34 Pieces of You

by Carmen Rodrigues

  I nodded. The light flicked off, and Sarah slid into the bed beside Ellie. Soon I heard the sound of Sarah’s heavy breathing.

  I stared at Ellie’s back, her body eerily still, as if darkness had the power to pause all the earthquakes she felt inside.

  * * *

  Hours later, I made my way through the house to the sofa in the basement. There I sat and thought about Ellie, from the first time I saw her on our front porch to that day in her bedroom. I had never felt this way about anyone until she kissed me.

  You don’t want me to let you go, she had said, and it was true. I didn’t want her to let me go, but what did that say about me? About her? I could hear Lola’s voice in my head, her two words repeating over and over again: Fucking gay. Fucking gay.

  I didn’t know what to do with those words, not yet . . . so I put a pillow under my head and tried not to think. But sleep never came, just question after question and the feeling that nothing would be the same.

  19.

  I can’t believe we ran through the rain in our underwear. Well, I can’t believe you ran through the rain. I’ll always run, but you, you’re too scared to see the possibilities. But today I felt like you really saw them, and that made me feel less alone, like someone else could see the world the way I see it.

  Sarah

  AFTER. FEBRUARY.

  Around midnight, Jess enters my room, sits on the edge of my bed, and passes a cold hand across my cheek. When I don’t respond—not because I’m sleeping but because I don’t have it in me—she shakes my shoulder. Reluctantly, I open my eyes.

  I can tell she’s been crying. Her eyes are red, and strands of blond hair cling to the wet spots beneath. The rise and fall of her shoulders says she’s trying to hold it back, but it doesn’t seem easy.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She shakes her head like she doesn’t know, but I can tell this is a lie. I open my blanket, and she crawls underneath. We curve in together, clinging to each other like when we were kids, afraid of all the noises old houses make. I wrap my arms around her. Soon her shuddering turns into crying; she pushes her face into my pillow until her moans are stifled, her eyes squeezed shut.

  I remember her at age seven—her hair in pigtails, her eyes so curious, that question always on her lips: Want to play? But that was before, when I was the best friend she ever had. Now the distance between us has made her unreachable.

  “Jess?” I lean over her, shake her softly, and then with more force. “Please. Open your eyes. Talk to me.”

  When she does open her eyes, she says, “There are things you don’t know about me, Sarah.”

  “What things, Jess?” I try to imagine any secret that can tear her apart like this, but her world is so predictable that I can’t. “Jess, tell me.”

  She shakes her head, her gaze going blank as she retreats into herself. Minutes later, she says, almost numbly, “Some days, I just want it to all be over.”

  “No, Jess.” It breaks my heart to hear her talk like that. “Please, don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

  She says, “I would never leave you, but it’s how I feel. That’s all. It’s how I feel.”

  I want to tell her I feel the same way. That if I could, I’d take the first boat out of these floodwaters. That it’s just fear keeping me in place. But I don’t say anything. It’s too hard to speak. All I can do is hold her until she is quiet—the weight of her sorrow drowning her in sleep.

  * * *

  Concerned Therapist shuffles around, checking her notes, lighting candles, muttering about breathing exercises and the importance of finding your center. She’s a firm believer in finding your center. I bet each morning, before she drinks her organic green tea or waters her flowers or makes love to her husband, she sits cross-legged on a yoga mat and searches for the core of her being.

  “It’s important,” she repeats, settling into her chair before putting her cell phone on vibrate, “to find your center.” She turns to me and smiles that therapist smile that says, I really see you. You’re important. Then she clears her throat and asks, “How are you feeling?”

  I stare at the clock, watch that small hand spin by for a while, before I say, “Fine.”

  She nods, swallowing hard. “How are your sisters?” She angles her pen over her notebook, ready to write down anything even remotely relevant.

  “Good,” I say, but I think about Jess, how scared I felt for her, and I wonder what might happen if I told Concerned Therapist a little bit about it. The thought doesn’t stick. Because I know if I talk to her about Jess, she’ll unravel the story, untwisting all its threads until they lead back to me. So I push it from my mind. I count to one hundred and twenty, because this trick buys me time. Then I say with a lot of effort, “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

  The counting is another part of my avoidance technique. For the last six sessions, I’ve successfully dodged Concerned Therapist’s questions with long silences and silly discussions: Jess borrowed my shirt, and she didn’t ask. That really upsets me. Mattie’s really cute, but she’s always the center of attention. It’s really frustrating. Meg is so boy crazy it drives my dad crazy. I really hate to see him worry so much.

  Concerned Therapist consults her notes and picks, with almost superhuman intuition, the first name that pops off the list. “Is Jess still taking your clothes without asking?”

  I think of Jess, with her frail frame and disinterest in anything. I wonder if she’ll ever take anything of mine again. We all have secrets. That’s what Tommy said. And it was true; we all did. Me, Tommy, Jake, Ellie . . . All of us had secrets . . . big, terrible secrets. But I never wanted that for Jess.

  I’m getting worked up, so I think: Stoic. Stoic. Stoic. Stoic. Stoic. Stoic. Stoic. Stoic. And then I’m fine again. I’m back on track for therapy. “Jess just wants to talk about boys and life and stuff. I find it tiring,” I say to Concerned Therapist.

  “And why does it bother you when your sister talks to you? Opens up to you?”

  I count to one hundred and twenty before I say, “It doesn’t bother me.” And then I wait. It’s a toss-up whether or not this was the correct response. If instead I had replied that it did bother me, I might have had a half-hour session on sibling rivalry. This would be preferable to moving on to some other topic that may or may not hit a nerve. To swing it toward sibling rivalry, I add, “I guess it’s annoying.”

  Concerned Therapist stops writing, taps the tip of her pen on the top of her linen pants, and stares at me. This is the danger of Concerned Therapist. Even when you try to lead her down the wrong path, she somehow stumbles onto the right one. “Let’s go with that. Why does it bother you when Jess cares what you think? When she wants to hear your opinion?”

  “It doesn’t,” I mumble. And that’s sort of true. A part of me wishes Jess would open up. But another part is glad she’s pretending like last night never happened. It’s taking all I’ve got to keep myself afloat.

  “What’s going on?” Concerned Therapist leans closer. Her perfume smells drugstore-bought, like an after-bath splash. It’s a small detail, but it makes her seem more human to me. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  One, two, three . . . “Nothing,” I finally say.

  “Are you sure?” Suddenly, we hear a soft bell, indicating someone has entered the waiting room. It’s either my mom or the next client. Concerned Therapist checks her watch and realizes once again time has slipped away. I bet she wishes we could string these forty-five-minute sessions together like beads on a necklace. I bet she thinks that if we could, there’d be some sort of a breakthrough.

  As if her superhuman intuition heard me, she says, “I’m going to talk to your mom about increasing our time together. I think we would make more progress if we had two hours to work with.” But she says this nearly every time we meet. And every time, I nod my head like I agree, which I don’t.

  The truth is, I won’t see Concerned Therapist for two hours a week—at least not by cho
ice. When Mom broaches the subject, I’ll tell her I’m doing fine. That I am much better than before. Really, Mom. I promise. And she’ll believe me. Not because my words sound true, but because sometimes it’s easier for us all to pretend.

  20.

  You said, No, we can’t press charges. You don’t want that. You’ll have to testify. You’ll have to see him again. The best thing to do is to make him leave the city. And tell him he can’t come back. And that’ll be good enough. And I believed you, because at the time I didn’t know better. At the time, I was too afraid.

  Jake

  AFTER. FEBRUARY.

  I arrive in Miami with two carry-on bags and a weight in my chest. The bags are light, just the essentials: toothbrush, clothes, running shoes. The weight in my chest is heavy: Ellie’s life, Ellie’s passing, my longing for Sarah, my failure at school, my broken link to my mother.

  After I exit the plane, I call my mom to tell her I’ve arrived safely. Her words are the same as before: “I just don’t understand why you have to stay with your father. Why not Ohio? Or come here to Arizona. I love you, Jake. Your father loves you too, but he doesn’t care about you like I do.”

  And like before, I don’t tell her that that’s the reason I’ve come to stay with him. Instead I say, “Mom, I’m fine. I’ll call you soon. Okay?”

  At baggage claim I’m greeted by my father, who gives me a slap-on-the-back hug, and his wife, Carla, who exclaims, “Oh, look at you!” And kisses me on the cheek.

  Then there is the long fight through traffic on 826 West. My dad and Carla make small talk in the front, while Liza, my baby sister, sleeps soundly in her car seat, her thumb tucked warmly into her mouth. Finally, we arrive at a house crowded by palm trees. It seems like the typical South Florida construction: concrete walls, mango paint job, deep-brown roof tiles, and a paved driveway that curves around the yard like a question mark.

  It’s been a while, so I get the tour again: formal living room, dining room, family room with flat-screen TV. They take me out back to show me the inground pool. They say, “It’s not like Ohio. Nearly every house here in Miami has an inground pool.” When I bend over to touch the water, they say, “You’ll get a lot of swimming done.”

  They walk me to my guest room, set my bags on the bed. Carla says, “It’s so great you could come visit your home away from home.” She pats me on the shoulder. And I think, You do not visit a home; you return to a home, but I don’t say this. I just offer them a shaky smile.

  Dad says, “We’ll get dinner started. It’s early by Miami standards—typically we don’t eat until about eight—but we’re sure you must be starving.”

  Soon the house is filled with the noise of their cooking. I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling fan whirring above me, the sounds of its blades both hypnotic and comforting.

  21.

  This fantasy: you and me, lying on my bed. Reading.

  Silent but secure.

  Jessie

  BEFORE. SEPTEMBER.

  The night before I went to Ellie’s house to ask her about the sketch pad, I stood in my empty bedroom and practiced what I wanted to say. Mom had taught me this trick when I was five and scared to death of show-and-tell. Just stand here, Jess, in front of this mirror, and say everything you want to say about that shell to yourself. Trust me. It’ll help.

  And it had helped me conquer my fears about public speaking, but it didn’t make it easier to stand in Ellie’s doorway and see the bored expression on her face.

  She didn’t seem surprised to see me, not from the way she flipped the page of her magazine and said with a sigh, “Come in.”

  I entered the room slowly and stood over by her desk.

  “How’d you get in?”

  “Your mom.” I pointed to my right, as if she might follow the invisible line that stretched between my finger and her front door.

  “Obviously.” She turned the page. “But why are you here?”

  I set her sketch pad on her bed and backed away, unsure of her reaction. But she didn’t react. She flipped a page and continued to read her magazine.

  “I saw,” I finally said. “I know you draw pictures of me.”

  That was an understatement. Ellie hadn’t just drawn a few pictures of me; she had drawn dozens, in various states with various mediums—charcoal, pastels, ink—and some of them dated back to at least a year before.

  She rolled onto her back, the magazine above her. “Yeah? And . . . ?”

  I didn’t know if I could trust my voice—my throat felt constricted, making it hard to breathe—but eventually I said, “I just think we should t-talk about it.”

  She closed the magazine, twisted her long blond hair around her fingertips. Her head rolled toward me, her eyes rimmed with their usual violent black eyeliner.

  I tried not to let her stare intimidate me, by focusing on what I had practiced last night in the mirror. This time when I spoke, I didn’t stutter. “Don’t you think we should talk about how we feel?”

  “How we feel?” Ellie’s voice was dry, still distant. She unfolded her small body from the bed and stared out the window. I watched her. She seemed more interested in the neighborhood than me.

  A voice inside me whispered: You could just go. You could just walk out of here and never talk to her again. But then Ellie closed her blinds and said, “Get the door, okay?”

  I took a deep breath. This was what I wanted—a private conversation with her—but it still scared the heck out of me. “What about your mom?”

  “Jess, even if you were a boy, my mom and the asshole wouldn’t care. Really.” To prove her point, she pulled a pack of cigarettes and the lighter with—I was convinced—Mattie’s Hello Kitty sticker from her dresser. She lit the cigarette. “Well?”

  “What about Sarah?” I asked, stalling.

  “Please.” Her tone was sharp. “I’m pretty sure she’s somewhere with her head up Tommy’s ass.” She paused, her cigarette hovering.

  She actually looked pained, and I wanted to touch her arm or maybe even hug her, but I didn’t know how to close our gap. Instead I said, “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?” Her gaze wilted into a glare. She brushed her hair over her shoulder. Then she walked toward me, gliding her hand across mine as she passed. She shut the door. When she passed again, our hands locked. She led me to the bed, where we sat, our jeans touching—hers faded gray, and mine sensible navy blue. She put her cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. “Close your eyes.”

  The little voice whispered: You can still leave. You could just go. But another part of me, the part that wondered what came next, listened. I closed my eyes. Waited.

  Her hand brushed my face, and, instinctively, I jumped. She laughed. “I like how you listen to me. You hear me, Jess,” she said, her breath heavy on my skin. The next time she spoke, her mouth was only inches from my ear. “Go on, talk. I’ll listen.”

  I opened my eyes and stared at her. I didn’t want to say the words aloud. It was too hard to confess my feelings when I knew she’d never admit hers. She placed a hand on my knee and let it crawl upward until her fingers found the indent above my clavicle. After a second, she grabbed a strand of my hair and gave it a light twist. “Admit it,” she said. “You really like me.”

  It was such an obvious fact; I didn’t know why she needed my confirmation. “I—I—” I began, choking on my own spit. I turned my head away from her so I could cough.

  She scooted away, our thighs no longer touching. I felt this ache, like a crinkling in the center of my heart. I was starting to believe that all of this—from our very first kiss to now—was a cruel joke, a game to pass her time.

  “Well?” she said, her voice indifferent. And I knew that if I didn’t say anything, I’d go back to just being Sarah’s annoying little sister, and months might pass before she’d acknowledge my existence again.

  “I . . .” Tears of frustration pooled in the corners of my eyes and started to seep out. “I like you, Ellie.” The words sta
yed stiffly between us, and I realized that this was where it ended. She only wanted me to admit it, so she could turn on me the way she turned on Lola.

  But then she looked at me, her face softer than before, her voice nearly gentle, and said, “You’re crying.”

  I swiped clumsily at my cheeks, embarrassed by my tears. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t.” She knelt in front of me, pulled my arms down to my sides. “Don’t.” She traced the tears downward until her fingers rested on my lips. “I’m such a bitch, and you’re not. You’re so incredibly kind.”

  “I just want you to stop pretending. I want you to see me,” I whispered, looking toward the square of bright light hidden behind the closed blinds. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my shirt. “I just—” Her hand slipped over my mouth and silenced me. She turned my face so that our eyes met.

  She said, “I see you, Jess. I do.” And then, very slowly, she kissed me.

  22.

  When I’m around you, I don’t know what I’m doing . . .

  Sarah

  AFTER. MARCH.

  Mom drives me home from therapy. I change the CD, compulsively roll the car windows up and down, and in my head it’s like my mom and I do this shuffle dance. We shuffle through songs. We shuffle through lights. We shuffle through the facets of our lives that are too disturbing for either of us to want to understand.

  Mattie sits in the rear, belted into her car seat like some kind of porcelain doll with glass eyes that roll backward if Mom hits a speed bump too fast. I think Mattie is starting to understand. She’s starting to realize that Big Sister isn’t the same sister as before, and that even good families can turn silence into an art form.