Sparrows For Free

by Lila Felix

  And that’s what I get for taking a chance.

  Ezra

  I remember being so smooth with Mara. She couldn’t have escaped me if she wanted to. After that first screw up with the greasy fingers letter, I was smooth as butter and sweet as honey. I brought my A game,every single time—which is probably why after three dates she offered me her virginity. And I’d taken it without a second thought.

  Now I think about it and realize she was just using me to have a little cutting of the apron strings action.

  After the accident, I realized what I’d once called smooth was really sleazy. What I’d called sweet was convoluted manipulation. I was a bastard.

  What the hell is up with me? I just want to be in Aysa’s head. I want to know why she slides on a kid’s slide. I want to know why she gets that look on her face, a frozen look that just screams, ‘I have no idea what to do’. So I’d opened my big ass mouth and asked her.

  She’d smelled so damned sweet, I’d had a hard time eating next to her. The food in my mouth had no taste. All of my senses were filled with her. Everything she said came out like a question, like if the rest of the people didn’t agree she could change her mind to appease the masses.

  She wore some white shirt and from my angle, I could see straight down her shirt. If someone gave me a pen and a piece of paper, I could draw the exact lacey pattern between her breasts.

  Listen to me, I’m horrible.

  And though Dauber is my best friend, I wanted to cram both the salt and pepper shakers into his nostrils for even flirting with her. She deserves better than some fleeting, cheap flirtation.

  She certainly deserves more than my awkward question asking.

  I get to the animal shelter and take my anger out on sweeping dog shit around. Knox has to help out somewhere else today, so, I’m on my own. Several hours later, I go home, shower and come out to see what the plans are for the night. But instead, I walk into an angry mob of friends.

  “What did you do?” Gray points at me next to some guy. I assume this is the guy she was dating as he watches on while she berates me.

  “To who or what?”

  “To Aysa. I texted her to come out with us but now she says she doesn’t know if she can come. You’re the last one she talked to. And we know how you are.”

  “I just asked her why she sounded so unsure all the time.”

  Leon speaks up, “She seems pretty insecure. It’s true. But not in a whiny way. Kinda like a person who’s been put down a lot. I know how you are.”

  That little spiel earns me a wretched look from the rest of the group; “Call and apologize. We like her.”

  It’s Neil who demands the act of me.

  “Fine. I’m just gonna say something even stupider.”

  Gray stands, “You better not.” Dater boy gets a good laugh out of that one.

  I stomp into my room and slam the door. Gray texted all of us Aysa’s number earlier. I plug it in and dial, hoping she would and wouldn’t answer simultaneously.

  “Hello?”

  Even her hellos sound insecure.

  “Hey, this is Ezra.”

  “Oh, hey. What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to apologize for today. I’m an ass. Sometimes I’m just too blunt about things.”

  No response.

  “Seriously, just slap me next time or hit me in the balls with your purse.”

  A laugh, a belly warming, sing-song of a laugh resonates from the other side of the phone.

  “Okay, it’s fine. Like I said. I’m one big mess. So, eventually I’ll trump you. I can almost guarantee it.”

  “Will you come out with us then?”

  Hesitation; “I don’t know.”

  “Look, I’ll even pick you up and everything. You don’t have to drive. It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun. Fun. Fun.” She mulls it over verbally, “Okay. But I’m driving.”

  “I’ll text you the address.”

  I hang up and text the address right away. She responds with a winky face, and I take that as a good thing.

  “I said, sorry. She’s on her way over in thirty minutes.”

  They all clap dramatically. Gray still hasn’t introduced me to her guy—person.

  “Gray, you gonna introduce me?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Ezra, this is Trevor.”

  He doesn’t move from the couch, just tips his chin in my direction. What kind of guy doesn’t get up and shake another’s hand when introduced? A douche bag, that’s what kind.

  We start up a game of Call of Duty zombies, and before I know it, there’s a knock on the door. When I open it, Aysa is there, shivering, soaked through and through.

  “Jesus, get in here,” I call to her, pulling her over the threshold.

  Her chin quivers as she speaks, “Is this the fun you were talking about? Because if it is, you suck.”

  “Girl, get in here;” Gray drags her down the hall, I assume to get her dried off. Trevor looks less than excited to see her go, leaving him alone in the room with three of her best guy friends.

  Before I can drum up a conversation with him, he starts ticking on his phone. I hear giggles coming from down the hall. Gray has a way of making anyone feel comfortable. This isn’t the first time she’s had to play referee for me.

  After hearing the blow dryer turn on, we all settle back into shooting zombies. Another half an hour later, the girls emerge, and Aysa looks like she’s fallen into a good camaraderie with Gray. She looks up at me, as if she knew I was thinking about her and blushes again. I’ve never seen a girl blush at everything. It’s a nice change of pace.

  Something perks her up, and she sits next to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “Call of Duty, Black Ops.”

  “Huh. So, you kill the zombies?”

  Girls, so goofy about video games.

  “Yeah, you wanna try?”

  “Sure.” She grabs the controller upside down, and I saw Gray stifle a giggle. Apparently Gray was the only girl in the world who could play video games.

  I show her the motions, going through the different controls and how to shoot. She finally looks like she’s got the hang of it, so we start a new game. Gray grabs a controller and starts talking smack.

  “I bet the girls can beat the boys.”

  “What are you six,” Neil chimes in.

  “No. What are you, chicken?”

  “No. Fine. Are we betting here?”

  I see her tick a glance in Aysa’s direction but blow it off.

  “Two hundred bucks. Fifty per person. Winners split the profit.”

  Neil and I share a high five handshake. We’ve got this in the bag.

  “You’re on.”

  I lean over to whisper in Aysa’s ear again. I remember her shivering when I did it earlier at the Pancake Pit. “We’ll go easy on you.”

  “Aww, thanks, hun.”

  She called me hun. It was kinda strange.

  As soon as the round starts, I know we’ve been had. If it’s possible, Aysa is a better player than Gray. After five minutes, I’ve kissed my money goodbye.

  We’ve been hustled.

  I feel violated. And not in a good way.

  “You little liar,” I slam my controller down, smiling.

  “I’m sorry,” Aysa laughs. She doesn’t look sorry.

  “No way. Do not apologize to him;” Gray shoots out of her seat grabbing the money and shoving Aysa’s cut at her.

  “Can we get out of here, G?” Trevor finally breaks his gaze from his phone.

  “Yeah, sure.” She uses her sultry voice.

  “We’re out too.” Dauber, Neil and Leon moved to leave. Earlier they’d told me it was ladies’ night at some bar, and they were taking the opportunity to scope out chicks. When it was ladies’ night at a bar, those three turned into a contemporary rendition of The Three Stooges. I’d seen them several times in action—it wasn’t pretty.

  Aysa shifts beside me and takes a very deep breath. Her hand is
on the edge of the couch and the other on the arm as if at any minute she was going to push off and leave. Plus, she has probably figured out that Gray lied to her about us all going out tonight. And as the door closes behind them, I wait for her to flee.

  She should flee once she realizes she was kinda set up.

  I would flee if I was left to the likes of me.

  She turns and asks warily, “Did you want me to leave?”

  Her voice seems so faint when she talks about herself.

  “No, I don’t.”

  She nods once and leans back, relaxing again. Her hands are relieved from their posts and then she sits back up promptly, an idea has sprung into her head.

  “Wanna go somewhere,” she asks.

  “Where?”

  “Someplace haunted.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m serious. Do you trust me,” she questions in earnest. Her hair is in her face again, and I wonder if that’s the way she likes it or if it’s shielding her from something.

  And seriously? A girl like her? Sweet and innocent, what was there not to trust?

  “I trust you.”

  “Okay, I’m driving.”

  She picks up her keys from atop the entertainment center as she walks toward the front door and flashes me a smile that stops me dead in my tracks. For such a tiny thing, she was formidable when she wants to be.

  “Where’s your jacket?”

  “Crap, it’s wet. It’s in your dryer.”

  Crap. She didn’t even cuss well. She used semi-offensive words.

  “Hold on, I’ll grab you a hoodie.”

  I go into my room and grab my favorite LSU hoodie and one from high school for her. I make sure it’s one that Mara never wore. I may not be able to handle that. It may link two people that right now, my head wants no connection between. When I reenter the living room, she’s shaking her hips and tapping her fingers on the door, eyes closed, to some unknown song. I watch her for a few minutes. She’s so strange, like nothing I’ve ever seen and everything I’ve always wanted to lay eyes on. She’s unique.

  She doesn’t need a band to dance.

  She catches me watching and freezes, “Oh, sorry. I heard this car go by, and it was playing a song that I like. Never mind. If you don’t want to go now, I get it.”

  Someone has tainted her—badly.

  Maybe someone like who I used to be.

  Maybe someone I want to punch in the face.

  I laugh the whole thing off; “Because of a little dancing? I’m still in.”

  “Oh,” she seems genuinely surprised, “let’s go then.”

  “Not until you put this on;” I hand her the purple hoodie, my high school’s colors, and she grins but tries to hide it. I take the opportunity while her head is buried in the folds of fabric.

  “You know that dance was pretty hot.”

  All motion stops, and she’s still in the hoodie, head and all. Finally, she wriggles out of it and if I thought she blushed before, I was way off base. This is a genuine blush.

  And I’m the one who put it there.

  “Sorry, I’m just not used to—can we just go?”

  Her question relays as a plea; “Yeah, I wanna see some ghosts.”

  We walk until we reach a mid-size car, a Toyota or a Nissan, something. We drive for a while, through the town, until we approach a large white house. It almost resembles a plantation. I look out the window as we pass a sign, worn and crumbling that reads Mansfield Women’s College.

  “Is this a women’s college?”

  “Was. At one time, it was. My Aunt Hope and Uncle Robert used to live here. I used to spend the summers here. Aunt Hope moved out after Uncle Robert died. But I still have a key until next month.”

  “What happens next month?”

  “She donated it to the city as a museum. By next month, it will be everyone’s. But right now, it’s still my childhood.”

  We get out of the car and in the dark she takes my hand. It isn’t an aggressive move by any stretch of the imagination, but I can tell that for Aysa, it’s a big move. Her hand is so soft and tiny. I could probably fit three of her hands in mine. I squeeze her hand in response, letting her know it was fine with me—more than fine. Her hand is also freezing—I stick both of our hands in the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie as we walk toward the house. I begin to believe her theories of haunting before we’ve entered the house. There are Oak and Pecan trees overshadowing the whole place, and as the wind whips through them, the creaks and crackles seem like so much more than nature sounds. It seems as if the whole house responds. Spanish moss clings to every branch surface, and the light of the moon causes their shadows to play tricks on my eyes as they meander on the white surface of the house.

  She might just be onto something.

  She unlocks the door and steps inside, breaking our bond. The place is damp and dark. It smells like cedar mixed with fresh bread and lavender. She walks down the long hallway, flipping on lights as she goes. The place comes to life. She motions for me to follow her as her tiny form darts to the right. As I come to the point where she turned, an enormous chandelier illuminates the room. Period furniture and knick knacks litter the place.

  She looks around in a pleasured awe.

  Aysa is beautiful like this. The yellowed Victorian lamps cast a glow on her that illuminates her hair and makes her green eyes stand even more juxtaposed in hue to her copper hair. She peers into the adjacent formal dining room and smiles with only one side of her mouth. Memories, I think. That half smile is manifested by memories about this place. I want to ask her what exactly she’s remembering, but it feels like intrusion—like a violation of her privacy. It’s obviously something she treasures—it’s enough that she’s sharing this much with me at all.

  “Come on, let’s go see the library and listen for Peg Leg.”

  “Peg Leg?”

  “Yes, the ghost man in the attic. Uncle Robert used to tell us that the previous owner lost a leg in some kind of fight with another man over a woman. They gave him a peg leg like a pirate. After that, he went to live in the attic, ashamed of his leg. And he doesn’t like people in the library. That used to be his office. So when you go in there and you start talking, you can hear Peg Leg walking around in the attic. That’s where he died.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  She smiles bright and takes my hand again, “I’ll show you.”

  We walk into a room that’s bigger than my entire apartment. There are books shelved floor to ceiling, spines of every height and color, framing the outer walls and the entire space opposite the door was an enormous marble fireplace. She sits in one of the Victorian looking couches and looks up, waiting.

  She really believes in this shit.

  Ghost are a big part of her childhood happiness.

  They’re a really big part of my present.

  There are two panels, on either side of the fireplace with old pink wallpaper with tiny baskets, flowers and sparrows all over it. I don’t catch myself before I say something about Mara.

  “I had a friend once, she raised sparrows to sell. But then she always ended up giving them away for free. I never understood why she did that. I always thought it was stupid.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her,” she said, adjusting in her seat.

  “I did once. She just shrugged.”

  “Maybe she just wanted to make people happy.”

  “I don’t know.”

  I watch for some sign in her that she knows what I’m talking about. Maybe she does. It’s like I feel translucent around her. And if she looks close enough, she’s sure to see the demons swirling around.

  She looks back up at the ceiling, “When I was little, I got sent here for the summer and Ariel got sent to music camp or equestrian camp or whatever new hobby she’d gotten caught up in’s camp. I used to help Zoriah make bread every morning and do the chores, and for the rest of the day I was free to do whatever. My Aunt Hope had doves. People would buy them to relea
se at weddings. ”

  I sit next to her, “Who’s Ariel, and who’s Zoriah?”

  “Oh,” she smiles; “Ariel is my sister, and Zoriah was the housekeeper here, until Uncle Robert died.”

  She says the housekeeper’s name more fondly than she does her sister’s.

  “How many sisters do you have?”

  “Just the one. She’s enough. What about you?”

  “I have one sister and one brother. Helena and I haven’t spoken in years.”

  “Why not?”

  Because she hates me for what I did. Because she can never forgive me even though she wasn’t even directly impacted in the whole thing. Because months after Mara died, Helena found out she can’t have children and somehow that’s my fault. Because I’m me.

  “We just grew apart.”

  “Ariel and I were never close. We’re just too different.”

  A loud bang resonates above us and her eyes widen in an ‘I told you so’ motion. I begin to speak again, but she clamps down on my thigh and raises a finger to her closed mouth.

  The noises begin again and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise with each bang. Then I realize her hand is still on my thigh, and I cover it with my own. She attempts to not respond, but her resounding blush tells me everything I need to know.

  She’s so close. An air of vanilla and something else wafts around her at all times. It’s just how her skin smells.

  Her damned hair is in her face again.

  I want to kiss her, but an image of Mara slaps me with ice water. No, she’s different. Aysa is different. She’s sweet and innocent, and there is something broken about her. It makes me want to find the most adhesive glue and make it all better. No, I can’t be not even a fragment of who I was with her. There will be no smooth moves, no slip of the tongue, no roaming hands.

  I smother the desire to kiss her with observation instead. I rivet my stare on her completely open and honest facial features. Her eyes are trained on the ceiling above us, listening for the phantom pirate and his noises. That one eye of hers fascinated me, complete with God’s thumbprint. She has no make-up on, thanks to the rain. She needs none. A glow shines from her flawless skin and I notice the blush I caused a few seconds ago extends all the way down beyond the line of the rounded collar of her shirt. I wonder how far down it goes?