The front had no buttons, leaving most of my collarbone and chest visible. It fell just above the waist of the dress.
“It’s perfect.” My eyes filled. With a deep breath, I opened the door and let Mike’s mom see me. The tears in her eyes told me more than words ever could.
“OH MY God, Rowan, you look amazing.” Mike, dressed in a black tuxedo, white shirt, black bow-tie and cummerbund, stood at the bottom of the stairs. His hair, grown a little longer over the past month, was still damp from his shower. He stared at me, a pink rose corsage held in his hands.
His parents were behind him, their arms wrapped around each other. Mrs. A. leaned her head onto Mr. A.’s shoulder. They were both smiling.
Mike’s older sister, Tabitha, stood behind me and I knew she was smiling too. She had become a fast, and very dear friend from the first time she’d come home from college to visit. Now we talked on the phone regularly and emailed or texted all the time. She was only a little bit bigger than me, now that I had gained some weight, and we could even share clothes, though it was mostly me borrowing hers and not the other way around.
Tabitha had helped me get ready; had come home for the weekend just for that reason. She’d conditioned, combed and dried my hair into a glossy sheen. The sides were pulled away from my face and held with a crystal clip. She’d applied more makeup than I was used to, but it was still subtle and I was okay with it. In fact, as I walked down the stairs, I felt more beautiful than I ever had in my entire life. I stopped in front of Mike and looked up at him.
He was so handsome, I almost lost my breath. He’d always been very good looking; but something about the way he was dressed tonight, about the way he looked at me, made my knees go all wobbly and my stomach do flips.
And for a moment, just a brief moment, there was no one else in the world but me and Mike.
But then Mr. A. cleared his throat and we all laughed. I actually laughed, something I’d done more of lately. Pictures took about thirty minutes and included every pose imaginable. There were a few of Tabitha and Mike, of Tabitha and me. I took pictures of the four of them together. It was all so easy and relaxed, it felt alien somehow.
I still had trouble accepting their hospitality. And I didn’t know if I would stay or not. Mike would graduate in a few weeks and though he’d spend the summer here, he’d leave in late August for college on a soccer scholarship. I didn’t know where that left us; didn’t want to think about it.
Right here, right now, I was okay. My scars were still there, but they were healed as well as they would ever be. I hadn’t held a razor between my fingers in a month. And it felt good. If I was sad, or upset, I would go for a walk, or play with Levi and Scout. Or curl onto Mike’s lap and let him stroke my hair.
Mrs. A. had gotten me an after school job at the animal shelter. I threw myself into that job with an earnestness that had me getting there early, leaving late and coming in, unscheduled, on the weekends. But it felt right. Just me and the other unwanteds of the world.
But I didn’t feel unwanted. I felt, if not a part of a family, at least a close friend of one. And that was okay.
“IT’S TIME for you two to go,” Mr. A. said.
“Oh, just one more!” Mrs. A. scurried toward us. “Now, Mike, you stand here. Rowan, face him.” She posed us inches apart, face-to-face. She placed Mike’s hands on my waist and mine on his shoulders.
“Uh-oh,” laughed Tabitha. “Here it comes.”
“Here what comes?” I pulled my lip between my teeth.
“The kissing picture.” Mike groaned as he put his head in his hand.
“What?” I pulled back.
“Oh no you don’t.” Mrs. A. laughed as she gently pushed me back into his arms. “Just a little peck.” Then she swatted Mike on the shoulder. “Just a peck.”
It was the chastest kiss that had ever occurred on Prom night.
Just as we walked outside, Jess and Justin, her date for the Prom, were leaving his house two doors down from Mike’s. She was still dating Paul, but they had talked about Prom and decided he couldn’t be the one to take her. So, Mike had set her up with Justin, and Jess was going to meet up with Paul later. I still didn’t approve, but I was so glad to have her here tonight sharing this with me that I decided to keep the Paul comments to myself.
Justin was dressed almost identical to Mike, and almost looked as handsome. Almost. Jess had on a short dress that fell mid-thigh. The top was black satin with thick shoulder straps. The skirt was multi-layered with alternating sheets of deep purple and black. Her cherry red hair had rainbow streaks in it and for tonight, she wore her contact lenses. She looked amazing.
“My God, Ro, you look incredible!”
“Oh, Jess, you look beautiful!” We hugged while the guys laughed and shifted on their feet, growing warm in their heavy suits.
“Come on, ladies. It’s a sauna out here.” Justin wove Jess’ arm through his, pulling her from me. We didn’t release our hold on each other, though, catching hands while the guys escorted us toward the black limousine Mr. A. had rented for the night.
We piled in and I felt almost giddy, like Cinderella going to the Ball. When it turned midnight, would this all become a dream? An unreality that I had conjured in my desperation?
Then Mike was kissing me. Long and sweet, with promises of more to come. Much more to come, though when I didn’t know.
As the car pulled away, I broke the kiss and looked out the window. It was a cloudless evening, the sky colored powder blue. My heart lurched at the sheer perfection; only this time, I didn’t clutch my arm and my heart didn’t wither under the pain. Instead, I said a prayer for my sweet baby brother. I pulled his image into my mind, not the one of him in death, but the one of him in life: gurgling, cooing, wrapping his chubby fingers around mine, smiling his first smile.
Then I looked back at Mike and found his eyes on me. With a whisper of a touch, he brushed his fingers over the top of my hand, sending shivers up my arm. He smiled. I nodded and didn’t have to force the upswing of my lips.
We sped down the road with the past trailing us, if not far behind, then at a distance and nothing but open road ahead.
MY BREATH formed tiny crystals as I left the animal shelter after another day at work. Janie, my boss, was still inside closing up for the day. I wanted to ask to leave early so I could see my boyfriend, Mike, who was supposed to be coming home from college. The only problem was he had been promising this since August. It was now January. I had only seen him once, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
He should have been home right before Christmas, the same night he finished his last final. But a player on his soccer team got hurt, and Mike took his place at an indoor tournament. He should’ve been home Thanksgiving, but his soccer team entered a last minute scrimmage against another school. The same story had repeated itself too many times to count.
I was happy for Mike.
I was heartbroken for me.
My teeth chattered, and my hand shook as I tried to unlock the car door. It was dark out, clouds obscuring the stars, the moon. The trees that peppered the rural landscape were bare and stark.
I whispered a prayer that the snow would hold off until he got home, assuming he had actually left the university town five hours away. A string of possible excuses marched through my head, but I immediately dismissed them. He would come home this time.
The streets were empty except for two pickup trucks hauling muddy four-wheelers. Despite my best effort not to get excited and end up disappointed again, I pushed my foot on the gas and sped toward the only home I had known since last May.
The Andersons lived in a typical upper middle-class neighborhood where the lawns were green, the weeds didn’t grow, and the streetlights never seemed to burn out. Row after row of two-story, red brick homes sat stoically along the tree-lined streets. The childhood home I left was not in this neighborhood.
After a few quick turns, I was on the Anderson’s street. Up ahead their fro
nt porch light beamed like a beacon, urging Mike to come home.
Come home.
It was eight o’clock and despair lingered, threatening to swallow me in its tidal wave. I had made it through a string of holidays without him, just me as a pretender—a poser acting as if I were a part of his family. How much more could I take?
The Andersons took me in when I could no longer live with my family. Mike and I had just started dating, but that showed the extent of their goodwill. They welcomed me with arms spread so wide I almost got lost in them. It was their kindness and Mike’s love that kept me from plunging off the proverbial cliff. I didn’t think I could go much longer without seeing him.
Snow fell in tiny white bombs on the windshield, melting into water almost immediately. As I came upon the Anderson’s home I kept my eyes straight ahead refusing to look at the driveway, ignoring my fear that he wasn’t home, wasn’t coming home. When the house loomed to my right, I had no other choice but to turn. My heart plummeted confirming my fears. Mike’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
Wasn’t in the driveway yet, I told myself and pinched my thigh.
The empty space was like a giant, gaping hole, not only in the driveway, but also in my life. This driveway needed his car in it. Didn’t he realize that?
As I shuffled toward the house my cheeks stung from the cold, and my nose started to run. I tried to hurry inside toward the warmth and away from the empty space that mocked me. Except I couldn’t. The path was icy. I managed an ungraceful attempt to stay on my feet until I couldn’t hold on any longer, and I landed on my knees. Pain shot through my thighs; I tasted blood from where I bit my tongue.
“Dammit!” I tried to stand, slipped again, and finally managed to find my feet. Levi, my dog, was barking inside. His chocolate eyes watched me from the window where he stood on his hind legs, front paws on the sill. I tried to wave but I couldn’t, my arm too stiff. Snowflakes melted into my long hair and eyelashes.
Levi pawed at the window, barking. The Andersons would be awake, but I was always afraid my animals—Levi and my cat, Scout—were too much of a nuisance, an inconvenience. I tried not to dwell on the inconvenience of me.
I used my key to let myself in, but I didn’t need it. The Andersons hadn’t locked the door. They would be willing Mike to walk through it as strongly as I was.
“Hi, Rowan. How was your day?” Mrs. Anderson, Mike’s mom, clacked into the foyer on her nude pumps. She was dressed in her comfortable clothes, which for her meant pressed khaki slacks and a sweater set. She didn’t wear pearls although they would have fit right in with the outfit. Her brown hair was perfectly styled, her makeup lightly applied.
Behind her, light from two table lamps cast a warm glow to the room. A fire roared in the large fireplace, the flames reflecting off the silver framed family pictures that sat on the mantle.
I swallowed, trying to moisten my throat so my voice would sound less strained than it actually was. “Hi, Mrs. A. My day was good. A dog got adopted, the one with the broken leg that healed funny. We weren’t sure anyone would take her.” Levi, all eighty pounds of him, sat by my leg licking my hand. I stroked the top of his brown head and forced a smile that I knew he wouldn’t believe.
“Well, that’s good.” She glanced out the window, lifting to her toes. Like that would help. Not seeing what she wanted, she turned back to me. “You look cold.” However, she was the one rubbing her arms.
I took off my wet coat and the snow boots Mrs. Anderson gave me when we had the first big snow of the season. They were her old pair and a little big on me but warm. “It’s snowing pretty hard. And the roads are getting slick.”
She sighed and smoothed the sides of her hair. “I wish he would get home. I don’t like him driving in this weather.”
She frowned. The Andersons had four children, but Mike was their youngest and it was obvious they missed him. I understood their feelings completely.
“Has he called?” My breath caught in my throat, threatening to stay stuck if the answer was the wrong one.
“No. I just checked the home phone and my cell.” Her eyes fell on me. “Did he call you?” She folded her arms. “You did take your phone today, didn’t you?”
I set my wet boots out of the way and avoided her stare. She wasn’t comfortable with me not carrying my phone. I couldn’t tell her that the number of times I checked my phone, yearning for Mike to call or text, bordered on obsessive. It was making me crazy always seeing the blank screen, listening for a ring that wasn’t coming. So I left it home to avoid the sinking feeling that came each time it didn’t do what I wanted.
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t take it.”
“Oh, Rowan. I wish you would.” She turned back to the window. “It worries me to think you can’t be reached.”
I put my coat in the closet. “I’m going to run upstairs and shower. I’ll check my phone and if he’s called, I’ll let you know.”
She nodded. Levi followed me as I hobbled up the stairs, my knees aching from the fall. There was a pain in my chest, too although it was entirely unrelated to the slippery ice outside.
My phone sat on the nightstand by the bed where I slept. This room was their daughter, Tabitha’s, but she left home years ago. And now, after her company offered her a position in Australia, she’d taken the job and moved far away. That meant that the Andersons never saw her and the room had become mine.
There was no message on my phone so I padded down the hall to the bathroom that I shared with Mike when he was home. Many of his things were still here—his toothbrush in the holder, his hair gel under the sink, his razor in the medicine cabinet. The only thing missing was him.
Soon steam filled the small space, a thick fog masking the reflection in the mirror. I ran the heel of my hand over the smooth surface, creating a clear oval where my face could stare back at me.
It was a face that had changed since I moved in. My gray eyes had grown brighter, my long brown hair shinier. Within a month of leaving my childhood home, I had gained eight much needed pounds, becoming the healthiest version of myself that had ever existed.
Now, though, the face in the mirror was starting to show the same prominent cheekbones and dark circles that I had before. It was hard living in Mike’s home without him here. I missed him so much I was literally fading away.
In the shower the water scalded my skin. I didn’t change the temperature and took longer than necessary on purpose. Even if Mike showed up in the next five minutes, his parents would want to see him. I didn’t want to interrupt their time together.
I shampooed and conditioned my hair, trying to wash out the stench of the shelter, then ran a prickly loofah over my skin, careful of my left arm where a dozen ugly lines and a very prominent A covered the inside, evidence of why I lived with the Andersons and not with my own family. The cuts, forged by the steel of a razor blade, were healed well enough, but old habits died hard. I was so used to not touching that arm that avoiding it was automatic, like brushing my teeth before bed.
When I walked down the hall back to my room, I listened for voices. At first, it was quiet. Not again. I felt so low I wasn’t sure I could handle another disappointment. How could he not come home again? Then I heard it. Mike’s voice. My breath stopped for a second as I listened.
I hurried to the window at the end of the hall that looked over the front yard and the driveway. The empty space was filled with Mike’s blue Mazda.
He was home.
Mike was home.
I yanked a brush through my hair, pulled on yoga pants and a warm sweatshirt. I darted out of my bedroom and then tried to take slow, deliberate steps. I didn’t want to go flying into the room like a maniacal squirrel. And I wanted him to have some time with his parents.
But the harder I tried, the faster my feet moved until I was hurdling down the stairs, soaring through the front hall, and catapulting myself into Mike’s arms. He tried to catch his balance but fell onto the couch with me on top of him.
I inhaled deeply, pulling his scent into my body. He smelled the same as I remembered; so uniquely Mike—musky with a hint of his hair gel—that I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. A drowning man didn’t clutch a life preserver as hard as I held onto Mike.
Finally, I released my grasp so I could look at him. Stubble darker and thicker than I remembered covered his face. There were circles under his eyes, and his skin was pale.
“You look tired,” I said. What I didn’t tell him was that he was still the most handsome guy I had ever seen.
“God, I’m exhausted.” He shimmied out from underneath me. His parents sat in opposite chairs. Mrs. Anderson’s face lit brighter than a bulb, and Mr. Anderson’s splashed with a look of contentment I hadn’t seen in months.
Delilah, Mike’s bulldog, struggled up onto his lap. “Hey girl.” She licked his face and Mike laughed. The sound had been absent so long from the house that his parents and I sighed at the same time. The three of us relaxed and our smiles grew. He was home.
Mike put his arm around my shoulders, and I scooted into his body, wanting it to absorb my own. Delilah flashed me a look with her droopy brown eyes that told me that Mike was her territory, but I didn’t care. She was all wrinkled fur and heavy chest and tenderness beneath the gruff exterior. Levi licked his knee, and Mike rubbed his chin.
“I’ll get you something to eat.” Mrs. Anderson hopped up from the chair and started toward the kitchen. “I made dinner and it’s warming in the oven. Chili. Your favorite.”
“I’m not hungry, Mom. I stopped on the way home.”
“Well, you need to eat. You look like you’re getting too skinny.”
Mike patted his flat, hard stomach. He not only didn’t look skinny, he looked bigger—more muscular and fit. I ran my hand over his thigh, feeling the strength that got him a position on his college soccer team, careful not to run my hand too high in front of his dad. He glanced down at me and winked.
My Name Is Rowan: The Complete Rowan Slone Trilogy Page 18
