True Love Way

by Mary Elizabeth

  Scrubbing my hands over my face, I drop my arms to my side. “I walk home from the beach all the time. What’s the big deal?”

  Mom shakes her head before throwing her arms in the air and turning back to the kitchen. Dad takes a step forward, and my sister shuts the television off.

  “The big deal is that you’ve returned home soaking wet after you took off this morning without our permission. The note you left said you were at the Finnels’, not the beach during a rainstorm. You’re allowing Penelope’s sickness to break you down, and my son is unrecognizable. For your mother and me, it’s a very big deal,” Dad says in a tone edging hysterical.

  His chin trembles, and I have to look away, unable to face the pain I’ve caused. It’s only then do I notice my clothes are drenched and sticking to my skin. My hands tremble, my teeth chatter, and water drips from the ends of my hair.

  “I didn’t realize it was raining…” I start.

  “When’s the last time you slept, D? You seriously look like a zombie,” Risa says. She stands from the couch and carries a blanket over, wrapping it around my shoulders.

  They don’t understand.

  When has my sister ever taken responsibility for anything in her life? Two years out of high school, she still doesn’t have a job and gets by on our dad’s tab. Risa’s probably high right now, and she wants to talk to me about mistakes she thinks I’m making?

  My parents don’t know what it means to love someone to death like I love Pen. Their relationship is based on pot roast dinners in the slow cooker and who can guess the answers during Who Wants to be a Millionaire first. They have matching robes and too many decorative pillows on their bed. The only thing I’ve ever seen them argue about is the one time my mom left the cap off the tube of toothpaste.

  Lifting my chin in a sad attempt at saving face in front of anyone today, I say, “If you’re done talking to me like I’m stupid, I want to go to bed.”

  With the exception of the rain beating down on the roof and thunder rolling after lightning strikes, the house falls silent.

  No one stops me when I drop the blanket and head to my room. With every intention of sleeping until morning, I close my door and kick off my shoes, purposely avoiding my window in case heartache is there.

  Instead of falling right into bed, I make the mistake of closing my blinds first and catch the look on her face before parallel panels shut between us.

  Don’t open them.

  Don’t do it.

  I pull the string and know immediately I won’t be shutting my eyes anytime soon.

  WHY AM I SO BROKEN? her note reads.

  I pick up the cordless phone and hit Redial because her number is the only one I ever dial.

  When she answers, I say, “You’re perfect to me.”

  After waking up on my bedroom floor with my knees pulled to my chest and my hair stuck to my face, the nightgown I’ve been in for a week is bunched around my waist, and I don’t have any underwear on.

  This is the only coherent thought I’m able to process before the weight of my own madness crashes down and strangles the life from me.

  Tears I have no control over pool in my burning eyes before falling to the carpet under my head. Sludge-like blood pushes through my cement-like veins, and my fading heart beats inside a cage of bones.

  Forcing my arms to bend, I scratch at my throat, hoping to make holes to breathe through because my lungs don’t work.

  I roll over to my back, choosing to suffocate rather than to live a life in the dark.

  This has to be what dying feels like.

  Otherwise, why would God be so mean?

  Herbert drives his mom’s Honda into the driveway with Mathilda in the passenger seat and Kyle in the back. All four windows are rolled down and the music is up, blaring absence lyrics and heavy beats until he kills the engine.

  “Guess who got his license today?” he says, sticking his head out the window.

  Redhead waves as I approach the car, and Kyle reaches to shake my hand through the open window.

  “What are you guys up to?” I ask, shoving my hands into my pockets.

  I turned sixteen eight months ago, and the thought of getting my license hasn’t crossed my mind once. It makes me wonder what else I’ve missed.

  “Where’s Pen?” Herb asks. “We’re heading to the beach, jump in.”

  Shifting my eyes to her closed bedroom window, I rock back to the heels of my feet and shake my head. “I don’t think she’s up for it.”

  “Does that mean you can’t come? Is she your mommy now, or what?” Kyle asks, laughing like it’s some kind of joke. “You never hang with us anymore.”

  I slap my hand on the top of the red Civic and take a step back, unable to bring myself to explain what’s really going on with the girl next door.

  “I’ll catch up with you guys later. Maybe I’ll have Risa drop me off over there tonight,” I lie, hoping to appease them enough to leave without giving me a guilt trip.

  A smile spreads across Kyle’s face. “Tell your sister I said what’s up.”

  A different day.

  A different doctor.

  A different prescription.

  I haven’t seen Penelope in eight days and don’t leave my room unless I have to, in case she wakes up.

  “Dad and I are going to grab something for dinner. Do you want to come?” Mom asks. She’s a small voice behind my locked bedroom door. “Getting out might make you feel better.”

  Lying on the floor under my open window, I throw a baseball up and catch it in the palm of my hand before throwing it again. Red threads sewn into a rubber casing spin as it goes up, up, up and as it comes down, down, down.

  “Dillon, will you please let me in?” the woman who gave me life asks. She tries the handle, jiggling the brass knob and then knocks. “Are you even awake?”

  I sit up, letting the ball drop to the floor. It hits the carpet with a soft thump and rolls to the center of my room.

  “I’m not hungry,” I say, scrubbing my hands over my face before standing to my feet.

  The setting sun colors my bedroom walls in pinks and oranges, and the warm summer air drops in temperature with it as the largest star in the sky sets in the west. Looking out my window, disappointed to see that Pen’s is still shut, I walk away with an ache in the pit of my stomach and unlock my bedroom door.

  Mom slowly enters my space, dragging her thumb over the surface of my dresser and making a face at the layer of dust that rubs off. Her hazel eyes widen at the pile of clothes in the corner and at the mass of dirty dishes I haven’t bothered to take down to the kitchen.

  “At least I know you’re eating,” she says, stacking empty glasses and plates so she can take them away.

  Sitting on the edge of my bed, I say, “It’s not that serious.”

  Penelope could be her daughter.

  With two handfuls of my dirty irresponsibilites, she opens her mouth to speak. I brace myself for the same lecture I’ve heard a few times this week already, but drop my shoulders when she snaps her lips shut.

  Unable to make anyone happy, I feel like I’m being torn in two. My heart’s with the sad girl next door who can’t leave her room in a prescription pill slumber. Sonya won’t show me mercy and refuses to let me see Pen at all. My parents force me to go to school every day without her, and they hide the house phone so I’ll stop calling the Finnels’.

  The last thing I want is for Penelope to think I’ve abandoned her, and I want my parents to know they can trust me. One thing prevents the other, so I’m stuck going to school and coming home only to lock myself in my room.

  Mom shifts from one hip to the other. Her light colored hair is pulled back, and there’s discomfort in the dark circles under her eyes.

  “Mom, I’m fine,” I say, hoping to ease her worry.

  She sighs heavily. “Please, come to dinner with us. It will make me feel better.”

  Pushing away from the mattress, I agree to go and take some of the d
irty dishes to lessen the burden. Light returns to the color of her eyes, and a smile spreads across her small face. For just one moment, the thought of leaving the house and not eating a meal alone lightens my mood.

  But it all falls like the glass in my hands when I hear Penelope scream.

  “Dillon!” my mom calls after me as I run out the door, crushing pieces of broken glass beneath the soles of my shoes.

  The desperate, ear-splitting pitch of my girl’s cries and screams gets louder as I rush down the stairs and out the door behind my father who ran from the kitchen. Tripping down the porch steps, I catch myself and race over to the Finnels’.

  Pen’s barefoot in pajamas with nothing less than brutal craze in her eyes, pulling on the back of Wayne’s shirt as he tries to walk around the house. Her toes dig into the grass, but her father is stronger and able to pull her onto the driveway. Dirty feet turn bloody when she stubs them on the concrete, and she falls to her bottom when her nimble fingers come free from the dark blue cotton.

  Sonya stands at the opening of their front door with her hands over her mouth and tears falling from her eyes. Mom walks past me to comfort the neighbors turned friends.

  With my heartbeat gone still, I try to go over to Penelope, but my dad holds his arm out in front of me.

  “Get inside,” he orders in a stern tone I’ve never heard from him before.

  “Dad, please. Dad! No, you can’t, Dad!” Penelope sobs, but Coach Finnel doesn’t listen. Even when his daughter crawls after him on her hands and knees and grabs onto his ankle.

  “Let go,” he says. Wayne has a medium-sized cardboard box in his hands.

  I watch Pen’s knuckles go white and can’t stand back any longer as my eyes fill with tears. Shoving my dad’s arm away, I go to her despite his protests and drop to my knees beside the girl who crushes souls. She doesn’t react to my hold circling her, but something in me snaps back into place, and I feel complete with madness in my grip.

  Unreachable’s fingertips dig into her life-giver’s calf. Wayne doesn’t shake her off or drag her forward like he did when she pulled his shirt. Looking down at us with dark eyes and a blank stare, he simply waits for her to let go, like this is nothing more than a bratty girl throwing a temper tantrum.

  I can feel the quake in her bones and hear the fear in her tone.

  This is no fit.

  It’s hysteria.

  “It’s me, Penelope,” I whisper into her ear, slowly placing my hand on top of hers.

  She falls from her knees, and I pull sadness between my legs with one arm around her middle and the other slowly pulling her fingers free.

  “Come on, baby. Let go,” I say, holding so tight there’s no space between our bodies.

  Suddenly, she does and turns in my lap, clinging to me with wild strength and cries, “He broke them.”

  Free from his only child’s grasp, Mr. Finnel walks over to the metal trashcan stored on the side of the white house and lifts its lid, dropping it to the driveway. Pen hides her face in my neck, coating my skin with her warm tears, unable to handle what her dad does next.

  I watch as he dumps what’s inside the box upside down over the trashcan and cry with my girl when I realize what it is.

  A rainbow of broken arms and shattered lenses falls from the box, some still reflecting the sunset and others keeping their different shapes. Green circles, yellow ovals, purple, red, and blue fragments of Penelope’s bravery vanish into the garbage with empty milk cartons and last week’s leftovers.

  “Oh my gosh.” I hear my mother say from somewhere behind me.

  Wayne shoves the empty box into the metal can on top of the ruined sunglasses and places the lid back on.

  “Go home, boy,” he says, lifting Pen from my arms.

  Penelope’s outrageous fight stops, and she goes still. He carries her like a baby against his chest, past my parents, and then past his wife before they disappear into their house.

  Slapping angry tears from my face, I stand to my feet and run to the house and up to my room.

  I have a box of my own I keep under my bed.

  “You need to let the Finnels deal with their daughter, Dillon. You don’t have any idea what they’re going through,” my dad says, standing under my doorway.

  Inhaling a deep breath through my nose, I wait for him to move out of my way.

  He has no idea what I’m going through.

  “You’re not leaving until you calm down,” he says, taking a step toward me.

  Because I’m taller and stronger than my father, it’s the only opening I need to get past him. He doesn’t try to stop me, and I ignore my mother’s protests when I run past her as she comes into the house.

  Standing in the middle of their yard with rage and hurt running down my eyes, I throw handfuls of counted smiles at Wayne’s front door. Small packages of candy collide with their home, scattering across the paint-chipped wooden porch. When Penelope’s invisibility crusher comes outside to see what’s going on, I pick the box up and throw it at him. What seems like hundreds of yellow packs explode between us, and together we watch our attempt at her happiness crash to the ground.

  It’s only a fraction of what he owes me.

  “I love you,” she whispers.

  We’re tangled limbs and naked skin, breathing heavily and touching curiously. My bare back stings under the summer sun, and her pale, undressed chest practically glows. A cage of stark white bone, red blood and muscle, and blue veins protect the fragile beating heart beneath. I brush my lips over the diamond-shaped collection of freckles at the base of her throat and push my knees up, opening hers around me.

  She’s tired-wild and lifeless-living.

  The dense wall of trees around us protects her from being seen, and the blanket over the grass keeps her comfortable. Far enough out into the woods, only the wildlife will hear her screams.

  She’s all that matters and safe with me.

  Sliding my hands up her thin stomach and over her round chest, my girl tilts her head back, and her brown eyes move under her translucent lids. Chapped lips part, and a sound so small escapes I don’t know if I heard it and question my own sanity.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” I ask, unbuttoning my shorts.

  Penelope’s long lashes flutter, and she opens her eyes against sun rays so strong red blotches slowly appear on her outstretched arms. She has green blades of grass in her grip, holding on to Earth so she doesn’t fly away as I slowly push my fingers into her warmest spot.

  My girl circles her hips over my hand, and I shove deeper, like either one of us knows what this really means.

  Leaning over her small body, I kiss the length of Pen’s neck and pull her earlobe between my teeth.

  “We can stop whenever you want,” I say, licking the single tear that bleeds from the side of her eye.

  “I don’t want to,” insistence answers with a breathless voice.

  Pressing my forehead to her temple, I watch as this girl takes what she needs from my too-willing fingers and sends birds soaring from tree branches with the forceful melody that her lungs release as bliss captures her body in its tight clench.

  A light sheen layers her already humid-sticky skin as she comes down, and I slip myself from her soaked center. Color that only returns to her face when we do this flushes her cheeks, making her look more like the girl who used to draw on her hands and wear heart-shaped sunglasses than the one she’s turned into, perfect looking on the outside but decaying within.

  Pen turns her face into my neck and begs, “Please, Dillon. Please.”

  Her thighs shake on the outside of mine and ground-gripping hands push and pull at me. I hold myself above her, and my heart hammers as I pull myself free from my black boxers. Penelope uses her feet to push my shorts she can’t get off fast enough down to my knees.

  “Be easy,” I say, lowing my head to her chest to breathe for one second.

  Penelope tangles her fingers in my long hair, pulling my head up an
d kissing my mouth with a hectic kind of urgency. She drags her teeth down my throat and loves me so hard there I feel blood vessels break and bruises form.

  Taking her hands and pinning them to the ground, I can’t help but notice she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Her chest and stomach heave up and down with heavy gasps and gulps of air, and her hair is curly and littered with leaves and broken blades of grass. Dirt and rocks are stuck on the underside of her palms, and a black ant crawls over her wrist before falling onto our blanket.

  “Everything’s okay,” I say, watching ever haunting burden pool and spill from the whites of her eyes. “It’s just me.”

  Releasing her from my hold, I slip my arm under her head and cradle hopelessness close as I push myself where she’s wanted me for so long. Pen’s arms circle around my back, and she shuts her eyes as I try to push inside.

  She’s tense muscles and loud gasps.

  I hold her hips down and move slowly, terrified to hurt the girl I love the most. Pen turns her face into my arm and sinks her teeth into the soft skin there. Tiny beads of blood pool where she’s broken me; Pen licks them away.

  Too wound up to feel pain, I let her wound me however she needs to get through what my body does to hers.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she cries as I fall under and deeper.

  Gripping her long hair in my hand, I stop when I’m as far as I can go and fully surrounded by craziness and drop my forehead to hers. Sadness holds my face between her palms and wipes tears away from under my eyes while hers flow freely.

  “It’s just me,” she whispers, warm under the bright sun.

  We move together, getting lost in sensations we’ve never felt in secret beach caves. Our hearts mend with blood-soaked rope and sync beats so they match. The blanket beneath us bunches under our bodies, and I dig my toes into weeds and wet dirt to be closer, to get deeper. There has to be more of her to feel.

  Pressure towers, and I know what’s coming. Shaking my head because I’m not ready for this to be over, I push our joined hands into the grass beside Pen’s head and cry out. Her palms fall from my face and slide down my body, touching moving muscles and heated skin.