by Lily Foster
My eyes darted open to see that boy from group sitting across from me, smiling down at his tray.
When I recovered from my surprise a moment later, I teased, “You got enough food there?”
“I’m a growing boy,” he said as he shrugged, never taking his eyes off his food.
“You can’t put away that much food.”
“No?” he mused, smiling as he finally lifted his head to look at me. “Why do you think I’m here so early? I’ll be back here for round two before they close the kitchen later on.”
He was cute—no, beautiful—when he smiled. He had a dimple on his left cheek and his aqua blue eyes twinkled playfully. His dark brown hair, nearly black, rounded out the nice looking package.
“What are you, in training for the Olympic sumo wrestling team or something?” I joked.
“Hockey, but I don’t know about the Olympics or anything. So far, just Cape Elizabeth High School.”
“Where’s Cape Elizabeth?”
“Maine.”
He didn’t ask me where I was from, which left me feeling disappointed, thinking he wasn’t interested. The smell of his food grabbed my attention then. I’d barely nibbled my sandwich at lunch and had no appetite whatsoever this morning. I suddenly realized I was starving. “Whatever that is, it smells delicious.”
“Kale, orzo, and lamb chops.”
“I’ll be right back.” I grabbed myself the same things and was happy to see he was still at the table. I feared he would scarf down his food and leave me there alone.
We sat, eating in silence for a few minutes before he asked my name. “Anna,” I answered.
“It’s weird, right, how they don’t introduce you to the group? It’s up to you to share, Dr. Ben says. I’ve only been here two days but it’s weird that no one knows my name.”
“All right, I’ll bite. What’s your name?”
He smiled at me again, making my heart actually flutter. “My name is Declan Banks, I’m from Maine, I just turned fifteen yesterday, and I’m a Leo.”
He was funny. “Wow, a guy who knows his Zodiac sign, I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, my mother used to read our horoscopes every morning, what can I say?”
“Don’t you want to know my sign, baby?” I teased.
“No, let me guess, you’re a Virgo, right?”
I tossed a dinner roll at his head. “Is that your lame way of asking if I’m a virgin, you creep?”
He raised his hands in surrender, “No, a lame attempt at humor. I’m sorry. So what is your sign, Miss Anna…”
“Clarke, Anna Clarke. I’m fifteen as well, I’m an Aries, I’m from Connecticut, and…I can’t believe you got sent here on your birthday, Declan.”
He laughed. “I like you, Anna.” He looked at his plate again then and said, “I don’t think my father remembered it was my birthday. He’s kind of been in a fog.”
“I guess it was your mother who died?”
“Yep. And what brings you to Heart Songs, Anna?”
“I guess that name induces nausea in everyone, not just me?” He nodded, smiling again. I answered, “My brother, Will.”
“Oh,” was all he said.
We sat in silence again for a few minutes as more people filed into the cafeteria. Olivia and Beth waved over to me but took a different table.
I was glad.
I wanted Declan all to myself.
Declan
I’ve endured worse, I told myself as my dad pulled up in front of what would be my new home for the next two weeks.
It says a lot about how I’d been acting, not to mention the downside of living in such a small town, that my high school guidance counselor confronted my father in the middle of the summer to impart her two cents.
I knew Mrs. Sullivan was concerned about me. I’d become her pet project since my mother had offed herself over Christmas break last winter—December twenty-second to be exact. Mrs. Sullivan regularly stopped me in the halls to check in, to remind me—for the umpteenth time—that “her door was always open” and she was “ready when I was.” She was a nice woman and all, but I didn’t want to talk. If I’d wanted to spill, I would have.
One day she cornered me on my way to class, late, as had become my habit. I was generally moving in slow motion. “Declan,” she said, her expression truly pained. “Please let me help you, sweetheart. Your grades, Declan, and…I know you’re hurting.”
“I’m ok,” I said, as I pleaded with her silently to just stop it, please. Her concern and her tender care were about to break me. I was right there on the edge. If she had put her hand on my shoulder at that very moment, I just might have collapsed against her in tears.
“Ok,” she retreated, disappointed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Declan, but…you need a shower.”
That comment, believe it or not, lightened my mood. I detoured to the bathroom then and when I took in my greasy hair and the clothes that had seen better days, I had to concede the point to Mrs. Sullivan. I remembered that I hadn’t even taken a shower after leaving the rink last night and I was pretty rank after playing hockey for several hours.
I walked out the double doors leading to the track. The security guard looked up lazily as I passed but said nothing. I made my way across the track and hopped the fence, making my way home across the fields, through my neighbors’ backyards to our house, which sat a block from the beach. Such a nice house, so perfect looking from the outside, I thought. As I turned the doorknob, I prayed that my father hadn’t also played hooky. I was in no mood to see him.
Since my mother’s death, Dad had morphed into a zombie. He worked, came home, ordered food for us that he just left on the counter, locked himself in his study to work—so he told me—and then he drank until he passed out. Every. Day.
It’s not like he was Dad of the Year prior to her death. He was a workaholic. When I was a kid he was often gone and when he was there, he went through the motions but he was distant. I wondered how they had gotten together, my parents. My mother was sweet and bubbly. She was attentive to me and loving. I often felt slighted on my mother’s behalf when he would ignore her attempts at affection. I’d hear them argue occasionally but they weren’t at each other’s throats or anything. At the time I’d supposed they were like a lot of other married couples—they coexisted.
As I stood under the stream of the shower, I wondered how I had gone in just a few short months from a kid who liked his haircut every three weeks to one who didn’t care enough to even comb the sweaty, greasy strands that were hanging in his eyes. I let the near scalding water wash over me. As I toweled off I made an executive decision to put forth an effort in at least one area of my life. Offending my classmates with noxious odors wasn’t fair.
I put on deodorant and dressed in one of the neat collared shirts from my former life. I tried to put on some chinos but they were now floods. Come to think of it, so were the jeans I’d been sporting for the past four months. I had grown a good two or three inches since Christmas. I switched to a t-shirt and warm-up pants for my outing.
First stop, the barber. Benny seemed overjoyed when he caught sight of me walking in the door. “Well it sure took you long enough but I’m glad to see you, son.”
“Hi, Benny. Give me my regular, ok?”
“I’m not gonna ask you why you ain’t in school, kid, ‘cause I don’t much care. Just glad you’re not turning into one of these punk kids with the long hair.”
As Benny buzzed and clipped, we bullshitted about town news and, of course, hockey. “That fellow that runs the Zamboni down at the rink told me he never saw no one that shoots like you, kid.”
“C’mon, that old dude is half blind, Benny.”
“Don’t you be modest, Declan. You scored a whole mess of goals this season. I was there. Every game. After what happened to you, boy, that’s a miracle in its own right.” When he caught my change in expression, he said, “Sorry about that, kid. Just meant to say you’re tough, you got the true grit you�
��ll need to make it in that sport.”
“Thanks, Benny.”
“What do you think?” he said as he handed me the mirror so that I could inspect his work.
“It’s good. Makes me feel better, Benny.”
“Always,” he said as he slapped me on the back. “A man always needs to look his best. Now, I better see you again in the next four weeks or else I’m gonna come down to that ice rink myself with the buzzer. Got that?”
“Yep,” I said as I stood up, took off the apron and dusted the stray hairs off my shirt. “Thanks, Benny.”
Benny reached over then and instead of his usual hand shake and clap on the shoulder combo, he hugged me, brief and tight. “Take care of yourself.”
I nodded as I walked out. Benny had been cutting my hair since I was a toddler. I spoke more with him, shared more of my personal thoughts and news with him, than I did with my own father. How sad was that?
Next stop was going to be for some clothes but without venturing to Portland, my choices were limited. I decided to go home and ring up some purchases on the credit card Dad kept in his study. I, or should I say Dad, even bucked up for one-day shipping. Pants, shirts, shorts, a few sweatshirts. My sneakers didn’t really even fit, so I ordered some new ones, some deck shoes, and some flip flops, all one size bigger than what I currently owned. Then I ordered new skates, new hockey pants, and gloves. I didn’t go crazy. I spent a little over fifteen hundred in total. Dad wouldn’t even notice.
I decided to take Friday off. I’d return to school Monday and finish out the remaining two months of school, if not acting normal, at least dressing the part.
When I arrived at Heart Songs I was resentful. Hockey camp was the only type of camp he should be sending me to, I thought. I didn’t express that to him, though. That would require actually speaking to one another.
I reasoned that if I said anything or asked a question, then I might not be able to stop. There was so much I needed to know. Was it an accidental overdose? Is there such a thing in a case like hers? I mean, you either take one pill as prescribed or you swallow a handful of them with vodka, like she did. I don’t see how that could be construed as an accident. He held the answers, he knew why. I didn’t particularly think my mother was happy or fulfilled but I didn’t think she was depressed either. Was she? Had she been suffering? Had I been too wrapped up in my own life to notice? I could go crazy some nights running over the questions in my mind or looking through her things for clues.
There were other kids arriving, bags slung over their shoulders. They walked away from their cars, leaving the family members who still remained. Everyone looked to be around my age or older. I had a sudden urge to cry, but thankfully, kept myself in check. A woman approached me with a clipboard, smiling warmly. “Hi, I’m Cheryl. What’s your name?”
“Um, Declan Banks.”
“Ok, Declan, I see your dad’s gone now.” I turned and saw that, yes, my father had already driven off without making sure I was ok, or that he hadn’t dropped me off at a nuthouse. “Let’s just get you settled.”
The first day was interesting. I had a one-on-one counseling session with a psychiatrist, Dr. Ben. The fact that I was seeing a psychiatrist made me a little uneasy at first but the guy turned out to be pretty easy going and non-threatening. I didn’t say much. Although he was probably trained to wait his patients’ prolonged silences out, I was a master at enduring them from living with my dad. Dr. Ben caved first. “Tell me about playing hockey, Declan. Is it an escape for you?”
He was good, I’ll give him that. In that roundabout way he got me to share what it was that playing made me feel. How I’d rather be at the rink than home any day of the week and how skating and shooting pucks for hours on end helped me to forget.
The group session was weird. It was five girls, another guy named Trent, and me. Trent introduced himself without being prompted and told us he was about to leave for college somewhere down south, and he’d hoped this experience would help him to “get a handle on the anxiety he’d been experiencing since his twin brother died last year of leukemia.” When Dr. Ben asked him to share about his brother, he declined, which seemed odd after just spilling that much personal info without so much as being asked. But, hey, who was I to judge?
We spent that next hour listening to a girl named Olivia talk about her mother, who’d died after a six year-long battle with cancer. Everyone else in the group said something, whether it be a one-word acknowledgement, some word of comfort directed at Olivia, or to share what they had in common with her. I said nothing. I barely even looked at anyone. It seemed as if the girls had introduced themselves to Trent already. They were, I think, a few years older than me and didn’t seem to have much interest in meeting me. I left group without anyone even knowing my name. You would think the anonymity would have been nice but it wasn’t. I felt incredibly lonely sitting there among them and then again staring at my ceiling later that night.
I took a long run that next morning, showered and made my way to breakfast. I sat down next to two boys I’d seen arriving the day before who weren’t in my group. “Mind if I sit here?”
“No, sit down. I’m Kevin. I saw you got here yesterday too.”
“I’m Declan, it’s nice to meet you,” I said as I nodded my head.
“I’m Shane,” the other one offered, to which I nodded again.
“You play hockey?” Shane asked, referring to my shirt.
“Yeah, do you?”
“All-state last year.”
“Wow, where do you play?”
“Jersey, you?”
“Cape Elizabeth in Maine.”
“Shit, if you’re even halfway decent you’re better than most of the guys I play against. I played up in Maine at a camp last summer in Bangor. Tough, nasty motherfuckers,” he said with an admiring laugh. “You know they called me Southern Boy? Like I was from Alabama or something. Can you believe that?”
“Yeah, people from Maine, New Hampshire, Dakotas, Wisconsin, Minnesota…we all take our hockey hard-core.”
“I wish I was at hockey camp instead of here,” he said, shaking his head.
“I hear you. Where are you from, Kevin?”
“Hingham, Mass. And no, I don’t play hockey. As you can see, I still have my original grill,” he said, flashing his teeth.
“So do I.” I laughed when I noticed that Shane and I had said that in unison.
“I’m built more for basketball,” he said as he rose from his seat. “I’m going back in for more. Be right back.”
He wasn’t joking. Kevin looked to be about six-five. “How old is he?” I asked Shane.
“Fifteen. He said his dad is six-eight.”
“Wow. How old are you?”
“Seventeen. This is my big year, as far as college recruiting goes. What about you?”
“Fifteen. I’m going into sophomore year.”
“A baby,” he said, smiling. “How’s your team looking?”
“Good. We don’t have JV, but I played some last season on varsity.”
“As a freshman?”
When I nodded he said, “You must be good.”
“I’m all right.”
“Maybe we’ll cross paths in college one day, Declan.”
I shook my head. “My grades were shit this year. My hockey coach basically told me he’ll bench me if I don’t get my shit together. I think he’s bluffing but I’ve got to do better.”
“As long as I pass, and I mean with a D, I’m golden.”
“Really, Shane?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m my high school’s great white hope for the state championship again. I’ve always had teachers who let me slide when I don’t deserve it.”
“Not the case for me. They know I can be an A student so they don’t cut me much slack. I pulled C’s across the board second semester.
“Hard time concentrating?”
“Yeah.”
He just nodded. “Yeah.”
I was happy
to have found some friends here. I hated eating alone. We broke after breakfast, making plans to play some basketball after our morning group activities and lunch.
I sat down at group, planning for a second day of hanging back and just listening, when I saw her walk in behind the other girls. She was smiling, as if one of them had just said something amusing, but she also looked uneasy. After staring at her for a few moments, I had to make myself turn away, afraid of seeming like a total dork.
She was sun-kissed. Blond hair and tanned skin that made the whites of her teeth and her blue eyes pop. She caught me looking and smiled in a friendly way before I shot my gaze back to the ground. Ass, I said to myself, that was smooth. I couldn’t help sneaking looks, though. She was, by far, prettier than any girl I went to school with. Prettier than any girl I’d ever seen in person.
She said nothing either, just sat listening to a girl tell us about finding her mother after she’d committed suicide. It didn’t resonate with me as you might expect. All that blood and gore made our experiences vastly different.
When I found my Mom, I thought she was asleep. She was neat. The vodka had been put away, the pill bottle was back on its shelf in the medicine cabinet, and she was sitting up in her bed, eyes closed, peaceful. She looked as if she’d just nodded off. I’d actually left the room and went downstairs to play video games for two hours before checking on her again. I only went back upstairs when I noticed that, one, I was hungry, two, no one else seemed concerned that dinner wasn’t being prepared, and three, that the sun had set. The fact that she had been up there for two hours…the fact that she might have been alive when I first came and knocked on her door, turned her death into something I would always feel guilty about.
I caught the girl looking my way later on when I walked past the pool on my way to the gym. Was this what chemistry felt like? I didn’t even know her name but the sight or thought of her had my stomach flipping and had me feeling warm and buzzed all over.
When I saw her sitting in the cafeteria later on that day, I immediately wanted to put my arm around her, to comfort her. She looked tired, overheated, and emotionally drained. She sat with her eyes closed, head turned towards the ceiling, the cold drink bottle pressed against her neck. I grabbed a tray full of food quickly and then decided to take a chance and sit down across from her. I was risking being shut down but something in her expression earlier assured me that this girl was, if anything, kind.
