Watch Over Me

by Tara Sivec

  It's a statement, not a question. She knows why I'm here and what I did to stop the pain so there's no reason to be obtuse.

  "It's very hard when you don't have people to rely on. People you can call when you're feeling sad or lonely."

  Her words make my eyes sting, and a lump forms in my throat that is impossible to swallow. Most people probably wouldn't understand the bond my mother and I shared. Daughters typically hate their mothers through most of their teenage years and sometimes into early adulthood, but I never did. Maybe it was because I was her only child, or maybe it was because it was so difficult for her to get pregnant with me. Whatever the reason, we had a relationship that many envied. Our bond was forged through years of it just being the two of us. My father had always worked the night shift. By the time I woke up in the morning, he was already asleep after working twelve hours. My mother and I did everything together. She took me everywhere, did everything with me, and there wasn't anything we couldn't talk about.

  Everyone has at least one individual in their life that they know will always be there for them no matter what. They will be your rock, your shoulder to cry on, someone to laugh with and confide in, and someone who will call you on your bullshit and tell it to you straight. My mother was absolutely that person for me. And my person is gone and never coming back.

  "I want you to do me a favor before next week, Addison. I want you to confide in someone. Whether it's Meg or Zander, it doesn't matter. I want you to reach out to one of them and tell them what you're feeling. Talk to them. Give them a chance to earn your trust and support you. This can correspond with Step Five: Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. And remember, we're tailoring this to meet your needs. So, admit to another person the exact nature of what you're struggling with."

  After standing in the middle of the front yard for several minutes, I move over to the shade of a huge oak tree. I sit down at the base of it, crossing my legs in front of me, and begin picking individual blades of grass and tearing them down the middle. I have a nice pile going in my lap when a shadow falls over me. I don't pause in my methodical hand mowing of the grass as he sits down next to me and leans his back against the trunk of the tree.

  "Soooooo, what's new?" Zander asks in a singsong voice, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

  I can't help but laugh at the casual way he asks that question. I just ran out of his parent's home in a snit without saying a word to anyone. If they didn't know it before, they sure as hell know now that I'm a freak with issues.

  "Oh, nothing much. Just tending to your parents' lawn. It's gotten a little overgrown," I reply as I finally look up and meet his eyes.

  The thing I like most about Zander is that I never see any judgment in them—just understanding and kindness.

  "I've been meaning to talk to them about that. Lawn mowers are so last year. What they really need is someone to hand pick their yard."

  I stare at him quietly for several long minutes. He reaches over and gently brushes my bangs out of my eyes, his fingers trailing down the side of my cheek before cupping my chin and holding it in place. He places a soft kiss on the tip of my nose, and I blink back tears when he pulls away and lets his hand drop to mine, stopping my manic grass pulling. He tugs my hand over to his own lap and flips it over so my palm is up.

  "I'm twenty-two years old and I make a living taking pictures of people's insides," he begins speaking as he lightly traces the lines on my palm with his fingertips. "I have an eight-year-old brother who has no filter and a fifteen-year-old brother who has no morals. I'm obviously the best big brother in the world, and they both look up to me immensely."

  I chuckle a little as he verbally pats himself on the back and continues on.

  "I've lived a pretty good life, and sometimes that makes people think everything has been easy for me. I'm not saying I have a dark, hidden past or anything, but my life hasn't always been roses," he explains with a shrug. "I struggle every day to be honest and to not hurt the people I care about. It's a fine line between doing what's right and doing what you think is best. My mother likes to call me a know-it-all, and sometimes it gets me in trouble. My dad cheated on my mom a few years ago, and it's been a bumpy road. They worked everything out and things between them are better than they've ever been, but I'm still struggling with hating him for what he did. It's exhausting to hate and love someone equally."

  My heart stutters as he laces his fingers through mine and pulls my hand up to his mouth, placing a kiss on the top of it.

  "I know we haven't known each other long, but I hope you realize by now that I'm not a stalker," he says with an easy smile. "I like you. I care about you. And I want you to trust me."

  How can I not trust him? He opened up his whole world to me by letting me meet his family and telling me personal things about himself. He did all of this without me asking. It's like he instinctively knew I needed something from him so I could feel comfortable enough to do the same.

  "My father and I have had a rough time of it lately. He fell apart one day, and he's been in and out of rehab so many times I've lost count," I ramble. I speak so fast that all of my words run together, and I don't really know if anything I'm saying makes sense, but Zander sits there quietly and listens—just listens. I realize suddenly that it's something I've needed for a long time, someone to just listen. It's different with a therapist. They're paid to listen to you. When it's someone who is in your life for the sole reason of just wanting to be near you, it means so much more.

  "You sort of met my father the other night. He got out of rehab early, and it scares me to death. I don't want to go through this again with him. I've gotten so used to picking up his pieces, and I'm just exhausted. I don't want to do it anymore. I don't know how to do it anymore when I feel like I can't even pick up my own pieces."

  I finally stop talking and take a deep breath, looking away from Zander and over at his house where one big happy family is gathered. I hope he knows just how lucky he really is.

  "Wait here for just one second, okay?" he asks, getting up off of the grass quickly. "I have something I want to show you."

  I nod my head in reply, and he's about to leave but stops suddenly. He turns back around, squats down, and kisses me. His lips press gently against mine, and then they're gone all too quickly. When he kisses me, I forget about my problems and the world around me disappears. I want to feel his lips on me again so I can close my eyes and just forget.

  "Two seconds," he tells me again with a smile before jumping up and racing into the house.

  He's back before I can even wonder what he's doing and whether or not I freaked him out by blurting that information about my dad to him. He walks across the yard carrying a small, blue plastic case with a Lego sticker on the side of it.

  Flopping down on the grass next to me, he takes the lid off of the box, tips it over, and dumps Lego pieces all over the ground. He starts rummaging through the pile, collecting a few pieces and snapping them together.

  "Um, what are we doing?" I ask in confusion as he hands me the small tower of yellow, red, and blue Legos that he quickly put together.

  "Luke let me borrow these. We're building a Lego house," he tells me nonchalantly, like it's the most natural thing in the world for two young adults to be doing out in the front yard after they both just spilled their guts to each other.

  "A house? We don't have directions. How are we going to build a house?" I ask as I look in the box for one of those Lego booklets with step-by-step instructions and don't find one. Figuring Zander thinks building Legos in the front yard is normal, I decide I might as well just go with it.

  "One of the best things about Legos is that you don't need instructions. Sometimes, they don't even come with instructions, and you just have to work your way through the mess to figure out how everything should work."

  I flip the tower of Legos around and around in my hand as Zander digs through the pile on the grass and quickly
snaps together a square of Legos that resemble the walls of a house. He reaches for a large blue one and tries to make it fit in a corner, but it doesn't work.

  "And if something doesn't fit, if one of your pieces just isn't working, you can put it aside and find another one. There are so many pieces to work with that you don't have to try and force one in where it doesn't belong. You may not need that piece right now, and it may not be helping you right at this moment, but that doesn't mean it isn't important and won't fit somewhere else down the line when you need it more."

  He finds a yellow piece that works in the corner, and before long he's built a tiny little house complete with a swinging door and a roof.

  "We've got a lot of Legos left over," I tell him, dipping my hand into the pile and letting them fall back to the ground a few pieces at a time.

  "You don't have to try and pick up all of the pieces at once, sometimes you only need to use a few of them at a time. If you try and pick them all up and use them all at the same time, it's overwhelming and frustrating when you start to drop them or you just can't make them work."

  Trying to press another piece on top of the roof for a makeshift chimney, he pushes too hard and a few of the pieces of the wall break off and fall to the ground.

  "Oh crap. You just broke our house," I tell him with a laugh as I reach over and grab the pieces that fell off.

  He takes them from my hand and snaps them back into place.

  "Another good thing about Legos. If it falls apart, it doesn't mean it's destroyed. It just means you have to pick up the pieces and start again."

  He's looking at me instead of the Lego house when he says those words and now I understand the point of all of this. He's trying to tell me that I'm not broken. That no matter what my problems are, they don't have to break me.

  "You can still pick up the pieces, Sugar. They fell apart for a little while, but it doesn't mean anything is damaged. Everything can be fixed. And you don't have to fix it alone. There's always someone who will help you rebuild."

  I don't bother to try and stop the tears that pool in my eyes this time. I've kept myself closed off for so long that I'm actually surprised at how easy it is to cry. I feel the first tear slide down my cheek, and I don't bother to wipe it away. Zander scoots closer to me and moves my head down to his shoulder. He wraps both of his arms around me and pulls us back against the trunk of the tree and just holds me while I softly cry into his neck. It's frightening to open myself up so completely with someone. It's like closing your eyes and jumping off of a cliff, not knowing whether or not there will be a safety net at the bottom to catch you.

  Right now, wrapped in Zander's arms as the sun slowly sets behind his parents' house, with a multicolored Lego house next to us that was broken and put back together again, I wonder if I've just found my safety net.

  "I think you're doing remarkably well considering everything," Dr. Thompson tells me, raising one eyebrow at me when she catches me picking at my nails. "You've taken a step back from your responsibilities and you're finally learning to live again."

  I look away from her and stare at a black rosary that sits on the table next to her chair. I've never seen it before and wonder why it's there now. I hadn't realized she was Catholic, but I guess that isn't really a surprise since we're not here to talk about her. I tear my gaze away from the pile of beads to look back at her.

  "I know you can get back to the girl you used to be. You just have to want it bad enough. People change as they get older, but parts of who they used to be are still in there and they carry that with them. Your sense of humor, your appreciation of life…those are all things that are still inside of you. They've just been dormant for so long you don't know how to find them. You can't let other people dictate what type of person you are. It's up to you to be who you want to be. Who do you want to be, Addison?"

  I sit there for several long minutes and contemplate her words. I want to be me again. I want to look forward to the future and enjoy the simple things in life. I want to have friends again, and I want to be able to confide in someone without worrying about what they will think of me. I want to remember what it's like to not have a care in the world or anxiety about what the next day will bring. I want so many things. I'm just not sure if I'm strong enough to get them.

  "No, Luke, we are not going for ice cream. You haven't even eaten lunch yet," Zander tells his little brother as we get out of the car at the park.

  Luke grumbles his complaint as we wander over to the swing set and each of us grabs a swing.

  To my surprise, I still haven't scared Zander away. We've spent every day together since his mother's birthday last weekend. He even helped me at the bakery one night when my dad had a meeting to go to. He dropped a tray of cupcakes and burned his arm on the oven, but he still swore he had the best time ever. I'm hoping it was because of how many times we snuck back into the kitchen to kiss. While Zander and Luke argue over the benefits of ice cream before lunch, I gently swing myself back and forth and think about how he wrapped his arms around me that night and lifted me up to sit on the island in the kitchen. I remember what it felt like to wrap my legs around his waist while he used his fingertips to touch every inch of my face as if he was memorizing it. When I close my eyes, I can still feel his hands inch under my shirt and the warmth of his palms as he moved them up over my ribcage to my breasts. Butterflies flutter through my stomach when I think about how badly I want his hands on me again. He's so gentle and sweet with me. He always asks before he does anything to make sure I'm okay with it. I'm not used to having someone so concerned for my well-being and it feels nice. It's good to have someone looking out for me for once.

  "Zander, guess what Leah at school can do," Luke says, cutting off my thoughts as I watch him dig his heels into the dirt to stop swinging.

  "No clue, buddy. What can she do?" Zander asks him as we both watch Luke jump down off of his swing and stand in front of us.

  "She can do this."

  He jumps up in the air kicking his legs out at odd angles and then loses his footing when he comes back down landing on his butt in the grass.

  "Wow. I have no idea what that was. But if she can do that, she must be pretty cool," Zander jokes.

  "It was a toe touch, duh," Luke says with a roll of his eyes as he stands up and wipes the dirt off of his jeans.

  "That wasn't a toe touch," I tell him, standing up from my swing and going over next to him. "This, is a toe touch."

  Raising both of my arms straight above my head, I take a deep breath, swing them back a little to build up my momentum, and then leap into the air, easily spreading my legs and touching my toes before coming back down and landing smoothly.

  Both boys are staring at me with their mouths open and their eyes wide.

  "Dude, you just did the splits in the air," Luke says in awe. "How did you do that?"

  I shrug my shoulders like it's no big deal, because it isn't. I used to do those things in my sleep after eight years of cheerleading and eleven years of gymnastics.

  "That was nothing," I tell him with a wink. "This might be a little cooler."

  Stepping a few feet away from him, I put my feet together and my arms straight out in front of me, glancing over my shoulder quickly to make sure nothing is behind me. Swinging my arms down by my sides and bending my knees, I throw my body backwards until I'm flipping upside down in a perfect back handspring. My hands hit the ground first, then my feet follow and I stand up straight, unable to keep the smile off of my face. I can't even remember the last time I did this. It was probably the day before my mother died when I went to my last cheerleading practice ever.

  "Oh my gosh, you HAVE to teach me how to do that so I can tell Leah to suck it!" Luke exclaims.

  "LUKE!" Zander scolds. "Go over and play on the monkey bars for a while."

  Luke huffs and kicks at a rock with the toe of his shoe. "Fine. I'll go for now, but I'll be back and you are going to teach me how to be awesome like you."

 
; I laugh as he races away from us and over to the jungle gym.

  "Well, there you have it. You are officially awesome," Zander says with a laugh as I walk over to him and sit back down on the swing next to him.

  "It's good to know someone thinks so," I tell him with a smile as I push myself with my feet.

  "Don't worry, he's not the only one. I happen to think you're pretty awesome myself. And my parents won't stop asking me when I'm going to bring you over again."

  Tilting my head back and looking up at the sky as I swing, I take a deep breath of the spring air and feel peaceful for the first time in a long time. I'm not worried about my father, or the bakery, or how much I miss my mom. My only concern right now is wishing I could bottle this feeling and keep it with me forever.

  "So now you've got me curious. Where did you learn how to do that stuff?" Zander asks.

  Pulling my gaze away from the clouds, I look down at him and think about the person I used to be and what Dr. Thompson told me.

  "You may find this hard to believe, but I used to be a cheerleader," I tell him.

  "Why would I find that hard to believe?"

  I shrug and lean my head against the chains that hold the swing.

  "I'm not exactly the peppiest person in the world. People don't look at me and think, 'Now that girl's got a lot of spirit.' But they used to. I was loud and energetic and I loved to make people laugh," I tell him pensively.

  "So what changed?"

  His voice is soft and he turns himself in his swing so he's facing me.

  "A lot of things I guess. One disaster after another until I just didn't care anymore. I didn't care if I was happy. I just cared about making it through each day."

  We swing side-by-side in silence for a little while before he asks another question.

  "Did you always want to work at the bakery?"

  I shake my head as I watch Luke scaling the monkey bars off in the distance.

  "I never wanted to work there. The bakery and I have a love/hate relationship. I love it because it reminds me of being younger, but I hate it for the same reasons. I'm only working there because I have to until my dad can finally get it together. If he doesn't, I guess I'll be working there until I die," I tell him, attempting to make a joke out of something that depresses me just thinking about it. That bakery was never my dream. It's depressing to think that I might spend the rest of my life living someone else's dream instead of my own.