Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (17 page)

“I’m so glad
you’re okay,” he said, hands kneading her tense muscles.  “God, I was so
worried something happened to you.”

She didn’t
respond, but Cole could feel little hitches in her chest warning at the
nearness of tears.

“Ava, I’m
sorry,” Cole whispered, his mouth almost against her ear.  “So sorry about what
I said and did.  I was wrong…  I know that.  All right?”

“‘S’okay,” she
mumbled.

“No... no, it’s
not,” Cole said, pulling back to look at her.  He stroked his thumb against her
cheek.  “But I want us to be okay.  Can we... talk about this sometime?  Just
you and me?”

Ava nodded, eyes
glittering with unshed tears.  Cole reached for her hand, and this time her
fingers tightened around his, holding on tight.

: : : : : : : :
: :

Chim and Suzanne
were waiting in the lobby when Ava was released.  Chim rushed toward them the
moment Ava and Cole walked out together, hand in hand.  He pulled Ava into a
hug, then released her, his eyebrows dropping in annoyance, nostrils flared.

“Goddammit,
Ava,” he chided, “I can’t believe you’d PULL something like this again.  I
mean, you really fucking SCARED me this time!” 

His voice had
the older brother tone he sometimes used with her; responsibility and
frustration wrapped up in love.

“Chim,” Cole
said, hand on his arm, “it's okay.”

“No,” he barked,
shrugging off Cole’s touch.  “No, it’s not!” (The calm from before, Cole
realized, had been an act for his benefit.)  “Seriously, Ava.  You can’t keep
pulling shit like this! You’ve gotta grow up!” 

His cheeks were
blotchy with colour.

“Sorry,” she
muttered.  She stared at the floor.  Voice empty.

“Not good
enough,” he grumbled, stepping toward her.  “I swear to God, Ava, if your dad
knew tha—”

“Marcus!” Cole
snapped, stepping between the two of them, “her mom died!”

Chim stopped,
his face draining.  He hugged Ava again, holding her tight to his chest.

“Oh god,” Chim
gasped.  “So, so sorry.  I didn’t know...”

: : : : : : : :
: :

They drove back
to Ava’s apartment, the high-pitched buzz of the little car their only sound. 
It was just after midnight and all of them had classes in the morning.  Cole
offered to stay with Ava, and Chim and Suzanne quickly said their goodbyes. 
Ava didn’t quite know what to do with Cole’s offer... or whether she wanted him
there or not... but she said nothing, and that was taken as yes.

She didn’t want
to decide anything anymore.  She was too tired.

“Thanks for
letting me stay,” Cole said as they walked up to the front door, his hand on
her lower back. 

Ava saw him
watching her and she dropped her eyes again.  Things were still weird, and she
wasn’t sure how to get back to normal.  She needed time to think... or sleep...
or finish sobering up. 
‘All of them probably…’ 

“Yeah,” she
muttered, punching in the code and leading Cole inside.

In minutes they
were at the entrance to her apartment.  Ava dropped her backpack on the floor
while she fiddled with the lock.  After two unsuccessful tries, she leaned her
cheek against the door, wearily closing her eyes.  She couldn’t get her key to
fit.  She jumped as Cole’s hand brushed her arm.

“Hey,” he said
gently, “I’ll go, alright?  I just wanted to make sure you were inside, safe. 
I’ll, uh... I’ll call you in the morning.”

Ava turned to
him, eyes shining in the dim light of the corridor.

“No,” she
answered, “I want you here, but I think… I think we should talk now, not
later.  Okay?”

Cole nodded,
expecting Ava to pass him the keys, but instead she pulled out a mostly-empty
pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her bag.

Cole frowned.

“You don’t
smoke.”

Ava laughed
tiredly.

“I do tonight.” 
With a sigh, she hefted the bag back onto her shoulder, heading toward the fire
escape.  “C’mon,” she called.

: : : : : : : :
: :

They sat side by
side, Ava talking through the events of the last weeks.  Her voice rose and
fell in a quiet tempo, trying to make sense of the blur of time.  She described
the first meeting with her mother after so many years apart.  How Ava had
gotten angry enough that she’d raged at her during the session, finally telling
her everything that she’d felt as a child.  How much she’d hated her.  How
terrible Shay had been.  How much of the abuse she actually remembered.

Ava laughed
bitterly.

“I didn’t think
Terry would ask me back again after that.” She took another drag on the
cigarette in her hand, holding the smoke in her lungs before blowing it away. 
“But she… she wanted to get well.   She did, Cole.  And Terry said that this
was part of that process for her, so…”

The sentence
ended mid-thought.  Ava turned to Cole.  There was an odd expression on his
face, not quite sad, but somehow hurting. 

“And so you went
back,” he prompted.

She nodded,
letting the taste of the cigarette smoke  bring her father to mind as she
inhaled.

“There was
another message from Terry when I got home.  So I went back the next night, and
she was waiting.” Ava paused, lifting her hand up, thumbing her eyebrow, the
low-burning cigarette dangling.  “Didn’t expect that, I guess.  I just kind
of... talked to her.  She – my mom, I mean – she never said sorry.  Not that I
expected her to.  I mean she hadn’t really changed, even though I had. 
Addiction’s a funny thing.” 

Ava laughed
angrily and Cole’s expression grew uncomfortable.

“She never said
sorry?” 

Ava shook her
head.

“Nope... but
that wasn’t what I was looking for, anyway.  I just wanted to have my say.  To
be able to tell her:
‘this was the fucked up shit you did to me, and it was
never EVER okay’.
”  She lifted the cigarette with shaking fingers, rubbing
away a tear with her free hand.  “And then… and then she went and fucked it all
up anyhow.  Took off and OD’ed in an alley downtown.  Just an addict, screwing
up one last time.”  Ava took a sobbing breath, cheeks shining with tears. 
“That was it.  She was gone.”

“God, Ava, I
wish you’d told me,” Cole said, sliding closer.  She nodded, flicking ashes
into the wind and watching as they swirled down into the night.

“Yeah, well, me
too.”  She gave a short, harsh laugh.  “But here we are.”

Cole put his arm
over her shoulders.

“Yeah, here we
are.”

Ava drew the
warm burn of smoke into her lungs, coughing and blowing it away before
continuing.

“Part of me
wants to say it was just a fucked-up waste of time to even meet with her.  She
didn’t get clean, after all.  But there were all these things that I got to
talk about.  These things I’d never said to her, or anyone.  Things I was sure
I couldn’t say... and I’m… I’m glad for those.”  She reached down, tapping
ashes onto the stair’s grate.   “I mean… I got to tell her about Dad, and how
amazing he was when I was growing up, and how I turned out just fucking fine
without her.  I needed to say that.” Ava dropped her face down, lips twisting
into a cynical smile.  “For a while she... she just kept trying to rationalize
it all.  About why the abuse happened… why it wasn’t her fault.”

Cole’s arm
tightened on her shoulders.

“God, baby, I’m
sorry.”

Ava shrugged.

“Yeah, well,
people are people.  This thing that Terry set up,” Ava said, ashes rising as
she gestured, “it was supposed to help her get clean, but the truth is, Cole,
it was never about her… it was about me.  So I just kept talking, and whenever
she’d start in on her shit, I’d walk out the door.”

Cole laughed.

“Sounds like
me.”

Ava sniffled.

“Well... a
better choice than punching her, which was what I wanted to do,” she admitted. 

She smiled
morosely. 

“I kept thinking
one day I’d show up and Terry would say she wouldn’t see me, or she’d tell me
to fuck off, that she was done, but she never did.  I just talked... getting it
out... letting go of that pain and anger... and when I couldn’t deal with it
anymore, I’d come home and paint—”

“You painted?”
Cole asked in surprise.  Her hair hung down in strands and he reached up,
brushing it back behind her ear so he could see her eyes.

“Yeah... my
studio’s packed with them,” Ava said wearily.  Cole kissed her temple.

“I’d like to see
them sometime.”

She reached over,
crushing out the cigarette on the metal grate.  She flicked it into the night
with a shower of sparks.

“I’m not sure
you would.  They’re dark.  And, uh... not all of them are on canvas.”

He grinned.

“Boy, Chim would
have had your ass if you’d been caught at the train yards.”

Ava snorted,
rolling her eyes.

“I can handle
Chim just fine,” she said with a tired chuckle.  Her smile wavered, and she
turned to him, the wariness returning.  “It’s
you
I’m not so sure I can
manage.”

Cole nodded.

“Fair enough.”

She swallowed
hard, closing her eyes.

“I know I should
have told you about my mom...
I get that
.  But I needed to do this... do
it for me.”  She looked back to him as she spoke, holding his gaze.  “I needed
to find forgiveness.”

Cole's mouth
hardened at that, jaw tightening angrily.

“How can you
talk about forgiving her, after what she did to you, Ava?” He grabbed hold of
her hand, squeezing hard.  “She fucked up your childhood!  How could you ever
get past that?”

His tone was
outraged and hurt, and Ava turned her hand over, lacing her fingers with his. 
This, right here, was why she hadn’t told Cole.

“In a way, my
forgiveness has nothing to do with her,” she explained.  “I needed to let go of
that anger I was carrying around.  Because forgiving didn’t mean you’re saying
that what the other person did was okay.”

Her fingers
tightened in Cole’s hands, eyes on his face.  A muscle in his jaw was jumping,
his eyes bright and unsettled.  It hurt her to see it.

“What my mother
did to me,” Ava continued, “is never EVER going to be okay!  But forgiveness is
about me moving past what happened when I was a kid.  Learning to be okay with
myself, and letting those emotions go.”

“But,
how?”
Cole cried.  His face was raging with unspoken hurt, anguish in his eyes.

 “I needed to
let that anger out of me to get past it,” she said, her voice breaking, tears
starting to draw wet lines on her cheeks.  “She doesn’t get to own me, Cole...
not ever!  Not anymore any way.  She has no more control.  It’s my life now. 
I’m done with hating her.” 

Ava took a
shuddering breath, her face sad but peaceful. 

“My mother may
have fucked up her detox.  She may have screwed up rehab and died in the end. 
But I don’t have to feel bad about that.  I tried for ME, Cole.  Does that make
sense?  I let her go on my terms.  And the truth is, I’m glad about it.  It’s
over... the pain is gone.  And I’m glad.”

Next to her,
Cole pulled her into a painful hug, his body quivering.  He was breathing
harshly, almost in tears himself.  Ava could barely make out his words when he
whispered them.

“So what do you
do if the person you need to forgive is already dead?”

There was a long
moment after Cole said it... admitted to the anger he’d been feeling for years.
Ava just stared at him in confusion.  In the dim haze from the security light,
the blue of her eyes was so dark it seemed almost black.  Dreamlike. 

“You’re angry at
Hanna?” she asked, perplexed.

Cole sighed,
shaking his head. It came to him that he’d never really said this aloud... not
in years.  Not since his mother’s funeral.  Even then, he didn’t get to say it
clearly.  (His father hadn’t wanted to hear it.)

“No, not
Hanna...” he admitted. 

Ava’s expression
shifted as the rest of the story appeared.  He could actually see the moment
she understood.

“Your mom.” 
This time it wasn’t a question. 

The secret hung
between them like the mist from their breaths. 

Cole nodded.

“Yeah.  You
can’t believe how angry I was at her...” He stumbled.  “...how angry
I am
at her.”

Ava reached for
his hand.  She was frowning like she was trying to solve a difficult equation
without a calculator.   Cole realized that though he had told her about the
facts of his childhood, he really hadn’t said much about what he felt like when
it was happening.