I lean back and close my eyes. Kyle offers to drive me back to Ava’s house and then come back for the others.
“You’ve been drinking.”
Kyle sighs and gets out of the car, stumbling a little. I assume he’s going back inside, but then there’s a click and a draft as the back hatch of the van opens to the night.
“Come here, man.”
I go around to the back of the van and find Kyle folding the last row of seats down. There is a sleeping bag rolled up in the back with a pillow tucked underneath.
“We planned for such a contingency.” He bursts out laughing like he just told a joke. “Word of the week!” he cackles.
Do you ever feel like you’re trapped in the company of somebody who is likely to get you arrested?
Shut up, you missed him.
I stay out of Kyle’s way while he sets up a cot in the van. He pulls a water bottle from the center console between the front seats and says there’s Jell-O in there too if I need it. I don’t know what to say to him.
“Whose idea was this?”
“Emily’s. You know how she worries.” Kyle mimics Emily’s high-pitched worry voice and gestures to the cot. “Get in, I’ll close the tailgate.”
*
The bump of a pothole wakes me up. I open my eyes to find Ava in the adjacent seat, watching me. Caitlin is nowhere to be found. Kyle is riding shotgun, and Emily is driving. Morgan I find behind me, sandwiched between my back and the side of the car. Her sturdy arm is wrapped around my front, compensating for the instability of the seatbelt that has been stretched across our hips.
“You’re bruising,” Ava says. She pushes back my sleeve a few inches to reveal a purpling blotch on my arm.
“It happens.”
“Why didn’t you say something, you idiot?”
“I was having a good time.”
“Don’t ruin it, Ava,” Kyle says quietly. She purses her lips and lets the issue drop.
I don’t fit in here anymore. They don’t know how to deal with my problems. They shouldn’t have to.
Morgan gives me a little squeeze. I ask her whom she met tonight, and she quietly tells me about the couple passing through on a road trip from Toronto to Hull for a wedding. She’ll probably keep in touch with them, too; that’s just Morgan.
But she didn’t keep in touch with you.
Sunday
I wake up in Ava’s bed. Everything hurts. As I sit up a casual study of my arms and shoulders reveals a series of bruises that will take a week or more to fade.
“Hey bitch,” Ava says from the doorway. She’s wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and holding a steaming mug of coffee. She looks surprisingly well rested after a night sleeping on the couch. Ah, to be young and healthy.
“Hey slut,” I reply tiredly, and swing my legs out of bed. Ava studies my bruises and says she’s going to have a hard time busting me out of Smiths Falls again.
“Your mom isn’t going to let you play rough with us again any time soon.” That might be a wise decision on Mom’s part. I bet she was banking on me having better judgment than to go out on a Saturday night and party like any other eighteen-year-old boy.
“Will you drive me home after breakfast?” It seems rude to leave so early, but I want to get home. I need to rest up for school on Monday, and Willa said she would be waiting for me.
“Sure,” Ava says. “We can even eat on the road, if you like.”
I expect her to leave, to let me get dressed and to hunt down something more substantial than coffee for herself, but she steps into the room and closes the door instead.
“What are you doing?”
Ava places a hand on my forehead and runs it back, over my scalp and down the slope of my neck. She could at least ask before making a freak of me, like Emily did.
“How’s that girl of yours?” she asks.
“She’s not mine.”
“You said you hadn’t dated since moving away.”
“No.”
“Must be lonely.” Ava runs a hand along my jaw, feeling the place where the bone juts out for lack of fat. I’m considering all the snarky ways to answer her dumb question when she leans down and kisses me.
Ava never does this with friends. She sets her coffee cup aside without breaking the kiss and pushes me back onto the bed. The weight of her stings the bruises a little as she crouches over me, touching my neck and shoulders, but it’s difficult to care. It’s been awhile since I did this with anyone—since anyone wanted to do this with me. And even though we both have morning breath and definitely need to shower, I enjoy her. It’s even a little flattering that she’s willing to break her I-don’t-screw-friends rule for me.
A piece of blue hair falls in our way and I brush it back. There was a time when I often entertained fantasies of doing this with her. I liked the idea of Ava before I really knew her. Even though she doesn’t feel quite right in my hands, she’s warm and horny beggars can’t be choosy.
Ava shifts so that more of her weight rests against me and I wince before I can stop myself. She lifts herself up on her arms.
“Too much?” she asks.
I grab Ava by the back of her head and pull her down. She is not going to treat me like I’m made of glass, damn it. But she’s wary now, and holds herself slightly above me on her elbows and bent knees. Our fronts touch, but I bear none of her weight.
Ava offers to let me be on top and I don’t know how to explain that I’m too sore and too weak to hold myself above her for very long.
“I like you on top,” I say, and that’s good enough for Ava. I reach under her nightshirt, running my hands up her sides until I get to her chest. Her shirt rides up along my forearms, showing off her fair skin. Her tits seem too large all of a sudden—too much for one handful, and I feel like an incompetent little boy trying to properly grope her. I prefer smaller chests, like W—
“Been awhile for you, hasn’t it?” she says against my lips. She’s got her wicked smirk on, mocking me.
“Oh shut up.”
Ava’s hand suddenly leaves the mattress and slips between my thighs. Shit. I expected a little more in the way of foreplay. Her hand runs up my thigh, trying to tease me, until her fingers cross paths with my dick.
And she’s disappointed.
The first time a girl has touched me there in months, and I don’t meet her expectations. Ava cups my balls and limp dick in her hand and says, “If you’re not into it, we can stop. I won’t be offended.”
I pull her back for another kiss. “Really, I want to.” Her hand starts stroking me through my pajama pants while her other hand tries to negotiate the worn tie at my waist. I kiss her neck and bite her ears and pull her hair a little—all things she used to bitch about her boyfriend never doing—but she won’t be distracted from my failure to respond to her hand. No matter how she touches me, it stubbornly remains soft.
“Are you sure—?”
“Yes.” Just be patient with me, damn it.
“Is this not doing it for you?”
“You’re doing fine.”
I go to kiss her again and she rolls her eyes before complying. “What are you, gay?” she mutters against my lips.
I put my hands on her shoulders and shove her back. Ava falls on her ass, stunned, and I sit up and pull away from her.
“No, I’m not gay,” I growl at her. “I’m sick.”
I have never seen Ava look so dumbfounded. She has always been the badass with a smart remark handy and unwavering composure, but now she just sits there and gapes at me.
Ava rights her twisted nightshirt and gets off the bed. She apologizes quietly and shrugs. “You know saying the right thing isn’t my forté.”
I let her off the hook. I don’t want to make this more awkward than it already is. “Don’t worry about it.”
Ava leaves to eat and I get into the shower. I have to do it with the light on because I don’t know Ava’s bathroom well enough to navigate in the dark. I hate looking at mysel
f. After a few minutes I give up on really showering and just stand there, studying my body. Thank God Ava didn’t get far enough to see the scars, or the worst of the bruises, or my conspicuous lack of body hair, or the bones sticking out, or the central line in my chest. The whole thing could have gone so much worse.
The fact that I couldn’t satisfy her is going to haunt me. She was willing to overlook the low body weight and the baldness, but my limp dick offended her. I’m useless. I’m not fun to be around anymore, even as her friend, and I couldn’t rise to the occasion for a goddamned pity fuck. I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t get in touch with me for a long, long time.
I feel like shit by the time I’m showered and dressed. Ava, on the other hand, has decided to act like nothing happened—sort of the way she acts about my disease in general. She offers me a four-pack of Jell-O cups to eat on the road, and drives me home with a smile on her face. Even before we pick up Eric and have to act cool for the benefit of his ignorance, she talks about mundane crap like nothing happened this morning.
“You weren’t too hard on my little brother, were you?” Eric asks teasingly when we stop to pick him up from Celeste’s house.
“Nah, I was good to him,” she says. Too bad I couldn’t return the favor.
*
When we pull into the driveway I see Elise on the porch swing with Willa, chatting happily. They look up and wave at us. Eric gets out of the car, and no sooner has he shut the door behind him than Ava teases me: “You’re fucked.”
Shit, was I grinning?
“Shut up.”
She laughs and I get out of the car. I toss a, “Thanks, slut,” over my shoulder as I grab my bag, and she replies, “You’re welcome, whore.”
As I ascend the porch steps I can hear Elise whispering Ava’s general story to Willa—the electric violin; the hook ups; that time in Montreal…
“Hey.” I drop my bag next to the porch swing and sit down beside Elise. She promptly scoots over onto my lap. “Did you miss me?”
“Pfft. No.” She wraps my arms around her waist and fiddles with the strap on my watch. She totally missed me.
I turn to Willa “What about you?”
“I know how to keep myself occupied.” Her tone is strange. Is she being coy? I can’t tell if she missed me or not.
You’re a fool to hope, Harper.
Of course she’d never just tell you she did and put you out of your misery.
“I worry about you,” Elise says casually, and reaches back to pat my cheek. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Like the dead.”
She cranes her neck to look at me over her shoulder. “Do you want a milkshake?”
“Yes please.”
Elise gets up and skips away into the house, singing “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” as she goes.
Willa stifles a giggle.
“Go ahead and laugh. She thrives on any sort of attention.”
“Just like you.”
“Nuh-uh.”
Willa stands up and grabs the handle of my bag. “Come on.” She nods to the front door. “You can brag to me about your night in Hull.”
*
I go to the laundry room to deposit the weekend’s clothes in the washing machine, and Willa goes to the kitchen. I can hear her whispering with Elise from here.
“What are you talking about?” I call down the hall.
“Milkshakes!” Elise yells back.
That is so not fair. I’ve been trying to weasel that recipe from Elise for months. What kind of justice is this that Willa can just stroll in and sweet-talk the secret out of her?
I enter the kitchen to find Elise putting the lid on the blender and Willa putting the milk away. They’re like cockroaches in the light, hiding their method from me. Elise fires up the blender and I fetch glasses down from the cupboard.
Willa and I take a seat at the island while Elise winds the blend speed back and forth, getting the froth just right on the milkshakes. She knows how to get them perfectly smooth every time.
I have to work to speak over the sound of the blender, but I tell Willa about The Plains and the live music. Some of my favorite CDs were purchased out of the back of the bands’ vans directly after shows there, because The Plains supports a lot of unsigned artists. The idea of new music piques Willa’s interest.
“Come up, I’ll show you.” I nod to the stairs.
“Wait, milkshakes,” Elise calls after us. She pours three tall glasses of raspberry goodness and passes two across the island. “I’ll clean up and meet you upstairs.”
Did I say I wanted to host a little powwow in my room? I thought I invited Willa upstairs. I want her to myself. Elise notes the look on my face and realizes she isn’t exactly welcome.
“Well fine,” she snaps, and snatches the glass out of my hand. She upends the milkshake over the sink. “Get me to make you a milkshake and then expect me to bugger off, huh?”
“You offered to make milkshakes.” I point to the melting mess in the sink. I was looking forward to that, damn it.
“No, I get it.” She dumps her milkshake out too. Either her appetite is gone or she doesn’t want me to steal it to replace the one she threw out. “You’re too good to hang out with me again. I’m your last freaking resort and you can do better now, so to hell with me, right?” She sticks her tongue out at me and stomps away toward the stairs.
“Lise.” I reach out to grab her arm and she pushes my hand away.
“Go away,” she snarls. “If you want another milkshake you can forget it.” She runs up the stairs and slams her bedroom door. That fails to satisfy, so she slams it again for good measure.
“Um.” I look over at Willa, who doesn’t seem entirely surprised by Elise’s tantrum.
“She’s been a little high-strung this morning,” Willa says. “Worried about you.”
Well, now I feel like an ass.
“I’ll be right back.”
She nods. “I’ll be down here.”
*
At first glance, Elise’s bedroom is empty. But I know my dork of a little sister. I go over to her ‘cupboard under the stairs’ (the closet) and open her hidey-hole.
“Your glasses are going to fog up.” They always do when she wears them and cries at the same time. But she does it anyway, because the glasses comfort her. She squeezes Hedwig closer to her chest and tells me to go away.
“Scoot over.”
I pull the string on the bare bulb that lights her closet and step in beside her. It’s a tight squeeze, sitting next to her on the floor. We fit much better into cubbies like this when we were kids.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re like a crappy fair-weather friend in reverse,” she whines. She has a point. I came to rely on her company when I was sick. And now that I’m getting better… well, I suppose things will go back to the way they were before I was ill, when our lives were more separate. We don’t have a lot in common, really.
Elise climbs onto my lap. “That was, like, the one good thing about you having cancer—you weren’t too cool to hang out with me anymore.”
“Lise, you have your own friends.” I tuck her little head under my chin and she wraps her arms around my neck. The frame of her glasses pokes my chest. “Is this because I went to Ottawa?”
Elise shrugs. She sniffs back snot and I scan the closet floor for a stray sock or something to blow her nose on.
“I know this will probably go to your head, but you are sort of cool—for a big brother, anyway.”
“Careful, the closet door is narrow.”
She laughs weakly. “I just liked being the only one who knew that, y’know?” She lifts her head and looks up at me through those big round foggy glasses. No wonder she’s the favorite kid; she’s adorable without even trying.
“Well, that,” she says, laying her head back down, “and I also liked getting to hear all your little secrets.”
I groan and try to shift her off my lap. Elise whimpers like a puppy and lo
cks her arms around my neck.
“Let go. The confidence has gone to your head.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Elise.”
“Jem,” she mimics my tone.
“As much as you benefit from my loneliness, there is a very real person waiting downstairs.”
“Ugh. Fine.” Elise lets go and crawls off my lap. She opens the closet door and shuffles out into the room on all fours. “Go have your stupid friends.”
“Nuh-uh.” I grab her around the waist and haul her to her feet. She squeals loudly. “You’re along for the ride.”
“I don’t need a pity invite.”
“It’s more of a hostage situation.” I turn her around and throw her over my shoulder like I used to, even though she feels way too heavy now and my shoulders are sore from last night. She struggles a little for the sake of her image, but lets me carry her back downstairs. I set her down in the kitchen and Elise’s eyes go wide behind her round glasses.
There’s a reason I keep Willa around. In the five minutes we were gone she went through the cupboards and found bowls, baking sheets, and the ingredients for what I’m guessing will be cookies.
“Oatmeal raisin or pecan chocolate?” she asks.
Elise pushes her glasses farther up her nose and swallows. “Uh, pecan chocolate, please.”
It wasn’t what I had in mind, but an afternoon baking with my sister and Willa is still a pretty good way to end the weekend. It makes Elise happy, at least, and I’m totally her favorite brother right now.
I’ll have to find a way to rub that in Eric’s face tonight…
Monday
I fall asleep in Social Studies. I don’t even realize that I’ve dozed off with my head in my hand until my chin slips over the edge of my palm and I head-butt Willa in the shoulder.
“Dude,” she scolds me, and pushes me back to my half of the worktable.
“Sorry.”
Wake Page 30
