Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2

by Nikki Roman

  She doesn’t know that I have to stop drinking, too.

  “I have to get ready for work,” she says, patting my shoulder as she gets up.

  From a drawer in the kitchen a fresh bottle of Vicodin is calling me, beckoning. I want to stop, desperately need to, but there’s no way for Spencer to know if I don’t. While Mom is in the shower, I slip the bottle from the drawer and down six, the most I have ever taken at one time.

  I’m sitting on the living room couch, buzzing, when Mom comes out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel.

  “Something came for you in the mail,” she says, dripping water on the carpet. “I think it’s from Clad.”

  “Clad? He sent me a letter?” I say, the Vicodin bee buzzing loudly in my head.

  “Yes, it’s on my bed.”

  I leap off the couch and find Clad’s letter propped up against one of Mom’s pillows. I pick it up and hold it at arm’s length, afraid to open it. “What if it’s bad?”

  “Why don’t you read it and find out?” Mom says over the roar of her hairdryer.

  I slip my finger underneath the edge, sealed with Clad’s spit, popping it open. A little plastic card lands in the folds of Mom’s comforter. I inconspicuously snatch it up and hide it under my thigh.

  I pull a piece of pink and white stationery, folded into a neat little rectangle, out of the envelope. Careful not to tear it, I unfold the letter, and then Clad’s words are staring back at me accented by a border of tiny, pink orchids. In silence, I read the letter to myself.

  Dear, Tinker Toy,

  This note could have been written anywhere, could’ve come from anywhere. A note in a bottle, a piece of paper on the sidewalk, a letter taped to the outside of a supermarket. The dainty flowered stationary I’m writing on can easily deceive. But, maybe that is how you think of me - anywhere.

  Anywhere but this smelly, harsh new world of cold beds and feces-smeared toilet seats. Maybe I’m the wrong one to expect you to sympathize with my pain; after all, it isn’t like I understood yours. Didn’t understand your need to bring your mother’s gun to our high school on a sunny, quiet day. Didn’t understand your need to put me in a compromising situation. I’m not blaming you for what I did, that was all me - but I miss you. I thought when I saved you that you would be grateful and love me. Love me over Spencer, and everyone you ever knew. This undying love spun out of pure gratitude for me - your hero.

  Do you remember when I used to pass notes to you in class; I wrote in colored pencil on a sheet of paper ripped out of my notebook, tapped your shoulder, and gave you my words. You used to roll your eyes and toss my notes like they were nothing. Like I was nothing. Like I was disposable.

  I am never going to walk Surf Side’s halls again. I am never going to sit in a desk behind you in Latcher’s class, trying to catch your attention with my stupid notes, written on my stupid paper with the holes ripped down the side, again. I am never going to lie with you on the Janitor’s cot, our noses touching, and your sweet breath against my face, again. I can never go back to that place or time. I took that away from myself. You took that away from yourself.

  Maybe you will read my letter, maybe the flowers and the pink will win your heart over. Or my words that are spilling out of my heart and staining the page with everything I have felt over these past six months. Maybe you will come to see me.

  On the back of the envelope is a list of dates and times that you can visit…it sure would be nice to see your face again. The prison address is on the front of the envelope.

  I have something I want to tell you. Maybe you will come just because of that, just because I have something special to tell you. Lord knows, I’m not reason enough to come. Or maybe this letter is disposable too; it’ll get tossed out like all the others.

  Sincerely,

  Lover Boy.

  The paper falls from my hand to the ground, where it folds up again. I suck in big gulps of air trying to calm myself.

  Mom has been getting ready for work, fixing her bangs and applying her many layers of makeup. She comes out of the bathroom and sits on the bed with me. I take a pillow from behind my head and smash my face into it, muting the screams.

  Mom folds up the letter and places it back in the envelope. “Are you crying?”

  I let go of the pillow and pull my face out of it. “No,” I say, “that’d be wrong. It’s all I’ve been doing for six months straight… crying for myself.” I hug my knees to my chest trying to push back the wormy feeling in my stomach.

  “You were scared to see him; he won’t hold it against you,” Mom says.

  I feel the bed rise as she leaves it; hear the door shut and her heels clomping down the sidewalk as she trots to her car.

  I don’t move, paralyzed by Clad’s letter. I’ve been spending the whole summer and a good part of the almost six months that Clad has been locked away for, with my boyfriend. Kissing my boyfriend, playing games with my boyfriend, poring over books with my boyfriend, but what about my best friend? The best one I ever had, or will have - Clad.

  Is it really fear that pushed him away? Or was it my own desire to bubble wrap myself in a cocoon of safety and predictability? When I only concern myself with Spencer and the thrift store, I live a fake and sheltered life. This letter is proof that I can only hide from reality for so long before it comes back with a vengeance, biting me in the rear. Hello, it says, I missed you.

  Today I wake up from the sweet dream I’ve been living in. Everything is bitter, my life dropping its mask and revealing a hideous distorted face. Clad isn’t okay in prison; he hates me. Spencer isn’t gentle with me anymore, and Mom isn’t having a baby through wedlock. I hate myself more than I hate Miemah, more than I hate Nessa, Cecil, Latcher, and Bracker combined.

  I rise from the bed and go into the kitchen. There’s a knife on the counter that Mom uses to slice apples; its blade only four inches long, thin but sharp. I sit on the tile twisting the knife in my hands. I have heard about kids who cut to relieve their pain.

  I never really thought to do it because I was constantly being shredded by Miemah, anyway. It just didn’t make sense to harm myself further. But with my wounds turned to scars that fade more and more with each passing day, and my bones healed, and this empty feeling in my gut - it finally seems like a brilliant idea.

  I turn my wrist up, it’s smooth and I can see the perfect veins to cut, like the strings of a harp to pluck, creating a melody. A beautiful bloody melody.

  I press the tip of the blade into my skin and watch as a drop of blood pools up around it. I’m a vampire - the minute I see and smell blood, I need more. I drag the blade swiftly across my wrist. Blood trickles from the shallow cut; I clamp my hand around it and the blood seeps through my fingers.

  Stinging, searing, throbbing pain.

  No release. No euphoric high. Faint, weak, at the sight of my own blood dripping down my arm and onto my kitchen floor. I kick the knife and it spins under the stove.

  My cellphone trills. It’s on the table above my head. Standing up, my knees weak, I grab the phone with my good hand.

  “Hello?”

  “Bailey, are you all right? I’ve been waiting for you,” Spencer says.

  My white silk nightgown is turning red, I have my wrist pressed against it to stop the bleeding.

  “Mhm,” I mumble because if I open my mouth I will vomit.

  “Are you coming in today?”

  “Mhm.”

  “You sure you’re all right?’

  “Mhmmm.”

  “See you soon,” Spencer says.

  I stare at my wrist, annoyed, as if it could stop bleeding if it really wanted to, but it’d rather mock me. How am I going to hide this?

  I find gauze and an Ace bandage in the medicine cabinet. Awkwardly, I wrap my wrist as best I can. Throwing away my bloody nightgown, I change into a hoodie with sleeves that reach past my fingertips. I brush my hair and teeth and shove Clad’s letter into my pocket. Spencer will ask me why I’m dresse
d so warmly on a hot summer’s day; I have yet to think of an answer for him.

  Nothing good ever comes of thinking, anyway. While I’m sitting in my car on my way to see Spencer, I try so hard to quiet my mind. The only place you can’t hide from your thoughts is inside your own head. I push away thoughts of Spencer and Clad; keep trudging through thoughts like I’m walking through the home of a hoarder - a hoarder of thoughts.

  I pull into the empty parking lot at Goodwill, next to Spencer’s truck, third spot from the door. Walking into the building I find him reading books on the floor.

  I sit down next to him. “I got a letter from Clad.”

  “I see,” he says thoughtfully. He dog-ears the page he’s reading. “What did it say?”

  “You can read it for yourself.” I take the letter out of my back pocket and hand it to him. The sleeve of my hoodie pulls back, revealing the edge of my Ace bandage.

  “Your wrist,” he says quickly, as if the bandage might vanish if he didn’t say he saw it.

  “Aren’t you going to read it?” My heart pounds in my ears, my cheeks burn red.

  “What happened?” he asks. “Is it sprained?”

  “Don’t you want to read about how Clad is suffering in prison?”

  “What did she do?” He holds my wrist firmly in his hand and pushes back my sleeve.

  “She didn’t,” I say.

  I have never been able to hear the pounding of my heart so clearly.

  Spencer unravels the bandage.

  “Stop,” I squeak. “Don’t.”

  He’s coming to the end of it, soon the bloody gauze will show and he’ll see what I’ve done to myself. His grip is tight, so tight it hurts. He pulls away the gauze, and then the angry red line is in both our faces.

  “I told you not to.”

  “You cut yourself?” he says, throwing my wrist at me in disgust.

  “I was so upset…” Blood trickles out, the pressure gone that was holding it in. “I wanted to stop hurting, but I just made the pain more real.”

  Spencer gets up and walks into the back room. He crosses his arms and chews on his thumb nail, thinking deep thoughts. Hoarder thoughts.

  “You really outdid yourself this time, Bailey.”

  Chapter 7

  I put my hoodie up and draw the strings, until they can’t be pulled anymore. I look like Kenny from South Park. Pulling the sleeves over both my hands, I pinch them closed. If I’m wound up tight enough in my oversized hoodie and baggy jeans, maybe Spencer won’t even see me.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I couldn’t go chameleon fast enough.

  I want to sink into the walls, sink into the floor, and sink right out of sight. Through the small hole of my tightened hoodie, I can see his ripped, faded jeans and the tops of his black and white Converse.

  He puts his hand on my knee and I shake it off. A sob is trying to escape me, but I refuse to let it.

  “Is it me, is it the drugs? Your mom? Clad? Why, Bailey?”

  Don’t sob. Don’t break. Sink, sink, sink.

  “Speak to me!” Spencer says. “Damnit, Bailey!” He pushes my hood back.

  A sob comes tearing out of me. Spencer lifts the blood stained hoodie over my head. Breaking my arms apart he puts them around his neck, embracing me. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself anymore,” he says into my hair.

  “I’m s-s-sorry,” I sob.

  “It’s okay, baby,” he soothes. “It’s okay.”

  “Clad’s upset I didn’t see him…” Another sob rolls through me. “And he hates me.”

  “Shhh,” Spencer says. “He doesn’t hate you. No one could hate you.” His breath on my scalp sends warm shivers down my spine, my crying gives over. “I’ll sing.”

  His lips move and his diaphragm fills with air, and then hot like a dry, summer breeze, his breath blows on the top of my head again.

  His song tells the story of a bird caught in a trap and how it longs to be free. The bird tries to escape by pulling on its wings, but they snag on metal teeth and he becomes more imprisoned.

  By the end of Spencer’s song, the bird has given up hope; he’s dying when a child finds him and sets him free. He flies into the sun, through puffy white clouds, past airplanes, joining other flocks of birds.

  My head is resting on Spencer’s knees. “That’s lovely,” I say, my voice subdued. The Vicodin has made me too sleepy to speak.

  “You’re not trapped,” he says. “Clad set you free. He’s given you hope.”

  I stop thinking about the song and about my naked back, visible through glass doors. My tears, Spencer’s tears, and my cut, dripping red on the grey store carpet.

  Red drops of blood sinking into carpet. Like me – sink, sink, sinking with the Vicodin - six little pieces of heaven swirling inside my belly.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of what will hurt you, anymore. You are safe now.”

  “It’s not easy to get used to,” I say.

  “I know, but neither is believing that you are still in danger.” Spencer kisses my uninjured wrist.

  “You’re so forgiving,” I say.

  “Forgiveness sets the soul free - a grudge restricts it.”

  •••

  Spencer picks me up and sits me on the jewelry counter. I’m scared the glass will break but he appears so relaxed about it that his mood rubs off on me too. He takes his shirt off and gives it to me. Then, he shimmies around the counter and pulls out a pearl necklace. I lift my hair and he secures the string of pearls around my neck. I let my hair down and he steps back like he’s scrutinizing a masterpiece of his own design. He smiles and then frowns.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Aha!”

  Going around the counter again, he returns with two vintage hair pieces, inlaid with pearls and emerald flowers. He pins my hair back with them and grins. “So beautiful,” he says, clasping his hands together. “Why would someone this beautiful want to cut herself? Here, have a look.” He hands me a mirror.

  He’s right; my beauty still flourishes outside, even though I feel so rotten inside. “I guess I just wanted the external me to look like the internal me.” I hand the mirror back.

  “Clad saved you because he loved you. Even if you never see him again, that initial love it took for him to save you will always be there.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “As much as I believe that you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” he puts a finger to his chest, “with all of my heart.”

  “Thank you, Owl,” I say, blushing.

  “It’s time for lunch. Let’s go to my house, my mom can fix this for you,” he says tapping my wrist.

  “What will she say?”

  “Nothing. She doesn’t judge.”

  He gives me his hand and I hop off the counter. I gather my Ace bandage and hoodie. Catching my reflection in the glass doors, my hair barrettes sparkling in the sunlight, I secretly smile to myself.

  •••

  Sarah aggressively kicks a soccer ball around in the front yard, her hair pulled back in a ponytail so tight that her eyebrows are forced into a surprised raise.

  We pull into the driveway. She glares at me, her eyes burning two cigarette holes in my back as Spencer and I go into the house.

  “Mom, I’m home!” Spencer hollers.

  B.B. pops out of the laundry room, a basket on her hip. “Oh, hi, Bailey, how are you?” she says, an opulent warmth to her voice.

  “Not so well.” I display my wrist to her.

  “Can you put a Band-Aid on it or something?” Spencer says.

  B.B. puts the laundry basket down and gingerly holds my wrist in her hands, turning it to get a better look at the damage. “This is going to need more than a Band-Aid,” she says.

  Spencer squeezes my shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says, “Mom will take good care of you.”

  “That I will,” B.B. says, smiling.

  “I’m going to take this and try to get the bl
ood out,” Spencer says. Taking my hoodie from me, he leaves B.B. and I alone together.

  “Come into my bathroom, honey,” B.B. says.

  I follow her into the bedroom, painted in a coral and mint palette, the interior design having little sign of a man’s touch.

  A white wood dresser the length of one wall is sprinkled with shells, petrified starfish, and sand dollars. A vase of sand is at one end of the dresser. At the opposite end, unlit candles of various heights are arranged on a hemp cloth, hanging over the ends of the dresser.

  “I have gauze and some medical tape left over from when Sarah split her knee open,” B.B. says. She’s in the bathroom already.

  “Coming,” I say, dragging myself away from the dresser that looks like it popped right out of a Better Homes and Garden’s magazine.

  “Can I?” B.B. asks reaching for my arm.

  “Please,” I say, giving my wrist to her.

  She washes the cut with soap and water, dabs it dry with a towel, and then breaks out a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “Sorry, this will sting.”

  I wait for that oh-so familiar burn as she douses my cut. “Ah!” I shriek, pulling my wrist out of her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, “come, let me blow on it.”

  She blows and fans at my wrist and the fire of the alcohol turns to a smolder. Carefully, she wraps gauze around my wrist, thumb, and pointer finger.

  “You’re better at this than my mom…” I say.

  B.B. looks up at me and says, “What would your mom have done?”

  Watched me bleed. “Watched me bleed.”

  Did that just come out of my mouth?

  “Well, you ever need anything, you know where to come. I’m here for you. Even if you just need someone to talk to, or a hug.”

  “Can I have one?”

  I should really just stop talking.

  “A hug?” B.B. says with an unsure smile.

  “If you don’t mind…”

  My heart speeds up as B.B. stands and puts her arms around me. My chest tightens, and I think I might cry; think I might scream all my secrets into the dark warmth of her embrace. Everything I’ve been hiding from my mother and myself.