by Laura Brown
I felt him before I saw him, strong arms wrapped around me. He pressed his head against my own, cushioning me between the pillow and himself. He didn’t sign hello, he didn’t move me—he just held me. And I cracked. The sobs came fast, tearing out of my soul. His arms tightened around me, and he scattered kisses over my head.
I really didn’t deserve this sweet man. Especially when I had nothing to give him. Not my mind, not my heart, nothing.
When I calmed down, he reached for my pills, those teasing tempting pills, and placed one in my hand before getting me some water. I took them both and watched him as he put the pills back on the nightstand. If I took more, he wouldn’t be burdened by me anymore. He could find someone with a functioning brain to be with rather than my messed-up self.
He took my face in his hands, thumbs brushing my damp cheeks. One hand moved, caressing my fading bruises. His somber face, so full of pain, caused me to crack further.
I definitely didn’t deserve him.
He wrapped me in his arms and pressed my head against his chest. My right ear picked up his fast heartbeat. I breathed him in, his warm masculine scent almost like an aromatherapy treatment. I shifted into him, wanting to climb inside.
I wanted a do-over on life. A get-out-of-jail-free card. Though if my ears worked, I might not have met Reed. So maybe I wanted a do-over on my brain, not my ears. At least not my ears from before the second attack.
Reed shifted, checked his phone, then looked deep into my eyes. “I guess this isn’t a good birthday?”
What? I grabbed my phone and searched for the calendar. Holy shit. It was my birthday. And I had spent the day in bed, curled up in pain.
Dad gave me one last birthday gift after all.
I turned to my pillow and curled up on my bed again. Only this time Reed wouldn’t let me.
“Come on. Shower. Get dressed. You’ll feel better.”
I didn’t want to shower. Or get dressed. I wanted to stay in bed and will the remaining hours of my birthday away. But his determined face required some action from me to wipe away the look.
Once my head calmed down, I gathered up my clothes and made my way into the bathroom. The warm water soothed my body, even calmed my head further. In the foggy bathroom mirror, I studied my face as I combed my hair. The purple marks were fading. Pretty soon the only marks remaining from the attack would be internal.
Lucky me.
Back in my living room, I skidded to a halt. The place was packed. Reed and D were there, but so were my sisters, Willow, and Val. They all made a loud noise, which I couldn’t decipher, but I could follow those who signed.
“Happy birthday!”
I blinked back the tears as Reed pulled me into his side and handed me my hearing aid. I fitted the mold to my canal and flipped the shell behind my ear.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A party.”
Yeah, Reed, I figured that part out. I turned to my sisters. “We’re celebrating this weekend, my birthday and Matti’s.”
“You deserve your own party this year. And fortunately for me, that means I get my own too.” Matti’s words teased, but her face still held the same haunted look, ever since Dad turned on me.
I held out my arms, and she crossed the room and hugged me close.
“When, how, plan party?” I asked Reed, and realized I needed to seriously thank Val as she slipped into interpreter mode.
“After your text this morning.”
“Nothing like a message at the ass crack of dawn instructing you to not wish your own sister a happy birthday,” Andi lamented.
Reed watched Val then turned and winked at Andi.
“How are you feeling, Carli?” Lesli asked as she sat with a hand on her back.
“Better question, how are you feeling?”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Pain is normal, right?”
I nodded my aching head. “Right.”
My sisters talked around me. Unlike during parties at home, they made sure I could hear and partake. Dad wasn’t there to tiptoe around. Or wield his fists. And the saddest part was, I didn’t miss Mom. These three were my family. My mother let my father be king, fueling her own fantasy world. She never showed us love. She never supported us, not even when Dad wasn’t around. And not one of us had heard from her since the attack.
After we ate, and they made me blow out twenty-two candles that threatened to set off the alarms, Reed dropped a box in my lap. The white wrapping paper was covered with math equations in children’s handwriting.
He grinned when I looked up at him. “Your students?”
“Yes, my students. Your brain . . . works.”
I ignored him and looked over the paper, once again forced to blink back tears. More careful than ever before, I picked at the tape and removed the wrapping without a single tear. Then I folded it up and placed it aside.
Who cared what was in the box? His students had already given me the best present.
I opened the lid and pulled out a light doorbell.
“So you can hear the door.”
There were two doorbells and an adaptor. Along with a clock like he had. I was still looking at the boxes when Val spoke for him.
“I wasn’t sure if you were able to hear your alarm or not. You don’t have to use it if you don’t need it. The doorbell I know you need, so don’t fight me.”
I looked up at his worried face. Had I mentioned I didn’t deserve him? I stood up, stepped over the box, and laid a kiss on his lips that had my sisters hooting.
“There’s more.”
I held his gaze as I reached for the box and felt around the bottom. I pulled out a square jewelry box. Not a ring, thank God—much too big for that.
Inside I found a necklace with a heart, lined with what looked like diamonds. I locked eyes with him again as D let out a whistle.
This was too much, all too much. Didn’t he know I was a dead end? I wasn’t a long-term bet. Heck, I probably wouldn’t last a year. And yet he’d given me something that spoke of longevity. His actions through this entire ordeal had been nothing short of amazing.
And I still had nothing to offer him.
“I love you,” he signed. In front of our friends, in front of my sisters, knowing Val was interpreting.
A tear rolled down my cheek. I needed to tell him to stop signing those words, to stop feeling things for me I couldn’t feel in response. But, for some reason, I crossed to him and flung my arms around his neck. He held me close, breath tickling the crook of my neck. I wanted to break down and sob again. Instead I managed, “Thank you.”
I untangled my arms and held up my hair so Reed could clasp the necklace on. I felt like a traitor, even as my fingers played with the heart.
“Well,” Andi began, “gonna be hard to top lover-boy over there, but we’ll try. We know your left hearing aid isn’t powerful enough for you anymore. We weren’t sure if a new one would help and know the aids are expensive.”
Lesli groaned and rolled her head back into the couch. “How could we not? Every time you needed a new pair it was a war between Mom and Dad.”
“What are you talking about?”
Matti gave me a look. “I thought for sure you’d have heard them?”
I shook my head.
“Mom had to go to bat to get you new aids. Dad felt it wasn’t worth it.”
“Mom stood up for me?”
Lesli answered. “I think she was more concerned about the state coming knocking if you didn’t have adequate hearing aids.”
“Anyways,” Andi said, giving Lesli a look, “we looked up exactly how much they cost and . . . damn. So, here you go.” She handed me an envelope. “Use them for a hearing aid or anything else you may need to get started on your own two feet.”
I opened the envelope to find a check for $3,000. My hands shook. The feather-light paper weighed the same as a boulder in my hands. I couldn’t . . . They couldn’t . . . “No, uh-uh. I can’t accept your mone
y.”
“It’s the least we can do.”
“The least you can do is being here, right now. Which means the world to me. I don’t need your money.” I shoved the piece of paper out, ready to shift the weight to a sister. Andi crossed her arms. Lesli put her hands behind her back. Matti stuck hers under her butt. They held eye contact, part challenge to fight, part refusal to partake.
“Take it. If you don’t need a new hearing aid, you can splurge on a girls’ trip to Florida,” Matti said.
I shook my head, eyes glued to the green paper in my hands.
“Please,” Andi said. “We know you’re concerned about the future. Let us help.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and put the check in my back pocket. There was no way I could ever truly thank them or repay them. In turn I pulled each sister into a bone-crushing hug, which they returned with equal fervor.
A few hours later, my sisters had gone home, and Reed had set up the doorbell and alarm clock for me. Willow and Val left, and D went to her room, giving me a few minutes alone with Reed.
“Birthday improve?” he asked, charming me with his smile alone.
“Yes.” Best birthday to date. And it started off the worst.
“Good.” He proceeded to kiss me until my legs turned to jelly. Then he headed home himself. Alone in my room, I tried to process everything, but it was too much for my poor brain to handle. I changed into my pj’s, took another OxyContin, and climbed into bed.
I didn’t bother doing the math to figure out if it was time to take the pills. Heck, my head wasn’t hurting outside of normal. I took the pills because that’s what I did every night. It was part of my bedtime routine. Take off hearing aid; swallow pills.
In the dark my eyes flipped open. On my fingers I counted the hours between my last pill and now. Not enough time had passed. Only I wasn’t worried. Not really. Should the worst happen, my sisters would get back their money and no longer have to worry about their messed-up baby sister.
I fell asleep with a smile on my face. First time that happened without Reed beside me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Carli
THE SUN BEAT down on my back as I swam for shore. I was close and yet land kept moving farther and farther away. My arms and legs screamed at me. A bright light flashed three times; then clouds covered the sun. The world grew darker, the water turbulent, as I continued to try to get to shore. The light flashed again. My legs gave out. I slipped under the water and—
The light flashed three times.
I sat up in bed, taking deep breaths that failed to get enough oxygen in. The lamp by my bed flashed three times. Care of my new alarm clock. I reached over and flipped the switch before falling to my back. If my heart ever stopped ramming against my rib cage, I’d text Reed to yell at him.
The annoying beep beep beep of my old alarm clock moved up in points, even if I did run the risk of sleeping through it. And considering how deep of a dream I was in, I ran the risk.
I gave my new clock the evil eye as I got out of bed. Feet on the carpeted floor, I felt my head. Normal. Huh. The amber pill bottle called out to me, a Cheshire cat grinning. I wagged my finger at it and got ready for the day.
The students in my first class were tired from who knew what. My second class I already knew was a handful. Today proved no different.
At the board, I wrote out a few equations. As I finished with the isosceles triangle, a paper airplane zoomed past my head.
I froze, marker in hand, and turned on my heel. Two of the boys stood in the back, laughing as they made the airplanes. “Let’s see if she can hear . . . ” Zachary’s voice trailed off as he noticed me watching him. He flipped his too-long hair off his face and threw the airplane anyway. It dived and landed by my feet.
“Fifty points,” shouted Max and high-fived Zachary.
“Zachary, Max, since you two are already standing, why don’t you come up and see if you can fill in the blanks on the board?” I held out my marker.
“Nope,” said Max, before he jumped into his seat.
Zachary remained standing. “Why don’t you get some ears that work. We’ve been calling out the right answers the entire time.”
A quick survey of my class and I had no clue what I had truly missed with my back to them. Not good. Control slipped through my fingers, and I needed to rope it back in, fast.
“In that case you can put the answers on the board, since you obviously all know what they are.” I gestured to the board.
He strode to the front, clutching his baggy pants to prevent them from pooling around his ankles. He was tall for his age, with an unhealthy dose of anger. At the board he picked up a red marker, shimmied his pants on his hips, and wrote “fuck you” in large letters. My entire class laughed, though half of them sounded more like gasps.
“Clean that up,” I said, and dammit, my voice quavered.
Zachary cupped his ear. “I’m sorry, what?” His voice dripped with mocking, letting me know that I’d used that phrase far too often.
I swallowed. “I said,” raising my voice, “clean that up.”
“Right away, teacher.” He said teacher with a heavy dose of loathing.
A shiver raced down my spine, and my head scrambled to stay one step ahead of him and not succumb to the sudden massive headache I had. Zachary picked up the eraser and erased everything but the swear.
I froze. All my training went out the window. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to gain control?
The students caught on to their teacher being worth, well, fuck. They started talking to each other. I couldn’t pinpoint a single conversation. Zachary threw the eraser at the board, leaving a mark of blue dust. I was close enough to the board that I flinched, hard, and took a step back. Bad move. Any chance I had of gaining control was long gone.
Where was a wormhole when needed? I bent to pick up the eraser, but another student, Tanya, was already there, erasing the prints left on the tile. She said something to me, but I couldn’t hear it over the ruckus of the room. I stood there like a lump, struggling to come up with the right answer.
Tanya erased the board a minute before Heidi arrived. Another student must have slipped out of the room because she stood behind Heidi.
“Hey,” Heidi yelled, and all twenty-five students quieted down. “What is going on here?”
“Our teacher can’t hear. We called out the answers, and she just ignored us.”
“Is that true?” she asked and made eye contact with each student.
“No, they were making fun of Miss Reynolds,” Tanya said.
“Little brownnoser bitch,” Zachary yelled.
Tanya leered at him, but Heidi was faster. “Go to the principal’s office, Zachary. None of this behavior is acceptable. Do you understand me?”
Zachary stood up, gave both Tanya and me a hate-filled look, then held his pants as he half walked, half limped to the door. He banged both palms into it, creating a loud enough noise that my left ear got happy, before leaving.
“Anyone else have a problem?” Heidi asked, eyes trained on Max, who was now quiet as a mouse. “Good.” She turned to me and moved over to the desk. Using my notes, she took over the class.
Way to go, Carli.
At the end of the day, all I wanted was to curl up with my OxyContin bottle. I needed to go home, recharge, and figure out how to do it all again tomorrow.
“Don’t leave yet, Carli,” Heidi said before doing just that and leaving the room.
Fifteen and a half years of schooling, and my future was over before I could graduate. I collapsed on my desk chair and put my head on the desk. This couldn’t be happening. How could things go so wrong so quickly?
I couldn’t stop the tears and had my face hidden in the crook of my arm by the time Heidi came back. I wiped my cheeks, careful to avoid revealing my bruises, and lifted my head.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want me back.”
“You don’t get off the hook so
easy,” Heidi said. “Let’s work through the problem, see if we can’t help you regain control.”
I shook my head, a fresh tear sliding down my cheek. “Between my hearing and the brain injury, I just don’t think I have a future anymore.”
Heidi leaned back. “A future in teaching, or a future in general?”
Well, crap. “See, my brain doesn’t work the way it should. How am I supposed to teach?”
“You’ve only had two days back since your attack, and it hasn’t been that long. Let’s not jump to any conclusions. Instead, we’re going to brainstorm how you can regain control. You start. Take a few moments, and let me know what you can do differently.”
She looked at me with support and encouragement. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose, counting to five. Then I begged my throbbing head to not fail me before I answered.
That night, at bedtime, I spilled two pills into my palm. They rolled around, such happy little pills. I popped one in my mouth. The other I held up to the light, studying the shape and the angle. Eventually I grabbed my water and swallowed.
HEIDI SHADOWED ME all day on Friday. My head continued a very accurate portrayal of synapses misfiring. My heart wasn’t into the teaching. All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed.
The students yawned and stared out the window. I tried to engage them, but I didn’t really care enough myself, so how was I supposed to get them to care? I didn’t do anywhere near my best. I did the bare minimum.
Worse? I was okay with bare minimum.
Heidi sent me home with instructions to rest up over the weekend. Her facial expression said I needed to get my shit together. On my drive home, I gave some serious contemplation to withdrawing from the course, and college, until my head worked again. Which more than likely was never.
Back at my dorm, I collapsed on the couch and stared at D’s television. There wasn’t any captioning in here, and I couldn’t pick out a word being said. I didn’t care. Made it easier to turn away when my phone vibrated.
Reed: How did school go today?
Me: Still sucky.
Reed: Want some company?
