“Whatever, Teófila. I’ll call you later.”
He hangs up before I can tell him not to. That I need time to think.
I sit on a nearby bench, not sure where Miley wants to go next. Not caring.
“You did the right thing, T.”
Miley’s words don’t make me feel better.
Because I know better than anyone that judging from outside of a situation is far easier than being in it and following your intuition.
I catch sight of the band-aid just below the inside of my elbow and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment.
Troubled times.
15
BROKEN THINGS
I t’s midnight and my parents are downstairs, drinking beers and laughing and dancing with my aunts and uncles.
I remember being too young to stay up and being forced to lie in bed, outside of their happiness.
Tonight, I prefer it.
“Come sit with us,” my mom insisted for the first time.
But I can’t tonight.
I bet she’s a cutter.
I can still hear the mean words, as if Vivian’s somehow found her way into my room to whisper them to me until I go fucking crazy.
She doesn’t know.
No one knows.
My life teeters on moments of absolute happiness and this darkness that steps on the other end of the seesaw, its smile toothy and too confident for my liking.
It sees me reaching for the yellow box under my bed.
Smiling, it watches as I open it, lifting the lid with shaking hands.
I was playing with my cousins when one of us bumped into my mom’s shelf and one of her favorite figurines hit the floor. Before she could see the damage, I collected the pieces and shoved them in this box, hiding it under my bed, far back where even she wouldn’t go.
Years passed, and the older I got, the less she came into my space, cleaning or even just looking for anything.
And in my moments of sadness, when that darkness has its grips around my throat, I reach for it.
I found that if I fed the beast, I could find moments where I could breathe.
The contents make me want to throw up. My blood stains a few shards and the hand towel shoved in there has stopped me from bleeding too much far too many times.
I bet she’s a cutter.
I’ve always chosen my palms. It only took one accidental cut there to realize just how easy it was to hide a cut or two. How I could press on the old wound days after and relive the high of that pain.
To know that when it healed, there would no longer be any trace of it.
I bet she’s a cutter.
I reach for a large piece; one I’d often dedicated to breaking skin.
I bet she’s a cutter.
I hold it tightly in my grip, squeezing my eyes shut.
My phone rings with an incoming call, making me jump. I peek over my bed, as if the caller can see me.
It’s Elijah.
Once it stops ringing, I take a deep breath and eye the porcelain shard in my palm.
My phone rings again and I blink against my tears.
“What do you want, Elijah?” I ask, my voice unlike it’s ever been before when addressing him.
But I am raw and unstitching myself from everything I ever thought I was or could be.
I am not strong.
I am not beautiful.
I am heartache and broken pieces, just like the objects in the box.
“I want to apologize,” he answers, his voice low and steady. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with her or with you.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” I whisper.
“It does. And you matter.”
I bet she’s a cutter.
“But I don’t.” My voice shakes and I hate that he’s hearing me like this.
“Then why am I standing outside your house, calling you to make sure you and I are okay?”
I sniff and quickly toss the sharp piece into the box and kick it under my bed. “Why are you here?” My body stands and moves over to my window all on its own.
“Because. You’re the moon and I’m the sun.” He says it like it makes all the sense in the world and when I catch sight of him, he raises his arm to wave.
I pick off my band-aid and reveal the crescent moon permanently etched into my skin.
I can’t see it now, but knowing his matching sun exists makes me smile. On the same arm he’s holding up to wave at me.
“Can I come up?”
I want to tell him no because I am still on the battlefield and combat isn’t something I’m prepared to drag anyone into.
The backyard light comes on and Elijah pulls the phone away from his ear. I hear my mom’s voice and then I see her arm gesturing for him to come in. Without hesitation, he follows.
Shit.
I dash out of my room and rush down the stairs, nearly falling along the way.
Only to be greeted by my dad handing Elijah a beer.
“What’s going on here?” I ask.
He claps his free hand over Elijah’s shoulder. “Just a beer among men.”
Sure, Elijah is legally a minor. But the looks on both their faces make it impossible to remind them.
My dad goes around the kitchen introducing Elijah to our family members as my best friend.
One of my aunts nudges my mom. “Best friends, eh? I ain’t never had a best friend look like that.”
“Es un niño.” She swats at her arm. “Fresca.”
“That’s not fresh, it’s gross and we’re leaving,” I announce, taking his arm.
“You can sit in the living room. No going upstairs alone,” my mom calls after us.
Elijah is silent behind me as I lead us into the living room and plop on the couch. He settles in beside me, his body angled toward mine.
“I like your aunt,” he says before taking a sip from the beer bottle.
“She’s loud and crazy and super inappropriate. But the rest are cool.”
“Are we?” he asks. “Cool, I mean.”
My hands are on my lap and I look down at them as I think. “I don’t like being this punching bag for the girls who want to be with you. And for a long time, I blamed them. It’s just who they are, I guess. But today I blame you.”
He nods. “I should’ve just told her the truth. But I didn’t because I wanted to avoid her hating you. I don’t want anyone hating you.”
I watch as he sets down his beer before placing his hands on my leg.
“But I told her today that there’s nothing between us.”
I blink. And blink again. “Excuse me?”
He reached out to her to tell her nothing was going between me and him?
“Wha…”
The confusion on his face infuriates me. “You made sure to clear the air so you could continue with this vile person? And well before you reached out to me, I’m sure.”
“No, T…”
“No, Elijah. I’ve made excuses. I’ve stood by and watched you with vicious girl after vicious girl.”
He jumps up. “Well they all can’t be you, can they?”
It’s my turn to stand. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
My hands are still shaking but I ignore them as I watch him look around the room, run a hand over his close-cropped hair, and then stare right back at me.
He has words on his tongue, and they fight to come out. But he presses his lips together and shakes his head.
“Forget it,” he grits out. “Let’s stick with the original plan. Less time together is best for both of us.”
He storms away and out of the front door and I’m stuck wondering how much power those words could’ve had.
16
FANCY MEETING YOU HERE
Space leaves room for too much.
For new hobbies, new faces, new friends, and the loss of an old one.
I’d only experienced one of these things over the last seven months, while it seemed Elijah had experienced it all.
I swear, every time I see him, I feel the moon in my skin burn like it did when the needle dug it into existence.
I guess permanence can mean pain. And if it hurt that much to make it stay forever, it must hurt worse once the idea of forever goes out the window.
“What’s got you so damn mopey?”
I grab my books from inside my locker, ready to lug them around for the second day of my last semester of high school. Summer had been slow and hot, the first semester had been lonely and long, and now that I’m at the final stretch, I’m ready for it to be over with.
“What do you have next again?” I ask, ignoring her question completely.
“Spanish. Let me know if you’re still up for doing my homework,” she answers, nudging me as we walk.
“My Spanish and that Spanish are very different, my friend.”
“How different could they be, mi amiga?”
When her hip hits mine, I smile. “You could never understand, gringa.”
She gasps and swats at my arm as I chuckle, watching as she steps away to head toward her class.
“I’m more than just a gringa,” she announces, snapping her fingers.
“And now the world knows it,” I call back, walking away.
The bell is due to ring any moment now and I’m still at the other end of the hall. Books in hand, I rush between bodies, my eyes on the finish line. Before I can make it safely through the door, I smack into what feels like a wall.
I hear my books hit the floor just as hands grip me, steadying me.
“Someone’s in a rush to get to class,” Elijah says, laughter in his eyes.
His hands are on me and his thumb…I swear it brushes where he knows we’re permanently linked.
“Yeah, well,” I start as I squat down to grab my textbooks, “I don’t want to be late.”
“The world won’t end if you are, T.” He’s reaching down to grab the notebook he dropped in our collision.
The bell rings before I can even think of a response. I nod and give him a small smile before I dash off toward the classroom. The teacher doesn’t notice as I grab a seat in the back of the class and try to do my best to blend in.
Until my old best friend slides into the seat next to mine.
He leans toward me, still facing the teacher’s back as she writes on the board. “Fancy meeting you here.”
My hands are too busy setting my books and papers and pens up for success to shake. But secretly, they do.
I open my textbook, loving the sound of a brand-new spine cracking. We hadn’t even opened our textbooks the first day, with the teacher, Ms. Hayes, opting to do the typical introductions and awkward social activities.
Elijah hadn’t been present for any of it.
When she called his name yesterday, I hoped for a miracle. That it was a scheduling mistake and he wouldn’t actually be here.
But that was only a superficial hope. The hope I felt I was supposed to have.
The hope deep in my marrow was that he’d walk right in and sit next to me.
So here I am, ignoring the one thing I wanted most twenty-four hours ago.
Ms. Hayes calls out names one-by-one. The closer she gets to mine, the more I feel myself sweating.
“Teee-ohh…”
“Here,” I say, not wanting to hear her struggle over it again.
“Remind me how to say it again?”
She’s aiming to be polite, but I shake my head.
“Just call her T,” Elijah offers.
And I look at him.
I mean really look at him.
At those clasped hands, larger than I remember. At the way he leans forward in earnest, an easy smile on his face. At the way he’s grown his hair a little longer on top.
And I’m sure his girlfriend loves all those things.
He glances at me and when he sees me staring, his smile somehow grows warmer.
“It feels like I haven’t seen you in a long time,” I whisper. The feeling that I’m a complete moron is immediate.
“Maybe you’ve looked but you haven’t seen?”
Who the hell is this guy and what has he done with my old best friend?
“A line from one of your songs?”
We’re whispering and smiling but I’m not forgetting that we’re miles away from what we used to be. And in those miles between us, there were songs sung, adventures had, words written, and injuries sustained.
I press my thumb into my palm as I try to remind myself to forget two nights ago when I nearly cut too deep in my lonesome.
Left to my own devices, I’d cut my own pulse from my body.
“You’ve been listening?”
I shake my head because I’m a fucking liar.
“Oh.”
Disappointment rings in that one syllable and I want to gobble that lie back up and tell him the truth.
I’ve seen every video. So many times, I know every word by heart. I know the shows you’ve played, the people your mostly absent father has somehow linked you with now that he sees a potential investment in you.
Elijah knows this, knows that his mother mainly raised him alone, only ever calling on his dad when she couldn’t make ends meet.
And up until middle school, Elijah refused to speak to him.
Until he started making promises that he’d make Elijah famous.
I don’t realize how pinched in frustration and worry my face is until he asks me if I’m okay.
“I’m fine,” I whisper, focusing on the whiteboard Ms. Hayes writes on.
He’s hers to worry about now.
THE BELL RINGS and I nearly jump from my seat.
Elijah had watched as I stacked everything together and waited, my eyes on the clock above the door.
I could feel him watching me as I pretty much ran. Away from him and out the door.
“Yo, T,” I hear.
But I keep walking. Walking and walking until I duck inside a girls’ bathroom. The books are so heavy in my arms that I let them fall to the floor. My injured hands clutch each other for dear life.
“You should know a girls’ bathroom isn’t going to keep me out.”
What will?
I nearly ask it because I’m a coward.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
It isn’t the question that frustrates me. It’s the lack of space offered when, for the last seven months, space was all I’d been granted.
But I can’t be upset because I was the one who’d asked for it.
That request taught me a lot. Not to say things so loosely when I’m not sure I really mean them. Not to sabotage my own happiness.
I’m still holding my hands in a death grip when I glance up at the mirror. He’s right behind me and his eyes meet mine.
“I’m wondering what it’s been like without me,” I say.
One of his hands grips my left arm. It’s strategic, the way his fingers reach for that permanent connection again.
“I was never really without you, T.”
“Well, I was without you.”
I see him shake his head, wearing a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes in that joyous way it used to.
“That’s not what you wanted?” he asks.
“I thought it was,” I tell him, knowing that it can’t change anything. “But now you’ve got a whole life without me.”
I sound as pathetic as I feel and when he sucks his teeth, I pull out of his hold and reach down to grab my books for the second time in his presence. This time he squats down, helping me.
Our faces are so close when I look up to thank him.
He is facial hair and confident lips that smirk. I’m big brown eyes and lips that part and quiver.
“Don’t you miss me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Not the way I miss you.”
The statement makes me wonder when he learned to read minds.
“No.”
Bigger, messier.
He nods and stands.
We are moments between miles.
And as he walks away, I sigh at the way my books catch my tears.
17
THE FALL THAT STARTED IT ALL
“I can’t believe I let you drag me here,” I grumble, tugging at my dress.
The tight bodice makes me feel like a stuffed sausage and my boobs defy gravity, but the way Miley’s eyes sparkle every time she looks at me makes me think maybe this is okay.
“You bet your ass. I’ve got to show you off.”
We pass windows on our way in. I can only see my silhouette, but it’s shocking enough. The short skirt that billows out without looking too Disney princess, the strappy sandals that aren’t as hard to walk in as I thought they’d be, and the smooth hair that falls down my back, blown out to perfection.
I am not the me I’ve always been.
“Don’t forget that at the stroke of midnight, I turn into a frog again.”
Miley rolls her eyes. “We aren’t that late. And you know damn well that isn’t how the story goes.” Her arm links with mine as I admire her own light blue dress, all dainty embroidery and shimmery tulle. “Besides, you’ve never been anyone’s frog.”
I can hear the pulsing bass of music from the halls of the hotel and I wonder what I’ll face on the other side of those doors.
The dance is in full swing, which makes sense because we’re two hours late.
I’d successfully missed every other high school dance, but Miley wasn’t hearing any of that when it came to this one.
Not when our high school finally caved at the idea of a Sadie Hawkins dance.
Of all the boys in the school that eyed the beautiful and brilliantly sarcastic Millicent, she asked none. She opted, instead, to send a dozen roses to my fifth period class with a singing messenger wearing an oversized diaper and a bow with a heart for an arrow’s tip.
And a note saying, “You’re going to the fucking dance with me.”
I’d never laughed so hard.
Teófila’s Guide to Saving the Sun Page 7