by Angel Lawson
“Wait.”
Her mouth clicks shut, but I don’t need her to elaborate. I can see it in her eyes, in the slant of her lips, the curl of her shoulders. Whatever that moment had meant to me, it’d obviously meant something to her, too. Maybe enough that the thought of some ulterior motive behind it had stung.
“I wasn’t doing that to make you culpable.” I gesture toward the driveway and my ice pack falls to the floor in a sad, sweating heap. “In the car, on the drive up, you just seemed really into all that crime journalism stuff. I thought—” Well, I was thinking that I actually had something to offer her, to teach her. Something valuable. Something we could share. All of that feels stupid as hell now. “I thought it could be useful or whatever, and I wanted you to see that you could do it.”
Some of that rigidness in her posture deflates. “Oh.”
“It wasn’t like when I stole the car,” I add, because there’s obviously something wrong with me. But I see the relief and guilt in her eyes, and it all feels wrong. “That night, I knew you’d come with me if I asked. You were always a soft touch. It was the best way to keep you quiet. That’s really all it was.”
She says, “I know,” but despite this, the hurt is evident in her eyes.
It’s disappointing. I’d been hoping for fire or frost, not this flat, cynical understanding. The apology she’s due sticks in the back of my throat, sour like bile. I don’t want to give it. I don’t want her to stand there and feel like she needs to say it’s okay. That first day back, seeing her in Emory’s truck, a silent understanding had passed between us. I’ve been clutching onto it ever since, this thing that only the two of us know. It’s acrid and full of grief, but it’s ours.
It’ll never be okay.
“I think I even knew it at the time. I was just…” Her laugh is a small, broken thing. “I was just hoping you’d like me being there anyway, because I was so crazy about you.”
Now it’s my turn to say, “I know.” Thirteen-year-old girls aren’t generally subtle with their affections, although she obviously tried. Even now, I can see her cheeks flush, a spark of cringing embarrassment in the cast of her eyes. I shake my head, because I’m the only one here who should feel ashamed.
It burns to admit that I’d taken advantage of it. It burns worse to know that it hadn’t been entirely unrequited, even if I was too loyal to Emory to really let it grow into something worth pursuing.
“I did, you know.” I look her in the eye when I say it, because this is all I can give her. “I did like you being there.”
She smiles sadly. “That’s nice to know.”
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spent the last few weeks fighting the urge to wonder ‘what if’. What if that night had never happened? Would we have eventually ended up together? Where would we be right now, and what kind of people would we have become, in that impossible alternate reality? Better people, for sure. Unbroken people.
I reach down to retrieve my ice pack, pushing a hiss through my clenched teeth at the pain in my shoulder.
She steps forward, like maybe she’s about to grab it for me, but steps back just as quick. “I saw you at practice, while I was waiting for Em.” Matter-of-factly, she notes, “You got hurt.”
“Just a bruise.” I press the ice pack to my shoulder, but I can’t quite reach it. “Courtesy of Shackleford’s cleat.”
She follows me into the living room, where I’m finally able to wedge the ice pack between my shoulder and the back of the couch. She shifts around uncomfortably for a moment, still holding the plate. Whatever is under that foil smells like meat, cheese, and pure ecstasy. Any other night, I might actually have an appetite for it.
“I brought you some leftovers, because…” She sets the plate on the coffee table, gently lowering herself to perch on the couch beside me. “Well, just because.”
I know the truth. Because I never have food. Because it’s an apology. Because Vandy is better than me, able to stand here and give me two apologies for something I deserved when I can’t even bring myself to apologize for almost fucking killing her.
I’m the living embodiment of scum.
My small, “Thank you,” comes out rough and inadequate.
“Can I see?” She goes for my sleeve, her hot fingers grazing my skin.
I jerk away, abruptly. “See what?”
Her hand freezes midway between us. “Your bruise. It looked like it hurt pretty badly.”
The thought of her seeing my back makes me feel physically ill. It’s a permanent reminder of what happened that night, less visible than her limp, but still my cross to bear. It’s horrific, gruesome, and in no way should usurp her own pain and injury. I don’t want her pity any more than she wants mine. “I can’t,” I say.
Her forehead creases, hand dropping to her lap. “Why?”
My hair is already a mess because I hadn’t washed it after practice. I run my fingers through it now, agitated, thinking that it makes me sick, but that if anyone is entitled to see it, it’s the girl sitting next to me. It’s not an apology, but maybe it’s… something, this evidence that I didn’t come away from that night without its gnarled mark upon me. I grab the hem of my shirt and elbow it up my chest, pulling it roughly over my head. Her eyes follow the motion, darting down to my chest, my defined stomach. I hold her gaze for a long moment, seeing her confusion at the resignation I’m wearing.
I twist around, presenting it to her like some disgusting gift.
Her sharp intake of breath is so soft, that if I hadn’t been waiting for it, I might not have heard it at all. She’s still on the couch, and I can feel the heat of her eyes taking it in. I know what she sees. A wide swath of deformed skin, gnarled like melted vinery. There’s a three-inch square on my right shoulder that’s smoother than the rest, but no less grotesque. Near my collar, there’s an indentation where the tag of my shirt had melted into my skin. It’s hideous.
I feel her move, and even though I know what’s coming, I still flinch when her fingertips graze the scar. “I didn’t know,” she breathes, voice strained. “No one told me it was this bad.”
“It wasn’t.” It’s all at once the truth and a lie. The scars are bad. The injury was nothing. Not in comparison.
“Is this…?” She touches my right shoulder, and I nod.
“Skin graft.”
“Where did they—”
“My thigh.”
She asks, “Does it hurt?” fingertips, trailing to the left shoulder.
My tongue feels stuck to the roof of my mouth. It’s been years since anyone’s touched me there, that I’ve allowed anyone to touch me skin to bare skin. “I don’t have much feeling in most of it.”
I don’t tell her about the other stuff, like having to wear compression bandages for months. Or how sometimes the nerves will randomly flare to life, and how it feels like an electric shock. Or how I had to do stretches during the healing process to get any kind of elasticity back, and how that PT was cut short on account of life at Mountain Point, and how the scars could probably be better if it hadn’t been.
Her hand falls away and I feel her shifting. I gather the courage to look over my shoulder, prepared for whatever I see in her expression—disgust, pity, revulsion.
I am not prepared for the sight of her topless.
She’s shucked her shirt off. My eyes instinctively fall to her chest, to the dark outline of her nipples beneath the delicate fabric of her bra, before I whip my head back around.
“Christ, V.”
“Look.” When I don’t, she stands, turning to me. “Please.”
When I turn, her pale stomach is right there. Because of this, the long scar slashed across the skin is the first thing I see. It’s not like mine. This one is thick, raised, and precise. Surgical. There are little dots above and below it, staples having at one point held the skin together. Someone could walk into my house and cut me open in the same place, and I’d probably feel less gutted than I am right now, looking at this.
/> “My pelvis was shattered,” she explains, turning so that I can see how it goes all the way around to her back, stopping at the base of her spine, where there are other obvious surgery scars. “I have some metal in there now.” She turns back to me, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the raised flesh, two shades lighter than the skin the rest of the world sees.
She doesn’t flinch when I curl my fingers around her waist. I rub the pad of my thumb against the scar, as if I could smooth it away, wipe the damage clean. This used to be flawless, this skin. She used to be sound. Pure.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is gravel when it gives her this, rough with my quiet secret. I don’t mean to say it—I never wanted to—but I find that I don’t regret it. It’s not sour, like I thought it’d be. It’s as easy as the space between one breath and the next, and suddenly, the thought of not saying it feels like absolute agony. I barely have to tip forward to bury my head into the warm, marred skin of her stomach. My hands clutch her waist, holding her close, as if I could press the truth of this into it. As if it could hide the way the corners of my eyes sting. “I’m so fucking sorry, Vandy.”
I feel her hitched breath in the jump of her stomach below my face. “Reyn...”
“It’s my fault.” I can’t bear to hear her say it’s okay. “I’m sorry.” Like a floodgate opening, now I can’t seem to stop saying it, over and over, “I’m so fucking sorry.” I think I’m shaking, and I’m holding her too tight, but she doesn’t push me away.
Her fingers thread through my hair, holding me to her, and she doesn’t say it’s okay.
Softly, she says, “I forgive you.”
“Don’t.” That single word holds multitudes. I want to tell her to take this and just leave it. Let the silence hang. It’s what I deserve, we both know it.
“Reyn,” she insists, voice thick with tears. “What happened to us was an accident. A horrible accident. We both suffered because of it, but you didn’t mean for that to happen. I know you didn’t.”
I have to let go of her then, because I definitely can’t take her consoling me. Fuck. As if I don’t feel sick enough. I jam the heels of my palms into my eyes, just as much to hide the redness of them as to not see her crying. I’d used up my tears for that night years ago, in the scant privacy of my hospital room, dark bunks, and shower stalls. It’s not fair that she still has some left.
Her voice sounds close enough that I can feel the heat of her breath on my knuckles. “I shouldn’t have said that, about Afton and everything. I didn’t mean it, I just wanted to hurt you. But the thing is…I knew it would.” When my hands drop, I realize she’s kneeling down in front of me, mere inches away from my face. “I knew it would hurt you, because I already knew you were sorry.”
Vandy tips forward and our mouths slot together too easily. This isn’t the tentative kiss of experimentation beneath the tree house, nor is it the searing, rebellious tongue-fuck that the kiss at Thistle Cove might have been. The way our lips eagerly part, tongues sweeping wetly together, is a sigh of reprieve. The way her hands fist my jeans, pressing closer, is a frantic kind of mercy. When I reach up to grasp her face in my hands, it’s a grief so acute that it’d choke me if she weren’t giving me her own breath.
This kiss is solace.
It’s also frantic and too hard, teeth and noses clashing. The room is full of the sounds of our harsh breaths, and my blood feels electrified with the way she surges into me, seeking. She tastes like summer and sadness and life.
It hurts like hell to break away.
I grab her shoulders and push, though. She’s flushed all the way down to her chest, which is heaving just as much as my own. I hold her there for a moment, heedless of her stricken eyes, trying to shake the unexpected fog of sex-sex-sex from my brain.
My throat feels full of everything I want to say, but all that emerges is a hoarse, “That was a mistake.”
She’s not crying anymore, but the wet tracks are still on her cheeks. I give in to the impulse to lift a hand and brush my thumb over the wetness there.
Her eyes flutter closed. “Why?”
I sigh, letting my hand fall away. “You know why.”
Just then, my stomach decides that it’s done with all this. A loud rumble breaks the stillness and Vandy’s eyes fly open. We stare at each other for a moment, and maybe it’s the shattered moment, the overload of emotion, but a peal of abrupt laughter bursts from her throat. She immediately looks horrified, clamping a hand to her mouth and falling back on her heels.
“Sorry.”
I fall back too, grateful for the space between us. “Don’t be.” I idly wonder if my smile looks as tired as I feel. “I think my stomach is smelling your mom’s food.”
“Oh, she didn’t make it. I did.” She looks around for her shirt, quickly pulling it over her head. Her cheeks are red and she’s not meeting my gaze, and I don’t know how to tell her that it’s okay. She looks like she’s about to bolt.
“Hey, no.” I grab her wrist before that spark of flight realizes itself. “You can stay.” She finally looks at me then, mouth pinched into something awkward and uncertain. Gently, I add, “Please?”
I’m pretty sure she’s going to say no. She should. But when she agrees, the rush of adrenaline feels like sheer relief. Nevertheless, she still looks deflated as she settles next to me again. “It’s probably cold now,” she says of the plate.
I lean over to reach for the plate, and any other time I might feel horrified that she’s probably getting an eyeful of my back again. But I’m so sapped of everything. It feels like I’ve been hollowed out and then packed back together messily, like shit’s just rattling around inside, looking for a place to settle.
I peel back the foil and look down at the meal, the careful way it’s been prepared. There’s thick layers of pasta, and salad with little pieces of nuts and some dried fruit. I’m not even sure when the last time I had a home-cooked meal was, but knowing that Vandy prepared it for me makes my stomach twist in an unfamiliar way.
“You cooked this?”
“Yeah.” She’s sitting with her limbs all tucked in close, like she’s afraid of leaving a mark on anything. “When everyone’s out of the house in the afternoons, I like to cook.”
I extract the fork from my discarded box of Thai and try a bite of the lasagna. I instantly know this is going to be embarrassing, because once I taste it, it’s like one of those rattling pieces inside of me finds its place.
My appetite returns with a vengeance.
“Don’t judge me,” I mutter to Vandy, shooting her a glance. “What you’re about to witness won’t be pretty.”
Briefly, she looks confused.
And then, I eat.
“Oh my god, you’re going to choke.” But it works. She watches me and laughs, and even if her eyes are still sad, it’s such a relief that I almost do choke. “I can see that we’re going to have to adopt your cause. These are some serious Oliver Twist vibes you’re putting out.”
“I’ll eat you out of house and home,” I warn.
She rolls her eyes. “I live with Emory, okay. We’re familiar with the bottomless pit known as teenage boys.”
I spear my fork into the salad, making sure to get some of the goat cheese. “Maybe you can teach me how to cook something. Probably not this, though. It looks a little beyond my microwaving skills.”
“It’s not that hard,” she insists, finally losing some of that dejected tension. “What were you watching?”
I look at the TV, still paused from earlier. “Just a sports documentary. I won’t force you to watch.”
“Hey,” she says lightly. “I’m the Chronicle sports reporter now. Maybe it’s something I need to watch.”
“It’s a doc on Dennis Rodman, actually.” I gesture to the TV with my fork. “It probably won’t help your sports writing career, but he’s definitely one of the more interesting subjects.”
She nods. “Well then, let’s watch it.”
I press play.
For the first time since I got back, the house feels like something other than an empty place I stay on my own. There’s life here—a life I almost extinguished on that dark night so long ago. As we sit side by side, I realize that Vandy may be broken, but she’s here, and I’m more thankful than ever for that simple fact.
17
Vandy
I dream, but it isn’t one of the crash. Instead, I’m standing on the floating dock, looking out over the surface of the lake. It’s night and fireflies twinkle all around me, floating over the glassy water and weaving toward the trees in the distance. It’s a warm, indistinct feeling of comfort and stillness. I’m safe here, but I’m also waiting. I’m not sure what for, but the frisson of excited anticipation settles like a cloud around me. It’s not an impatient feeling. I just know that soon, I’ll have something really amazing.
I wake with my cheek pressed to a warm, bare shoulder. It takes me a moment to shake out of the dream because I want to go back, to the fireflies and the stillness and the thing I was looking so forward to. My eyes feel gritty and sensitive, like I’ve been crying, although I don’t know what I’d have to cry about. It’s so warm and comfortable here. I flex my hand and open my eyes just in time to see it sweep against a smooth, defined abdomen.
Reyn’s lower belly caves inward and he shifts, free arm sliding around my back, pulling me toward him. I realize that he’s reclined against the side of the couch, his elbow propped like a pillow, and I’m curled up against his side.