Let Me Heal Your Heart

by Lily Foster

  Anna, it turned out, was not just kind, she was sweet. And she was even more beautiful up close, when her smiles and laughter were directed at me. I liked her sense of humor; she was a bit of a wise ass, like me. When I got up to leave after dinner, she looked disappointed. “I guess I’ll see you at group tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” I stood there, thinking. “What are you doing later?”

  “I don’t know. What do you wild kids do at Heart Songs?”

  “Well, they had a movie last night.” I looked at her with raised eyebrows as I said, “Nothing with death, drug addiction, gratuitous violence or sadness of any kind, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “They have a game room too.”

  “What kind of games?”

  “Ping pong, pool, board games…it’s crazy in that game room.”

  “Are you going there?” She looked unsure of herself as she asked.

  “If you want to go, I will.”

  She looked relieved. “I’ll go. I’ll make sure I go easy on you in ping pong.”

  Eyes raised, I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ll go easy on me? No, no, little girl, it’s me who’s going to have to go easy on you.”

  “Little girl, my ass. You’re going down, Banks.”

  I walked her back to her room after barely hanging on, winning three out of five games against her. “You’re like those little lethal North Korean table tennis players, you know that, Anna?”

  “You’re pretty good yourself. I demand a rematch tomorrow night.”

  “Nope. I’m not playing you again. I’m going out on top. Tomorrow we’ll move onto pool.”

  “No fair, I don’t know how to play.”

  “I’ll teach you. I have a feeling you’ll be a shark within thirty minutes.” The thought of showing her how to shoot, standing close by as she aimed for the ball, made me think of touching her in general, of kissing her.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, hopeful.

  “Anna, you’re stuck with me for the next two weeks.”

  She smiled that sweet smile again. “We don’t have group until after lunch, right?”

  “Yeah, individuals all morning.”

  “Oh Lordy, I don’t know if I have it in me again.”

  “Yeah, those can be pretty brutal.” I put my hand on her shoulder as I said it, just because I had to touch her. The skin of her shoulder, barely covered by the strap of her tank, was tan and smooth. “So I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said before turning and walking away.

  I lie in bed that night, imagining what kissing Anna would be like, as I drifted off into a peaceful, deep sleep.

  Anna

  Declan was walking out of his session with Dr. Ben as I sat waiting for my turn on the bench outside. The sight of him made me smile but then I felt deflated when I took in his pained expression and the red rimmed eyes. I said nothing, just tried to silently convey a sense of understanding and comfort. I didn’t know him well enough to do it, but I wanted to take his hands in mine and give them a reassuring squeeze. I wanted to hug him, wrap him up in my arms. I wanted to kiss him, to help him forget. He held my gaze for a few seconds before walking away as he wiped at his eyes.

  “Hello, Anna. How was your first day?” Dr. Ben asked as he came out to greet me.

  “Good. Everyone here is really nice. I’m friends with Declan.”

  “You are?” he asked neutrally.

  “Yes.” He wasn’t going to offer anything more there. I wasn’t a therapy veteran but even I knew about confidentiality.

  We spent the session talking mostly about my relationship with Will and about Drew also. Drew was a complicated topic.

  At home, my friends said they were there to listen, but it was clear that my feelings made them uncomfortable. I typically didn’t share. So this type of confession, an hour one-on-one with Dr. Ben on a daily basis, was draining. I practically staggered out of my session and made my way towards the pool.

  A few kids were there playing pool volleyball, no one I knew. I didn’t even take a chair or grab a towel. I just kicked off my sneakers, stripped of my shorts and tank as I walked towards the pool, dropping garments as I went. I dove right in, relieved to have the silence and the cool water on my skin as I swam underwater. When I came up on the opposite side of the pool for a breath, Declan was crouched down on the deck, waiting for me. “You are a slob.”

  I was confused. “What?”

  “You must have a cleaning lady at home, Clarke. You just threw your clothes off and discarded them over a half-mile radius.”

  I was trying to think of a comeback but I came up empty. When he reached his fingers into the water to splash me, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him in.

  “Jesus,” he sputtered as he came up for air. “You’re dangerous.”

  “You called me a slob, you deserved that.”

  “I don’t even have a suit on.”

  “Well, next time you’ll think twice about insulting me when you’re poolside.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He was less than a foot from me. When he reached out his hand to tuck my hair behind my ear, I must have looked foolish, closing my eyes in anticipation. I had hoped he was about to kiss me, which was ridiculous, being that it was the middle of the day, he hardly knew me, and there were at least six other kids in the pool with us. “Hey,” he said softly, “I’m sorry about before.”

  “Are you apologizing because I saw you upset after your session?” When he didn’t say anything I went on, “We are at a grief camp, Declan. Crying is not only expected, it’s mandatory.”

  He smiled at me, grateful. “How was your morning?”

  “You saw me on my way into the pool, didn’t you?”

  “It’s rough…but I do like it, you know?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, no one talks to me at home. It makes this really hard because I’m not used to it but at the same time it’s such a relief to talk.”

  He nodded his head in agreement and then said, “So you saw the schedule for later, right? They’ve messed with my plans to teach you nine-ball.”

  “The schedule?”

  “Get with the program, Clarke. You get a schedule under your door every morning, which dictates your life. Tonight we’re separating into groups, girls and boys.”

  I tried not to sound too disappointed but I’m sure it showed on my face. “Oh.”

  He smiled at me. “You want to meet up after? We’d have to sneak out after they do bed checks, so if you don’t want to, I understand.”

  “No, I’ll meet you,” I said, chastising myself for sounding too eager.

  “It’s probably for the best anyway. I didn’t want to beat you in two sports, one night after the other. I mean, damaging your self-esteem while at grief camp could affect your long term mental health.” With that, he ducked underwater and swam away from me. Little did he know, the pool was one place I could almost certainly kick his ass.

  Just as he was getting to the other side of the pool, I caught up and snagged the hem of his shorts, giving them a yank before I pulled ahead and surfaced. “Hey, that wasn’t fair,” he said, out of breath, and then splashed me in the face for good measure.

  “So now we’re even. You’re better at ping pong and I’m a far superior swimmer.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, he was just looking at me. I couldn’t read his expression. We were in the deep end of the pool, a foot away from each other, treading water. He seemed to snap out of it then and said, “Ok, tennis or basketball next, your pick.”

  “Tennis.”

  “You’re not some junior national champ or something, are you?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see, now won’t you?”

  “Ugh.” He put his palms on the deck then and lifted his body out of the pool in one swift motion.

  “You look older than fifteen,” I said, looking up at him.

  “You think? Is it the beard or the massive muscles?” he asked as he re
ached down for me. When he grasped my hand and pulled me out as if I weighed no more than a wisp of air, I was a little swoony over the muscles, I’ll admit.

  “Well,” I said, as I touched his check with a skeptical look, “since you don’t have a beard, I’ll have to say it’s the muscles.”

  He was surprised by the compliment which, after it left my mouth, made me feel exposed, a little uncomfortable. Suddenly, I felt color rise to my cheeks and I wanted to cover up my body, on full display except for the string bikini I was wearing. “Um,” I said, as I looked around the deck, “where are my clothes?”

  “Maybe the cleaning lady came by after all,” he joked. But when he noticed my discomfort he said, his tone more serious, “Wait here, I’ll run and get you a towel.”

  He jogged over to the other side of the pool and grabbed a towel out of a small shed. He smiled as he tossed it to me and then said, as he was turning to go again, “I think I saw your stuff on a lounger, I’ll check.”

  The pool was like the kind you’d see at an upscale resort, with a waterfall feature, a hot tub in a nook off to the side, and teak loungers with plush cushions situated all around the large deck. “I was joking before but I think one of the attendants did fold your stuff for you, you brat.”

  He handed me the pile of clothes and said, “Are you still up for meeting tonight?” I nodded. “Ok, Anna, if you walk out of the back door of your building and then keep going straight, you’ll hit the lake. It’s less than a quarter mile. Take a flashlight with you but don’t turn it on until you’re at least fifty yards from your cabin. There’s one in your nightstand drawer. I’ll be on the dock waiting for you, ok?”

  “Ok.” I didn’t trust myself to say anything else. I felt awkward, nervous and…excited. I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of my first real kiss.

  Declan

  Group was uneventful today or maybe I just thought it was because I was hardly paying attention. I kept my eyes off Anna during group because if I looked at her I’m sure that I would have turned crimson red.

  I had never fallen for a girl. It wasn’t just that Anna was pretty, and I admit, seeing her at the pool considerably upped my already high opinion of her looks. But it wasn’t just that. I felt myself hanging on her every word, affected by every change in her facial expression, and reliant on seeing her smile.

  I ate about half of what I normally would have at dinner. It was still enough to nourish a normal kid but the butterflies in my stomach were really messing with my appetite. Shane, I realized, was tapping a fork on my plate to snap me out of my daze. “Hello there, Declan. I see someone has caught your attention.”

  “Huh?”

  He laughed. “Over there,” he said as he just barely nodded his head in the direction of Anna’s table. “And she keeps sneaking looks over at you.” I shrugged. “She’s cute, Declan.”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess, my ass. Seeing you two young lovebirds makes me miss my girl. She acted like I was going away for six months when I left on Saturday.”

  “What’s she like?” Kevin asked. I was glad he asked because I wanted to know too. Shane was like this worldly, fascinating guy. The two years he had on us made him seem more knowledgeable about everything in life.

  “Jessica? She’s beautiful, inside and out,” he said wistfully, looking down at the table now. “After what happened, she was the only one who helped me keep it together. Without her, I really would have gotten into the drugs heavier, I think. I would have been kissing school, hockey and everything else goodbye,” he said as he looked at me.

  I nodded. “Do you think you two will go to the same school together?”

  He smiled at me, shaking his head, making me feel like my question was the product of my young, naïve, sunny outlook. “Jess can go anywhere. The girl is a walking brain,” he said, obviously proud of her. “Me, on the other hand, I’m a different story. I go where hockey can open a door for me. She’s been tutoring me for the SATs, but I think she’s wasting her time.”

  “What about your friends? Do they play hockey too? Anyone with prospects like you?”

  He swallowed and then picked up his tray. “Besides Jess, I don’t have any friends.”

  When he walked away, Kevin filled me in. Shane was here because five of his friends were killed in a drunk driving accident last winter. He was supposed to be with them, would have been the sixth kid crammed into the SUV, but his coach had kept him late for practice.

  It hit me again how odd this place was. We seemed like just your average teenagers but we were not normal. Every kid here was a shell of what they had been before.

  Every kid here was damaged goods.

  I was sitting on the dock waiting, palms sweating, when I heard the crunch of pine needles underfoot getting closer. I hopped back up and walked the length of the short pier and called out to her, whispering her name.

  She emerged from the trees, shining the flashlight right into my eyes. “Turn that thing off, Anna, you’re blinding me.”

  “Sorry,” she said, laughing as she shut it off. It was light enough out in the clearing of the lake to see her. It wasn’t a full moon but it shone enough for me to see her face, enough to make my heart race. “Declan, I was petrified walking here! A quarter mile is a long way in the pitch black. I almost turned around I was so scared.”

  “Thank God you didn’t. I would have been sitting here until sunrise like an ass.”

  “We have a lake near my house,” she said, looking around. I noticed she was twisting her fingers together. She was nervous.

  I took one hand in mine and led her to the dock. “C’mon, we can put our feet in. The water’s warm.”

  She sat with one leg tucked under her at the end of the dock, the other leg dangling into the water, moving it back and forth, slowly. Her body was angled towards me. “So, Declan…”

  “So, Anna…” My breath was caught in my chest. I wanted to kiss her lips so badly that I thought I could taste that plump sweetness already.

  “Let’s play twenty questions.”

  “Huh?” She broke me out of my trance.

  “You know, we ask each other questions to get to know one another better.” When she caught my wary expression—I didn’t know if I was ready to go where this would lead—she said, “I’ll ask first. Here goes. So, Declan Banks, what is your favorite color?”

  She was telling me that she’d keep it light, not to worry, and that put me at ease again. “My favorite color is blue.”

  “Predictable,” she said, as she reached into the lake and flicked a few drops of water my way.

  “What?” I asked, insulted. “The best things in life are blue. Blue sky, blue ocean, my hockey team’s jersey is blue…”

  “Ok, ok, Declan. I just broke the rules, anyway. You aren’t allowed to critique someone’s answers.”

  “Yeah, that was bullshit,” I teased, smiling. “Okay, Anna Clarke, favorite color. Wait, forget it, I know it’s pink.”

  “I’ll admit it, I’m a girl and I like pink, but my favorite color is green.”

  “Why green?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The best things in life are green, Declan. Green grass, green olives, green money, and…what’s that next big town over from Cape Elizabeth?”

  “Portland?” I asked, confused.

  “Yeah, Portland High School’s hockey jerseys are green.”

  I grabbed both of her wrists and wrestled her back to the deck, as she laughed uncontrollably, like I was tickling her. “That was mean, Anna. I can’t have that vision in my head, of you wearing my biggest rival’s jersey.” As I let her back up I said, “I’m going to have to send you one of my jerseys now and make you snap a picture of yourself in it.”

  “I’ll have to think about it. I’m very loyal to Portland.” When I made a move to grab her again, she held both hands up, laughing, requesting a truce. “Okay, you ask the question now.”

  “Ok. The pressure’s on.” After a moment I asked
, “Favorite food. I’m keeping things safe.”

  “Up until the day I met you, I would have said falafel, but now I’m thinking lamb chops.”

  “Falafel?”

  “Yeah, middle eastern, fried chickpeas in a pita with that yummy yogurt sauce.”

  “You’re very sophisticated, Miss Clarke.”

  “You’ve obviously never had one, Declan. When they’re good, they’re really messy. You wind up with half of it on your face.”

  I was thinking about how much I liked her, how much fun I was having just sitting, talking to her. I hadn’t had fun in over six months. I was lost in that thought when I felt her nudge me. “Favorite food, space cadet?”

  I recovered quickly. “That’s not an easy question, Anna. I’m thinking.”

  “I think you like all foods, so much, that you can’t narrow it down”

  “Maybe. But if I was stranded for a weekend, say, and knew I could only have one thing that entire weekend, I’d go with spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “Good choice, Declan.”

  “Your turn.” I was having more fun with this than you could imagine.

  “Ok, Mr. Banks, who was your first kiss? I’m not keeping things safe.”

  “Ugh.”

  “What? Was it bad or something?”

  “No, it was just…nothing. Melody, a girl from school, last summer one night on the beach.”

  She was looking down into the water, watching her foot move back and forth as she said, “Sounds romantic.”

  “Not. There were three boys and three girls. We just paired off, it was no big deal. She started showing up to the ice rink after that night, which annoyed me.”

  “So you’ve had your first kiss and your first stalker. That’s hot.”

  “There’s something the matter with you, Anna,” I teased. “Ok, even though I don’t really want to know, who got your first kiss?”

  “If you really don’t want to know, you can ask me a different question, Declan.”