Heart Shaped Rock

by Roppe, Laura

  I crawl into bed and pull the covers up over me. My eyes hurt. My throat is scratchy. It hurts to swallow. My nose is stuffy from all the crying. I shut my eyes. Sleep doesn’t come.

  My bedroom door opens.

  “I brought you some soup, honey,” Dad says, holding a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup. “It’s hot. I’ll just put it here for now.” He places it on the night table next to my bed. “Here’s the spoon.”

  I don’t say anything.

  He sits next to me on the bed and smooths a wisp of hair away from my eyes. I close my eyes, luxuriating in his touch.

  “I love you, Shaynee,” he says, his voice cracking. I open my eyes and look at his face. Tears stream down his cheeks. “You’re not alone. No matter what happens, you’re never alone. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  I begin to cry, too. “Oh, Dad. I met a boy. And I loved him, Dad. I really, really loved him.”

  He exhales audibly, as if he’s been holding his breath. “Oh, honey.” He touches my face, wiping at my tears. “That’s what this is about?”

  I nod.

  “If he didn’t love you back, then he’s blind and dumb.”

  I cry harder. I don’t know how to even begin to explain the situation to him. All I can think to say is, “He’s actually super smart.”

  Dad laughs. “Well, if you love him, I imagine he would be.”

  I close my eyes, willing the tears to stop.

  “I’ll leave you alone for a little bit. Eat some soup, baby.” He gets up and leaves the room.

  My phone buzzes on the night table next to me. I reach over and turn it off without even looking at the screen.

  I close my eyes, trying to trick my brain into thinking it’s asleep. I think of the soup next to me, and my stomach somersaults. I turn over onto my other side. After a few minutes, I hear the door to my bedroom creak open behind my back. My bed lowers and jerks with the weight of a body crawling in next to me. I feel small arms wrapping around me from behind. A little chin rests on the back of my shoulder.

  “What are you doing, Lenny?” I croak out. Because, for the life of me, I have no idea what he’s trying to do. “Leave me alone.”

  “I’m climbing up into the tree with you, Flint,” he whispers. “We’ll stay up here in this tree, together, for as long as it takes.” He squeezes me tight, as buckets of tears stream out of my eyes. “I guess you’ll just have to deal with my chimpy arms holding you tight.”

  The house is quiet. The light streaming through my window looks like late morning. I look at the clock. 10:27. I do a quick mental inventory. It’s definitely Friday. I’ve missed school. Dad must have shut off my alarm. A wave of panic washes over me. Did I have any tests or big projects due today? No. I sigh with relief.

  I hop out of bed and, after a quick trip to the bathroom, peek into Lenn’s room. Gone. I walk down the hall and poke my head into Dad’s room. Gone. I shuffle into the kitchen. There’s a note on the counter. “Shaynee, sometimes sleep is more important than school. Call me when you get up. I love you, always and no matter what. You are never alone. Love, Dad.”

  “Hey, Dad,” I say when he picks up the line.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Better, actually.” But that term is definitely relative because I still feel like a crap sandwich.

  “Eat something,” Dad says, clearly not aware of my internal dialogue. “There’s some leftover chicken in the fridge.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Do you want me to come home and stay with you? I already had my meeting today, so I can come back home now... ”

  “No, I’m okay, Dad. Really.”

  “You promise to call me the minute you need anything? Please, Shaynee, you scared me last night.”

  “Dad, I promise. I’m feeling better. I’m not gonna do anything wacky. I promise I won’t freak out. No more Shaynee-monster. I’m fine.”

  “Okay, well, just remember I love you.”

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  We are about to hang up the phone.

  “Hey, by the way, Shay, give Tiffany a call. She called me, worried about whether you made it home last night. She said she’s called and texted you a thousand times and you haven’t answered her. She was worried when you didn’t show up for school today. What’s going on?”

  “Oh,” I groan. “Uh, yeah. I said some really horrible things to her yesterday. Things I can never un-say. I don’t even know where to begin... ”

  “Well, you’d better call her, Shay. When I told her you’re okay, she sounded relieved—but then she just sounded pissed.”

  “I know, I know. But I’ve gotta tell her I’m sorry in person. A text or phone call would be so... not enough.”

  “If you say so. Okay, well, rest up. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Dad.”

  We hang up the phone.

  I rummage around in the fridge and grab some of that chicken Dad mentioned. I eat a cold drumstick. I’m starving.

  I wander into the family room. I sit on the blue chair.

  I can hear Mom’s voice whispering to me to sing.

  I throw my chicken bone into the trash and head into my bedroom. With sudden purpose, I pull Mom’s DVD out of the silver box and walk back into the family room. I insert the DVD into the player and fast-forward it to the part I want to watch: “Your whole life, even when you were itty bitty, you were always so good at being you because you’ve always known exactly who you are.... As long as you follow your true heart’s desire, then I’ll always agree with what you decide to do.... ” I fast-forward again. “Let me hear your angelic voice again. Because I promise, I’m listening.”

  I eject the DVD and bring it back to my room. After stowing it safely back in the silver box, I grab my guitar and sit on my bed. I’m about to strum with my right hand, but instead, I reach over and grab the heart-rock on my nightstand. It’s sitting next to the cold bowl of soup from last night. I place the rock next to me on my bed. I begin to strum.

  Out of nowhere, I begin playing a brand new song, and it’s as if I’ve played it a thousand times. My hands know exactly where to go; my throat knows the melody; my mouth knows the words. I sing louder than necessary. I strum harder than I should. I’ll probably break a string. But I don’t care. I double back and sing the chorus over and over and over. Then, I start at the top of the song, and sing the whole thing again.

  “I’ve got two arms and two legs

  A couple eyes inside my head

  You look at me, see ‘normal,’ assume a heart, say ‘She’s not dead’

  But what you see in this life is so rarely what you get

  What you see in this life isn’t always what you’d guess

  I’ve got a heart-shaped rock and it does not beat

  It’s a heart-shaped rock and it cannot bleed

  I am made of stone

  I am made of steel

  I feel nothing inside

  Because I cannot feel

  If you look up close, if you look into the tree,

  If you dig a little deeper, pry the foam and look beneath,

  You will find what I’ve been hiding underneath my sheath

  My little girl’s heart, shriveled and blackened with disease

  I’ve got a heart-shaped rock and it does not beat

  It’s a heart-shaped rock and it cannot bleed

  I am nothing inside

  I’m on my knees

  I’ve got nothing left to bleed

  I’ve got nothing left to be

  And I cannot sleep

  I cannot eat

  I am dead inside

  I’m a crumpled heap

  I’ve got a heart-shaped rock and it does not beat

  It’s a heart-shaped rock and it cannot bleed

  I am nothing inside

  I am nothing inside

  I am nothing inside

  I am nothing inside

  I’ve got a heart-shaped rock where my heart us
ed to be

  I’ve got a heart-shaped rock...

  And now there’s no more me.”

  When I’m finally done, when I’m panting and dizzy and my throat is raw, I lay the guitar down on my bed. The strings continue to hum at a low frequency, glad for their use once again. Other than the subtle purr of the guitar strings, and the sound of my ragged breath, the house is silent.

  “Are you happy now, Mom?” I scream, looking up at the ceiling, my chest rising and falling. “I sang. Just like you told me to. And guess what? It didn’t change a Goddamned thing.”

  Chapter 16

  Despite the insane number of hours I slept on Thursday night after the Open Mic Night Debacle, I nonetheless sleep an equally ridiculous number of hours on Friday night, too. I guess my body’s got plenty of catching up to do. When I wake up late Saturday morning, it’s to the smell of eggs and bacon sizzling in the kitchen. It’s been a long time since our house has smelled like breakfast. It’s a welcome change. I pad into the kitchen, yawning, and find Dad standing at the stovetop shifting turkey bacon and scrambled eggs around in a hot skillet.

  “Happy Saturday, Sleeping Beauty,” Dad chirps. He’s awfully chipper.

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “Like a champ.”

  “Have a seat. Breakfast is just about ready.”

  He doesn’t have to ask me twice. I’m starving.

  Lennox sits at the kitchen table, reading a comic book. He doesn’t look up when I come in. Apparently, something particularly enthralling is happening in the world of illustrated dragons.

  Dad puts a plate of food in front of me. It smells divine, and I immediately start gobbling it up.

  “So,” he says, sitting next to me with his plate, “after breakfast, let’s go get your car down at Sheila’s.”

  I feel like I’m going to choke on my eggs. “Can’t you go get it for me, Dad?” My voice is scratchy.

  “No way. You’ve got to go in there and talk to your boss, face-to-face, like a big girl. And, anyway, I can’t drive down there in my car, then drive both cars back by myself, can I?”

  I groan. He’s got a point. On both accounts. “But, Dad, I made such a spectacle of myself on Thursday. I did everything embarrassing there is to do except maybe crap my pants.” Lennox laughs behind his comic book. “It was epic. I don’t know what to say to Sheila.”

  “The truth is usually a good place to start. And ‘I’m sorry’ never hurts, either.”

  Ugh, I’d rather have bamboo shoots slammed under my fingernails than talk to Sheila about my behavior on Thursday night. I’m so embarrassed about the way I acted. My dramatic performance has probably convinced her—and half of Pacific Beach—that I’m totally, utterly and completely insane. I wish I could just pretend it never happened. I don’t know how to even try to explain my meltdown to her. “How about this, Dad?” I say, taking a bite of bacon. “You go down there for me, return my apron to Sheila, and get my keys from the back room. Then we go back down there together, much later on, like, say, at three in the morning, to get my car?” I over-smile at him like I’m a used car salesman with a lemon on my hands.

  Dad just stares at me with a “that’s not gonna happen” expression.

  “No way, José,” Lennox chimes in, out of nowhere from behind his comic book.

  Dad drops me off in the parking lot at Sheila’s, right next to my car. “You’ve got your keys?” he asks as I exit his car.

  “They’re inside. That’s the whole problem.”

  He nods. “Well, good luck, then,” he says. He continues to idle the car, apparently waiting to drive away until I’m safely inside.

  I sigh. Well, here goes.

  As it turns out, Saturday late-morning at Sheila’s is booming, just as busy as Thursday’s Open Mic Night. It’s wall-to-wall people. Sheila stands behind the counter, animatedly taking an order from the first in a long line of customers, while a young woman I haven’t met works the espresso machine. That must be Carmen, I think. I’ve seen her name on the schedule posted in the back room.

  Sheila looks up and sees me standing at the door, my blue apron hanging in my hand. She smiles at me, but I can’t tell if her smile reaches her eyes. Sheila whispers something to Carmen, and Carmen nods.

  My stomach flip-flops.

  Sheila emerges from behind the counter and walks toward me.

  I can’t read her facial expression. Is she angry? Seething? Wary? Disappointed? Gosh, she might even be scared of me.

  Sheila reaches me and, without hesitation, envelops me in a hearty hug. “Ah, Shaynee-girl,” she says into my hair. “Sweet little Shaynee.”

  I’m stunned. This is the last thing I expected.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s sit over here.” She motions to a table in the far corner.

  As we walk to the table, I glance at the little stage that turned my life upside-down just two days ago. I quickly look away, but not before I hear Dean’s distinctive voice in my head singing, “... now I’m home, with my girl in yellow... ”

  Dean.

  The memory of his warm, soft lips pressed against mine slams into me. I feel a pang in my chest cavity, right where a big hunk of rock now resides.

  Sheila and I take seats opposite each other. I look into her eyes, and suddenly realize they’re the exact same cobalt-blue color as Dean’s. How did I not see the resemblance?

  Dean.

  Sheila reaches her hands across the table toward me.

  I dumbly hold out the blue apron, thinking she means to ask me for it.

  “No, silly girl,” Sheila says, pushing my hands away. “You can’t give it back that easily. Put it down, and give me your hands.”

  I do as I’m told.

  “Well,” Sheila says. It’s a statement, not a question. It’s a conclusion of some kind.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. I don’t know how to begin. Am I fired? Because if not, then I quit. I can’t show my face around here again.

  Apparently, Sheila doesn’t mind awkward silences, because she sits there, staring at me, letting me wallow in my uneasiness for a while. Finally, I say, “Sheila, I’m so sorry about Thursday... ”

  Sheila sighs. “Shaynee, my darling, you don’t owe me an apology. But there is someone you need to say those words to.”

  I pull my hands away. If she’s telling me to apologize to her son, she can just forget about it. I put my hands in my lap.

  “Relax, sweet girl, relax. I don’t know what’s going on between you and Dean, and I’ll keep out of it. Having your boyfriend’s mom butting into the middle of things is the last thing you want.”

  Did she just call Dean my boyfriend?

  “But I sure as heck can say a thing or two about Tiffany. When she came back here on Thursday after chasing you all the way up the street to Canada, she was an absolute mess. I don’t know what you said to her, honey, but you obviously ripped her heart right out of her chest. And then stomped on it and lit it on fire.”

  I know the truth when I hear it. I nod, acknowledging my guilt. “And then I put it into a blender and ate it.”

  “You were definitely thorough, I’ll give you that. I haven’t seen Tiffany that emotional since she first started working here.”

  My face registers surprise. Since when has bubbly, vivacious, fun-loving, devil-may-care Tiffany ever been “that emotional” in front of Sheila before?

  “Oh, yes,” Sheila says, reading my thoughts. “For the first month working here, all Tiffany could do was carry on about you, and your family, and the loss of your beautiful, talented mother, may she rest in peace.” Sheila’s eyes moisten. “I’m so sorry about your mother, honey.”

  I am absolutely shocked. She’s just going to put it right out there? No dancing around it, no pretending it doesn’t exist? No looking away?

  Sheila reaches out her hands to me again. When I don’t take them, she rests them on the table between us. “In the beginning, Tiffany cried almost every day, showing me pictures of herself with he
r Best Friend Shaynee—you two girls at the beach, at the Fair, getting mani-pedis, drawing silly mustaches on your faces.... Oh, she had pictures of you two girls at slumber parties and birthday parties—just so many pictures. And who do you think took you two girls all over town on all those adventures? Who do you think was standing in a bunch of those pictures with her arms around the two of you?”

  Mom.

  “Shaynee, honey, I know you haven’t realized this—and considering what you’ve been through, that’s understandable—but when you lost your mom, Tiffany suffered a big loss, too. Karen was a second mom to her. And, on top of dealing with her own grief, Tiffany also took on the job of handling yours, too.”

  I imagine this is what adults like to call “tough love.” And, man, it’s effective. I suddenly realize I’ve never even once talked to Tiffany about Mom. Even around my very best friend, I’ve always just preferred pretending nothing was wrong. And she always followed my lead. Even when she found me in the bathroom that time, screaming and pulling my hair and basically losing my mind, I made her swear not to tell anyone and never to talk about it. I think about Tiffany sitting with me at lunch, day after day, foregoing the chance to sit with Kellan and his crowd, even though she clearly wants to. God, I’ve never even once offered to sit over there with Kellan. When was the last time I even bothered to ask Tiffany how she was feeling?

  “Since day one working here, Tiffany’s never stopped going on and on about you, her Best Friend Shaynee. About the amazing songs you write. And your incredible singing voice. And your fancy vocabulary and amazing brain. About how funny you are. It just goes on and on. And, of course, when we looked at Tiffany’s pictures and videos of you, it was easy to see she wasn’t exaggerating—you really are just that special. And, of course, beautiful, too.”

  I snap to sudden attention. Sheila just used the word “we.” She just said, “... when we looked at Tiffany’s pictures and videos... ” Who’s the other half of “we” in that sentence? Dean, of course. Yep, Dean already knew everything there was to know about me when he sat down next to me at the bonfire. He’d already seen my pictures and some sort of video, for Pete’s sake. When he asked about my family at Wang Palace, he already knew my mom died, and yet he let me go on and on about my fantasy-family and normal, nothing-to-report life. And, worst of all, the whole time we were together, he let me believe we were mutually discovering each other, at the exact same magical moment.