A Girl Like Me

by Ginger Scott

  “Bi-on-ic,” I mouth to myself along with the lyrics of the rap song blasting in my ears.

  I stretch my legs back out and lean forward, wrapping my hands around my toes on the left and the smooth fiberglass on the right. A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stretch like this even if someone offered me a hundred dollars. My body just wouldn’t do it. I lacked the drive. I can’t help but smirk at that thought. I meant what I said when I yelled at Wes. Yes, I’ve lost, but I have also gained.

  My blinds open, I see the lights roll up along the curb first. My music mutes out the familiar rumble of his engine, but I imagine it so well that I almost don’t hear the music anymore. All I hear is Wes.

  The songs change, the beat heavier on the next song, and my mouth starts to curve with a smile. I lean back, rolling my shoulders before falling forward again, this time my legs apart, my body moving from one side to the next and then flat in the middle. My elbows fall to the bed and I push myself more until my forehead grazes the blanket beneath me.

  “I am fucking awesome,” I whisper, knowing my voice is probably louder than I think with the headphones in. I smirk at the thought and sit up, prepared to scream the words in my empty house, when I notice that the lights once parked along my house are now pointed right at it.

  Yanking my earbuds out, I push my now trembling body to the edge of my bed. My breath comes out ragged, and my stomach sours when the motor outside revs once. The lights are blinding, and I can’t tell who is in the car—if it is a car or a truck like I thought it was.

  My eyes flash when the engine revs again, and my mouth starts to salivate like it does just before I throw up. With quivering lips, I crawl to my floor slowly, my head barely above the window sill. I keep telling myself that whoever is out there can’t see me in my darkened room, but the lights…they’re so bright.

  The rev comes again, and I bring my sweaty hands up and rest my palms flat on the wall. I’m remembering it all—my dad, his car, Wes, my life…my death. It’s this flash that pans out, a blink that could have changed everything. I’m nine again, watching my life crumble, waiting helplessly, confused and alone and embarrassed.

  I’m paralyzed when the last roar echoes. Tires screech, and somehow I feel like I can smell them burn. The two lights speed forward, swerving to the right, crossing through the dirt in front of our house, racing over the loose bricks that used to be a flower bed until the front of the car smashes into the back of mine.

  Tires squeal again, this time in reverse, and sparks light up the night as metal drags along my driveway. The bumper of my new car is pinned underneath a large older vehicle that’s rolling down the sidewalk and into the road. The scraping sound is louder than thunder, and the car has to jerk forward and back twice before my car’s chrome loosens enough that it can drive away. Once it breaks free, the car swerves as it speeds back toward the main road leading to the highway, and I rush out front as fast as I can, just in time to see the car turn left, toward the flower fields.

  My eyes flash to the totaled pile of metal in our driveway, jagged pieces of steel lying on the concrete and smoke from the friction lingering in the air. My face feels numb, and my body feels lifeless, the world growing bright, then dark, then bright again. I’m unsteady on my legs, using my hands to hold along the doorway and the walls of the hallway back to my room.

  I dive for my bed and clutch my phone, pulling up my contacts. I don’t hesitate. I don’t doubt. I do nothing but believe. I believe it all…every last crazy piece of it, and I do the only thing I know will help.

  I call Wes.

  Twelve

  I barely got my words out before Wes was off the phone and his truck was out front. He’s standing in the middle of my driveway now, his hat in one hand, his other hand gripping his hair, trying to make sense of the mangled mess in my driveway.

  I haven’t been able to get myself to go back outside, and I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t want to see my day-old car ruined, or because Wes is there…and I called him because I got scared.

  When he starts to move toward my front door, I decide I can’t put this off any longer, so I rush toward it to unlock it for him and let him inside.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say, my voice calm as I hold the door wide.

  “Are you okay?” His hands cup my face quickly, and I tuck my chin and step back. It’s too easy to go back to that role—the girl he needs to save. I need his help. I acknowledge that. But I need to be able to save myself, to protect myself and find that feeling of safety somewhere in myself. I can’t put all of my faith in someone else when they could leave.

  They all leave.

  “I’m fine. They just trashed my car,” I say, shaking my head and moving our conversation to the kitchen. “I haven’t even gotten to drive it yet. I had to ride because we’re getting the hand gears set up next week.”

  “Did you see someone? What direction did they go? Did you call the police?”

  Wes spits out a dozen more questions after those, and I can barely get through the first one.

  “I saw lights. They were in a car, and I thought…” I breathe out and let my lids close. “I thought it was you outside.”

  Wes is quiet, and I’m glad.

  “I haven’t called the police yet. You’re right. I probably should,” I say, walking back to my room to find my phone. I find it on the edge of my bed, where I dropped it while I stared out the window waiting for Wes. After I grab it, I turn to go back to the kitchen but Wes has followed me to my room. The space instantly feels smaller, and his eyes begin to roam the floor, the walls, my things.

  “I’ve been cleaner since…well…” I lift my prosthetic and nod my head toward it. “I kept tripping over shit.”

  Wes’s mouth pulls in on one side in a crooked smile, and his eyes flit to mine.

  “What should I tell them?” I say, searching for the non-emergency number on my phone as I ask.

  “Everything you can remember,” he says. I feel him move closer, and without looking, I can sense that he’s sat down…on my bed…where I sleep.

  The operator answers after half a ring, and I’m flustered by it, so I sit down and hold the phone with both hands against my right ear, Wes to my left.

  “Hi, uh…I need to report a crash, or maybe…maybe vandalism. I’m not sure what it is, but, shit,” I wince. I bring one hand to my face and pinch the bridge of my nose, and before I can regroup, Wes takes my phone from my other hand.

  “Someone rammed into her car parked in her driveway. It was intentional,” Wes says, and I turn my head sideways, watching him as he speaks, drawing in that word—intentional.

  “Yes, we’re home,” he says, pausing to listen to more details. “Yes, the car is still here. It’s not drivable…yes…yes…”

  He cups the phone and glances to me, and I’m frozen, still repeating that word in my head.

  Intentional.

  “They need to get your information down, for the report. They’ll send someone out, but it’s going to be a bit,” he says.

  My hands are shaking and Wes notices as I take the phone from him; I give the woman on the other end our address, my name, my father’s name, the insurance that I know we have. She asks me to get the numbers for our insurance company ready for the officer to include in the report, and then she tells me someone will be by within the hour.

  “I’m staying,” he says the moment I hang up, not giving me a chance to tell him to go. He knew I would.

  I shrug slightly and look to him from the corner of my eyes briefly. He’s a foot away from me, and it would be so easy to pull my legs up, lie to my side, and rest my head in his lap. It would feel so nice, but I can’t seem to make myself move. I’ve made barriers, and I won’t cross them.

  Wes leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands linked, one rubbing the knuckles of the other, cracking them, then switching. I remain still, my hands cupping my phone in my lap and my eyes entranced with his repetitive fidgeting with his finge
rs.

  I know what I want to ask. I’ve had the question held on my lips since a stranger demolished the gift from my dad. More than company, more than security—it’s the reason I called Wes. My lips feel numb now, though, parted as my breath slips over their skin. I say the words in my head, and hate that I can’t seem to get them to come out for real.

  “I wanted to,” Wes says, finally breaking several minutes of silence between us.

  I move my eyes from his hands to his face, but he’s still looking down at my floor. His jaw twitches and his lashes blink slowly, his focus lost in a trance as he chews at the inside of his cheek.

  “I told you I wouldn’t come home, and you were right…the way that sounded...” His eyes blink again, this time opening on mine. The connection is sharp, like a pin in my chest. “That word doesn’t reflect the truth.”

  “Then what word does?” My voice is calm, my heart is tired, and above all, I don’t want to cry.

  Wes swallows, his body remains still, and his gaze stays right where it’s been.

  “Wanted. I wanted to come back,” he says, closing his lips tight and nodding his head with a tiny movement.

  “You wanted to come back,” I say, emphasizing the word.

  Wes nods slowly.

  “But…you wouldn’t.” I tilt my head as I speak, shifting to look at him more closely. Wes shakes his head.

  I breathe out through my nose slowly and try to wrap my brain around where I am, how this life is mine. None of it seems fair. I’ve had so very few years of happiness. A child should be happy. For a girl like me, though, happy has always been defined differently.

  “How does the story end, Wes?” I ask, finally able to get the words out that have been stuck for so long.

  He blinks, and his jaw twitches.

  “Do I die?” My eyebrows lift as I think about what I just asked. Hearing it out loud, processing it this way—it makes me start to laugh slightly to myself.

  “I don’t know. It’s just some stupid book Shawn made years ago. I feel stupid for even thinking maybe it was real,” he says, and I can tell he’s lying. He still believes it.

  “You mean your dad’s book,” I say, calling him that because I know Wes doesn’t want to hear it. It was mean.

  “Yeah,” he says, a little more bite to his tone. “My dad’s.”

  His eyes remain locked on mine. I blink a few times, looking at his mouth—resting in a flat line—and his hands, now cupping his knees.

  “I die in the book, don’t I?” I press on.

  Wes looks at me for a few more seconds before standing and moving to the window, the blinds still open from when I twisted them to wait for his truck to pull up.

  “You don’t die, Joss. You live a long happy life, happily ever after—alone, and bitter, and unforgiving,” he says. I jerk back, flinching at his words. Wes has never been outright mean to me.

  “Fuck you,” I say, standing and moving to leave my room. I make it to my doorway before I feel his hand grip my wrist.

  “Don’t go. I’m sorry,” he says.

  My muscles grow tense, but I don’t pull away. I stop, one hand flat against the side of the doorframe and the other balled into a fist just below Wes’s grip.

  “I’m not unforgiving,” I say, my words raspy and my voice only at half strength.

  Wes doesn’t respond, so I turn to face him, and his fingers slide around my wrist, never letting go, but loosening their hold.

  His eyes flit from mine to my mouth, and I feel betrayed by the way my lips respond, parting with a silent gasp, welcoming him to look.

  “Take it back,” I say, bringing his gaze back to my eyes. His focus shifts from one eye to the other, and his expression grows defeated and sad.

  “I wanted to come home,” he says, the words coming out in a slow whisper.

  My chest rises with a full breath and I hold it for a few seconds before letting it go, my shoulders falling.

  “Then why didn’t you?” I ask.

  More silence. More long looks. More blinks as his eyes drill deeper into mine, growing sadder with every breath.

  “It isn’t you,” he says, and my brow draws in fast in response. “The end of the story. It isn’t you, Joss.”

  It’s him. He dies. Wes dies, and he’s afraid. My rigid muscles relax a little and my heart beat picks up as I wait.

  “It’s your dad,” he says, and everything in my world stops.

  Wes brings his free hand to his mouth, covering it so all I have to go by is what I can read in his eyes. I search for the truth, and all I see is all I’ve ever seen when I hear these stories—insanity.

  My mouth bends up, quivering at first and eventually shaking with quiet laughter.

  “My dad,” I repeat, my head leaning to the side.

  Wes’s fingers slide away from my arm and I take a step back as his other hand falls from his face.

  “I know how it sounds, and you’re right; it’s probably just crazy shit Shawn drew out of spite. He always hated your dad. I know, and I get it. I…I put this together just when you did, Joss. What you know? That’s what I know, and I see how the pieces fit together. I see the picture, I get how jealousy fits into this. But there have been so many things that…” Wes pauses.

  “My leg,” I nod.

  “Your leg,” he says, his eyes closing.

  Of the dozens of scenes Shawn created, some elements ring close to the truth. I lean against the doorframe and tuck my hands in my back pockets. When Wes opens his eyes again, he stands and moves to my open door, resting his back on the hinges, and we’re so close that the toes of our shoes touch.

  “I saw someone here,” he says, and I look up quickly, my mind matching up his words with what I saw a few days ago, strangers in my yard. “Before I came back for good, before you found me, I would drive by at one or two in the morning. Sometimes…I was just getting my fix. Seeing my home, your street—sometimes you.”

  “You saw me?”

  He nods, and I lift my chin, my heart stinging.

  “I wanted to come back,” he repeats his words from before. “But every time I was back in your world, something from that story came true. Never exactly like it, but the damage was enough.”

  “You came back once, Wes. Something bad happened once, and not because you came back. It happened and you were here. That’s it,” I say as his eyes fall somewhere below mine. “Have you ever stopped to think that it was just a coincidence? Or maybe Shawn is forcing you into these situations because he wants his fantasy to play out so he can watch? He could never save my mom. He was always too weak. So instead, he’s playing fantasy with us.”

  His eyes lift to mine.

  “Come here,” he says, taking my hand again without asking, his fingers tight around mine, his hold more confident, more like how we used to be, and I soak in the familiar for a few seconds before fighting back. He doesn’t let me let go, though, instead leading me back to the kitchen, to the stove, flicking it on high and waiting while the burner’s flames grow blue and heat the coils they surround.

  “There are some things, Joss, that I just cannot ignore. Why can I do this?” he says, holding his right hand over the flames, while his other hand holds onto mine even harder.

  “Wes!”

  He pulls his hand away and holds his palm flat in front of me.

  “Nothing,” he says. “It’s not even pink, Joss.”

  Without hesitation, he places his palm flat on the grates of the burner, and out of instinct I reach for his arm, trying to pull him away.

  “Leave it,” he growls, holding me away with one hand while he tries to destroy his other.

  “I can’t even feel it, Joss. No pain. It’s like I’m just pressing it flat on the counter. My hand,” he says, finally pulling it away and holding it with his fingers wide, palm to my face. “Something is wrong with me, Joss.”

  I’ve seen things. We’ve talked about his abilities, if that’s what they are. I’ve watched him save me from things th
at should have killed both of us. But he’s never openly shown me what he can do.

  My fingers slowly reach up to his now-quaking palm, and I glance to his eyes, asking permission. He lifts his chin as his eyes fall and his mouth turns down. My touch is gentle, starting at his thumb and his pinky, eventually cradling his hand in both of mine and bringing his palm closer. I draw a soft line along the center with my finger and his fingers twitch from the tickle.

  “It’s cool,” I say.

  He swallows loud enough that I hear it without looking up at him.

  “I know,” he says.

  I run my fingertip along the lines in his hand, then down each finger, stopping at the inside of each knuckle and waiting—for what, I’m not sure.

  “Joss, Shawn always put me in a place where I could be close to you. After the bridge, I came to him because I remembered his stories. He would read them to me, and I used to think he was just trying to be funny when he would name characters after me and what I later realized was you, but then I remembered the bridge. I remembered the water.”

  I curl his fingers around mine and I stare at them in my hand, covering them as they continue to shake.

  “He said I’m supposed to be your hero, but what if…” Wes’s other hand comes up to cover mine, and I glance up slowly to meet his eyes. “What if I’m the bad guy?”

  None of this makes sense. There are things that I can’t deny, though, and what I just saw—that happened. Wes is special. And deep inside, I know that he and I were meant to walk the same path. Our roads were always meant to intersect. Those reasons, though—they’ve changed.