Under My Skin
Page 18
I break the surface and spit out a mouthful of frigid algae-laden pond water. Grunting and choking, tongue and face covered in slime, I latch onto the jagged edge of ice to slide onto it, but it gives way too. Like a cutter ship breaking a path along a frozen river, I chop my way to the shore. All with a lot of splashing, gasping, groaning, and crying.
Exhausted, I roll onto the shore wheezing.
My first attempt at living life, really living life, brought me closer to death than my crappy old heart did.
The irony.
I laugh and laugh and laugh. It’s coarse at first, gravelly from the grime and dirt I choked on, then clearer and more high-pitched with every new breath.
“Adam!” Mum’s screech cuts through my maniacal barking.
I cough some more and roll onto my side. “Mum.”
“David, he’s over here.” Mum crashes through the woods. Her flashlight beam bounces around until it lands on me.
I squint, lifting a hand to block its piercing brightness.
Mum drops to her knees at my side. “What are you doing?” She drops the flashlight and cups my face with both hands.
“I fell in,” is all I can manage to say.
Dad jogs up to us. He kneels next to Mum. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
Mum grips my jacket. “He’s soaked. Let’s get him inside, then we can find out what happened.”
I need their help to hold my weight on the walk back to the house. Mum wants to supervise me in the shower, but I don’t let her. Even with the water on the hottest setting, it takes a long time for me to thaw. When I finally make it downstairs, Dad has built a roaring fire in the fireplace. Mum forces me to drink a steaming mug of chicken noodle soup and two cups of tea. She checks my temperature every fifteen minutes, asking me a thousand and one times if I swallowed pond water.
While I roast by the crackling blaze covered in three blankets, she paces the room, wringing her hands. “I should ring Doctor Jervis. You may need to be checked out. Maybe we should go to the ER.”
“I don’t want to go to the ER. I’m fine.” I peek up at her, then to Dad.
He scratches his chin. “We can call the doctor tomorrow.”
“What if he has hypothermia?”
“His temperature is normal, Lisa.”
Mum stops wearing a rut into the carpet. Dad’s level-headed tone seems to calm her. She sits next to me on the ottoman. “What on earth possessed you to go out there and walk on the ice? Any fool would know it wasn’t solid enough.” She all but screeches.
Maybe I spoke too soon about the calm part. “It was pretty stupid,” I admit.
Tears well in her eyes. She brushes my hair away from my forehead. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”
My breath catches. “Wh-what?”
“It’s just … from everything Doctor Shaw was saying, to you being depressed and distant, and not talking to your friends … what am I supposed to think?”
Whatever pond scum I ingested bubbles in my stomach, spiced with Mum’s words. “I’m not suicidal.” I launch to my feet, casting off the blankets.
Dad stumbles back. Mum leans away, wide-eyed.
“I’m trying to live.”
And totally sucking at it.
Chapter Twenty
Darby
I give Mom the silent treatment on the way home after session. I skip dinner too. Mom knocks on my bedroom door and announces she’s left a plate for me on the floor. I wait for her footsteps to fade away before opening the door to drag the tray in my room.
Two slices of greasy cheese pizza—definitely delivery—crowd the plate. A container of chocolate milk sits next to a bowl of homemade butterscotch pudding. Silverware is wrapped in a linen napkin tucked neatly between the plate and bowl. I balance the tray on an uneven stack of books on the floor.
While chewing on a bite of burnt cheese and gummy dough, I listen to Adam’s message. Then play it again. He trips up so many times it’s like he can’t get out of his own way. I must’ve been out of my mind to think he was cute.
I toss the pizza aside and do the same with my phone.
The painting, the first I’ve done since Daniel’s death, the one that brought me back to life, leans against my dresser. Adam’s beautiful eye—as I see it with a bold mixture of colors and brushstrokes—watches me, bright and open, but also mocking and taunting. Adam has my brother’s heart. He’s alive because Daniel is dead. The boy “muse.”
Adam’s eye calls to me. Squeezes my head. I fight the tug of anger snaking across my shoulders, down my arms, and to my hands.
My c-collar seems to close tighter around my throat. Sweat slicks my skin underneath it. So itchy. I tug at the Velcro straps, tearing them open. I drop the collar on the floor, gaze superglued to the painting.
I’m torn between swooning in the depths of the multicolored iris and shoving my fist through the pupil. Shit, why’d I have to recreate his eye so perfectly? It’s like Adam himself is staring at me through the layers of paint.
I replay his stuttering message. The softness of his accent melts me. He soothes my pain.
And, somehow, he’s also causes it.
I can’t face him again knowing a part of Daniel is inside him. I can’t. Not after he lied to me about it.
Enough! I flip the painting over so if faces my dresser. It cuts the connection and I breathe with relief, free from my own creation.
The break won’t last. I’m in the canvas too. And some of Daniel, because he’s now a part of Adam.
We’re all anchored to one another.
I drop to the floor, empty.
I don’t know if I’ll find the strength to stand again.
* * *
A bunch of bangs at the door wakes me.
“Darby!” Mom knocks some more.
I curl onto my side and groan. Pain shoots from my hip to shoulder. Sleeping on the floor. Bad idea. “Mom.”
“Open the door or so help me, I’ll rip off the lock.”
I clear my throat. God, my neck feels like a loose rubber band. “Give me a minute.”
“Now, Darby.”
Mini shocks bite at my fingertips as I push off the floor to sit up. I use the bed to climb to my feet. The c-collar lies next to me. I stumble to it and put it on before opening the door. Mom already has enough reasons to be pissed at me. I don’t want her to freak out about not wearing the damn thing. “What?”
Mom’s lowered brows and thinned lips switch into a wide-eyed, wrinkled-forehead mask of concern. “You look awful.”
“Thanks.” I tug on the hem of my shirt.
She exhales through her nose. “You’re going to be late for school.”
“I’m not going.” I swing the door to close it.
Mom blocks me with her toe. “Yes, you are. Get washed up, or at least change out of those clothes. Weren’t you wearing them yesterday?”
“So?”
“You have ten minutes. I’ll meet you in the car.”
“Whatever.” I slam the door.
Doesn’t take long for muffled shouts start downstairs. Mom’s high-pitched whine mixes with Dad’s deeper barks. Soon after, heavy footsteps pound up the stairs.
I sit on my bed, waiting for the tornado to hit.
Dad bursts into my room, chest-puffed out and face red. “What’s this about you not going to school?”
“It’s simple. I’m staying home.”
“You need to catch up.”
“I missed over two weeks, so what’s the difference?” I cross my leg and swing my foot back and forth.
“The difference is you were in the hospital and now you’re not. Skipping will only get you further behind.” He straightens the knot of his tie, even though it’s already centered.
“I don’t care.” I crawl to the head of the bed and hug Daniel’s plush basketball.
Dad strokes his shaved chin. “Is there anything you do care about?�
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I squeeze my eyes shut. “Go away.”
A shadow creeps over me. I open my eyes to Dad looming over me.
He grabs my arm and hauls me off the bed. “You’re going to school, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming.”
I squirm, but he’s at least twice my size and three times as strong. My arms throb from his iron grip. Tears scald my eyes. “Let go. You’re hurting me. Dad!”
He releases me. “I’m sorry.”
I stumble backward, rubbing my upper arms. “No you’re not,”
“Can’t make it easy, can you?”
“Easy. You think losing my brother is easy, or wearing this fucking neck brace is easy, or that being in this house, knowing you and Mom would rather have Daniel here, is easy? No, it’s not.”
He huffs and puffs like the wolf in Red Riding Hood. “You don’t know the half of it, little girl. You’re not the only one who’s lost someone. My son is dead, my wife is so riddled with grief I don’t know how to make her feel better, and my daughter is circling around the drain. So it’d be wise of you to realize you’re not the only one suffering here.”
“It’s hard to tell.”
He squares his jaw. His fisted hands shake. “When will you realize we love you?” He spins on his heel and walks out of my room.
The blaze from Dad’s anger remains after he leaves. It burns the walls. Creates smoke. The air is heavy and hot. Suffocating.
I stuff my feet in a pair of ballet flats and flee.
In the foyer, Mom is twisting her hair into a bun. Her wool coat hangs open and her crocheted bag drapes limply over her shoulder.
“Will you drop me off at school?” I ask.
Mom freezes. “Uh … s-sure.”
I follow her outside.
We’re both quiet for the entire ride. I don’t mind.
After pulling up to the school’s main entrance, she unlocks the doors, then grips the steering wheel like she’s choking it. Instead of saying goodbye or wishing me good luck, she stares straight ahead at the bus parked in front of us.
I leave everything I want to say unsaid in the car seat and I don’t look back. Mom can eat the conversation we didn’t have all the way to work. It can get stuck in her teeth, scrape down her throat, and upset her stomach, just like it’s doing to me.
With a hand pressed to my belly, I head toward the art room. The idea of sitting in homeroom, going to classes, fake listening, and acting like everything is normal sounds like Hell.
Since art class is only offered in the afternoon (the teacher works part-time here and at another school), I have the place to myself. The room is dark. I flip on the lights and stride to my stack of canvases. A cloth with my name painted across the surface covers them. I drag it off the pile and fold it. The ritual calms me. So does organizing my drawer of brushes and pigments.
I flip through the series I was working on before the accident. They all suck. A different Darby painted these. She used too bright colors, overly blended, too happy.
I pile the canvases on a bare table, then search for the biggest pair of scissors I can find. Holding the handle in my fist, I swing my arm up and bring it down against the first painting, puncturing its center with a satisfying thwump. I yank the scissors out and open them to drag the blade through the woven fibers. The painted cotton resists my carving, but I don’t stop until it tears and frays. It screams and I cry in reply. I’m killing a part of myself. The old self. The part that was whole and then was fractured like the Mustang’s windshield when Daniel’s skull collided with it.
I don’t stop until all of them are in tatters. Their wounds are too deep to heal.
Like me.
I toss the scissors on the pile of carcasses and leave the building. Outside, I brush loose pieces of paint and fibers off my clothes.
“Darby Fox.”
I freeze.
Principal Shepherd. She’s wearing a navy blue suit, sensible heels, and a scowl that would make Mom proud. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I kick a pebble onto the grass. “For a walk.”
“Why didn’t you attend homeroom?”
“I’ve been here for less than an hour and you’re already tracking my every move?”
“I saw you on the video camera. Why’d you destroy your paintings?” Her scowl loosens into pity.
“They’re crap.”
“The art teacher says you have more talent in your pinky than all her other students combined.”
I roll my eyes. “Spare me the cliché.”
She tugs on the hem of her jacket to straighten it out. “Do I have to suspend you for skipping class on your first day back?”
“Do what you want.”
“I’ll have to talk to your parents.”
I sigh and stare at my nails. I still haven’t added new polish.
“Perhaps they should consider home schooling for you.”
“You want me to wait in your office while you figure it out?”
“Are you okay?”
Is she serious? I stuff my hands in my pockets. “Oh, I don’t know, my brother died, I broke my neck, and everybody’s pissed at me. Sorry I’m not all sunshine and giggles and skipping around with joy.”
She closes her eyes and hangs her head. “I’m sorry, Darby. I didn’t mean … ”
“Forget it. Nobody does.”
“Come inside while I decide what to do with you.”
Surrendering this round, I brush past her and head for the entrance. I’d rather be where it’s warm. It makes listening to yet another person tell me how messed up I am a teeny tiny bit easier.
Shepherd escorts me to her office. We take our usual seats, her at her desk and me in the chair across from her. Some things don’t change, like me spending time in the principal’s office. I suppose going AWOL is as a Bad Girl thing, but wrecking my own paintings shouldn’t count against me. They’re mine. I could argue it’s a new part of my creative process.
I sit quietly while Shepherd calls Mom at work, right there in front of me. She must want to be an open book like Shaw.
Shepherd gives Mom the run down super quick. The call lasts less than five minutes. “Your mom is on her way.”
“Is she pissed?”
She folds her hands on top of her desk. “I think she’s more at a loss as to what to do with you.”
“I’m hopeless.”
“I wish you wouldn’t make such disparaging comments about yourself.”
“It is what it is.”
“Through a tainted lens.”
“So I’m not seeing clearly.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Sounded that way to me.”
Shepherd exhales, then attacks her keyboard with her fingers. Probably writing a nice summary for my file. The corner of her mouth pulls into a smirk as she types. Yep, whatever she’s working on is definitely about me.
Darby Fox, human sandpaper. I slide deeper into the seat. The only person I don’t piss off is Adam.
He’s immune to me, like Daniel was. I wonder if it’s because he has Daniel’s heart, if something like that is even possible.
The question is: Can I be immune to myself?
Chapter Twenty-One
Adam
I’m perfectly fine, but Mum makes me stay home the next day. I veg on the couch while she conferences with Dr. Jervis. By the end of all her fretting, Jervis has deemed me stable, although promises to call in a script of antibiotics just in case I swallowed some demon bacteria along with the pond scum. It’ll pair nicely with my cocktail of anti-virals and immunosuppressants. A trifecta of rejection and infection killing pills that blasts my stomach to bits each time I send a volley down my throat.
Mum rounds out her agenda by calling Dr. Shaw. I end up with an emergency session.
Anyone with half a brain wouldn’t have walked out on that ice and now I get to explain my stupidity to Shaw.
Mum drives us to my appointment early. We sit in the car park for twenty minutes before starting the slow march to Shaw’s office. She hooks her arm through mine. To others, it must seem like we’re close, but I know the truth—she doesn’t want me running off. Perhaps she’s afraid I’ll find another pond and dive in face first.
Shaw is standing by her receptionist’s desk. She greets Mum openly. While Mum pays the fee, Shaw turns her steely gaze on me. Always assessing. Always keeping me on my toes.
I bet she won’t have a cup of coffee for me today.
“Lisa, why don’t you join us for a few minutes?” Shaw escorts us into her office. She drags her rolling desk chair to the pair of armchairs in front of her bookshelves and sits.
Mum crowds me toward the farther chair and takes a seat. “Thank you so much for squeezing Adam in. He scared the bejesus out of me yesterday.”
“It was an accident,” I say.
Shaw raises a hand to shush me. “Tell me what happened, Lisa.”
I can’t help but interject. “Didn’t you discuss it over the phone?”
“I think you need to hear your mother’s side here, in a therapeutic environment, so we can process it together,” Shaw says.
Surprise, surprise, she shot me down. Mentally, I fold in on myself like Origami paper. Larry from The Razor’s Edge faced opposition and he overcame it. I have to hold onto the fact that I can too.
I think.
Mum gives her version of what happened, which includes her panic about me not being in the house and then finding me soaking wet and gasping for air near the pond’s edge. She fills the middle of her tale with her all-night vigil and frantic call to Dr. Jervis this morning. She wraps up with my utter lack of concern about my own wellbeing. At every turn of her story, her voice goes up a notch and peaks to a stringy pitch by the end. Poor Mum. I’ve put her through the wringer.