September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series (16 page)

“Sorry.” She actually sounded like it
this time, so I looked. “I’m premenstrual, I guess.”

I had to laugh at that. It was the
go-to excuse with us, but she used it way more than I
did.

We sauntered into the quad
for lunch. Avery was beaming as we sat on a cement bench surrounded
by cactus flowers. We shared a bag of chips and a pack of
jellybeans as we talked. I didn’t mention what Jake
said—
“Not yet”
—because I was still coming to terms with what it meant and
didn’t feel like rehashing that whole confusing night. She’d
probably say something I didn’t want to hear, anyways. Avery
already knew that visit triggered my headache and it was all the
ammo she needed to unload on Jake. She didn’t ask for details
beyond. She knew I wouldn’t give them. I didn’t like it when talked
to Jake, so I kept stuff from her, hoping to quell her urge to
straighten out my life for me. I loved for her devotion, but it was
tiring sometimes.

We stayed on light topics—which
cheered me up—carrying on about Analogs’ show and I was telling her
how I still hadn’t corralled my courage and asked The Foster, but
regardless, it was decided. We were committed. We were going to
AC’s shows. Screw curfews and rule books. What was a few hundred
miles for true love?

We were both bursting,
trying to hide our laughter when Avery got a mischievous glint in
her eye. As I was about to ask what she was thinking she stood from
the bench. Her arm drew back and sprang forward. I watched the
jellybean she threw peg an unsuspecting freshman. He was just
walking by then—
boom
, right to the temple! It bounced down his cheek and fell
into the open pocket of his backpack. He turned and glared at
us.

“That was just a practice shot.” Avery
looked at my empty hands and then across the quad. “Ate yours, did
you?”

“You’re on a tear today, Miss
Menstrual. And of course I ate them. You know jellybeans are my
favorite.”

I followed her glare to the spiky hair
of one Troy Bleecher. He was in our senior class. He was also kinda
hot, which meant he was a snob, which also meant he had money,
which meant he was a complete want-for-nothing dickhead. And he was
very, very popular.

When I first came to Carlisle I didn’t
know a soul, except Avery of course. She moved around a lot because
of her moms’ job. Anyways, Mr. Popular—Troy Bleecher—asked me out
on my second day of school. Jake and I weren’t a thing then, so I
considered the option. But Avery said he was a jerk, so I turned
him down. The next day, he crept up behind me in the lunch line and
paid for my food without asking, and then he asked me out again.
And asked again the day after that. I wasn’t used to guys talking
to me, at least not ones with so much confidence, ones who were
still polite after I said ‘no.’

Troy was so sure we’d have a good time
together I thought maybe he was right. So, I let him take me to the
movies. He was the perfect gentleman; didn’t make a move to hold my
hand or kiss me, save the little peck he placed on my cheek right
before I got out of his car. The next day though, everyone in
school was listening to Troy tell a story about how I tackled him
inside his car after the movie and begged him to have sex with
me.

Avery, who hated him enough for the
both of us, handed me one of her jellybeans, a misshapen yellow one
slightly bigger than average.

I tossed it, hard, at the mess of
spiky hair half-way across the small quad. His tanned hand flew up
and caught the candy. He was looking right at me. Avery started
laughing, but I was suddenly sweating.

She remained standing, yelling to him,
“Oh, Troy, I didn’t mean to hit you in the chest,” and blew a kiss.
To me, she turned and whispered, “You throw like a
girl.”

Troy was suddenly standing in front of
us. His perfectly styled mess of hair sat over his big brown eyes.
In between them was a crumpled brow. “What is wrong with you? Are
you crazy or something?”

Avery chuckled humorlessly. “I can
comfortably say, ‘you have made me crazy.’ Does that make you feel
better?”

She gave me a quick look
that said,
stay calm
. She knew I didn’t do confrontation. I couldn’t help it. The
way Troy’s shoulders were ratcheting up made me want to hide. I
wondered at the veins pulsing in his neck while wishing to be
somewhere else.

Doctor Williams had told me that when
I was feeling anxiety, I should imagine I was some place safe. So I
pretended to be tucked away inside my room, back in the furthest
corner of my closet—where I liked to sit and listen to my music
when the world got to be too much for me. I could almost hear the
sweet melody of Jakes’ voice pouring from my boom box.

The sun won’t shine the
way it used to
My knee deep sky . . .
All the green dreams died and I'm drawn beneath the moon
You’re mine and gone so far, too soon
Forever I'll be down here, looking up at you,

Beneath the knee deep
sky.

I asked Jake once, why he
chose
knee-deep
to describe a lonely night. He’d told me, “Because people
never look away from themselves until they’re on their
knees.”

Troy turned away, sighing deeply.
Avery’s middle finger flew up tall and proud, daring him to say
something.

He kept walking.

+ + +

15

—
Avery

I hate this place. The floors are
filthy. The food is disgusting. And the people are even worse than
the filthy rodents climbing inside the walls.

I need to get the fuck out.

Pacing the hall outside my cell, I
wonder what Angel has been doing all day, what she has been telling
them about me. What she thinks about me.

I wish I could be in that interview
room. To listen, like a fly on the wall. I can do things like that:
be in a room and go unnoticed. I’ve had years of practice. I have
actually eaten and slept in places where other people could go days
without noticing me. I’m just gifted at being
overlooked.

Of course, I’m under no obligation to
speak to anyone, because I’m not as important as Angel. No, her
opinion is the only one anyone cares about because she’s the
talking head and what’s inside it doesn’t matter.

I’d love to sit down and tell someone
what I know just to see their shit-eating faces. I’d make eye
contact with sweaty Darren, first. Fuck him and his diet soda
havin’ ass. Then I’d move on to Tara. All she’d do is stare though.
She’s probably gone retarded from having her hair pulled back so
tight.

I’d look at all the suits and say,
“Story time, bitches. Pay attention.”

I would have to start by admitting
that I am a terrible person, but I’d also have to say that I didn’t
start out that way. In the beginning I was kinda good. Well, I was
okay at being her friend at least. I mean, I did my part by being
there when Angel needed me. I stood up for her for when she
couldn’t. I held her hand when she cried and listened to her
problems. We took the blows together. Until one day, what we were .
. . slipped.

I was still there. The blows were
still coming, but Angel was gone. She didn’t need me anymore. She
had Jake. They’d been together about a month and were all
lovey-dovey, all the time. It was a real vomit-fest for me, so I
started pulling back. I waited for her to show interest, to ask
after me. I was coming around less and less.

I don’t think she even
noticed.

Then, there I was, with all this time
on my hands. The energy I used to expend over Angel and her issues
was still there. Only there was no place to put it. Some might say
I resented her and that’s why I did what I did, but I think I was
just bored. Or maybe I finally had time to notice I’d been starving
for something, too. Only I never noticed until then. Then
everything in my life before I found that unnamable force was
crowded out. Almost like a gloomy film was suddenly coating every
other part of me. I couldn’t focus on anything but this newfound
irrelevance that shone like a spotlight in my face.

It was suffocating, a bitter tang that
came on like a boulder rolling down a hillside. Constantly gaining
momentum until it smacked into me full force. I’d tried running but
it kept pace with me. I buried it underneath boys whose names I
never caught but that rock-solid pain would always rise up.
Drowning myself in alcohol or getting blurred with sweet smoke
never worked long, either. The dulled edges would sharpen the
moment my high went away—when the waves of alcohol and THC receded,
it always resurfaced.

We were rolling together.

+++

I was in trouble and I knew
it.

I’d held the shame too close, let it
gnaw at my chest. Every minute of the day, it was consuming me. I
hated that feeling—of disappearing—of being eaten alive.

I had to let it out and I was ready to
use anything I could get my hands on to stop it. What ended up in
my hands on one particular day was a pocket knife. It had a long,
thin blade, ivory handle, and it was razor sharp.

Sitting on my front porch, I knew that
no one would come looking for me any time soon.

I held out my arm. The tip of the
blade pressed into the crease at my elbow. I kept it there against
the thin skin, just long enough to appreciate the imminent sting.
Anticipation had stupid tears filling my eyes. I squeezed them
shut. The cuts worked like release valves on a high pressure pipe.
If I twisted just enough to the left, just enough to let the hot
trickle down my arm, some of the weight would hiss away.

As I prepared to shift the slender
edge, a noise from the house carried out onto the porch: my mother
and her newest soon-to-be Ex were arguing again. I tucked the knife
away and hopped up, aiming for the road. At the curb, I hooked
right and kept going, walking along the roadside with my head
down.

It wasn’t long before I heard the hum
of an approaching car. I debated jumping out in front of it, but
noticed that the car was not passing, only slowing down. When I
looked up, I saw it wasn’t a car. It was a beat-up van rolling
alongside me.

The passenger window rolled down and
Jake leaned over from the drivers’ seat, keeping one hand on the
wheel as he called out. “Hey stranger, need a ride?”

I had no plans, so I shrugged. “Think
you’re girlfriend will care?”

He canted his head to one side. “I’m
ninety-nine percent sure that she’d want me to pick you
up.”

The van came to a stop and I hopped
inside. My back sunk into the seat as we took off.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere in particular. Just felt like
walking.” I examined the colored vest he wore over his green
t-shirt. The hardware stores logo was sewn into the left side. “You
coming from work?”

Jake took turns glancing between me
and the road. “That obvious, huh? You alright?”

I nodded, but said nothing. He
wouldn’t understand. I hugged my arms together tightly, trying to
squeeze the pain from my chest.

The van came to a stop
sign.

As I stared down at my lap, Jakes hand
came to rest on my knee. “Wanna talk about it?”

A long minute passed. A horn honked
from behind us and Jake sighed, slowly taking off and pulling over
into the first parking lot he came across. Putting the van into
park, he shut off the engine and set his hand back on my
leg.

An inch above my knee.

My mind said to
move, move, move
away,
but I could swear that the constant hollow in my chest shrank a
little. Not much, but enough for me to notice. So I didn’t
move.

“I’ve been told I’m a good
listener.”

I set my elbow up on the windowsill.
As I began to run my hand through my hair, to pull the long black
strands off my sweaty neck, Jake grabbed my forearm and jerked it
towards him.

“You’re bleeding. What
happened?”

His question and the shocking amount
of blood that had dribbled from my elbow onto the side of my shirt
caught me off guard. Too surprised to think up a lie, I locked my
lips together.

Jake cursed; smacking his hand against
the glove compartment mounted in the dashboard. The small door fell
open. He kept one hand firmly locked around my elbow as he reached
for a plastic baggy inside the glove box. He mumbled more
profanities while I watched him pull out a package of tissue and
clean the crusting mess from my arm. Then he squeezed a thin line
of greasy ointment over the small, but deceptively deep cut I’d
given myself, and then sealed it with a bandage.

“What the hell are you doing to
yourself?” He shoved the plastic baggy full of first-aid supplies
back into the glove compartment and slammed it shut.

H e was pissing me off. Who the hell
did he think he was, getting all self-righteous on me? I didn’t ask
for the damn ride, or the pity.

I was about to tell him
where to shove his indignation when he closed his eyes, and opened
them again, suddenly holding a different expression. He didn’t look
mad. He looked
soft
. Like he was anything but angry. His forehead was crumpled,
his eyebrows knit together. His bottom lip was caught between his
teeth.