Through Glass

by Rebecca Ethington

  He waited, but I couldn’t find anything to say. It’s not that I didn’t want to, I was still waiting for my temper to settle down and I was afraid I would say something I would regret. While my face didn’t feel quite as hot, I definitely wasn’t in any state to be sharing calm, cohesive thoughts.

  Cohen only smiled. He had known since the eighth grade of his control over my oh-so-carefully-guarded temper. It was probably the same time he started calling me firecracker and tomato and gables; nicknames that heated my blood for more than one reason. Although, I was sure, one was more of a rejoicing for his attention than anything else.

  “I just need another piece for my show this weekend.” He brought my thoughts back to the present and the bright red paint that still clung to his paintbrush.

  Cohen had started showing his work a few years ago and I, along with everyone else he knew, had been prohibited from attending. The only reason I had known he had begun to show his pieces was because I had poked it out of him. Literally poked jabs to his side while he tried not to laugh. Why he hadn’t run away from me, though, I wasn’t quite so sure.

  “Another one?” I asked, my anger at him melting away.

  “Yeah. I was thinking of putting this one in, but I think I will keep it.”

  I barely heard him, my mind was already buzzing around the perfect opportunity he had presented me with. I had been barred from those shows for years, but now, now I would secure my invitation.

  “Can I come?” I asked, leaning toward him precariously.

  Cohen froze, a grin stretching across his face for a brief moment before it disappeared, his face relaxing. The smile had come and gone so quickly that I wasn’t sure I had actually seen it. His eyes narrowed at me. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” I repeated. That was the closest I had gotten to a solid yes in years. The last of my temper melted away as jittery excitement seeped into me. Cohen looked at me as he placed the brush down on his paint stained desk.

  He stared into me with those dark eyes and my pulse quickened again. Get over it, Lex, he’s just your friend.

  He smiled again and I couldn’t help returning it, even though my better logic screamed “friend-zone” at me from the back of my mind.

  I had forgotten how much I had missed him. I forgot how much he had come to mean to me. Right then, I wanted to accept those feelings.

  “Yeah, I think it may be time for you to see.”

  All I was missing was freckles.

  It was the same thought I had every time I looked at myself in the mirror. I had everything except freckles. I had the red hair that was too bright to be considered auburn, the fair skin that made me look like a porcelain doll and green eyes the color of old soda bottles. I had everything other than the freckles.

  Of course, if I had the freckles, it would make the whole “Anne of Green Gables” look that much worse. Not like it wasn’t bad enough as it was. It was the only reason I had been glad when Cohen went to college; no daily reminders of my tomato red hair.

  Firecracker.

  Ugh.

  I took one last look at myself in the mirror in my locker to make sure that everything was in place before grabbing my Mysteries of the Indies book and attempting to shove it into my bag.

  This would have been much easier if I didn’t already have two other books in there. Whoever planned all of my classes on the side of the school opposite to my locker should be injured in some painful way. At least I only had a few weeks left.

  “So, I was thinking,” Sarah began the second she leaned against the locker next to mine. “We should do a double. I’ll take Luke and you should invite Cohen.”

  “I’m sorry?” I practically screeched at her in panic, the large book slipping from my hands to land on my sneakered foot.

  “Cohen, your best friend, the boy you’ve been fawning over for the past eight years. He’s home from college. I know because I saw him at the McDonalds last night so don’t try to tell me otherwise.” She smiled and handed me the book while I closed the locker and threw my book bag over my shoulder. I would just have to carry the book. Why I needed to study mythology from India I had no idea.

  “Bad idea, Sarah.” She sighed in her overdramatic way and I looked at her, getting the full brunt of her diva face.

  If I was Anne of Green Gables, she was a Barbie doll. Blonde hair, blue eyes—she had it all—even the light dusting of freckles over her button nose.

  No wonder the eyes of the male population followed her wherever she went. I was simply happy she didn’t try to date them all. Not that we each hadn’t had our fair share of boyfriends, but I didn’t want that kind of reputation.

  “I don’t see why it would be, he practically stalks you through that window of his.” She smiled and her blue eyes sparkled. I wasn’t sure if I could disagree with that, but then again, I essentially did the same thing.

  I shook my head in an attempt to get the knot out of my stomach that just talking about him had given me.

  Get over it, Lex, I told myself for the millionth time in an attempt to actually do it. It wasn’t working very well.

  “Do I need to remind you of Sadie’s 2011?” I said as melodramatically as I could.

  “You were a freshman and he was legally obligated to say no.”

  Well that stung.

  “He was only a sophomore,” I said silently, instantly regretting the moment I let the words out of my mouth.

  “Yes, but you weren’t even technically going to this school yet,” she pointed out as she poorly disguised her laugh. She was really pushing this and it really wasn’t good for my temper. I could already feel it prickling under the surface of my skin, hot and angry.

  I rolled my eyes and began to weave my way through the tidal wave of students that were headed in our direction in an attempt to make it to homeroom on time.

  “I think the phrase he used was ‘I have no desire to sacrifice the friendship of someone so close to me,’” I said in my best Cohen imitation.

  Sarah only rolled her eyes at me as we broke free from the busy hallway intersection and into the sparkling halls of the lesser crowded English hallway.

  And yes, I did have it memorized. Not that I had tried, but when you get stung in such a public way, you don’t forget what was said. Most people would have stopped talking to him, too, but he’s stubborn and I’m forgiving. It’s a bad combination. Well, that and he fell out of his window while trying to plead forgiveness. The guilt from that helped, too.

  “He was younger then.” Sarah’s voice echoed strangely in the emptier hallway.

  “Exactly my point. I can’t date a college boy.” I turned toward her, walking backward for a moment in an attempt to drive my point home, however she only rolled her eyes at me.

  “Says the eighteen-year-old high school senior who is graduating in less than a month.”

  “I can’t Sarah,” I reiterated as I fell into step beside her again, not even attempting to restrain the dejected moan from my voice.

  “Can’t or won’t?” she asked me. I felt my nerves jump a bit.

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She was obviously going to wait for me to answer. If I didn’t, she would just ask the question with varying levels of decibels and embarrassment.

  “Both,” I admitted, my tone snippy as my temper leaked out.

  “Well, neither of those count.” She smiled.

  We walked into first period English and right to the row of desks at the back. Sarah sat in the desk across from me, her body already moving to lean over the bar as close to me as possible. Her eyes were calculating what to say next.

  I felt my stomach muscles flop around like a dying fish. I knew that smile and I knew what was behind it.

  “You already asked him, didn’t you?” The dance of the dying fish in my stomach increased and I fought the need to run into the hall and shove myself into any available locker. Instead, I decided to sink lower into my desk.

  “Yes,” she grinned, “and he said
yes, so you can’t get out of it even if you tried.”

  “I don’t know why I would want to.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice if I tried. It was probably a good thing Sarah was perpetually immune to all sarcasm or she might have taken offense to that.

  “Exactly. So don’t worry. Just have fun. I will take care of everything and we will have to see if we can get the memory of Andrew Flowers wiped away by the end of the week.” She had to give me a flippant reminder of my slob of an ex-boyfriend in the sound of a battle cry. “Your lips need to experience someone new.”

  “Uh no, Sarah! I said nothing about kissing him.”

  “I know, but you thought it. You thought it the second you saw that five o’clock shadow he’s trying to pull off, didn’t you?”

  Of course I did, but was I going to give Sarah this little win? No, no I wasn’t. I was too stubborn to let that get the best of me.

  “I can see it in your eyes, Lex,” she whispered in my ear from across the aisle as Mrs. Grant waddled into class. “Don’t try to get out of it.”

  I tried to pull out my best glare for her. Tried, but it just didn’t take. She smiled at me knowingly and I looked away from her, knowing full well that my embarrassment was threatening to turn me into a human-sized tomato.

  If it hadn’t already.

  That was probably the worst thing about being a red head. People always thought you were ready to yell or blush at any moment. Unfortunately, I did blush all the time. The only thing that was good about the blush was that it took my temper away.

  Even if I did turn into a walking, talking watermelon.

  “Anyway,” she continued when I obviously was not going to pacify her. “He has some art show he’s got a few paintings in that he was going to take you to anyway. So, now he wants us all to go to it and then we will do dinner after. I was thinking La Sala; the salad there is good…”

  I wasn’t listening anymore. Sarah was going into full date planning mode and besides, I was too busy thinking about what she had just said. I was actually going to be attending one of Cohen’s art shows. He had said yes.

  For years I had been wondering what beautiful things were in his head. Wondering what his actual paintings looked like. If they were anything like the masterpieces he kept in his sketchbook, I was in for a show. And now, I would finally be able to see them.

  I walked through the wooden door of our old farmhouse, the hinges creaking as the old wood swung wide. My parents had bought the old house when I was about three and then just had to make due when the boys joined the family. It was a lot of people in one tiny house, but I still loved it, squeaky door and all.

  I walked through the tiny mud room to see my mom reading a book and I couldn’t help the smile it gave me. The house was in that intermittent quiet zone before the boys got home from school. The only noise coming from the quiet “classic rock” my mom had playing on the internet radio and the wind that had suddenly picked up outside. Winds this rough weren’t normally common in our area, but the weather had been weird for a few days. Sarah had lovingly dubbed it El Chupacabra after we woke up to hail this morning.

  “Have a good day?” my mom asked as she looked up from her book, her face relaxed for the time being.

  “Yeah,” I sighed, not really knowing how to respond. It was just a day after all, nothing good or bad. Just a day. Of course, I could tell her about the million tiny things that popped up; the gossip I had heard, the preparation for the end of the year, the date that the quarterback had asked me on, but my mom and I had never really had that kind of relationship.

  I opened my mouth to say something more when the door squeaked again, the wide wooden slab swinging in as my tousled oldest brother walked in.

  Travis had turned fourteen only a few weeks ago, but he was already as tall as I was and gaining. Not like that was hard to do. Someone in our family—hundreds of years back—had short genes and somehow I inherited them. I was the dwarf among giants in our family.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mom cooed from the couch, her eyes already moving back to her book. She had our arrival times memorized like business men memorize train schedules.

  Travis walked in, head bowed low, his shoulders slumped and dejected. His dark hair had always had a slight curl to it, but now, with his head hung forward, it was a bit more pronounced than I remember it.

  “Travis?” I asked, my voice a bit more worried than it probably should be.

  His head snapped up, obviously surprised to see me there. His dark brown eyes widening like I had just caught him shoplifting. He didn’t say anything, he just stared at me before slouching back down into his contoured position in an attempt to get away from me.

  “There are cookies on the counter for you two,” my mom said without looking up, “I would eat them before the others get home or you won’t be able to get a single chocolate chip.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Travis mumbled before walking past me, his head still dipped down.

  Even his voice sounded low and dejected; it was almost the polar opposite of how he usually was. Well, up until a few weeks ago anyway, around his birthday. I guess turning fourteen opened up the door for teenage angst and crabbiness. It probably wasn’t a fair assessment considering I was at the tail end of my teenage angst and crabbiness, but I was going with it anyway.

  “Why so glum, chum?” I taunted him as I followed him into the kitchen, draping my arm over his shoulder and ruffling his hair the same way I had done since he had grown hair.

  “Why so irritating, Alexis?” he snapped, pushing me away from him a bit as he moved to try to fix the faux hawk he had been attempting to adopt.

  “Big sister,” I said simply as I plopped myself onto one of the ancient, high back bar stools. “It’s a requirement.”

  I snatched a cookie off the plate and gave him my biggest yes-I’m-trying-to-irritate-you grin, but he only shrugged and moved toward the room he and my brothers shared. He didn’t even bother to grab a cookie.

  That wasn’t normal. Travis had always gravitated toward sugar. If it was within a ten foot radius, he could sniff it out like a hound dog. Mom had to put a fridge lock on the refrigerator when he was ten just to keep him from taking the chocolate syrup into his room.

  Something was wrong and I was beginning to think it wasn’t an angst issue anymore.

  “Trav?” I asked, all humor stripped from my voice. “Is everything all right?”

  Travis stopped at my words, the sag in his shoulders tensing a bit before he turned to me.

  “Alexis?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Yeah?” My hand dropped as I lowered the cookie away from my mouth.

  “Have you ever had to do something you didn’t want to do?” he began, his eyes darting uncomfortably around the kitchen. “Something that you knew was wrong?”

  I just stared at him, my nerves reverting to butterflies that jittered through my nervous system. I didn’t like where this was going, this sounded way more serious than “I cheated on my history test”. I wasn’t sure I was qualified to answer this question and help him find a solution. By the look on his face, I could tell that I needed to make myself qualified.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice coming out flat from nerves.

  Travis sighed and continued to dart his eyes around, the constant movement was making me uncomfortable. Why couldn’t he just look at me?

  “Just that, Alexis, some of my friends are making me do something I don’t want to do.”

  I sighed heavily and jumped down from the barstool to walk toward him, grateful when his eyes finally stopped their frantic dance to look at me.

  “You know they can’t make you do anything, right?” I said, my voice low enough to keep Mom out of any conversation.

  I could already tell by the way Travis was fidgeting that he wasn’t interested in eavesdroppers, either. And Mom, as much as I loved her, was a pro in that department.

  “Lex…” he began, that irritating whine he has had since he w
as five back in his voice.

  I held one finger up to stop him in his tracks, my eyes narrowing dangerously.

  “No, Trav, they can’t. They can’t. You have to make your own decisions, no matter how hard they are. And trust me, sometimes they really, really suck.”

  He looked at me intently for one minute as I tried to get my brain to come up with some perfectly worded gem that would take all his worries away, but nothing was coming.

  “Yeah,” he said, his shoulders shrugging back into their dejected sag. “It does suck.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came and, before I knew it, the front door banged open; three more sets of feet pounding into the kitchen, giving Travis the opportunity to escape back into his room.

  I listened to the boys fight over cookies as I stared at my brother’s door, wishing I could help, but not knowing how. I was also silently hoping any kids I would have would just skip over the teenager angst stage.

  “Aunt Jenny? Mom, you can’t be serious?” I whined as I scrolled down the long list of graduation invitations I had left to send out.

  Even though graduation was less than a month away, I had now procrastinated enough that some of my relatives may be upset. Or may not come at all, which in the case of Aunt Jenny, was preferable.

  “Yes, honey,” my mom sighed, the stress in her voice heavier than usual. “She’s your father’s only sister, it’s required.”

  Mom turned from the never ending wind that pounded against the window to glare at me. Her hair almost looking as grey as the wispy clouds outside. The wind hadn’t stopped for the past few days, it had simply gotten louder and angrier, and we weren’t alone, either. All the way up to Montana, crazy winds had been reported, some even triggering two mile wide tornadoes in Kansas. My mom had been staring out the window all day, almost as if she was expecting death and destruction to descend on us at any moment.

  “But she smells like cats,” I whined as I pushed the list back toward her.