True Love Way

by Mary Elizabeth

  Big brown eyes look up at me, and Pen circles her arms around my neck. With dirty lips beside my ear, she whispers, “You make me so happy.”

  Searching through piles of clothes on her bedroom floor, I find a clean pair of pants in one stack and her left shoe under another. I grab a shirt from the closet and toss all of it at the end of her bed.

  “Penelope,” I say, opening her purple curtains to let sunlight in. “You have to get up.”

  She’s small under a mass of blankets, dressed in the same pajamas she was in yesterday morning. Sleep lines warp the sides of her face, and her hair sticks to her chapped lips. This girl only has enough energy to lift her small hand and wave me away.

  “Go away,” Pen mumbles.

  I pull the covers further away from her body, hoping some fresh air and a little vitamin D will give her what she needs to get up.

  “Come on, I got your clothes picked out. Where’s your brush so I can help with your hair?”

  Stepping over to her stereo, I turn on whatever played last in the CD player and search through dresser drawers for a pair of sunglasses while incoherent lyrics and scratchy guitar chords hum from the small speakers.

  “Turn it off,” sleepiness groans, covering her head with a pillow.

  After choosing a blue pair of circle-framed glasses to match the shirt I hope she likes, I yank the pillow from over her face and ask one more time for her to please get out of bed.

  She sits up, but my heart sinks into my stomach when her sore eyes manage to open and look up at me.

  “Don’t you get it, Dillon?” she says, struggling to keep her head straight. “There’s a reason why you’re my only friend. Why haven’t you figured this out yet?”

  I drop the shades on her nightstand and say, “But today is our birthday.”

  Pen collapses back onto her mattress and hides under quilts and darkness. “Get out of my room.”

  Mom barges into my room, letting light from the hallway in, stinging my barely opened eyes. I kick off the blankets, drenched in my own sweat, but can’t bring myself to get out of bed. Muscles in my arms and legs feel like they’re made out of cement, and my bones out of metal pipes.

  “We can’t keep doing this. I got you out of school for another day, but they expect you to be in class tomorrow.”

  “Leave me alone,” I say, covering my face with my hands.

  “Not this time, Penelope,” Mom answers. The sweet sound of her voice tingles inside my chest, but when she brushes the hair out of my face, I turn away from her hand.

  Molded to my bed, I hold on to my purple sheets and squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t cry. The weight of oxygen is torturous, and as much as I want my mom, the sound of her footsteps on the carpet splits my head wide open.

  I turned fourteen a week ago and still haven’t blown the candles out on the cake.

  “At least take a shower and come downstairs with me. We can sit in front of the TV all day, Pen, but you can’t stay in this room for another day.”

  Pushing my face into the mattress, I bring my legs underneath me and curl into a ball. Every strand of hair on my head hurts, and I can hardly breathe.

  “You don’t understand,” I cry out. Hot tears soak into the soft cotton under me. “Nobody gets it!”

  Instead of leaving the room like she normally does when I yell, she jerks on the end of my sweatpants and then on the back of my sweatshirt. Mom tries to touch my face again, but I quickly and painfully roll to my other side.

  “I’ll get up later,” I lie. “Let me sleep a little longer.”

  “No, you’ve slept enough.”

  Mom wraps her fat fingers around my wrist and pulls me upright. Darkness that’s made itself a home inside my body and mind sizzles and roars, shooting pain through my limbs and knocking air from my lungs that comes out of my mouth as a piercing scream. I try to yank my arm from my mother’s grip, but she only holds on tighter.

  “It hurts,” I cry, reaching for my bed’s wooden headboard before she lifts me completely up. “Stop.”

  “Tell me what hurts,” the lady who carried me in her stomach for nine months says as tears fall from her round face. She doesn’t stop forcing me away from the only thing in this house that gives me comfort.

  My feet touch the carpet, and my fingers slip from the headboard. I dig my fingernails into my mom’s hand when I slide from the mattress completely, and scream until what feels like the whole room shakes as fear from leaving my space eats my heart.

  “Everything!” I shout. “Everything hurts.”

  I fall to my bottom and use my body weight to anchor myself to the floor, crying and kicking and not wanting to be anywhere but in here. Ruthlessness pulls my head back by my hair when I try to bite her fingers, and she drags me across my bedroom floor by the neck of my sweatshirt.

  “Please, Mom, please. You don’t know how bad it is,” I say, choking on my words, choking on this life.

  She doesn’t answer, managing to heave me into the hallway where I kick the walls, knocking down framed school pictures, wedding photos, and a wooden crucifix. My dirty hair sticks to tears across my face, and the balls of my feet hurt from striking them into the drywall. Heavy cotton saws into my throat as I’m pulled into the bathroom. The shower water is already running, and the small space is full of steam.

  “Calm down, Penelope,” my mom whispers soothingly, bracing me alongside the sink. She hugs me against her body, squeezing tight enough to hold my pieces together for a second.

  I shake my head back and forth, clenching my teeth together, hating her touch even though it helps ease the hurt a little.

  “I can’t breathe,” I say, sucking oxygen that doesn’t reach my lungs in through my mouth.

  My lips tingle. My fingertips are numb. My vision spots.

  “I’m dying,” I say, feeling my heart beat too quickly, like it’s going to explode, like it’s going to burst out of my chest.

  “You’re not, baby,” she swears, reaching up the back of my sweatshirt to place her palm on my bare skin. She rubs her hand up and down my spine, whispering how much she loves me into my ear. “I won’t let you ever die.”

  Fully clothed, Mom helps me into the bathtub and climbs in behind me. She cradles my body against her soft chest, pushing my wet hair away from my face and neck. Sobs calm to hiccups and shaky breaths, and warm water brings back feeling in my fingers and toes. As we sit under the shower’s downpour, my mommy tells me again and again that everything is going to be okay.

  “It won’t always be like this, Pen.”

  I don’t believe her.

  Protected behind a pair of green-lensed shades, my hair is damp at the roots and dry on the ends, and my stomach aches after eating the first full meal I’ve had in days. Mom and I stayed under running water until it turned cold, and when we got out, she didn’t let me go back into my room. Forbidden from one safe spot, I wait for the other to get home from school.

  Barefoot and sitting on the Deckers’ front porch, salt-scented air blows in from the ocean that’s only a few blocks away. Leaves have begun to turn yellow as autumn returns with the breeze. Warm, end-of-September sun warms my clean, coconut body wash smelling skin. I feel like I’m jammed inside a flimsy bubble, looking out at everything around me, but I don’t itch with panic, and my heart beats like normal.

  Dad doesn’t want me to take any medication I was prescribed, but Mom promises they’re fine once in a while.

  “Our secret, okay?” she said before I dropped the white pill onto the tip of my tongue.

  When the form of the only boy who matters appears at the end of the street, I block the bright sunlight from my eyes with my hand to watch him walk my way.

  Pulse points race in a great way.

  As I curl my toes over the wooden step below me, dry wood splinters and pushes against my soft skin. I stand so that he can see me and lift my hand to carefully wave, still sore from my earlier panic attack and days in bed.

  Dillon stops seven hous
es down and squints against the same daylight that shines off his dark blonde hair to look back at me. He’s taller every time I see him, like he grows an inch every minute we’re not together.

  “Freak boy next door is getting big,” Dad said last week, noticing, too. He chugged milk chocolate creatine and then added, “But I can still kick his ass.”

  With his backpack high on his shoulders and the laces on his right shoe untied, both corners of his mouth curve up and he starts to run the rest of the way home. The closer he gets, I can see the softness in his face has sharpened, and the band T-shirt he wore on the first day of school that fit perfectly now seems small.

  Not at all winded from running half a block, Dillon slows down in front of his house and walks across his lawn, shaking his head so that his long, wavy hair falls back into place.

  “Where’s your bike?” I ask, stepping onto the concrete walkway.

  His green eyes stare down at me; the shape of his body blocks the sun from shining in my face.

  “Two bikes were stolen earlier this week from school, so I don’t ride it unless you’re with me. I heard it was those rez boys,” he says, scratching above his eyebrow.

  My head feels too heavy for my body, and my eyes want to close, so I sit back down and take a deep breath.

  “You okay?” Dillon asks, stepping closer to me.

  I shake my head, fighting back tears.

  “Is anyone home?” He steps onto the porch beside me in filthy, untied Vans and nods toward the front door.

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  There are no cars in the driveway, and Risa hasn’t come home from school.

  Thoughtfulness holds his hand out for me and says, “Come on.”

  Dillon follows behind me as I walk through his house and up the stairs, one slow step at a time.

  “If you fall, I’ll catch you,” he says, not having a clue as to how much it makes me want to cry.

  I’ve only seen his room though my window, but as soon as I push open the door and the sweet, soapy smell of comfort washes over me, achiness in my stomach soothes and stiffness in my shoulders eases. I inhale deeply through my nose and don’t hold back when relief falls from my eyes.

  This simple boy has a simpler bedroom. Unlike mine, there’s not a single pile of dirty clothes on the floor. His bed is made, and the walls are mostly bare, with the exception of a few framed posters.

  Moving across the room to the twin-sized bed, I crawl under a navy comforter, take off my glasses, and place my head on Dillon’s flat cotton pillow. Dropping his backpack and kicking off his shoes, the boy whose bed I’ve invaded shuts the door and closes the blinds until the room is a perfect shade of dark.

  He sits at my feet and asks, “Why are you crying, Penelope?”

  “Because I’m sad,” I say, allowing that never-leaving sadness to soak into his red pillowcase.

  Slightly slouching, he nods before saying, “Is it true you’re depressed?”

  Old springs in the bed creak under the weight of our bodies, but I have never been more comfortable in my life. As tiredness weighs down my eyelids, warm tears continue to roll down my face, and I can’t find it in me to be embarrassed or relieved that Dillon has finally figured me out.

  Dad has it all wrong. The boy next door isn’t a freak, I am.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  The next time I open my eyes, my dad is standing over me, slowly waking me up with a mustache-tickle kiss on my forehead. In a hushed tone, he says, “You’re too young to spend the night with boys, sweetheart.”

  For a second I don’t know where I am. My eyes roam around the room, and as my dad lifts me out from under the warm blankets, I spot Dillon sleeping on the floor beside his bed and remember our tiny talk and how good it felt to be wrapped up in what’s his.

  So good that I reach for the corner of the navy comforter and take it with me as my father steps over the boy who pressed his lips to my forehead before he did.

  Cradled in my dad’s arms, I breathe in the scent of the football field and pretend to sleep against his hard chest as he carries me down the stairs. At the bottom, Dawn’s voice breaks the silence.

  “Is she doing okay, Wayne?” she asks. Mrs. Decker covers me entirely in her son’s blanket.

  “Sonya said today was rough, but she’ll be fine.” Dad’s voice rumbles against my ear.

  The front door opens, and cool air stings my face when my father steps outside. I crack open my eyes and blink against the brightness of the yellow porch light. Moths and other night flying bugs swarm around it, and stars blanket the night sky above it.

  “If you need anything,” Timothy says, alerting me of his company. “Let us know.”

  “Just tell that boy of yours that I owe him,” Dad says. I smile.

  Carried over both driveways, through another front door and a different set of stairs, I’m put to bed in my own room. The second I’m left alone and the hallway light glowing under my doorjamb shuts off, I jump out of bed and rush over to my window.

  Dillon looks back at me from across the lawns, holding up a note that reads BE MY GIRL.

  “Is Dillon Decker really your boyfriend?” Pepper Hill asks. She flips her lengthy blonde hair over her slender shoulder and pops pink bubble gum into her mouth.

  With long eyelashes, glossed lips, and perfectly straight teeth—confident, flawless, and happy—I stare at the girl sitting across from me in the school library and wonder why I wasn’t born more like her and less like me—awkward, defective, and doomed.

  “We’ve been going out for a few months.” I shrug my shoulders and sit back in my chair, flipping my wiry brown hair over my bony shoulder.

  “Huh,” she replies, looking at me but not noticing that I’m an actual person and not a plaything for her and the group of Pepper Hill wannabes who hang with her. “I bet he only asked because he feels sorry for you.”

  Why doesn’t she understand he’s my only friend?

  “Thanks a lot, Pepper,” I say, closing my math book and dropping my pencil. I’m no longer interested in completing the stack of makeup work I’ve accumulated from the days I’ve missed.

  Her blue eyes open widely, and she waves me off. “No offense or anything, but the glasses are weird. And you’re never at school. Dillon’s super smart, and you’re…”

  “I’m smart,” I reply instinctively, blushing as soon as the words pass my lips.

  Lucifer tilts her head to the side and smiles. “Okay.”

  After pushing my red circle-framed glasses up my nose, I open my book bag and shove my things inside. I make it a point to avoid Pepper, but she doesn’t keep it a secret that she wants what’s mine and seeks me out when I can’t be found. Bathroom gossip and unintentional-intentional shoves in the school hallways from Pepper Hill and company is one thing. Knowing she is perfect for Dillon is another.

  Pepper might be right, and it’ll only be a matter of time before he realizes it.

  “Do you guys kiss? Have you done it with him?” she asks, breaking library rules and laughing loud enough to knock dust off the books.

  “You’re gross,” I mumble, zipping up my bag.

  She reaches out and grabs my hand. Her side bangs hang over her left eye, and she smells like cotton candy. I probably smell like muscle rub, and my hair is in the same ponytail my boyfriend helps me tie it in every time we’re rushing out the door for school.

  “Getting it on with Dillon wouldn’t be gross. Seriously, do you even look at him?” spitefulness asks with a tinge of red coloring her cheeks. “He’s gorgeous, Penelope.”

  We’ve been official for five months and haven’t rounded first base, but I’m not telling her that.

  She smacks her hand against the surface of the table. Like fingertips tapping on the underside of my sternum, anxiety ignites a fluttering panic in my chest.

  “Don’t do that,” I say, pushing my chair back to leave.

  Pepper hits the table again. “This?”

  I rub my hand
over the spot above where my heart kicks and remind myself that she can’t hurt me if she can’t see me.

  Escaping between shelves of books and school appropriate posters that read, Reading is Magical, I keep my head down and continue toward the exit with the drum of anxiety banging in my head, which only thuds louder when the enemy passes between a row of science books and me.

  She turns and stops in my pathway, crossing her arms over her chest, colored in different shades of red behind my glasses.

  “I think you should break up with Dillon. For his own good.”

  “I think you should get out of my way,” I reply in the strongest tone I can manage.

  Pepper Hill takes a step toward me. “What are you going to do if I don’t?”

  Thoughts of chopping off her stupid hair and whipping her in the face with it cross my mind, but before I get the chance to grab some scissors, the boy she wants to steal from me appears at the end of the non-fiction section. His smile falls once he notices I’m cornered by evil.

  I try to walk around my tormentor to get to him. She steps in my way, refusing to let me pass. Shoving her into the bookshelves is my next move, but Dillon reaches for me first.

  “What are you doing, Pepper?” he asks, pulling me to his side. Brightness holds my hand, positioned just a step in front of me.

  “Nothing,” she lies, dropping the wicked act and smiling sweetly.

  Once she finally goes away, I lean against books about space and genetics and whatever else science has to say and stare back at the boy whom I should break up with for his own good.

  “Why do you like kissing me?” I ask. “Wouldn’t you rather kiss girls like Pepper Hill?”

  He shrugs. “Because you’re my favorite.”

  “My dad gives you candy to make me smile, that’s weird.” I scoff, surrounded by the scent of cracked binding and old ink on aged paper.

  “I never said your dad isn’t weird.” His silly grin bends higher, and I want to push his hair away from his eyes.

  Dillon doesn’t realize how great he’s become and how utterly the same I am. Everyone wants to be his friend, and they tolerate me because I’m always around. I know the day will come when he gets over staying up with me all night at our windows.