Lows or life?
I dry off and stand in front of the mirror, towel wrapped around my body. I open my medicine cabinet and actually consider taking my meds as I gaze at the orange bottle of pills. I pick it up, take off the lid, dispense one pill into my palm, then toss it into the toilet and flush.
It is just life. The shit storm that has transpired. It is our circumstance, not me.
My grandparents visited last night. As dinner ended, the conversation of graduation came up. I quickly faked a stomachache and went up to my room. As I ascended the steps, I heard their comments to Mom and Dad:“She will regret this decision.” “You should have more control over her.” “Is she still seeing that doctor about her condition?”And the best one:“She isn’t ready to go out into the real world with that attitude.”
I muster enough footing to make it to the kitchen, pour a cup of juice, and make a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal. I don’t eat it, I just stare at it as I stand at the kitchen sink, watching the yellow puffs floating in milk. I take a few bites, then dump the rest out.
***
“I’m home. You up, Evan?” Mom calls from downstairs around five.
I sway side to side in my chair as I clean the lens of my camera. Does she really think I slept all day?
“Yeah.”
Dad comes home soon after her. I hear them talking in low voices, then the smell of cooking, the clinking of utensils on plates, the washing of dishes, and the sound of the evening news following in succession. Hunger hasn’t caught up to the gurgling sounds my stomach is making. With only a few ounces of cereal in my stomach, I hear the lecturer in my head.
The responsible thing would be to go downstairs and have dinner.
***
I don’t turn on the light in the kitchen, hoping they won’t detect me. I stare at the saran-wrapped plate with a serving of rice, vegetables, and baked chicken sitting on the stove. Suddenly light floods the kitchen.
“Hey, Mom made you a plate if you are hungry,”Dad says somberly.
“Evan, I made a plate for you, honey!”Mom calls from the living room.
“Yeah, honey, I told her,”Dad says.
“Thanks,”I call to her as I unwrap the plate and place it in the microwave.
“You still in your pajamas, Evan?” Dad asks as he takes the half gallon of ice cream out of the freezer. He doesn’t realize how condescending his question sounds right now. I watch the plate of food spin around in the microwave.
“No, I showered then put on another pair of pajamas. Is that a problem?”
Shit, why did I say that?
I hear Dad’s spoon hit the counter.“No, it isn’t a problem, Evan.”
The guilt outweighs the rage.“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just not feeling all that good.”
The microwave beeps and turns off just in time for me to grab the plate and make a beeline for the stairs.
Dad tells me it is all right just as Mom walks into the kitchen, stopping me in the middle of the kitchen.“What’s all right?”she questions.
“Nothing,”Dad says with a spoonful of rocky road in his mouth.
Both of them watch me as I hold my plate of food in hand at the foot of the stairs.“I’llbe upstairs.”
“Did you want to eat down here?”Mom asks slowly.
I shake my head and turn toward the stairs, not before she stops me again.“Evan, wait.”
“Mom and I met with Dr. Larson today,”Dad says.
Great. What did she say to them? What did they talk about?
“Why?”
Dad shakes his head.“We just needed to talk about what you are experiencing, Evan. To try and understand it from your point of view. Dr. Larson kept everything between her and you confidential. This was just for mom and I.”
“We needed to understand why you chose not to go to graduation,”Mom confesses.
I could have easily gotten mad, been enraged that they had gone to my doctor to talk about me, but knowing they are trying to understand why I chose not to walk the stage, I can’t be angry.“Thank you for trying to understand.”
They invite me to join them but I told them I just want to eat and go to bed.
“Are you feeling okay?”Mom questions suspiciously.
“Yeah, just tired.”
She isn’t going to buy that.
Mom tilts her head.“Will you be all right to see Dr. Larson tomorrow? You have an appointment. Isn’t it about time for a refill on your medication?”
Yeah, she doesn’t buy it and she is fishing for something.
I start to walk passed her.“Yeah, I’llbe fine. Appointment is at noon, right?”
I add in the time to drive home my taking responsibility, and get her off my case.
“Right,”she says from behind me.
For one extra dose of assurance to throw her off, I stop at the stairs and make a joke,“So let me try and understand this. You and Dad voluntarily got shrunk by Dr. Larson?”
She shakes her head and snickers.“Yeah, we did.”
Officially thrown off my trail.
“Night,”I call back to her as I climb the stairs.
Chapter 15:
Cast Iron Heart
Brody is sitting on the back porch and my urge to go over there is too strong to resist.
Covertly, I close the door behind me as I step onto my back porch. My nerves buzz as I remember the feeling I would get when I used to sneak out to talk with Brody and Gav; seems so long ago now.
I’m just going to go over there to check on him. Today might have been rough.
I hesitate at the Fergusons’side gate, my heart pounding against my chest.
Friends do that. They check on each other, take care of them. That is all I’m doing.
I open the gate quietly and close it behind me. I stand there looking at the gate for a few seconds.
I shouldn’t be here. He won’t want me here. Why am I hanging on?
“What are you doing?”
Brody’s voice startles me as I jump a little in my skin and spin around to see him leaning his back against one of the porch columns. His voice, it isn’t rude or condescending, just surprised.
“Um, I wanted to see if you were okay.”
He stares at me as I walk toward him since I can’t see him very well in the dim light of the porch from here. I notice a slight grin on his lips as I get closer. I also notice the beer bottle in his hand and have a smart-ass remark on the tip of my tongue to boot, but I keep my mouth shut. I didn’t come here to be sarcastic or snide.
Brody’s soiled white work shirt seems to hug his strong arms and chest tighter than it used to as he raises the beer to his lips, then hesitates as he responds,“I’m fine. You?”
He takes a drink of his beer and waits for my answer.
He is calmly waiting for my answer while I’m a bundle of nerves. I’m tempted to steal the beer from his hands and take a drink myself just to quell the fluster of nerves in my stomach.“I’m good.”
Brody nods and dangles his beer at his side once again. The silence that settles between us is awkward and I feel stupid for coming here, interrupting his inebriated peace. Not that he is drunk yet, but I think he is working on it as I notice the empty bottle on the table. I tuck my hands in the back pockets of my jean cut-offs as I glance back at my house.“I guess I’m going to go now.”
I step off of the porch backward to walk back home just as Brody asks,“So, you went to see Gava couple of days ago?”
I did. I wanted to see him and didn’t want to ask Mrs. Ferguson to go with me. I had just dropped off Lia and was thinking of Brody and the closest I could get to him was to visit Gavin. I look up into his eyes just as he looks down at his beer bottle.
“Yeah, just wanted to see him, you know.”
Brody watches me, waiting for me to give more details, but I don’t. He moves from the column, puts his beer down on the table, and angles his chair to face me as he sits. He fans the edges of a small notebook on the tab
le next to the empty beer bottle.
I wonder what the notebook is for?
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I went to see him today. He said he saw you,”Brody says as he continues to fan the pages of the notebook.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.“Look, I need to say something to you, California.”
He just called me California. I have stopped breathing.
This isn’t the Brody who has avoided contact, dodged every conversation, and kept me at a distance for the last several months. This is a sliver of the Brody I remember from before all of the bad came raining down.
He just fucking called me California!
“Okay.”I nervously kick the wooden step in front of me with the tip of my flip-flop.
“Could you sit for a minute?”Brody asks as he pulls around an empty chair with one hand
I’m kicking the shit out of the wooden step now, thinking this must be something important if he is asking me to sit down ... with him.
“Please.”The added sentiment and the plea in his eyes make it impossible for me to stall any longer.
He doesn’t speak right away, so I glance up at him to see why he is hesitating. He’s watching me, but as soon as he notices me make eye contact, he looks away.
“Gavin and I were talking about birthdays today. He said he wanted to write everyone's birthdays on a calendar.”His grin is wide as he talks about Gav.
The grin slips away as Brody glances at me.
“Is he okay?”I ask.
Brody nods then chuckles as he raises his eyebrows,“Yeah, he is fine. He just put me in my place, that’s all.”
I smile, remembering how I had been put in my place a few times by Gavin.“What did he say?”
Brody shakes his head.“It isn’t what he said. It’s what I did.”
He isn’t smiling anymore. He is staring at me with the most serious look on his face.“That night everyone met at G.G.’s for your birthday, I should have been there. I flaked.”
Uh, yeah you did, mister.
“Yeah, well I wasn’t into celebrating; none of us have been. Plus you were working, right?”
Yes, I know he wasn’t at work and yeah it is a bitchy move to guilt trip him. I feel bad for even saying it now.
Brody shakes his head.“I wasn’t at work. I was sitting out here, drinking, telling myself it was best for everyone if I just stayed away.”
He opens his arms and looks down at himself.“Look at me,I’m a fucking mess, Evan!”
He grabs the beer bottle and holds it in his hand.“Why should I bring you and Nik, Asher, and Liadown with me?”
Watching him put himself down, treating himself like he is nothing, breaks my heart and I just want to shake him and tell him that he should have fucking come to us, opened up, instead of shutting us out ... shutting me out and drinking away his sorrows!
I look out into the Fergusons’ yard, up at the full moon and remember the first time I stood out here with Brody and Gavin.“When you, Gav, Nikki, Lia, and Asher befriended me, I didn’t understand why you would welcome someone like me. Someone damaged and friendless that could offer nothing because I didn’t have a clue how to be anything other than a loner, an outcast. I was a fucking mess, but you all welcomed me.”
I look at him.“Gav, Nikki, and you ... you were the first people to show me that friends take care of each other no matter what.”
I look out at the yard again, feeling my eyes fill with tears. The moon is blurred as it touches the silhouetted trees. I imagine Gavin spinning in the yard as I speak.“You all were the first to show me that I was more. You were the first to...”
...love me.
I stop myself before I take it too far.
“The thing is, you aren’t shielding or protecting us from anything. We see what is happening to you and we want to be there for you. I want to be there for you.”
My throat tightens and aches as I hold back the cries and sobs scratching to release and damn my voice for giving me away to him. I don’t say goodbye, I don’t even look at him, and I barely make it down the porch step without falling as I run back to my house.
I think I hear him whisper loudly,“Evan, wait!”
Or maybe it is the sound of the blowing wind against the leaves giving way to my hope that he was calling for me to come back.
I hold myself together long enough to get up the stairs and into my room. I cry silently into my pillow until it is damp and the tears streaking my cheeks have dried. I listen to the wind whistle and the trees scrape the roof of our house, then the rain tapping against the roof. As I lay there, exhausted and depleted of hot tears and emotion, I think of Nikki and what she said about the emotion-barring armor we all wear and how it shields us from hurt and pain.
What she doesn’t realize is not all of us have this armor, this shield that she talked about. Some of us live life without it and those people feel pain, hurt, love, heartbreak, and loss harder and stronger than anyone could imagine. After talking to Brody tonight, confessing my feelings and breaking down in front of him, I can see I have been living without armor, going through life without a shield, while everyone else has mastered using theirs. Maybe that is why I have mentally broken down in the past and why I am so messed up now; it is my weakness. And as the rain and wind grow stronger and more ferocious, I imagine my heart hardening into a cast-iron mold, one that I imagine could withstand the ache I feel right now.
***
The next day, I hear a knock on our front door. I suspect Mom or Dad will answer, but the knock comes again, then the doorbell rings.
Guess they aren’t home.
I throw my comforter off my bed and immediately feel the pounding of my head - crying hangover. I stomp down the stairs to the front door, thenlook out the peephole. It’s Brody. I back away from the door quickly, like it is made of fire or some kind of terrible poison that will only cause me pain. I hear the crackling sound of paper being slipped between the door and the frame. I stare at the small slice of paper that is visible on my side of the door, eager to see what it says, but waiting for Brody to leave. I step up to the peephole again, silently looking to see if he has left. With him gone, I pull the slip of paper from the door and open it.
Acknowledgments
I have said this a million times, and I will say it a million more: It takes a village to produce a novel as well as any work of fiction. The village I have been blessed with has helped bring this novel from imagination to realization. It could not have been accomplished with the energy of so many behind the scenes.
My publishing house, Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly. Thank you for opening your minds, hearts, and arms to the Evan series. Dawn Miller, thank you for being an extraordinary friend first and a meticulous critique partner second. Your critiques, opinions, and nudges to push the characters make my stories more compelling than I originally imagined they could ever be. My troupe of beta readers, Dahlings, thank you for your candid feedback and dedication to the spirit of the written word. The Venessa Kimball Fan Club, thank you for embracing and spreading the word about my writing. I am truly blessed to have fans as great as you! Austin Digital Darling gals, love you and thank you for the inspiration and motivation you infuse into the atmosphere every month at our gatherings. I owe you a cheese tray and maybe an antipasti tray too. To the bloggers and community of readers that have put energy and time into posting and spreading the word about my writing. You have been the life line for my books as they make their way into sea of novels and novelettes. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for all that you do to spread the word for authors worldwide.
Author Biography
Always passionate about the written word, Venessa Kimball embarked on writing what would become her debut novel, Piercing the Fold: Book 1; a young adult paranormal/sci-fi series. July 2, 2012, Venessa Kimball independently published the first book in the Piercing the Fold series. Book 2, Surfacing the Rim, released March 14, 2013. In August of 2013, Venessa joined th
e publishing house, Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly. The Piercing the Fold series has been re-published with CHBB beginning with Piercing the Fold: Book 1 on September 3, 2013. Surfacing the Rim: Book 2 re-published on September 24, 2013 and Ascending the Veil: Book 3 released November 2013. The fourth book in the series, Transcendingthe Legacy: Book 4 released May 13, 2014. Kimball’s compelling teen contemporary fiction novel, Dismantling Evan, released January 13, 2015. Venessais currently working on the Evan series, having just completed two novelettes featuring Gavin’s point of view; Saving Gavin and Resurrecting Gavin. Reviving Evan is the third installment in the series.
The Evan series will continue, but as for future projects, she is actively filling her Work-In-Progress folder with some world piercing characters and stories. When Venessa is not writing, she is keeping active with her husband and three children; chauffeuring said children to extracurricular activities, catching a movie with her hubby, and staying up way too late reading.
You can find Venessa Kimball socially at the following:
www.VenessaKimball.net
http://www.facebook.com/venessakimballauthor
http://www.twitter.com/venessakimball
Other Titles Published by Venessa Kimball
YA/ Teen Paranormal Sci-Fi series
Piercing the Fold
Piercing the Fold: Book 1
Surfacing the Rim: Book 2
Ascending the Veil: Book 3
Transcending the Legacy: Book 4
YA/Teen Contemporary Fiction Series
the Evan series
YA/Teen
Dismantling Evan: Book 1
Saving Gavin: a Novelette, vol 1
Resurrecting Gavin: a Novelette, vol 2
Reviving Evan: a Novella
Reviving Evan (A Dismantling Evan Companion Novella) Page 10
