by Lindy Zart
“Anywhere other than various doctors, yes.”
“Was it so bad?” We're almost to the door. I glance behind me, my eyesight in slow motion with my movement, and note his hand hovering by my elbow in case I need assistance.
“Well, it wasn't excruciating, so it was a little better than I had estimated. Your obvious need for attention and melodramatic acting sort of trumped my disfigurement.”
I want to glare at him, but the motion would cause me pain. I settle for mumbling, “Jerk.”
He snorts.
For once, I am thankful for the clouds that have taken over the sky and hidden the sun. Even the gray is sensitive to my eyes. I look down as I walk, feeling incompetent and loathing the fact that I do. Understanding for Rivers scorches me, hot and complete in its burn. He must hate people looking after him all the time, watching over him, trying to help him. I just want this helpless feeling to go away and never return. At least in his case, he will slowly get better, if he lets himself.
That isn't an option for me.
When he opens the passenger car door for me, I tell him, “We make quite the pair right now.”
I don't think he is going to respond, but then he says, “We do, don't we?”
I AWAKE TO THE CRASH of thunder, my eyes opening just as lightning flares to life outside. Rain pours down, pinging against the glass doors and windows. There is only the light of the thunderstorm to offer visual assistance. I check my phone to see how long I've been asleep and note the missing calls from Monica and my mom. I slept five hours. My head is free of pain and I am grateful for it, though my mouth feels dry and there is a languidness in my limbs that makes it hard for me to get them moving.
I call my mother first and let her know everything is okay, not mentioning my mega headache that put me out for over five hours. I know I need to tell her, but I just can't bring myself to, not yet. Soon, I silently promise her and myself. Monica informs me Rivers called her a few hours ago, that she knows about my headache, and refers to it as a migraine, telling me rest is the best thing for them. I agree with the assessment, but not the term she uses.
I don't have migraines. I have something much, much worse.
She sounds tired, but her tone is also lighter than usual, and if I had to guess as to why, I would say it's because her son is reaching out to her, if only through the phone. The phone is better than nothing. Thomas' mom is the same and she tells me they may have to stay longer. I tell her that's fine and hang up. And it is fine. I'm not really sure what I'm thinking or doing or why the thought of going home makes me even uneasier than usual, but it's almost like when I am here, I can tell myself this is my reality. It won't last, I know, but it's like a little joy in the midst of tragedy. I watch the tree limbs shudder under the force of the strong winds, taking comfort that even in the middle of nature's wrath, I am safe.
For now.
I find Rivers outside, sitting in his chair just under the roof ledge. Strangely shy after my unfortunate ordeal earlier, I take hesitant steps toward him. For the first time that I can remember, he speaks first. “Do you get them often?”
I wait until a large rumbling of thunder is over before answering. “Recently, about weekly.”
“Before that?”
“I don't know. Rarely.” I bite my lip, hoping he finds a different subject to discuss. Anything would be better, really, even a conversation about ingrown toenails.
He looks up at me, a frown turning his lips down. “And have you gone to the doctor?”
I rub my arms and look into the black depths of the pool. The temperature has dropped considerably with the appearance of the storm. “You sound concerned.” My tone is flippant and I can tell he doesn't appreciate it when he continues to wait for me to answer. I sigh. “Yes. They're just headaches.” Lying is becoming increasingly easy for me lately. Or telling partial truths, I should say.
“Migraines?” he guesses.
I shrug noncommittally and he doesn't press. I pull over a chair and sit down beside him, taking in the rain, the occasional clap of thunder, the way the sky lights up to daytime from atmospheric electricity. We sit in silence, but it isn't tense. There is peacefulness to it, the sound of raindrops pummeling the house and ground calming. I have so many questions I could ask him, but none of them seem important right now. Sitting here like this is more therapeutic than any conversation could be.
Minutes tick by and I jump when he says, “I'm sorry. About earlier.” He glances at me, his eyes glowing in the near dark. “I shouldn't have said what I did. It was mean.”
I pick at an uneven edge of my thumbnail. “Honestly, it doesn't really phase me anymore. I'm used to it. ”
“But not from me,” he tells me roughly.
I meet his gaze. “What does it matter if you're the one saying the words or the one standing there saying nothing to refute them?”
He winces, facing forward. “I thought being popular made me fearless. None of it was real. I'm not courageous. And clearly I wasn't as well-liked as I'd assumed either.” His eyes flicker to me and away as he says this.
“Oh, loads of people liked you. Envied you.” I pause. “But then there were the rest of us.”
The laugh is gruff and cuts off short, but that he laughed at all freezes me in place. It's a deep, rich sound that has a melodious cast to it. It reminds me of a cool breeze to break the unrelenting heat of a smoldering sun—unexpected but appreciated.
“I don't...I don't really remember too much about you. I mean, I remember seeing you, but most of the time, you were just...there,” he says slowly, clearly embarrassed to admit such a thing. “Was I that bad?”
I blow out a noisy breath and focus on the puddle of water my feet are resting in. “Do you really want to get into this? You have a clean slate, you know. School is over. However you choose to be from now on has no correlation to how you used to be. Why bring it up? Why wonder?”
Something I said must have irked him because Rivers is up and glaring at me before I finish my words. “You know what? Never mind. You act like you're so superior, and even though I don't remember a lot about you, I do remember your mouth. Sure, you got a lot of shit tossed your way, but you gave it back just as harshly. Or did you forget about that?”
He's already stalking away when I whisper, “Clean slate.”
I don't know how long I stay outside, the numbness inside me seeping to my exterior as the coldness of night wraps around me. He's right. I didn't really have any friends in school, and part of it was because of how Riley and Crew treated me—no one wanted to be picked on by association with me, but some of it was how I acted as well. I made it hard for others to approach me when I wore a chronic scowl on my face and talked back to anyone who said something I could take offensively. I thought that was the way I wanted to be, that making my individuality prominent was a way of showing strength, but now, I realize maybe I was trying too hard to be different.
You need to be yourself, but you also shouldn't feel like you have to fight everyone, even yourself, to be it.
I didn't want to get hurt, so I didn't open myself up to anyone to even allow for the potential of being hurt. I assumed anyone talking to me had an ulterior agenda and responded in kind. Did that mean I was a backwards bully? Maybe. I never thought about it before. I don't mind solitude, but I guess once in a while it would have been nice to have someone to talk to, had I felt the need to. I had a group of classmates I loosely hung around, but were any of them friends? I don't think so. And the reason for that falls on my shoulders. Apparently Rivers is not the only one who needs to take a look at his younger years and analyze how he was compared to how he should have been. I sort of have. That's why I am choosing to be positive instead of negative, why I want to smile instead of frown, why I decided to not care about anything other than just being me.
This summer is supposed to be my last chance do-over on so many levels.
The chattering of my teeth tells me it's time to go inside. I do, the silence
echoing behind me with enormity. I head to the sun room, tugging a book from my tote to settle in for an evening of reading. I don't want to be around Rivers right now, and I am sure the feeling is reciprocated. We both have said things the other didn't appreciate hearing.
Hours pass, my eyelids growing so heavy I can no longer keep them open. I sink into the abyss that is slumber, awakening during the night to a noise that tugged at my consciousness even as I rested.
I already know it was Rivers.
I don't turn on the light. I don't speak. I walk to the bed and touch his clammy brow, his body almost immediately relaxing. I climb into the bed, halfway sitting up, and wrap my arms around his trembling form, holding him. I don't know if he is awake or sleeping, but eventually his breathing evens out and his arms slowly move to lock around my waist, his head of dark hair resting against my stomach. Something weaves its way through me, coming to rest in my heart. I don't put a name to it. It isn't that I don't think I can—it's more that I am not ready.
We sit like this, my fingers gently tracing the lines of the scars that start at the crown of his head and end near his temple, moving on to the short locks of his silky hair. I tighten my hold on him, feeling the hardness of his muscled body, wondering how someone so physically strong can be so emotionally vulnerable, knowing we never truly understand another until we have been in the same place they are at. Maybe that's why I care for a boy I don't want to care for, and deny that I do every other thought.
As I hold Rivers in my arms for the duration of the night, I decide I will fight his demons for him if he can't fight them on his own. It isn't a matter of whether or not he'll allow me to, because I think just being here with him is enough most of the time. Something in him needs something in me. I saw it today and I saw it the first day I saw him after his injury. Rivers needs to know someone cares about him. I can be that person. After all, that is why I originally came here.
WE ARE IN SOME SORT of routine, but it is a strange one. At night we sleep wrapped around one another and during the day, we barely speak. I can't say the sleeping arrangement is all for Rivers' benefit anymore because I sleep so soundly when I am with him, more peaceful than I recall ever sleeping before. I want to rest beside him. I want to close my eyes at night knowing he is next to me. I want to hear his breathing, feel his arms, smell his scent, and get lost in him so that I forget me.
There isn't anything sexual about our sleeping arrangements—although, yes, I should admit I am attracted to him which is absolutely crazy because I'm not even sure I really like him—but it's about the safety I feel near him. I keep his nightmares at bay and he keeps my world at a distance.
It's strange, but even though there is darkness and quiet and little touching between us at night, it is as though the nighttime hours are stitching us together, making us into something we are not consciously aware of. I feel closer to him. I feel like I am starting to know him. We seem to unknowingly gravitate toward one another during the day. He finds me or I find him. Maybe words aren't necessary—maybe that's why we hardly speak. I just need to look up and see him or he just needs to enter a room and feel me.
I take him to his physical therapy sessions two times the first week and a counselor once. His body is exhausted from the first and his mind from the second. He doesn't speak at all after the counseling session for the remainder of the day. I want to ask him what makes him close up the way he does, but I assume it's from the horror of the accident. Doubt trickles through my mind, asking, What if it's more than that?
Monica and Thomas decide to stay in California until his mother passes on—the doctors say it won't be longer than a week or two more before the cancer irrevocably claims her. According to Monica, any time Thomas mentioned returning home, his mother broke down and cried. It's hard to leave someone you know is dying, when they weep at the thought of your departure. Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone if no one knew when they are dying. Too bad that isn't an option for some.
Each time I talk to Monica, guilt eats away at me. She thinks I'm doing some great thing for her son, but am I really? Sure, he's engaging his mother in conversation and finally acting more like a human being than a robot, but what happens at the end of the summer, when all of this is over? I'll go back to my life and Rivers will go back to his, and these few months spent together will be a piece of the past.
Do they have to be? I answer myself with a resounding, Yes. It's nice to pretend for a while, but the truth always catches up to you. Always.
I'm swimming laps like I do just about every evening. I feel his eyes on me and heat goes through the length of my body. There is nothing predatory or seductive about his gaze; it's more of a studious observance, but knowing he is examining all the dips and curves of my body as I swim makes me self-conscious. The intensity with which Rivers watches the world makes my pulse skip. He doesn't just look at things—he sees things. I don't know how I never noticed this about him. I think I saw all his flaws and didn't even look for his good points. I guess I did exactly what I accused him of doing. I also think I need to admit to myself that I wasn't any better than those around me that I thought were so terrible.
Maybe he never gave me a chance, but did I ever give him one?
I tread water as I face him. “Want to come in?”
Indecision shadows his features.
“Oh, come on. You sit there and watch me almost every day. It's obvious you want to be in here too. What's stopping you?”
“I like watching you,” he confesses.
I brush water from my face because I am suddenly nervous and don't know what to do with my hands. “Why?” I blurt out.
Broad shoulders lift and lower. “You're like a fish. A natural in the water. It's soothing to watch.”
“I'm sure you're a much better swimmer. Haven't you been in some form of body of water most of your life? I've seen the pictures—swimming, jet skiing, surfing, water skiing, boating—you've done it all.” His face darkens, but it's too late, there's no going back now. I trudge onward. “What happened, Rivers? What happened out on the river?”
You shouldn't have gotten hurt, is the unspoken sentence I bite back. Not with his natural prowess on the water. True, accidents can happen to anyone—no matter their level of adequacy, but what if it was something more? Negligence comes to mind. Who was driving the boat? Who was out on the water with him that day? Was he drinking or was he sober? If he was drinking, that would at least make it a little more understandable. Maybe he was intoxicated and misjudged the distance between the boat and the water, or maybe he slipped. Maybe.
The real question is: How did he fall into the water and get injured that bad?
“I don't want to talk about it.”
I open my mouth to push the conversation and then decide against it. With a shrug I return to my laps. I know the exact moment he goes inside. My body cools without the burn of his gaze on me and I feel strangely empty and lonely. I've always sort of been alone, but I've never really felt lonely. Unease creeps through me as I get to my feet in the water. It feels like everything is backfiring on me. I had it all figured out; all the details were sound, unbreakable. I knew what I was going to do. It was a simple plan.
Only nothing is happening the way I thought it would.
THE DOORBELL CHIMES THREE TIMES before I toss my book aside with a sigh and get up to answer it. It's Friday night, and I do realize how lame it is of me to be reading on a Friday night, but I haven't read a book for pleasure since I was twelve. The person at the door is totally interrupting my reading time, and I know Rivers had to have heard the doorbell because his bedroom is closer to the front door than the sun room is. He may be physically compromised, but he isn't deaf. And it isn't like whoever is at the door is here for me. I don't live here—he does. It's a given they've come to see Rivers. So why am I the one answering the door?
It's ridiculous to get upset over this, but I am finding that pretty much everything about Rivers aggravates me on some level.
I haven't fully analyzed why just yet. I'll save that self-discovery for another rainy day. I try to calm myself down by saying maybe he has his music loud and can't hear the doorbell, but when I pass by the closed bedroom door, I hear silence. Ear buds. He could have ear buds in. He so doesn't. I know it. He's simply being his moody and difficult self again, like he is prone to be.
I draw my hand toward me when it fists and raises to pound on his door, instead moving on to the front door. Mentally groaning at the sight that greets me, I feign nonchalance as I nod. “Riley.”
To say she is surprised might be an understatement. Her chestnut locks are all wild around her pretty face, her slim body is clothed in a black halter dress, and her eyes continually blink as her mouth slowly closes when only seconds before it was hanging open. And then, of course, there's the scent of her perfume—candy and flowers—in all its cloying enormity to further agitate me.
“Um...” She looks around like she thinks maybe she got the wrong house, finally fixing her blue eyes on me. “What are you doing here?”
I cross my arms. “I work here.”
My action draws her eyes down and her brows furrow as she takes in my purple tank top and black shorts. They're skimpy, I guess, but I am ready for bed. I wasn't expecting a social visit at nine in the evening, but I should have known there was a chance Rivers would have one. My bad. I guess he should have answered the door then.
“At night?”
“Temporarily.”
“I don't understand.”
She really doesn't. I kind of feel bad for her. She is so prettily confused. Then I remember how viperous she can be and stiffen my spine. “Monica and Thomas had to leave the state for a week or so and asked me to babysit.”
