by James, Ella
Her brown gaze searches mine; it makes my chest hurt somewhere deep I can’t touch.
“I let you paint it as you reading too much into things.”
She nods.
I press my lips together. “I’m sorry.”
“So…I wasn’t?”
I squeeze her hand and try to find the words I need. “I was going out of my mind…trying to protect you.”
“I know why you want to meet Papa. The two of you have a lot in common. Both very—beary?—” she gives me a silly smirk— “protective. I can see you doing your old job. Or teaching martial arts. Were you always that way?”
“How?” I frown.
“Protective.”
I think about my Mom. I’m tempted to give her a generic “don’t know,” but I owe Gwen all the honesty that I can give her. So I confess, “Yeah.”
“I want to know about the young cub Barrett.” She smiles up at me, and I swear to God, her eyes seem to radiate happiness.
I laugh, because it’s wonderful to see. When she keeps looking at me expectantly, I let a long breath out. Her hand squeezes mine, which makes it easier to go on. “My mom was a painter. My father is a surgeon. They had me first, and then had my brothers five years later.” I shrug, as if I’m not sure what more to say—and that is true, I guess. I hate to drop the sordid story of my younger years on unassuming Gwenna.
“Were you close to your mom?” she asks carefully.
I swallow. Out of nowhere, my eyes feel kind of hot and tight. Fuck.
“You don’t have to talk about it. I lost my dad last year. I don’t know what it was like for you, but I know for me sometimes I don’t want to talk about it, and I think I’ll always have some days like that.”
I look down at her tender face. All the understanding she throws my way… It makes me want to tell her.
“She got…cancer. Breast cancer.” I swallow, locking my gaze on the leafy slope in front of us, focusing on the movement of my feet. “Some of the smart drugs…” I chew my lip and rub my brows, where pressure seems to be building. “They had started coming out…” I inhale, “but…” I shake my head. Gwen’s arm bumps mine; the small touch spurns me onward. I look down and find her eyes are clear and understanding.
Despite the pressure behind my eyes, the tightness in my throat, I find my voice. I keep it low and steady. “I think my father thought they should have taken lymph nodes that they didn’t. I don’t know.” I struggle to swallow as again my head pounds. My hand, around Gwen’s, clenches. Hers grips mine tightly.
“She was barely healed up when they found it in her brain.”
I clench my jaw and bite my cheek. Finally, I get a deep breath.
“My dad…” I stroke her fingers as I think of how to explain Robert. “So he’s a surgeon, right?” I feel more than see her nod. “He fixes baby hearts,” I add on, my eye still fixed on the sloping ground. I blow a breath out, wondering how much to tell her. What she even wants to know.
“I guess he was…he’s kind of hard.” My gaze drops to hers, and hers is steady; of course it is. Like other times, her blend of warmth and distance makes me feel more forthcoming.
“Robert had to work to get where he was. He joined the Navy to pay for school. Medical school. He told me once she almost died…my mom. When she was giving birth to me.”
Gwen’s hand squeezes mine. I steal another glance down at her, but her eyes are out in front of us.
“She told me one time, there…near when—” I swallow hard to get my voice clearer. “She said he was a good person…Robert. That he had trouble showing it. He always worked a lot. I don’t think Kelly and Ly saw him, really. I mean—I know they didn’t. Never home,” I say of Robert.
I take a measured breath. My head aches to tell her—the need to recount what happened to another living person is almost physical—but the ache behind my sternum makes me cautious.
“He wasn’t home…when she was sick,” I rasp. “I never understood the way he worked the whole fucking time. He hired staff, home care. I didn’t leave, though. He wanted me to.” I shake my head, remembering how fucking stupid Robert was. Fucking asshole. I inhale. Exhale. “I used to drive her to appointments. I was only 15, but she was there, you know. She would mostly sleep and stuff, and I would get us fries with ranch from fast food places. She liked greasy fries.”
Gwen’s thumb rubs my hand.
“So I… I, um, missed too many days of school.” I laugh, the sound harsh and dry. “I dropped out. Just for a day or two. He found me at home…Robert. I used to carve things. You know…animals. Chisel. I was carving something. A squirrel.” I smile at her, even though my chest is aching. “He came in… I left.” I take another shallow breath.
“Slow down.” Her hand comes to my chest. Her arms wrap around me. “You’re okay.” It’s true; she feels so warm and fucking soft against me.
“He made me leave the house…and I drove to a gun range. I had a teacher there. From school. A ’Nam vet. That’s how I started,” I say hoarsely. “I went there and…it was something I could do. I liked knowing I had something in my hand that could end a life.” My voice goes hollow on the last word. When I get the nerve to look down at her, I’m stunned to find her eyes are pools of compassion.
“That makes sense,” she says softly.
I wanted to die. I never really realized until now, but that’s why I joined up, I think. Not because I was a good shot. Because I had to go somewhere, and there was nowhere else, and it made sense. “I left, like he wanted.”
“Yeah?”
“I liked the risks.” I chuckle dryly. I take a deep pull from my water bottle. “I’m glad I didn’t carry you up here like I thought about doing.”
“I wish I could carry you.” Her hand squeezes mine as the mossy boulder comes into view.
I feel raw inside. Like someone peeled a scab off.
“So your dad wanted you to leave?” she asks, and I can hear her hesitance. She’s probably nervous about keeping the conversation going, but I want to. For some reason, I need to tell her.
“I didn’t do well after…Mom. All I wanted to do was watch the twins or go to the range—the gun range. Robert wanted them to have a nanny. He made me move out into my own place while I finished school.”
“High school?”
I nod, looking into her wide eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Her fingers stroke mine. “I just…”
“What?” The leaves crunch as we near the boulder.
“I don’t think I like your dad. Making you move out...” She shakes her head. “If I ever find a time machine, I’m coming, okay?”
I smirk. “Okay.” I kiss the top of her head, and we close the distance to the rock. It’s dappled with sunlight, covered with a smattering of leaves. From side to side, it’s about the size of a sedan, a giant, dark gray, volcanic-looking rock with greenish splotches.
“I bet you didn’t go home very much on leave,” she says as I climb up onto the rock and hold a hand out for her.
I shake my head. I can’t quite swallow. There’s this memory I have of the boys when I moved out… The way they cried. And then I never really came back…
Fuck.
Gwen sits cross-legged on the rock and pats her lap.
I frown, smiling a little in confusion even though my chest and throat feel like they’re on fire.
“Lay down for a minute. I’ll play with your hair.”
I’m not surprised that Gwenna knows exactly what I need. I lay my head in her lap and wrap my arms around her waist.
* * *
His body feels so limp and heavy, I think he must have nodded off. I keep up the rhythm of my fingers in his hair. I have to use my fingertips to say how very sorry I am—because I don’t know the right words.
Even now, so many years later, I can see the raw pain in his eyes as he talks about his mom. The way he looked eviscerated when I made my dumb comment about how I figured he must not have ever gone back home. I think ba
ck to the way he said he liked shooting a gun, because it could end a life. His mother’s life? His life?
God, baby…
I drag my fingernails gently along the nape of his neck and I wonder how long it’s been since he had a girlfriend. Someone to do things like this for him. I’m having a rough time leaving him to struggle on his own at night, so I just want to love on him as much as I can during the day.
I hope he is asleep and he can’t feel the tension in my body. How much I want to find his dad and kick him in the balls for making younger Barrett live alone when all he wanted was to huddle with his little brothers and try to heal.
What’s wrong with people? Why are they so bad? I’m so lost in my own thoughts, when Barrett’s voice cuts through the quiet morning, I jump.
“Tell me about you, Piglet.”
I blink down into his blue eyes, calm and solemn. I can’t help smiling at what seems to be my new nickname. “The piglet and the bear. Are we Winnie the Pooh?”
He smirks. “That was a favorite.”
“Was it?”
His hand strokes my side as he nods. God, he’s handsome. That little smirk. Even a sad smirk…
I sift through his silky curls. “What do you want to know, Bear?”
“Everything.” He smiles gently.
“There’s not much to tell really. When I was little, we lived in Birmingham. In Alabama. My dad was the head of his own company—that had to do with the technology that makes cell phones work. I have a slightly older brother, Rett—Everett—who has Asperger’s Syndrome. My mom had a high school friend who lived in Memphis, who also had a child with Asperger’s, and she said the services in Tennessee were better, so when I was 7 and Rett was 9, we moved to Memphis. Dad just moved the company with him.”
I peek down at him and find his eyes are focused on me.
“Mmm, so from day one, I really liked to sing. We would go to Nashville sometimes, like for plays and social events and things like that, and I got obsessed with country music. One of Rett’s obsessions is country music trivia—he knows all the trivia,” I smile, “so maybe that’s why I got turned on to it. But anyway, I went through phases where I was into all the major country singers, from Reba to tween Taylor Swift.
“It wasn’t a big deal or anything, though. I played on the tennis team, sang in school plays and stuff. And did Taekwondo. When I had a little extra time, I’d write songs and sing them and pretend to be famous.”
That word still stings a little, not because I crave it now, but because I lost it so cruelly.
Barrett’s eyes are looking up at me, urging me to go on, even though this feels like ancient history. “Mmm,” he prods, his lips curving.
“Mmm, sooo. I would sing, at church and things like that. I even recorded a few of my songs, but I didn’t understand how— or what, even, to do next. I tried reaching out to small record companies, but you know how that goes. Or if you don’t—” I stroke his hair— “it’s basically impossible. I had this idea that I could be a doctor and I’d sing on the side or something. Weddings. I don’t know.” I laugh at that idea now.
Barrett takes the hand stroking his hair and brings it to his mouth, brushing his lips over my palm.
“Go on, Pig.”
I feign pressing my palm against his face, and Barrett nips at my pinkie.
“Anyway. I got into Duke for pre-med—” His brows arch, and I smile, just because he’s so handsome, and looking at him makes me feel a little lighter. “So Duke is where I met Elvie. Elvie Wesson.”
Bear nods slowly, his gorgeous face expressionless.
“He was pre-med too. We met in the registration line the very first day.” I pause, remembering that moment. The way Elvie stepped behind me and wrapped his hands over my eyes, as if we knew each other. “His parents, you know, are pretty famous, so Elvie never had trouble breaking into music. I kinda put my singing stuff on hold and just did school and sports and stuff. I got discovered during a tournament. Taekwondo tournament.”
“Discovered?” He smiles, but it’s more sweet and sad than teasing.
“As they say.” I arch my brows.
“Did you like it? Modeling?” he asks.
I bite my lip and shrug. “I was in a different place then. Honestly?” I blink down at him. “It made me feel good. Important. This is weird to say, but I was hanging out with Elvie’s family a lot, and compared to them, I felt like a nobody. Almost like a groupie. So the modeling made me feel like I fit in more. And then I got the part of Jessica in End of Day, this indie film, and that was even better. That whole time period, when I remember it…” I shake my head. “It was like one long Christmas morning. And then I got a record deal.” I can hear the wistfulness in my own words. As if he can feel the way my heart squeezes, Barrett’s gentle fingers stroke my side.
“I thought I had it all. I mean, I kind of did. Elvie and I were serious, or I thought we were. I bought a little house. I could tell myself…you know, in retrospect, that I had always been going there. I put myself up on this stage in my head, and even before I had an album…” I swallow. “I never had an album.” I laugh, and even to my own ears, it sounds a little bitter. “I was living the dream in my own mind. I’m kind of glad it was so good. Probably even better than reality would have been. So there’s that.”
Barrett’s lips meet the inside of my wrist. He looks up at me with this wondrous expression on his face. Wondrous, yet serious. Sincere. “Have I told you I think you’re fucking incredible?”
My cheeks sting. My lips curve, all on their own. “I’m not,” I tell him honestly. “At all. In my position, being positive and moving forward was the only option that made sense.”
I cup my hand around his face. “I think you’re the same way. That’s the feeling that I’m getting, anyway.”
He pushes up on one elbow, resting his cheek in his palm. “What do you mean, Piglet?”
I smile at the name, then sober some and look into his eyes, so he can see the sincerity in mine. “It’s just this feeling that I get from you. That you’re really trying.” I smile down at him. “That, and one of my gardenia trees is shedding petals that end up in your pockets when I do laundry.”
He cuts his eyes away from mine and makes a funny kind of embarrassed duck face, which I have to struggle not to laugh at.
His eyes boomerang to mine. He’s smirking, but it really looks more like he’s struggling not to laugh. “You found those, huh? I need to get my own tree.”
“Just to pull its petals off?” I ruffle his hair.
“You make it sound bad.” He gives me a mock sad look.
“Mine can spare some petals. Only for you.”
He chuckles, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ve been…smelling them.”
“Exposure therapy.”
“Something like that.”
“And? How’s it going?”
“It’s working, I think.”
I beam. “That makes me really happy. Don’t be doing it for me, though. I can give those plants away.”
“Nah.”
“Have you ever thought of talking to someone? Like a PTSD type person? Tell me if you feel like I’m being pushy. Because I don’t want to be. I’m not.”
He takes a long breath and blows it out. “Those people help?”
“I think so. You’re doing amazing on your own,” I add. “Unless there’s something I’m missing, you’re not doing half the things a lot of other people do in your position.”
“Like what?” he asks, looking skeptical.
“Drinking. Drugs.” I shrug. I don’t want to sound like some kind of lame after school special, but it’s true: it is impressive that he’s held himself together so well.
I watch Barrett’s face, but there is nothing to be found on it. Maybe a vague haunted expression, which I could easily be imagining.
“No,” he finally says.
A grave look passes over his face: there and quickly gone.
He takes my right han
d in his and turns it over, and I see his eyes fix on a scar that runs from the middle of my forearm up to my elbow. It’s more white than pink now, not easy to see.
“The accident?” he murmurs, looking into my eyes.
I nod. “They thought maybe it was from…the windshield.”
His jaw tightens. “You remember anything?”
I shake my head. He lowers our hands, his fingers stroking mine. I shut my eyes for half a second, just to focus on that feeling—and not getting anxious. This is not something I usually talk about except with Helga. “Nothing from the night at all,” I confess.
He swallows, eyes fixed on me. I can feel his words—unsaid. So long unsaid, I have to ask: “What are you thinking?”
He swallows again, and shakes his head.
“You were alone,” he says in a soft monotone. His eyes are on the rock below us.
“How’d you know about it?”
“Internet.” His eyes on mine are hard. They soften—almost sad—as I touch his shoulder.
“I could barely stand it,” he says thickly.
“That’s…” I shake my head. It makes my throat tighten and my eyes sting, just seeing the look on his face.
He sits up and covers my knees with his big hands, stroking softly as he speaks. “You’ll never be alone like that again. I swear.” He looks emphatic—almost angry.
Barrett wraps his arms around me, pulling me onto his lap and hugging me so tightly I nearly can’t breathe.
“How long were you out there?” he asks hoarsely.
It takes me a minute to put together what he’s asking. How long was I on the ground…
“Around three hours.” His grip on me loosens, so I’m able to pull back a little and look up into his eyes. “I was kind of…like, my head was kind of down… A little off the road and on the shoulder. I was so cold,” I say, hoarse despite trying to sound impassive. “That’s part of why they were able to save me.”
He rubs my back briskly, as if he’s trying to warm me. His lips meet my forehead and my cheeks.
I grin. “You’re sweet.”
“I would do anything to keep you safe.”
“And warm.” I nuzzle his chest. “Sometimes I have nightmares about being cold.”