September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series (20 page)

“Sounds right.”

“And what is your relationship with
her now?”

My brows tugged together at
her very basic question.
What had Angel
told her about me?
“I am her best friend.
I take care of her. She has her foster-mother, but it’s not the
same. Deanna hasn’t known her as long. I’m who she comes to when
she needs to vent. I keep her secrets.”
Why the hell was I telling this woman anything about
me?

The smooth skin of the doctors’ brow
began to furrow before consciously going flat and I reminded myself
to watch my words as the low call of sea birds cawed from speakers
somewhere behind me.

“What kind of secrets?”

“If I told you, I wouldn’t be very
trustworthy, would I?”

The doctors’ legs, visible beneath the
open desk, uncrossed as she leaned forward. “I’m not asking for
gory details. Those are right here.” She displayed the open file.
“What I’m hoping to get from you is more general. I’d like to know
if she’s safe—if you’re worried about her. She didn’t attend her
final anger management class and I’m supposed to report it. I have
cause for concern.”

“Maybe you should ask
Angel.”

“I did.”

I nodded. “Good. Why did she miss her
class?”

“She said she didn’t.”

“Maybe she was there, but forgot to
sign in. She forgets stuff sometimes.”

“A lot of times.” Doctor Williams
raised a hand to grasp the point of her chin. “Were you with her at
all in this past month?”

“I am always with her.
Metaphorically.”

The gleam in her eye said that she
knew I was messing with her. The doctors’ dark hands fumbled,
feeling around the file folder and scrambling, searching for—as it
turned out—a pen. Hasty scribbles began flooding the topmost page
on her left.

“I have been talking with Angel about
you.”

My resting hands balled up into fists,
clenching over my lap. “And what did she say about me?”

“Angel spoke very highly of you. When
she was actually talking, that is.”

Was this a
thing
with all shrinks?
Did they go to school for nearly a decade just to learn how to
answer a question while giving as little information as possible?
If that was all they could do, then every teenager on the planet
could be a shrink.

Her palms unlocked to twist her
forearms across her chest. “Avery, I am going to come right out and
say this: I don’t think you’re a very good influence on
Angel.”

I sighed. “Well, fuck you very
much.”

It was nothing new, this
you-are-no-good gag. Most people actually felt that way. I, myself,
felt that way most times. It was not just with Angel. It was with
everyone I came into contact with. And it was no secret to me as to
why others would think that.

We were very close, Angel and me.
Maybe, when we first met, the relationship was need based, but the
friendship evolved. It had become symbiotic. Out of that
interdependence, our needs were met. It was beneficial for both of
us, but very few people understood it. Jake didn’t. He barely even
acknowledged me, except when he wanted something. But he was a guy
and guys were dicks most of the time, so I didn’t care.

Doctor Williams, to her credit, didn’t
miss a beat. “And what is it that you do for Angel, aside from
keeping her secrets?”

“Give her advice, help her with
homework, make sure she eats her vegetables,” I hoped I sounded as
condescending as was intended.

“Like a mother would?”

I cleared my throat. “Hell no. Well .
. . maybe.”

“I have a few more questions, if
that’s alright.”

“I will certainly help in any way that
I can.” My sarcasm was so thick, it sounded sincere.

“I appreciate your being forthcoming,
Avery. Angel is always very careful about what she says to
me.”

I shivered inside, wondering over what
she’d just revealed—if Angel had been telling the truth when she
said she didn’t talk about me anymore—or if the doctor was just
trying to get a reaction. But psychiatrists weren’t supposed to
lie, were they? Maybe I’d brought it on myself with that
‘metaphorical’ remark.

I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I
simply didn’t.

“Angel has told me that you have
always been very good to her.”

This woman is
ignorant
, I thought, but answered, “I try,
but under the circumstances . . .”

“Which circumstances?

“Any and all things inconceivable; I
try to protect her from it.”

“How do you protect her? From
what?”

I wanted to spit at her; at the entire
line of questioning. It was ridiculous and obvious to anyone who
really knew Angel. “From her life—from circumstances beyond her
control, from the assholes that live in this world—the dicks that
attend her school. I’m sure you’ve heard of them, Doctor. I’m sure,
as a psychiatrist, you have seen your fair share of idiots who make
it their business to go around inflicting pain. They leave these
indelible marks on her life without even asking. Angel is more
scarred, more susceptible, than anyone I know. She needs protection
and what use are you—or me—if we don’t give it to her?”

Doctor Williams leaned in, searching
me with a keen gaze. I stilled.

“Perhaps we’ve gotten off track.”
Doctor Williams softened, leaning back placidly into her chair.
“I’ve summoned you here to specifically discuss your relationship
with Angel.”

I smiled wanly at the oddity in her
tone.

Doctor Williams nodded. “Are you aware
that I consider the relationship toxic?”

Before my mind could conjure a way to
make her sorry for what she said, I took to my feet and walked out
the door, through the hallway, down the stairs, out the lobby and
into the street.

The way I had always tried to look at
mine and Angels relationship was like this: we all have problems. I
had a lot of problems. A shit-ton of problems. But that didn’t mean
I wanted to be defined by those problems, so I kept them to myself.
I never told anyone how I ate too much. Way too much. So much that
I felt like my stomach may tear. I’d go through bouts where I could
eat so much, so often, that I’d start to feel comfortable with
being over-full. I wouldn’t notice right away, but then my body
would do this betraying thing: it would start to think that just
because I didn’t feel over-full that I must be hungry and then, I’d
keep eating.

After a while of everyday feeling so
full that I could bust, my stomach would stretch. Around the time
my jeans were feeling too tight, I’d start to feel sick from all
the food and then decide to make myself throw up because the
fullness was tiring and overwhelming and I only wanted to feel
better.

That pattern would carry on for a
while: eat too much and throw up. Then, I would actually start
losing the weight I gained and I’d feel better about myself. So I’d
keep going. More and more often. And then, maybe, people would
start noticing that I was losing weight, and some of them might say
that I did it too quickly. No one would actually say it directly or
out loud. But I knew what they were thinking.

Well, no one except Ms. Traynor, my PE
teacher who thought of herself as an amateur nutritionist. Her sun
bleached lips would purse as she scrutinized me. “You look like
you’ve lost weight.” And then I knew for sure I was losing too
much. So I’d make myself stop. But I couldn’t stop eating. I had to
live. And so the cycle would always repeat.

I never wanted anyone looking at me
like I was a walking eating disorder. I didn’t need that judgment
or it’s ‘do you know what your problem is?’ I lived in my body—I
knew what the problems were. Once, it got to a point where I was so
hyperaware of my yo-yo weight, I couldn’t let anyone see me eat. I
still have trouble with that shit.

I didn’t need anyone trying to define
me by my issues, so I’ve always kept them to myself.

Did that damned doctor even hear
herself? I’m no good for Angel—did she not realize that Angel was
already broken by the time I came along?

She was shattered, like glass. Like
the windshield she flew through when the car went off the road. She
lost her mom and her home in one morning with the cranes and the
dying trees on the side of the road. She had no one left, no one to
take care of her. I knew what that felt like, and so I became the
mother-figure in her life. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just took
care of her in the only way I knew how. It’s not like I hid my
issues from her.

Well, maybe I did, but she knew about
them. If she paid any attention at all, she knew.

“Don’t sweat the small
stuff,” was the motto I tried to continually beat into her, though
I had miles to go before I could walk that shit out myself. Because
I knew that the small stuff is what destroys a person. Only with
Angel, nothing was ever small. Even the littlest things were
mountains in her mind. She would sweat
everything
and the more her troubles
piled up, the more I felt the need to drive them away because just
watching Angel try to deal with stress was painful.

I’ve always thought the world of
Angel, but she’s weak. Weakness could be a good thing, I guess.
Angel was a good person. A really good person—but she was also a
perpetual victim of her position in life. Other people were always
doing shit to her and I was always running interference, always
trying to make sure they didn’t get away with it. I had to make
time to check on her in between classes. But that was okay, some
people weren’t fighters.

Being peaceable shouldn’t
mean a person deserves testing at every turn. That’s why the world
needed more people like me. Not
all
like me, but some parts might be okay, under the
right circumstances.

I never got the bullying thing. So
what if I did it sometimes. I only gave shit to people who deserved
it. It was not okay to pick on someone who was as sweet and
vulnerable as Angel. Or anyone so small. It wasn’t right to make
fun of someone because they didn’t have a home, or parents, or new
clothes at the beginning of every school year. It was not okay to
hurt a person just to make yourself feel better. I saw that shit
happen to Angel all the time. When something like that pouncing in
the girls’ bathroom happened to someone that was so exposed and
unprepared, what kind of friend would that make me if I just let it
happen?

Rosa Dominguez was lucky the campus
fuzz found us so fast. She was lucky I never laid eyes on her
again, because if I had, a broken shoulder would have been the
least of her troubles.

If I’m being completely honest,
sometimes, when I’m watching TV—one of the lame teenage dramas that
always seems to be playing, I compare myself to the people in those
shows. Sometimes, I think maybe I was never very good at being a
friend. But I kept trying and that should count for
something.

So, when people like Doctor Williams
tried to tell me I was no good for Angel, I could look at what I
did for my friend and know that they were at least a little bit
wrong. Angel was good and having her made me a better
person.

Even standing here—in this prison
where they turn us into refuse—I would do it all over again, suffer
any consequence in defense of my friend.

And still, she goes out of her way to
ignore me.

But it doesn’t
matter.

One need not observe human behavior
for long to learn that we require companionship. Some more so than
others. Not that it matters. I’m not an actual person. I’m a ghost.
So it doesn’t matter.

It will never
matter.

+ + +

21

—
Angel

I wake to the sudden flash and buzz of
the interior lights.

My dream lingers on the edge, just
outside of confinement. His song sails from my freedom into
captivity, making me ache. I’m on my side, facing the wall of my
cell, feeling wide awake though my eyes are still closed, trying to
see the page, to grasp the moment I held it in my hand.

Why do you go and
where?

Silent
steps—leaping.

I chase, but you’re too
far ahead.

I sense the
dread—heaping.

I laced our fingers and
held my head.

Choking
silence—creeping.

One of Jakes unfinished songs. He
never named it, but wrote the lyrics in a notebook he borrowed from
me and told me to keep it. He wanted to let it set for a while so
he could think about the rhyme scheme.

Maybe it was going to be a ballad or
his own song, separate from Analog Controller. It might have been
the first single on his solo album. I’ll never know because it
remains forever unfinished. Like his promising career.

Like his life.
The thought makes my insides curl and twist in
devastating knots. The depth of my need to find him is so real,
it’s almost surreal.