When I came home on Sunday, my phone was in my bedroom on my night stand and there was a missed call from her. It came in around 4:00 on Saturday afternoon. The voice mail said, “I’m still upset about yesterday, and since you’re not answering, I’m assuming you are too, but I’m just wondering about the dance. Are we going to try it, or not?”
Of course I never responded and so at 7:37, when we should have been on our first date, she sent a text that said, I guess that’s a no. Don’t worry; I’m sure the store will take the dress back.
I think I’ve read and listened to those messages a dozen times each, and although I don’t know why, I still don’t have what it takes to call her back and explain.
I don’t go to school on Monday.
I sleep.
I don’t shower.
I lie on my arm at my desk and try to draw.
I sleep some more.
I don’t eat.
I stare at the pop bottle lid that Paige kicked from the school to the park.
I don’t talk.
I sit slouched low in my chair in front of the gaming console and steer my guy into the most precarious position possible, then I let off the controller and watch the enemy kill him in a savage way. Then I do it again. And again.
I don’t take the anti-depressant pills Gretta prescribes.
_____
Some people show fear in odd ways. Take my Dad for example. Something is wrong with me and it’s scaring him. He wants to fix it – make it go away – control it – and he tries doing that by force.
“Eat your damn dinner, Ryan,” he tells me as I sit at the table with the family after having spent all of Tuesday just like I did Monday.
I glance back down at my plate, but don’t pick up my fork.
“Ryan, I’m not joking around. You haven’t eaten since Sunday. I’ll take you right back to the hospital and they can shove another IV in you. Feed you that way.”
Luc looks from Dad to me.
I have no desire to please my father, or anyone else right now, so I continue to do the only thing I can do – sit there.
“Would you at least say something?” Dad’s tone is impatient and growing sharp. “Last time I heard a word come out of your mouth was Friday night.”
I have nothing to say.
“Ryan!” he shouts my name and bangs his fist on the table. It makes the silverware jump, the drinks ripple and my mom flinch. It makes Lucas bounce another glance back and forth.
“I want to know who did this to you and I want to know now,” Dad yells at me. “And if I can somehow keep from personally ripping them to shreds, I’m going to press charges to the full extent of the law. They deserve to spend the rest of their life locked behind bars for this. I’m going to see to it that they do. No one, I don’t care who it is, is going to get away with doing this to my son.”
Lucas isn’t looking at anyone anymore. His eyes are on his plate and I keep seeing his Adam’s apple rise and fall.
There’s silence after Dad’s outburst and it’s meant to be filled with my answer, but I don’t speak.
“That’s it!” Dad throws back his chair and rushes to the counter by the sink. There, he grabs up the bottle of pills Gretta suggested I take. He brings them back to the table and aggressively loosens the lid and shakes one out.
“Take it,” he orders.
I don’t.
“Take it, dammit.”
I still don’t and it irritates him. He presses his left hand against the back of my head and with the right he crams the pill at my mouth. I want to hold him off, clinch my jaw and refuse, but my cut lip gets bumped in the scuffle and it hurts. I flinch just enough for him to pry my teeth apart and shove the pill so far back in my throat that I gag on his finger. I struggle to get free but he holds me tight.
“Craig, stop it,” my mom cries out and springs to her feet.
“No, Wendy, I’m not going to have him so depressed he tries to kill himself again. I’m not losing him! If I have to cram a pill down his throat every day in order to keep that from happening, I will,” he shouts and grabs for my glass of water. He forces it against my lower lip which hurts even more, and then he pours. It does wash the pill down but it also chokes me.
I cough and hack and can’t breathe and the water I’m unable to swallow floods out of my mouth. It runs down my chin and onto my shirt.
Then Dad snatches the dinner roll off of my plate.
“No, Craig! Stop.” Mom grabs at his arm but he yanks it violently out of her grip.
“He needs to eat, Wendy. It’s been days,” he shouts at her.
“But you’re hurting him. Leave him alone.” She starts to cry.
Dad forces a chunk of the bread into my mouth and it tastes like blood because my stitches have been split. I can’t chew or swallow it; I’m still choking on the water. It falls out of my mouth and he picks it up, wet and soggy and shoves it back in. Then, as tears stream down my cheeks, blood drips from my mouth, and I gasp for air, he comes to his senses.
He freezes, looks at me with deep concern, curses under his breath, then leaves the kitchen by way of the garage door. He starts his car and is gone.
Mom falls into her chair, covers her face with her hands and sobs.
Lucas just stares, wide eyed, and when I’m physically able, I get the hell out of there. But I have nowhere to go except my room.
I remove the broken stitches from my lip with a pair of tweezers and hang over the sink spitting blood until my right leg, which is holding all my weight starts to tremble. Then I grab a hand towel, press it between my lips and painfully make my way to bed.
Nobody wakes me up for school on Wednesday morning and that’s okay, because I didn’t want to go anyway. I never want to go back there. I crawl out of bed around 10:30 and without getting dressed, and while pushing my wheelchair so that I have something to lean on, I limp my way into the kitchen.
Mom is there. She’s not dressed for the day, either. Her hair hasn’t been combed and her makeup hasn’t been applied. She’s wearing her pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt. She’s sitting at the table, her feet up on the chair with her and her arms wrapped around her legs. The side of her head rests on her bent knees and she’s staring out the window.
She looks over at me as I sit down across from her. She watches me until her lower lip starts to quiver and then she shakes her head. “I don’t know why I can’t stop crying, Ry.”
I reach forward and flip the bottle of anti-depressants that are still on the table from last night. It tips over and rolls toward her and she laughs slightly.
“I feel like taking the whole bottle.”
“Don’t, they make your head spin.” I break my four day silence with a scratchy voice.
She smiles, but it fades. “I’m sure he’s very sorry about that, Ryan.”
“He never came home?”
She shakes her head.
“I’ve really messed this whole family up, haven’t I? Could you pass back those pills?”
She picks up the bottle and tucks them down in her lap out of both our sights. And we sit, silently looking at one another for a long while.
“Mom?”
“Hum?”
“I’m hungry.”
My words make her smile widely and she gets up from her chair and crosses to mine. She puts both her hands on the sides of my head and leans over and kisses me on the forehead. “We’re going to be alright, Ryan. All of us. You just keep hanging in there, agreed?”
I nod and she kisses me again.
“Breakfast and then a shower, okay?” She rubs my back.
“I stink?”
“Bad.”
“Damn.”
“Exactly.”
_____
Luc hasn’t spoken a single word to me, nor I to him, since the locker room on Friday. He sends messages, loud and clear, though. On Thursday, after PT, when I’m in grueling pain, and while dad is pleading with me, again, to tell him who re-injured me, Luc catche
s my eye and with a glare, threatens me. If you tell, you’re dead.
On Friday, after Dad has had one too many to drink, and is promising to hire a private investigator, if I don’t just tell him now, Lucas silently begs me not to do it.
The kid is scared shitless and sometimes I want to get up and pound him into the ground and other times I want to hug him.
TWENTY
By Monday, although my leg is much more than uncomfortable, I can walk unassisted and I have to go back to school. My bubble is still there, only now no one enters it at all. Not even my so called friends. Everyone just moves around me. It’s like I’m there, but not really.
Scott talks to someone else in first hour English. Jake lowers his head when I pass him in the hall. Luc looks the other direction as I enter the cafeteria, and I eat lunch alone in a table in the corner.
I don’t sit by Paige in art. I pick a seat on the back row and avert my eyes every time she looks back at me. I don’t know why I do this, but I do.
She hasn’t called or texted me since a week ago Saturday, and I guess I’m afraid she’s still mad at me for the pep assembly, the dance, ignoring her, avoiding her, and/or all of the above. I know I’m only making things worse by not apologizing and telling her what’s been going on with me, but I just don’t have the mental energy to get the job done. I do miss her though.
I don’t go to practice after school. I pass Zane on my way out, and he crosses to the other side of the hall.
_____
Tuesday. Mom drops me off at school by the east door because it’s the closest to my locker which means less walking on my sore leg.
I enter and see that Zane has Luc cornered again. As I walk on by I say, “Just stand there, Luc, that’ll make it stop.”
“Shut up, asshole,” he tells me.
I eat lunch alone. And in art I sit in back again and I don’t look at Paige.
I hate this. I really hate it.
I stay after school, but it’s not to go to football practice, it’s to turn in some of the assignments I missed during the week I was gone.
When I leave the building, Tasha is in the parking lot. She’s leaned back against one of only a few cars left and she’s picking at the split ends of her hair. When she sees me she throws the lock over her shoulder and stands up straight.
“Ry, can I talk to you?” She looks sad.
“About what?”
“About us.”
“I don’t really think there is an us, is there?”
Her eyes droop even lower and she pushes some hair behind her ear and shrugs.
I stand on the sidewalk, twenty feet away from her and watch as she sticks her hands in her jacket pockets. She’s the only one who’s wanted to talk to me since I’ve been back, so for that, I say, “But, if there was, what would you say?”
“Want to get in the car, Ryan? I’m freezing.”
I stand for about thirty more seconds before I step out into the parking lot. She watches me approach her, pass her, and open the passenger door of her car, before she pushes off of the hood and gets in the driver’s side.
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing she says to me, and she seems humble and genuine. “That thing in the bathroom,” she shakes her head. “I was a total bitch. I never should have done that.”
“Thanks.”
She turns sideways in her seat and stretches her hand out toward my face. I pull back staying out of her reach, but her outstretched hand holds steady. I look at it, then her, then it.
She wants to touch me, and is that so bad? When was the last time someone outside the family or medical profession touched me?
I pass another glance between her hand and face, then slowly lean forward until she can make contact. She glides the tips of her smooth fingers over my cheek.
“I never should have hit you,” she says. “I keep thinking about it and it makes me feel terrible.” Her eyes trace what’s left of the wound she created with her ring. She deepens her touch and slides her whole palm over it. If the hand print she’d left on my cheek was still there, she’d probably be directly over it. “I scarred your beautiful face. You’ve always been the best looking guy around. All the girls wanted you and I was the lucky one that had you.”
Moisture is forming in her eyes and when I question it with my gaze she explains. “I know you don’t remember me, Ryan, but I remember you and I miss you.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you were the first real memory I had,” I tell her.
“I was?” she smiles weakly.
“Yeah. I think I remember making love to you.”
The grooves between her eyes deepen. “What else do you remember about me?” she wants to know.
I caress her gorgeous face with my eyes, focus on her tender touch for a moment then shake my head. “Nothing. Just you naked.”
“Am I pretty in your memory?”
“Very.”
This causes her eyes to dance and she strokes my face.
“In it, you’re wearing the navel ring with the stars, the one you said I bought you.”
“I’m wearing it now, too.” She lifts at the bottom of her jacket and shirt until the flesh of her lower abdomen is exposed. “Sometimes it seems like it’s all I have left of you.”
I study the piece of jewelry and how good it looks against her tan, supple skin.
“Will you touch me, Ryan? Like you want to, not like you have to?”
I lift my eyes to hers and the yearning she has for me is miles deep. It’s flattering, but I don’t think I should touch her, as tempting as only she can make it.
“Please.”
I think of Paige and shake my head. “I’m sorry, Tasha. Look, I should probably go.” I reach for the door handle and she stops me.
“Wait. Don’t leave. I won’t attack you, I promise.” She drops her shirt back into place and cinches her jacket more tightly around herself.
“Let me give you a ride home, Ryan.”
I study her. “Just a ride?”
“Yeah. I just want to be with you.” She’s back to sounding melancholy.
“Alright,” I agree. “You can take me home.”
We talk about music, and something she says, a block from my house, makes me laugh. She smiles and looks over at me. “Can I keep you a while longer?”
I have to admit, it feels good to have someone to talk to and so I nod.
We drive around for awhile and finally stop behind an abandoned rail road car on the far side of town. We smoke some weed together, hang out and talk, and she keeps her promise not to attack me.
I think Lucas has a bit of a black eye. Mom and Dad ordered in pizza then left me and him to our own devices while they went out. He’s stayed down stairs all evening, but when he comes into the kitchen where I’m sitting at the table drawing, I think I see discoloration.
I watch him, waiting for the moment when he turns at the right angle or into the right light so that I can tell for sure. But he’s good at keeping his back to me.
He fumbles around in the fridge, removes a Pepsi, cracks the top, drinks some down, sets it on the counter, gets out another slice of pizza, heats it up in the microwave and bites into it, all without letting me see his face. I keep watching and waiting, and finally it happens. He throws the crust of the pizza in the trash and turns for his soda again and I see that, yes, he does have a black eye. The outer portion of his left eye, near his temple is bruised.
“Who hit you?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer and it’s not because he’s afraid of being considered a nark, it’s because he hates me. He gives me that you’re too disgusting to talk to look and with his Pepsi, starts to walk away.
“Who was it?” I call out to him.
“Maybe Dad can hire a private investigator to find out. Oh, wait; he only does that shit for you.”
“It was Zane this morning in the hall, wasn’t it? What the hell do you expect, Luc?”
This fires him up and he spins around and come
s storming back into the kitchen to yell at me. “I expect your friends to treat me with some respect. My friends think you’re an ass, but they’ve never done shit like that to you.”
“Because they were afraid to.”
The truth of this statement strikes a nerve and he leans into my face. “They had to be, you were a dick.”
As glad as I am to hear him use past tense words, I’m not about to let him run all over me again, so I rise from my seat. He can put me back in the hospital in about ten seconds, we both know this, but because of my notorious past, my action brings a flicker of fear to his face. He doesn’t back off, though, he stands his ground and I do everything I can not to let my uneasiness be detected.
“Help me out, ‘cause I don’t remember,” I say to him. “But have you always been like this? Have you always had the balls to stand up to me, or is this something new? A confidence that only came once you realized I was too weak to fight back.”
He doesn’t respond, but his eyes narrow as his anger intensifies.
“A while ago, when you got into it with Dad and pushed him, I’ve got to be honest with you, Luc, I thought you were slap out of your mind. But I see it now, you only dared do that because you know he wouldn’t hurt you too bad. Yeah, he might push you back and yell at you, but he isn’t going to put you in the ground.”
“Shut up, Ryan,” he growls at me.
“So, like I said in the hall at school this morning, just stand there, Luc. When Zane is knocking you around, just stand there. But while you’re doing that, cross your fingers that one day he’ll drive himself off a cliff and you can sneak into his hospital room and pull his plug. Really give him what he deserves.”
“F– you!” he hisses, then steps back enough to hurl his soda at me. It hits me in the chest and splashes all over my shirt and the underside of my chin. And when I catch it from falling to the floor, it fizzes out the top and soaks my hands and drips down onto my art papers.
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