These Gentle Wounds (12 page)

Seventeen

“Morning, sunshine,” Sarah whispers, kissing me quickly. I reach up and touch my tingling lips. I don't even think about the fact that she's watching me, and for some reason it makes her laugh. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah, really well,” I say, realizing that for once it's completely true. We both pull ourselves up so that we're sitting in our bags.

“Good. I wish we could stay out here for the day, but Jessie has some cheerleading thing.” She says “cheerleading” like some people might say “leper.” “Man, I can't wait until I can drive.”

My stomach twists when she talks about leaving. I feel like all the good stuff is going to stay in the woods without us. I'm worried she'll think back and realize I really am a nutcase and won't want anything to do with me tomorrow in school. I mean, the
Moby Dick
project is done, so we don't have to work together in class. And now camping is over and she kind of had to let me come after she'd already invited me, so …

My hand starts spasming at my side and my thoughts race until I'm convinced that this is the last good minute I'll ever have.

“Gordie.” Sarah squeezes my arm. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” I lie. I jam my hand under my leg.

“Bull.” She tugs on my arm and pulls my hand out from underneath me. She wraps her own hand around it, but it flops like a dying fish. I wish I could control it.

“Is this from what happened?” she asks.

It's funny—most people don't. They might look at me like I'm nuts or like I have something they can catch, but they don't ask. Adults never ask. Only little kids usually have the guts to try to find out the answers to things that puzzle them.

I pull my hand back and rub it self-consciously. Even though I can feel the jolts and see it jumping, my hand doesn't really feel like a part of me. “Yeah, I guess,” I say. “That's when it started, anyhow.”

My hand slides automatically back under my leg, but she shakes her head. “Stop. You don't need to hide it.”

I let her words straighten themselves out in my head. I want to ask her if she means it, and if she can teach me how not to hide. Everything I've done over the past five years has been about trying to bury all the bruised things that make me different.

She holds my eyes with such intensity that I have to fight not to look away. I take a deep breath. When I pull my hand back out and cradle it in my lap, we both sit watching it until the spasms ease.

Then she puts something into my hand. Her necklace.

“I've seen you looking at this. It's a picture I took last year. I had it developed in black-and-white and then I colored it with pencils.”

My hand clenches around it. “It's beautiful,” I tell her, then move to give it back.

“You can keep it.”

“What?” I don't think anyone has ever given me a gift like this. Something they made. Something that wasn't for my birthday or Christmas. Only Sarah.

She takes it from me and slips the long chain over my head.

I smile at her.

The smile she gives me back, the one I want to fall into and imprint onto my screwed-up brain, is like sunlight glistening on water.

I feel like I've landed on an alien planet when I open the front door to the house. Everything's the same as it was yesterday morning when I left, but it's like I'm looking at it through those glasses that make things stretched or kaleidoscopic.

Jim must be out, and Kevin is probably upstairs, and the inside of my head is uncomfortably quiet. I stand and stare at the phone, wishing I could pick it up and have Sarah's voice fill all the empty spaces.

I know she isn't home yet because they've just pulled out of the driveway, but I already miss her so much I can feel it inside, in some organ I didn't know I had.

I wrap my hand around the bird charm.

I'm still standing like that when Kevin comes downstairs. “You didn't get eaten by a bear?”

I hear his words but don't really make any sense of them.
“What?”

Kevin smirks. “Never mind. So how was it?” He throws himself on the couch, taking up all the room so I have to go and sit in Jim's lounge chair.

“Good,” I say. “It was good.”

Kevin stares at me. I know he's expecting more. I always tell him everything, but I don't know how to put any of the last twenty-four hours into words. How do I tell my brother how safe it felt to sleep with Sarah's arm across me and how my lips are still buzzing from her kiss? How do I tell him how empty my hand feels without her squeezing it, like she did the whole way home in the car?

I can't explain to him why I feel like I can trust her, and how each kiss felt like a bandage to a wound somewhere deep inside me.

Kevin sits up and wraps his arms around his legs and doesn't even blink. I end up having to look away because it feels like his eyes are stapling me to the back of the chair.

“And?” he asks sharply.

I get up and start rifling through my bag. “It rained,” I say as I pull out my damp shirt and jeans, followed by underwear and socks and a certain amount of grass and clumped-up mud.

“Yeah,” he says. “It did here too.”

I ignore the suspicion in his voice and walk through the kitchen to stuff my clothes in the washer. Just seeing them makes me think of the towel in Sarah's hand, the cloth running over my chest. I shiver. It feels really strange not to be with her. I don't understand that. I've only really been aware of her for two weeks, but I'm not sure I remember how it felt to not know her.

When I turn back around, Kevin is standing there watching me, looking concerned.

“Ice? Talk to me.”

I turn one of the chairs and lean a leg on it. I don't know what to say. I've never wanted to avoid talking to him before. But I feel like if I tell him everything that happened it won't be ours anymore. Sarah's and mine. My chest feel like it's going to burst open, full of the concept of “ours.”

“What did you do when it was raining?” he asks.

“We played Scrabble,” I say honestly. “And we took a walk.”

“In the rain?” he asks, shaking his head. He knows how unlikely it would be for me to do that normally.

“Yeah. We ended up under this huge tree. It had branches like an umbrella,” I tell him, but it only brings words into my mouth that I can't let escape my lips, so I force them together to keep everything private inside.

As I turn, I feel the bird charm swipe across my chest. He leans over and inspects it, then lets it fall back hard.

“What's that?”

I shrug out of his grip and shove the charm into my shirt. “It was a present, and I'm fine. Really. I went camping. I didn't jump off the Empire State Building.” Kevin's face goes pale. “I didn't jump off of anything,” I say, hoping it will put his mind at rest. But I know Kevin better than that, so it's no surprise when he doesn't stop.

“So, you and Sarah?”

“I don't have to tell you everything,” I snap. And then, because the words sound so strange coming out of my mouth and because Kevin's face falls in a way I've never caused it to fall before, I apologize. “Sorry, I didn't mean … ”

“No, that's fine.” Kevin's voice teeters between hurt and anger, like it did when we were kids and my father would make some unreasonable demand or insist he give up something that really mattered to him. “You're right. You don't have to tell me anything at all.”

His words are razor-sharp and I can feel each one stab into my skin. I'm overcome with waves of guilt and I know I need to catch him before he's out the door.

“Wait.”

He turns around and his expression is hard and defensive. “It's fine. Really. I'm glad you had a good time.”

I need to toss him something to keep him from walking out. I need to give up something of value, because he'll see through my words and know if what I'm telling him is just something to try to make him stay.

“She kissed me,” I force out. “I mean … we kissed.”

His harsh expression cracks slowly into a smile and he nods his head slightly. “Is that all?”

I can feel the blood rushing to my face. “Yes. God … ”

Kevin's shoulders fall and he starts laughing. I look away in embarrassment and because guilt is still sitting like a rock in my stomach.

“Did you like it?”

Before I can think about it, I get caught up in the way we usually are, Kevin and me. And I tell him everything. When I'm done I feel a little empty, like the words took something with them when they left my mouth. But it's okay. Kevin and I are okay. And that's all I've ever needed.

Eighteen

Monday morning hits me like a train. My muscles ache, and I have months before summer hockey camp starts and I can really work them out. I decide to hit the public rink after school, and that's all I can think about until I get to English and Sarah drops a little paper swan onto my desk.

I twist to look back at her. She smiles and makes a motion like she wants me to unfold the swan. I don't really want to. It's pretty intricate and very cool, made of paper the blue-green of the ocean with little flecks of silver running through it.

I look back at her again to make sure she really wants me to ruin her work.

But when she nods again, I do it.

Inside the swan, looking like it was swallowed, is a note:
Meet me at my locker after last period. I have to talk to you.

I rationally know that most people wouldn't deliver bad news in a paper swan. At the same time, in my experience, no one ever says they need to see you in advance unless it's about something that's going to suck.

I look back at her again, and I'm pretty sure she can see my fear because she gives me a big smile and rolls her eyes.

Her smile should put me at ease, but it doesn't. I'm not even sure what I'm afraid of, but I can't concentrate on Mr. Brook's pop quiz even though I know all the answers. When I try to write them down, the letters come out all wrong and I have to keep scratching things out.

Mr. Brooks stops next to my desk before sitting on the edge and putting his hand over mine.

I look down. I hadn't noticed that I was clicking my pen.

“Do you need to take a break?” he asks.

I look back at Sarah, who's busy writing down her answers.

“I … ” I start, and then my voice breaks in two and I clamp my mouth shut to avoid embarrassing myself.

“It's okay, you can make the test up tomorrow,” Mr. Brooks whispers.

I wish I could crawl under my desk. I want to say “no” and stay sitting here, but if I can't control it, everyone is just going to be watching me, waiting for me to lose it in class. It's better, I've learned, to just get up and hope they go back to their own papers.

I feel like I'm sleepwalking as I pick up my books and cram them into my bag.

Mr. Brooks motions me to follow him to the back of the room, which is like a million miles from everyone else. This room is actually three classrooms in one separated by dividers that can be opened or closed. I know whatever we say back here won't be overheard by anyone else and Mr. Brooks is awesome. But I'd rather not have the conversation I know is coming.

He sits on the corner of another desk, his leg waving back and forth like a pendulum and his arms crossed.

“So, what's going on?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say, slumping down in a chair across from him.

He makes a harrumph sound and clears his throat. “Let's try this again. What's really going on, Gordie?”

So here's the thing. I used to have this fantasy that Mr. Brooks might adopt me. I know it's crazy. I mean, why would he ever want me for a son? But he's like this guy who seems to have all the answers to everything and he never seems to get pissed off, either.

So, for a second, I think about how cool he is in his Club Metro T-shirt and his purple sneakers. And how maybe, just maybe, if I told him about going camping with Sarah, and her paper-swan note, he might be able to make sense of it all for me. He might be able to tell me if I've done something wrong.

Then I glance back at the rest of the class. I'm sure that none of them are so lame they have to ask a teacher what to do when a girl says she wants to see them after school.

I sigh and pull at the loose fringes of my sleeve. “There's just some stuff … ” I hope if I'm vague enough I can draw things out until the bell rings.

“Stuff?” he prods.

I look out the window and imagine something flying in and whisking me away to a place where everyone will stop asking me questions. I reach up to touch the bird charm under my shirt, but then drop my hand. I don't want to have to explain that to him, too.

But he's waiting, and it's Mr. Brooks. I don't want to be a dick so I sort through all the issues in my brain to see what I can tell him that doesn't involve Sarah.

“My father,” I say. I didn't even know that's what was on my mind until the words came out.

“Jim Allen?” His brow scrunches up and I shake my head. Mr. Brooks knows the whole crappy story and I have to be careful or he's going to feel like he has to
do
something, and too many things are already changing.

“Your real father?”

I hate that Jim, who's given me a home for the last five years, who's Kevin's “real” father just because he slept with Mom first, is considered my fake dad or something. While the person I hate most in the world is given credit when he's really to blame for everything.

Now that I've said the words, though, I feel all clenched up and shaky.

“He wants … ” I twist and twist the band on my wrist, trying to force myself to push a whole damned sentence out of my mouth. “I can't … ”

Mr. Brooks puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “It's okay. Do you want me to get you an appointment with Mr. Williams? Just to have a chat?”

“No,” I blurt out, loudly enough that a third of the class turns around to stare. I push my lips together and turn away because I don't want to know if Sarah is one of them.

Mr. Williams is the same stupid school counselor I saw before. He's just going to thrust his referral pad at me to go see someone who can give me a prescription. Besides, I hate, hate, hate that everyone thinks I need to see a shrink.

“Sorry.” I try to keep my voice steady and quiet. “I'll be fine. Really.”

It's clear that Mr. Brooks doesn't believe me, which kind of bugs me even though I don't blame him.

“Or you could talk to me,” he offers.

I used to talk to him all the time, but I was just a kid then. Everything is so different now. Besides, I don't really know what to say and I've learned that saying nothing is way better than sounding like an idiot.

There's five minutes left of class. That's five minutes before I can see Sarah and find out if I did something stupid yesterday or if maybe she regrets kissing me.

“Thanks. Maybe,” I say, even though he knows it means I won't. I just shuffle around and wait for the bell, which feels like it's never going to ring.

“Well, you know where to find me.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, just … ” He pauses. “Come ready to take your quiz tomorrow.”

It's clear he wants to say something different, but the bell goes off and I fly out the door into the hall and stand, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet, trying to keep myself from pacing while I wait for Sarah.

She comes out, already looking for me. “Hey, are you okay?”

She looks worried. I want, more than anything, to lean over and kiss her. But we aren't camping anymore. We're in school, and I'm not completely sure what the rules are here. Maybe I imagined what happened. Maybe it was something that just belonged to that moment in the woods and will never happen again.

“The swan … ”

“You didn't like it?” She sounds disappointed, and I hate being the cause of that.

“No, I did. Really, it's just—”

“Relax,” she says as she reaches up and tousles my hair.

Her touch makes me feel lighter and less worried, but her message still plays in front of my eyes like a scrolling marquee. I try to give her a real smile.

“That's better.” She leans in and gives me a feathery kiss on the cheek that banishes most of my fear. “Gordie?”

“Yeah?”

She smiles. “Not all surprises are bad.”

Her words seem like something I need to consider, but before I can, the bells rings.

“Come on,” she says, pulling my sleeve. “We're going to be late.”

It's good that we have our next classes near each other, because she makes me feel like a ship being drawn in by the safe beacon of a lighthouse. I want to go wherever she's going; I don't even care where that is.

I've never met anyone who was so good at so many different things. In addition to her other hobbies, Sarah plays the flute. Not classical flute. Rock flute. I didn't even know that existed.

She talks about it like it's no big deal, but now I'm standing
in front of her locker after school and she's holding out her old MP3 player, the one she doesn't use anymore, the one she's loaded up for me.

She's smiling. She looks proud of herself. She thinks she's giving me something great and special. I look down at the small blue square in her hand. I want to want to take it, but that isn't the same thing as wanting it.

Music is great and all, but it's tied up with The Night Before for me and I know if I take the player, she'll expect me to listen to whatever she's put on it. I don't think I can just pretend to do that.

“What's wrong?” Her smile has wilted a little.

I'm glued to the floor, helpless in front of this beautiful girl who is trying to be so nice to me. I want to do whatever it takes to make her happy. I'm just not sure how to do that.

I shrug and take the small metal square. It's warm from her hand and for some reason that makes me blush a little.

“Thanks.” I close my palm around the player. It reminds me of holding her hand. I wish I were, right now.

“You don't have to like it or anything. I mean, I can take criticism,” she says as she spins the dial on her lock. “And there's other stuff on there. It isn't just me.”

“That's … ” I search for a word that isn't going to hold me to anything. “Great. I mean, not that you added stuff. I mean, I want to hear your music.” Saying the words almost makes them true.

“Then come to our show on Thursday night.” Her words are a challenge and she knows it. She puts her hands on her hips and waits for an answer.

“Your show?”

“Yeah. I've been sitting in on a friend's band from … from my old school. Frozen Polar Bears. We're doing an all-ages show at the Metro.”

I tighten my hand around the MP3 player. I can feel its edges digging in my palm, working its way into me just like she is. I know where the Metro is, but, like I tell her, I have no idea how I'd get there.

“Maybe Luke would pick you up? Or maybe your brother could drive you?”

The idea makes me smile. Kevin and I do a lot together, but it's been a long time since we went out and did something fun.

“I don't know. I'll ask him.”

“Good,” she says, reaching back into her locker. “You know, I never did show you those pictures I took of you. But I printed this one off.”

She holds out a black-and-white photo of me from when she snuck into the locker room. I'm ducking down and my hair is flopping halfway across my face. She caught a ray of sunshine flitting across the room behind me and there are specs of dust in the light, looking like the reflection of stars glittering in a pool.

It's been a really long time since I've seen a photo of myself, except for shots from games when I'm in uniform. This is different. It feels more real. I wonder if this is how she sees me.

“Can I keep it?” I ask.

“Of course. Do you like it?”

I try to figure out who the last person was who cared about my opinion. Mom, maybe? I'm not sure.

I wonder if Sarah has any idea how good she is.

I want to kiss her. I bite my bottom lip, hoping I can keep myself from just leaning toward her. I force myself to look back down at the photo. To try to stop thinking of how much I want to feel the weight of her arm around me again.

“Do I really look like that?”

She smiles as I put the picture between the pages of my geometry book. “Are you, like, a vampire? You can't see yourself in mirrors or something?”

“No,” I say, looking down at my shoes so that she doesn't see how embarrassed I am. The white toes are scuffed on the top and the laces are tangled again. “Of course not. I guess I just don't pay much attention.”

“Boys,” she scoffs. “You're all alike.”

I know she means it as a jab. But there's something in her words that I like. Something that says she sees me as normal. I never think of myself as being like anyone else.

I wonder if she'll be disappointed when she figures out I'm not.