Collide (16 page)

“I don’t mind driving,” he said.

“Maybe not, but this way saves gas. It’s a
little pointless for both of us to drive separate cars since I have
to come back this evening and help Mr. Baker close up shop.
Besides, it’s not that far.”

He agreed, and it wasn’t long before we
headed down the road towards Maria’s house. He remained silent for
the duration of the ride, and I was too lost in my own thoughts to
be able to pay attention if he had wanted to talk. I had a lot to
take in, and my entire perception of Akira had changed and was
evolving, something I wasn’t all that comfortable with. I still
didn’t completely trust him, but at the same time I felt a strange
comfort in the fact that I was no longer alone with the whole Maria
thing. Telling my mom was one thing, but there wasn’t much she
could do outside of talking to Mrs. Dupree (and to be honest, as
long as Maria didn’t mess up one of Mrs. Dupree’s socialite
parties, there wasn’t a whole lot she cared to do). But Akira was
actively trying to do something to help, and could even offer a
little insight into the strange change that had over taken my best
friend. In a way, I now felt like I had a bit of a flashlight to
shed a beam on the darkness that I hadn’t been fully aware had
surrounded me. It was going to take a little getting used to.

After about fifteen minutes we pulled up into
the Dupree’s driveway, and I found myself hoping that Mr. Dupree
had already moved out. They had postponed their separation for a
few days after Maria returned, but it had been decided recently
that his presence was too much of a stressor for Maria’s amnesia
and that they should go ahead and proceed with the separation and
divorce. Personally, I was happy when that decision was made, the
man was unnerving at best, and downright scary at the worst.

I stared up at Maria’s house and my eyes
picked out her window on the second story, easily spotted because
of the window box of herbs that she had started to grow two years
ago. I had asked her about it because she had never touched a pot
or pan in the entire time I had known her, but she had laughed and
said that she liked the smell of them when they were fresh picked.
Usually her window as a veritable sea of green leaves, stems and
various flowers, but now I could barely make out any of the plants.
What I could see looked dried up and very dead, which spoke as much
about Maria’s mental state as anything else and made the frozen
ball of ice in my stomach expand to the size of a boulder.

I jerked in surprise when a warm hand closed
around my own and give my fingers a brief squeeze before releasing
me. I had forgotten for a moment that Akira was there with me, and
when I looked at him he shrugged.

“Sorry,” he said and sounded anything but.
“You just looked really sad and worried, and I thought it would
help you feel a little better knowing you’re not alone right
now.”

“It . . it actually does help, thank you,” I
said. I sounded as surprised as I felt when I realized that that
simple, small action had gone a long way to thawing the ice in my
gut.

I took a deep breath, set my shoulders, and
made my way up the stone pathway to the front door. I couldn’t help
but smile, because while the large two story building was a
tasteful, if bland, white, the door was a vibrant red color that
Maria and I had insisted upon because we thought it was rather
exciting and would help to brighten up the place. Mrs. Dupree had
argued while Mr. Dupree had threatened to ground Maria if we
continued to insist upon our choice, but we remained steadfast in
our decision and won Mrs. Dupree with the logic that it would make
their mansion easier to spot for her party guests. We were right in
that the red door gave the large building a little pizazz, and Mrs.
Dupree never had to deal with a misplaced guest ever again. It also
made a great landmark for lost tourists to look for (and gave Mrs.
Dupree the added joy of being able to show the house off more). All
you had to do was tell someone to find the only mansion with a red
door, and you could pretty much find your way anywhere in town from
there.

I heard Akira cough beside me, and I
smiled.

“It’s really bright, isn’t it?”

“I was just thinking that I probably needed
my sunglasses just to look at it,” came the amused reply.

Mrs. Dupree must have been watching us from
one of the front windows, because she opened the door before I
could even knock and pulled me into one of her awkward, more air
than body contact, hugs. I shuddered a little and lightly patted
her back. I may have grown up with her as something of a second
mother (if you could call it that), but her constant need to keep
at least two inches between her and the person she hugged so that
she wouldn’t wrinkle her clothing made me want to squirm every
time. I have often wondered just how Maria was created considering
her mother’s aversion to being “mussed” in any way, but those
thoughts made my stomach churn so I pushed them aside.

“And who is this young man?” she asked as she
stepped back, curiosity bright on her round, store bought youthful
face.

“This is Akira Yamaguchi,” I said. “He’s my
partner on a research project for Mr. Miller, and offered to come
with me to visit Maria when my shift at the bookstore ended.”

“Ah, nice to meet you,” she said and lightly
shook Akira’s hand with the barest tips of her fingers. Akira
blinked a little in confusion, but he went with it and didn’t clasp
her fingers the way he had mine. “Maria is going to be happy to see
you, Jane, she’s been kind of down since she’s been sick. You know
she’s never handled being bed ridden well.”

“Yeah,” I said as we followed her into the
hall and removed our shoes. “I remember her sneaking out when she
had the chicken pox. You called my house and we all searched for
her and found her asleep in the gardening shed out back.”

“If I remember right, you came down with the
chicken pox shortly after that.”

“I did, it was awful,” I laughed.

“You two go on up, I’m going to get a tray of
snacks together. Would you like some tea? Or something else to
drink?”

Knowing she took every opportunity to cater
and have some semblance of a party, I requested water while Akira
said that tea was fine with him, and we began to make our way up
stairs. Despite the courage that I had found standing outside of
the house, my steps begin to lag the closer we got to the top. A
sharp poke in the small of my back made me squeak and jump before I
turned and glared at Akira, who merely cocked an eyebrow at me as
if to say, “Well? Get moving already!”

I fought the urge to stick my tongue out at
him because his words from earlier still rang in my ears. Instead I
turned and ran the rest of the way up the stairs after I gave him
the universal hand signal that meant I was NOT happy with his
highhanded ways. His laughter followed me all the way to Maria’s
door, where I paused, swallowed, and knocked.

Something shifted on the other side of the
door, and then Maria’s voice called for me to come in. I cautiously
cracked open the door and peeked around the edge. Maria was sitting
up in her bed, her back braced against the wall and a sea of
crumpled tissues around her. I stepped in and took in the over
flowing trash can of used tissues and random candy wrappers with a
glance. Her walls had been painted a soothing fern green and had
been covered with all sorts of posters from various bands, though a
beautiful theatrical poster for “Gone With The Wind” took up the
prime location near her bed. Her small wooden desk was covered in
both schoolbooks and general fiction, all of them with bookmarks
hanging out in various locations. I smiled a little because it
reminded me of my own cluttered collection of half read books.

My gaze wandered back to my friend, who had
bent over yet another book and scribbled in her notebook at the
same time, completely unaware that I stood in her room. I wondered
if she thought I had been her mother checking up on her. I cleared
my throat in an effort to dislodge my heart, which had somehow
jumped from my chest as a result of my suddenly twisting and
writhing stomach. Maria looked up, her eyes glazed a little from
concentrating, but they cleared when she saw me.

“Jane!” she cried, and began to frantically
work to dislodge herself from the mess of blankets, tissues and
clothing that was piled up on her bed. I gave a weak, relieved
laugh and darted over the floor to her side, where she pulled me
into a bone-crushing hug.

“Oh, Jane,” she said again, and I was
horrified when I felt warm wetness begin to slide down my neck and
dampen my T-shirt.

“Maria?” I asked when I felt her breath hitch
against me.

“I’m so, so sorry!” she cried as her tears
started to fall a little harder and faster until she was sobbing.
“I didn’t mean . . . I . . . I . . . . I HURT you! I shoved you and
you hit your face on your car and I don’t know why or what happened
and I haven’t been able to call and I’m so, so sorry! I just . . .
I just . . .”

“Shhhhh,” I breathed as tears welled up in my
own eyes. Maria’s misery rolled off her in waves. “I forgive
you.”

I didn’t realize just how tense Maria had
been until I uttered those words and she collapsed against me with
a little wail, the tears seemingly unstoppable as she sobbed in
miserable relief. I rubbed my hands over her back in soothing
circles and resigned myself to riding out the storm with her when
she showed no signs of calming down any time soon. A muffled noise
caught my attention and I swiveled my eyes to her door in time to
see Akira backing quietly out of the room and drawing the door
softly behind him. I had to smile despite Maria’s continued
sobbing. Typical male, running at the first sign of tears.
Coward.

After a few more minutes of sobbing on
Maria’s parts and soothing murmurs on mine, her tears finally began
to slow down and she drew in several shuddering breaths before she
lifted away from my shoulder.

“Do you feel better?” I asked. She looked
horrible, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Her entire face was
red, her eyes swollen and still dribbled the occasional tear while
her nose had her frantically reaching for a tissue and blowing.

“Oh lord, I messed up your shirt!” she
wailed, and seemed about to burst into yet another round of tears
when, after a brief glance at the door, I stood, turned my back and
quickly yanked the shirt over my head. I tossed it into her dirty
clothes pile in the corner and rummaged through her drawers. I
dragged out one of my older T-shirts that she had borrowed last
year and then never returned.

“No worries,” I said as I pulled it over my
head. “I’ll just take this one back now and you can return the
other after you’ve washed it.”

Maria stared at me and then she giggled. It
was weak. It was watery, but it was a giggle, and I grinned back at
her as my own tension left and my shoulders relaxed.

“Do you feel better?” I asked.

“A little, yeah,” she said as she grabbed yet
another tissue and wiped her face with it. “I’ve been nothing but a
huge ball of nerves, and while I wanted to talk to you, I just
couldn’t seem to pick up the phone and call, text, or even email. I
didn’t know what to say. And then I got sick, and I didn’t have the
energy to do anything. It’s really sucked.”

“Looks like it,” I said as I rooted through
her closet and came up with one of the random trash bags and latex
gloves she keeps in there. When I once asked her what the point was
when she never used it to line her trash can, she gave me a reply
that involved nuclear war, duct tape, politics and the zombie
apocalypse. I had tuned her out, so I can’t give any more details
other than what she had babbled in the first minute of her half
hour long dialog. “You’re swimming in used tissues, which can’t be
healthy for you, and your room is stuffy and the air is just gross.
You could at least crack a window.”

“It’s too cold out,” she groused, but quickly
slid out of bed and padded over to do just that while I pulled on
the latex gloves and began to gather up the sea of crumpeled
tissues and tossed them into the trash bag. If someone is willing
to gather up your nasty used tissues and toss them (gloves or no)
then you know you have a real friend. Once she had cracked open the
window she began gathering up the books and papers she had spread
out over her comforter, and it wasn’t long before we had the room
looking more like a typical, slightly disheveled living area and
less like a sick ward.

“You might want to change clothes,” I said
once we were done and I eyeballed Maria’s usual sleepwear of boxer
shorts and a T-shirt that read, “Not a morning person unless you
ask REALLY nicely with a cup of coffee”.

“Huh? Why?”

“Because I didn’t come here alone,” I
admitted and scratched my head slightly.

“Oh? Who came with you? One of the Group?”
Maria asked while she rooted through her closet and drawers. She
quickly pulled out a pair of jeans and a plain, green T-shirt. I
turned my back to give her some privacy.

“No,” I said. “Um, weirdly enough, Akira
Yamaguchi is with me.”

“
The
Akira Yamaguchi?” Maria squeaked,
and a flopping sound told me that she had finished dressing and I
turned back to find her sprawled on her back as she stared up at
the ceiling.

“What, do you know another Akira Yamaguchi?”
I asked dryly and dodged the pillow Maria lobbed at my head.

“That’s really surprising. I didn’t think you
liked him,” she said. She sat up and gave me a sly look. “I seem to
remember you saying, rather severely, how you were never, ever
going to become one of his ‘fangirls’.”

I shrugged. My face started to heat up in a
tell tell flush that made her sly smile turn into a full-blown
grin.

“It’s not like that,” I said swiftly and
waved one of my hands frantically in denial.