My fingers slide into his hand, and I still feel his subtle shake. He hesitates as he walks past his father. As if a thought crosses his mind to throw a punch. I cling tighter and put myself between Daniel and his father as we pass him in the doorway.
We don’t say a word as we slip out into the night air.
“Hang on.” He pauses before he lets go of my hand.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says, running back inside and outside in less than thirty seconds. He comes back with a black sweatshirt with some sort of musical design on the back.
“Thank you.” I pull it over my head, and his scent drifts into my nose. I want to linger in it, ravish in his sweet smell. If bright blue had a scent, it would smell just like Daniel.
We walk to my car in silence, an owl coos, and the frogs speak. It’s a different world out here, different from town.
“I won’t ask you if you’re all right.” My fingers dangle in his as I search for the right words to fix his father’s mistakes. “Oh, I almost forgot.” Sienna’s number flashes in my mind. A mixture of emotions allows my mind to make excuses for her call. But I file those thoughts/excuses under miscellaneous because it doesn’t matter right now. “Your phone.”
He’ll see the missed call.
“How’d you get this?”
“Long story.” I give his shoulder a bump as we approach my car.
Without looking, he shoves his phone in his pocket. “Thank you.” His hand tightens around mine.
He’ll know that I saw the missed call. And, if he feels the need to explain, he will. And, if he doesn’t, well, I guess I just have to trust he’s made that decision for the right reasons.
But a tiny voice inside me pulls the reservation sign.
And I’m not sure if that’s for Daniel’s benefit or mine. I know I can’t get too wrapped up in this with him. This unspoken pull we have together. Like somehow we were meant to meet.
I unlock my car door.
“You know, you probably don’t have to lock your door out here.” The calmness in his voice slowly returns. “I mean, you’d be taking your chances with the angry bear or the occasional rabid fox, but, for the most part, I’d say your belongings are likely safe out here,” Daniel says as he pulls my door open, looking down at me with a get-in nod, trying to make light of what just happened.
It also makes me realize that I don’t know Daniel, yet my hand in his feels like it’s been there for a lifetime. As if he carved a spot for my hand that rests somewhere between his palm and fingertips. I also notice, this time, his fingertips are rough. Callous.
What’s he done to rough up his hands?
Maybe he’s a midnight boxer? Might be a bit farfetched. I can also conclude that he’d probably have the cauliflower ears to match if he were a midnight boxer. And he’s got perfect ears, so scratch that guess.
A day laborer and nobody knows? Though I quickly reject this idea, as he’s only seventeen.
Perhaps he’s an avid fly fisherman? Plausible.
I decide I’ll ask him later.
I sit down in my seat, and he shuts the door behind me, bending down to where we’re at eye-level. A huge part of me wants to warn him that, tomorrow, when he wakes up, the ache will only be worse, and the pain in his heart will only increase. That the person he loves will come to him in his dreams, only if he’s lucky. That surrounding himself with her things will make him want to die. And the thought of dying, his mind might tell him, seems like a viable option, the easier, softer way. I want to tell him that I’d like to hold his heart in my hands until he’s ready to have it back, that I promise to nurture it and take care of it. Because there will be many days where he’ll wish his heart would just stop. Disappear. Run. And, already, without knowing what Daniel’s favorite color is, his favorite food, what he does between the hours of seven thirty p.m. and nine thirty p.m., where he sees himself in five years, I want to shelter his heart, says the sober me, the one without the alcohol, the one of sound mind and body.
But I know my urge to drink again, probably when I get home, will return because the hurt will far outweigh the life I’ve built in the last seventeen years. And Daniel will be here, and I will be there.
“You all right?” Daniel pushes a piece of hair behind my ear.
I say, “Yes,” even though my answer is really no, and I say this only so he won’t worry about me. “In my head, I’m trying to figure out what to say to you.”
His callous hand reaches for mine.
Maybe a lead guitarist in a rock band?
“Also, what I’ve been contemplating is why your hands are so callous. I’ve thought of everything from a day laborer to fly fisherman.”
Daniel smiles, though his eyes don’t, like a plastic fixture on his face, ready and able to meet the Have-Nots in his life. Braver than me.
“I don’t want this for you, Daniel,” is all I think to say.
Daniel leans in my window. “Livia, I’d really like to kiss you right now.”
Every tendon, every muscle in my body is on high alert. My heart screams, PLEASE!
“I’d like you to wait,” says the sober me. The thinking one. The rational one. “I know that’s what you think you want right now. A side thought, a feeling that can distract you, your mind from its current state, but I promise you, in the end, it will only leave you with regret.”
He does the lip thing, the methodical lip thing, before he speaks, “Well, just for the record, in my opinion, Livia Stone and regret will never go hand in hand.” Daniel says record like the re goes on forever and the cord is almost an afterthought. And the way he pronounces hand with an O rather than an A makes my lady parts want to get up and walk away.
Liv, keep his feelings first, I have to remind myself. Because the selfish me wants him to take his callous hands and put them on places on my body that we don’t talk about while drinking coffee. Or eating breakfast. Or waiting for the bus.
So, I swallow instead, praying my mind will clear.
“Text me when you get home.” And he stands, kisses my head, and backs away from my car, waiting for me to drive away.
I notice his jeans sitting loosely on his hips, and I imagine him without his shirt on again.
Before I pull away, I ask him if everything will be all right with him and Dr. Pearson.
He nods, more for my best interest than his own.
My dad is at the dining room table, going through a file when I walk in.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey yourself. Dinner’s in the kitchen.”
“Not hungry.” I pull up a chair.
He closes the file and pushes it aside.
Not sure how to proceed because it’s been so long since my dad and I talked. Cautious, I guess.
I tell him about Daniel’s mom.
“The boy you like, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what Daniel did?”
His question seems more loaded than the answer I’m unprepared to answer.
“What do you mean?”
My dad leans his cheek into his palm. “He called Principal Lundberg and told her he’d stolen the pills and left them in your car.”
“Figured as much.” I pause. “Did he also explain that Gabriel Struvio was selling oxycodone?” I want Gabriel to get what he deserves.
“Jill didn’t elaborate, just said Daniel Pearson had confessed to stealing the pills. It’s unclear how the school will handle this, but I did call Dr. Pearson and told him I’d represent his son—pro bono, of course.”
Pro bono, before my dad got sober, was a cuss word. A word he never used in our home. He felt as though people should work hard for what they had, and if they couldn’t afford a good attorney, then they got what they paid for.
And then it hits me. Why Dr. Pearson didn’t want me around his son. Clearly, he thinks I’m a bad influence. That maybe I coerced his son into confessing something he hadn’t done.
“It’s the least I could d
o, Liv.” Dad’s eyes are more telling than what he’s really saying.
I stare down at my phone and see Daniel’s text.
Daniel: Are you home yet?
I look up at my dad, whose eyes are fixed on me. “Thank you for making the phone call.” I don’t say Dad yet because it’s too soon. He was gone for too long.
Three missed birthdays.
Three missed Christmases.
Three missed years.
Not even a phone call.
“Good night,” is all I say. “I have homework.” Even though that, too, might be a half-lie. I do have homework, but I question whether or not I’ll find the motivation from here to my bedroom to do it.
“Daniel’s mom died today.”
My dad leans back in his chair, takes a deep breath, places his hands behind his head, and doesn’t say a word.
I turn and walk to the stairs.
“Liv?” he whispers.
“Yeah?” I turn just before I head up the stairs.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
When I walk past Jasper’s room, I immediately shut the door between my room and the bathroom and attempt to push away the anguish that builds like a bad buzz.
I push myself on my bed and lie back on my pillow. I text Daniel.
Me: I’m home. In one piece. Safe.
The transparent bubbles appear almost instantly.
I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
The bubbles disappear, and I wait for the text message to appear, but it doesn’t.
The bubbles appear again.
And disappear.
And reappear.
And, finally, the text comes through.
Daniel: I’d like to tell you about Sienna when you’re ready.
When I’m ready? Why must I be ready? How do I respond to that? Besides, I’d rather he get some rest anyway than feel the need to explain why a girl with a weird number, a girl who’s programmed into his phone, was calling him.
Me: Not tonight. Get some sleep. I’ll pick you up for school tomorrow?
I wait for several minutes for a response, but it doesn’t come in. I hope he’s fallen asleep.
Facebook is the collector of fake facades, collector of smiles held for merely seconds while their lives are put on hold for a picture, lives that people want you to see, memories. I can’t help myself as I pull up Facebook, thinking about the email Sonja sent earlier. It was shitty and pretty beautiful at the same time. The way she talked about Jasper, the reaching out to me—the beautiful—and Jasper’s last words—the shitty. I do this every time, going to Sonja’s page to see her progress. It’s a sick, twisted thing I do, and it reminds me of my insides—warped, inflamed, and hurting, like I want to throw up.
There’s a picture of her in a hospital bed, her once long beautiful, dark hair—the before photo—now short, bald in some places, as they had to surgically go in and remove pressure that had been building around her brain. Her face is swollen, in a neck collar, and it occurs to me, there are many unseen scars, the ones that hurt the most, that she’ll battle for the rest of her life. The scars on the outside will heal with time. Maybe fade, maybe not. But the brain can’t unsee things. Things that are so hellacious and awful, the mind just can’t forget.
I scan through the page I’ve seen a million times. I read a post written just yesterday by her mom or a sibling, I assume.
Sonja is able to communicate now. Talk. We still have a long road ahead.
I need an escape. Can’t rifle through the shed out back with my dad still awake. So, I try to wait, try to push a drink, the instant relief, out of my head. I don’t want to drink, but the lack of feelings that I feel when I do drink, that’s what I want. Just momentary relief where I can shut myself off like a valve.
I read one of the comments. Why do I do this to myself? I set myself up. Self-sabotage.
You’re here. You’re healing. God performs miracles.
Immediately, the irritation starts just under my collarbone. The same as it always does when I look at Sonja’s page. It’s a prickle at first, and then it grows.
I can’t help but think, If God were so good, why didn’t he save my brother? Why did he have to die? Why can’t he still be here with us? Why did God choose Sonja to save and not my brother?
Fuck off…Thelma Knight.
Under the post, I type.
My brother died in the incident on October 1. He didn’t survive. Is God still that good, Thelma Knight?
I delete it.
I retype it.
I delete it.
I retype it and hit Enter.
I go back and delete my comment.
I also resist the urge to throw my phone across the room.
“Fuck you, God,” I whisper. “If you were good, if you performed miracles like everyone says you do, why’d you choose not to save Jasper? SHIT!” I place my hands on my head. “Poppy, are you there? Why are you ignoring me? I need you!”
But, this time, I do throw my phone because I hate what’s going on inside my body. It’s agonizing and it hurts and I can’t control any of it. I just want it to stop.
I need a drink.
Just need a quick fix.
I march downstairs, and my dad is nowhere in sight. In the shed, I search everywhere—behind canisters, through cobwebs, in wheelbarrows, on shelves too high to reach without standing on an insufficient surface. But, in one of the drawers of the workbench, way in the back, I find a half-gallon, half-gone.
Jackpot.
I smuggle it up to my room undetected.
Grabbing my phone, I want to text Daniel again, but I refrain.
I tell myself he needs sleep.
I shouldn’t drink this, I think as I go into the bathroom and empty out our toothbrush holder. I stare at Jasper’s toothbrush. The one I haven’t noticed since he died. The blue-and-green one.
I need a drink. I’m owed this. My insides begin to shrivel up, protecting themselves from my heart that’s about to explode in my chest.
I shouldn’t drink.
I should.
I shouldn’t.
Daniel’s going to need someone, and I have to be there.
Consciously, I screw off the cap, fill up my cup, and head back to my room.
I take a big gulp and allow the alcohol to burn all the way down my throat. It explodes in my stomach. I give it a few seconds for the euphoria to seep into my brain.
Yes.
This.
Is.
It.
I feel my inhibitions slip away. My not-caring factor flips on. My invincibility reach levels I’ve never felt. I finish the cup of alcohol.
Feeling braver, I throw +44793551212 into Google. And it traces back to the United Kingdom. Sienna from the United Kingdom.
Does she have unfinished business with Daniel? Was she calling to express her condolences for the loss of Rose?
I should have gone back to look at Daniel’s call log.
Livia, that’s deceitful.
And then the most magical thing happens. My face grows warm and feels just like cotton candy. My mind begins to slow down. The tightness in my chest releases. My shoulders drop. And I can feel my lips begin to tingle. And the pressure of my recent unorthodox decision-making makes sense. The world falls into line, just as Dr. Elizabeth said it would.
“Everything has its place, Livia, and your new life will make sense again if you give yourself time.”
Sex with Simon equals coping.
Dropping AP English, giving myself the gift of time.
Letting Mr. Joe down—that’s his own issue, not mine.
The drinking. Well, if you lost your brother, wouldn’t you want a way out, too?
Just. Like. That.
I can rationalize and justify any decision I’ve made because it’s my truth. My life. And I’m the one who has to live with it.
As I look across the room to my bulletin board, I see the picture of Jasper
and me on our fifteenth birthday. Our faces are happy in the yellow glow the thirty candles give off. While I’m smiling—a perfect image of what I did so perfectly in the past, which was following directions—he’s making an awful face. Just like he always did in any of our pictures—not just with me, but everybody.
A scowl.
A look of disgust.
Wide-mouthed.
Tight-lipped.
Eyelids flipped up, exposing the red. That one always grossed me out.
If you look on his Instagram, you’ll only find one picture of him without an antic face. It’s the one we put in his obituary. It was one he’d posted with the caption, See me.
Now, my head is warm and fuzzy, and nothing matters. The place and space that I wish I could live in all the time. Take up residence. Pay rent here. I’d pay double. Because life on these terms is better than life on expected terms, that we’re somehow supposed to cope without the stigma of that stupid quote by Robert Frost. What is it anyway? Oh, yes. “The only way out is through.” Or something completely ridiculous like that. But it’s only me who I want to exist in this small bubble of a world I’ve created, a safe, comfortable space where only I can breathe. Really breathe, the warm cotton candy air. Feel the clouds on my face.
In fact, this feels so good, I fill my cup up again.
The thoughts of Jasper, of Daniel leak into my mind. I want to fix everything, but the only way I see my hammer, my nails, is to down this entire cup, and then I’ll find some sort of divine purpose to fix everything.
I drink the entire second cup in two swallows.
Two Days Ago
I throw myself on the couch,
My mom on the couch,
My dad in the chair.
“Our family is so fucked up.”
Tracy: “Liv, mouth.”
My dad: “She’s right.”
As expected, the hideous four horsemen return upon a flicker of light through my bedroom window.
Terror: Another day to live.
Bewilderment: How come I drank?
Frustration: Why did I do it again?
Despair: I want my brother back. I want Daniel to have Rose.
The bucket of feelings is dumped in my stomach as I try to again rectify the decisions that seemed so rational last night with today’s clearer, though hurting, mind.
Standing Sideways Page 20
