Wake

by Abria Mattina

  “Why did you send me that song?”

  “It seemed like an effective way to communicate my mindset.”

  “If you want me to leave you alone, just say it. Don’t hide behind music and call that communication.”

  “Did I say I wanted you to leave me alone?”

  “You didn’t say anything.”

  “Well I don’t want you to.”

  “Oh, thanks, now I understand.”

  “Harper,” she says like she’s clinging to her last shred of patience. “I’m really awful at describing how fucked up I am. You scare me. I scare me. I don’t know what the fuck to do with you.” She blows out a heavy sigh that echoes across the line.

  “What do you want to do with me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you do know that you want to send me cryptic messages with angry music and avoid me whenever something changes about our friendship.”

  “It’s kind of my thing.”

  I want to kick something. “You’re insane.”

  “I told you.”

  I consider ending the call, just hanging up and letting her sift through her thoughts a little more, but she interrupts me. “It’s all screwed up,” she says. “Something just works when I’m around you. And when I fight it, it still fucking works.”

  “Is that so horrible?”

  Willa makes a frustrated sound in her throat. “I hate you.” It’s hard to believe that this is the same girl who invited me to keep kissing her on the porch last night. It must be absolute hell inside her head.

  “Do you ever feel anything besides hate?” I ask.

  It takes her a second to answer. “Yes,” Willa says curtly. “Apathy.” She hangs up on me. Wily bitch.

  I call her right back and Willa answers on the first ring. “You know, when someone hangs up on you, it’s because they don’t want to talk to you anymore.” The words sound vaguely familiar.

  “Well too fucking bad. We’re going to talk about this. You can’t just avoid me whenever the hell you feel like it. You’re making this more difficult than it has to be.”

  “No, Jem, it really is that difficult.”

  “Chicken.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No. I’m going to back you into a corner like you do me and hope you smarten up.”

  Willa huffs. “What do you want? Some touchy, feely, stream-of-consciousness monologue?”

  “I want to know why you’re on the edge and about the break.” I will make her dissect that song line by line if that’s what it takes to get to the root of the matter.

  “Because you’ll kill me if I don’t kill you first.” Jesus Christ, not this again. This chick is obsessed with proverbial murder.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “You have no idea,” she whispers.

  “I said I wouldn’t suck you dry.”

  “And I actually believe you.” Willa snorts like she thinks she’s an idiot to take me at my word.

  “So why—”

  “Let me sleep on it.”

  “You’re just going to keep panicking until you deal with this.”

  “You want me to deal with it right this second?” she says like she’s answering a challenge. She’s absolutely wicked when she’s in a stubborn mood. “Here’s dealing with it: I swore off a lot of shit when I moved here, and that included guys. You’re the first guy whose last name I knew before I kissed him. You’re the first one I’ve even thought about when you’re not around. You do not bode well for my attempt at self-improvement and I’m losing the capacity to give a shit about that.”

  This is the first time Willa has ever volunteered information about her regular day-to-day life in St. John’s, and I don’t know what to make of it.

  “How come you never talk about Newfoundland?” I ask. “You talk about your family there, but…”

  “Why the hell would I want to revisit that place, even to talk about it?”

  “So that other people can know you.”

  “I am not the place I come from, regardless of what went on there.”

  “Who you come from doesn’t sound so fulfilling.”

  “What the fuck do you know?”

  “Nothing. You won’t tell me.”

  “I will. Someday. And then you can hate me, too.”

  “Stop hating yourself.”

  “Stop punishing yourself for having cancer,” she retorts.

  I open my mouth to rejoin but nothing comes out. I have absolutely nothing to say to that. I don’t even know if she’s right or wrong.

  Finally I say, “No I don’t.” Even I’m not convinced by that denial.

  “Yes you do,” Willa argues tiredly. “You do it all the time. You walk around acting like you’re so damn unworthy of whatever nice thing people do for you at school. You get all pissy whenever Elise attempts to have her own life, even though you readily ditch her to go live your own, and then you spew guilt all over the place trying to make it up to her.”

  “Elise has nothing to do with—”

  “Yes she does. You punish yourself with guilt that you needed to use her to achieve your own health.”

  I sit there with the phone pressed to my ear, gaping. Her forwardness doesn’t surprise me—when has she ever held back on the snark?—it’s the fact that she’s right.

  “That’s between Elise and I.” I intended to say it firmly, but the words come out meek and muted.

  “Fine.”

  “But you do hate yourself.”

  “That’s between me and I.” I hate how she can twist words like that.

  “I’m coming over.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll be there in twenty.” I hang up before she can argue and head downstairs to borrow Mom’s car.

  *

  Nine o’clock isn’t exactly a typical hour for a social visit. Frank looks at me like I should know better when he answers the door.

  “Something I can help you with?”

  “May I please come in and speak to Willa?”

  Frank looks like he’s about to say no and perhaps give me a stern lecture.

  “Let him in.”

  “Will, it’s a school night.”

  “He won’t be long.”

  Frank grudgingly steps aside and lets me over the threshold. Willa stands above us, halfway down the stairs. She has that apathetic look in her eye; the one that makes me feel like she can see right through me.

  Willa gestures with a nod. “Come up.”

  *

  Willa closes her bedroom door behind us and invites me to sit wherever. I stand.

  “I’m not leaving until you talk,” I tell her gently.

  “About what?”

  “You know what.”

  Willa grimaces and folds her arms over her chest. She leans back against her door and gnaws on the inside of her cheek.

  “Relax, you’re not on trial for murder.”

  “Shut up,” she snaps. “Don’t fucking belittle me.”

  My first impulse is to return her sudden aggression with more of the same, but I’ve learned what taking her bait leads to. She always wins. She always finds a way. So I don’t play along.

  “What spooked you this time?” It’s a simple question and hard to avoid, stated plainly like that.

  “You did.”

  “How?”

  “You just did.”

  “Are you sure it was me?” I went out of my way to treat her well last night. I let her have her space today when she asked for it. It was a gamble to kiss her, but she gave every impression that she liked it.

  Willa huffs. “No.”

  “If I told you to say what was on your mind, would you?” I add a sarcastic tilt of the eyebrow. My tone irritates her and she latches onto the bait.

  “I might actually like you,” she retorts. “There. Fucking happy?”

  Uh…ecstatic.

  I start to smile and then scale it back. I don’t want her to think I’m somehow amused by her confessi
on.

  “That’s what’s got you all riled up?”

  “Yeah.” She frowns bitterly and bites her cheek again. It’s like she’s mad at herself for feeling something beyond hate and apathy—or for blurting it out like that.

  Or because she knows it’s a bad idea.

  You knew it was a long shot she’d ever want you.

  Last night on the porch was a fluke.

  Can’t blame her for not wanting you. You don’t even want you.

  “I can see how that might be…upsetting.”

  Willa’s gaze snaps up from the floor to meet mine and her eyes flash with that familiar anger.

  “I mean, I get it. I know I’m not…a desirable option.” I shrug lamely. “And you didn’t know me before I got sick…or maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Willa takes her weight off the door and drops her arms. Her hands curl into fists and she actually trembles while snarling at me, “That is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “No it’s not. I was different before—”

  “Shut up.”

  She leaves the door and marches over to her dresser. Willa reaches into the back of her top drawer and pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Don’t tell Frank,” she says as she opens the window to vent the smoke.

  “You’re going to stand there and smoke in front of a cancer patient?”

  Willa lights up without hesitation. She’s done this before.

  “You know, just because you have cancer all through you doesn’t mean you quit craving these.” She holds up the lit cigarette. “I used to drive Tessa to the store to buy smokes. Mom and Dad wouldn’t anymore, but it calmed her. It calms me.”

  “You helped her buy cigarettes when she had cancer? Isn’t that a little irresponsible?”

  “You say that like you don’t know what desperation feels like. I’m sure you’ve asked your family for all kinds of shit.” I hate it when she’s completely right about me without knowing a single detail. They’ve all made sacrifices for me, but none of them are angry like Willa. None of them had their investment go bust like she did.

  “This was her last pack. She never finished it.” Willa holds open the box top and counts the remaining cigarettes. “About a week after she died, I smoked so many I made myself puke.”

  “So why’d you do it?”

  “A chest full of smoke was…grounding. It’s a hell of a way to remind yourself that you’re still breathing.”

  I scrub my hands over my face, trying to find a scrap of reason to hold on to. It’s like talking in circles with her. Any attempt to direct the conversation just gets me more lost.

  “I wish I’d known you before all this stuff happened to you.” She looked like such a happy kid in the pictures I’ve seen. She was probably a really sweet girl once.

  Willa stubs out the remains of her cigarette and tosses the butt out the window. “And would you know me as you are now,” she asks levelly. “Or as the guy you were before cancer?”

  It’s a trick question. I’m sure of it.

  “Before. We could have been normal friends.” Now all I do is make her angry and miserable.

  “Bullshit. I would have hated you before.”

  I’m pretty sure she hates you now, too.

  “You don’t know that. You didn’t meet me until I was half-dead,” I snap.

  “And the other you was better?”

  “Yes.” He was whole.

  “Well what the fuck,” she shouts, “was so special about him that he’s worth hanging onto? He didn’t survive this, so why are you still kicking at his corpse and yelling at him to wake up?”

  Willa’s bedroom door opens and Frank steps in. “What’s all the yelling about?”

  Willa hangs her head, shaking it slightly. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “Why does it smell like smoke in here?” Frank eyes his sister and points a commanding finger at her. “You said you were going to stop this crap, Will.”

  “I am.” She reaches back to shut the window. “That was my last one.” There’s half a pack left in her back pocket.

  Frank turns to me. “I think you should go. That’s quite enough excitement for one night.” I bet he thinks I’m a bad influence. Like I’d encourage her to inhale carcinogens after all I’ve been through. I wouldn’t wish that kind of hell on anybody—not even Elwood, and that’s saying something.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket during the drive home. I immediately pull over, hoping it’s Willa and that we can finally get to the bottom of this. But it’s not Willa. It’s a text message from Elise: Got a bad feeling. Prepping mango shakes in advance.

  I lean forward and thump my head against the steering wheel. Damn it all to hell.

  Monday

  Willa doesn’t look entirely pleased to find me at her locker when she arrives at school, but she doesn’t look angry either. She wears an expression I’ve never seen before—is it nerves?

  “Good morning.” I speak softly, like she’s an unfamiliar animal I’m trying not to spook.

  “G’morning.”

  “Are we still on for Wednesday?”

  She considers that for a moment. “Yeah,” she says. “We are.”

  “About last night…”

  “I’m sorry Frank kicked you out.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I bury my hands in my pockets. “You really should stop hating yourself so much, though.”

  “Haven’t you ever made a mistake you can hardly stand to live with?”

  Her question blindsides me with its strangeness. It’s an oddly personal question for Willa. I stand there mulling that over for a few seconds before it occurs to me that it was a genuine question and Willa expects an answer. I don’t have one.

  “What was yours?” I ask. She wouldn’t have said that unless she had a regrettable mistake on her mind.

  Willa closes her locker and says she has to get to class.

  *

  I can’t ask Willa what her mistake was. She’s already dodged the question once, and if I keep picking at it she’ll snap. I just need a bit of patience—she’ll tell me eventually. It might be years from now, but that’s fine; I intend to keep her around for a while.

  I slide a note her way in Soc: Want to come over for dinner tonight?

  Can’t. I have my first shift 4-8.

  Fuck Chris Elwood straight to hell. I hope his asshole is as wide as Texas by the time Satan gets bored with him.

  Willa passes me another note. It’s directions for Wednesday. It is sort of comforting to think that Willa is going to spend time with Elwood because she has to. She spends time with me because she wants to. Hard to believe, I know, but I’m glad nonetheless.

  I slide another note her way: Bring pepper spray to work.

  You worry too much.

  I prefer to believe that paranoia is just a healthy understanding of the nature of the universe, thank you very much.

  *

  I spend the bulk of my afternoon with my cello. It’s still a far cry from the marathon practice sessions I used to do regularly before I got sick, but it’s progress. I play a little Mozart at Dad’s request. Dad likes music ‘with character,’ as he calls it. I practice until my knuckles bleed and show up to dinner with Band-Aids all over my hands.

  “Oh, honey, take more breaks next time,” Mom says when she sees all the bandages. I agree to make her feel better, and when supper is over I retire to my room for a nap. It’s more tiring than it looks to play cello for three hours straight.

  *

  I wake up feeling utterly content, even before I open my eyes. I smile and sigh, and then I realize that my pillow is breathing. I open my eyes to find my cheek resting against the curve between Willa’s ribs and hip. When did she get here? My arm has made its way around her waist, holding her close. She has her iPod in her right hand and the other resting against my back.

  “Are you awake for real this time?” she asks.

  Oh God. What does that mean? I look up
at her where she leans against the headboard and blink the sleep away from my eyes.

  “Was I awake before?”

  “When you rolled over to put your head there you very distinctly said ‘pizza.’” She chuckles while my face goes red. She hasn’t told me to move yet. Should I?

  “Do you need anything? Water?” Sometimes it’s bloody inconvenient how well she knows my needs—like when I would rather let those needs go hang just to keep her close.

  “It can wait.”

  “Don’t suffer,” she says, and slips away from me. I resist the urge to grab the hem of her shirt and pull her back to me, but this bed feels empty when she’s gone. I pick up her iPod in her absence and select her playlists. What else has Miss Enigmatic been listening to this week?

  I stare at the little screen, perplexed. Her playlists are all titled with guy’s names: Greg, Chris, Luke, Jem, Cody, Joey, Brian, and Frank. The one titled ‘Mom’ stands out. Frank is obviously her brother. I know who Luke and Chris are, but not why they have playlists named after them. And Cody? Cody the twit who asked Willa to the grad dance? Joey is Joey Moore, the guitar-playing kid she sits with at lunch. I’m not sure who Brian and Greg could be. At the bottom of the list she has a file labeled St. John’s. I open it and find a cluster of three more playlists: Steve, Candice, and Darryn.

  I go back to the main list and select the playlist she has named after me. A lot of the track titles I recognize from our bedtime music exchanges. Some I don’t know. Few of them are happy songs, though. Just for comparison’s sake, I look at Chris and Luke’s playlists. The songs in Chris’s are all over the map, but Luke has a lot of top forties.

  Willa comes back with a cup of water and I return to the main playlist page.

  “The hell, Kirk?” I hold up the iPod and she accepts it curiously.

  “What? I organize my songs by who they remind me of.”

  “Who’s Greg?”

  “My dad.”

  “Why do you have a playlist named after Cody?”

  “He made quite an impression.” God damn it. Willa pokes my lip. “Don’t pout.” I gently bite her finger, holding it between my teeth while she tries to pull away. It makes her smile.