I’ve never even thought of a boy’s legs before. And now I’m using words like sturdy? And ropey? Is that even a word?
His hands are laid out alongside his thighs, and I can’t look away from the IV stuck underneath the skin on the back of his left. The clear, glossy tape covering it catches the light and the area around it is red and irritated looking. The urge to peel it away and run my fingers over the delicate skin there hits me harder than expected. Which is to say a lot, because it’s not an urge I expected at all. I wonder how the bumps and ridges of the raised, swollen vein would feel under my fingers. If the mole I noticed over his pinky the first time I visited him is raised, or more like a freckle that lies flat against the surface.
I wonder if those hands would feel as strong as they look. I wonder if he’s as strong as he looks. Even lying here in a hospital bed, he still seems strong.
Yeah, I don’t get it either.
I also don’t get how he somehow manages to catch me staring at him again.
But he does. His eyes, even though the right is close to being swollen shut and already turning into one big bruise, are open and he’s looking back at me in almost the exact same way I’m looking at him. Like he can’t believe I’m here.
I figure if I’m already caught, I might as well continue on. I run my gaze along the lines of his arms and settle for a moment on watching the rise and fall of his chest. I watch as it expands with each inhale and wait for the exhale that lowers it back into place. I match my breathing to his without realizing it and wonder if his heart is beating as hard as mine seems to be.
When we finally decide to talk, we do it at the same time and over each other.
“You’re here.”
“I don’t know how much time I have.”
I take a step forward and the heel of my shoe hitting the floor must be the loudest sound in the world. I stop when there’s the same amount of space between us there would be during a normal visitation. I can envision the chipped, laminate counter with the ugly, black plastic phone. I imagine the window separating us and the way it always takes me a few seconds to ignore my own reflection in the glass. Then there’s the counter top on the other side Andrew sits behind.
All in all, it’s only about four feet of space, but without those obstacles between us it seems silly and useless. It’s empty, and it needs to be filled.
I take another step. That’s the counter on my side. Another takes me through the window and across the counter on his.
We’re less than a foot away from each other now. My posture is stiff, and he struggles to push himself up higher against the back of the bed. I want to offer to help, but what would I even do? Thankfully his struggle doesn’t last long and he winces one last time as he settles back down. His eyes catch on the row of buttons built into the bed rail and his face falls as he mutters something that sounds like ‘of course’. He looks over the up and down controls that could have easily accomplished the same task in half the time and probably with half the pain. I try my best to bite back my smile.
He sees it in my eyes though. He has to. And the way the corner of my mouth twitches. It only takes a second for his to do the same and it makes me feel lighter all over. At least until he winces again because moving his face in any way is apparently pretty painful right now. His forehead crinkles and so does the bandage over his swollen eye.
“Are you…” I clear my throat, fully aware what I’m about to ask falls into the ‘blatantly stupid question’ category. “Are you okay?”
If the words hadn’t come straight from my mouth, I would have never recognized my own voice. It’s a thin, shaky thing that betrays how afraid I really was. How afraid I am.
“Yeah,” he says, and I get the feeling the bravado I hear in his voice might be meant for me. “I, uh, I hit my head kind of hard, I guess.”
I go the direct route. I’ve kind of learned I have to if I expect a real answer.
“What happened?”
Andrew looks away. There are more things for him to focus on here than the other times we’ve met, and I’m half tempted to move myself into whatever direction he points his eyes. I should probably let him have this though. Let him tell me in whatever way he can. Whatever makes it easier.
“I’m not sure exactly. Couple of guys jumped me from behind.” He stops there, but I know he’s not done. He tries to bring his hand up to rub at the back of his neck and hisses when only managing to tug at the IV. “Idiots did it while I standing in front of a glass door though. I saw their reflections so it didn’t take me completely by surprise. Guess that’s a good thing.”
I nod because I think it must be what I’m supposed to do. “Did you recognize them?”
“No. Doesn’t matter though. They’re already locked up, what else are they going to do to them?”
A lot, I want to say. I want to say they can keep them the hell away from him, or stick them in whatever the Center’s version of solitary is, but I keep my mouth shut. I don’t know if they can do those things or not, and I don’t want to seem like some overly optimistic, sheltered girl who’s never done anything wrong. Even if I am most of those things.
He saves me from my awkward lack of response when he flinches and pulls one side of his hospital gown open. I can’t see much—only a bit of his side down to where the blanket covers his lap—but the skin I can see, his ribs and the softer, but still muscled and lean, expanse that leads down to his hip, is almost completely covered in bruises. They look every bit as angry as the one taking up most of his face, and my throat gets tight merely looking at them.
“I never realized bruises were so…” He trails off and looks down at his torso one more time before he closes the gown.
“Ugly?”
God, I sound like I’m about to cry. And I must look it too because Andrew gets this soft look on his face which I’m pretty sure means he feels sorry for me. It makes me feel about two feet tall, but right now, I don’t care about any of that.
And thinking it must make me look even worse, because he cracks a smile, covers his grimace, and does his best to make me laugh instead.
“Ow, princess. That hurts.”
Because I am processing things at a remarkably slow rate, it takes a second to put two and two together and realize he’s suggesting I just called him ugly.
“That’s—”
“No, really.” He cuts me off. “You wound me. I mean, I’m ninety-nine percent sure my face is one big bruise right now.”
He smiles and the last thing in my mind right now is the word ugly.
“One big, ugly bruise.”
I step forward, my hip almost level with his shoulder, and lean close enough to get my point across.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
I’m happy I sound more like myself now. An exasperated, persistent version of myself, but me all the same.
I smile a little and it’s like my ability to feel the passing of time stops. I could stand here for seconds, or minutes, or hours. All I know is Andrew is looking at me, and his eyes are drinking me in, in a way that’s not entirely different from the way I studied him earlier.
I twist my fingers into the skirt of my dress as he runs his gaze over me, and I quickly become a fidgety mess. I’ve never been so aware of myself. It’s like I can feel every tiny bit of me as he looks at it. My nose and my eyelashes, and the freckles across the bridge of my nose. The term ‘the weight of one’s stare’ has never made more sense to me. He brings his eyes up, and I swear I can almost physically feel that weight on my body. Carrying its way up my arms and over my shoulder, across the delicate lines of my collarbone, and then up the column of my neck.
I don’t dislike the way it feels. Or the way it makes me feel.
I swallow hard at the same time he does and shove one hand into my hair, trying my best to push one section behind my ear. He looks up, into the space above my head where I can practically feel the curls vibrating along with the rest of the nervous energy that’s
suddenly taken up host in my body.
“How tall are you?”
Uh, okay.
“Five-ten.”
He cocks his head a little to the side and smirks. Something inside me feels like it’s melting.
“With or without the hair?”
My mouth drops open and I try to narrow my eyes at him. It’s almost too hard not to laugh though. Especially when I zero in on his own hair, not quite as curly, but as crazy and big and all over the place as mine has to be right now. He even has the addition of the back being all sticky-uppy from laying on it for however long. Somehow I resist the urge to stick my tongue out.
“Like you have room to talk.”
It seems so natural to reach out for him, to smile and lean in to muss his hair that I almost do. My hand hangs in the space between us, fingers slightly curled inward and ready to thread themselves into his curls, before I manage to stop myself. Before I remind myself how we do not have this kind of intimacy between us. Before I remember we’ve never even had the possibility for it to exist.
Would it change anything if we had?
I blink in hopes of clearing my head, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference when I see him looking up at me from the bed below.
He grabs my hand from the air and slowly, carefully laces his fingers through mine. There is no shock, or jolt, or any of those other electrocution-y words. No, it’s more like a warmth that slowly unfurls itself and makes its way into my bloodstream. It moves at a leisurely pace that seems almost on purpose—like it doesn’t want to scare me, but introduce itself in a slow, deliberate manner instead.
If merely looking at Andrew makes everything seem brighter, then touching him makes everything feel brighter.
“This is the closest we’ve been without an inch and a half of glass between us.”
He looks at me for a second before shaking his head like he’s amused.
“I looked it up,” I offer. Because of course I did.
“You look a lot of things up.” He drifts off for a second, but recovers and gives me a tiny smile. “It’s clear to me now I took advantage of having the option.”
He shifts on the bed and my whole body tenses when his grip tightens on mine. It’s a small bit, infinitesimal really, but the need inside of me to soothe whatever ache caused that tension? It’s a lot bigger. I step forward again, he doesn’t even have to coax me, and lower myself to sit beside him along the edge of the mattress beside him. Our hips are nearly flush and the sleeve of his hospital gown is brushing my arm, but almost half of my butt still hangs off the side. He makes a move to scoot himself over more, to give me more room, but I squeeze his hand gently to let him know it’s okay.
I think the only thing keeping me from disappearing into my head completely is the amount of concentration I have to put into keeping myself balanced.
After a moment, I can no longer hold it in. I need to ask. As soon as I open my mouth to speak, he flinches the slightest bit—bracing for what’s to come.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I have to know.”
He tenses beside me, and I pause to wait for an objection. When it doesn’t come, I continue on. “Aren’t you mad at her?”
“At who?”
I swallow and look down at the folds of my skirt to avoid his gaze. “Your mother.”
He sighs and I take his silence for what it is.
It’s quiet and stays that way as we sit. There are sounds of footsteps and hushed voices coming from the hallway, but right now, it’s the easiest thing in the world to block them out. My attention is stuck on our hands, clasped together and lying on top of my thigh. His hand is so much bigger than mine, and I try to imagine how they would look, palm-to-palm, with our fingers stretched out.
Our skin tones are so different. He’s all golden and warm-hued, with dark hair curling around the lines of his forearm and wrist. I’m pale and cold looking in comparison, but I can’t deny the allure of the two contrasting colors. I can’t deny it, and I can’t look away from it. I don’t even have to steal a glance from the corner of my eye to know the boy beside me is in the exact same boat. His thumb twitches a fraction of an inch before he runs it along the side of mine.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he starts, and I nearly jerk off the side of the bed in surprise. I start to tell him I doubt he has any idea what I was thinking, but keep my mouth closed. If he’s offering to talk, I’m definitely going to listen. “I just… It’s not her fault he’s the way he is. And I know it’s humiliating enough, the things she’s gone through. I… I didn’t want her to make the choice.”
He stops to clear his throat, and even though I’m confused, I don’t interrupt. I wait for him to elaborate.
“I know she loves me and Blake. And I may not understand it, but I also know she loves him. That she doesn’t think she has a choice in the matter, and maybe she doesn’t. She’s been through so much. Her Soulmate is an abusive asshole who somehow also made her into the ‘other woman’, and her oldest son is an idiot for thinking he could do something about it.”
He turns to look me in the eye and I want to smooth the tiny wrinkle between his brows.
“She shouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of owning up to all three of those things—not when they’re not her fault. I asked her not to.”
“You asked her?”
I’m sure I fail to keep the disbelief out of my voice, but he continues like I didn’t speak at all.
“I didn’t tell her I was going to see him. I think she knew anyway—that I was going to do what I could to put an end to it. I didn’t give her a chance to try and stop me though. After … after things got out of hand, I called nine-one-one, and then I called her. And I asked her not to worry and not to do anything that would make it an even bigger deal than it already was. He made sure to let me know he could do a lot worse than a broken collar bone. I only wanted to protect them. He knows how stupid it would be to try to hurt them now. He wouldn’t risk the attention. So me staying locked up is the most I can do to keep protecting them right now.”
It’s hard enough for me to hear he’s the one who called nine-one-one. I can’t even pretend to comprehend the logic behind his thinking, but I certainly understand feeling like he has no other choice—like he’s been backed into a corner.
He lets out a soft laugh and ducks his head.
“Didn’t think everything through though. I was only going to talk to him, maybe scare him into thinking I’d turn him in. I didn’t expect it to go so far. For him to be so… I overestimated what little I thought of his human decency. Obviously.”
For a second, I don’t even know what to say. I search for the words and hope I manage to get them right.
“Sometimes it’s easy to overestimate in others something that you have so much of yourself.”
I know he probably won’t believe me, but it feels good to say regardless.
I slide my fingers from between his and slowly straighten them out so our palms lie flush against each other. I know I feel things with my hands, and with my fingers, all day, every day. But I don’t think the nerve endings in my fingertips have ever been as alive as they are right now as I let them pass over the underside of each of his knuckles. When I get to his palm, I lightly scrape my nails over the smoothed and callused skin there and trace the line leading down over the heel of his hand. He exhales and it's a sound so soft and shaky it makes my movements seem suddenly far too brazen. I stop, but don’t snatch my hand back right away.
I don’t move at all until I happen to glance up at the clock on the wall and see the time. I straighten immediately, both of my feet hitting the floor and my hand slipping from Andrew’s. I miss the feeling of it instantly, but think this will be worth it.
I can’t tell how long ago I entered the room, but I didn’t even consider this as an option at the time. It never crossed my mind that today he would get to watch the sun set in color for the first time. Or that I would get to be here with hi
m. So I certainly don’t think to turn and face him to see his reaction when I open the curtains.
It’s not the best view. There’s another wing of the hospital blocking a good chunk of the right-hand side of the window and power lines bisecting what can be seen of the sky, but it’s still beautiful. I stand there for a minute, arms wrapped around my torso, and look out over the horizon. The sun is a tiny thing slipping below the tree line in the distance, and the way it lights up the entire sky with such a myriad of colors … I don’t think I can even put it into words. No matter how many times I see it.
I turn, dropping my hands to my sides, and look at his face. The light streaming in through the window catches his eyes and even though it’s bright and makes him squint, he doesn’t even blink. I’m sure I’m smiling like an idiot, but I don’t care about that right now. I return to his side, pressing myself a little bit closer than before and sigh, actually sigh like some kind of lovesick, fool of a girl as he takes my hand back into his. And as we watch the sun disappear and the swirls of pinks, and reds, and purples paint the sky, I feel a little like a romantic, lovesick, fool of a girl. Minus the fool part because even though I know I should be much more careful and how there are still much larger things at play here, it doesn’t make this moment feel any less right.
A knock on the door startles me and I’m up and off the bed in seconds. There’s a click, and a sliver of open space between the frame and the door, and I’m running my hands along the belt of my dress and straightening my skirt like I’ve been caught doing something wrong. The officer in the hallway doesn’t even bother to poke her head in. She simply announces someone will be here to relieve her soon, and I know it means it’s time for me to go.
I nod like she can see me and stand here, sweating like I just got caught with a boy in my room. And Andrew’s sitting there, I can tell trying not to laugh at me, and looking like he’s been that boy caught in a girl’s room more than a couple of times. I don’t know how to even start forming a reaction to that one.
What's a Soulmate? Page 11
