Checked Again (5 page)

Chapter
4

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WELL,
I GOT CAUGHT LAST night at the end of my routine. Abby woke up when I bumped
into the couch as I tried to straighten the pictures in the living room. When
she asked me what I was doing up by myself, I quickly mumbled something about
having left my phone downstairs. Then I asked her not to say anything to
anyone, and I told her to just go back to sleep. I did eventually finish my
downstairs routine, but not until after I heard her heavy sleep breathing
resume.

Thank
God it’s confession day. Lying to an innocent child. Hoping that said child
lies for me and doesn’t tell anyone that I was up by myself in the middle of
the night (a withholding of the truth—a lie of omission, but a lie all the
same). I’m kind of torn about what I want to happen. I don’t want Mom and
Melanie and Mandy to find out that I was up checking when I was supposed to be
resting. Dr. Lennox will probably be back to see me in no time then. However, I
don’t want Abby to have to keep a secret or to lie for me. I don’t want to put
her little soul in jeopardy.

Hmm…if
she doesn’t tell on me, I think I’ll just confess her lie of omission for
her…just to be safe.

For
now, I need to make sure that no one else catches me as I do my downstairs
morning routine. If Mandy or Melanie wakes up, I’m pretty sure either one of
them would tell Mom. Just like when I was a kid and they told on me for taking
off my lotiony sock gloves to wash my hands…

SOMEHOW,
I MAKE IT THROUGH my entire downstairs routine without waking anyone. I’m not
sure that I got all of the crumbs and pieces of fuzz off of the living room
carpet…but it was just too risky considering last night’s flub up. I couldn’t
afford to be caught again…I couldn’t…can’t…stomach seeing Dr. Lennox again
today…

Trying
to just accept the fact that there might still be a few pieces of fuzz on the
living room floor, I head upstairs to finish my routine. I fall back into bed
around 7:30 a.m. Before I fall asleep, I think a bit more about my unanswered
text message. The fact that I still haven’t sent him a response hasn’t slipped
my mind…for even a second…but I don’t know what to write.

And
I’m exhausted. Too exhausted to come up with a response right now.

SLEEP.

LIKE
A BREATH LATER, I hear Mom as she shuffles in to check on me. She tells me that
she’s going to take a shower and then go make breakfast. I just nod and move my
mouth into a little smile before she steps out of the room. As I close my eyes
again, I hear a masculine voice on the television discussing various breakfast
breads. Makes me hungry.

But
tired far outweighs hungry.

Back
to sleep. For a few minutes at least.

“AUNT CALLIE?”

Eyes
open again. I open my arms so Abby can crawl in beside me on the bed. She rests
her little head on my shoulder.

“Did
you find your phone?”

“I
did.” I run my fingers through her hair and hope that this conversation is
over.

It’s
not. “Why did you need it in the middle of the night? Did you have an important
call to make or something?”

Yeah…something
like that.

Fortunately,
before Abby can ask me anything else, Melanie shows up.

And
even more fortunately, Abby stops talking about my phone.

Thank
you, Abby. And God.

Melanie
tells us that it’s time for breakfast, and she helps both of us out of bed
(even though I roll my eyes and tell her that I am just fine doing it by
myself). Then we head downstairs.

Breakfast
goes okay. I manage to only consume a few hundred calories of fruit and toast
by blatantly ignoring the faces Mom gives me as I decline servings of eggs,
sausage, bacon, etc. Oh, and I also get a little unsolicited help from Jared’s
brand new girlfriend (of, like, a week—don’t know what happened to the last
girl), who has joined us for breakfast. She has some sort of concert to attend
tonight and, I guess, some crazy tight dress to wear…so she announces that she
is not eating all day today as she smiles and puts her hands on her grain of
rice-sized belly.

Mom’s
face when she made this little announcement was hilarious…she was all red, and
it looked like she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from commenting. I
clamped my mouth shut too. And I kept my eyes away from Melanie and Mandy,
trying not to start laughing. I did risk a glance at Jared…and I swear there
was some annoyance in his eyes.

Maybe
Miss Size Negative Zero isn’t a future Mrs. Royce…

ANYWAY…I
made it through breakfast…and through the packing of all of my stuff (I was
forced to sit on my bed as Mom and my sisters fluttered around me and loaded my
suitcase. They did not,
thank the Lord
, suggest that I take the flowers
from the windowsill home with me. So Dr. Gabriel’s flowers are still diseasing
up my old room. I have spent quite a bit of time praying that Mom does not
catch any of his germs when she waters them…)…and through our goodbyes—and Abby
never said a word about my middle of the night phone investigation.
Phew.

And
now I’m home, sitting in my own bed. Mandy is already at some sorority event.
Before she left, she asked me approximately three thousand times if I would be
okay alone tonight.

I
assured her that I would be okay. And I am.

Almost.

There
is a problem sitting on my hamper. Two problems are there, actually. Two
different pairs of pajamas that I slept in during the two nights
he
was
here. I haven’t touched them since I got back…but I also haven’t stopped
thinking about them or looking at them.

Well,
that’s not quite true. I have stopped looking at them to look at my phone a few
thousand times—as though looking at it might inspire me to come up with a
sendable text message. With each passing minute that I don’t think of something
to type, I get more and more annoyed.

I
have your license.

How
does he expect me to respond to that? I already know he has my license (even
though I did forget up until I read his text, I would’ve eventually
remembered). So instead of just telling me something that I already know, he
should have suggested a way to deal with this problem, suggested an acceptable
way to get the license back to me.  Shouldn’t that be his job since he was the
one who left? The one who left me in the hospital with no explanation at all
(well, other than what I overheard from the nurses, but he doesn’t know that I
heard any of that). Why would it be my job to write a text that decides if and
when we’ll see each other again? Shouldn’t that be his decision?

Yes,
it should. I’m not giving him a solution.

I
hit reply yet again and then respond to that Unknown Number.

I
know.

Ooonnneee.

Tttwwwooo.

Ttthhhrrreee.

SEND.

Before
I even really begin to think about how he’ll respond, if he’ll resp—

He
writes back. I have one unopened message from Unknown Number.

One.
Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three.
One. Two. Three.

CALLIE!

I
clench my eyes shut and hit the button to open the message. Slowly, I peek out
of the corner of my eye and read.

I thought about
mailing it to you, but I don’t want you to worry about it somehow getting lost.
I could just leave it at the office, with Annie, for you to pick up when you
get the chance…but I don’t want you to have to run into other patients. So I’m
not sure how to get it to you. It would be stupid for you to have to go get
another driver’s license, though.

My
eyes are wide open now.

DAMN
IT.

He’s
still in my head. Right on top of my thoughts, as usual. No one should be able
to do that…to know everything about my mind…well, almost everything.

It’s
ridiculous.

{The
All-American Rejects storm in with
“It Ends Tonight.”
}

Quick
decision. Click reply.

Whatever
is fine. Let me know.

Send
quickly…trying not to think about the fact that “whatever” is certainly not
fine.

I
fling my legs over the side of my bed, toss my phone on my comforter, and head
to my hamper.

It’s
time.

I
scoop up both sets of pajamas and head straight to the washer, holding my
breath so I don’t accidentally breathe in a trace of him. I make it the whole
way down the stairs and to the laundry closet without taking a breath.
{The
All-American Rejects get even louder.}
Still not breathing, I get the water
running in the washer, add detergent, and hastily throw one pair of pajamas
inside. Then—

Then
I freeze, still holding the second set of pajamas. And…my body can probably
handle more time without a fresh intake of oxygen…it can last long enough for
me to at least get the second pair of pajamas into the water…

But
my mind can’t take it.

This
is it. This is what I have left.
{
“It All Ends Tonight”
starts to
fade.}

Slowly,
I bring the bundle of clothes up to my face and take in a slow breath of air…a
breath of him…a breath of what it felt like to fall asleep in his arms…

I
inhale for a count of three.

And
then another.

And
another.

{With
each count of three, the song becomes more and more faint.}

And
I can’t help myself. I slam the washer shut, go back upstairs to my room, and
neatly place the pajamas back on my hamper.

{The
All-American Rejects stop altogether. Lit with
“My Own Worst
Enemy”
takes over.}

I
spend the rest of the afternoon with Emily Brontë,
Wuthering Heights,
and a notebook. I don’t get a lot of work done. I pick off all of my nail
polish and reapply it three times. I look at my phone every few minutes. I
check my email multiple times. No messages come for me (well, no important
ones—my email filter has managed to allow a lot of garbage to slip into my
inbox over the last week).

At
3:00 p.m., I start my thirty-three checks. Then I’m off to confession to seek
forgiveness for two whole weeks of sins—for lying to my family members about
staying on bed rest last week, for asking Abby to lie for me, for Abby’s sin of
omission, for despising Jared’s new stick girlfriend only moments after meeting
her, for still despising Dr. Gabriel…and Dr. Lennox a little bit too…

4:20
p.m. Confession over. Penance completed (One Hail Mary and one Act of
Contrition assigned…nine of each completed).

I
head home and start to type my
Wuthering Heights
paper. I eat around
five hundred calories of a frozen chicken meal (Mom made Mandy stock the fridge
with food I can easily make…Mom also told me that she doesn’t want me to
exhaust myself with attempts at gourmet cooking for the next couple of weeks…)

I
start my night routine around 7:30 p.m. It’s rather soothing to be back in my
old routine…and soothing to be a little distracted from thinking about my phone
and its lack of buzzing.

That
soothed feeling goes away, however, when I finally turn on the television and
crawl into bed. Sleep doesn’t come. The TV chefs’ voices refuse to turn into
white noise. My mind keeps taking me back to the nights when he was here with
me—holding me to sleep.

I
can’t push the thoughts away…they go on for seconds and minutes and during show
after show on the food station. The thoughts just keep coming. I guess it
probably doesn’t help that I’m wearing my over-a-week-old hamper pajamas…

SUNDAY
MORNING.
{DAMIEN RICE IS in my head before I even open my eyes.} His
smell is on my sheets…my pillow…my skin.

It’s
torture.

Quick
decision.

I
escape—springing out of bed, changing my clothes, and throwing myself into my morning
routine…making myself leave my quiet cell phone behind on my dresser.

CHURCH
IS OVER. AND I finished my
Wuthering Heights
paper. It took me a long
time, because I’ve had a lot of interruptions. All of my siblings have called
to check on me. My parents called too (I think Mom must have made a
schedule—one where a different person was supposed to call me about every
hour).