Reverie

by Shain Rose

  "Jax, this is just us girls," his mother said, her voice stern.

  Jax's hand left my elbow and for some stupid reason, I missed it. Probably because I knew after this, he wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole.

  I followed her up the rest of the white marble stairs and down the hallway to a gigantic bathroom that I probably should have just run to the moment I saw the mess on my head.

  She went to one of the drawers and pulled out a brush. Turning me toward the mirror, she calmly started brushing my hair without offering me the brush to do it myself.

  I stiffened, staring at her head over mine in the mirror. Her eyes were the same blue as Jax's and they glistened with sympathy.

  I didn't want it. I didn't need it. I had done just fine with my mother and my father so far. I stepped closer to the speckled granite countertop. "Thank you for finding me a brush."

  Her brow furrowed. "I can help you with your hair."

  She'd read my silent plea right. I wanted her to leave, but she wasn't budging.

  "Is there a reason you can't wear it down?"

  She knew the reason. Adults like Mrs. Stonewood were easy to read. They all held the same expression. The first time I encountered that look had been a day my mother picked me up from grade school. My teacher had seen a bruise on her arm when my mother reached for me.

  She had gasped and we both stiffened. My mother pulled down her sleeve quickly but my teacher’s eyes had already changed. They flicked to our car nervously, and she asked if everything was all right.

  On the way home, my mother said she wasn't going to be dropping me off anymore, that I would have to walk. I read her thoughts. That day, I nodded my head in total agreement. Soon after, I was being homeschooled.

  Now, Mrs. Stonewood begged me with her eyes to tell her something as she stroked my hair and brushed away the curls.

  I didn't answer her.

  She'd always been a sort of friend to me, the type of mother I never had. She yelled at the boys for me, let me eat cookies, she even told me to call her Nancy instead of Mrs. Stonewood. At this moment though, knowing that she wanted the truth, I figured not answering was my best answer. I just couldn’t bring myself to lie to her.

  She began to fold my dark curls over one another and said, "Whenever you're ready, we can talk. Just us girls." She always said ‘just us girls’ when she wanted me to understand it would be our little secret. My throat constricted and when I looked away from her, I felt wetness slide down my cheeks. I wiped the tears away quickly, hoping she didn't see.

  If she did, she didn't say a thing. "All better."

  I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair was French-braided, and it looked classy. Father wouldn't mind this. No curls. No frizz. No hair out of place.

  "Thank you," I mumbled.

  "Don't thank me when two out of my three boys did this to you." Her third and oldest son, Jett, was in college, living near his father. Thank God because I didn't think all three Stonewoods here would be good for the female population.

  I let out a sigh and smiled a little. "Only Jax, really."

  We started our way back down the hallway.

  "I'm going to have to ground him for eternity at this rate. To think, he’s seventeen and facewashing girls. I doubt there’s hope for him.”

  I laughed a little, feeling the weight of my braid swinging and realizing I felt a little freer with this hair style. "Not this time, Nancy. I got him good after he did this to my hair."

  "Snow to his face?" Her eyes met mine again and they no longer appeared sympathetic, she was trying to make me smile.

  I laughed a little and nodded.

  "All right. He's off the hook this time. Go beat them in some of those video games." With that, she turned a corner and disappeared.

  I made my way down the hallway and found both Jax and Jay sitting in the middle of their rec room, two empty plates beside them as they played a video game.

  I moved to grab the plates to take them to the kitchen. Littered with crumbs, those plates would have been grounds for a fight in my home.

  Jay grabbed my arm and yanked me down. “We’ll clean up later.”

  I stared at the plates for a second longer, willing away the itch to clean it up. When Jax pushed another controller in my hand, I welcomed the distraction. "If you pick the character Peach again, I swear I'm going to make it my mission to throw every question mark I get at you," he mumbled.

  I smiled, realizing that neither of them were going to comment about the hair incident.

  I didn't care that both he and Jax got annoyed with me picking to be Peach every time. I didn’t care that they would tease me the whole time. I only cared that they would be my friends knowing my faults. It mattered that they acted as if my panic attack hadn’t happened at all. Real friends accepted you for who you were, not who you pretended to be. "You're just mad because I beat you every time I play her."

  Jax groaned when I picked her as my character, like I always did. "Do you want to be her or something? We at least switch our characters. You are obsessed with her!"

  Truth was, I wouldn't mind being her. She was a princess. "Whatever."

  After a round I lost, Jax leaned toward me. "How's it feel to be losing, Peaches?"

  I scrunched up my face. "Her name is Peach, and I'm not her."

  "No. You're not. You're Peaches." He laughed to himself as he focused back on the screen. Jay started to laugh along with him.

  "Peaches kinda fits you,” Jay said.

  Jax groaned. "Find your own nickname for her, man. Quit copying me."

  "It's not a nickname!" My voice came out high and irritated.

  "You kinda screech like her too."

  "You want me to call you Bowser?" I said trying to get the upper hand, but as he crossed the finish line in first place, I slumped.

  "No, Peaches. You can just call me winner."

  I glared but kept my eyes on the screen. “You’ll always be last place in my book. L.P. L.P. rolls off the tongue quite nicely too.”

  He grumbled something about showing me what could roll off my tongue nicely but I ignored him, so happy with my quick work on a degrading nickname for him.

  We bickered and played again and again. Before I knew it, the sun was setting. I finished in first place only to throw my controller down, "I gotta go!"

  Jax rolled his eyes. "You can't leave just because you finally won."

  "Get over yourself, L.P. I won like ten times in the last hour."

  He stood to his full height and crossed his arms, trying intimidation. "Peaches, let's be realistic."

  Maybe it was the way everyone backed down from him or the way he commanded everything around him but I never wanted to give in to him, to let him have anything without a fight. I put my hands on my hips and stood a little straighter. “L.P.,”—I mimicked his tone—“realistically, Jay beat you last time, and he's the worst."

  "Hey!” Jay jumped up. "I'm way better at Jax in most things. He plays this way too much."

  I patted Jay's arm and glared at Jax for making me indirectly insult Jay who always stood up for me. He was the sweet one, the one I would call my friend. I held Jax's eyes. "Of course, Jay. We both know you're better than Jax at most everything."

  Jax's eyes widened as he took a menacing step forward. He searched my face again, analyzing me. "What the hell does that mean?" he ground out, a gravelly tone in his voice sending shivers up my body.

  I stepped back quickly and turned as if unaffected. I didn’t answer him because I didn’t really know what it meant. Jay and I were friends, nothing more. I didn’t know if he was better at anything than Jax, other than being my friend.

  He was the absolute best at that.

  "See you guys later!" I yelled over my shoulder as I bounded down the stairs.

  Halfway out the door, Jax yelled from the stairs, "See you on Sophomore Kill Day."

  I winced at the reminder.

  Jay would protect me. I hoped.

  What Jay
wouldn't be able to protect me from was walking into my kitchen and seeing my father sitting at the table, glaring at the door.

  "Where's Mom?"

  "You mean Mother?" he asked, his voice louder than even his normal yelling voice. "I'm asking the questions, Aubrey."

  I nodded, frozen in the doorway.

  "Close and lock that door. You are letting in the cold."

  I turned and did as I was told. I had no choice. Not when I didn't know where my mom was.

  As the lock clicked into place, I felt my body start to shake. I couldn't turn back around. I willed myself to pivot, to face my father.

  I pled with my self-control, begging it to help me stop shaking, to give me the courage to ask him again where he'd locked Mom up this time.

  Control, that little friend of mine, wasn’t needed though. Instead, my father yanked me back by my French braid and spit out, "What the fuck is this? She let your hair grow this long?"

  Tears stung my eyes from the hair pulling.

  The tears spilled over when he reached for the knife block and slid a large butcher knife from it. The metal glinted in the light. It shined as if it had been sharpened and primed for just this specific moment. When the metal sparkled as it swung toward me, I wondered if blood made it shine more brightly.

  I wouldn’t find out that day because my father only sliced it fluidly across my braid.

  My hair unraveled and hung shoulder-length. He threw my twelve inches of braid into the trash and the knife into the sink.

  The sounds of the metal hitting ceramic and the knife ricocheting forcefully around the sink drew my focus to the sharpness of the blade. How quickly it sliced through every strand of the hair. Gone, it was all gone.

  "Don't blubber in my house," my father yelled and slammed his open hand upside the back of my head. I flew forward, seeing black. Just barely, I caught myself on the countertop.

  The blade was closer now, my teeth just inches from the side of the sink.

  My father, such a smart, successful man. People said we were lucky to have him. He’d saved my mother, Tala, from that home she’d lived in on the reservation.

  That home though was my mother’s sanctuary. Father didn’t let her talk much about it but she shared with me how it saved her when her own mother vanished. One night, her mother went to work and the next she was gone like a beautiful star burning out in the galaxy.

  "Go clean up your mother. She's in the office," he grumbled as he pulled the keys from his slacks and threw them at me.

  I stood there wondering what he would do if I said no. If I didn’t back down and pushed him just a little further.

  My father, such a smart man. He never hit us where it would leave a mark for anyone to see.

  His eyebrows raised.

  My shoulders sank.

  Control was my friend and my enemy. I hated it for making me a coward and loved it for saving my mother and me from more pain.

  My mother laid like a wounded animal on the floor when I opened the door. I hurried to her and smoothed her hair back. I slid my hands over her face as she cried and ran her fingers through my hair. “Oh, my little dreamer. All your dreams have been cut away.”

  Yes, every strand of my hair held another dream, another identity, another hope. My mother taught me those sorts of things about our heritage behind closed doors when my father wasn’t around to listen. How the wind whispered to me to make me strong, how the water could wash away most anything, how my hair held a piece of me that connected me to every part of those before me, to her. A part of me I would never ever get back.

  She cried for my loss.

  I cried when I saw what he’d done to her ribs.

  She cleaned up my hair that night as best she could.

  I cleaned up her back and ribs.

  Nights like those, we were the closest and furthest from each other. No other person in the world could know exactly what we were going through in those moments. We were also so lost in our own nightmares, we were too scared to speak them out loud to one another.

  I always thought our bond was indestructible, a desolate pair who would always make it through the worst trauma together.

  Chapter 2

  Aubrey

  Jay called several times over the next week during our winter break from school, but I avoided him. I took care of my mother and kept an immaculate home instead. I didn’t give my father a thing to complain about over the rest of my vacation.

  Sophomore Kill Day descended on me more quickly than I would have liked, especially when I had no interaction with Jay. I couldn’t be sure if he would walk me to school or if I would be on my own.

  I put on makeup like it would help camouflage me. I wore the cutest skinny jeans I had and a dark flowy top to look nice, but not so showy as to call unwanted attention to myself. I pulled on some boots that would weather the snow and my puffy winter jacket. I’d mastered tying my hair in a bun that mirrored the same one I’d had before it was cut. I thought I looked good.

  I could make it through the day as long as Jay helped me. When I left my house that morning, he stood at the end of my sidewalk, beaming.

  He walked up like we’d been talking about this every day and swung an arm around my shoulder. Then he grabbed my backpack.

  “I can carry my backpack, Jay.”

  “Not if the water balloons start flying once we reach school grounds,” he said.

  My eyes must have widened because I felt his chest shaking while he chuckled at me. I smacked his chest. “You’re a jerk.”

  He squeezed my shoulder and reassured me. “No one’s going to bother you, Brey.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks for walking with me.”

  “Wouldn’t have walked with anyone else.”

  “You sure?” I teased, skipping ahead to face him and catch him in his lie. “Melanie or Sophie didn’t want to walk with you? They weren’t mad?”

  He looked just past my shoulder toward our school coming into view. “They’ll get over it.”

  “Probably, but I’m guessing your walk to school could have been much more fun this morning.” I wiggled my eyebrows.

  His eyes, such a lighter blue than Jax’s, danced with humor. Then, he dropped my bag and lunged for me. He grabbed me around the waist and knees, carrying me like a baby where he hovered right over a snow pile. I screeched, “Jay, you better not.”

  “Say you enjoy walking to school with me just as much as I like walking to school with you. Or else.”

  I batted at his arm and tried to hold back my laugh. “Are you kidding right now?”

  His smile widened. “Say it, Sass Pot, or I’m dropping you.”

  I laughed a little harder as he fake swung me toward the snow pile and screamed, “Fine. Fine! I love walking with you.”

  “Say you know I like walking with you too.”

  I chuckled as he set me down when I confirmed what he wanted.

  Then we were walking again and I mumbled, “Guess I have to protect myself from you on Sophomore Kill Day too.”

  Another laugh exploded from him. “Yeah, what a monster I am.”

  I just smiled up at him. “You need to stop growing. You’re already a whole head taller than me.”

  “Yeah, or keep growing so I can fight off the asshats that are lining up to bother you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, just hundreds of them.”

  No guy had approached me all year. I wanted someone to make me forget about Jax next door. I wanted a Prince Charming, one who would overshadow Jax’s effect on me. I’d dreamed he would bump into me on my first day of school, we would both have stars in our eyes and we would fall madly in love.

  Instead, every guy pretty much ran away from me or ignored me.

  Jay mumbled more to himself than me, “You have no idea.”

  I blew a raspberry. “I do. The notches on your bedpost are at about a bajillion and mine ... well, are none.” I shrugged.

  He held my backpack to his stomach as h
e bent over to laugh.

  The genuine happiness that belted from him was infectious and made me forget how nervous I’d felt getting ready for school that day and how anxious I’d been to see him after a week, how terrible I felt the whole week without him.

  He sighed and patted me on the back as we walked on, approaching the front doors of the school. “There’s my girl.”

  I looked at him quizzically.

  “Don’t act like you haven’t been jittery and nervous this whole morning.”

  I sighed, more relaxed when I admitted, “Well, it's supposed to be a rotten day for us sophomores.”

  He nodded and when we reached the school entrance, he stepped in front of me, ready to open the door. He hesitated, then turned to me as he cleared his throat. “When you’re ready to talk about why I didn’t see or hear from you all last week, I’m ready to listen.”

  I saw the hurt in his eyes. I could see him warring with himself over bringing it up and guilt washed over me. It was the first time he brought up that I hadn’t returned his calls for a week or that I ignored him when he came to my house and threw stones at my window. He deserved for me to be as good of a friend to him as he was to me. “I’m so sorry, Jay.”

  He looked at my hands which were wringing themselves out. This was unspoken territory for us. I’d ignored him in the past when my father had lost his temper but never for this long.

  He’d never called me out on it. We would simply pick up where we’d left off.

  He pulled me to his chest for a hug and mumbled, “Missed you, Sass Pot.”

  When he pulled back, his megawatt smile was back in place, and the concern behind his eyes had disappeared. One day, I owed him an explanation, but relief washed over me knowing that he wouldn’t push me anymore.

  The first bell rang as I made it to my locker and Jay set my bag down. “You gonna make it the rest of the way?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Thank you for walking me, Jay.”

  “A thank you from Brey.” He held a hand to his heart. “Day’s officially made now.”

  “Go to class, you idiot.”