by L V Chase
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.”
He rises abruptly from his wheelchair, standing on the cardboard sign as the wheelchair rolls backward. He pounds his fists against his chest.
“Yeah, I bet you regret lying now, don’t you, bitch?” he says. “I bet you thought it’d be easy to laugh at the cripple who would cry over you giving him your pennies. You snotty bitches deserve to get your ass beat.”
I take an unsteady step backward, nearly getting run over as a vehicle pulls up behind me. As I turn to see the black Jeep, Klay jumps out of the driver seat. He’s holding a bat, swinging it up as he comes closer. I try to shrink, but he doesn’t even look at me. He heads to the man.
“Get the fuck out of here, Ronnie,” Klay snarls.
The motor of his Jeep continues to rumble behind him, the sound reminiscent of a growling dog. “If you come near her again, I will fuck you up so bad, my father won’t be able to put you back together again.”
Ronnie takes off running before Klay finishes talking. I have no idea how I ever thought he was a paraplegic. He sprints like an Olympic runner.
When Klay turns to me, the bat still gripped in his hand, I know I’ve crossed a line. His rage wasn’t just for Ronnie.
“What,” he says, his voice low and cold. “The fuck were you thinking? Why would you stop to talk to him?”
“I didn’t know he was faking it. I thought if—”
“You didn’t fucking think at all,” he hisses, taking a step closer to me.
I take half a step backward, my butt bumping against his Jeep.
“It doesn’t matter if he was in a wheelchair or not,” Klay says. “What if he’d had a gun? What if he was a distraction while his friends waited to pounce? You know how Ted Bundy got his victims? He’d wear a cast or sling or pretend to be injured. Did living in the psych ward make you stupid? You damn well know how dangerous the world is.”
“And how do you know that about me?” I ask. “I’m sorry he happened to be faking it, but I’d do it all over again.”
Klay snorts in disgust. I flinch as the bat swings down, but he only lowers it near his feet. His forehead furrows at my reaction.
“He could have truly needed help,” I continue. “He could be somebody’s parent, and he’s absolutely someone’s child.”
“You’re just sympathetic because you’re imagining your parents in his place,” he says.
I blink.
It hadn’t occurred to me, but he’s right. I used to imagine that one of my parents or both of them survived their car crash. I used to try to imagine more realistic scenarios as I got older.
In my mind, sometimes they were traumatized by the crash. Sometimes, they spent all of their time grieving their spouse. Sometimes, they were crippled by the accident, and we dealt with their paralysis together.
“How do you know about that?” I ask.
“Your parent’s car crash? Everyone knows,” he says. “People aren’t just talking about how you’re insane. They talk about your parents, too. It might be the only sympathy you get.”
“No,” I say. “How do you know I thought about them being paralyzed?”
He gazes at me, some of the anger softening. He moves the bat in front of him, resting both hands on it. “Can I ask you something?”
I want to demand answers. I don’t want him to be the one with all of the answers. But I also don’t want him to jump into his Jeep and drive away.
“Okay,” I grumble.
“What would you do if your parents had survived their car crash, and they were paralyzed?” he asks.
“I’d take care of them,” I say.
“Even if it was severe?” he asks. “What if they couldn’t use any part of their body below their neck? They’d be completely at the mercy of their caretakers.”
“I’d still take care of them,” I say. “Are you so mean that you can’t picture that? Why wouldn’t I take care of them?”
“They would be completely helpless. They’d be at your mercy,” he says. “It just seems a bit cruel to have that much control over someone. They’d be your puppets. They wouldn’t have any true free will.”
“They’d be alive. That’s what would matter,” I say. “Are you going to tell me how you know I’ve thought about this?”
He shrugs. “Who wouldn’t?”
When he glances at me, all of the anger is gone from his face. If he has a heart, I’m seeing it right now. Except, I’ve already seen it before, from my memory of Klay and I working on that Jackson Pollock art project.
“Klay,” I say.
He looks straight at me. I’ve never called him by his name before.
“Did we know each other?” I ask. “From the last two years? I can’t remember. I have a memory problem.”
As his eyes search mine, something in his eyes evokes the image of a glacier melting and slowly cracking under the stress.
He looks away. After a few seconds, he swings the bat up, resting it against his shoulder.
“That sounds fucking crazy, Bell Jar,” he says, his voice colder than ice. “You should get that checked out. And stop talking to strangers.”
He walks past me, getting back into his Jeep. I take several steps back. He pulls away from the street. He doesn’t look back at me as he drives away.
I was wrong. A lot has changed about Marshall, and it all revolves around Klay.
23
Sadie
Klay’s fingers press against the bend of my elbow. “This is the median cubital vein.”
His fingers stroke downward, sending a shiver through me. He moves his hand back up, pressing down on my arm, near the vein.
“It becomes more pronounced if you press down like this,” he says.
His mouth is near my ear. My back is pressed against his chest. The world is just the two of us.
“It’s most known for being a point where a needle can be inserted to take blood or inject other fluids,” he says.
Before Klay caught me in his web, physical sensation was something that existed in the back of my mind. I didn’t think about my fingertips around a pencil, the heavy feeling of steak on my tongue, or the way a cold breeze was a stimulant while warm gust was a sedative.
After Klay, the world came to life underneath my touch, and even better, I came to life under his touch.
I let myself get lost in the sensation of his fingertips on my arm. I take in the rough texture, the way he’s gentle without treating me like I’m frail, and I fall in love with the way I can tell I absorb his full attention. He’s not thinking about any of the other girls in school. He’s not thinking about his father’s ambitious future for him. He’s not thinking about our futile future.
But I am.
I pull my arm out of his grasp and turn around, but I avoid his gaze by looking over his shoulder at a portable scaffold. The hospital halls are empty, and the walls have numbers and lines written in the faintest pencil marks. It would give off a post-apocalyptic atmosphere if it weren’t so crisp and clean.
“I don’t know if I’m ready yet,” I admit. “Not because I’m scared, but…I don’t know who I’ll be if I forget moments like this.”
He takes my arm again, his grip tighter than before. He’s more than half a foot taller than me, so when I look up at him, I should feel insignificant, but I never do.
We observe each other silently. His mouth is a straight line, and his face lacks any creases to indicate emotion. But in his eyes, where the faint lines of gold are etched into the dark brown, flickering under the bright hospital lights, I see the concern. And he’s a master of his emotions, so if some of the fear is visible, he’s terrified.
“Just trust me,” he says. “Do you?”
It’s a loaded question. Ever since my parents passed away, trust hasn’t been a luxury I’ve been willing to indulge in. I don’t want to get close enough to someone to trust them. I don’t want to put my heart into someone’s hands and get a phone call one day, finding out that they’re go
ne forever, a victim of the universe’s carelessness. I’m not close to my grandmother, my only connection left to my father, so how could I ever justify getting close to anyone else?
I don’t need to justify it, though. It’s too late for that. The trust already grows in me like vines, strangling all of my hesitation and pessimism.
“I trust you,” I say.
In the distance, ambulance sirens howl, a reminder of how cruel and merciless this world can be.
I roll over, folding my pillow under my head as the dream finds shelter in the front of my mind. Usually, my memories of Klay come when he’s around, but this one slipped in through my subconscious.
And despite how it crept up, I’m certain it’s not a fantasy I made to satisfy my destructive craving. The way I felt toward Klay flared in my memory, so hot that I can feel it in my chest now.
I close my eyes, trying to recall every part of the memory. Klay’s body frame was slimmer in the memory than it is now, and there wasn’t the hint of shadow under his eyes or the exhaustion that seems to color his movements these days.
I can’t recall how long ago it was. Maybe we’d spent a few months in love, a few months with a disintegrating relationship and a year and a half despising each other. Maybe it happened right before my memory loss.
All I know is that I trusted him once and, at the time, he was the only person I trusted. Now, he acts like I’m a small fire he wants to stomp out.
Two voices rumble downstairs. I open my eyes, listening carefully. My grandmother never has anybody over. Even before my memory loss, I don’t recall many visitors.
She sounds oddly chipper. It’s almost the same way she was talking when Klay stopped by our house, and she was a few seconds away from shoving a cookie into his mouth.
Then, a male voice. Deep. Self-assured.
I yank my sheets off. I stumble over my backpack, nearly tripping on the strap as I try to get to my dresser. I pull out a bra, a low-cut white shirt, and my best jeans. My body is buzzing with adrenaline as I throw off the large t-shirt I use as pajamas and change into more enticing clothes.
I check myself in the mirror, wishing I had enough time to shower, which could fix my hair’s determination to look like a hawk nest. I comb it as best as I can. I find a piece of gum in my backpack and pop it in my mouth.
I know I’m insane to put in this much effort for a man who would mock me no matter what I wore, but I need that sliver of a chance that he could hold me again like he held me in this new memory.
I quietly open my bedroom door and tiptoe down the steps. As I get closer, Klay’s voice sounds less vehement and less cunning than usual. My mind picks apart each syllable as I move toward the kitchen, wondering if I’ve slipped into another dream.
I round the corner, trying to appear casual, but everything in my head and my body stops as I take in the scene.
It’s not Klay.
“Hey,” Roman says to me, a plate of small pancakes in his hand as my grandmother flips over two more on her skillet. They’re standing close to each other near the stove. “I didn’t picture you as a late sleeper.”
“It’s Sunday. And I don’t know why you’re picturing me at all,” I say, gripping onto the door frame between the living room and the kitchen.
Roman winks and shoves a large chunk of pancake into his mouth. “Maybe it’s because I’ve got a crush on you.”
He rolls the mashed pancake around in his mouth and swallows. “Try your grandma’s pancakes. They’re yummy.”
As he takes another bite out of his pancakes, I study him. His hair and eyes aren’t as dark as Klay’s. He’s broader than Klay, which only serves to remind me of how he’d pinned me against the trophy case. His facial features are also wider than Klay’s and less rigid, but despite all of that, there’s a sense that they’re all very familiar. Maybe it’s the brown hair and eyes combined with the athletic bodies. Maybe it’s the arrogance that comes with their families’ wealth.
“Come in, Sadie.” My grandmother beckons me with the spatula, smiling from ear to ear.
I take a few steps in, settling near the kitchen table. Roman’s eyes linger at the neckline of my low-cut shirt as he continues to chew on his pancakes. I take a few steps closer to the stove.
If he’s going to be a pervert, I’m going to be close enough to my grandmother for her to see that he’s not a good person. If I get to see a sixty-four-year-old woman throw out Roman, it would make dressing up worth it.
My grandmother gestures for me to come closer again, her spatula’s movements a little more impatient this time. As I walk past Roman, he leans toward me and chuckles when I side-step him.
“Your friend here did the kindest thing,” my grandmother says as I lean against the counter next to the stove. “After you confided in him about my issues, he reached out to his parents. They were sympathetic and offered me a low-interest loan. He also said they’d be willing to hire both of us if we needed it. I told him I already have a job, but I’m sure that you’d be interested. Aren’t you?”
When I shoved Roman, it must have knocked some sense into him because wooing my grandmother is a vast improvement from his previous plan of trying to pay me to sleep with him.
“Wow,” I say. “Um, I don’t know about that. I want to focus on my schoolwork this year. I still have to get ready for the SATs.”
Roman shoves his fork into the center of his pancakes and strides over to the kitchen table. He sits down and takes another bite of the pancake before pointing towards the chair across from him.
“Sit down, Sadie,” he says. “We should talk about it. It’s a good deal. It comes with benefits.”
“I’d prefer to stand,” I reply.
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, that’s right, you have a job already,” he says, his voice loud enough for my grandmother to clearly hear him. “You’re running your own business? Didn’t the whole school get an ad for it?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks as my grandmother turns around, her spatula pointing upward like a conductor’s baton.
“Sadie!” she says. “You have your own business? What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, hurriedly walking over to the kitchen table and sitting down across from Roman. “Roman’s joking, like he always does. We had a school project where we made advertisements.”
“That sounds fun,” she says. “What was yours for?”
“What was it?” Roman asks, leaning toward me. A drop of syrup is on his chin. “A call girl?”
“A phone operator,” I say, shooting him a look. “My advertisement was offering to call to make appointments, or wait on the line for customer service.”
“That is…unique,” my grandmother says.
As she turns around to focus on the pancakes again, I grab Roman’s plate, pulling it away from him.
“What the hell,” I say, as quietly as possible. “What’s your problem?”
“It’s called a joke,” he says, smirking. “Come on, it’s funny seeing you squirm. It’d be even better on my lap.”
I grip tighter onto the plate, using every muscle in my arm to stop myself from smashing it into his smug face.
“What do you want?” I ask.
He slowly pries the plate out of my hand. “I want to eat pancakes,” he says. “And I wanted to say I’m sorry. I was too…ambitious before. Most girls like guys who come on strong, and from the way I’ve seen you eyeing Klay, I thought you were one of those. But you aren’t. My bad.”
I tug on my hair. It’s not quite an apology, but to Roman, it may be the closest he will ever get.
“I understand,” I say. “But I’m not into Klay. You misread that.”
He shrugs. “If that’s your story, okay.”
“It’s the truth.”
He shovels more pancake into his mouth. I glance over at my grandmother. She’s peeking back at the two of us. She gives me a thumbs up.
“I also got you something,” Roman says. He shoves a hand into the pocket of h
is sports jacket pocket and pulls out a business card. He slides it over to me.
Lertola’s Companionship & Care
In-Home Health Aide Service
For seniors and people with physical or mental disabilities.
Medical professionals licensed by the State of New York.
718-255-4689
“Is this another joke about my mental health?” I ask, tossing the business card back at him.
“No,” he says. “It’s for your grandma. You probably spend too much time worrying about her. Wouldn’t it be cool if someone helped take care of her? Like, professional help? I bought a contract for a month. See if you like it.”
“You didn’t even check with my grandmother first?” I ask.
My grandmother walks over with a new stack of pancakes.
“Are you two talking about me?” she asks, setting the plate down in front of me. She notices the business card and picks it up.
As she reads it, I glower at Roman. Roman cleans off his plate, his fork chasing a tiny morsel of pancake.
My grandmother presses her hand over her heart. “Oh, I saw this on that talk show with the blonde woman. One of the caregivers helped that little boy with the leg disability, and he thanked her in his elementary graduation speech. It was so cute.”
“Sadie reached out to some people, and we all wanted to help,” Roman says. “My dad always says a community is only a community when we’re taking care of each other. We’re putting together some money to get you help for a month.”
Confusion and a flicker of indignation cross my grandmother’s face. I know what she’s thinking. Our family has always prided itself on its ability to remain independent, and, other than her fainting, she’s a woman who’s been able to take care of herself.
It brings me back to my conversation with Klay yesterday, about how being supported or helped by someone else can make people feel like puppets. It can end up putting them at another’s mercy.
“That’s very generous,” my grandmother says, cradling her elbow in her hand.