Old Wounds (30 page)

Saturday the house was a flood of activity. The Damascus Hornets won the Homecoming game the night before, and David had to recount it in the morning, play-by-play. I didn’t mind; it was obviously important to him and I wanted to be a good brother, but I couldn’t help but tune some of it out. Touchdowns were one thing, but quarterback sneaks and fifty-seven yard punt returns were things I cared little about.

Jane, despite her belly wound, was taking care of all the details of the day. She always took it upon herself to organize everyone she knew for big events like Homecoming and Prom. She not only had to supervise David’s choice of suits, but also made sure his tie matched Rebecca’s dress. After a half-hour of arguing, she finally convinced David that green, white, and gold striped socks, while being the school’s colors, were
not
appropriate for the dance, especially if his date’s dress was some shade of purple that even
I
couldn’t identify.

Most of the day, I stayed on the outside of the action. I had no interest in the hair, the make-up, the ties, and the overall anxiety a dance like this caused in the Dalton house. Every once in a while, Jane would knock on my door and ask me if one hairstyle looked better than the last one. I always said yes, but really, they all looked the same. I didn’t understand why she would ask me things like that, since I clearly had no clue, but it was important to her, so I played along.

After lunch and a little bit of guitar strumming, I checked my e-mail and was happy to see that Sophie had replied.

Elliott,

If you did ask me why I was so sad, I would tell you I’m not so sad and that you shouldn’t waste your time wondering about things like that.

Here are your answers:

I volunteered to cook because it seemed like a good idea. If I’m forced to have dinner with Wallace, Dr. Dalton, and Tom, it might as well be tasty. I told you that I cook because I have to, and I decided a while back that if I had to cook, I might as well learn to be good at it. I like PB&J, but that’s pretty much what I lived on for a few years, so sometimes it’s nice to whip up a few days’ worth of lasagna or put together a fruit salad.

I had short hair one time, and I didn’t really care for how it looked. Besides, it didn’t accomplish the reason I cut it in the first place, so I let it grow back.

The scar on my forehead is from the corner of a wall. Like the skin on the lips, the skin of the forehead is amazingly easy to rip open. And walls, especially the corners, are unforgiving.

I never knew Helen’s parents, but I spent time at my Grandma Catherine’s every summer when I visited Tom. His dad was never in the picture. Surprise, surprise. Like father, like son, I guess. Anyway, I usually got to spend a few days with her. I don’t remember much about her, since she died a long time ago, but I do recall she used to let me eat windmill cookies and she loved strawberries.

Why do you have a fixation on the fork, Elliott? It’s a meaningless scar that most people don’t even notice. Forks are pointy. I am clumsy. It’s been established that skin can give way rather easily.

Bonus: If we call Australia “Down Under”, do people in Australia call us “Up Over”?

You’re entirely too funny to be locked away in some kind of medical research lab.

I’ll be over in a few short hours, but I’ll give you my questions.

1. Why do you want to know about the fork?
   
2. Do you know your grandparents?
   
3. The news said it could snow this week. Do you like the snow?
   
4. Why do you like that picture in your art book? The
   Flaming June
   one.
   
5. Do you ever wish you could be someone else? If so, who would you be?
   

Bonus: How are our baby Brussels sprouts?

I’ll see you soon, Elliott.

S.

“Just cut them the same size as the potatoes,” Sophie said, pointing to the vegetables on the cutting board with one hand and popping a piece of raw potato into her mouth with the other. She had shown me what she wanted with the potatoes. Now she would start preparing the chicken and leave me to my own devices.

Her father was in the living room with Robin and Stephen. They were having a discussion about football. Every so often, I saw Robin go into the dining room and peer around the wall. I was aware that she was looking in on us.

“Oh my God, that smells delicious!”

I looked up to see Jane enter the kitchen, pulling open the oven to get a better look at Sophie’s apple crisp. She wore the long green dress she’d bought for Homecoming over two months ago. “Y-you look p-p-pretty, J-JJJJJaaane.”

Closing the oven, she beamed at me. “Thanks!”

Beets stain, so I went to wash my hands before continuing the cutting list. When I turned back around, Jane was at the cutting board, knife in hand. It was innocent. I knew that it was. On some level, I was aware she would not intentionally hurt herself today of all days, and especially not in front of people, but my lungs seized as I watched her eye the knife she held.

Sophie was busy rubbing the chicken with herbs and I was grateful that she was distracted. Very quietly and quickly, I moved back to the cutting board and carefully took the knife back from Jane.

She stepped to the side as her eyes stayed glued on me. It was clear that I had just hurt her feelings. As much as I hated when Jane’s feelings were hurt, I would hate it more if she stained her pretty green dress by cutting herself, accidentally or not. The sight of her with a knife was just too much right now.

I looked back at her. There were tears in her eyes and I felt horrible. “D-don’t, Jane,” I whispered.

She sighed and then turned to Sophie. “I wish I could eat dinner here. It smells unbelievable.”

“Thanks,” Sophie replied.

“If I’d known you were going all “gourmet” on us, we wouldn’t have made reservations.”

Craning my neck, I saw Sophie give Jane a kind smile. “No worries. I’m sure there’ll be leftovers, and I can cook for you another time.” Despite being rough around the edges, Sophie was a good person. I wondered if she knew that about herself.

Sophie’s meal was delicious, but I wished we hadn’t had to eat it with Robin, Stephen and Mr. Young. She and I were mostly silent at the dinner table, both only responding when spoken to.

“This is an excellent meal, Sophie. Thank you for preparing it,” Stephen commented.

“Yes, it’s wonderful. Where did you learn to make it?”

Sophie looked at Robin and opened her mouth before closing it rather quickly. Her eyes flicked over to her father, then to Robin, then to me, and finally, they rested back on Robin. “The apple crisp is from a cookbook and the rest I just threw together.”

Mr. Young’s voice was full of pride. “She’s a hell of a cook. She could go on one of those cooking contests on TV.”

Sophie’s brow creased as she looked down. Shuffling a potato piece around on her plate, she shook her head. “It’s not that good,” she said under her breath. She was obviously not comfortable with compliments.

The topic of conversation floated between humorous incidents at the hospital and the fire station, and the pros and cons of universal health care. Neither of us said a word. In fact, Sophie didn’t look up from her food until Stephen said something about a study he’d read concerning teenagers and sleep. Her face remained neutral as her father mentioned something about Sophie sleeping until the afternoon today.

“I was tired,” she mumbled before taking another bite of apple crisp.

“How has your blood sugar been, Sophie?” Stephen asked.

She sighed and carefully rested her fork across the top of the bowl before taking a sip of her water. “Fine,” she answered, her voice sounding fairly tense.

“Fatigue is a sign of…”

“Yes, I know,” she cut him off.

“A sign of what?” Robin asked.

While Sophie sighed again, turning her head to the side, her gaze fixing on some invisible spot on the wall, Stephen finished, “Diabetic ketoacidosis.”

Her father, who was a trained paramedic, said, “It’s a condition in diabetics in which the blood sugar is elevated to near-lethal levels.”

Sophie’s father flicked his eyes to her. It wasn’t hard to see worry in them.

“Tom,” Sophie said with yet another sigh, “I take my insulin, I monitor my blood sugar, and I’m fine.”

“Do you know the symptoms?” Stephen asked an already irritated Sophie. I wish he’d just stop talking!

“Fatigue, vomiting, dehydration, excessive urination, and sometimes confusion, which can lead to a coma.”

Sophie was silent and didn’t talk until dinner was over and we had cleared the table. I told her that she didn’t have to clean up, but she shrugged and did it anyway. “Boy, who knew eating dinner with a doctor and a “fire medic” could be so much fun?” she said as she plopped down onto my sofa. I guessed that “fire medic” was fire station shorthand for firemen who were also paramedics.

I smiled as I pushed play on my iPod.

“Talk of vomit and urination during dessert was incredibly appetizing. Does he do that shit a lot?”

Chuckling, I turned around to face her. Stephen was fairly limitless and oblivious to how many disgusting medical facts and stories he told. Thankfully, she hadn’t had to endure the STD talk or the picture of the cancerous lung. “S-sssometimes.”

I went to sit on my bed. She sighed and I looked at her quizzically, but she just shook her head. “W-w-what?”

“Can’t you sit on your bed differently?”

The confusion intensified. I had no idea what she was asking. “W-what?” I asked again.

“Move back.” I blinked at her, but immediately did as she asked, scooting back into the middle. “Now fold your legs.” Again, I did as she said, and sat cross-legged. “Doesn’t that feel better? You look like you own that bed now.”

I smiled, still not really understanding her and even though I was going to sound like a complete idiot, I asked again, “W-what?”

“You always sit on the edge of your bed like it’s going to bite you or something. Now you look… chill.”

Something about her tone and the relaxed way she was looking at me made me nervous. I ran a hand through my hair and tried to think of something to talk about, even though I just wanted to ask her to run
her
hands through my hair.

“The s-sssprouts are doing w-w-w-w, g-good. Do you w-want to g-go sssee?”

Although she smiled widely, she shook her head. “Not now that you look so comfortable.”

I had to close my eyes for a moment and concentrate on breathing slowly. I forced myself to mentally play a Chopin piece in my head to relax my tensing body. All the signs had been pointing to my having a
thing
for Sophie. Knowing this was the case, made me anxious.

“What’s wrong?”

I looked up and swallowed hard. How had we both worn green today? She was wearing a t shirt with the word “Boo!” on it and I was wearing the shirt that had been too small for David.

“Elliott?”

“Y-y-yes?”

“I asked you what was wrong. For a minute there you looked like you just finished a marathon.” Cocking her head, she added, “But you look okay now.”

“I-I’m fine.”

As I sat there looking at Sophie, I thought about something Robin had asked me a long time ago about what I would attempt if I knew I could not fail. At the time I had no clue how to answer, but today my answer would be to try to get closer to Sophie. The powerful feelings I had for her I’d never had for anyone else.