by Lauryn April
“Ivy, don’t you dare walk out that door,” my dad yelled.
In the corner of my vision, I saw my mom stand up, one of the turquoise throw pillows falling to the floor. I walked out the door. Looking back, it was a fairly childish response, but it was all I could think to do. I had felt trapped, like a lion living like a housecat. Finding the person that was planning to blow up the school was higher on my priority list than going to class, but I couldn’t tell them that. I couldn’t explain what I had been doing or what I could do. They wouldn’t understand. I also couldn’t explain why I was so furious with my father, why I felt like he had no place telling me right from wrong. I couldn’t confront my mother with that information. So I walked out the door slamming it behind me.
After that, I found myself driving more than a few miles over the speed limit. My fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, the bones of my knuckles stretching the skin until it blanched white. I didn’t know where I was going, I just needed to drive. I needed to get away. My mind raced as I drove on autopilot. I felt bad for running out of the house. I’d never done anything that disrespectful before, and yet I felt like my father didn’t deserve my respect anymore. That was truly how I felt, but to think it sounded awful. He was still my dad, he still loved me and I still loved him even if I felt disappointed with him at the time. I just didn’t know how to act around him anymore. My thoughts were conflicting and my head ached as I tried to sort them through. So distracted by the drama that was my life, I failed to notice where I’d driven to. It wasn’t until after I’d passed the sign that read ‘Laurel Hill Estates’ that I realized where I was.
I was in Christy’s subdivision, which was also Brant’s subdivision, and I was nearing his house. For some reason my subconscious had directed me here. I tried not to let the Freudian psychology seep into my thoughts, trying to tell me that I secretly wanted to be here, but it got through anyway. It was then that I realized I was crying. Wet, hot tears rolled down my face, creating rivers through my makeup and smearing my mascara. They dripped from my chin and landed in my lap. His house came into view and I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
I was going to turn around. I didn’t really want to see him. I certainly didn’t want him to see me, not like I was. I was a mess. So I was just going to pull into his driveway and turn around, turn around and go straight home. I was going to apologize to my parents and forget about the fact that I had the lives of nearly a thousand students to save weighing on my shoulders, forget about the fact that I could read minds and knew that my father was having an affair. I was going to shut myself off into a deep drowning pool of denial and go about my life like it had been before. Then he walked outside. My car was fully in the driveway. He had a full black garbage bag in his hand. For a moment we both froze. He stared at me and I stared back. Then, as quickly as I could, I put my car into reverse and started to back up. He dropped the bag and ran over to my car. I was halfway in the road when his hands came up to my window, palms flat against the glass. He called my name. I stopped, leaving my car half in the road. I rolled my window down and stared up at him and into his deep and concerned blue eyes.
“Ivy, what’s going on?” You look so upset.
I tried to talk. My mouth opened but I was upset and my throat felt like it had swollen shut. The words refused to come out. I couldn’t speak. So instead I sighed in frustration and shut my eyes, causing my tears to spill out onto my lashes and trickle down my face.
“Come on, get out of the car.”
I did, and he got in. I stood to the side of the driveway with my arms crossed as if I were trying to hug myself while he pulled my car up to the garage. Then he made his way over to me.
“Hold on just a second, okay?”
His eyes were reassuring and I nodded. I focused on the chipping yellow nail polish on my toes which were peeking through my sandals and took a deep breath. Brant returned and put both his hands on my shoulders. The warmth from his hands on my arms was comforting.
“Come on, let’s go inside, okay?”
I nodded. “Is your dad home?” I asked when we stepped into the kitchen.
He turned around to face me. “No, he’s away on some conference for the rest of the week.” He paused before leading the way down to his room. “Do you want anything, soda or something?”
“Um, Coke, if you have any.” He walked over to the fridge and opened it up. I watched silently as he scanned the shelves.
Sprite, Mountain Dew, Pepsi.
“Pepsi’s fine.”
His head jerked to face me and he blinked, seemingly thrown off by the fact that I had just listened in on his thoughts. Then he grabbed a soda and popped the top for me.
“Sometimes I forget that you can do that. Here,” he said handing me the Pepsi.
“Thanks.”
He smiled and then turned to walk down the stairs. I took a sip of my soda and followed.
For a moment, as I stepped into the finished basement that was Brant’s bedroom, I felt awkward. There were tingles of fear and uncertainty running through my veins as I thought about what would happen next. Here we were alone in his house, no parents, no friends, hanging out in his bedroom, and I was emotionally charged and feeling needy. In that moment, I actually understood the phrase ‘butterflies in your stomach’ as I felt like I had a swarm of them flying around in mine. Suddenly some-not all, but some-of my concerns with my parents and my abilities were forgotten as I became hyperaware of the fact that I was alone with a boy in his bedroom, a boy who, despite my previous dislike for him, I could not deny that I was attracted to, a boy who, despite his bad boy reputation, I found myself truly getting to know and liking for the person he really was.
“Ivy,” he said, and I was shaken from my thoughts. He was standing before me. I’m worried about you. “What happened?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to come here and…”
“Don’t worry about it… just talk to me.”
I sighed. “It’s just stuff with my parents.” I sniffled.
He brought his hand up to my face and wiped away a tear from my cheek with his thumb. His skin felt hot against mine. My eyes looked up at him wide and glossy with unshed tears.
God you’re beautiful, I heard him think. Then he shook his head as if trying to keep me out, keep me from hearing his thoughts. His hand fell back down to his side and he turned to look back into the depths of his room.
“Let’s sit down,” he said when he turned back to me and I followed him over to the couch.
He cleared off the papers and notebooks that were scattered on the leather sofa and I sat down beside him. I took another sip of Pepsi then set the can down on the small end table beside me. Without the cold aluminum in my grip, my fingers felt restless. My hands fell into my lap and I pulled at a hangnail on my thumb.
“It’s my dad.” I was still looking down, examining my fingernails as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world. “Mr. Donahue called home and…” I sighed. “They were both pissed. Mom was more worried than anything I guess, but Dad just wanted to punish me. He didn’t even ask me what happened. He didn’t even hear my side of the story, he just wanted to dish out my sentence so he could be done with it, no real parenting required.” Even I could hear the resentment in my voice. “It was like he was mad that he had to leave work or his mistress or whatever to deal with his daughter.
“I feel like he was madder about that than anything I actually did. He told me I was being irresponsible,” I laughed bitterly, “I was being irresponsible by trying to prevent someone from blowing up the school, right…. Irresponsible… And what makes it all worse is that I know he’s cheating on my mom, but I can’t call him out on that. I can’t ground him or tell him that he’s to come straight home after work instead of seeing that whore.”
I bit my lip then. I was surprised by my own words. Finally my eyes flickered up to Brant and I saw him looking on at me intently. I felt the tears returning to my eyes and, as the
y welled up again, I ran my hands through my hair. That was when he moved to me and pulled me into a hug.
It’s not fair, I heard him think and I began to sob uncontrollably.
With the anger released, all that I had left was pain.
He held me tight and shushed me while he stroked my hair. I know how you feel. He tried to calm me down. I know what it feels like to feel alone, to feel like you have no one to lean on. My tears began to ebb. His words of understanding were in my head and I felt his strong hands rubbing my back. He had me feeling like he was on my side, like I could lean on him.
I pulled away slowly, feeling the warmth drain from my body as the distance grew between us. His hands twisted away from my back and moved to my arms, rubbing them up and down. For a moment, as my face moved past his, my eyes fluttered down to his lips. I could feel his breath against my cheek, feel his comforting touch on my skin, and the butterflies returned to my stomach, swarming as if they were caught in a windstorm. I pulled back a little more, feeling the need to put more distance between his lips and mine. At that moment, I was far too focused on my own thoughts to even think about listening in on his.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, “Yeah… yeah I’m fine.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come here and get all weepy on you.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” He dropped his hands back to his sides.
I watched them fall, wishing they were still on my arms comforting me.
“I know how you feel. After… after my mom disappeared, Dad got real distant. I think he blamed me… sometimes I blamed myself. I’d think that if I had just stayed with her then I could have… stopped her, or protected her, or I don’t know exactly but I would at least have known what happened to her.
“Maybe that’s where you and I differ in all this. I feel alone because I need to know more, but you…you’re alone because you know too much.”
Our eyes met and we had a moment of understanding, a moment where just that look conveyed every emotion either of us needed to express-the sadness, the anger, and the regret of wishing we would have done something to change how things were, wishing that there was something we could have done.
He sighed. “You may think your dad is being out of line, that he doesn’t have a right to tell you what to do with… with what he’s doing, but he does care about you. Trust me, he took the time to come home and yell at you. If nothing else, that means he worries about you. My dad’s never around anymore. When I get in trouble, I’m lucky if he even mentions it. He doesn’t yell at me. Instead he just throws some money at the school and acts like that fixes it… Your dad still notices. That’s something.”
I offered him a wan smile. In that moment, I wondered if his bad boy reputation was a product of years of trying to get his father to notice him. I wondered if he picked up habits like drinking and smoking and skipping school in an attempt to get his father to yell at him, to get him to pay attention to him, to show him that he still cared. Brant’s dad must have been a wreck after his wife disappeared, but he lost sight of the fact that his son was drowning. In that moment, I felt selfish for pouring my concerns onto him. My problems suddenly seemed much more manageable.
“Thank you,” I said with true sincerity.
He nodded. “So what are you going to do now, with your dad?”
“I don’t know. Go home and apologize I guess. Don’t know if I’m quite ready for that yet though.”
A large grin formed on his face and it made me smile. “Well then, looks like we’ve got some time to burn… how do you feel about Rummy?”
“You wanna play cards?”
“Yeah, why not? There’s nothing on TV and it’ll give you a reason not to go home just yet and will keep me from being home alone and bored out of my mind.”
“Yeah sure,” I said.
He got up and went to the dresser below the TV. In the first drawer he pulled out a deck of cards that were bound together by a thick rubber band. “You ever play before?”
“When I was younger with my Grandma I did.”
“Well good, I don’t have to go easy on you then.”
We both smiled as he shuffled the cards.
An hour later, we were sitting on his bed. Each of us had cards in our hands. I was sitting cross-legged, focusing intently on what my next move would be. Brant was lying on his side seeming confident that he would win. After all, he had more points than I did, but it was close. The game was coming to an end as most of the cards were on the board, so to speak. I laid down a four, five, and six of spades. I still had one card left but no place to play it. Then it was Brant’s turn. He had two cards. My eyes went wide as he laid down the three and the seven of spades, successfully ridding himself of all his cards.
“Oh no,” I squealed, “I was so close.”
He laughed at me and then that mischievous smirk I’d come to associate with him returned to his face.
“It was a good game though.”
“Yeah, so was the last one and I lost that one too.”
He laughed again.
“It was fun though, got my mind off stuff.”
“Well good, I thought so too. It was fun.” His eyes met mine.
His gaze had an intensity to it that made me feel like I couldn’t move. The air grew thick and for a moment every breath I took felt like it was laced with lead. In that moment, there were no thoughts, not in my head or in his. All I could concentrate on was the sudden pounding in my chest as if there were a subwoofer there, pulsating to the rhythm of my heart and making my whole body vibrate. Then he leaned in toward me. It was a small movement and an intuitive one, just a slow sway and slight tilting of his head. It was then that my thoughts raced back to me. I took a sharp intake of breath and snapped out of my daze.
“Well I should, um… I should get going.”
He blinked. “Right, yeah… yeah of course. I’ll walk you out.”
15
The Number Purple
Brant walked me to my car and we had an awkward moment just before I got in. Standing in his driveway, I felt like I didn’t know what to do with any of my limbs. I crossed and uncrossed my arms, placed my weight on one leg then the other. Part of me wanted to hug him, thank him. Another part of me, and it was a small part that I refused to acknowledge at that point in time, wanted to kiss him. Instead I offered a nervous smile and drove home, all the while he watched me pull away.
My family was done eating dinner when I got home. Sadie was in the living room with Dad, watching TV. Dad refused to turn around. He refused to even look at me. I didn’t listen to his thoughts. I didn’t want to. So I waved to Sadie and walked into the kitchen. Mom was doing the dishes.
“Hey,” I said.
She glanced back at me. Then she sighed and continued scrubbing the casserole dish that was in her hand. “You missed dinner,” she said without looking at me.
“I’m sorry.”
She spun around, the casserole dish forgotten in the soapy water of the sink, and glared at me. “What’s going on with you, Ivy? You’re lying to me, skipping school…What happened?”
I sighed, “I’m sorry, Mom, I’m just… I’m going through something, I just… I can’t explain. Just trust me, it isn’t bad. I’m not doing anything that would make you disappointed in me, except skipping school, but I promise I won’t do that again.”
“Is it a boy?”
Brant’s face flashed in my mind for a moment.
“Because if it is you can talk to me about it,” she said.
“It’s a lot of things, I think, but really I’m okay.”
Mom walked over to me and pulled me into a tight hug. I welcomed her arms around me and hugged back. She kissed me on the forehead and looked down at me with enough worry in her eyes to circle the earth with.
Just, be careful.
The rest of the night Dad refused to speak to me. He and Mom seemed distant as well. They barely looked at one another when we
were sitting in the living room watching a rerun of Friends. I decided not to listen in on any of their thoughts. It was easier not knowing things sometimes. Sadie came over to sit by me at one point and showed me the picture of our family she’d drawn for a class assignment. We all looked happy in her abstracted crayon representation. Later I wished Sadie goodnight as Mom took her off to bed and then decided to go up to my room myself. I said goodnight to my father. He didn’t respond. I felt guilty that my disrespect to my parents had made him so angry with me that he didn’t even want to acknowledge that I was there, but I also felt like he was being immature. I didn’t know how to handle the way he was acting, so I just went to bed.
Mom peeked her head into my room shortly after I’d turned off my light. She told me she loved me and wished me goodnight. Before I fell asleep, I heard the murmured sound of voices coming from the living room. It sounded like my parents were fighting, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I rolled over in bed and did my best to ignore it until I’d fallen asleep.
The next day at school, it felt like there was a buzz in the air, an energy floating about among all the students. I set foot on campus feeling good about myself for the first time in a long time. I felt like I was starting to get a handle on who I was. I walked onto the common smiling. It was then that I saw them across the way. Standing by the fountain that used to be my usual meeting spot with my friends I saw Christy. She was smiling as her hand was woven with Chase’s. I watched as he leaned in and kissed her. I stopped smiling. My eyes were glued on them and I felt my heart drop into my stomach. It sat there like a rock in my belly, the weight of which made me feel nauseous.
I hope he’s as into me as I think, I’m really starting to fall for this guy, Christy thought. Their kiss broke apart and she smiled up at him with a bright cheesy grin.