I nodded. “I’ll do better.”
“Do you understand the importance of--”
I grit my teeth. I didn’t need him to talk down to me about the shit. I already felt bad about it. “Yes, Tom. I said I’d get my grades up, okay?”
My emotions were all over the place and I couldn’t help it.
“I’m just trying to help you.”
I rolled my eyes as I pushed away from the table and stood up. “You and everyone else.” Just like everyone else, he was a little too late to really help me. Since meeting Elliott, I’d been feeling there was something left inside of me worth saving, but then things like this dropped from the sky and I wondered why the hell I cared or even tried.
While I was annoyed and upset, I felt desperate to know the things I had forgotten, so I made myself stop and ask, “Why ‘Bunny’?”
“When you were real small, when you just became mobile, crawling everywhere, you liked to bounce … like a bunny.” He paused. “Grandma Catherine loved you a lot. She was heartbroken when your mother took you.”
I was thankful when Christmas break began, even if I spent most of the day Saturday working. When I got home, Tom had made salads. I irrationally became upset about it. I went into this gigantic tirade about him not liking the food I cooked and if he didn’t want to eat it, he should just say so.
He was fairly blindsided and even during the fight, I realized how ridiculous and unfair I was being, but I couldn’t stop it. Most of my emotions were in an uproar and I felt powerless to control them. If my mind raged, I raged. If it was soft and reflective, I was soft and reflective.
There was no rhyme or reason to any of it.
It wasn’t until very late on Saturday when Tom had consumed two-thirds of a case of beer that I apologized and finally ate something. He accepted my apology like he always did, but I could see in his eyes that he was just tired of it all.
I could see the regret that looked so much like my own. He wished he would have never agreed to take me.
I wasn’t prepared to have Tom give up on me so when he made me breakfast on Sunday, I just thanked him and told him what my fasting blood sugar was. He asked about what my plans were for the day and while my first instinct was to tell him to mind his own business, I managed to very calmly tell him that I was spending the day with Elliott at his house.
When I got to the Daltons’, I found myself holding my tongue more than ever before.
Jane had come home earlier than expected, right in time for the holiday.
One would have thought the Queen of England was visiting. There was a bunch of fawning and everyone tripped over themselves to make her comfortable.
I wondered if anyone had even asked themselves if she went on her dislocated head-trips and self-injuring journeys just so when she returned she would get all of the attention.
I tried to change my thoughts because the anger I felt inside was unjustified and wrong.
Still, sitting in a room with Elliott and Jane while they did nothing was annoying. They literally did nothing. They seemed so connected. I felt excluded, even though Elliott’s index finger was linked with my little finger. It didn’t get better with the arrival of Rebecca and her mother. Trent showed up right after they did.
I excused myself from the “Let’s all pretend that Jane didn’t just go off the deep end” party to make lunch. I slammed around the kitchen, banging pots and clinking metal utensils, wondering if Elliott even knew I was out of the room.
“Good afternoon, Sophie.”
I didn’t look up, but just replied to Wallace, “Technically it’s still morning. Afternoon implies that it’s after noon.” I nodded to the microwave clock, but kept my hands busy by rinsing rice. “Clearly it’s not.”
“Not what? After noon or good?”
“Either.”
“Is there something I can do to help?”
I shut off the water. I didn’t want her stupid help. I didn’t need it. She should go and bask in the glory that was Jane’s homecoming. “You can peel carrots.”
As she washed the carrots, she asked, “How is everything going for you? Your father says--”
I didn’t have to listen to the rest about how Tom ran to her regarding my grades and my “attitude.” I swear that man had no idea how to confront people on his own. She should write him a how-to guide and entitle it, How to Be a Father with Balls.
“I’m fine.”
I chopped onions after I made sure the burners were on the proper temperature settings. The olive oil was heating and the rice was cooking.
“You seem a little agitated today,” she said, her voice light as though she was mentioning that it might snow again.
“I feel agitated.”
“Why is that?”
I minced the garlic a little too much. “You’re the one with the degree, so why don’t you tell me?”
Carefully, she placed the carrots on my cutting board and when she laid a light hand on mine, stilling the knife’s quick movements, I looked at her. “What’s going on with you is not easy. There will be days when nothing goes right. There will be entire months that you will feel like you won’t be able to make it. Life is heavy sometimes, but you aren’t in it by yourself and you don’t always have to carry the weight on your own.”
As much as I wanted to push her and her words aside and continue cooking as if I didn’t have all of these festering, bubbling, painfully sharp emotions within me, I couldn’t. I carefully set the knife down as tears blurred my vision.
“I don’t know which way’s up. I keep swimming and swimming but I can never find the surface.”
“And that’s tiring, isn’t it?”
I nodded, wiping away the tears that rolled down my cheeks before they could splash onto my chopped vegetables. “I’m a bad person.”
“Why do you say that?”
I sniffed and shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to remain silent, and yet my voice sounded. “I yell at Tom when he does nothing wrong and I hate Jane because she’s better and out of the hospital and Elliott can barely spare a glance at me today because he’s all wrapped up in Jane and I …”
“Sophie,” she said quietly, halting my run-on thoughts. “You’re not a bad person. Your father understands that you’re going through something right now. It’s pretty natural for you to feel neglected today because the attention’s on Jane. You are in a very delicate place and you no longer have all of the crutches you’ve used in the past to help you.”
I wanted “crutches.” I wanted to be high, and sexually satisfied.
“Elliott is pretty swept away by Jane because he feels guilty. It might be painful that his attention is not on you today, but he feels that Jane needs him more. You need to figure out how to be Sophie, not Sophie on drugs, not Sophie having meaningless sex, and not Sophie, Elliott’s girlfriend. Don’t use Elliott as a crutch and it won’t hurt as much when he’s not focused solely on you.”
I wiped my eyes again and tried to pull my thoughts away from my emotions. I stepped to the side, rolled my shoulders back, and picked up the wooden spoon to stir the rice.
I lowered the temperature on the burner.
“I think you should go to a support group for--”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically. I knew if I allowed her to continue, her sentence would have included the words “recovering addict” and I didn’t want to hear them.
“Sophie,” she said to get my attention. When my eyes were on her, she continued. “There are going to be days when all you can do is tread water to save your life, but there will be other days when you have the strength to fight the current and crawl up onto shore.”
“Thank you ffffor llllunch.”
Finally Elliott and I were alone in his room. I was doing my best to avoid our ey
es meeting. It was much harder to get sucked into their depths when I didn’t look at them.
“Yeah, whatever.”
He stood next to me by the bookshelf. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him study my profile and then turn to look at the well-read copy of The Return of the King. He was quiet for a minute, but his silence didn’t last long.
“W-what’s w-wrong?”
“Nothing.” The quickness with which I answered was a dead giveaway that “nothing” was actually something. I’d always heard girls do that, I just never thought I would be one of them, pouting because my boyfriend gave his attention to someone else for two seconds.
I didn’t mean to pout; I just couldn’t help it.
He started to say something three times but stopped. My left arm moved forward, until my fingers rested on a bookshelf. My index finger grazed the spine of a play.
“I’m sssssorry I didn’t hhhelp with lunch.”
I shook my head, trying to let him know that it was no big deal. I would cook whether anyone helped me or not. I had to eat and so did he.
“I wish I c-could ffffeed you, Sophie.”
I had to look at him now because his words were crazy powerful in my head. I knew instantly he wasn’t talking about food. He was saying that he wanted to take care of me. As depressed as I was feeling, I needed to let him know that he took excellent care of me.
“You feed me in other ways.” I might make him food, but he gave me hope when I didn’t know I wanted it. “I don’t even know why you like me most days.”
“B-because you’re ssssmart and so p-pretty and you make me fffeel like I’m n-normal. You don’t … You’ve n-never acted like I was r-r-retarded because my mind and mouth c-c-c-c-c,” he paused, “can’t get it together.”
I felt desperate to change the heavy mood. I wanted something else to think about instead of my inability to lighten up today. “So shopping tomorrow, right?”
I almost said “Christmas shopping” but ever since he told me how difficult Christmas was to him, I tried relatively hard to avoid the word altogether.
He didn’t answer, so I turned to him and immediately he took my hand into his. His other hand moved to my neck. I didn’t flinch because I had come to accept that he liked running his finger over my scar, which was exactly what he was doing just then.
“I llll …” He halted and then began again. “I lll-lllove, love you.”
My heart stopped. My breath caught. Something inside of me released a chemical that felt like acid eating away at me from the inside.
“I llllove you,” he said again when I said nothing.
“I heard you,” I managed to whisper back. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
When he said, “You d-don’t hhhave to sssay it b-back to me,” my heart ached more.
I crossed the room, my hand moving to glide across the smooth surface of his guitar. “You shouldn’t.”
“W-what?”
“You shouldn’t feel that for me. Don’t give me that kind of power, Elliott.”
“I c-can llllove you if I w-want to.”
My jaw tightened and I turned to face him. “Take it back.”
His eyes danced across my face as his brow stitched together making his expression a mask of confusion. It made me even more upset. He didn’t need to give me something like that. It was ridiculous of him.
“No.”
With a deep breath, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Take it back,” I said again slowly, as if it would drive home the point.
“I d-don’t wwwwant to.”
I fought the urge to get mean, to become cruel just so he would open his eyes and realize what he was giving me.
Thankfully he came to his senses before I had to.
His face fell and I hurt like the pain his face expressed. “Fffffine. I t-t-take it back.”
I sighed and nodded. “Good.”
“B-but I’m only t-taking it b-back b-because you don’t want it, not b-because I don’t ffffeel it.”
I wanted it. I desperately wanted to tell him how badly I needed him to love me; how much I needed him to know that I loved him too, but the words wouldn’t come.
His hands were curled into fists. I hated myself for breaking him. He turned from me and I panicked. His feet moved him to the door and I flew after him. “Elliott, I …”
“I’m sssssure you have ssssssomething else t-to d-do. I’m g-going to g-go hhhhang out with J-Jaaaane.”
I held onto his forearm. “Don’t go,” I begged, completely aware that he was using a favorite tactic of mine. “I don’t want … You don’t have to take it back just don’t … don’t say it again.”
“I-I-I’ll sssay w-what I w-want to sssay, Sophie. Just liiiike you.”
I tugged on him, keeping him from opening the door. I didn’t know what it was about those words that messed with my brain and made me ache. Maybe it was because I didn’t have much experience with that whole concept. Maybe it was too foreign, too strange to my ears.
“I … I mean, I …” I bet if I was high, I’d know what to say. If I was high, I’d probably have the nerve to tell him that I loved him back.
But I was sober and I had issues with just handing that kind of power over, even if it was to the best person on the planet.
“Thank you,” I whispered, hoping he’d realize that I was thanking him for the gift he was giving me, the gift he continued to give me.
His lips curved up on one side. “C-can I ssssay it again?”
He was just messing with me now, one of the many reasons that I was sure that I loved him back.
I rolled my eyes dramatically and moved into his open and waiting arms. I was thankful to have him like this. I was thankful he was here with me, in the comfort of his room and that just like that, the tension between us was gone.
Monday’s shopping trip started out fine, but I should have known that it was doomed from the start. Neither of us enjoyed shopping and neither of us enjoyed crowds.
Baltimore was busy. There were enough people milling about to make me anxious, so I knew right off the bat that Elliott would hate it.
Despite it all, he tried like he always did. It took him about twenty minutes to work up the nerve to step out of his car. I held his hand as we walked and noted how he was very careful not to get too close to anyone but me. When we’d gone to D.C., there hadn’t been this many people out and about at the time; the streets were quieter then. Here, it seemed the entire city came out on this particular day just to screw with Elliott’s sense of comfort. Didn’t they have anywhere better to be on a Monday? Then I remembered that they were probably all doing their shopping, too.
He was breathing heavily, but his belabored breaths slowed to a near normal rate every time we ducked into some quiet place.
“You okay?” I asked as I held his hand in an independent music shop.
“O-okay,” he said with a nod.
After another few calming minutes, Elliott pushed away from the wall and moved into the store, examining an old vinyl.
“D-d-does your d-d-d-d, ffffather like m-m-music?”
“Not really.” I took his hand in mine again and we trolled around the little store.
We spent way too long in there and after a while, we stopped pretending we were looking for Tom’s gift and gave into looking only at things Elliott liked. After the music shop, we went into a large department store. Just like all the crappy malls around the country, this store hired some large man to dress up and don a beard. It baffled me why parents paid to put their children on some strange man’s lap. Seemed wrong to me.
As I glanced around the store, trying to think of something to give Tom, Elliott’s hand tightened on mine. “What?”
I turned around and followed his eyes over to the Sa
nta line and there was Ian, holding a kid, and there was a tall blonde woman standing next to him. He was looking at me and I felt my heart beat just a little faster.
I tugged on Elliott’s hand, but he didn’t budge. “That g-g-guy’s sssstaring at you.”
I knew that. I could practically feel Ian’s eyes on me. Now I just wanted to be as far away from this store and this town as possible. How the hell would I explain to Elliott who Ian was?
“D-do you kn-know him?”
“We picked the wrong mall, it doesn’t have shit for Tom, like rock-climbing or hiking crap. Maybe I’ll just order something on-line and pay for quick shipping or something.” His feet finally moved as I pulled him away. “What do you think?”
It wasn’t until we were in the middle of the crowded cosmetic area that he planted his feet and spoke. He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he asked, “Who wwwwas that guy?”
Shit.
“No one.”
His eyes shifted over my face. “I-I-I-I’m n-not sssstupid.”
Shit.
“Fine,” I said, my voice tight and tense. “He’s a guy I know.”
“H-h-hhhow?”
He wasn’t going to let it go, so I said tensely, “I’ve had sex with him.”
I thought about adding a bunch of hurtful questions like, “are you happy now?” but I refrained. Wallace told me that I should disclose what a whore I was, so now one more piece of truth had been given to him.
“B-b-b-b-but hhhhhe’s m-m-m-married and hhhhhhas a ssss-ssssson.”
“And yet his dick still found its way inside of me. What’s your fucking point?” Why couldn’t I just be nice? Why was all this coming out in angry, hateful words? My defenses were on high alert.
He was breathing hard and his hand no longer held mine. I felt very small and very, very alone as I waited for him to truly process this information. It was clear that this would be his wake-up call. This would be the thing that forced him to realize that I wasn’t good enough for him.
Honestly, it would be a relief. I wouldn’t have to work so hard at being good for him because he would discard me just like everyone else had. It would hurt. No doubt that it would hurt, but it was necessary. I would hurt and he would heal.
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