to molest you.”
My shoulders lift. “He’s full of piss and wind. Harmless. Rude and sarcastic and so annoying, but harmless. Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s on scholarship. If he pisses off Tucker enough, then he’ll lose his place on the squad and will be out of the university. He has to behave now.”
“What an ass.” She crosses her legs and begins to shake her foot. Her ridiculous flip flop slaps against her heel as she moves. “It’s a lot of work. We’ll make him do the heavy lifting.”
“And the dusting.”
“And the labeling.”
“And the—” the sound of my cell ringing interrupts me. I pull my bag off the coffee table and take out the phone, anxious when I see the “Unknown Caller” on the screen. “Shit. It better not be Brady.”
“Could be a telemarketer.”
I wait for the voice mail to pick up and then push the speaker button. Sayo and I exchange a look when Tucker’s voice begins.
“Hi Autumn, it’s me. I was just thinking about you. The thing is, I don’t buy that we can’t be friends. I was hoping you’ll let me take you out for coffee.”
“Don’t you dare call him back,” Sayo says, jabbing me in the side.
“Like I would.” How did Tucker get my number? After I finally came out of my pathetic mourning for our relationship, I’d changed my number, even my email address in an attempt to avoid him if he ever bothered to contact me again.
“The best thing to do is delete his message so you won’t be tempted to call him back,” Sayo says.
“Give me some credit, will you?”
She disregards my comment then looks at the clock on my phone. “I have to get to the library. Please don’t bail on me in the morning.”
“I would never leave you alone with the jackass.”
I walk her to the door and kiss her cheek before she leaves. My phone feels heavy in my hand and for a moment my thumb hovers over the Delete button next to Tucker’s voicemail. He said he wanted to be friends. He said he was thinking about me. But I’d spent a year thinking about him, wondering where he was, who he was with and it nearly drove me insane. Friends? How could I ever be friends with anyone who abandoned me like I was nothing? My thumb pushes against the screen and the message disappears.
Cavanagh still sleeps. The pavement is wet from this morning’s brief showers and the street lights flicker to dim when I leave my apartment. There are no students running around campus racing to classes, no cars intersecting and tapping brakes to allow pedestrians passage. Except for the bakery around the corner, there aren’t even any distinguishable smells that welcome in the day; no lawns freshly mowed, no bitter tang of forthcoming rain in the clouds. My mouth moistens at the whiff of breads and pastries bubbling in their ovens.
The sun lifts above and casts an amber blush across the sky with flecks of gold and brilliant orange peppering between the lush, blue clouds. It paints the heavens with vibrant hues and warm heat as I pass empty corners and vacant shops on my way to Collins Memorial Library. Odd. I thought it would be cloudy today.
The building itself is
exquisite. The library is at least three stories tall, a Grecian mammoth cast in white, with wide galley windows that glint the new sun onto the cobblestone courtyard below. Rows of large oaks and cedars hug the surface of the walkway like sentries as if to secure the precious treasures kept locked in the belly of this building. Brilliant colors of auburn and yellow are speckled beneath each tree from the mums and wild flowers that are nestled in the thick, green grass. If Heaven doesn’t look like Cavanagh, I’m not sure I want to be there.
Sayo has left the massive doors unlocked and I pull them open with both hands and hurry across the large lobby, uncomfortable from the echo of my heels on the hardwood floor and the dim light that peeks from the walkway above. I jump when my cell phone rings and the sound explodes against the empty lobby. Again I see “Unknown Caller” flash across the screen and I immediately ignore the call.
I find my best friend in the Reference Department, sitting atop a curved wooden counter. There are hundreds of books behind her dangling legs, stacked neatly onto four rows. At her side is a computer, a black phone and a sign that reads:
Silence in the library!
Violators will be immediately fed to the Vashta Nerada.
*The library director has no pity for the Doctor Who ignorant*
My best friend is still drunk with power in her newly minted Library Director position. Sayo’s thumbs work over the phone in her hand and when she hears me approach, she offers me a smile. It quickly disappears when I sneeze. The smell of dust is overwhelming. She neglected to mention that. Another loud sneeze flies from my mouth and I have immediate hopes that my allergies will at least allow me a few hours of sorting through the donated books.
“Here,” she says, handing me a Kleenex. “The basement isn’t as bad. Maybe you can work down there later.”
I blow my nose and nod to her when she puts a fresh coffee in front of me. “Maybe I should try tea.”
“Maybe you should get your allergy medicine refilled.”
Ignoring her ribbing, my bag falls to the floor and I shift through the large box of books next to it. Dust immediately coats my fingers and I am able to withhold yet another sneeze. Sayo laughs at me and I hop up on the counter to sit and stick out my tongue at her. The dust has left a thin trail on my black t-shirt and I use another Kleenex to wipe it away. I know it’s pointless, I’ll likely be filthy by the end of the day, but I’m partial to this “English nerds do it good well” t-shirt.
