by Wendy Brant
He’s watching me closely, maybe believing. Maybe not.
“But there’s something more recent. Some kind of a health issue.”
“How do you know?”
I shake my head. I struggle to verbalize it. “The patterns are … growing? Spreading? Like an oil spill in water.” Now I know. “Cancer. She’s got cancer.”
He hasn’t taken his eyes off me.
“I think I know who it is,” I say sadly. “It’s Mrs. Larkin.”
“Mrs. Larkin?”
“Ellen Larkin. It’s hers. I didn’t know she was sick. I wonder if my dad knows.” I’m talking more to myself, now, feeling raw and helpless, as I often do afterward.
He takes the handkerchief from my hands and unfolds it. There’s a monogram on the corner: HL.
“Herb Larkin. That was her husband.”
Zenn is floored. Without any proof, he still believes me. Maybe that’s why I really brought him here: to a place of belief without proof.
“You’re psychic,” he says.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Kinda.”
“I can’t see the future. Or even the past, exactly. I just … feel all the feelings.”
“That’s … wow.”
I feel a little vulnerable and embarrassed, like I just read him a poem I wrote in fifth grade. But he doesn’t seem to be too freaked out. He reaches for the bottom edge of my hoodie and tugs me closer.
“You don’t know how good it is. To be able to … touch someone.” My voice cracks a little. “I mean, without all that noise. I guess that’s why I’m feeling so —”
“Overwhelmed,” he finishes for me.
“Yeah.”
“I can imagine.” He studies me and then looks down at my hands. “Well,” he says, his voice lighter, “I’m glad to help out any way I can.” There’s that flirtatious tone again.
I gather up a handful of his T-shirt and pull myself closer to him. He rests one hand on my waist.
“You don’t get these fractals when other people touch you?” he asks. His mouth is now close to my temple, his breath loosening something inside me.
I shake my head. “Well,” I say, my voice kind of sticking in my throat. “Not fractals. But I didn’t realize I didn’t get them from you right away because …”
His head dips and his mouth is by my ear.
“Because …?” he says. His breath against my skin makes me shiver.
“Because when I touch you … or you touch me … something just as crazy goes on in my brain.”
“Oh, yeah?” His fingers press lightly against my lower back, pulling me even closer.
I nod.
“Mine, too,” he says.
Well. That about does it for me. He presses his lips against my jaw and now we communicate with our hands and our mouths and our warm, moist breath.
I slide my hands down his back on top of his shirt and feel the slope where his spine runs in the valley of his rib cage, the surprisingly hard angles of muscle and bone that lead down to his hips.
I feel greedy. I want to touch everything: his hair, his skin, his muscles, his bones, his soul if that’s possible. All these years I’ve kept my hands carefully tucked away and until now I don’t think I ever truly realized what I was missing. The velvet of his earlobe, the slight roughness of his cheek, the tender skin on his neck, the firm solidness of everything else. Good lord, it’s so much. And I haven’t even ventured under his clothes.
His kiss is soft and searching and gentle, except when it builds and crests and breaks like a wave, and then it becomes more urgent and less gentle. I feel like I can’t get close enough to him. I want less space between us. No space between us.
So, this is how teenagers get caught up, forget birth control, and end up pregnant. I always thought that practicality would win out and that no matter what the situation, cooler heads would prevail, especially in my case. But that was before I’d ever kissed … well, anyone. Now that Zenn’s mouth is on the sensitive skin just under my ear, now that his lean, warm body is pressed up against me, now that my hands can enjoy the topography of his chest … now I see what all the fuss is about.
Our breathing speeds up, our bodies press more tightly. My hands grip his shoulders with a recklessness I didn’t know I had in me —
Bong, bong, bong …
We both startle when the church bells ring.
Bong, bong, bong …
I realize he is still leaning against the communion rail so that our heights are more even and I’m literally wedged between his legs. In the middle of my church sanctuary. Wow. I take a step backward and he straightens up, reaching out to adjust a fabric banner that got shifted in our frenzy.
Bong, bong, bong!
“Wow,” he says, as if realizing for the first time where we are. “We are going straight to hell, aren’t we?”
I laugh, but something vaguely Cinderella-ish about the clock striking reminds me that this is all an illusion. Even though my powerful attraction to him can eclipse our strange shared history, that may not be the case for him. It’s not fair to either of us to let this go further without telling him what I know.
I will tell him now, while we are feeling close and vulnerable, in the peaceful and forgiving quiet of the church. Another reason I may have brought him here.
But Zenn’s cell phone buzzes and before I can censor my big mouth I say, “Is that a cell phone in your pocket or are you happy to see me?” Oh God, what is wrong with me? Nervousness brings out the worst in me.
Zenn just laughs. He’s not easily embarrassed. “Um … both?”
He fishes the phone out of his pocket and looks at it for a moment. His face changes from happy and relaxed to tense and serious.
“Ev, I have to go. I’m sorry.”
But I still haven’t told him!
“It’s my mom.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.”
“She gets weird sometimes. When she drinks … I just need to check on her.”
“Of course.” I walk with him back to the nursery to get his jacket, even though my legs still feel like jelly. We go through the narthex and I follow him out to his truck. He kisses me goodbye, distracted, and hops inside.
“I’ll talk to you later?”
I nod and watch him drive away.
Before I go to bed, I have to know if everything is okay.
Zenn: Yep. Fine. Sorry for running out. Gtg — see you tomorrow?
His lack of enthusiasm freaks me out. Could his mom have said something to him? Could she know what I know?
To make it worse, I don’t see him at school the next day, and my phone is dead silent. I text him again and he doesn’t respond. Maybe the Camelot period of our brief relationship is over. Maybe the whole relationship is over.
The next day I wonder if he really is dropping out. But then I go to the art room and he is there.
He smiles at me but there is tension in his mouth. He has faint circles under his eyes.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods. He’s not mixing paints today, just sitting at a desk doodling on what appears to be his literature assignment.
“No painting today?”
He shrugs. I notice his hair is getting a little bit longer in the front and it sticks up when he runs his hand through it.
“Everything okay with your mom?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it here,” he says.
Even though I get it — school is not the place for deep conversations — my feelings are hurt a little. But then he says, “I have to work after school, but do you want to come over tonight?”
I wonder if he’s inviting me over just to break up with me, if he found out about my parents. I can’t even think about that. I can’t lose all this now that I’ve finally found it. I can’t go back to my isolation and self-imposed loneliness. He wants me to come over and I know I won’t say no.
I wonder if his mom will be there and I’ll have to figure out what to say. I wo
nder a million things in a second but my answer is a simple, “Yeah.”
Chapter 28
At eight I pull up in front of the Arts and Crafts house in my mom’s minivan. In exchange for using the car, I helped her get the kids to bed before I left. I can tell my mom is torn between being happy for me that I finally have some kind of social life, being resentful that I have other things to do now and being worried about me. She gave up what should have been her carefree twenties to be my mom and I wonder if she’s jealous of me sometimes, too. Not that there’s been much to be jealous of up to this point. She’s made it eighteen years without having to think about me having a boyfriend. Now some big fears — of me getting hurt or pregnant or damaged in some way — are probably hitting her like bricks.
Zenn lets me inside and gestures to the couch, asks me if I want something to drink. Things feel kind of stiff between us, especially considering the last time we were alone together I was basically a puddle of confessions and lust. I know I have to tell him the rest tonight, before things go any further.
I take him up on a glass of water for my dry throat. He hands it to me but I drop it almost immediately, startled by the fractal.
“Sorry!” I bend to pick up the glass, to stop the spill, but the fractal makes me drop it again. I leave it on the floor this time. Zenn grabs a towel from the kitchen and mops up the water. He raises his eyebrows in a what-was-that-about look.
I feel like I peed on the carpet instead of just spilling water on it. “The glass …” I say.
He picks it up and studies it a second. Based on the fractal, I suspect it’s a glass that his mom drinks from often.
“I didn’t even think,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
He goes to the kitchen and looks at the shelf, probably for the least offensive glass.
“I used the Pritzer Insurance mug that one time,” I remind him. “That was fine.”
He takes the mug, fills it with water and brings it to me.
“Are they painful?” he asks.
“No,” I reassure him. “Not physically. Sometimes they give me a headache, or make me a little queasy, but that’s all. They just … surprise me sometimes. Especially when I let my guard down.”
He sits next to me on the couch.
I make small talk to distract him from the fact that I’m kind of a major freak. “How was work?”
“Fine,” he says. He’s still studying the glass that I dropped. “My mom uses this one all the time.”
I nod.
“So what’s it like? Her … fractal?” he asks.
I silently debate about what to tell him. “Um ... Fuzzy. Swirly. Kind of sad. Lots of blues and purples, like a bruise.”
He nods. I don’t think I’m surprising him.
“What’s my dad’s like?”
He looks at me, his gray eyes searching, but hinting that they already know what his dad’s fractal might feel like. I look away.
“He was in jail,” Zenn tells me. He sets his mom’s glass on the battered coffee table. “For almost eighteen years. He just got out.”
Here it comes. I probably should act surprised but I realize that not being honest will only come back to bite me, so I just stay quiet instead. I nod nonjudgmentally.
“Vehicular manslaughter. Drunk driving. After the Packers-Patriots Super Bowl.”
I take a deep breath.
“The Packers won, so … you know. Reason to celebrate.”
His voice is ironic, not making a joke, exactly, but trying to lighten things up.
“My mom had me right after the accident.” He leans back against the couch and stares at the ceiling. I see his Adam’s apple rise and fall. “Messed her up pretty good.”
“We’re all messed up,” I say.
“True. But she’s at a whole different level.” He shakes his head and closes his eyes. He looks exhausted. “Last night she was wasted. She gets kind of manic and just … I worry about her. That’s why I had to leave.”
I reach for his hand, sliding my fingers between his. I realize for the first time that his family has been affected at least as much as mine has by that accident. Who knows where we all would be if things had been different that night. The difference of a few minutes, a drink or two, a missed light at an intersection … Even eighteen years later, that night is still threatening to take things from me.
“Your family is so normal.” He shakes his head. “You sure you want to get involved in all my shit? Jailbird dad. Slutty drunk mom. Me …”
I turn his face toward mine. I plan on saying yes, I’m sure, I’ll take all your shit and then some if I get to be with you. But what comes out is: “My family is not as normal as you think.”
I take a deep breath. I have to tell him. He’s going to find out eventually. “I knew about your dad. About the accident and jail and all that.”
His eyebrows go up in surprise, surprise at my change in topic, surprise that I know.
“Your mom told me,” I explain.
“My mom? When?”
“Saturday. I came by to see you and had coffee with her.”
“Oh, God.” He moans.
“But that’s not …”
Something in my voice makes him sit up. His full attention is always disconcerting. I have no idea how to do this.
“I don’t know how to say this. It may seem like I’m all over the place, but bear with me.” I clear my throat, take a sip of water, clear my throat again. “My parents are not my real parents,” I blurt out. “They are my aunt and uncle.”
He nods slowly, looking confused, but he stays quiet.
“My brothers and sisters are actually my cousins.”
“Okay …”
“My parents died.”
He inhales. Exhales. “Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry.” His voice is sincere, sad, not even a little bit suspicious.
I don’t mean to diminish their death, but I wave my hand in a way that probably does. “I was just a baby. I don’t remember them. So although it’s tragic in theory, it’s all I’ve ever known.”
I hope maybe this is enough for him to make the connection, but why would it? He nods, still clueless. He thinks that’s all there is: dead parents. I reach into my pocket and pull out the flat, rectangular orange stone that I found when I visited their grave on Saturday. I take his hand and press the stone into his palm.
He looks down at it, confused at first, but then something clicks.
“They died in an accident.” I pause before delivering the final punch. “Eighteen years ago.”
He recoils, like I’ve actually punched him with my fist. He shakes his head again. I let it sit for a minute, not wanting to overstate it or spell it out if I don’t have to. But I don’t have to. He knows.
I fill the silence with words.
“I know it’s insane and bizarre that somehow we met and didn’t know any of this. It is. But I think that connection also has something to do with why you don’t give me fractals.”
I think I’ve already lost him. He’s pulled his hand away from mine.
“We were both there that night. It must have something to do with that.”
He’s not really listening anymore. “My dad killed your parents?”
I nod. “But, Zenn … I’m okay. I know it was an accident.”
“But your last name is Walker.”
“Yeah. My aunt and uncle adopted me. Changed my name.”
He stares at me for a minute, letting it sink in and then he looks away. I can tell he’s shutting down, going numb.
“I’m fine, Zenn. I don’t miss what I never had.”
“You are? You don’t?” I can tell he misses everything he’s never had because of that accident: a dad, a normal childhood, a happy mom, money, a stable life.
“I mean —” I start, but he stands up and paces the room. I stand up, too, and never figure out how to finish my sentence.
No matter what I say, it feels like I am downplaying being orphaned just so I can hold on to
a boy. It sounds flippant even to me.
He stops by the small, high window seat that looks down over the driveway. He braces a hand on either side of the window. Finally he says, “This is just my fucking luck.”
I step closer but I don’t touch him.
“Just my luck that I meet someone like you, and this … this fucked-up shit is the backstory.”
“Zenn. It’s okay. We can get past this.”
“Maybe you can. But …” He suddenly sees something, not out the window, but in the puzzles he’s putting together. “Wait. When you hurt your head, when you were little, that was from the accident?”
I barely nod, and his head falls back. “Are you kidding me?”
“Zenn, I’m fine now.”
“No, you’re not. You have this fractal thing messing up your life. You never even knew your parents. You’re not fine. How could you be fine?”
I am fine. Aren’t I?
“You must hate him.”
“I don’t.” And I must put some kind of undue stress on the word I because he looks at me. “I don’t,” I repeat, changing the emphasis.
“Someone does, though. Your aunt? Your uncle?”
My silence is my answer.
He sighs heavily, his eyes on the floor.
“Don’t you think it’s a sign or something that I don’t get the fractals from you? That you’re the only person?” I don’t tell him that it feels like we are meant to be together because that seems like too much, too soon. But I think it. And I feel it.
He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. When your family finds out who I am, how do they ever get past that? How does my dad? How does my mom? She was there, too, you know.” He gasps, remembering something else. “Oh, my God. She held you! After the accident she held you until the cops came. Oh, man. This is just too …”
I didn’t know that part, didn’t know that his mom held me that night. The knowledge leaves me with unsettling images that I don’t often indulge: my mom and dad, bleeding, dead or close to dead in the mangled car. And now: a very pregnant Cinde cradling me in the cold. Zenn and I were just inches apart that night. I shake my head to push the thoughts from
my mind.
I step in front of him, between him and the window, and force him to look at me. “Zenn. It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out.” His whole body sags a little. He doesn’t believe me. I don’t know if I believe myself.