Wide Awake (7 page)

I blinked. "What else?"

"What?"

"I don't know who that is you're talking about, and good or bad, I want to get to know her. What else would the old me have done?"

She looked to her dad — my dad —for the OK to proceed. He nodded and sighed as he sat on the end of my bed and patted my blanketed leg with a weak smile as she continued.

"The old you wouldn't be caught dead in the clothes Mom put you in." She looked to Isabella. "No offense, Mom."

She smiled. "None taken. Go on."
"The old you wouldn't have your hair down like that, it would be in a high ponytail like always. Or have accepted these flowers from Andrew," she looked at the card and smirked, "because you always say a guy that brings you flowers must not be able to afford anything good."

On it went. She laid out my transgressions like an itchy blanket at my feet and all I wanted to do was throw it off and tear out of the room, but I was immobilized. Not only by this useless body that betrayed me, but also the overwhelming shock and chagrin that was currently wracking my body.

The girl they were talking about couldn't possibly be me.

After a while, I shifted down into the bleach scented sheets and pretended to still listen, but I was really in a world all my own. I stared up at the dragonflies and tried to imagine this vain girl that still loved stickers of a fragile little flying insect. I tried to imagine someone who would snub a gift someone brought her while fawning over a fashionable ponytail.
Later on, after they left and a supper I barely touched of pot roast and rolls, I opened the book back up that plagued my mind with my little obsession for it.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Great. I wondered if that rule applied to me as well.

I shut the book, and, just as I was putting it on the table, I saw Mason's head retreating. "Hey," I called, welcoming the distraction.

He came in, but didn't look happy about it. "Hey. Sorry, I wasn't trying to disturb you."

"You didn't. You couldn't," I found myself saying. I bit the inside of my cheek in chagrin.

"Well…" He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged his shoulders, looking really uncomfortable. "I just wanted to check on you before I left for the night. I know your family being here was a big deal for you."

I glanced out the window to find it dark. "You're here late, aren't you?"
He nodded, his eyes narrowing in thought. "Yeah."

"Are you OK?" I asked.

He finally looked up at me. "Yeah. Why?"

"You're acting strange."
"I'm not," he insisted. "I'm fine." He looked around the room. "I better go."

"Were you just going to leave without saying anything?" He squinted in question, but I knew he knew what I meant. "When you were checking on me?"
He half smiled as he said softly, "Yes, I was. I just wanted to check on you, not bother you or…start some long, late-night conversation."
"Oh," was all I could say.

I gulped and pressed the button on my bed that controlled the light to turn it off. I heard his sigh and when he started to say something, I said, "Goodnight, Mason."

"I didn't mean that I didn't want to talk to you, Emma. It's just so very…complicated."

"What's
it
? What is there to be complicated about?"

He sighed again. "Emma," he said pleadingly.

"All I did was ask you if you were OK." I shut my eyes and felt my throat ache a little at holding in tears. I was about to cry for this man that I barely knew, and I didn't even know why. "It's fine. It's not a big thing."

"It
is
a big thing," he argued. "You just can't understand why yet."

"What does that mean?"

If he sighed one more time… "I just wanted to make sure you were good for the night, that's all." I heard him shuffle to the door. "I hope your visit with your family was good."
"It wasn't," I said truthfully. "They don't want the girl in this bed, and I don't want a room full of strangers."

"Em," he whispered. My body tightened with some response at this nickname he'd given me. Pleasure, I thought. I shook it away.

"I'm fine."

"Emma-"

"Goodnight, Mason."

The door squeaked as he toyed with it in his indecision. Finally he said, "Goodnight, Emma."

And then I was alone once more.

"The key is not letting up. Just use a constant force and push for as long as you can, all right?"

I nodded up at Mason. It had been almost two weeks since Andy had made his grand reveal of his feelings and his plans for me. He came every day, just like he said. And every day was a repeat of the first; he came and tried to talk me into how awesome he was and how I'd love him again in no time. He said he would take me on a walk, but had yet to do so, and then he'd try to force his tongue into my uncooperative mouth, and I'd try to sit there and pretend that I was enjoying it and it wasn't so bad.

But it was. It just was.

He was so adamant about things, that it seemed he was there more out of obligation than love. And he'd told me his parents didn't approve of his still seeing me. That it was 'creepy' he came to see me when I didn't remember him. Even though I should have been insulted, I wasn’t. I was beginning to be a little creeped out, too.

And Mason, he was the same, only not. He was polite and his jokes seemed normal, but it was different than it had been before. And I noticed that during our sessions, he never looked at me for more than a couple seconds at a time. Like right now. I just tried to ignore it. He thought I had some school-girl crush on him, which wasn't far from the truth, and he wasn't interested and felt weird about my feelings. So, I played the passive, unemotional girl around him.

But it was hard to be too worried about that, though I had a good idea of why he was acting so strangely, because…I was walking again. Barely, but walking.

I used my arms on the parallel bar things that were holding me up and scooted my legs the tiny inches that I could muster. I could now wear clothes instead of a hospital gown. My mom was putting me in pink and purple velour track suits every day. It made these workouts better and less degrading. Progress was achingly slow, but I'd take it. And it just happened to be during one of these sessions that the radio rang out with a song. A song that sparked some kind of violent reaction in me, in my mind. It was
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
by New Politics. I let go of the bars and gripped my head as if to shield myself. I felt my knees slam into the floor pads before my torso followed. Mason bent and caught me just before my head slammed, too. "Whoa. What happened?"

I pushed his arm off, not wanting the comfort right then. The feeling I got from that song was indescribable and it crawled over my skin. I heard his sigh as he sat down beside me on the mat. "I know it's hard-"

"It's not hard," I insisted. "Walking is all I can think about anymore. That song…the radio started playing that song..."

A phone rang and he pulled his cell out. He glanced at the missed call and sighed again before saying, "The song?" He looked back at me and saw me.
Really
saw me. "You are white as snow, Emma." He moved forward on the mat and though I flinched back, he didn't accept my silent barrier. He touched my face gently and made me look at him. "What's wrong?" I stayed silent, unable to find an answer. "Tell me what's wrong."

"That song just gives me the willies," I explained.

He tried to hold in the smile. "The willies?"

"The heebee-jeebies," I explained further.

He did laugh then. "A heebeewhat?"

"Nothing." I pushed his arm and he felt like stone under my palm. I shook my head at my own strength. I was so weak.

"That big word you just spouted was not nothing. Are you trying to show me up with your smarts?" He smirked in a way that could have been construed as a half-smile.

"I'm not smarter than you," I said. I managed to turn a bit to face him. "You're a therapist. I'm just a high school kid."

I made sure to emphasize 'kid' for him. I saw his face change. He opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped that real quick like. "Help me up, please? I want to keep going."

With pursed, unhappy lips he heeded my request, knowing I was drawing a line on where the conversation was to halt. The rest of our session, as he helped me and instructed me, he was contemplative. I tried to block him out. For me, walking was bigger than any boy could ever be.

When Andy — yes, I started calling him Andy — came by that day, he could tell something was off. I lied and told him I was fine, but I really wasn't. I seemed to be coming to a crossroads. A stay or go situation. A left or right predicament. I needed to get out of this place and start trying to figure out what I wanted most. To try to be some girl I didn't know, or try to be happy and live out my life as the girl I was now.

I had no idea the answer to the problem yet.

I was surprised when the door opened and it was Mason, not Andy. He smiled and it was the first time I'd seen that real smile in weeks. "What?" I asked. "Why are you so smiley?"
"Let's go, Emma. Up and at 'em." He took my hand and I gawked at him. He had barely spoken to me, let alone touched me, unless it had to do with therapy, and now he was pulling me up and steadying me with his hands on my arms.

"Where are we going?" I asked breathlessly. He didn't seem to notice.

"The yard. I want to take you for a walk, if that's OK with you."

A walk. Like, with my legs and stuff. I smiled in spite of being weird with Mason. "Please."

He held my arm tightly, but gently, in his and walked beside me down the hall slowly. He completely had my trust. If I fell, I knew he'd catch me. "Andy was supposed to take me," I finally said to fill the silence.

"I know," he admitted, but didn't look my way. "Your mom told me that you'd said that a couple times, but
Andy
always heads out, so…you're stuck with me."

Stuck. I shook my head at the absurdity.

"Thank you. I feel like I have a list in my head of things that will make me feel normal again. Taking a walk outside is one of them."

"I'll have to hear this list sometime," he said and tightened his grip when the stairs came into view. "Just keep a tight grip on my hand, OK?"