by Lindy Zart
“Neither one of us knew our dads,” he remarks.
“No.”
“But at least I know my dad's name. You don't even have that part of yours. That really sucks. A lot. I don't know what to say—I'm not any good at comforting people, sorry.”
I give a small lift of my shoulders. He can't see my movement and maybe he didn't even feel it. Maybe I am shrugging for no reason other than to shrug. So I reply, “You're really not fluent in making people feel better, I'll give you that.”
Suddenly I am wrapped in strong, warm arms with my head resting on a solid chest. For the first time since we started our nightly sleep-overs, he is consoling me. My heart sighs and I fight the impulse to hold him back. Whatever we have, if we even really have anything, I don't want to tamper with it.
“I'm not sad about it,” I reassure him.
His fingers stroke hair from my face, lingering near my lips before falling away. “You sound sad.”
“I am, but not about that,” I tell him truthfully.
Rivers moves so that he is partially leaning over me, his eyes shining in the night as he studies me, the glow of the moon reflected in them. “What are you sad about?”
I rise up and gently touch my lips to his. I figure the worst he can do is not kiss me. He goes still, his lips unresponsive against mine, and just as a trickle of disappoint weaves through my heart, he parts his lips and kisses me back. It's slow, hesitant, flooding me with sweetness I have never experienced before. The kiss deepens, his body pressing against mine, and the poignancy of it is snatched away and replaced with heat. My veins, my core, every part of me is flooded with fire. I don't want him to stop. It is a dangerous path I have started on, but not going down it would have been even more detrimental.
Imagine if I had never kissed him, just once.
I break away first, knowing our relationship has morphed once more, and that the blame falls on me. Is this wrong? My intentions are purely innocent, but am I still at fault if someone ends up hurt? I'm stealing moments because I know none of this can last. I'm not being fair to him. I'm not being fair to anyone, not even me. But when I look at him, when I touch him, and even when I just know he is near, I feel alive in a way that tells me life truly is infinite, in some aspect. I feel like there is nothing that can take me away from here, from him.
I feel like I have found my positive, and it is a doozy of one.
He stares down at me, his chest grazing mine each time he pulls and releases air from his lungs. My pulse is going haywire, and I shove him aside when I note the way I am clenching his thigh between my legs. Apparently my body was doing more than my brain was capable of deciphering. Neither of us speaks, the pounding of my heart loud enough to make words inessential. I wouldn't be able to hear myself talk anyway—I can barely make sense of my thoughts that are careening wildly out of control at the moment. Closing my eyes, I focus on breathing. That I can at least manage to do.
My body loosens up and my heartbeat slows. I tell myself I have to stop this, but the discomfort that comes with that thought calls me a liar. There is no stopping this. I don't think I could if I tried. Whatever this is, whatever we have, I am choosing to look at it as a gift. One I may have to return, but a gift all the same. I will treasure it while I can.
"I talk about Thomas—at the therapy sessions," he says in a low voice.
I close my eyes as my chest tightens; in joy that he is sharing this with someone, in sorrow that his step-dad can't be what he needs in a father figure, and in bittersweet pain that he has chosen me to confide in. It's all a jumbled up mess of emotions.
"What do you talk about?"
"My earliest memories, my only memories, are of him telling me failure was not an option, that I wasn't anything unless I was something, and that second place was for quitters. One time, when I fell and skinned my knees, he told me to get up and not to cry—told me to be a man about it. I was four."
I want to reach out to him but fold my fingers into my palm instead.
"I got second place in the fifth grade spelling bee and he punished me by making me choose one word every day from the dictionary to write an essay on. I had to do it for a whole month."
I wince, his pain touching me in tendrils of discord, flowing through my limbs, into my veins, and pooling within the center of my being.
"He told me I had to be the best, at everything. He expected perfection from me, but you know what? He never gave it back. He failed at being a father and I want to tell him that, and every day I don't, it eats me up. I let it control my life, I let it determine the person I was going to be, and it wasn't someone I am proud of. I told myself it was who I needed to be, who I wanted to be, but...since my accident, I know it never was. I have all these awards, I had the girl, the popularity, everything—and all I felt was empty.
"Now it feels like I'm fighting to be me, and I am not just fighting myself, but the weight of his judgment as well, and it is so...heavy. And I keep losing. But..." he trails off, inhaling deeply. "But I also feel like maybe I can finally do it, and I don't know if it's because you're here, or just because I finally don't care what he thinks of me, and...anyway—I keep trying. No matter how many times I don't get it right or I mess up, I don't stop. And I guess that makes the power he has always held over me become nothing."
I don't speak, his words more dominant than any control Thomas ever tried to wield over him. Though we are merely inches apart, the space between us is wide and insurmountable. It's the doubt growing to slam up walls between us. It's the fear unraveling the bits of us that have come together. It's every insecurity we can possibly dream up shredding the magic created between a boy named Rivers and a girl named Delilah. And we're letting it win with our silence.
I refuse to let it.
I roll to my side, placing my hand over his heart, and feel the steady tempo of it beating against my palm. His hand covers mine, holding it there. "You're stronger than you think you are."
"Am I?" Doubt twists his voice and turns it disbelieving.
I turn my hand so that my palm is up, resting against his, and lock our fingers together. "Desperately stronger."
His chest rises in a deep inhalation of air, his fingers tightening around mine. We fall asleep like this—just the touching of our hands enough to wash away all the darkness of circumstances we have no say in. Sometimes we cannot control what happens to us, but we can decide how to go on from it.
OUT OF EVERYTHING I HAVE found out so far this summer—good and bad, I think realizing what I feel for Rivers scares me the most. How can emotions be more worrisome than all the rest of it? I roll my shoulders and sit back on my heels, dropping the rag into the tub of soapy water. Everything about Rivers terrifies me. There. I admitted it. But what scares me the most about him is that he makes me want more—more of everything. More than this life, more than what I am promised, more than I can ever truly have.
I see who he used to be, who he is now, and who he can be, and all of that melds together into what he is. Rivers is a scarred young man, but I am only now seeing that they run deeper than I imagined. What he told me last night closed the deal—I cannot go back to thinking I knew him. I am only starting to now. There is depth to him I wasn't expecting—there are so many layers of him to pull away and I want to be the one to do it, and that is wrong of me.
It doesn't matter. I can't turn off what I feel and I don't want to.
I finish scrubbing the walls of the upstairs bathroom. It is even bigger than the downstairs one and that is already impressive. My shoulders and arms ache and my fingers are wrinkly and prune-like. I've been hiding out in the upper half of the house all morning. It's silly to think that in staying away from Rivers, I can pretend I don't feel what I do. On a positive note, the upper level of the house is shining like it has never shone before. I've cleaned three bedrooms, an office, and now the bathroom, not to mention the hallway.
The stairs are difficult for Rivers to maneuver up and I feel sort of evil about being
in the one place he can't reach me, but I need to be alone to think. I am used to my solitude and sometimes the urge to return to it is unavoidable. I am sure I'm over-thinking what the kiss meant to Rivers. It probably meant nothing. He probably just kissed me because I put my lips against his and I am a girl and he is a guy and that's all. I don't even think he likes me. But he didn't kiss me like he doesn't like me.
My heart twinges when I find a turkey sandwich waiting for me in the kitchen with a note that reads, I figured it was my turn to show off the culinary skills. - R
I eat half of the sandwich and carefully wrap the rest of it up and set it in the refrigerator. It was probably the best sandwich I ever ate, even better than my peanut butter, honey, and jelly ones. I turn in a circle, wondering what I should do now since my household chores are done for the day. I should have taken my time, but the restless energy I was carrying around made that an impossibility.
I spy Rivers' dark head in the grass beyond the deck. Curiosity, and something more, pulls me forth. He's sitting in the green foliage, his eyes lowered to his distorted legs. They are stiff and straight before him, unapologetic for their appearance—which is how Rivers needs to learn to be. He is what he is. He shouldn't feel bad about it.
“Thanks for the sandwich.”
He nods, flexing the fingers of his left hand.
I exhale, ignoring the overactive beating of my heart. “What are you doing?”
“Staring at my super-hot legs.”
Rolling my eyes, I say, “Don't you already have enough admirers without being one yourself?”
“Funny.”
“What are you thinking?” That's the real question I want answered. What does Rivers think about the kiss we exchanged last night? I am not sure I want to know, but I decided I couldn't hide out in the upstairs of his house indefinitely, so here I am.
“It shouldn't have happened.” His eyes are downcast as he fiddles with the hem of his yellow shirt.
A crack forms somewhere inside me. I pretend it isn't there, forcing a lightness to my tone I do not feel. “What shouldn't have?”
He glances up, a scowl on his face. “You know what I'm talking about. The kiss.”
I sit down in the grass beside him, partially turned away from him. “Are you sorry I kissed you?”
“Aren't you?”
“I instigated it, didn't I?”
“Yeah. About that. I don't get it. Why did you?” Our eyes meet, his dark and searching. I don't have time to answer before he says, “When you look at me, you have to be repulsed.”
“By what?” I ask.
He gestures to the scars that line his face and then to his legs.
“I don't even see them,” I say with all honesty.
His eyebrows lower and his eyes follow. I caught the blatant yearning in his gaze just before he hid it. He wants to believe me, but can't allow himself to.
My fingers curl into the palms of my hands to keep from reaching out to him. I blow out a noisy breath and look at a caterpillar ever so slowly creeping along the grass. I put my finger out and it carefully feels my skin before crawling over it, tickling my flesh as it goes.
I smile. “He's so slow, but you know what? He never gives up. He knows, one day, he'll be free,” I say in a low voice. “He's ugly to most, but to those that matter, he's beautiful. They know his potential. They know where he started and where he'll end, and how long it will take for him to get there. It's something to be admired, not tossed aside.”
“You're saying one day I'll be a butterfly,” he says skeptically.
I look up. “I'm saying you've always been one.”
Rivers stares at me for a long time, his eyes tracing the angles and curves of my face. “You say a lot of strange stuff, you know that?”
Nodding, I hide a smile. “I guess so.”
His tone is thoughtful when he tells me, “I like it. I like being around you.”
My pulse picks up. “Why?”
With a shrug, he states, “I don't feel so sorry for myself when you're around. I don't feel so ugly or worthless. I feel normal.”
“You are neither of those things.”
“Yeah.” His voice says he doesn't believe me.
I run a finger along the soft grass as I say, "I kind of like being around you too."
"Why?" he shoots back.
I tilt my head, my hair falling to the side as I ponder this. "Well, aside from the fact that you make me look good—oddly enough, I think I like your personality."
"Hmm. You think? I'm usually wanted for my body and not my mind."
"Given the circumstances, we all have to make exceptions."
His mouth twitches. "What circumstances?"
"Your hideous disfigurement," I tell him airily.
"Thanks," he says dryly, a faint smile on his mouth.
“Sure. I'm all about looking on the bright side. Want to go for a walk? We'll go slow,” I add when he hesitates.
His face darkens. “I hate that—that you even have to say that. I don't want you to have to go slow for me.”
I get to my feet. “So I won't.” I walk to the fence gate, opening it and going through. A tendril of elation webs through me and spreads when he follows.
The walk takes twice as long as it normally would for me, but I don't mind. Being with Rivers is all I really focus on. Each smile of his opens a wound inside me at the same time it heals it. When he brushes a lock of hair from my eyes, I try to swallow and have to repeat the motion three times before having success. I can tell the farther we walk that his legs are beginning to bother him. I wonder if each and every step he takes is painful to him or if his legs start to ache after a while. He doesn't say anything about stopping or going back, so I don't either. It isn't for me to decide when he's had enough. Rivers will make that decision.
“Your mom owns a flower shop, right?”
I nod, the mention of my mom causing a hint of longing within me. I blink at the realization that I miss her. I always thought I wanted to be on my own, out of the house where the past lingers in much too fine detail, but now that I've been away, I want to see her, to sleep in the bed I have always slept in, in the house I have always lived in, knowing my mom is but a short walk away. I feel homesick, something I never expected to be.
“What's the name of it? 'Flower Appeal'?”
“How do you know the name of my mom's flower shop?” I can't help smiling that he would know such a thing. It seems too trivial a detail for him to remember.
Rivers shrugs. “My mom's sent me over there before to get flowers. And I've been in there for myself too,” he adds.
“Really?” I wonder if his mother knows my mother. It's possible they've even had actual conversations, although I doubt they knew they were talking to one another. I can see Janet and Monica becoming friends. In fact, I hope one day soon I can arrange a meeting between them.
I also wonder if my mom talked to Rivers without knowing it. The thought of Rivers holding a discussion with my mom makes my cheeks heat up and I don't understand why. I think because it makes me think of a boyfriend talking his girlfriend's mom—totally not what I should be thinking about, not with him. I don't think anyone I ever dated met my mom, not that I had a lot of boyfriends. I never dated anyone for long and I never felt inclined to introduce them, because I never cared about them. Rivers, I already care too much for.
"Why does your mom allow Thomas to treat you the way he does?"
He squints at the sun, his body unconsciously tensing. "She can't exactly make him stop."
"But she could say something. She could...leave."
He shakes his head. "She did once. He cried and begged her to come back. She went back. I think they love each other, in some way. He isn't a bad person, he just...isn't the greatest either."
The wind is cool and the sun occasionally peeks out from behind gray and white swirled clouds. It's always windier in Prairie du Chien than it is in surrounding towns. I'm assuming it's because it is at a h
igher elevation plus the river is nearby, but I do not know that for a fact. I was book smart in school, but that is because I worked my butt off. My academic glory didn't come naturally to me. I had to work for it. Some people have brains that just seem to know stuff. Mine isn't one of them.
"Sometimes I think it's a jealousy thing. Like, I remind him of his cousin, the man my mom first loved, still loves, and would be with if he hadn't died, the man who is my real father. He's the replacement. Maybe he realizes it. In me he sees what he can never be." He shrugs.
"That's terrible to put that blame on you."
Half of his mouth quirks in a sardonic semblance of a smile. "Is blame ever logical?"
Traffic is heavy as we cross the highway, my feet unconsciously taking me to St. Feriole Island and the Mississippi river. I don't realize where we're at until Rivers mentions it.
“I don't want to go there.”
I blink, lost in the floral beauty around us. There are flower beds along the sidewalk, alive in the hues of red, yellow, pink, and orange. It makes me think of sunsets and fire. “Where?”
He nods toward the vastness of the moving waters farther down the path.
The Mississippi is still far off in the distance from where we stand, but I don't think that little tidbit matters too much to Rivers right now. “Okay. Where do you want to go?”
“Might as well see if the Villa Louis really is haunted.”
The silence is heavy between us as we make our way toward the historical building that was once a house and is now used for reminiscent tours of years long passed. In 1843, Hercules L. Dousman—a wealthy man well-known as a fur trader, lumberman, and land sculptor—built a Greek Revival style brick home directly on an Indian mound. Apparently he wasn't worried about cursed land.
He was the first millionaire in Wisconsin. After his death, his son, Louis, tore down the House on the Mound, as it was called, and built what currently is known as the Villa Louis estate; a large Victorian Italianate-styled structure. The building is now a museum, open for scheduled tours, and holds the title of being the first state-operated historic site. It's reputed to be haunted, but then, most old structures are. There is an ambivalence to them that is old and heavy with years gone by.
