by Temple West
“Why aren’t you taking care of her?”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, sounding angry. “I watch her every day; what the hell more do you want? This isn’t my problem.”
“We understand that the burden of her safety rests heavily on you,” Mariana said in a reasonable tone, “and that it is the responsibility of us all to see that she remains safe, but it must be you that oversees her well-being. She looks sick, Adrian.”
“You’re blaming me for her immune system?”
I didn’t want to hear anymore, so I hurried upstairs and got another hour’s worth of work done on the dress. Literally falling asleep at the sewing machine, I finally called it a night and used the ridiculously deep bathtub to soak for another hour. I stumbled into my pajamas and collapsed into bed, falling asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.
When I opened my eyes, everything was white. I knew I had a body, but it was so bright I couldn’t see anything. The only other thing I knew for certain was that I was falling. There was absolutely no sound, like I was in space where sound didn’t exist, but I could feel the air rushing past my body, I could feel my hair whipping up behind me, could feel my eyes water as they were buffeted by the wind. And I continued, silently, to fall.
And fall.
And fall.
I woke up when I hit the ground.
When I opened my eyes, Adrian was sitting in a chair next to my bed. I looked at him, feeling as though my entire body were broken, like I actually had hit the ground from a great height. Every muscle was triple-tied into knots. Adrian’s eyes were glowing softly, providing the only light in the dark room.
Turning my back on him, I let the tears slide down my face, too tired to even cry properly.
But a moment later I felt the mattress next to me dip as Adrian sat on it. And then my hair was being brushed aside and he was rubbing my neck and it felt amazing. He didn’t say anything, just started on my shoulders, painfully working out the knots, and I kept crying because there wasn’t anything left to do but cry.
He worked a long time, making his slow and methodical way down my back until every point of tension was deliberately, painfully erased. When he was done, I felt like mush. He pulled back the covers and settled in next to me. Then I was being rolled over until I rested with my face against his shoulder and my arm tucked lifelessly against his chest. I fell asleep instantly.
17
IT COUNTS FOR TWO VOTES IF YOU SAY IT LIKE A PIRATE
“What’s the theme this year?” Meghan asked, popping a cheese puff in her mouth. We were all crammed into Trish’s room for an emergency dance-planning session.
“Winter Neverland,” Stephanie replied. Laura looked less than excited, but Neverland was right up Meghan’s alley.
“Hold the train,” Trish interrupted. “I know who I’m going with, and I know who Caitlin’s going with, but before anybody buys a dress, I need to know who everybody else is going with—that way I can approve purchases based on scandalicity.”
“I don’t suppose Mark will be back in time?” Meghan asked.
“Hell no.”
She sighed. “Too bad. Such a nice body.”
“Tim asked me,” Stephanie broke in.
We all turned to stare at her.
“Tim Tim?” Laura asked at the same time Trish said, “Emo-Punk Emerson?”
Stephanie blushed, smiling. “Yeah.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa; are you two, like, dating?” Meghan demanded, forgetting Mark in the wake of juicy gossip.
Stephanie blushed even further. “Well, I don’t think so.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He only asked me to the dance.”
“This explains so much!” Meghan said with a look of epiphany. “He just got a haircut, and I haven’t seen him dye his hair in a month!”
“He said he wanted it to be normal for the pictures,” Stephanie defended him, her cheeks a bright pink.
“Wow,” Meghan said in genuine awe. “He must, like, love you.”
“I don’t think—” Stephanie began, but Laura cut her off with, “Just because a boy lets his hair go back to its natural color doesn’t mean he’s in love. Maybe it was just getting too expensive to dye.”
“Or maybe he’s in love,” Meghan countered, and I could sense a battle on the horizon.
“Who’re you going with, Laura?” I asked.
She blinked at me. “Daniel.”
“Kane?” Meghan asked in pure disbelief.
Laura frowned. “Do you know another?”
“He’s a senior.”
“It’s not unheard of to go with someone outside your own grade.”
“Damn,” Meghan said, “pretty soon there’s gonna be no one left.” She paused with a cheese puff halfway to her mouth. “Who is left?”
“Andrew and Eric are taken,” Laura said, naming senior boys I didn’t know very well. “And Adrian, of course. I think Luke’s available.”
“He’s taken.”
We all looked at the corner where Jenny usually hid.
“You snagged Luke?” Jenny nodded and Meghan groaned. “Great; now who am I going to go with?”
“Jack’s available.”
Meghan looked thoughtful. “He’s not bad-looking.”
“Right,” Laura said. “Because that’s all that’s important.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“We’re all still going shopping this Saturday?” I piped up.
“Hells yeah.”
* * *
All day long the girls were talking about our impending shopping trip until I was sick of hearing the words dance, dress, and date. Adrian caught a whiff of our conversation at lunch and looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights.
He leaned over. “Do you want to go?”
I answered around a bite of peanut butter and jelly. “Well, since I’ve been working on a dress nonstop for two weeks, it might be a good idea to have something to wear it to.”
“Ah,” he replied, and cleared his throat. “Am I supposed to ask you officially, then?” I stared at him. He took that as confirmation. “Will you go with me to winter formal?”
I narrowed my eyes and looked thoughtful. “I was actually thinking of going with one of Trish’s brothers.”
I was teasing, of course, but for a moment, I could have sworn I saw Adrian’s eyes flash silver. Could have been a trick of the light, I suppose; the sun was actually out for once.
“Of course I’ll go with you,” I said quickly, and he relaxed.
He nodded and went back to his sandwich, which sucked away all my enthusiasm about the dance. At least I had a full night of sleep to look forward to—Trish and Adrian had coordinated another fake sleepover so I could crash at the mansion.
I grew out of my funk during choir when Trish spent the entire class playing Obscure Hangman with me on the back of an old math test. She said she and her brothers made it up one time when they were stuck in the car.
“‘Jellybeans must die’?” I whispered when I was down to one leg.
“Damn straight.”
And that’s why it was called Obscure Hangman.
I left with Trish after school got out. Adrian picked me up about a mile away from her house.
“What were you two giggling about during choir?” he asked when I got in.
“What? Oh, nothing. We were just playing Hangman.”
He looked at me, and I felt like a five-year-old. “What’s Hangman?”
I realized he hadn’t ever been a five-year-old. Well, at least not like everybody else had been a five-year-old.
“It’s a kid’s game,” I said, trying to explain. “You guess letters and try to figure out the phrase or sentence the other person has written down. Except in the obscure version, the phrase is … obscure. Like ‘please tickle my earlobe with yarn.’”
We blinked at each other.
“I’ll show you when we get to your place,” I said, giving up.
When we arrived, I felt, as usual, that the sign that read PRIVATE PROPERTY should instead read ENTERING DE LA MARA–LAND, or WELCOME TO A HOUSE THE SIZE OF A SMALL COUNTRY, or even THE ENTIRE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY WAS FILMED IN OUR LIVING ROOM.
He parked and we headed inside.
“Time to connect with your inner child,” I said, dragging him into the library. We sat down on the couch near the humongous fireplace and I pulled out a sheet of paper and scribbled a stick-figure gallows, thought a moment, then underlined the spaces I wanted for my phrase. “All right, guess a letter.”
He looked at me. “Which one?”
I stared back. “Any one.”
“How do I know which one is right?” he asked seriously.
“You don’t,” I replied. “That’s the point of the game. If you guess wrong, I draw in a body part.”
“Excuse me?” He looked appalled.
“Just guess a letter.”
He looked down and contemplated the blank spaces on the paper.
“E,” he said finally, looking up. “It’s the most commonly used letter in the English language. I’m assuming this is in English?”
I stared at him in disgust. “You would know that. And yes, it is.” I bent down and filled in four Es. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“A,” he said.
I wrote in two As.
“O.”
“Sorry, my friend.” I drew in a head at the end of the noose. “No Os.”
“What does that mean?” He pointed at the head.
“That means that you have a spine and four limbs to go before you lose.”
He stared at me. “This is a children’s game?”
I nodded. He shook his head. “I.”
“Two Is.”
He contemplated the paper. It read: _ _ i _ _ _ _ _ _ ea_ _e_ _ie_ _ea_ _.
He guessed a couple more letters, all correct, before saying, “G.”
“No G.” I added a spine to the hangman and wrote the letter G off to the side. Adrian narrowed his eyes, his competitive edge starting to come out.
He guessed a few more rounds, ending up with two spare limbs and the phrase “c _ i _ _ _ n _ s eat refried _eans.”
“What on earth?” he whispered under his breath. I grinned. “U,” he said finally, and I knew it would be a matter of seconds before he got it. He stared at it a moment longer, then looked up at me slowly. “‘Chipmunks eat refried beans’?”
I smiled, filled in the rest of the letters, and said, “Yay, you won.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “Those were the two least productive minutes of my entire life.”
“Yeah, well, it’s supposed to be fun.” I was already wishing I hadn’t shown him the game. He was spoiling everything lately.
“You guys played this for forty-five minutes?”
“We had some good phrases,” I said, feeling suddenly tired. “Trish started with ‘jellybeans must die’ and then I had ‘silver socks sing sadly’ and then she came up with ‘Polly Pocket picked Peter Piper’s peppers,’ and then I had ‘cliff-hanger kisses carabiner,’ and then she ended with ‘denim stole my soul’ because the bell rang. It kind of turned into Hangmen of Alliteration, but that’s okay.”
“Lady loves Lucian,” a voice said from somewhere behind me. Lucian slipped over the edge of the couch and slid beside me with a smile. I gave him a hug and said, “Yes, lady loves Lucian.” I sighed. “Unfortunately, lady also has homework that lady must do before shopping with other ladies tomorrow.”
“Should I go?” Lucian asked. I knew a few months ago he would’ve just sat there staring blankly. Slowly, he seemed to be adjusting and picking up on social cues. I was so proud of him.
“You can stay as long as you’re quiet,” I said. Then I looked up at Adrian. “That is, if your brother doesn’t mind.”
Adrian shrugged. “He can stay.”
Lucian looked happy, which made me happy, which gave me the energy to start the essay that was due Monday for Mr. Warren. We worked for a few hours, together but separate, as the fire cracked and popped. When we went to dinner, Mariana had cooked steaks, and I filled up on the Japanese “Wagyu” beef that was, Mariana explained, the most elite of steaks. I didn’t even know it was possible for meat to be elite, but whatever, it tasted good, so I ate it.
It was still early when dinner was finished, but I knew I’d actually have to wake up in the morning, so I took my (now) customary soak in the tub, a hot shower, and snuggled into the monstrous four-poster bed in my favorite pajamas; content that I’d gotten a first draft of the essay pounded out, I had food in my stomach, and as soon as my nightmare was over, I’d sleep like a baby.
I floated slowly down into the dream, and when the nightmare hit, it literally hit. I staggered back from a punch to the jaw and fell hard against the ice. Blinking to get the black dots out of my eyes, I realized I was sprawled out over the frozen pond Adrian had taken me ice-skating on back before Thanksgiving. I looked up just as someone pounded down on my stomach with what felt like a steel-toed boot. My body convulsed in and then snapped back sharp enough for me to know that bones had broken. Not only that, but the kick had driven all the air out of my lungs and I couldn’t breathe.
I stared up at the bright blue sky listening to my attacker circle me as I lay gagging. He grabbed my hair and pulled me up so my toes just barely scraped the ice. I finally sucked in enough oxygen to scream before I was thrown to the center of the pond. It cracked instantly and I fell down into the dark, freezing water. The current sucked me away from the hole in the ice and scraped me along the underside of the frozen lake until my face was raw and bleeding. When I opened my eyes the water pierced them, it was so cold. I hadn’t gotten enough air before and now the pain of the subfreezing water shocked what little air I did have right out of my lungs. I choked, sucking in water. I couldn’t move my fingers, couldn’t feel my feet; my eyelashes were crusted shut with ice and I was going to die.
I jerked awake, arching off the bed without an ounce of air; eyes wide in the darkness as my lungs stayed shriveled like popped balloons. I twitched, trying to loosen something so I could breathe, but every muscle was contracted, locked firmly in place. White dots were beginning to swim in front of my eyes when I felt two hands run quickly down my throat. One hand cupped the back of my neck and the other circled around my waist and lowered me back down against the bed, but I still couldn’t breathe. Adrian was pushing on my stomach, my rib cage and sternum, my throat again, tilting my head back to let air in; and then there were lips on mine, breathing air into me, forcing it down into my lungs, and everything unlocked at once. I turned away and coughed, sucking in huge, wracking breaths.
Slowly, slowly, my breathing began to calm down. I heard him mutter, “Peur de la merde de moi; je vais avoir une crise cardiaque, un de ces jours,” which I didn’t understand at all, but it sounded very lyrical and soothing. Then there was more muttering and rustling of sheets and I was being tucked very carefully into Adrian’s very warm body and I murmured something like, “You speak French?” and then I was out again.
I swam through murky un-dreams for a few hours, heavy and a little restless, and when I surfaced back to consciousness, I expected to find myself alone. But I wasn’t. I was lying on my side with Adrian’s arm wrapped around my waist, his face pressed into my neck, his legs tangled up with mine. He was still there. And he was asleep, breathing so quietly that I could feel his unnaturally slow heartbeat against my back. He stirred, rubbed his face against my neck, tightened his arms around my waist, and settled.
It still amazed me how much I loved him.
* * *
“For Pete’s sake, Meghan; that’s the eighth dress you’ve tried on—I’ve been counting.”
“Hold your friggin’ horses,” came the reply from behind the dressing room door. In the next stall over, Jenny was helping Stephanie with the zipper on the back of her off-white dress while Stephanie stood on her tiptoes and sucked i
n her stomach muttering the word pictures over and over again. The door flung open and Meghan stepped out in a low-cut, red satin dress.
“We’ve got a winner!” Trish said, giving her a thumbs-up.
“A winner with a chunky price tag,” Meghan muttered.
Trish flipped the label and sucked in a breath. “Oooh.”
“Winter formal comes but once a winter, however, and I have been saving.”
Trish stared at her. “You—saving? Money?”
“I know, I know; Jesus must be coming back or something. Anyway, I’ve got enough to cover it.”
“There!” I heard Stephanie squeak from her stall as Jenny finally got the zipper all the way up.
“Can you breathe?” Laura asked, peeking over her stall door.
“I don’t need to breathe, I just need to get through the pictures. And I’ll be losing weight before the dance.”
Stephanie was popping out of her dress a bit in the chest area, which was rather scandalous for her, but on the whole she looked really nice. It was a creamy, off-white chiffon with a deep V-neck and a small trail. She kinda looked like a Greek goddess.
“Come on, Laura; what you got?” Trish said, waving at Laura who was peeking out from behind her door. She grimaced, disappeared, and then the door swung open and she was standing in front of us in a deep, plum-colored, square-necked halter with a side tuck that went halfway up her thigh.
“Yes,” Trish said, granting her approval.
“You think?” Laura asked, looking doubtful.
“Definitely. Dan won’t know what hit him.”
Laura smiled, caught herself, scowled, and headed back into the dressing room. Trish had already bought a black dress at the last store, which amplified her naturally impressive bosom. I was sitting on a little plastic footstool thing in the hallway, watching the hubbub with a happy, tired sort of amusement.
“Are you going to try anything on?” Jenny asked me.
I shook my head. “I already got my dress. I’m just here for moral support.” I noticed her hands were empty, and I couldn’t remember her trying anything on in the past six stores we’d been to. “What about you? Are you getting anything?”