“Okay,” he says, clenching his fists, teeth, and I assume just about everything else on his body that can be clenched. “Just do it.”
I savor the sight of him preparing for some terrible affliction to land a few seconds, and then I bend down to get a better look at what I’m dealing with.
“I’m going to try to get the gravel with a cotton swab,” I tell him. “This is going to take just a second. I’ll try to be quick.”
He doesn’t answer in the normal sense; he just grunts and nods his head.
I dip a clean cotton swab into the hydrogen peroxide and set about cleaning the wound. It takes a minute to get every little piece of gravel out, but before long, the wound is cleaned of foreign matter.
“Thank you,” he says when I remove the cotton swab and don’t put it back in his cut.
“Oh, we’re not quite done yet,” I tell him, and before he has another chance to clench, I irrigate the wound with a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide.
“Ah, fuck!” he grunts and his hands grip the side of the counter.
From there, I dry the wound with a cotton ball, apply the antibiotic ointment, and place a large bandage over the cut.
He’s still waiting for the final shoe to drop out of the sky and land hard on his leg, but I’m all done.
I pat the wound lightly with my hand just to be a jerk and Ian grabs my wrist. He grabs my wrist, but he doesn’t remove my hand from his leg, he just moves it away from the bandage.
There’s a rush of something I hardly have time to process through my body and his dark eyes are intent on mine, his eyes dilated.
“You know,” he says, “I really appreciate you trying to help at the park and getting me cleaned up here.”
“It’s not a problem,” I stammer.
He’s leaning forward a little as he sits there, his head cocked a little to one side, and we just stare at each other for a little while.
Finally, I pull away from him, shaking my head and chuckling. “Well, if you wanted to pick a way to get me to stop messing with your cut, you did a pretty good job,” I tell him.
“What cut?” he asks and pulls me back toward him.
“The cut on your leg,” I tell him, knowing full well he hasn’t actually forgotten about it.
“Yeah,” he says.
This came on rather unexpectedly, and I haven’t even had time to really sift through everything and decide how I feel about Ian. I know exactly how I’m feeling now—the weakness in my knees is making it particularly difficult to forget—but do I really want to do this?
He brushes a strand of hair out of my face, his fingers lingering as he secures the strand behind my ear.
The things I was really worried about with Ian, they’ve turned out not to be actual problems. He’s cocky and a bit brash for my taste, but as his hand comes to rest on my shoulder, I feel myself naturally leaning in toward him.
We’re both watching one another for signs of retreat, but the space between us continues to narrow. My eyes begin to close, and I can almost feel Ian’s lips on mine when there’s a loud crash from somewhere outside the room and a man is yelling, “Ian! Get your skateboard and the rest of your peasant shit out of my living room!”
My eyes are open now. Ian’s leaning his head back against the wall.
“Sorry,” he says. “Mind if I…?”
I move out of his way and he hops down from the counter. He quickly puts his pants back on, though they’re wet with his blood, and he walks to the bathroom door.
“Wait in here for a minute,” he says. “I really don’t want to have a conversation explaining what we’re doing in here with my dad right now. If I play this right, I think I can get us both out of here in five minutes or less. You up for it?”
“Sure,” I answer, having no idea what he’s planning.
He walks out of the room and closes the door behind him. Just to be on the safe side, I lock the door.
While I’m waiting for a reasonable amount of time before I emerge from the bathroom, I take a minute to clean everything up, taking off my gloves and disposing of them very last. By the time I’m done, the bathroom doesn’t show any signs of what happened, other than a few drying blood drops on the floor that I’m not going to clean without gloves.
Blood freaks me right out.
When a minute or so has passed, I come out of the bathroom to find Ian and his father, a tall, tan man with intense features and what looks like a permanent scowl, coming into the living room just off the bathroom.
“You’re going to clean all this up, right?” Ian’s dad asks.
“Yeah,” Ian says. “I was just about to when you came in yelling.”
“Well, worry about that in a minute,” Ian’s dad says. “There’s some stuff in the car I’d like you to bring in for me.”
Until now, Ian and his father have been looking at each other, either unaware or unaffected by my presence, but as I go to sit down on the same antique chair I sat in earlier, as if by instinct, Ian and his father both turn toward me.
“Don’t sit in that,” Ian’s father says. “That chair is over two hundred years old.”
My legs straighten and lock, saving the chair from my apparently destructive touch.
“Dad, this is Mia,” Ian says. “She’s my partner for our final project in psychology.”
“Charmed,” Ian’s dad says, giving me the briefest of glances before looking back at his son. “If you could grab the stuff from the trunk and the back seat, I’d really appreciate it—and go around the back so you don’t get blood all over my carpet,” Mr. Zavala says to Ian, all but shooing him out of the house. As soon as Ian’s out the door, his dad turns to me and asks, “The two of you are working on some kind of project, huh?”
All I can get out is the “Y—” before Mr. Zavala is talking again.
“I’m not stupid,” he says. “I know the kind of people Ian likes to hang out with and you’d fit right in.”
I’m not sure why he seems to be mad at me.
“We were assigned as partners for—” I start again, but am again, interrupted.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Zavala says. “You and Ian were assigned as partners for your psychology class, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any sign of books or notes. What kind of a project is it: human sexuality?”
“That’s not what—” I start.
“It doesn’t really matter whether the two of you are actually working on a project for school or not,” Mr. Zavala interrupts. “What matters is that people like you are sucking my son into that ridiculous life of skateboarding and you need to stay away from him. He’s a bright kid with a bright future as long as he gives up the stupider hobbies of his past, and I’m not going to have some barely legal Jezebel coming in here and helping Ian destroy his future.”
I wasn’t expecting that.
The guy came off as a jerk the moment I laid eyes on him, but I wasn’t actually expecting him to talk to me like that.
Mr. Zavala seems frustrated by my silence just as much as he did by my voice, and he shakes his head, saying, “I’ll never understand what it is about people like you and him that makes you think that you can just go through life like it’s some kind of a big game.”
“I don’t think it’s a game at all,” I tell him. “I don’t know what kind of person you think I am, but—”
“We can stand here going back and forth until the cows come home,” Mr. Zavala interrupts. “I think you’ll find that you’ll get the same result and save a lot of time if you just go.”
What is this guy’s problem? Yeah, I look like a punk/skater chick because, well, I am a punk/skater chick, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have goals or priorities. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m out to stop his son from being successful.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can give voice to breath, Mr. Zavala says, “One of these days, Ian’s going to grow up, and if he doesn’t get his act together, he’s going to be pretty disappointed at what he finds
around him. I’m sure you’re a nice girl, but he’s not for you, so I think it’s best if you just go.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m shocked and hurt as much as I am angry and offended, and there are no words I can conjure to adequately respond in any other way than by simply doing what he told me to do and walking out the front door.
Behind me, I can hear the sliding door open and Ian’s calling after me, asking where I’m going, but I don’t stop. I just shut the door behind me.
Chapter Eight
The Silver Tongue
Ian
It’s been about a week since Mia up and left my house without a word and I haven’t yet been able to pry an explanation out of her.
At least I’m in the one place where she can’t ignore me entirely.
Class starts and I’m writing in my notebook, still trying to figure out some way to get Mia and me back to where we were before my loudmouthed father had to crash the party. I tear the page out, fold it once, twice, and I use it to tap Mia on the shoulder.
She turns her head and sees the paper. Rolling her eyes, she whispers, “Really?”
I nod.
She sighs and takes the note, unfolding it.
I wrote, “We should get together again, soon.”
The professor’s discussing something that would probably make a lot more sense if I had paid attention at the beginning, so I just give up and tune out entirely.
I still haven’t been able to get past my vert problem and I’m starting to lose hope.
It’s the stupidest thing, having the sponsorship hang on how good you do in three different categories. Not everyone does vert. Not everyone does street. The best trick competition seems fair enough, as everyone does that shit with their friends for fun anyway, but I never wanted to be a vert skater.
This is bullshit.
Sadly, none of those arguments have changed anything yet.
Mia passes me back the folded piece of paper and I open it up.
She wrote, “You mean for our project? We should probably get going on those interviews.”
I don’t know if she can hear me scoff, but if I had to guess…
I write, “I don’t mean for the project. We should hang out, get to know each other. You look like you could use some fun.”
She turns before I can tap her on the shoulder and takes the note.
I can actually see the skin of her neck turn red as she reads the note, and I can’t remember hearing someone write so loudly. I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to write loudly.
About 15 seconds later, she’s holding the note behind her head before dropping it on my desk.
I have to cover my mouth as I chuckle at how easily I can irritate her.
Her new addition to the passed note reads, “I just love how you assume I never have any fun, like I’m some sort of spinster freak who’s afraid of a good time.”
This is too easy.
I write, “So you’re up for a night out, then?” and pass it up to her.
After a hasty rustling of paper, Mia groans loudly enough for the professor to stop mid-sentence to look at her.
“Sorry,” Mia says. “Just clearing my throat.”
The professor goes on talking whatever voodoo she’s talking, and Mia hunches forward to respond.
She’s so much fun to torment.
Mia tosses the note over her shoulder, now crumbled into a ball, and it bounces off my desk before going off onto the floor.
I lean over, pick it up, open it, and read it.
She just wrote, “Does this approach ever work?”
I smile and write, “You tell me. There’s a skate exhibition tonight. Nothing big, just some kids whose parents are particularly proud of them. They’re not great or anything, but it might be fun to watch.”
I pass it forward.
“Ian?” the professor says as soon as the note has left my hand, and I’m having a flashback to third grade English class when I used to pass notes to my friend Bobby—he goes by Rob now.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“What do you think we can make of the placebo effect?” she asks.
I love it when professors try a gotcha question when you’re not paying attention, but then don’t bother making it difficult. It’s so great watching that smug superiority drain out of them and then feel it entering me.
“I think we can make of it that the mind is a powerful thing and that when it comes time to test a drug, much less treat a patient, it’s important to take all aspects of that patient, including that power of their mind to heal itself when it believes it’s being healed, into account,” I answer.
“What does it tell you about the nature of the mind, though?” she asks.
“I’m not quite sure what you’re asking,” I return, but before she can clarify, I make a guess. “If you’re asking what it means that the mind can be fooled through nothing but its own perceptions regarding medicine and the authority of doctors, I’d say it means that the mind is easily manipulated. When a person wants to believe something, they’ll construct their entire reality around making that belief a reality. The problem comes when that belief and objective reality don’t coincide and a person is either unable or unwilling to recognize it. That’s when people become delusional.”
“So you think that the placebo effect is just a delusion?” the professor asks.
“Of course it is,” I answer. “Patients believe they’re taking medicine, given to them by a doctor in order to cure or at least treat a condition they have. That belief can go a long way. The problem with a delusion is that it never goes all the way, though. If it did, anyone who experienced the placebo effect, assuming nothing shatters the illusion for them, would be cured of whatever was wrong with them.”
“So you’re saying that the body knows how to fight illness, even mental illness, it’s just—I don’t know, lazy?” the professor asks.
In front of me, Mia tears up the note we’d been passing and she starts writing on another paper. If my posture was better, I might even be able to see over her shoulder enough to read it.
“No,” I answer. “I’m saying that delusion isn’t a cure. A person isn’t actually getting better, their symptoms merely improve for a little while as the belief holds out. Eventually, though, even if the delusion isn’t shattered, their body will return to its natural state, and if it’s not being treated by a treatment that actually works, they’re going to go back to where they were before the event and just continue to degrade.”
“I think Mr. Zavala brings up an interesting point…” the teacher says, and I can finally ignore her again. While she’s waxing poetic on something I said or something she inferred from what I said, Mia passes me back a new folded piece of paper.
I open it up and read, “When and where?”
Sometimes, actually coming off as if you know something can be a positive thing.
* * *
I ride down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of pedestrians as I go.
I’d suggested that I pick Mia up—with a real car and everything—but she insisted that we meet up at the exhibition.
The First Annual Peewee Skating Demo is the result of a few parents who were bugged relentlessly by their 6 or 7-year-olds to build them some kind of ramp. The demo itself isn’t so much a testament to the skill of the kids on their boards as it is an exhibition of the fathers’ various works of wooden art.
It’s always kind of bothered me when people tag the word “peewee” onto a kid’s sport. I just remember playing soccer when I was in first or second grade and never wanting to tell anyone about it for fear that word would come up at some point.
I get off my board about a block away from where they’re setting everything up and I look around the crowd for Mia.
Something small and blunt goes half an inch between my ribs and I pull back, spinning around.
Mia waves, saying, “Hey, so what is this exactly? I didn’t know there was anything going on tonight.”
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I rub my side and I’m almost angry until I get a good look at her.
She’s dressed the same as always: skater garb with that same pair of Converse that she always wears, but something about her is different.
“You look happy,” I say.
She furrows her brow, as that wasn’t really a solid answer to her question, saying, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You look good,” I tell her.
She looks down at what I’m pretty sure are the same clothes she had on earlier, saying, “Thanks.”
“So,” I say and we start walking together toward the growing crowd, “what did it?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“What changed your mind about coming out with me tonight?” I ask.
“I never said I wasn’t going to,” she answers.
“Yeah, but you’ve been avoiding me, and before you wrote that new note, you didn’t seem too thrilled to be near me at all,” I tell her.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I was going to say no.”
“Why didn’t you?” I persist.
She rubs the back of her neck, avoiding my gaze, and says, “I guess I thought it couldn’t do much harm.”
“Why would it do any harm?” I ask.
“Let’s just forget about it,” she says. “I’m here. Now, who’s skating tonight?”
“Kids,” I tell her. “I think there are four or five of them and they’re all under 10.”
We get a little closer to where they’ve set up on the blocked off portion of the street, and it’s just what I’d envisioned: a couple of plywood kickers, one actually decent quarter-pipe, and what I can only assume are objects to be avoided.
“Where’d you hear about this?” she asks.
“Tonya’s kid’s skating today,” I tell her. “She knows I skate and she wanted to know if I’d like to come and show my support.”
“Stop doing that,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Forget it.”
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