by R. K. Ryals
I hadn’t counted on slow moments.
Following Eli through the trees, I glanced back at the house, and asked, “What’s at the pond?”
Eli’s fingers had fallen from my arm to my hand, holding it as he led me through the orchard. It was the hand with the wound, the mark throbbing against the heat of his skin. Sweat pooled between us. If he noticed it, he didn’t care. Rain from the night before slid down leaves, dripping onto our heads.
“Remember how I told you I like boats?”
I gazed at the back of his head, at the way the wind sifted through his brown hair. He had nice hair, just long enough to run his fingers through it.
“I vaguely remember ticking off a list of maritime disasters,” I told him.
He snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the water.”
We climbed a hill, stopping briefly at the top. My gaze swept over the valley below, over the sparkling pond and circling roads.
A tug by Eli, and we were walking, sliding, and panting forward, the pond growing closer and closer, the heat making the water look increasingly appealing.
“And if I were afraid of the water?” I asked.
Eli glanced back at me. “Get ready to face your fear.”
We walked forever, or so it seemed. Heat, especially summer heat, made time seem longer than it was, stretching it with each gasping breath. The closer we got, the more I noticed. How the grass had browned in places before the rain came; how much quieter everything was out here than it was back in the city. My thoughts were too loud here. Maybe that’s what prompted me to do it, to mark myself in an attempt to release the pain.
“Look,” Eli said, pointing.
We came around a bend, and the pond opened up. On the hill, parts of it had been hidden by a copse of trees, the thick foliage camouflaging the long pier which came into view, but here we could see everything. On the shore next to the pier, an old rowboat rested.
We stumbled on, stopping finally at the edge of the water.
“Is this all your grandfather’s?” I panted.
Releasing me, Eli knelt, dipped his hands into the water, cupped the liquid, and then splashed what he collected over the back of his neck and head.
Kneeling next to him, I did the same, the murky water running down my skin, mixing with sweat and dust.
“Yeah,” Eli answered. “All of it belongs to him. No one comes down here anymore, though. Not since Grams died. This was her place. She had cancer. When she was diagnosed, my Pops bought her the orchard, thinking it would be a nice place to recuperate after treatments. Later, when we all realized that her cancer was too advanced and she wasn’t going to make it, it became her haven, the place she came to die.”
“Not a bad place to pass,” I whispered.
“No,” Eli agreed, “it isn’t a bad place at all.” He nodded at the rowboat and pier. “We’d bring picnics down here before she passed away. She liked the water. Like liquid glass, she used to say. I liked it, too.” Taking my hand again, he tugged me toward the rowboat. “Go out on the water with me.”
“What?” I pulled at my hand. “In that?”
The nightmare I’d had of Eli sailing a ship on a bloody sea suddenly became startlingly real.
I froze. “No.”
Eli stopped, his eyes peering down into mine. “You promised to live,” he reminded me.
My gaze slid to the water, to the dark, murky depths. Brown, not red, but it didn’t take much imagination to see the blood. Even so, hadn’t I begged him to take me away in the dream? Hadn’t I begged him to bring me aboard his ship? It was the strangest kind of déjà vu.
“I had a dream about this,” I revealed.
“About this? Me bringing you here?”
“No. You on the water. Only it wasn’t water. It was … something else.”
“Was I walking on this something water?” he teased.
A laugh escaped me. “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch, you know that?”
“I’m oddly comforted by this.” Leaving me, he moved to the rowboat, glanced inside, and then pushed it toward the water, the muscles in his arms tensing. Pausing at the edge of the shore, he held onto the boat and nodded at me. “Come on, get in.”
Joining him, I glanced into the boat skeptically. It was one of those cheap fiberglass boats, two oars resting inside.
“Is it safe?”
“I don’t see any holes,” he commented lightly. “Can you swim?”
I nodded.
“Then it doesn’t matter. If we sink, we’ll swim back to shore.”
I stared, horrified. “There’s no telling what’s in that water! Snakes, big man-eating catfish—”
He laughed. “Man-eating catfish? This isn’t the river. Get in, Tansy.”
“Are you ordering me to do it?” I asked, glaring.
“I don’t know, do you like being ordered to do things?” He winked.
Rather than protest, I stared at his face, curious. “Does it look like I’m the kind of person that likes being ordered around?”
Eli studied me, his expression serious, his lips parting. He leaned forward, his face lowering, only inches from mine before pulling back just as quickly, his mouth snapping shut. “You tell me, roof girl.”
I climbed into the boat because that was safer than speaking. The vessel pitched from side to side, and I grabbed the warm fiberglass, carefully lowering myself onto one of the seats. “You should know that I’ve never been in a boat. Never had a reason to be in one.”
“But you can swim?” Eli insisted.
I eyed him. “You’re going to push me in, aren’t you?”
“No, but it never hurts to get a feel for that kind of thing.”
Shoving the boat away from the shore, he climbed in after me, grabbed an oar, and pushed at the shallow waters, driving us farther and farther away from safety. Water lapped against the shoreline, a steady beat in the silent air, soothing and scary all at once.
“So, this is living?” I asked, gripping the sides of the boat so hard, my fingers hurt.
Eli glanced at my hands. “When you chance letting go, it is.” His gaze rose to the softly undulating water. “It’s not much, but it’s something. When there’s nothing except water and sky, you’re the only in between. The only thing separating the world above from the water, pond or ocean, world below. Both worlds, the air and the sea, were never meant for men, but here we are invading them. Trying our best to conquer and control what was never meant to be conquered or controlled.”
He droned on, words more philosophical than I expected from him pouring out of his mouth, and I drowned in them, remembering some of what he said and forgetting others.
When he fell silent, I found myself asking, “Then why do you love it so much when you don’t belong in it?”
His gaze was stark and confident. “Because the thrill comes from attempting to control it when you know you can’t.”
“Oh.” My eyes fell to my lap, to my tightly clenched knees. Eli rowed, his oar dipping in and out of the water. Splash, splash, splash.
Something jumped in the pond, ripples spreading out around it.
I stared at the widening circles. “You’re going to ask me why I did it, aren’t you? Why I cut myself?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you brought me here. Where I can’t run.”
Eli pulled the oar up, letting it rest in the boat. We drifted.
“Are you going to do it again?” he asked, surprising me. “It doesn’t really matter why you did it, Tansy. If there’s a reason, then it’s probably still there, so the best question is: are you going to do it again?”
“Maybe,” I replied, and then, “Yeah, probably. It’s a scary world, isn’t it? When pain feels good.”
For a long time, he watched me. A slow breeze circled us. Water and sky. Us, the only between.
“Let’s go back.” Eli lifted the oar to row again.
“We barely did anything,” I protested.<
br />
He smiled. “We did enough. Today.”
His gaze fell to my hands, and I found myself wondering what he was thinking. If he thought I was as crazy as his mom. If he was disappointed that I had hang-ups. If that was why we had walked so far only to rush back so fast.
Did I care?
TWENTY-SIX
Eli
Pops was standing on the porch when we came out of the orchard, his hands behind his back, his eyes on my face. He didn’t say anything. He simply watched us.
Tansy returned to her work, doing whatever it was a person did to make a yard look good, her movements full of nervous energy. Waiting, I’m sure, for the explosion to come.
It never did.
Pops turned, walked into the house, and left me staring at the place where he’d stood. It was the most my grandfather had ever said without saying anything.
It reminded me of Tansy.
“Is he mad?” she asked, her gaze flicking from me to the porch.
“No.” I smiled.
Sparing her a brief glance, I turned and headed for the cottage.
“What about you?” she called. “Are you okay?”
Still walking, I replied, “I’ve got a lot of things I need to re-evaluate.”
Inside the cottage, I went to the guest room, stared at the punching bag, pulled off my shirt, threw it on the bed, and murmured, “Fuck it.”
Taking a red permanent marker, I twisted off the lid and started to write. Words spilled out of me, some of them words I’d already written on the bag. Except now, they meant something because I was finally ready to face them. Words I needed to let go of.
Mom.
Codeine.
Fear.
Expectations.
Pity.
Finished, I threw down the red marker and grabbed the black one.
Future.
Just one word. Sometimes that’s all it takes. One word to sum up everything.
I grabbed my cell phone from my room. The damned thing was charged because I kept it that way, but it was full of unread texts, unopened emails, and a shit load of missed calls I’d been ignoring since it was returned to me at the hospital. I hadn’t missed it.
Clicking on the music icon, I thumbed through the tracks, mostly rap, tapped on a song, turned it up, and threw the phone on the guest room dresser.
Tugging on my hook and loop gloves, I stared at the words on the punching bag, unblinking, until the black and red blurred together.
Music filled my head, drowning out everything except me, my gloves, and my fuzzy words.
When my fist connected with the bag, the tension in my chest unfurled, adrenaline rushing through my veins.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
As angry as I was at Lincoln for what he and Mandy had done, he’d made me see something, forced me to really look at myself.
Pity
Did people pity themselves naturally? Some of us so much that it blinded us?
I laughed, the sound snatched by the music, adding it to the angry rapping in the room. Tansy, the wound on her hand, the way she looked at herself, at her family … we were more alike than she realized.
She blamed herself for being like her dad, for giving up on everything around her after her mom passed. She accused those she loved of being self-centered because she didn’t want to see it in herself.
Through her, I saw myself. Because, truth was, out of everyone in my family, I was the one most like my mother. I spent so much time hating Ivy and yelling at her because I needed the same kind of validation she did. I needed someone to look at me, see the tragedy there, and make me feel better for it.
My fist. The bag. Me.
Strength coursed through me. Not the kind that came from exercise. The kind that came from realizing that the greatest strength came from seeing the tragedy in myself, from making myself feel better about it.
I was not my mother.
Tansy was not her father.
In this moment, I was Elijah Bradford Lockston.
My grandfather saw it. The bastard.
I didn’t need the orchard, this place, or even to forgive my mother. I needed someone like Tansy, even as unhealthy as I knew she was.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Tansy
Later that night, I stared at the wall, remembering the day and Eli. The pond. The way the water stared back at us, the sky, the heat, and the silence. The shame. I wasn’t there anymore. I was here.
Home.
Silence.
Divided rooms.
No connection.
Lengthening shadows stealing my breath.
Memories … so many of them. From before Dad’s death. From after Mom’s.
The house. A half-naked girl stumbling out of Jet’s bedroom, her eyes wide and stricken, her lipstick smeared. Smelling of sex and forgetfulness.
“Shit, I fell asleep!” the girl cried. “My parents are going to kill me!”
They were all the same. Nameless. Late. Sweet girls who cared about my brother.
Gathering her things, the nameless one rushed to the door, stumbled into the world outside, and left us marinating in the prison behind her.
“We have sex education at school. I don’t need extra credit at home!” Deena yelled from her room.
Jet, shirtless with bloodshot eyes, sauntered from his man cave to the kitchen, flung the refrigerator door open, and stared.
“Tansy!” Dad wailed from his bedroom.
He was on the floor when I found him, his hands against the wall, a sick smile plastered on his face. Two spilled pill bottles and a liter of whiskey rested next to him.
“She’s so beautiful, isn’t she?”
Dad hallucinated when he mixed too many of his medications and washed them down with liquor.
“She’s great,” I agreed, stepping toward him carefully. “Do you need help getting up?”
“Up?” he asked, confused. “I’m fine, Tansy.”
Jet’s shirtless figure darkened the doorway. “Oh, shit! Come on, Dad!”
“He’s taken too much of something,” I said.
Jet scowled. “Two more fucking months. That’s all I’ve got left, and I’m out of this hell hole.”
He had a college acceptance letter in the kitchen to prove it.
“Dad—” I began.
“Just go to work, Tansy,” Jet interceded. “We need it right now with him missing work so much, and he’s not going anywhere.”
“Dad?” Deena called from the hallway.
Panic seized me. “Get her out of here!” I hissed at Jet, pushing him out into the hall toward our sister.
Slamming Dad’s door, I stared at him. He was kissing the wall, and I looked away, nauseated.
“Hey,” Dad called after a while, his voice deeper, different. Slurred and excited. “Where have you been, GiGi?”
GiGi was my mother’s nickname. My head rose, my gaze finding my father. He was pushing himself up the wall, his intense stare on my face. Heat filled his eyes.
I’d been told on countless occasions how much I looked like my mother. I’d always been comforted by that … until now. The passionate look my father gave me was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
He doesn’t see me, I realized. Fear climbed up my spine.
“Come here, GiGi,” he begged. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Dad, I’m not Mom,” I breathed, my hand fumbling for the doorknob.
“What are you talking about, GiGi?” He stumbled toward me.
I shoved at the door, twisting the knob. Falling out into the hallway, I slammed it and leaned against the door.
“What the hell?” Jet called from the kitchen.
Dad pounded on the door. “GiGi!”
“Help me!” I yelled. “He thinks I’m Mom.”
Jet paled. “Fuck!”
Rushing to my side, he shoved his shoulder against the door, his bare skin burning me through my T-shirt. He smelled like sweat and stale perfume.
“GiGi, why
are you doing this?” Dad cried.
Jet and I looked at each other, resigned expressions on our faces.
Deena appeared in the hallway. “Why is Dad yelling for Mom?”
“GiGi!” Dad bellowed.
“He’ll pass out soon,” Jet assured.
Dad slammed against the door, jarring us.
“Make him stop,” Deena begged, her hands covering her ears.
“GiGi!”
For the first time, I feared what grief made my father capable of.
We held the door closed for a long time. Dad yelled until he was hoarse, his pounding growing weaker and weaker.
I was late for work, a job I had at a small, secondhand clothing store.
That night, I returned home with hair dye and a pair of scissors. Hiding myself in the bathroom, I looked up into the mirror, whispered, “I can’t be you, Mom,” and started cutting off my long, thick tresses, leaving them short and jagged. After that, I bleached chunks of my hair, and then dyed the lightened pieces blue. Heavy makeup followed. Anything to make me look less like GiGi, and more like someone I was never meant to be.
My grandmother’s house.
A quiet room full of too loud memories.
Click-clacking knitting needles.
A whimpering dog whose drool left wet stains on the bedspread.
Blood. Another mark on my skin. Because, in the end, I guess I hoped I could bleed the pain and confusion out of my body.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Eli
The next day, I walked into Rebels Boxing Club excited for the first time in months.