Erased

by Margaret Chatwin

  I act out my role. I smile and I tell them what play I liked best. And when they ask when I’ll be hitting the field again, I lie and say, soon, I hope. Then Dad will nod proudly at me and thump me on the back, which is my cue that I’m excused for a minute.

  I’ve just risen from the couch where I had to take a break from standing when a guy my own age calls my name. He crosses the room and stands in front of me to smile. He has an athletic build, sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes and he’s dressed like me. Rich.

  He steps in closer, crossing the line into my private space, and then he steps in again. He’s touching me now. His chest is rubbing against mine – our noses side-by-side. His breath is on my lips. And his fingers – the tips of them slide discreetly below the waist band of the front of my jeans.

  Holy shit! Am I gay? I don’t like the feel of what he’s doing, and I spring back away from him. My reaction causes a bag of weed to fall from the place he was trying to stash it – my pants. It hits the floor at our feet and he scoops it up in a flash.

  “What the hell?” he’s looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind, which, technically, I have, and then looks quickly around to see if anyone else saw.

  “I . . . I . . .” I don’t know what to say.

  “Freak, relax,” he tells me and I’m left to assume that’s just how we do this. He glances around again and when he finds no one closely watching, he hands me the pot like a normal person hands something to someone else. “Welcome home gift,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I kind of choke. I’m nervous as hell right now and it has nothing to do with the weed. “Who are you?”

  He’s a bit insulted that I don’t remember him, and it shows on his face. “Zane. We’ve been best friends since sixth grade.”

  “Sorry.”

  He stands there waiting for me to say more, but what am I supposed to say?

  “Coach bumped me up into your position on the team,” he informs me. “He’s making you honorary captain, though. So, it’s like you’re still boss . . . only, not really.”

  I don’t respond, just stand there looking at Zane.

  “What? Don’t be mad at me, it was his call.”

  “I’m sure it was a good call, since I won’t be playing this year.”

  “Yeah, that bites. Your senior year, too. The scouts were already watching you. You could have gotten into any school you wanted. I just think it would have kicked ass to see you playing college ball.”

  I’m not sure what, exactly, but I’m pulling something from him. Something more than he’s saying or showing. Something . . . umm . . . insincere, maybe.

  “Hey, bunch of us are going water skiing tomorrow. It’ll be the last Saturday at the lake before it gets too cold. Wanna come?” he asks.

  “I think I’ll have to pass, bad leg and all.”

  “You could just hang out on the boat.”

  “Don’t think I’m up for that yet.”

  “Ah, come on. We haven’t hung out for months.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Damn, you sure have changed. I don’t think you’ve ever passed up a day on the lake. Beer and boobs, how can you possibly say no?”

  Dad is suddenly behind me with his overzealous voice. “Did I just hear you say beer and boobs?”

  Zane grins. “Yep, and the lake. We’re going skiing tomorrow.”

  “Right on.” My dad extends his fist and Zane gives him knuckles like they’ve done this a million times.

  “I’m trying to talk Ry into going with.”

  Dad looks at me and then speaks in my behalf, “He wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Actually, I’d miss it for a whole lot less.

  “I don’t think I can make it,” I say.

  “Sure you can,” Dad bumps me playfully with his shoulder and it knocks me off balance.

  For a normal person it would only take a small weight adjustment to correct this problem, but I’m not normal anymore. I’m forced to shift my weight to my left leg so suddenly that it sends a terribly sharp stab into my thigh. Instinctually, this type of pain makes me try to get off the sore leg, but the transition back to my right foot does not go smoothly.

  I’ve fallen many times in the months that my body has been being rehabilitated, but it’s never been right on my face. At a party. In front of fifty plus people!

  Until now.

  I hit the floor in an emotionally agonizing way, and as soon as I land, it seems like the entire room gasps. Then it becomes deathly silent and I never want to get up. Never! I can feel every eye in the place locked right on me and I’m mortified. I want a vast, dark hole leading to the center of the earth to open up and suck me in. I then want to disintegrate into nothing in its fiery core.

  Is it really that bad? When my dad picks me up like an infant, it really is. He sits me down on the couch, and as my body throbs, and my face, neck and head burn with extreme embarrassment, I wonder why he couldn’t have just caught me before I fell. Or Zane. I mean seriously – both of them were standing close enough to have done something about it.

  It’s rather irritating that neither one of them did.

  “Ryan, are you okay?” My mom is the first person to speak.

  “He’s fine,” Dad says with a chuckle.

  No, I’m not. I want to yell this while there’s still silence in the room. I want everyone to hear it, know it and feel it. I’m not okay. I hurt in all the ways there is to hurt. But instead of saying so, I try to smile as Dad tousles my hair and says, “He’s tough, aren’t you, Son?”

  There are a few relieved sounding laughs and then the party resumes, and Dad goes back to talking to Zane about the lake as if nothing ever happened.

  “So what time are you guys heading out? I’ll drive him down.”

  “I don’t want to go, Dad,” I say firmly.

  He looks down at me. “Sure you do, it’ll be a blast.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I repeat, then push myself up off of the couch by using only my arms and right leg.

  “Where are you going?” Dad wonders as I hobble off.

  “The bathroom,” I lie. I can’t stand any of this anymore. I have to get out of here.

  I leave the house by way of the back door, because it doesn’t have steps. It leads right out onto the patio, which then leads to the grass.

  As I struggle around the house, through the side gate and out to the sidewalk, I’m trying like hell not to be a bawl baby and cry about this, but damn, it sucks. I never wanted this stupid party, and I’m really upset at whoever put it into action. It’s turned me into a mental case. I’m not even comfortable in my own skin at the moment. I feel overwhelmed, misunderstood, hostile, and completely alone – the bad kind of alone.

  Maybe this is all because I’m still embarrassed, I don’t know. But it feels like so much more than that. It feels like months’ worth of pure mental and physical hell has suddenly landed on my head.

  I’ve been through so much in that amount of time, and like Gretta, my psychiatrist, advised me to do, I’ve tried to take it one day – sometimes even one hour – at a time. But for some reason it seems like all those days and hours have joined forces and have come back to get me. To take me down.

  I’m so wrapped up in my own pity party that I guess I wasn’t fully aware I was walking away from my house. I wasn’t watching where I was going, either, because, by the time the pain in my leg firmly demands that I stop and rest, I have no idea where I am.

  None of the houses anywhere around me look familiar – none of the yards – none of the streets. Nothing.

  Panic strikes me. This is almost as terrifying as the day in the hospital when I finally came around enough to realize that I didn’t know where, or who, I was. It’s the loneliest, most helpless feeling in the world.

  Calm down, I tell myself. I couldn’t have gone far, my leg can only hold out for fifteen minutes.

  And in reality, I bet I didn’t even get a full fifteen minutes out of it this time, because it was alrea
dy hurting from the fall.

  I stand in the center of the block and turn in a full circle, wondering which direction I came from. That doesn’t help. It only confuses me further. It makes me fully aware that I really don’t have a clue.

  I pretend I do though, I tell myself that it’s: This way – definitely this way. Then I turn and walk that direction until I change my mind. No, not this way, it’s that way. And then I believe myself and change course. This goes on, and on.

  I don’t even have my cell phone to call home!

  Oh for hell’s sake, why didn’t someone install a tracking device on me? They know that if I get loose, I’m prone for this crap.

  When I absolutely cannot manage to be on my leg for one more second, I’m forced to pronounce myself totally, and officially lost.

  When I’ve rested, I try again. I go until my leg wears out. Then I repeat.

  FIVE

  I’m sitting on the grass, leaned against the trunk of a tree, resting my aching body for the fourth time, when I hear a screen door bang shut. I look over at the house I’m in front of and watch a teenage girl step out onto the covered, and creaky, wooden porch.

  Yes, in my hour’s worth of hopeless wandering, I’ve managed to work my way out of the rich neighborhood and now I’m into something more . . . normal.

  She’s shaking a bottle of nail polish and it takes her a second to notice me. When she does, she pauses in her step, studies me for a long moment, then takes a seat on her porch swing.

  She’s wearing shorts but also has on a hoodie. I guess this is to beat the slight fall chill in the air. She continues to shake her polish as she drags a plastic drink table toward her and props her bare foot up on it.

  Her light brown hair is tied up in a sloppy bun behind her head, and I can tell that if she were to let it down, it would be long – past her shoulders.

  She unscrews the lid from her bottle, extracts the brush, then leans over and paints the nail of her big toe. She’s careful, and she wipes away any color that gets out of the lines. She dips into the bottle again and paints the next two toes with just as much precision.

  She finishes her right foot, spreads her toes in an awkward looking way, and holds them like that while she brings her left foot up to the cheap looking table. She wets her brush and starts again.

  “Do you know me?” My voice carries to her, but she doesn’t look up from her work.

  “That’s an odd twist to an old pick up line. Shouldn’t you be asking; do I know you?”

  “That is what I’m asking, do you know me.”

  “You know what I mean,” she informs, and I guess I do.

  “I don’t know you, but do you know me?” I say.

  “How would I know you, if you don’t know me?” She finishes that particular nail, then leans back to admire it before finally looking up at me.

  “As messed up as it sounds, it’s quite possible, believe me.” I’m not so sure she does, though, because she crinkles her eyebrows and pinches them together.

  I’m hoping she knows me and can point me in the direction of home, so I try to spark her memory by saying. “My name is Ryan Farnsworth. We look about the same age, so I’m sure we go to the same school. I’m captain of the football team. Or . . . used to be. And I think I’m pretty popular, so you should probably know me.”

  “Oh, wow,” she says with a laugh and I suddenly realize how egotistical and simply pathetic my words must have sounded to her.

  That’s not what I meant! I feel stupid.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Ryan Farnsworth, but,” she tosses a nod to the SOLD tag across the real estate sign in her front yard, that I’ve somehow failed to notice. “I’m not real familiar with who’s top of the food chain around here, yet. We just moved in middle of last week.”

  “Oh,” I say and then return to my silence. She watches me for a moment longer then gets back to painting her toe nails.

  When she finishes, she tightens the lid down, leans over her knees and blows on the wet paint. After awhile of this, she asks, “Are you okay?”

  I shrug. “Could I . . . I really need a drink. Could I maybe borrow a glass of water from you?”

  “Borrow? Well, we might want the glass back, but you can keep the water, we have a whole sink full.”

  My face flushes hot, and she smiles and gets up off of the swing. With her toes pointing upward, she waddles over to the screen door and pulls it open. “Mom,” she hollers. “The captain of the football team is in our front yard and he needs a drink. My nails are wet; will you bring me a glass of water?”

  Her mom shows up at the door less than a minute later with the glass and waves to me, “Hi, Captain.”

  I lift a few fingers into the air and wonder why neither one of them has asked why I’m just sitting on their grass.

  Mom hands the glass to Daughter and she holds it out to me. “You can come up here.”

  I’m not a hundred percent sure she’s right about that, but I try, anyway.

  Because I’m so sore, weary, and weak from all my aimless walking, getting up isn’t easy or graceful. I flop around like a fish on dry land, but finally make it to my feet. But all the exertion has made my leg throb and my head hurt even more, and I have to stand there for a moment, praying not to pass out.

  Both of them are staring, wide eyed, at me, and it makes me feel a bit like a circus freak.

  My limp is heavier than usual as I work my way up their sidewalk and come to a stop at the bottom step leading to the covered porch. They’re both still staring.

  “I said, I used to be captain of the team. I can’t play anymore.” I pat lightly on my bad leg and the girl hurries down the stairs to hand me the water while her mother nods, agreeing that I shouldn’t be playing anything in my condition.

  “Thanks.” I take the tall glass out of her hand and drink it down in one long gulp, and then I catch my breath while handing it back to her. She’s even prettier up close, and her toenails are soft pink.

  I think she must be able to tell how extremely exhausted I am, because she gives me a concerned look and then points over her shoulder. “Wanna sit down on the swing?”

  “Yes. But I can’t. Stairs are my arch-enemy. They’re always kicking my . . .” I glance at her mother. “Behind,” I finish and the woman smiles and gives me an understanding wink.

  “Paige and I can help you up them,” her mother offers.

  I glance at the soft looking cushions on the swing, feel the ache in my leg and all my other parts, then shrug. What I really should be doing is asking to borrow their phone and call Mom or Dad to come get me, but even hurting like I am, I don’t want to go home yet. I’m not in the festive mood and I’m sure the party is still in full swing.

  “I’d like to say yes, but it’s not as easy as just a shoulder to lean on,” I tell them. “I’ll just sit on the stairs.”

  “Wait!” Paige cries out, then half walks, half waddles, because her nails are still wet, toward the man door of the garage. She disappears inside and before too much longer I begin to hear a terrible scraping noise.

  Her mother seems to recognize the sound and suddenly smiles. “Oh, good idea.” She comes off the porch and also disappears into the garage.

  The grinding stops and seconds later the two of them come out carrying an aluminum motorcycle ramp.

  I’m impressed.

  They unfold the thing and lay it over the stairs and down onto the walk.

  “Now can you?” Paige wants to know.

  “Yeah, I think so.” I have to back up a ways, because the ramp is long and I can’t step up over the side, but I start at the end and before long I’m standing on their porch. “Sweet,” I smile, pleased as hell at the results. So much less humiliating than when Dad picks me up like I’m a child.

  Paige and her mother have joined me on the porch and her mother extends her hand, “I’m Cynthia.”

  “Ryan.” I shake it.

  “More water, Ryan?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” />
  Cynthia smiles and takes the glass Paige is still holding and moves back inside with it.

  “Sit down.” Paige latches onto the chain to steady the swing for me and I drop as carefully as I can into the seat.

  Oh, it feels heavenly! So much better than the hard ground. It immediately allows my overly tight muscles to finally start relaxing.

  Paige’s eyes are a really cool color. I keep thinking they’re green, but then she shifts, the light around her changes, and I swear they’re blue. Besides the garage time, I don’t think she’s stopped looking at me since I got up off of the grass. It’s a different way of looking at someone. Not like she’s crushing on me. Not like she feels sorry for me. Not like she dislikes me, either. I can’t figure it out, but it makes me stare back at her in hopes of getting it.

  Cynthia brings my refill then goes back inside. I drink half the glass down at a more controlled rate than before and then Paige sets it on the plastic table for me.

  I slouch down in the swing enough to rest the back of my head against the top cushions and she falls into the open space next to me.

  “Can I put my feet on your table?” I ask.

  “Sure.”

  So I do, which helps my left leg immensely.

  I look at her. She looks at me. And there’s silence. It doesn’t feel weird, though.

  I watch her eyes move across all the features of my face one by one. I’m probably doing the same thing to her because I keep thinking, damn she has a pretty mouth, or, wow, her nose is so perfect.

  “How did you get hurt?” She’s the first to speak and her gaze rests momentarily on my scarred arm.

  “Car wreck.” That’s all I say. I don’t want her to know what a suicidal F– up I am, just yet.

  “That sucks. Looks like you really got hurt badly.”

  “I did. Who’s ramp?”

  “My older brother, Van’s. He’s into bikes. Are you?”

  I don’t know, I can’t remember. Wait – I do remember the last few months and I know that in that amount of time I have not been “into” motorcycles. Nor do I ever think I will be, at least not ‘til my leg is well, which might be a very long time.