by Amy Jones
She leans forward across the table. “What an interesting question,” she says. “I’ve never been asked that before.” She bites her lip. “I guess I’d have to say it’s…a barrel of fun.”
Ava
June 2014
HIWTHI S06E09:
Break Your Hart: Part Two
Ava knew before she opened her eyes that she was in a hospital. Even though she had never been in one before, she had seen enough medical dramas to recognize the soft beeping, the antiseptic smell, the feel of the starched sheets. As consciousness crept in, she kept her eyes closed for as long as she could, shielding herself against the reality that she knew awaited her: she was alone.
Finally, she opened her eyes and sat up slowly, fighting off dizziness. There was a tube clipped into her nose and several wires attached to her chest, and she pulled them all out except for the IV in her hand, too scared to look at the needle piercing her skin. She kept her eyes open, because to close them was to go back there, to the darkness, the weight of the water heavy on her chest. The back of her head throbbed gently, but otherwise she felt physically fine. She could still feel the ocean inside her, rocking her gently back and forth as she lay there, staring at the ceiling.
The room was white and bare, save for a bouquet of flowers on the nightstand. Maybe they were from David and Bryce, maybe they were just downstairs, getting snacks, or talking to the doctor. Maybe it had been Val’s turn to sit with her, and he’d stepped out because he couldn’t get any reception on his phone, or Eden and the Kaylas had gone outside to smoke. She had no idea how long she’d been out—her family could have been there for days, vigilant by her bedside. But even as the thought came to her, she knew it wasn’t true. Someone had brought her cosmetic bag and a pair of her pajamas, which lay folded on the side table, but otherwise, there was no evidence that anyone had ever been there. No imprint of a body in the chair beside the bed, no empty coffee cups in the garbage, no book splayed open on the windowsill. Still. There had to be a reason. They wouldn’t just leave her here. Someone had to come for her.
She got up and pushed her IV stand into the bathroom, where she splashed water on her face and rinsed out her mouth, but everything still tasted salty, her body brined by the sea. She filled the sink and began scrubbing herself with a paper towel and hot pink soap from the dispenser, the sickly sweet peppermint smell of it making her retch as the paper towel disintegrated on her skin. When she got back to her bed, she repositioned the IV stand and sat down on the edge of the mattress, her legs and arms still streaked with pink, and tried to breathe. Then she leaned forward and dropped her head between her knees, the heavy weight of her hair, caked with salt and knotted together into ropey dreadlocks, tumbling over her shoulders and draping around her face. She took a clump between her fingers and felt the salt tingling on her skin, flaky crystals of it shimmering down to the ground as she shook her head.
Suddenly, the memory came back to her, piercing her like the sharp taste of the brine on her tongue. The pier, the fall. The lobsters floating beside her, seraphim gently leading her to heaven. Eden’s words peppering her heart like buckshot: You were supposed to protect me.
A shiver of revulsion ran through her body. She grabbed her makeup bag and dumped out its contents on the bed, excavating a comb from the pile, but when she tried to rake it through her hair, it got stuck almost immediately. She pulled with increasing desperation until finally she gave up, falling back against the bed with the comb still stuck in her hair. She could feel the tears coming, but she held them back. She couldn’t handle any more salt on her skin.
She sat back up and poked listlessly at the pile on the bed, searching for something that might help. She picked up a pair of nail scissors, testing them out between her fingers, feeling their stiffness yield as she hinged them open and shut. Then she began cutting her hair—slowly at first, and then, as the knots began to fall, hacking at her hair violently, trying to get through it all before the scissors began to rust from the salt.
“Hey,” she heard a voice say. “Be careful, you’re going to cut yourself.”
When she glanced up, there was a man standing in the doorway. A boy, really—he couldn’t have been much older than her, but it was hard to tell from the layers of exhaustion on his face, bones protruding sharply through delicate, wilting skin. He was wearing a pair of black jeans under his hospital gown, and his head was shaved bald, although patchy hair still protruded on his chin beneath startlingly red lips. Her first instinct was to tell him to leave her alone—the last thing she wanted was to talk to a stranger, someone who could have any number of distressing motives. But there was kindness in his eyes, and as he leaned against the doorway, watching her with an expression of mild amusement mixed with concern, she felt the weight of what had happened with Eden crash in on her and she dropped the scissors to the floor, where they landed soundlessly in a pile of hair as light as straw.
“I messed it up,” she said. “I messed it all up.”
“No, no you didn’t.” He glanced down the hallway, then back at her. “Can I come in?” Ava nodded. He came into the room and sat on the bed next to her, then leaned over and picked up the scissors off the floor. “You just have a spot here…May I?” Ava nodded again, and he ran his hand gently over her head before making careful snips along the edge of her hairline. Ava kept her eyes downcast, feeling the warmth of his hand and the cold metal against her skin. “There,” he said when he finished. “It looks great.”
She stared down at the nest of hair at her feet. She did feel lighter, but instead of making her feel better, it only made her feel worse. As though now she had nothing to anchor her at all. As though at any moment she might rise up and float away. She didn’t want the hair back. But she didn’t want it to be gone, either. She wanted there to be a third option, something entirely outside both of those things. But, of course, there couldn’t be.
“What do I do with it all?” she asked.
The man chewed his lip, studying the little pile. The hair on his chin moved up and his mouth worked, and Ava wondered why he didn’t shave that too. “Well,” he said. “You could probably donate it.”
“To who? A tree planter?”
The man laughed. “Maybe the lead singer of a ’90s ska band.”
“An Ayurvedic healer.”
“Hey, don’t make fun of one of the world’s oldest holistic healing systems.” Ava widened her eyes incredulously. “I’m kidding,” he said. He smiled, and his face transformed, the creases softening, the lightness in his eyes lifting all the dark corners. “That stuff is garbage.”
Ava smiled too. It had been a while since she’d talked to someone about something other than the show, other than Eden. If this man recognized her, he didn’t let on, and it felt good to have an ordinary conversation, even if it was under extraordinary circumstances. “Does it really look good?”
He leaned back and studied her. “It looks…like a guy in the hospital with Stage Four cancer cut it for you with nail scissors,” he confessed. “But you look great. You can totally pull it off.”
“Thanks.” She fiddled with the tie on her hospital gown. “Do you really have Stage Four cancer?”
The man nodded. “I’m sorry to say that’s true too.”
“That’s…”
“The bad stage, yeah.”
Ava paused, fiddling with the tape holding the IV tube in place on the back of her hand. “What does it feel like?” she asked eventually.
“It feels like I’m on the edge of panicking. All the time.” He smiled sadly. “I spent my whole life looking to the future. Moving forward, onto the next thing and the next thing. Now, there is no future. I don’t know what to do with that.” He picked up a piece of Ava’s hair from the ground and balled it up in his fist. “My wife says I have to live in the present, put one foot in front of the other, like on a tightrope. But I don’t really know how.”
You seem so young to have a wife, Ava wanted to say. “How long have you been
married?” she asked instead.
“Four days.” He brought his right hand to his left, twisting the ring on his finger. “Looking to the future, you know? It’s stupid. To go all ’til death do us part when death is right there, standing over you.”
“It’s not stupid.” Ava swung her legs beneath her, feeling the sea still churning just below the surface of her skin. “It’s romantic.”
“Maybe on TV. But not in real life.” He paused. “We’ve been dating since we were fifteen. We’ve grown up together. Sometimes I worry that we’ve become so dependent on each other that things will fall apart if one of us is gone. If I’m gone.”
Ava considered this. “But maybe they won’t,” she said. “I bet she’s stronger than you think.”
He laughed shortly. “I bet you’re right.” He raised an eyebrow. “So what’re you in for?”
“My sister tried to drown me.” As she said the words, she realized how ridiculous they sounded. “I mean, it’s fine. I probably deserved it.”
“And I probably deserved the cancer.” He stood up. “You know, the longer I look at your hair, the more I think I like it.”
Ava reached up and touched the back of her head, so unfamiliar to her now. She felt exposed, vulnerable, but also somehow free. “Thank you,” she whispered. And then: “Can you…” She gestured to the pile on the floor.
“Sure.” The man leaned over and picked up the hair. “My Tibetan drumming circle leader is going to be so thrilled.” He left the room without turning around.
Ava leaned back on the bed, letting the ebb and flow of the ocean in her body lull her back to sleep.
* * *
Later—it could have been a few minutes or a few hours—a nurse came in. “Oh, you’re awake,” he said. “I’ll let the doctor know.” His eyes rested on the wires and tubes she had extracted from her body. “You’re really supposed to keep those on.”
“Sorry,” Ava said. “I panicked.”
The nurse picked up her wrist, feeling for a pulse. “Well, you’re still alive, so I guess they weren’t that important,” he said, winking.
“How long have I been here?”
“They brought you in last night.” The nurse dropped her wrist, made a note on a chart. “Your dad’s outside, by the way. He’s been waiting for you to wake up. Should I tell him to come in?”
“Of course,” said Ava, relief surging through her body.
She propped herself up in bed, running her hand over her shorn head. She wondered which one of her dads had come for her, and which one had gotten stuck with…everything else. But when the door opened again a moment later, she blinked in confusion, something igniting under her skin. It wasn’t David or Bryce who came into the room. It was Antonio.
“Hey,” Antonio said, a little too brightly. “How are you feeling?”
How am I feeling? Ava wanted to scream. How am I feeling? How would you fucking feel?
“Fine,” she said instead, turning away from him as he crossed the room to stand beside her bed. There was no point in screaming at Antonio. He was here, after all. He was the only one who was ever here.
“Your dads…they wanted to come,” he said.
“Sure they did.”
“Ava…” Antonio touched her shoulder, but she shrugged him off, curling herself up. “They had to take Eden to rehab. In California.”
At the mention of Eden’s name, Ava felt her stomach churn. “I don’t care.”
The bed shifted under Antonio’s weight as he sat down on the edge. “The restaurant promised not to press charges if she got help. It was a really quick decision, but your dads thought it would be best if they took her right away, got her settled. They all left this morning.”
And they both had to go? Eden gets two parents and I get none? She didn’t say it out loud, but the thought hung in the air between them. “Where’s Val?” she asked.
“They didn’t want him staying at the B&B alone, so he went to Christie’s. Or Charisma’s, I’m not sure. He’ll be there for a few days. We didn’t know how long you’d be in here.”
“I guess you’ll be going too?” she said into her pillow. “With the rest of the crew, I mean. I can’t wait to see A Very Special Episode of Where the Hart Is: Rehab Edition.”
“No. I wouldn’t…Anyway, the network has put the show on hiatus for now.” He paused. “But I wouldn’t do that. Even if they wanted me to.”
Ava knew he was telling the truth. She rolled back over to face him but kept her gaze in the middle distance, trying not to make eye contact, fearing that if she did he would see all the things she was thinking, all the ways she was hurting. “Can we not talk about this anymore?”
“Okay, sure.” He paused, narrowing his eyes at her. “Is that…Did they have to cut your hair?”
Ava raised her hand up to her head again, feeling at the haphazard strands. “No. That was me.”
“It looks good,” he said. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, fine. It looks like you took a hacksaw to it. But you’re making it work.”
Ava laughed. “You’re the second person who’s told me that.”
“Well, it’s true. It’s very Edie Sedgwick.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” They were both silent for a moment. “She’s really sorry, Ava. I’ve spent a lot of time with Eden over the past couple of years, and I have never seen her so upset.”
Ava breathed in slowly. “When can I go?”
“Now, if you want.”
She nodded. “I just want to go home.” But the words sounded empty, and she realized she didn’t know where home was. She thought about the story she used to tell Eden when she couldn’t sleep, the one about where they had come from. She had been surprised that Eden had believed it, but then again, maybe Ava had believed it too, or at least wanted to. But there was no van, no California, no burning-hot sun. There was just a family that had been cobbled together by different bits of secret tragedy. There was just a family who didn’t know how to be a family at all.
She shut her eyes again and this time she saw Eden’s face, looking down on her as she fell from the pier, and suddenly she realized what it was she had seen. The expression on Eden’s face, the one she couldn’t put her finger on.
Relief. It was relief.
* * *
—
She dressed in the clothes Antonio had brought from the B&B—a bizarre combination of plaid flannel shorts, Val’s Death from Above 1979 T-shirt, and a holey grey cardigan she had found in the attic. Someone had washed the clothes she had been wearing when she was brought in, but she couldn’t bring herself to put them on. She had no idea where her shoes were, so she left her feet bare. Antonio carried her cosmetic bag and the flowers, which were from the network executives. Get well soon, the card read. From Bob and Tess and everyone at LifeStyle.
Get well soon. As though she had had her tonsils out. As though they weren’t the ones responsible for all of this.
“I’ve got the van, so if you want to sleep in the back or anything, you can,” he said, adjusting the vase under his arm.
“I’ve been sleeping for like twenty-four straight hours,” Ava said. “I think I’m okay.” She pulled the sleeves of the cardigan down over her hands, probing for the holes in the cuffs she had stretched open with her thumbs over the years.
Antonio watched her, amused. “I brought you weird clothes. I’m sorry.”
Ava poked one thumb through a hole, then another. “This is actually my favourite sweater,” she said, wiggling her thumbs at him. “I’ve ruined it just to my liking.”
Antonio smiled at her, and she smiled back. The elevator made a dinging sound, and then the doors opened to the lobby.
There was an overwhelming light, so dazzling it momentarily blinded her. It was as if she were walking into the nucleus of a very bright star. How long have I been in darkness? was all she could think as her vision adjusted, and she began to make out the shapes in front of her. How long has it been since I�
��ve seen the sun?
“Ava!” voices yelled from across the washed-out space. “Ava, over here!”
She blinked again, shielding her eyes with her hand. She wasn’t outside, she was still in the hospital, and it wasn’t the sun that was blinding her, but the flash of what seemed like a thousand cameras, maybe millions. She wrapped her sweater tightly around her body, hunching down, instinctively trying to fold herself in, to make herself as small as possible. To hide all the vulnerable parts of herself.
“What is this?” she croaked out. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” said Antonio, moving closer to her as they stood in front of the crowd. “I didn’t know they were here. I’m sorry, Ava.”
“Where’s Eden?” another voice yelled. “Ava, do you know? Have you spoken to her?”
“Ava, did Eden try to drown you on purpose?”
“Please,” Ava said, lowering her head. “Please, stop.”
The crowd was closing in, and she imagined them like the tide, advancing on her, rising over her as she was stuck there in the sand, her body rocking back and forth with the waves. Instinctively, she leaned into Antonio, clinging to him as if he were a buoy in the harbour.
“Ava!” a different voice yelled. “I love your hair!”
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Antonio. He lifted her up in his arms like she weighed nothing and carried her away from the crowd, down a hall, and into the parking garage stairwell. He put her down on the ground as the door shut behind them, then he grabbed the handle, gripping it tightly. “They probably won’t follow us, but you never know.”
Ava leaned back against the wall. The concrete felt too hard, too close beneath her feet. Even though she had only been a few feet off the ground, Ava felt as though she had been dropped from such a great height. “Where did they all come from? How did they know I was here?”