September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series (25 page)

I woke in the nurses’ office. And I
don’t know what it was—maybe the lady’s kind, round face, or maybe
it was that she simply asked, “What’s wrong, honey? Why won’t you
drink anything?”

There was water, apple juice, grape
juice, and even lemon-lime soda. All of them had been offered to
me. But the voice that came with those denim legs and mean hands
had been very clear with me. The blank face promised that telling
anyone would make things worse, that no one would believe me
anyways, and I would be punished. But he didn’t know how much I
hated what he did to me.

I stared at the four cups set beside
me. I was so thirsty. I decided that I was going to tell and then
guzzle everything they had. And if the nurse would not help, then I
would run away.

To my amazement, the kind school nurse
listened. She never said I was making things up. Her face was
frozen through the whole confession, though. A look I later
realized was shock, but at the time she just seemed very quiet.
Then, she promised that I would never have to live with the mean
man ever again. She wrapped me in a blanket before leaving the
small room to make a phone call. While she was gone, I drank down
all four cups. When she came back, I asked for more.

And it never happened again—in that
house, anyways. We moved away. My mom never asked about it and I
never told said a word. Something in me knew that she wouldn’t
believe me. She just kept working like she always did, and soon
another pair of hands came to grab me when no one was looking. I
was so stupid; I thought all I had to do was tell. I didn’t realize
that day in the nurses’ office, I’d been lucky.

People think that because someone is
small they have no value. Yet, fat people are a common topic of
conversation in news and magazines. A person could get on TV just
for being fat. Not smart or pretty, or talented. Just
huge.

People like big things just as much as
they like scary things. Big monsters, especially. Godzilla, King
Kong, Jaws—they were all huge and got movies made about them. That
marshmallow monster from that Ghostbusters movie was everywhere for
a while, but everybody ignored the kids he crushed in the
streets.

Years after being eaten
alive by my very own monster, I still remembered everything. I was
still digesting. The feeling would never leave me. Like an
elephant, I would never forget what my mother said when I told
her.
“You’re lying! Why do you always ruin
everything?”

I know the spiel: none of it was my
fault. It was them. Not me. I didn’t need to feel like the pariah,
the reject, the mistake. I didn’t have to lie in bed at night with
my ears covered, I knew it. But knowing would not make the feelings
stop. Nothing could do that.

“. . . Avery, you’re my best
friend.”

Angels’ voice broke my trance and I
looked back to catch her eye. “Prove it. Talk to me.” I pointed at
her tight pose. “You curl up like that when you’re upset and since
Jake told you about that chick, you’re curled up all the
time.”

I really disliked the way Angel
thought she needed Jake to survive. She was stronger than she knew,
but she would never learn unless she freed herself from that
dependency. Independence was a muscle and it needed to be worked in
order to grow. Not that I could knock my friends’ taste. Jake was
hot. Super-hot, in every way, even the way he seemed to reciprocate
Angels’ feelings. But it didn’t mean it was good for either of
them.

I was glad Jake and the guys were
heading out to California. Angel needed time to get to know herself
again. Since she met Jake, everything had been about him and I
missed the days when it was about me, too.

Angel set a hand over her forehead. “I
drank too much.”

The line sounded very much like one of
Analog’s early songs, which made Angel smile, so I jumped on it and
started singing, “Too much, too much drinking! Better call a cab or
we’ll never make it home!”

+ + +

2
7

—Angel

The lights wake me with their morning
buzz.

I sit up just as my breakfast tray
slides through the door. Oatmeal, canned peaches, a pat of butter,
packet of sugar, cold piece of toast, 2 sausage links and a box of
orange juice. No wonder most of the prisoners are fat. I shove the
food away, disgusted. The morning dose of meds will make me puke
but I’d rather suffer that than touch the slop they serve. That
lime gelatin gave me nightmares.

Back at Canyon View, after breakfast
it was shower time. Here, one of the regular guards comes to escort
me to the prison library. He says I’ll be taken for a shower around
ten.

I’m not allowed to mingle among the
regular inmates. They keep me separated at all times, for my
safety, they say. From everyone except Avery. She always seems to
locate me, goes out of her way to bother me. If I’m in my cell, on
the toilet, or even out for exercise, she’ll find me wherever I am
and try to talk. But I won’t listen.

The prison library is small and plain.
Well, comparatively small. Canyon View, the place I’ll be going
back to once I’m done with this formal rejection, is a much larger
facility and has a library at least twice this size. They have
reading groups and a section where you can listen to
music.

In this library, my task is to take
the books from the return carts, mark them as returned inside the
log book, and set them aside to be re-shelved by someone else. It’s
not interesting, but it keeps me busy.

Everything is done before my shift is
up, so they let me leave early.

Just as I am about to get thankful
that Avery didn’t show up, I spot her walking out of the hall that
leads to the showers and nearly jump out of my skin. She walks
quickly past, wearing her orange jumpsuit and towel-turban. The
bile is rising in my throat and I can’t avert my eyes—maybe because
she doesn’t say anything to me or even look my way.

After my own shower, I’m taken back to
the small plain room before the review board. With lights gently
flickering, the cameras are already recording as I’m led inside by
an orderly and two guards.

The woman has her hair
back, still just as tight as yesterday and it makes me wonder if
she ever gets headaches. I can’t wear my hair like that without
feeling a
thump, bump,
thump
, in my brain.

The quiet man is not as quiet today.
He’s not particularly chatty, either, but I do get to hear his
voice at full volume when he knocks on the one way glass that
covers the back wall, asking a question to someone he must know.
“Hey! You getting it, or what?” I don’t see an earpiece, but he
nods, as if he’s heard something from beyond the glass and then
turns to face me.

My fingers brace the scratchy arms of
the chair, turning white, going numb with anxiety. Now that I’m in
here and thinking about what I need to say . . . . Cold trickles
through me as I try to think. I’ve been dreading this part of my
confession, putting so much energy into the idea of telling that I
hadn’t really considered the actual words to use.

Shaking my head, I say the only thing
that comes to mind. “You have no idea how much I hate
her.”

“Who?” Tight Bun asks.

Me.
Avery
. “That doe-eyed girl in the trailer.
Serving up spaghetti and smiles.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s an
idiot.”
I was.
“She had no idea what was really going on.”
I didn’t.
“She had
everything and let it slip right through her fingers.”
I did. I hate myself for it.

“Could you elaborate, please?” Quiet
man asks, adjusting himself in his chair when I meet his eyes. “We
are attempting to understand.”

I nod, gesturing to the chains that
keep me bound. “Most people think they know what it’s like to be
this way because they read about regret. They can study and
imagine, fixate on the demons; but at the end of the day, they get
to go home. They don’t know shit.” I’m being passive-aggressive.
They know I’m talking about them. “But I know. I understand
everything now.”

“Understand what?” My lawyer asks and
I notice he’s wearing that chicken frying white jacket
again.

I roll my eyes. The point
I’m trying to make is far too serious to be distracted. “The more
love you give a person, the more power they have to hurt you.” I
sigh, aiming to detaching myself and explain. “When you look at . .
. a
painting,
”
I’m struggling for an image. “If you keep your eyes wide open and
still don’t see the whole picture, what does that say about your
ability to interpret its’ meaning? What if I see a sailboat and
someone else looks at the same painting and sees a
lighthouse?”

I could not see what was happening. I
think I literally blinded my own eyes to maintain
sanity.

“Sorry. That’s a shitty
metaphor. What I mean is, with my specific . . .
situation
—being in the
midst of something that is so glaringly obvious to you—it probably
seems like a lie when I say I didn’t know, but it’s the truth. I
had no idea what I was up against.”

“Tell them what you were up against,
Miss Patel.” My lawyer directs.

This is what happens to me every
freaking time: I get flustered. Embarrassed—humiliated might be a
better word—that I can’t find a way to express myself. This is the
point where I have to say the hardest hard shit.

I sense the sheen of sweat coating the
back of my neck and building up on my temples. My mouth feels so
dry. My throat is swelling. I don’t want to say anything, and
worse, I don’t know if I can. I wonder briefly if it’s possible to
skip over it and try to think up something else to
offer.

Nothing comes to mind and I
think:
maybe I won’t say anything at all.
Maybe I’ll just sit here and pretend to be invisible and after a
while they’ll move on.

I want to tell them what Avery was
doing. I want to shake my fist at them all and spew the filthy
details, but they already know. Studying me as they have, it’s been
obvious from the beginning. Still doesn’t make any easier to
say.

I bite my lip, aiming to think every
word before I speak it, so they will understand. “All any of us
knows is the information that our brains take in. It processes our
surroundings. Right?”

I sound like an
idiot.

The one thing I shouldn’t do is the
one thing I want to do—shrink into a tiny ball.

+ + +

2
8

—Avery

Some of my best times were the ones I
spent at Angels’ house. Even if Deanna didn’t like me she was still
cordial. Even if there was nothing to do over there, I’d still
show. I’d sit at the dining table wearing a stupid grin because
even being bored over there was way better than doing anything at
my house.

“You should totally try that.” I
whispered in Angels’ ear, one night as we sat in the living room,
watching a movie with Austen. It was Natural Born
Killers.

Angel wasn’t paying attention to the
movie. She’d started wondering if Jake would stop by during the
opening murder scene in the diner and by the time I whispered in
her ear, Mallory was splayed on the hood of some car, getting nasty
with a guy that wasn’t Mickey. Angels’ glazed look came into focus
on the TV. “Try what?”

Austen glanced our way but I pretended
not to notice.

“You’ve never wondered?” I kept my
voice low, eyes widening. One of my hands was twirling a strand of
long, black hair. I gave my best salacious gaze, flashing it at
Austen, then back to the TV.

Angel rolled her eyes and got up,
making for her bedroom. She was in a sulky mood and there was no
talking to her when she got like that—when she had that withdrawn
air about her, it was best to leave her alone.

But I was in a mood, too. I tightened
my eyes and grinned, daring Angel, begging her to say something
contrary to my intention so I could spend the rest of the night
proving I was way more brave than she thought. It was just one of
those nights when I wanted to let go and do something
stupid.

But Angel wasn’t having any of my
attitude. She was too caught up in Jake and his asshat ways. Analog
Controllers’ tour was starting soon, and she hadn’t been asked to
go to California. Then there was his inglorious fumbling
confession: those two words might as well have been tattooed on her
forehead. She thought I didn’t hear her mumblings under her breath.
Whenever Angel was thinking really deep over something, she’d speak
her thoughts aloud.

Angel sighed, gave a semblance of a
wave, and disappeared down the hall. She was done for the night. I
stayed on the couch, sifting the possibilities of this uneventful
evening. I had no plans, nowhere to go. Nothing.

I settled for subtly shifting my
weight, leaning towards Austen, who still sat on the other end.
Yes, he had a girlfriend. But she wasn’t there. His skin was
colored like caramel. His hair was too long and he really needed to
consider washing his face more often, but . . . like I said, I was
bored.