by Lily Foster
Oh, my head felt like it was being cinched in a vise. Worst hangover in the history of hangovers.
“Well, look who’s up.”
“Fiona, when did I get home?”
“I got in after you. Declan had you all tucked in by the time I got here.”
“Oh shit.” It was all coming back to me. I peeked under the covers to look at my clothes. I had no bra on, just a tank top and my underwear. My hair was in a ponytail. My clothes from the night before were tied up in a plastic grocery bag next to my bed. “What did he say, Fiona?”
“Just that you’d had too much to drink. He made me promise to stay up with you in case you threw up again.”
I was biting back tears. “That’s all?”
“Yeah, Anna, that’s all.” She let out a deep breath. “But when I walked in, Anna, he was…sitting on your bed, staring at you, running his fingers through your hair. I felt like I’d barged in on something personal. It made me so…sad for him. He looked like crap, too. Was he in a fight? When I asked him, he blew me off.”
“Yeah, he had a fight.”
“Maybe Christmas break is coming at a good time, Anna,” she said as she grabbed some quarters. “I’m going to get you a ginger ale. Be right back.”
I spent the day in bed, sleeping and recovering. I wanted to know if he was all right and I wanted to thank him for getting me home safely last night but…I didn’t.
Declan
She hadn’t reached out to me since Saturday. Maybe she didn’t remember anything. But I’m sure Fiona filled her in on the fact that I’d taken her home. I hoped she wasn’t mad that I’d undressed her. I had to change that shirt, though, and the bra had to come off too; the vomit had soaked through. And I had closed my eyes, except for one nanosecond. Ugh, I’d had a massive hard on every time that vision had popped into my head these past two days.
As I was washing her off with a washcloth that night, she’d looked at me sadly and said, “Maybe I should play the damsel in distress more often. Then maybe you’d want to take care of me.” She had cried then before falling asleep about sixty seconds later. Hearing her say that made me feel like the worst kind of person. I hated myself for what I’d done to her.
Tuesday I found myself searching the library, floor by floor. When I spotted her in her usual place on the top floor, my heart started racing. She always sat in this remote corner where there were big, upholstered chairs instead of the usual tables and hard, stackable chairs. Today was no different, her body curled up in one, nose in a book. I took a deep breath and walked over, dropping my backpack and then flopping into the chair across from her. “Want to talk about what happened?”
She had dark circles under her eyes and she looked a little pale. One corner of her mouth curved up into a smile when her eyes met mine. “I owe you a thank you, Declan. So thanks.”
“Don’t say thank you, just don’t do that again, ok?”
“I already wrote I will not get totally wasted and hook up with potential rapists one hundred times on the blackboard, sir. I’m good.” After a minute she said, “Were you ok after the fight?” She reached over tentatively and touched the faded bruise on my jaw.
“I’m fine.” I couldn’t help but put my hand over hers where it rested on my face. Any touch from her, I wanted it.
“Danielle told me that guy Chris has a terrible reputation. I’m…grateful that you didn’t let him take me home.” She slid her hand back and clasped both hands in her lap, looking down.
“I’ve heard some crazy shit about him. I’d never let him get his hands on you, Anna.”
She let out a breath, her shoulders slumped.
After a minute of silence which, for some odd reason never felt uncomfortable when I was with her, I asked, “Hey, do you talk to your parents much anymore?”
Her head jerked up and she eyed me quizzically. “Where did that come from?”
“I was just wondering. With my dad…it was weird this Thanksgiving.”
“Well, yeah. I’ve always been on speaking terms with them but I haven’t enjoyed speaking with them until recently. Maybe things are better because I don’t live with them anymore. I mean, neither one is going to win Parent of the Year—ever—but there’s been some improvement.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. Sometimes my instinct is to push away, reject them when they try to make an effort, especially my mother. But I figure that if I smack her hand away every time she reaches out, then I’m no better than her.” We sat quiet again for a few moments and then she asked, “So what happened with your dad?”
“My father had his girlfriend at the house when I came home for Thanksgiving.” I looked up at her and she was smiling. I held her gaze. “I was annoyed that I liked her so much. My reaction is always to kill him with silence. You’re not talking? Then fuck you, neither am I, you know? But he was sober, Anna. I…haven’t seen him completely sober since before my mom died.”
She reached out her hand to me again and held it, rubbing her thumb along the back of my hand. “That’s good, Declan. That changes everything. My mother was clear headed this visit too. It’s easy for me to be mad at her when she’s popping those pills but when I see her making the effort, then I have to have some forgiveness in my heart for her. So what’s she like?”
“She’s nice and easy to talk to. My dad and his babe came to the game this past Saturday,” I said, waggling my eyebrows. “I shouldn’t make fun. Her name’s Diana. They wanted to take me to dinner afterwards but I begged off, nicely.”
“One step at a time, right? Maybe it’s the same for us as it is for them. They have their twelve steps to sobriety or whatever and we have our steps to take too. It takes time to forgive. I’ve been working on forgiving at least a dozen people since Will died.”
“Who do I have to forgive besides him?”
“I don’t know, forgive yourself? I know you think you should be there to save everyone. And maybe you need to forgive her.”
“My mother?”
“Maybe. Forgive her for leaving you, even if it wasn’t what she meant to do.” When I didn’t say anything, she said, “I never understood why you were so sure it was a suicide. Wasn’t it possible that it was an accident?”
“Taking pills and downing vodka can’t be an accident.”
“Yeah, but if I remember what you told me correctly, she didn’t drink the entire bottle or take all the pills. And she didn’t leave a note. Everyone leaves a note.”
“Is that a fact, Clarke? I think you’ve been watching too much Law and Order.” I thought to myself in that moment that there was no one like her. I couldn’t have this type of conversation with anyone on earth except her, where the saddest topics were interjected with laughter. “Did your brother’s friend leave a note?”
“Yes. Matter of fact, it was addressed to me. The detective made me read it that next morning to help them piece everything together.”
I could see the memory had upset her. I reached over then and pulled her slowly, guiding her into my lap. “Please, let me,” I whispered in her ear when I felt her resist. She settled into me then, her head on my chest, her arms wrapped around my neck, my arms wrapped around her. “Anna, I know I should keep my mouth shut but I’m so fucking sad without you.”
She nodded, and then neither of us moved for a long while. I was taking pleasure in the feel of her body against mine, hoping that she felt it too, that she needed me in her life as much as I needed her. I could have stayed there, holding her, for days. But then Anna shifted. She kissed my cheek and then whispered, “I should go, Declan.” She bent down and kissed my lips once before she left.
I sat there for a while thinking. It was two days until the twenty-second. Was it possible that my mother didn’t mean to do it? That it had been an accident? I’d never blamed her, only him. I had never been angry with her, only at myself and my father. But as I sat there, I found myself talking to her, asking her why.
I taped myself up before practice and told coach I w
as getting over a stomach virus so that I wasn’t doing the full physical workout. I suspected that I’d either fractured or badly bruised a rib…or two or three. I was sore as hell from tangling with Gallagher. As long as I avoided being checked for the next week or so, I’d be fine.
I thought I’d have hell to pay from my teammates when they found out about the fight but the only dirty looks I got were from him. I wasn’t looking for us to be friends so I really didn’t give a shit about that.
As I repeatedly hit shots into the net, off to the side, away from the others at practice, I thought about my mother. I thought about my mother a lot over the next two days; about the possibility of a note, or what the lack of a note meant. Did my mother leave one and we’d never found it? Did my father find a note that he’d never shared with me? I was lying on my bed after dinner on Thursday night thinking about it some more.
Most of my friends were going out tonight, finals over, heading home tomorrow. Some of us had our last final tomorrow. Mine was just a matter of handing in a paper. Even though my work was done, sitting neatly on my desk, there was no way I was going out with them tonight. I had a short practice scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, the last one before breaking until the day after New Year’s. That would usually be enough to keep me in anyway, but the real reason was that this day wrecked me, every year. It was weird to be away from home without the physical reminders that were all over my house, bringing me back to that moment. I thought maybe it wouldn’t hit me as hard this year for that reason, because I was away from it all, but it did.
When I heard soft knocking at my door, I was tempted to ignore it but I didn’t. “Hi,” she said shyly, standing in the doorway.
“Come on in.”
“I was debating back and forth all day whether or not I should come and see you.” When I cocked a questioning look her way she said, “I imagine today is hard for you. I don’t know if talking about it, remembering it, is good for you or if it hurts.”
I swallowed back the emotion I was feeling. Anna remembered. I’d never mentioned the date to her, not since we were at Heart Songs, and she remembered. I was surprised in that moment to realize that I knew Will’s date too, March twentieth. It was odd, the things that bound us. “I’m glad you came.”
“What have you been doing all day?”
“I finished my paper early and then just laid low. I’ve just been thinking for the past few hours.”
She smiled as she flopped onto my bed, lying on her back, arms crossed behind her head. “I’ll just think with you.”
I nudged her over with my hip to make some room for myself and crossed my arms behind my head too. It was like lying on the dock again. She asked, “So do you have any rituals or anything?”
I looked over at her, shaking my head, smiling. It was another thing, a question that only Anna would ask. “I went to the early Mass, lit a candle for my mom and then…pancakes.”
“Pancakes?”
“Yeah, she used to make them every Saturday and Sunday morning when I got back from the rink. She’d drink her coffee and we’d talk while I ate. It was like…our thing.”
She smiled at me. “That’s a nice memory.” A minute later she asked, “Where did you go? I hope not to the cafeteria, their pancakes are awful.”
“No, I went to that diner across from the chapel. The pancakes are good there. Not as good as hers but adequate. When I’m at home I go to this little place, it’s like a shack down by the beach that’s open year round. They have great waffles but I don’t really like the pancakes there either. My mother had this old cast iron pan that just made them, I don’t know, different.”
“I guess they shouldn’t taste better anywhere else, right?”
I nodded. “So, what do you do on March twentieth?”
I wanted her to know I remembered also. Her eyes widened for a second, surprised, and then she smiled back at me. “I like going to the cemetery.” Her expression changed, her face scrunched up. “Do you think that’s creepy?”
“No. I don’t really do it but…it’s like a mausoleum place, there’s no headstone or anything. It feels impersonal and cold where she is, so I don’t go there.”
“I like to go to Will’s grave. I like brushing the leaves away, tidying up, putting fresh flowers in front. I like seeing that other people have been there too. Will had so many friends. Sometimes there will be a teddy bear left, some flowers that have dried, a rock left along the top of the headstone, you know? Oh, and once I found a note that just said: I love you, Will. I always wondered who’d left that.” After a moment she added, “It’s nice, though, knowing that people still think about him.”
“What else do you do?”
“Margot and Vince come with me, and Dylan if he’s home, and afterwards we eat lunch at this place, Malcolm’s. It was Will’s favorite. They have the best onion rings on the planet. So we have cheeseburgers and onion rings, in his honor.”
“That’s good.”
We laid there, side by side for a while, each lost in our own thoughts. I can’t describe how good it felt. How right and natural it felt to be beside her. I said finally, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about a note.” She leaned up on her elbow to look at me, waiting. “What if it was an accident? Why would she do that? Was she trying to punish my dad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Punish him for ignoring her? For not being a good husband? If that’s the case then that’s a little hard to accept, you know? I always thought she was innocent in this.”
We were quiet for a few minutes before she said, “Remember I was telling you about Drew’s note? How they made me read it?”
“Yeah?”
“When I was home over Thanksgiving break, Drew’s ex-girlfriend asked me to get together with her. This girl, Carolyn, she wanted to apologize to me.” Shaking her head, she said, “That’s crazy. What did she do wrong? She was seventeen and she broke up with her boyfriend, big deal. He was crushed when they broke up but what Drew did is on Drew, no one else. And I don’t think Drew did it with the intention of punishing Carolyn but…he did punish her. She’s been through hell the past three years.”
“I blamed everyone at first but I think now it doesn’t do any good to point my finger at anyone, not even Drew.” She spoke slowly, pausing between each sentence. “God, I loved Drew. He was like a brother to me. Not like Will, of course, but he was a close second. I can’t blame Drew or hate him because I loved him, you know? I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s not your mom’s fault or anyone else’s.”
Everything she said was sinking in but making my head spin at the same time. Was I going to be like Carolyn if I broke up with Tess? The one left suffering, wracked with guilt? And my mother, Jesus, did she just do that so that my dad would suffer? I guessed it was no matter. She was gone and I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but love and gratitude for the good mother she had been to me. I was lost in thought when Anna tapped my side and said, “Are you all right?”
“Shit,” I said, wincing. She’d nudged me right in my ribs.
“Sorry!” She drew her hand back quickly but then slowly moved it back to my side and lifted the hem of my t-shirt up, revealing the tape. “You’re hurt,” she said, as she ran her fingers gingerly over my side. She looked at me sadly then, the understanding clear on her face. She rolled onto her back again and covered her eyes with her forearm; a move I noticed she did whenever she didn’t want to be seen crying. “I’m sorry, Declan.”
“Hey,” I said, wincing again as I attempted to roll over onto my side towards her. I gave up and sat up on the bed, facing her. “Hey,” I said again, lifting her forearm up, “it’s nothing, a bruise, Anna. I would have broken all my ribs to keep you away from him, ok?”
She reached up cautiously, her hands cradling my face. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Declan. I know I love you and not being with you hurts, so much. I feel like a fool, though.”
“Don’t say that, Ann
a. I want you and I promise I’m going to make this right. You…you mean everything to me.”
Her hands dropped then and she slowly pushed herself up and eased herself around me, off the bed. “Declan, it’s ok. I won’t hate you or anything. I never will. But please, don’t say things you don’t mean and don’t make promises that you won’t keep.”
I grabbed her hips and pulled her back to me, dragging her into my lap and bracing my arms around her so that she couldn’t move. “Don’t…tell me what I feel, all right Anna? Don’t act like you know how it is for me. I haven’t been in love with Tess for a long time. I am in love with you. I think about you all the fucking time. About how good talking to you makes me feel, about how happy I am when I’m with you, about how much I want to touch you, be with you.”
“I want to be with you too, Declan,” she said, her head falling back against my chest.
“In every way, Anna. I want to show you how much I love you in every way.”
She was still sitting on my lap, her back to my front, as I started kissing her neck. She arched back more, giving me access and then took each of my hands in one of hers, moving them under her shirt, guiding me to her breasts. She let out a soft, sweet whimper when I touched her. I knew she could feel how much I wanted her; I don’t think I’d ever been that hard in my life. Nothing felt wrong about this to me. This girl was already in my blood, coursing through me. I’d never felt closer to anyone.
Chapter Seven
Anna
Lovers meet at night.
They say things in the dark to one another that they wouldn’t say out loud during the waking hours.
Damn, do things look different in the cold light of day.
So all the things he said last night, the “no one else but you,” the “it’s never felt so good,” the “I love you,” whispered over and over—what did it all mean? I’m not putting it all on him. I was a very willing participant. I felt powerful knowing I could make his body react to me in that way. I liked the feeling; the heaviness in my breasts and the wet, achy want in my core. I wanted him to touch me and I wanted him deep inside of me.