by Einat Segal
"Sophie, please, I can give you as much time—"
"I don't need time!” I shout. "What I need is my boring, normal world." There's a lump in my throat. I feel like I'm ripping off my arm. I turn and begin limping toward the road.
"Sophie, wait!” he cries, but doesn't come after me.
I was nearly eaten by a giant lizard monster, and everything I believed to be real is a lie. But I liked him. I really, really liked him.
And it's taking all my willpower, combined with my sense of self-preservation, not to turn back to him and run into his arms.
When I reach the road, I look at my hands in the yellow light of the streetlamps. My gloves are torn and I have the bloody pattern of asphalt scraped over my palms.
My whole body is trembling, and tears won't stop falling from my eyes. I begin walking along the road toward town.
It’s too far to walk home. A deep misery settles over me, and I'm practically drowning in self-pity. It's a good thing Landon's Porsche was crushed during the battle on the hilltop, because if he offered me a ride now, I would get on.
I have to call someone to pick me up. Someone who will see me like this and won't judge.
I call my cousin Jamie. He doesn't answer the first three times, but I know he’s just avoiding me—we’re family. "What gives?" he snaps when he answers the phone. He's always apprehensive when I call him.
"I need you to pick me up," I say.
"Huh? Pick you up? You don’t mean you need a pick-me-up?”
“Jamie.” I try to sound my usual self. I wonder if it’s working.
“You mean you need me to pick you up with my car? No can do, sweetie. I'm in Florida for the wedding."
Oh right, Aunt Sylvia's wedding. Everyone wouldn't stop talking about the big argument over the color of the tablecloth for the reception that almost got the whole thing canceled.
"Okay . . ."
"You sound terrible. Something happen?"
"Hanging up now, Jamie," I say.
"Hey, wait, want me to ask one of my buddies?"
"Your drug-dealing buddies?" I ask. I would have normally hung up by now, but I continue to talk to him to distract myself from the fact that I'm hurting everywhere.
Particularly my heart.
"Shhh . . . not so loud."
"Thanks, Jamie, but I'm good," I say flatly, and hang up. I'm not going to exchange one bad situation for another.
I stop walking and look at the screen of my phone. I left my school bag with my wallet in Landon's car. I can't call a cab. Out of nowhere, the song of Ghost Busters plays in my head.
Who you gonna call?
Not Mom and Dad. They can't know about this.
Who you gonna call?
Not Esmeralda. She doesn't have a car.
Who you gonna call?
There's only one person I can call. I find his contact in my incoming calls list. It's been a long time since he called me.
It rings and rings. I wonder if he’ll pick up. Maybe I already burned that bridge.
My call connects. For a moment, I hear him breathing over the line, and then he says, "Hello?"
"Shawn, I need your help," I say, my voice cracking.
"What happened? What's wrong?" He shoots out these questions with almost frenzied concern. A high female voice in the background inquires about who's calling.
"Nothing. I'm fine," I lie, fighting the urge to hang up. "I'm just . . . can you come get me?"
"Where are you?"
* * *
I fall apart in Shawn's car, next to Shawn. He's all dressed and groomed, smelling like cologne. If I wasn't currently traumatized to an inch of my sanity, I would’ve felt satisfied that I ruined some girl's night with him.
Shawn says nothing, but he wears a scowl and clutches the steering wheel until his knuckles are bone-white.
We're outside my house sooner than I expected. I must’ve cried the whole way, and I still haven't composed myself. Shawn reaches over and hooks his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in.
I cry on his shoulder. I sob and tremble and sob some more. I can’t even understand what’s happening to me. Shawn plants his lips in my hair.
"We should go to the police," he finally says after a long time when my tears finally dry up. "That fucking bastard . . ."
"He didn't do this." Why am I defending him?
"Fee, did you see your face?"
I pull away, hiccupping and wiping away my tears. "It's not as bad as it looks."
He hands me a tissue that he pulls from a box by the gearstick. "Your lip is bleeding."
I snatch the tissue and dab my lips. "I'm fine. This is just . . . lesson learned."
"I've never seen you cry before, and that wasn’t normal crying . . ."
I crumple up the tissue. "Thank you for coming to get me."
"Fee," he begins, but then something in my face probably convinces him that he'd get nothing out of me. He backs down, frowning. "Get some rest," he says softly.
I nod and get out of the car. I begin limping toward our front door when I realize that I don't have a key.
I turn around. Shawn's still waiting there. I make my way to Esmeralda's house. The lights are all off, and Tina's car isn't there. I knock anyway. No one answers.
I try calling Esmeralda, but reach voicemail. Just as I hang up my phone, it rings again. Shawn’s calling me.
"Need a place to crash?" he asks.
"Can you sneak me into your house without anyone seeing?"
"Are you talking to Shawn Henderson or are you talking to Shawn Henderson?"
Oh, there’s the douchebag talk again. “I don't know, am I?"
"Just shut up and come here.”
9
I Hate You in a Good Way
The hot water raining down from the huge showerhead washes away the grime. I watch as ash and dirt spiral at my feet before vanishing down the drain. I scrub my hair and skin, trying not to look at the raw red marks that the wyvern's grip left on my abdomen. I still feel cold, so I turn up the heat until the water's almost scalding and the bathroom fills with steam.
I get out of the shower when the images in my mind become too loud.
I slip on the clean T-shirt and the boxer shorts that Shawn set aside for me. This is it; I've been reduced to sleeping in Shawn's underwear. I crack open the window to let out the steam and then walk out into Shawn's bedroom that's adjacent to the bathroom. In the hall, the washer-dryer with my clothes in it hums. I was surprised to discover that he knows how to use it.
He pretends to continue reading something on his phone as I take a pillow from his big double bed and walk up to the sofa. His room is big enough to have its own sitting area that consists of two sofas. I throw the pillow on the one that isn't occupied by Shawn, and just like that, I lie down.
"Your hair is soaking wet," he says with disapproval.
I curl into a ball in reply.
He puts aside his phone and humphs before walking away. After a moment, I hear him come back and then the sound of him twiddling with something on the wall by my head. Then there's the unmistakable whirring of a hair dryer and pleasantly warm air parting my hair and blowing into my scalp. Shawn's fingers join in a moment later.
I close my eyes. After a while, most of my head is dry. I turn over to allow him to reach the rest.
The heat and the sound, the soft touch, I feel myself slipping away.
I drift off into a troubled sleep.
* * *
"Fee? Sophie? Wake up!" Shawn's voice banishes indescribable dark creatures made of sharp teeth and claws. I open my eyes to semi-darkness and struggle against the heavy blankets. For a split second, I don't know where I am, and I don't recognize Shawn out of context, and then it all comes back to me.
"You were having a nightmare," he says.
I sit up, shivering. What's wrong with me? What's going on? Why am I being like this?
I always assumed I was pretty strong and nothing could touch me. It's disappointing
to discover that I'm actually a sissy.
"I'm okay, thanks," I whisper, bringing up the blankets to my chin and lying back down.
Shawn brushes my hair from my forehead, looking at me questioningly before nodding his head. "I'm going back to bed," he says.
After he’s gone, I try to return to sleep. I clutch the blankets tighter and tighter. But for some reason, the dark's making me nervous, and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. I can feel every little pain in my body.
I'm a stranger to myself.
There's the possibility that everything I saw tonight is real.
There's the possibility it all happened in my head.
I don't know which to choose—should the madness be outside of me or inside?
What feels like a long time passes. With every passing second, I’m more and more scared.
I get up from the sofa and hug the pillow to my chest. Then I pad across the dark room. Shawn lies in the very center of his bed with his back turned to me and his arms splayed forward. From his heavy breathing, I can tell he's sound asleep. How can anyone sleep like that?
Anyway, no room for me here.
I turn on my heel and walk back to the sofa, sitting down.
I sit there for a moment, hugging my pillow.
I get up and walk back to the bed. Still hugging the pillow with one arm, I lift a corner of the blanket and carefully crawl into the small space behind Shawn's back. Then I turn my back to his back.
I close my eyes.
Shawn exhales deeply through his nose, and I can feel his body turn against mine.
"Baby," he whispers sleepily in my ear. His one arm slides through the space created by my neck and shoulder, while his other comes around my body. He locks me in an embrace, pressing me to him.
His heavy breathing tells me that he’s sound asleep, but the bulge pressed against my lower back means his body knows I’m here.
I don't hold this against him. I’m twisted enough to find this comforting. This is normal, natural. I’m intoxicated by the sexual energy and the physical nearness as warmth spreads through my stomach.
I close my eyes and begin drifting to sleep. Landon's face flashes through my mind. His eyes when I left him on the hill tear my soul.
As I fall from dream to dream, I forget that it's over between us. I have this calming conviction that everything's okay, and right now, I'm lying in Landon's bed. I snuggle back into the embrace, grinding my hips against him.
My mind just wants to shut down, so I sleep. I dream of making love to Landon. In my sleep, there's a lot of groping and touching, a lot of angling my head back to meet his lips with mine. But for some reason, even though I touch him enough to make him climax, I keep my back to him and stop things from moving forward.
I keep forgetting why.
Finally, there's an alarm clock ringing. I wake up in Shawn's room, with Shawn's hand inside my shirt, cupping my breast.
"Goddammit!" he cries, pulling his hand out, rising on his elbow, and making some space between us.
My lower back’s wet. I sit up, pushing down the blanket.
There's a wet spot on the sheet. I gaze up into Shawn's scarlet face. He avoids my eye.
"Is that . . . ?" I don't have to ask, but I ask anyway, and Shawn squirms.
"I . . . that . . . how . . . um . . . shit."
I'm surprised he'd be this embarrassed. You'd think Shawn'd just brush something like this off with an aloof shrug and try to convince me I should take it as a compliment.
"I'm sorry about that . . ." he mumbles, his eyes darting toward my shirt. "I was sleeping, I swear. I didn't know what was happening. I didn’t even know you came to the bed.”
I look at his face. I look at the sheet.
It starts with a snort, and then a little chortle. Then I somehow roll off the bed and I'm sitting on the floor, clutching my spleen as I scream with laughter.
I laugh and I laugh and I laugh.
Shawn peers at me over the edge of the bed with a worried expression.
I laugh.
And then I cry.
I take another shower while Shawn strips his bed and pushes his sheets into the washer.
* * *
I’m not worried that anyone at school will notice that I’m wearing the same clothes two days in a row because I do it all the time.
I button up my jacket. I managed to get most of the ash and dirt out of it last night using wipes. It's black, so anything I missed isn't too noticeable.
I'm ready for school. I just don't have a school bag. I don't know what I'll do about the books I'm missing, or about my wallet and house keys.
Shawn sneaks me out of the house, and I shiver by his car until he joins me five minutes later.
He comes beside me, about to open the driver's door. "Fucking hell!" he exclaims, jumping back from the car and pushing me behind him. "What the fuck is that?"
I peer over his shoulder into the car where I see my familiar lilac-colored Jansport backpack on the passenger seat.
"That would be my bag," I say, walking around the car and trying to open the door. "You need to unlock it."
"You didn't have it with you yesterday," he says, spooked. "Did someone break into my car to put your backpack inside it?"
I say nothing. He looks at me. I don't meet his gaze. When he finally unlocks the door, I take my backpack and get in.
Shawn gets in behind the wheel, but he doesn't start the car right away. He turns to me and stares at my face long and hard. "Fee, I'm not going to pressure you to talk to me. I know you don't consider us exactly friends, and hell, I'm not even sure it's possible for me to be friends with a girl. But, if I see Landon right now, there's a good chance I'm going to kill him."
I look Shawn right in the eye so he'll know I'm sincere. "Landon didn't do anything to me."
"Then who did this to you? And why wasn't Landon the one you called last night?"
I don't answer. Shawn grunts with annoyance, starting the car. We drive to school in silence.
"Are you still with him, Fee?" he asks me after a while.
I shake my head. "We're so over."
He smiles but tries to hide it. "Fine, I won't kill him unless you ask me to. He's a loser anyway."
Yes, we're over. We're definitely over. There's no going back. The more I tell myself this, the truer it will become.
My heart gives a terrible lurch that makes my hand come to my mouth.
We're over, but I'm not over him.
Yet.
* * *
There's a letter in my bag. I find it during English class propped between my books. A thick, sealed envelope with my name written on it in black pen.
I leave it there.
Later that day, when I'm finally home after school, I take it out and look at it. I turn it over and hold it up to the light. I should throw it away unread. I want to, but then again, I don't. On my bookshelf is a small childish treasure chest that Tina, Esmeralda's mom, gave me for my tenth birthday. I keep markers and spare pens in it. I open it. Its hinges creak, and I push in the letter, clasping the lid shut.
And then I forget about it, or at least try to.
* * *
"Girls, you're absolutely precious, helping me like this," Mrs. Tanner says, pressing her hand to her heart.
With a grunt, I put down the heavy cardboard box, feeling my back breaking. Esmeralda quickly begins sorting its contents onto the table.
"It's not a problem, Mrs. Tanner," says Esmeralda with that loud voice she uses for adults, and a big smile.
It’s early on Saturday, and I let myself get dragged by Esmeralda into helping out old Mrs. Tanner from down the street with her garage sale.
"I can't think of a single thing that I'd rather be doing with my weekend," I say in a surly voice as I help Esmeralda arrange countless purses on the table.
"I wanted to do a yard sale last year." Mrs. Tanner completely misses my sarcasm. "But then Andy got sick—oh, no, dear, that one's handmade and vintage.
Can you hang it up on the rack over there?—and my grandson Melvin couldn't be persuaded to lift a finger."
Esmeralda hurries over to hang the hideous vomit-green purse where it will be able to display its hideousness to a greater extent.
I give Mrs. Tanner a serious look. "If you need me to persuade Melvin, Mrs. Tanner, just say the word. I'm great with scissors."
Mrs. Tanner’s smile freezes on her face and then begins to lose its buoyancy, her mouth slowly, slowly, stretching down into a confused frown.
"She's kidding," Esmeralda bustles back. "Sophie's just pulling your leg, Mrs. Tanner.”
Mrs. Tanner squeals with delight, slapping my arm repeatedly. I take a step back. For an elderly lady, she's strong. “That sense of humor of yours! You got me there, pumpkin."
Pumpkin. Pumpkins are orange. That's almost like calling me carrots.
Carrots. He called me carrots because I’m a ginger, and then he asked me if that was demeaning. I threw a sandwich in his face.
But actually, I was kind of glad he was a guy who knew words like “demeaning” and how to use them in a sentence.
Get out of my head, Landon!
I join in the laughter with an exaggerated yelp.
Esmeralda eyes me quizzically. "Let's go get that heavy box from inside the house, Soph."
"What heavy bo—?”
Esmeralda's elbow nudges me in the ribs.
Mrs. Tanner is busy untangling stringy pearl necklaces and doesn't notice our exchange. "These belonged to my aunt Lia. She never took them off and swore they were real pearls." Mrs. Tanner snorts to herself as we make our way toward the house. "Real pearls, my ass," I hear her saying as we amble into her broccoli-smelling living room.
There's only one small box left. Esmeralda turns on me with a determination I've never seen before. "Okay, what's up?"
I pull a blank face. "Uh, good . . . why?"
Esmeralda's eyes do their no-bullshit roll. "Soph, your crazy's showing."
I fold my arms over my stomach. "It's nothing."