by Heart,Skylar
I fell really sick after that, until I had to admit to Dennis about my eating disorder and that I really needed help. I could finally recognize that I needed help if I wanted to live. His hatred, the anger, the contempt for me and my will to live, they will always haunt me.
He left, leaving me behind in my room, too weak to do much at all. I guess I was lucky that Lola decided to spend the week before Easter with me. That she wanted to be near me, even if it had only been an attempt to control me. I needed that.
I won’t ever let someone control me like Dennis again. Never. If that is what relationships are like, if they can ruin you like that and mess everything up, I don’t want to ever go through that again.
Chapter 14
Hunter
I check the mirror again. I’ve been hiding inside the studio for the last couple of days, but I do need to get to class today. Even if I don’t feel like it. There is no other way around it.
The bruises on my face are still dark, though the edges are starting to fade. After my chat with Tamara, she walked me home, making me promise to please think of my future, because the way I was going didn’t promise a very long one. I agreed, even if I don’t know if I really care.
I quickly get dressed and grab my things for class. I skipped literature yesterday, but I can’t skip drawing today, and neither should I. I stuff my things in my bag and grab my jacket and my helmet. Time for another day.
I close the door to the studio behind me. It’s one of a whole building of small studios, just for students. I take a deep breath. Tessa and I were supposed to live here together. This was going to be our place while she finished classes and I tried to get through college as fast as possible. This was never supposed to be mine alone.
The staircase down is quiet and empty. People are either already in class or still asleep. I’m going to the workshop before class starts as I’ve got a project I want to finish. I’ve been working on a painting for the last week, and after being away from it for a few days, I know how I want to finish it.
I get onto the motorbike, kick it off and make my way through the streets. It’s funny how people always look at me as I come past. I’m pretty sure that they see me every morning, but people keep staring. Either at me or at the bike. Like they’ve never seen anyone on a motorbike…
The college comes into view and I take a side route that brings me to the workshop immediately. Tamara’s car isn’t there yet, but the lights inside are on. I park my bike and walk through the door as I take the helmet off.
Damon is already working in one corner. This time Lizzy isn’t with him. It makes me both sad and glad. Which is stupid, but many things I do are stupid and infuriating.
I dump my things on a table and check the roster on the wall. There should be a private room free until class begins. I don’t feel like working in the main hall today. I write my name down for one of the rooms and as I turn around, Damon is looking at me. “Morning,” I say.
“Morning.” Damon now stares at me.
“What?”
“You walk into a wall?” He quirks an eyebrow.
“Something like that.” I shrug. What does he care?
“Tamara was really angry last week. Did you have anything to do with that?” Damon now comes over, looking pained.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” I grab my things again, getting ready to leave.
Damon grabs my arm, turning me to him. “I don’t get what’s so great about you that people keep getting bent out of shape when you’re involved. Lizzy, Tamara, girls everywhere. I don’t see it. You’re self-involved, you hurt people, and still they seem to think you’re this great guy.” He shakes his head. “Whatever. I guess I’ll never understand some people.” He walks off again, apparently having said whatever he needed to say.
But that doesn’t mean that I can’t reply. “You think you’re some great guy then? That they all should just flock to you? Don’t make me laugh.”
Damon turns to me, and there is nothing in his eyes. No anger, no upset, nothing. “No, I’m definitely not a good choice. But there are many more people out there than just the two of us. Maybe we shouldn’t try to connect to people when we can only hurt them. Don’t you think?”
I shrug again, kind of taken aback by his words. Damon hurting anyone? It sounds so crazy. The guy looks like someone poured a whole bucket of ‘goodness’ in a human form. I don’t even think that he can hurt anyone. But when he looks at me, there is something in his eyes that makes me stop and not say anything for a moment.
“Anyway. Something to think about.” He walks back to his camera and whatever he was shooting. I can’t help but look at his retreating back for a moment. Not connecting to people, because we only hurt them. I’ve been trying that, but not everyone is scared off as easily. Tamara and Lizzy definitely aren’t like that.
I bring my things into the private room and collect my painting from storage. Right next to it is one from Lizzy. Not hurting her, yeah. The painting is dark, though it doesn’t seem as frightening as the ones Tamara showed us a while back. I wish I could just forget Lizzy, but something in me wants to help her, heal her, even if that breaks me.
“You want to come over?” Lola looks up at me before she avoids getting jabbed in the ribs by Lizzy. We’re in front of the workshop, it’s nearly time for dinner and I should go back to my studio. I really should. I should follow Damon’s advice and not get involved with people, but this is Lola. That can’t be wrong, right?
“Isn’t that a hassle?” I don’t want to impose on the family. I know that I’m already imposing on Lizzy.
“Nah, I’m cooking anyway.” Lola smiles. “I’d like to catch up, you know.”
I look at Lizzy, but she just glares at me. When I went to drawing class, Lizzy was already waiting and as soon as she saw me, her face fell. Yeah, the bruises weren’t gonna make her like me more. But there wasn’t much strength behind it, she looked just exhausted. Which is what makes me pause now. “If you’re okay with it.”
Lizzy shrugs. “I just wanna go home. I don’t care what you two decide on.” She starts walking to the car park.
“Lizzy.” Lola takes a couple of steps after her before she turns to me. “See you at the house? I really would like to catch up with you, somewhere that isn’t here.”
“I’ll see you in a bit.” I guess that it’s okay. Lola is right, we’ve been friends for so long, it would be nice to catch up.
“Yay.” She grins and runs after Lizzy, smiling. Lizzy turns her head my way for a moment, but when she sees me look at her, she turns back again, set on ignoring me. That’s fine with me. At least with Lola, I don’t need to worry—she knows me, but Lizzy… the way Lizzy sometimes looks at me… Like Damon said, maybe we shouldn’t make that connection with some people.
I get on my bike and follow the Benton twins’ car. It doesn’t take us long to get to their place. As the girls park the car I push the bike between the houses, putting it slightly out of sight.
Soft footsteps stop behind me. “What are you doing?” Lizzy’s voice has an edge of pain.
I turn around to her and she steps closer, her fists clenching and unclenching. “Having dinner at your place,” I say.
Lizzy reaches up, nearly touching my face, her eyes going watery. Then she turns away and walks to the door of the garage, her place, her place of safety. “Have fun.”
“I’d like it if you could join us.” I don’t know why I say it, I know that she doesn’t like to eat in front of people, but I still ask it of her. Because I want to see her. I swallow hard as the thought rises in me. “I don’t want to make you flee the table just because I’m there.”
Lizzy shoots a final look at me, shaking her head. “Maybe you shouldn’t have come here then.” She opens the door and closes it behind her without looking back at me. What was that about not hurting her again?
I walk back to the front of the house where Lola is waiting for me, smiling, and I mirror it. The twins
are so different. Even though I know that Lola has her own issues, she’s still so much more upbeat than Lizzy is.
“Don’t pay attention to her. She’s been grumpy all week.” Lola shakes her head as she walks in front of me to the door and opens it.
“Why?” I can’t help my curiosity.
“Don’t know. Sometimes she’s just like that. She’ll get over it when she start a new project or something.” Lola shrugs as she walks into the house. “Mum! Dad! I’m home.”
A door opens and a woman who can’t be anyone but Lola and Lizzy’s mum comes into the hallway. “Hi, hon, how was your day?” When she sees me, her eyes go wide. “If I remember correctly, you’re Hunter, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nod in her direction. We’ve met a couple of times before, usually at the high school.
“Welcome, welcome, what a lovely surprise. Tell me all about what happened since you graduated. You must be looking forward to getting your degree. Right?” She keeps talking as she leads me into what I assume is the living and dining room.
“Thank you. I’m actually in the same class as Lizzy.”
“Oh. What a coincidence! How do you get along?” She tries to get me to sit in a chair, but I’m not very keen on revealing all that has happened in the last couple of years to this woman.
“Hunter, do you want to help me with the cooking?” Lola looks at me from the doorway, an amused look in her eyes.
“Lo. Really? He’s a guest.” Her mother sighs.
“I’d love to help. I like cooking.” I like it well enough to prefer it over getting interrogated. I follow Lola into the kitchen and lean against the counter as Lola grabs things for dinner.
“You want to do something useful, or just stir the sauce?” Lola looks my way. “We may as well actually start, you know, cooking.”
“Got any chopping to do?” I don’t mind chopping, it’s easier than having any control over the food.
“Yeah, here.” She hands me a whole bunch of vegetables, then puts a chopping board, some bowls and a knife in front of me. “This all needs to be small.”
“Good. That I can do.” I start chopping and Lola looks at me. I can’t keep ignoring her, so I look up. “What?”
“Your bruises…”
“Got in some trouble when I was playing pool.” Close enough to the truth. It’s not like Lola doesn’t know how I am anyway.
“Figured. Lizzy can’t stop staring at them.” I look up at her when she doesn’t continue. Lola blinks and lets out a breath. “She can’t stand violence. Frightens her even to see bruises or something like that.”
That I already know. I’ve seen the way she keeps looking at me when I look like this. But I only nod.
“She’s not scared of you, though. I don’t know why, but she seems different when she’s around you.”
I know that Lola means well, but I can’t do this right now. “Can we not…” I take a deep breath. “Tell me about what you’ve done since you graduated. I’m much more interested in that.”
Lola looks at me for a moment, her expression unreadable, but then she nods. “What I’ve done since we last saw each other… Damn, loads.” She tries to smile, tries to lighten the mood.
“Start at the beginning, it seems that we’ve got time.” I smile too, trying to encourage her. I’d much rather talk about the past than about the present, and that’s messed up.
The rest of the evening goes quite well. Lizzy even joined us for dinner. Apparently she didn’t let me scare her away, even when her parents and Lola were quite surprised by this. It was kind of awkward for a bit—on one side Lola, with whom I have a past, and on the other side Lizzy, with whom I have a connection in the present. But for being an awkward dinner, it went pretty well. Lizzy even stayed when the rest of us were having dessert, even if she didn’t have anything to eat.
But after that, she fled back to her own place. And, while I wanted to follow her, I stayed with Lola. It was nice connecting with her again. I’d forgotten how good friends we were, how easy she was to talk to. I do remember all the time we spent together, but I guess that I was too wrapped up in Tessa and all the things with Joey to really recognize how valuable her friendship was.
I put the helmet under my arm as I stand next to my bike. Lola’s face has fallen as soon as we stepped into the alleyway. Her eyes keep darting to the garage, and I can feel her worry.
Lola takes a deep breath. “You know what the scariest thing is?” She eyes the garage again, especially the window upstairs. The window to Lizzy’s bedroom. “She’s so thin.” Her voice is thick.
That confuses me. Of course Lizzy is thin. She’s ill, she’s got an eating disorder.
“I mean…” Lola sighs and looks at her own fluttering hands. “When she first became ill, she lost a lot of weight. We saw it happen in front of our eyes. It was so scary and we didn’t know what to do.”
The wind picks up a little and I hear a wind chime somewhere behind me, the light sound not matching the mood.
“She’s thinner now than she was at her worst four years ago. And she’s doing so much better than she was back then. She’s been good all summer. I just don’t know, how far will it go before she disappears?”
Four years ago, the year we graduated, the year that we both nearly didn’t finish. I reach out, taking Lola in my arms again. They look so different now, no one would expect them to be identical twins, sisters maybe, but not twins. “Don’t let her illness stop you from living.”
“But she is my little sister. I need to be there for her.” Lola shakes her head. “I thought you’d understand.”
What is it with these sisters and lashing out at me? “You can, but that doesn’t mean that your life needs to be on hold. You’re her sister, not her parent, not her carer. Her sister.” I remember how I used to stay at home when Joey was ill and my parents were at work. I’d be with him when they were away and I’d work when they were at home. All to take the burden off of them. “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
I instantly feel guilty, but I can’t keep hiding from the truth forever. Even Joey told me this, in the last days where he was lucid. He told me that he regretted never telling me to keep living, he regretted taking me away from my life. It hurt so much to hear him say it, and I was so angry. But looking back on it, I know that he felt bad that I had given up my life, that I had dedicated some of the most interesting years of my life just to stay with him through all the boring bits. He had felt so guilty because he knew he was dying and I didn’t keep living.
I hold Lola close, not sure what else to say, and I think she knows exactly what I mean. So much has happened, but there was one thing that really connected us—we both had a sibling who was ill and we both wanted to do everything it took to make it better for them.
Quick but quiet footsteps approach us and suddenly there is another set of arms around us. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Lizzy’s words are muffled against us and she tries to pull us as close as possible. How much did she hear? How much of what we said did she hear?
I move and take Lizzy in my arms too, her tiny frame pushing against me, reminding me that while I lost Joey, Lizzy is still here. Maybe brothers and sisters shouldn’t give up their own lives, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t fight for Lizzy. That doesn’t mean that I can’t be there for her, help her. Even if she doesn’t want it.
We’re standing there for a while before Lizzy shivers and Lola lets out a laugh.
“I think it’s time for me to go home.” I easy my arms from around Lola and Lizzy.
Lola looks at us both. “Wanna go to the zoo this weekend?”
“Sure.” It’s not like I’ve got other plans.
“Can I take Hanna?” Lizzy shrugs.
Lola nearly frowns, but then nods. “Sure. The more the merrier.”
“Cool. I’ll ask her immediately.” Lizzy looks at me, showing me a soft smile. “See you tomorrow in class.” And then she’s off, back into the garage.
; Lola laughs.
“What?” I’m not sure what is funny.
“I’m pretty sure she wants Hanna to come because she thinks she’ll be the third wheel.” Lola shrugs. “Can’t be helped. Let’s meet here on Saturday morning. Yeah? We’ll take the car to the zoo.”
“Sounds good.” I give her a quick hug. “I’ll see you then, or maybe at the workshop before that.”
“Yeah. See ya.” She stands back and watches as I put on my helmet and make myself comfortable on the motorbike.
I wave as I ride off, the sound of the bike following me, the noise bouncing between the houses. I can’t help but laugh. This neighborhood is much more uptight. Seeing a guy drive off on a motorbike must be quite the view for some people.
Chapter 15
Lizzy
I’ve got a warm jacket on, even though it’s way too sweaty in this weather. It’s the beginning of October, but it feels the same as it did at the end of August. It’s not like it fits with the corset and the dress, but I guess I can’t help it when Mum keeps fussing over me like this.
“Are you okay?” She puts something in my bag. She’s way more worried about this all than I am. I guess maybe I should be more worried, but with Lola and Hunter around, and also Hanna, I guess I feel safe.
“I’m fine. Stop fussing. Go check on Lola or something.” I take the bag from her and dig through it, taking out a few things. Meal bars. I let out a sigh and put only two back in.
“She packed everything last night. You didn’t pack anything.” Mum puts another bar back in, and I let out a sigh, but leave it in.
“Because this isn’t a big deal.”
Luckily Hanna comes through the door right at that moment.
“Hi.” She looks good in her jeans and a fluffy top. She’s not even wearing a jacket.