“No,” I say and am surprised at how good it feels to be sure of something, for once.
“Just football, for you?”
I shrug, again not sure if I even like the sport. “Mostly I’m into art.”
“For real? I love art! I’m in Mr. Gale’s fifth hour class. He seems like a great teacher. What hour do you take it?”
Mr. Who? “I don’t have his class.”
“Oh.”
“Art is sort of something I just recently picked up. But I really like it.”
“I’d love to see some of your work.”
“Really?”
“Of course.” Her smile, or, maybe it’s her eyes, makes me feel like I could actually admit everything to her, but I limit it to only one thing for now.
“I’ve doodled a lot, but I’ve only drawn one real picture.”
“One? Wow, when you said recent, you really meant it, huh?”
“Couple days.”
Her eyes widen and she blinks at me.
“Maybe I could see some of your stuff?” I ask. “It could give me some ideas.”
“Sure. Trouble is, my art-folio is still packed in a box and I don’t know which one.”
“Another time, then.”
“Yeah, another time.” She faces forward, slouches down, like me, and kicks her feet up next to mine. “That’s really cool, you like art.” She smiles in the direction of the yard, where I used to be sitting.
I haven’t managed to pry my eyes off of her yet, and as we lapse back into a comfortable silence, I study the streaks of gold that run through her hair. I’d like to see it down. Not that I don’t like it up – I do. It shows off her pretty face. But I’d just like to see the highlights run their length. She has very feminine bone structure in her face, shoulders, arms and legs. Soft curves and smooth skin.
“Want your toenails painted?” She suddenly asks.
“No.”
“Come on, it will be fun.”
“Fun for who?”
“Me,” she says with a brilliant smile which she aims directly at me.
I can’t help but chuckle. Denying her is no longer an option. It just isn’t. “Alright.”
“I have a great color for you.” She hops up and darts inside.
It’s dark blue and she’s just as meticulous about putting it on my toes as she was hers. She kneels on the opposite side of the plastic table, facing me, and she talks as she works.
She tells me that her brother is away at college and that they moved here because her mother got a better paying job. She loves her mother, they’re best friends, and it’s just the two of them in the house until Van comes home for holidays.
She tells me where she came from and all about the place and her friends, and then she looks up at me. “What about you?”
My turn, huh? “I’m from a foreign country and I was adopted by total strangers and brought to their house just a few days ago.”
She’s blinking again. Nail brush frozen mid-stroke. “Really?”
“No. But it feels like it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You’re strange.”
“No, I mean, I injured my head in the car wreck and I can’t remember anything that happened before it.”
“Are you serious?” She seems rather concerned, or perhaps, interested, but either way she’s paying extremely close attention to me.
“Pretty serious – yeah. That’s why I was asking if you knew me. Because I didn’t know if you did or not.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yeah, and when I said you should know me because I think I’m popular, I wasn’t meaning . . .”
Suddenly she’s laughing, and I know I don’t have to finish explaining. She gets it – she gets me. “I have to admit,” she says, “When I first heard you say that, I was thinking . . .”
“That I am entirely too full of myself?”
“Yes.” She keeps laughing and I like the sound. I smile at her and then close my eyes to more fully enjoy it.
I don’t try, but I somehow fall asleep. Just another side effect of having a battered body that has been pushed to the extreme, I guess. And when I wake up it’s dark. I’m still on Paige’s porch swing and she’s sitting next to me – reading. The flashlight in her left hand is aimed quarter of the way down page 167.
I watch her for a moment – glad she didn’t abandoned me, and thinking how comfortable I feel with her, even though I hardly know her. Then, I suddenly realize how late it must be and that I’m still incredibly lost. It sends a jolt of stress directly to my heart and I sit up straight on the swing and groan. “I can’t believe I fell asleep.”
“I can. You were really tired.” She doesn’t look over until she’s finished the sentence she’s reading, and then she marks the book and closes the cover. Her attention is all mine now.
“I gotta go.” My stress has morphed into panic in those few seconds, and I hurriedly pull myself out of my seat by the chain that suspends the swing. I’m glad my leg has stopped throbbing so relentlessly. “Oh, shit, I really need to leave now.”
“Okay.” She looks up at me.
“Like right now!”
“Okay,” she says again, a bit of a question forming in her voice. Wondering why I don’t just go if it’s that important.
I start to nervously pace her porch and her gaze follows me.
“Do you need help down the ramp?”
“No. I think I can make it.”
“Okay. Well, it was nice to meet you.” She’s wrapping things up so that I feel free to leave, but I can’t go anywhere.
I keep pacing and she keeps watching, her eyebrows pinching more and more with each pass I make. Finally I stop directly in front of her and say, “I don’t know how to get home.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I just got out of the hospital a few days ago and this is the first time I’ve been out on my own since. I wandered away from home, and because of my memory I don’t know where I am or how to find my way back. I was lost before I ever set down on your grass.”
Her eyes widen and after watching me for a moment longer, she stands up. “Well, do you know your address? I could drive you.”
I search the hollow archives of my wounded mind and then get a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s not just because I can’t recall my address, it’s because, without my cell phone, I don’t remember anyone’s phone number, either. I’m probably less than a mile from my house, but I may as well be on another planet.
“Well, don’t panic,” she recognizes that I am. “You know your parent’s names, right? We’ll look it up in the phone book.”
Relief washes over me. “At least someone has a brain,” I say and she smiles.
SIX
Before we leave in her mother’s car, I make sure Paige has her own address. Being as new to this place as I am, she chances getting lost as well. We drive through the darkness and the only thing we say to each other is, “I like this song.” and “Me too.”
I try to pay close attention to where we’re going. I try to subtract her two wrong turns from my head and form a clear line from point A to point B. It takes all of my concentration because it’s dark and I’m so disorientated, and when we arrive in my driveway, I’m not entirely sure I’ve got it. I am, however, greatly relieved to see something I finally recognize.
“Thank you!” I nearly laugh.
“You’re welcome.” She’s not smiling back. She’s looking at the whopper of a house I live in.
“If you’re thinking, this is where you live? Trust me; I was thinking the same thing when I first arrived.”
This makes her smile and she thrusts open the driver’s door and gets out.
“What are you doing?” I want to know.
“I’ll go ring the bell. Someone can come out and help me help you up the stairs.”
I don’t want her to do that, because I know it will
be my dad that helps and I know how he’ll do it. But it’s too late to ask her not to. She’s already shut the car door and is heading up the well illuminated walkway. I manage to get out and am standing at the bottom of the stairs when the front door is opened by my mom.
I don’t know what Paige planned on saying, if anything, but she isn’t given a chance to get it out.
“Oh, thank God!” My mom cries out and throws her hands over her heart. “Craig, he’s home.”
Dad is suddenly in the doorway and he’s not happy with me. “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you. You’re mother’s been worried sick!”
Mom affirms this by nodding wildly.
“I’m sorry.” I tell them.
“Sorry isn’t gonna cut it, Ryan. We called the police, we were that worried. Where have you been?”
I glance at Paige whose standing awkwardly between them and me.
“Who is this?” Dad casts a critical glance at her.
“Paige . . . I don’t know her last name.”
“Parker,” Paige says softly. She’s caught in the cross fire. She can’t go in and she can’t come down. She has no other choice than to hold steady. She doesn’t like it, though, I can tell.
“You ditch out on a party full of friends, to hang out with someone whose last name you don’t even know?” His words and the fire behind them embarrass me in front of her. It makes something snap and suddenly I’m the one who’s upset.
“What the hell are you talking about? That party was full of people whose first and last names I didn’t know. You call them my friends, but I know nothing about them, Dad.”
“Well, don’t worry about sticking around to learn anything about any of them. Just pull a disappearing act and leave everyone wondering and worrying. More people showed up after you left, Ryan. They were all eager to see you. It’s been well over three months for a lot of them, including Tasha. What you did was incredibly rude.”
I don’t bother asking who Tasha is, I wouldn’t know even if they told me. Instead I say, “Yeah? Well, next time someone decides to throw me a party, maybe they can give me a heads up, first. Talk about rude. You have no idea how hard that was on me. I didn’t like it. In fact I hated it.”
“You’re mother worked her ass off to pull that together!” He’s really shouting now.
I glance at Mom whose eyes are full of tears and it hurts something inside my chest.
I lower my voice and direct my apology to her. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
She gives me a sad and slight smile and I think she’ll forgive me, but Dad isn’t finished with me.
“You’ve been gone for hours. You gave us no phone call, and absolutely no consideration. You’re grounded for a week, Ryan. No lake party tomorrow, for you.”
Oh, damn, not the lake. Don’t take that away. Please! I’ll do anything.
“No drawing, either.”
Shit!
Lucas is in the house. I can see him through the open front door. He’s watching and hearing all of this from upstairs where he’s leaning casually over the railing with his forearms. He’s looking me in the eyes and he’s smiling.
Glad someone’s enjoying themselves.
Dad marches down the steps to carry me inside, but I don’t want that at all tonight. Not in front of Paige.
“I’ll get up the stairs myself,” I tell him.
“I don’t have all night to wait for that to happen, Ryan. I have to call off the police search.” He scoops me off my feet and hauls my ass inside. And just before the front door closes, I hear my mother practically whisper, “Thanks for bringing him home, Paige.”
_____
Being grounded for a week should mean I can’t go to counseling or PT, but unfortunately that’s not the way this thing works. So, bright and early Monday morning, I’m sitting in Gretta’s office. It’s the first time I’ve been here. In the past, she’s been the one to come to me, being that I was in the hospital and all.
“Why do you think you ran away?” she asks.
“I wasn’t running away. I just needed some space, so I went for a walk and got lost.”
My mom is in the room with us and she figures this is her cue to speak up. “We were just so worried that something bad had happened to you, or that you’d tried to hurt yourself again. We can’t go through that again, Ryan. It’s taken an enormous toll on us – all of us – in ways you may never understand.”
“Ryan, can you understand her concern?” Gretta asks.
Yeah, lady, I got it. “I’m sorry, Mom. I said it that night, but I’ll say it again. I really am sorry.”
“It’s extremely difficult to see your son lying in a coma, on life support, broken in dozens of pieces.” She continues to speak, telling all the gory details and how hard it was for her to endure. She tells me that having a child die is a parent’s worst nightmare, but to have one that purposely tries to die has turned her into an emotional wreck. Then she goes on to blame herself, and it’s not that I tune her out, because I don’t. I really do listen and I really do care. But at that moment this counseling session has gone from being mine, to being hers.
After that, all I have to do is nod every once in a while and keep handing her tissues to dry her eyes, and before I know it, we’re out of there.
I want to kiss her and tell her thank you for getting me off the hook, but she’s still dabbing tears as we drive home and I don’t want to come across as insensitive, so I keep my mouth shut.
_____
Mom dares to leave me alone on Wednesday. I’d break the rules and draw something, but my dad took my art supplies upstairs to his bedroom, which may as well be on the moon where I’m concerned. I kind of wonder how quickly, after this week is up, that he’ll hand them back to me.
I have nothing to do, no one to talk to, and only a limited number of places I can get to, so I wander into the office to look around. I find a box of home movies. I’ve not been big into the whole past in pictures thing. It kind of freaks me out. A me I can’t recall, doing things with a them I don’t remember. But today I’m bored, so I slide one of the DVD’s into the computer, the TV being downstairs.
It starts out with a young me splashing around in a pool at someone’s birthday party. I watch a little and forward it.
Some school play is next. I’m Abraham Lincoln and my beard is falling off. The audience keeps chuckling about it and I take full advantage of the spotlight. I start ad-libbing my lines and people begin laughing even harder. I’m totally screwing up the play and the teacher comes out on stage to tell me so. She bends over me and whispers something in my ear and I repeat it aloud.
“Show’s over for me.” Then I grab at my neck, to mock choking myself, and there’s a roar of laughter as I’m tugged off stage. Some girl who was way more mature than me, steps forward to say her lines and put the performance back on track.
I was a damn show off.
I watch some more of the movie in fast forward and stop when I recognize the backyard. It’s changed some from what it is now; mainly the size of the trees and shrubs, but it feels familiar, so I watch.
My mom is filming. Or so I’m assuming, because her voice is closest to the camera. I’m around age ten and I’m suited up in full football gear. My dad is across the yard and he throws the football to me and I catch it with impressive skill. I immediately turn with it and run it to the makeshift goal post.
My dad is going nuts. Shouting that I’m the best ever and that he’s never seen any other kid on my little league team run a play like I do – that I’m so much better than even the older kids.
Even my mom tells me, “Good job, Ryan.”
I throw the ball back to Dad and the camera follows it. It has the perfect spin, speed and trajectory and drops right into his arms.
Humm, I was pretty good.
It appears I’m having a good time. I mean, it’s not like Dad is forcing me to play, or anything. He doesn’t have to push me along by telling me what to do
next; I just do it of my own free will.
I catch another ball and have time to throw it back before Lucas, who’s got to be around age eight, comes into the back yard.
“Hey, I didn’t know you guys were playing,” he says. Mom zooms in on him with the camera and I can see the excitement in his eyes. He’s not wearing any gear at all. “Can I play, too?”
No one answers him. Mom keeps filming. Dad keeps building me up and I keep preforming.
Lucas comes out into the middle of the yard where I am, and stands next to me. “Throw it to me, Dad!” he calls out.
“I will in just a sec, Luc, this one is going long,” Dad says.
I take the hint and run further back into the yard and with a dive, I catch Dad’s throw. When I’m on my feet again, arm drawn back, Lucas says, “Ry, throw it to me.”
“Dad will,” I tell him and heave the ball across the yard.
“Perfect!” Dad shouts as he catches it. “Luc, did you see that? That’s how it’s done. That’s how you throw a ball! Your brother is the stuff.”
“Can I try?” Lucas eagerly asks.
“Run on out there, Luc. I’ll throw it and we’ll see who catches it,” Dad says.
I clobber the kid. I bash right into him with my shoulder pads and knock him out of the way before snatching the ball out of the air.
The look on his face tells me he’s in pain, but he seems to understand that this is part of the sport and jumps back up. I have the football now, and I’m running. Luc tries to chase me. Tries to catch and tackle me, but I get rid of the ball by throwing it Dad’s direction.
Luc takes a better stance, and when he catches Dad’s next throw, he grins triumphantly.
There are no congratulations or up-building words shouted for him, because I immediately smack the ball out of his hands and yell, “This isn’t a game, Doofus! This is serious. I’m trying to make Coach Morgan’s team and I have to practice.”
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