Between Everything and Us

by Rebecca Paula

  “You’d be coaching, not skating drills, not playing full games,” he continues.

  My knee jumps up and down under the table. Not nerves, just the spastic twitches that control my limbs sometimes. “No, not happening.”

  Coach shovels a forkful of food into his mouth. “It can if you think about it. And if for whatever reason you can’t…one day,” he says diplomatically, “not a problem. But my team needs someone young like you to help shape them, to help guide them. They’ve got talent, and you’re the best I know. It kills me not seeing you on the ice.”

  I laugh in spite myself. He’d kill for me to be on the ice? He has no fucking clue what I’d do to be out there skating again. It meant everything me, and I had to give it up because of some shitty and unpredictable autoimmune disease.

  “I’ve been researching, and there are other players who have it,” Coach continues, while I silently fume on the opposite side of the table. “They’ve found ways to handle everything, to take care of themselves and still play—”

  “I have to get back,” I say, cutting him off. “Long line, big lunch crowd today.” I hurry back inside and dive back into work, ignoring the tremor pulsing through my leg. It’s hard to focus on that when I hear that vague promise of his play over in my mind. They’ve found ways.

  Because that means it’s not a lost cause yet. That I don’t have to give up hockey.

  I’m behind the register a bit later when he calls out to me to think it over. I wave my hand for him to leave, but those words are going to eat me up, too. Promises are a dangerous thing when you don’t know what’s going to happen the next day, the next week, the next year.

  I’d rather not think about that. I have this job, pay my bills, go out when I need fun, hook up when I feel like it. It works for me. Works for when I don’t want to think about the future.

  Mati, I text her.

  Yeah, Beau?

  I don’t respond, not when I don’t know what else to say.

  ***

  Later that night, I can’t explain what I feel for shit except that I’m mad—no, furious. I’m Hulk on a fucking rampage. In the middle of a party full of bikers.

  “That’s enough, man,” someone says, ripping me off Hunter. I swing again, but a foot plants into my spine. I collapse to the garage’s dirty floor, the cold concrete jolting me.

  It stops me for a few minutes. It’s hard to tell for how long. All I know is that I want to hit everything and everyone around me. I stumble to my feet as Hunter grabs my arms and hauls me outside.

  “Give me your keys, Beau.” Hunter dials a cab, his hand pinned to my arm, holding me back from returning inside.

  I throw off his arm. “I’m fine. I’m good.” He comes at me again, and I snap. “I said I’m fucking fine!” I shove him back against Noah’s truck, then rush over to my bike.

  “Come back when you calm the fuck down,” Hunter yells over the roar of the engine.

  I’m out of Portland before I can figure out where I’m heading. Rain pelts down on me, clouding my eyes, stinging my face. I’m soaked and cold, but I grip the handlebars tighter and push the bike faster down OR-6.

  My headlight bounces off the asphalt, reflecting the fat drops of rain as they puddle and pool. It’s a dumbass thing to do, but I can’t catch up to my mind, can’t make sense of what the hell is wrong with me tonight. I push the bike faster and faster, feeling the tires slip over the slick road as I lean into a corner. My grip slackens over the handlebars.

  A thought sneaks into my mind, screaming for me to drive faster, insisting I test the limits of the bike—the limits of the guardrails when I plow my bike into them. My heart thunders against my chest, and I close my eyes for a second, feeling the rush of night’s air cling to my skin.

  I’m going to die.

  I want to die.

  I don’t want this to be my life anymore.

  Then it feels as if my chest explodes as I scream and open my eyes, slowing my bike.

  I can’t let that happen. I can’t fucking die. What the hell is wrong with me?

  I take the corner too hard, hitting some gravel. The bike fishtails, the front tire hitting the soft shoulder. I try to wrangle control, but it’s too late. I go careening off the road, my body skidding over asphalt and dirt.

  I land hard on my back as the rain pools around me. I struggle to drag in another breath, moaning when I do. I’m in trouble now. I’ve fucked up. It shouldn’t feel like my chest is split open, shouldn’t feel as though my lungs are crushed.

  Blood gathers in my mouth, and I feel myself drown in the dark sky crushing me from above. I lose myself in the quiet and the rain, smelling the pines trees, thinking of Mati and the things I never got the chance to tell her.

  Matisse

  I’ve drunk more energy drinks tonight than should be humanly possible.

  My homework is finished, and I’m back to working on another submission piece for the internship. It’s the fourth all-nighter I’ve pulled in the past ten days. It’ll be worth it in the end though, right? I need sleep, but I need this internship more.

  My body shudders. I’m a nervous, jittery bundle of unbridled energy. At least my limbs and my heart are. But my bones, my eyes, my brain—those feel the lack of sleep and ache. Exhaustion sucks.

  I take another huge bite from my apple as I mix a deep amber color together on my leg. I lost my palette…somewhere. My room looks as if a tornado has ripped it apart. Clothes are scattered everywhere, my bed completely torn apart. All my paints are open, and I’ve been painting this picture of a beach in Maine all night now. It still has three lines—tan sands, black whitecaps, gray skies. A snowstorm at the beach is something too special to capture in a picture. And for whatever reason, I can’t find the depth I need. I’ve closed my eyes and pretended I was back home in Camden, sneaking away to watch the nor’easters overtake the shore. I love the power of those storms.

  It hasn’t helped.

  I chuck the paintbrush at my easel and frown. I can’t paint it because I don’t want to paint it. Over and over lately, I’ve been painting flowers—gorgeous oil paint flowers, full of exaggerated color and from unique perspectives. Aiden McKenna would never appreciate my talent if I submit a portfolio full of flowers for the internship. It might show my voice as an artist, but it doesn’t show my range. While unique, these paintings don’t stand a chance against the other candidates who skew toward massurrealism like McKenna. His assistant must have grilled me on my artist thesis for fifteen minutes during our phone interview, not-so-casually mentioning I may be too simplified in style.

  I need something that doesn’t have caffeine, or it’s possible my heart will burst out of my chest. I’ll be an afterschool special. I know better than what I’m doing to my body, but I refuse to fill my Adderall prescription again. I want to succeed on my own. I need to know that I can.

  I trip over a plastic bag of wet clothes in the hallway on my way to the kitchen. A wallet slides against the floor until it snags the charging cell phone resting on the table by the couch. It crashes to the floor, and I wince. I try to gather up whatever I tripped over when a figure sits up on the couch.

  “Dude, if you’re up, I’m gonna fucking knock you out.”

  Noah.

  “It’s Matt. Sorry. Go back to sleep.” I try to whisper, but even my voice is racing, thrumming on nerves and caffeine. The words rush out and tumble over each other.

  “Where is he?” Noah asks.

  I lift up a tattered leather jacket in my hands, smelling dirt and motor oil. Beau’s jacket. My stomach sinks. “What happened?”

  I don’t know why I ask. Noah and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms. In fact, I think the guy is a smarmy asshole, except unlike Beau, he doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. He’s a full-blown hipster and lover of skinny jeans, tatted up with a septum piercing. He lives to be ironic. He’s a smartass and seems to like no one besides Beau.

  Noah doesn’t answer. He gets up and opens Beau’s bedr
oom door, flicking on the switch to discover an empty bed. “Son of a bitch.”

  When he spins around, I’m hit with the smell of stale beer and cigarettes, and my stomach knot doubles up. I notice a T-shirt covered in blood on the floor by my feet, spilling out of the plastic bag with the wallet.

  “What happened?” I ask again. This time, my panic is aired out in the open. I don’t expect Noah’s shoulders to sag or for his bloodshot eyes to narrow on me, skeptical and intense. “Never mind,” I say, recognizing he’s not going to give me an answer.

  I head to the kitchen, pissed that… I don’t know…that I care?

  I put on the kettle and rub at my eyes, shuddering when another cold sweep strikes my body. I feel like I might be sick. I glance at the clock—4:27. I am hating all of my life decisions.

  A bottle rattles outside, then there’s a crash. I step out, shivering this time from the cold rainy morning.

  Beau limps along the small concrete patio, his feet uncertain. He stays under the awning, but his feet are bare as he splashes in the shallow puddles. I fight back the urge to take his hand and lead him inside. He looks lost.

  “Do you want some tea?” I ask.

  It’s such a stupid thing to say, but the words just fall out.

  He stops, his back to me. “Jesus, do you ever fucking sleep?”

  “Not for years.” I inch closer, wrapping my arms around my stomach. Damn, it’s cold out. He tenses as I approach, then winces at the movement. It seems like forever before he slowly faces me.

  Beau’s left eye is swollen shut. It’s glossy, too, from some kind of balm. Then I notice the stitches along his jaw, the deep road rash that stretches down under his shirt. His arm is roughed up, his right hand in a cast.

  “Go ahead,” he says, his words biting. He sounds nothing like my roommate, nothing like charming Beau. “Ask.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanation.” I’m glad he only can stare back with one eye because it’s filled with such honest hurt that I shrink back. Maybe that was the wrong answer. “You’re…okay, though?”

  He nods, then sucks in pained breath. “Damn it.”

  “Had a run-in with Jessica?” I tease.

  It’s a long minute before the corner of his mouth turns up for a flash. “Funny.” He shuts his good eye and braces his hand over his middle, pain etched across his face.

  I fidget. I can’t help it. I play with my hair, shift my weight from side to side, tap my feet over the wet concrete. I haven’t been able to say the right thing.

  He mumbles something under his breath, something I can’t make out, but judging by the way he yanks at the hospital bracelet around his wrist, he’s still pissed about whatever happened. His body lumbers awkwardly in the cold night, his movements disconnected and unsure. I reach out, as much to stop my body moving as his. My fingers circle his wrist, and he drops his casted hand to his side.

  When he doesn’t fight me, I regain my nerve. I inch closer until I’m toe-to-toe with him. He’s not himself tonight, not even by half. He smells like a hospital and antiseptic. The differences throw me off because he’s a stranger beneath my fingers.

  I bow my head, avoiding the way he’s staring down at me—burning. I steady my skipping breath and bend the plastic end of the bracelet back, then again, until a crease begins to form.

  “I had an accident tonight.” His voice is next to my ear, warm and uncertain. “Almost totaled the bike.”

  “And you,” I say without thinking.

  “Yeah. And me.”

  I’ve never heard such sad words before in my life. I glance up and search his face. “Were you drinking?”

  “I got into a fight.”

  I keep bending the bracelet, feeling the plastic start to give. “I wish you wouldn’t drive the bike when you’ve been drinking.”

  His cast bumps under my chin, drawing my eyes up to meet his. “Why’s that?”

  I bite back my anger at the obvious. “If you don’t care about yourself, at least think about the others on the road. Don’t be selfish.”

  “I do stupid shit sometimes, Mati.”

  The bracelet snaps.

  I tuck it in my hoodie’s front pocket, then massage my thumbs over the lines covering his wrist. “We all do. That doesn’t make it okay.” I turn his hand over and start to do the same with his palm, pretending his hand is mine, that his muscles are sore from hours of painting and need to be stretched out. “What were you running from tonight?”

  “What were you chasing?” he counters.

  We both know the answer, but neither of us say it out loud. I lead him inside, back into the kitchen where Reagan and Noah stand by the window. Beau breaks away and grabs some ice from the freezer, not saying a word as he shuffles back to his room and shuts the door.

  I take Beau’s hospital bracelet out of my pocket once I’m back in my room. I have to get ready for class soon, but I can’t stop hearing his voice over in my mind—his sad answer, the way I instantly understood, the way he’s slowly become a complication I don’t want to lose.

  Beau

  I feel like the world’s biggest asshole today. That guilt is a nasty mix with the amount of pain racking my body. I was sore last night when I got back from the ER, but today, it takes everything I have to get up and move around.

  I’m supposed to take a deep breath every hour, a breath that is the most painful I have ever taken. Three broken ribs will do that. I’m doped up on painkillers and numbed with ice, but there’s still a rawness to everything that’s bothering me. I don’t know why I did what I did last night, why one beer sent me spiraling, why someone’s harmless comment about my time on the hockey team made me lunge and knock him out. That’s not me.

  I could have ended up dead on that road. It was a moment of weakness, laced with shame. I threw up earlier just remembering the power of that ugly whisper in my head. My mouth is still bitter from it.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mati yells from her room.

  I grin into my pillow, trying to focus on the hockey game I’m streaming on my laptop. Whatever that matter is, it doesn’t sound good. A few crashes follow, then more cursing. God, I love it when she swears. I love the sound of the words that tumble out of her mouth—how rough they sound when she otherwise seems gentle. Another one of her tricks.

  Her cursing grows worse, so bad that I risk my lungs being punctured to find out what the hell the matter is. I’m in my doorway when her door flies open and she runs out, awkwardly trying to wrangle on a pair of jeans.

  “Don’t look,” she yells over her shoulder. “I’ll make sure your other eye is just as black and swollen shut if you say anything.”

  Anything being how’s she’s running around the house in her underwear. I wish I had more than one eye today. “Scout’s honor.”

  She nearly knocks into the couch, tripping over the leg of her pants. Her cheeks are red when she rights herself. “You promised not to look. You’re staring.”

  I’m focused on the two butterflies tattooed below her right shoulder. Full of color, bold. Another surprise. “I didn’t promise anything.”

  She frowns and continues to the washer in the hallway, her feet shuffling over the wood floor in a hurry. She’s always in such a hurry.

  “I guess you didn’t lose any of your charm last night. I’d say you didn’t lose brain cells, but I know you weren’t wearing a helmet by the lovely line of stitches stretching across your jaw and…”

  And? I don’t know if I’m amused or pissed off at her until she spins around and her face goes white. Mati sinks against the washer, one leg in her jeans, her phone clutched in one hand, the other pinned over her royal blue bra.

  “I feel like I’m dying.” Her face blooms from white to red, and then she’s hyperventilating.

  Shit. “Tell me what happened,” I say calmly. I limp closer.

  “Oh my God,” she whispers to herself. “I’m dying. It hurts. I swear I’m dying.” She claws at her chest.

  “Mati, look
at me.” When she doesn’t, I bend down, awkwardly sinking to the floor the best I can. It hurts like a bitch, but my groan distracts her for a second. “You’re going to be okay. Count to ten.”

  Her eyes narrow, skeptical. I hate the way her breath skips and her body shakes.

  “I’ll start. One…two…” I pause, waiting for her to pick it up. She clamps her eyes shut. “Three…four…”

  “Five,” she chokes out.

  “Good, look at me. Count to six.”

  We trade off until we get to forty-two and her panic’s ebbed away. She tries to bury her head away in her arms, but I reach out, careful not to surprise her when I cup her face in my good hand. “So what happened? Tell me.”

  “I ruined everything,” she says, hiccupping between tearful breaths.

  “I doubt that.”

  She throws off my touch. “I slept through class today and missed work, and I have a hundred missed calls. I’m going to get fired, and I can barely make rent as it is. And I don’t think I can finish my portfolio in time for the internship deadline. I don’t need—”

  “Hand me your phone.”

  She passes it over, surveying my face without comment.

  I ignore the way it makes me anxious, ignore the way I feel like I should apologize for last night. I think I was an asshole to her, too. I can’t make up for missed classes, but her missing work I can fix. I know she’d never ask me to do it and she’ll probably yell at me after I do, but I speak to her manager and explain my accident, how she was at the ER with me all night and is sleeping now. He was fine with it, as I expected. I wish she’d stop being possessed by this fear that she fails everyone all the time.

  “What do I do now?” she asks as soon as I hang up.

  “Consider today a wash and relax.”

  “Funny.”

  It’s not, though. Mati barrels forward in life, blindly rushing to obtain something I’m not convinced she wants. She’s the high upswing of a pendulum. Sometimes I want to hold her, freeze her in a moment and tell her that life’s too short to be so entrenched with things. I admire her focus, her drive, but I think it’s her flaw, too. I’m worried one day the bright colors she loves will fade, the creativity will stop, and she’ll be stuck like me—in a dead stop.