Sparrows For Free

by Lila Felix

  “No, I didn’t…”

  “Stop it, Gray. Just stop it.”

  I walk out.

  I don’t know if this is the end of a friendship with Gray. I don’t know that we were ever friends at all. Maybe we are just two people linked by guilt and mourning.

  Time will tell.

  Three weeks is the time it takes before Aysa will answer my calls. Our conversations are curt and shallow. Christmas passes without her. I’d given Roman a present and card to give her, but he says she still hasn’t opened it. It’s well after New Year’s when I finally convince her to let me talk to her.

  I’ll admit that my time without her has been miserable—but it’s also been reviving.

  Huge leaps have been made.

  I don’t even know what I’m going to say. I can blame Gray for the whole thing. I really can. After all, I didn’t ask her to get into my bed at all—and especially not naked.

  But I do feel like maybe I had some part in it. Like I should’ve cut ties with Gray a lot sooner—made it clearer that she and I would never be.

  I didn’t even know she wanted an ‘us’. Maybe I was just too blind to see it.

  I get to Aysa’s and knock on the door. I have a feeling she’s going to answer the door and tell me to go away, despite her agreement.

  The door flies open, and I gasp. She looks fantastic. The solemn features I’d learned to love are now free somehow. No worry shoes in her eyes, no concern in her fidgeting hands. Her hair is up in a ponytail that makes her look almost childlike. Aysa, outwardly, fits the ingénue role perfectly.

  She smiles, but it isn’t the one I remember, “Come in Ezra.”

  Her apartment looks like a new place. The walls have been painted a moss green, and her furniture has been replaced. I glance over where the TV is, and there’s no more cabinet, it now hangs from the wall.

  “No more cabinet,” she confirms.

  “I’m glad.”

  She nods and sits on the couch, “You said you wanted to talk, so talk. I’ve got a tour in an hour.”

  “A tour?”

  “Yes. The person they hired to give tours at the Mansfield Women’s College didn’t know anything about the property. The patrons were not impressed. My aunt knew I needed a job and they needed someone who knew the history. It was a win, win.”

  “That’s awesome. You look happy,” I touch her thigh and she flinches.

  “I just wanted to come by and say I’m sorry. Gray is moving out at the beginning of February and Knox is counseling me himself. I thought he’d take it easy on me, but I think he might be harder on me than anyone.”

  She bites her bottom lip, “I’m so glad you’re moving on, Ezra. I really am. And there’s nothing for you to be sorry about. Roman told me it was Gray who set everything up. I understand. But I think it’s better this way. I’m happier. You’re happier—or getting there. That’s all I ever wanted, aside from my feelings about you, I just want you happy.”

  “So there’s no hope for us?” My voice shook as I asked the question that would either keep my world spinning or seal my fate of a life without her.

  Tears bubbled in her eyes and she looked skywards, trying to deny them access. This was it. She was going to tell me that I didn’t have a chance with her—maybe I never did.

  So I pulled out all the stops.

  Aysa

  Hope—that’s all I’ve done for the past six weeks is hope. I’ve thought about telling him the whole drawn out story time after time. I’ve dialed his number without pressing send and just confessed it all—everything that Gray said to me. I never did press that send button.

  Would it make a difference?

  Or would it just add salt to an open wound?

  I rely on Roman for my updates. Since the fallout, Roman has been here for me anytime I needed him. He spent more nights on my couch than he did at home. And anytime I needed severe cheering up, he’d enlist Neil and Leon to help him. Those three were priceless. Ezra and Gray didn’t know what they were missing.

  I hope they did. I wish they could all be friends again.

  There’s a small part of me, a tiny ego I didn’t even know I owned that wishes Ezra is miserable. I’m not asking for much, just a little bit of a broken heart.

  Maybe we didn’t have enough of a relationship to be broken hearted about.

  I was just some random girl he met and was the conduit for his recovery. I guess that would have to be enough.

  No, it is enough. It has to be. Why? Because he and I both have come so far. Not even a week after the Gray incident, I got the job as a tour guide—not only that, but they hired me for my marketing skills as well. I was actually able to use my degree.

  The first tour was hell. It was a tour proving to the board of directors, which now ruled the college, that I really knew what I was talking about. I pointed to the rooms and told of their history, making sure to add quirky stories from my childhood summers to sweeten the magic of the place. When we got to the library, tears formed in the corners of my eyes as I spoke of Peg Leg. But the amputee wasn’t the source of my tears—it was standing in the room where in my own mind, it all began. I remembered sitting with Ezra on that couch, him telling me about the sparrows and me bearing my soul.

  The board told my aunt it was refreshing to see someone so passionate about the college.

  If only she knew.

  It all seemed so far away—almost like it happened to another person—someone I used to know.

  I’d been far from desolate in his absence—I was downright destroyed. And that’s why I hadn’t let him see me in six weeks. I had to get to a point where I wouldn’t break down into tears at the very mention of his name. Hell, I’d cried for a week after Roman brought me his present. I couldn’t even bring myself to open it.

  The New Year had brought resolutions with it. I wasn’t one for making resolutions and maybe that was the problem. I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep them. So, I began the new year with a bang—by sitting down with my mother and just expelling myself of all the feeling I’d been keeping down deep inside for so long.

  Of course, she hadn’t spoken to me since.

  But my father and I—and even Ariel and I—were making amends.

  So, I focus on the good—because there’s good all around me. Even here, while Ezra is within touching range. I’ve not only missed him—he’s been missing from me—like I’d left half of my heart somewhere.

  Except it’s right here in front of me.

  I can barely stand it. He’s sitting next to me and all I want to do is curl up on his lap and let him love me in whatever demented way he can. But the proof is right here in front of us. We both look ten times better. We are both happy. And it came about because we are apart.

  I have to end this for him. I have to end this so that he doesn’t hang onto me like he did Gray.

  This must end because I’m sticking to my guns.

  I remind myself: I’m in this for his joy. I’m in this so that one day he will find happiness.

  I begin to tell him so when he interrupts me, “I love you.”

  My heart thumps violently in my chest. I only half loved Ezra. It was horrible to admit, but nonetheless true. I loved him when he held me. I loved him when he shared in my pain. I loved that none of our dates were ever giggly, flirty moments of stupidity. I loved our intenseness.

  But I love him more now that he’s getting better. I have to remind myself over and over that it’s because we’re not together.

  It wasn’t Gray that ultimately broke us up. It was me. Because we both deserved better.

  I deserve better.

  My stomach turns at the contents of my thoughts. I conjure a metal shield around myself and turn a cold glare at him. And no matter how false it was, I had to do this.

  “You aren’t in love with me, Ezra. You’re in love with the idea of me. But more than me, or the idea of me, you’re in love with your pain. You love being dragged down constantly by everyone a
round you. Hell, you don’t even know how to be happy—you’re just beginning. Do you even know what that means for us? It means that together, you and I are no better than you and Gray. We’d feed off each other in this constant battle for who is the saddest, who is mourning harder, whose life is more fragile. I don’t need more fragility in my life, Ezra. I’m finally beginning to live. I need stability and strength. You need the same things. And—I just can’t give you that right now. One day I may be able to, but I can’t now.”

  He stands up and takes some steps backwards. I’ve nailed him with a truth—a truth I didn’t even accept until the words were birthed out loud.

  I hate that moment. The moment when a truth doesn’t resonate until it’s already been said aloud.

  Like it wasn’t real until my voice made it so.

  “You said I made you feel safe,” he whispers, referring to the night I got fired.

  “You did, Ezra—and then as quickly as you gave it, you stole it away again.”

  Even I think I’m finished, but my mouth isn’t. It feels so damned good to just speak without censorship—without the constant headache of the reaction of others.

  “You speak about how stupid Mara was for giving her sparrows away for free. That’s been on my mind so much lately. I think she was brilliant. She loved them so much she couldn’t stand to keep their beauty from the world. She knew that some souls just can’t be caged for that long without long term damage. That’s what we would be doing to each other if we were together. We’d spend months, years, hell, maybe a lifetime hiding in the others’ shadows. We’d ruin each other. Just look at how far we’ve come in just a few weeks apart.”

  I took a deep breath before I continued, “Plus, I won’t live a lifetime in the shadow of a dead girl.”

  In that moment, I wasn’t sure if I meant Mara—or my own shadow.

  His stance hardens and I can see he is gathering boldness, “I don’t want that. I’ll do whatever it takes. I want to be that man for you. I want to be the man I feel like you see in those good times. I want to be him all the time.”

  I shrug. I pretend his words don’t faze me. I feign ambiguity. Walking to the door, opening it—ignoring the stabbing pain in my chest at what I’m about to do.

  “Maybe you can let me know when you find him.”

  THE END…

  The sequel to Sparrows For Free, Doves For Sale, is coming soon.

  Acknowledgements:

  First to God, for giving me a brain to conjure stories and fingers that type like the wind.

  To my husband and children: The infinite joy and love in my life.

  A special thanks to Mandy, Ashleigh, Candace, Amy and Adriane for reading Sparrows for me and consoling me through my gulching.

  To my friends, the genuine ones, who love me just as much when I’m down as when I’m up; through my negative moments and my uplifting ones; through eloquent spoken word and borderline libel alike, you’ve been there for me. You know who you are.

  <# <# <#

  All the porcupine love.

  And last, but certainly not least: waves flag ALL HAIL THE RINK RATS, the best damned street team on the planet.

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  Keep reading for excerpts from several authors Eden Butler, Aimee Salter and AnnaLisa Grant.

  My mother’s skin is pale. No steady thump moves the pulse in her neck, no awareness flickers in her eyes as she stares at me. There is nothing there. She is motionless, inert.

  This can’t be real.

  Glass is fractured all around us, stained red with our blood, and my jeans are soaked from the torrential rain that beats against the car, through the broken windshield. I can’t stop the shaking of my limbs, the shiver of cold that has nothing to do with the temperature. Mom’s face is splotched with that same red color; thick trails of blood leak from her nose and mouth. Her hands are fractured. There are breaks that twist and bend the joints, the bones, and in the stillness of the car, against the intermittent flashes from the lightening above, I notice that my hands are like hers, except where hers are battered and bloody, mine are clean. Strange that my mind can process that we share the same thin knuckles, the same translucent skin, identical ridges that taper at the wrist. I try to reach for her, to close her eyes, but something is piercing me and it traps me to the seat.

  “Mom?” I know she won’t answer. I’ve screamed my voice raw over the past hour trying to get her to respond.

  Above the din of racking rain and the drumming pulse of vicious thunder, I hear sirens, but I know that it is pointless. They’ve come too late. She is gone. I am going. My vision blurs and I can only manage to look at her, to take in the dull white in her eyes and the pallid color of her lips.

  “Mom, please.” The words come out in a whisper and my head swims with a dizzy cluster of swaying vision. I am floating, falling, but I train my eyes onto her face, a tether to this life, as fleeting as it is. I try again to reach her, but I am met with resistance, some sharp unknowable thing that doesn’t allow me to move. I am helpless here, something I have always made a point to never be. But I cannot rescue her. I can’t manage to even move an inch, to touch her face, to say goodbye.

  My mind surfs with desperate thoughts, impossible hopes, until the scatter of images lands on our family, years before, when we were whole, when my parents loved each other, when my father wasn’t a coward. His voice rings in my ears, him singing something old, something very Irish, and I allow myself a smile. I forget the heartbreak he caused. I forget the loneliness in our too big home, how my mother’s smile was never quite the same. The bitterness that I’ve held so near to me, so certain and full next to my heart, slips away like an unintentional whisper and I rest my head back, my eyes still trained on her face. The sounds of storms and sirens around me evaporate and I listen to my father’s voice. It is soft, like a feather, and certain like the force of a windstorm.

  “Autumn my love, this song is for you.”

  I close my eyes as the phantom of my father sings me into silence, into calm, into the oblivion I know is waiting.

  ***

  Five Months Later …

  I can’t catch my breath. Sharp slivers of pain rack my chest, constrict my lungs as I attempt to inhale.

  “Damn.”

  To my left is Duncan Street, a small lane that splinters the campus at the lake in the center of our university. I take it, wishing that the limp in my leg would subside, that this last remnant of the accident would leave me. The soft movement of fireflies skidding over the ripples on the water catches my eye, but it does not distract me from the pain in my chest or the sharp cramp that suddenly seizes my calf. My vision clouds and tiny pinpricks of light float around my eyes.

  Mom’s voice is my conscience, a constant companion that berates me for even attempting a run so soon from my being released for activity. Take it easy, she says. Give your body a chance to recover. It’s something she would have said.

  Would have.

  I’m healed, they say. The doctors, the therapists, but it doesn’t seem real, none of it. I have become an errant leaf, flickering through a storm, brittle, breaking, flirting with the calm that I can never find.

  Thoughts of absent mothers and surgeries and fractured legs are pushed back to the dark spaces in my mind, with the hope that they will stay reticent. The pain is brief, fading with each step as I run forward.

  For a moment, I forget my discomfort and take in the campus around me. Our university is striking—the haunting Smoky Mountains in the distance, the rows and rows of large oak trees that line the streets, guarding activity in shadow. The low trickle of the falls behind me, sliding down the mountain, collecting into the calm lake. The large cathedral near the front gates beckons me like a crackli
ng fire, as a huge shamrock glints green light from the stained glass window.

  Cavanagh is a small Irish settlement just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, full of expats who married Americans but seemed incapable of relinquishing the hold that Ireland had on them. Generations have settled here, faces and forms that were so reminiscent of our ancestors became smiles and shapes diverse and open. We are a melting pot now, and though every building, every tradition reflects the past, it is the community that honors the present. My father used to say you’d never meet a more patriotic Irishman than one who lives away from home. He used to say a lot of things. I doubt he meant any of them.

  The winds pick up, settles a cool September chill over my body as I move beyond the park, near the athletic fields. My skin pebbles with the wind, turns my nipples into hard peaks against my thin sports bra. “Shit,” I say at my own stupidity. I’d been too focused on attempting a full run. I’d been careless and now I’m chilled.

  Most of the varsity members of Cavanagh University’s rugby team are here running sprints, wrapping up their practice. A small glance to the pitch gives me full view of these players—all shirtless and sweaty, chests sculpted like limestone, taut thighs that peak and dip into hard lines, quads wide and contracted, pronouncing the cut muscle, each filthy with sweat and grass and inappropriate male-type things that aren’t supposed to affect me, that I should be too mature to notice. A look down my body and I curse again. I’m not advertising anything, but it would have been sensible to at least wear a t-shirt. My sports bra is black with those obvious erect nipples and my tight yoga pants cling to my thighs like a second skin.

  A hawk sweeps to my left, landing on the uprights. The pitch around us is cleared and freshly trimmed. The uprights have been repainted and the boundaries for practice line the field. The paint is still fresh and the scent invades my nose. The bleachers around the pitch are clean, no rubbish clutters the aisle or rests beneath the stands. The season is approaching and a quick flash of my childhood in these seats rushes forward. My mother’s loud curses at some call she found undeserved, her wide smile at each score made. The image haunts me and I am reminded of our familial joy, the common activity that brings together every member of our town, right here on this pitch.