Little Battles (13 page)

“B-b-but I w-want to be her J-Jaaane.”

Robin smiled at me and said, “I know and I’m sure she wants that too, but she’s never trusted anyone enough to let them in. That’s not an easy thing for her to do. “Now she’s met you and she likes you. It’s easy to see.”

She paused, shaking her head before continuing.

“Even though this hypothetical girl likes you, she can’t make it easy on herself. She has to keep herself closed off, her emotions very tightly controlled. However, her control is slipping, because along with all of the good feelings she can experience with you, the floodgates have opened and let in every negative thought she’s been running from for years.”

It made sense, and I was thankful to have the time with Robin to make the puzzle pieces fit. I was surprised that she was giving me so much insight.

“She has to deal with everything she never wanted to. The small cracks in her giant wall of armor are growing bigger and she can’t fix them quick enough. She’s finally being forced to look at what happened instead of shoving it in her back pocket and trying to forget it.”

She studied me for a moment, then in her serious voice said, “And, Elliott? “We don’t
know
what happened to her, and even if we did, we haven’t lived this girl’s life, so we’ll never know what it was like
for
her.”

Robin’s smile and her eyes became somber as she finished.

“She doesn’t get high because of you. The girl gets high because it’s one of her very few defenses against a world that has shown her nothing but pain, and she’s frightened to let it go. Just as she uses her anger as a shield, she wraps herself in a world where no one can hurt her again.” Robin narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you understand? Sometimes we are all victims of our natural instinct to avoid pain and suffering. She’s cutting it off at the pass. A pre-emptive strike, if you will.”

I made up my mind right there. I was going to help her let it go. I was going to fill her time with figuring things out with me, as an alternative to doing drugs. I was going to dedicate myself to saving her from my mother’s fate. Sophie didn’t need drugs to cope. I could help her.

She wasn’t a fictional girl. Sophie was real and she meant more to me than anything else in my life. This battle, like the battle to get her to admit she’d been abused by her mother, was going to be one of those defining battles of a long war. The war was to save Sophie. And each little battle won would pave the way to lasting victory.

Even if we’d never be anything more than friends, even if she didn’t want to be my friend anymore, I was going to save her. She was worth it.

I hadn’t had sex in nine days and it was about killing me.

All I could feel throughout the day was the delicious leftover sensation of Elliott’s body underneath me. But he cock-blocked
himself
. What guy does that?

I hadn’t meant to get so high, but I’d snorted a line before lunch, and then smoked pot with Jason. That brought down my cocaine high, so I snorted a little more before going into the greenhouse.

Well, I snorted
a lot
more.

I ended up in the library and
not
Reese’s class. It was quiet in there and I found a little spot that was comfortable.

Suddenly there was Elliott and
he
was comfortable and felt really,
really
nice, but then he said something about a nurse and it didn’t matter how nice he felt, I had to get away because I was afraid my mother would find out.

Of course, it was the cocaine that had me paranoid because logically, my mother wouldn’t find out, and even if she did, it’s not like she could do anything about it now. Besides, I’d been away from her so long, I didn’t have any fresh marks.

Elliott listened to me and instead I wound up smoking enough pot behind his car to stop freaking the hell out. Then we went to his house where I laid on his couch until Dr. Dalton knocked on his door to let him know that Wallace wanted to see him.

Dr. Dalton invited me downstairs so that he could take my blood pressure, blood sugar, and whatever the hell else he thought about taking. He mentioned that Elliott told him I hadn’t been feeling well.

I was definitely crashing now, so I sat in the Dalton kitchen and let him stick my finger with a lancet and put a cuff around my upper arm while kids started filing in now that school was out.

“Your father mentioned you got a job at the grocery store.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you started?” He placed a drop of blood on the meter and waited for both the machine and me to respond.

“Yeah. Wednesday. Lots of training videos and papers to sign.” I felt like a lump. A tired lump that needed to sleep.

The meter beeped. “Your blood sugar is elevated. Is that normal with the amount of insulin you take?”

I thought for a moment, my brain sluggish. “I’ve been a little low lately, but…” He quirked his eyebrow as he waited for me. “I can’t remember if I took my insulin today or not,” I admitted.

“Does that happen a lot?”

I shook my head, wishing that I hadn’t said anything. “Not usually.” I’d done a bump of coke around four this morning, so I must’ve missed it.

“Do you feel like your diabetes is being properly managed?”

“Sure.”

As he gave me insulin, I knew he had a million doctor questions that he’d keep asking to keep me occupied until Dr. Wallace wanted me, so I took an offensive distracting measure.

“How did you know to give Elliott a guitar?”

Dr. Dalton looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“He said you got him a guitar even though he’d never played, so how did you know he was going to be good at it?”

“I didn’t.” His voice was low as he took in the other Screw-Up Club members milling around.

“Elliott used to bite his hands.” He frowned, his expression clouding a bit. “Not just his fingernails. He would just bite down on the meat of his hands until he drew blood, and even then sometimes he wouldn’t stop.” Dr. Dalton paused and pulled off the blood pressure cuff from my arm. “It was clear that he did it when he was upset or particularly stressed. His hands had gotten so mangled I wondered how he could use them in his day-to-day activities.”

He backed up and crossed his arms over his chest as he got a faraway look in his eyes. “So I bought him a guitar as a more peaceful, less painful way to channel his frustration. I lucked out because not only did it work in occupying his hands and helping with his stress and anxiety levels, he was really gifted. It has become a source of peace to him, and it seems to be a preventative measure. He can use it to help stop himself from becoming more anxious.”

Damn. It was hard to imagine Elliott even more on edge than he was now. I did my best to put that information to the side. I didn’t want to think about Elliott’s hands all bloody and torn up. I didn’t want to imagine him being the one who did that to himself. Why would the beautiful boy upstairs do something like that?

“Let’s talk, Sophie.”

I didn’t have the energy to do anything but roll my eyes. “I thought that was mandatory.”

Wallace smiled at me. “Talking isn’t mandatory, but it is helpful. We can write if you prefer, or use sign language. Or since you’re a photographer, we can use pictures.”

“Are you fucking with me?” Was she saying that I was stupid?

My mind was like sludge and it did not appreciate this wicked come-down. I’d been too high at school today. Absolutely insanely high. That was something even I knew I shouldn’t do again, but I was pretty sure I would anyway.

The more and more bad thoughts I had, the more and more shit I did. And the messed-up part was that I
knew
I didn’t need any more after that first bump this morning, but I just wasn’t high enough.

“I’m serious, Sophie.” I put my focus back on Wallace, trying to remember what the hell we were talking about. “Not everyone can verbalize, especially when they’ve been trained not to.”

“Trained?” I asked, avoiding her gaze. I wasn’t high enough for this shit. I didn’t have enough energy to get angry, since I was nothing more than a Sophie-shaped puddle of mud, flowing so slowly that I forgot what the beginning of my own internal chatter was about.

“Yes, trained. Being shown or told over and over until it’s ingrained.”

“I know what the word ‘
train
’ means.”

She waited a moment before speaking again. “I know you do.” She uncapped her bottle of water and took a sip. “I’d like to see some of your photos some time.”

“Yeah.” She’d said that shit before.

“Have you given any thought to our discussion from last week?”

Sighing heavily, I said, “I haven’t screwed anyone in forever.” I ran my hands through my hair, knowing that it hadn’t been all that long, but it felt like it.

“Has that been difficult for you?”

I could have lied to her, or said nothing. “Yes,” I admitted. I wasn’t quite sure when I’d made the decision to talk to her about this shit, but here I was just handing out information about myself.

“Why do you enjoy sex?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Because it feels good. It’s fun.”

She just looked at me.

“What?” I asked, not happy with her just staring at me like that.

“Do you think it’s normal or healthy for a seventeen-year-old to have as much sex as you do?”

“Are you saying that in a few months when I’m eighteen, it’ll suddenly be okay for me to have as much sex as I want?” This insistence that age had anything to do with anything was ridiculous.

“You indicated that you’ve had sex with men who were older than you. How many of your partners were over the age of eighteen?”

I sighed. “Why is age important?”

“Were the majority of your partners older than you?”

“I don’t know. Why do you want to talk about this?”

“Because it’s important. It’s not healthy for a young woman to engage in such reckless behavior.”

I couldn’t suppress my laugh. “Who the hell cares?” I was suddenly very energized, and very upset. “Who the hell cares if I’m healthy or not? You? Tom? Both of you are just fulfilling your obligation.”

“What about Elliott?”

I swallowed hard and looked away from her, all the fire I’d felt a moment before rushing out of me.

“He cares.”

“Well, maybe he shouldn’t,” I said, my voice deflated. I knew he cared about me, but he damn well should’ve thought twice about that. I shouldn’t have given a shit about him either, but that wasn’t how it went. No, some unseen force pulled me to him, because like Romeo and Juliet, the stars crossed or some shit.

So now I was stuck wanting to
feel
good, but I was trying to
be
good so I didn’t hurt Elliott, which was difficult since he wasn’t interested in getting off with me.

It really hurt when he basically rejected me completely, and it wasn’t fair that it hurt.

Jason almost always wanted sex, and I could have banged him so easily, but no, I let these people mindfuck me into thinking that not having sex was a good idea.

“Will you answer the question, Sophie?”

Right. The question. “I don’t know. A lot of them have been older. Who cares?”

“I do.”

I looked up at her. “Whatever.”

“You should care, Sophie. What do you get from these men beyond fleeting physical pleasure? Is there some kind of validation or do you feel some sort of love from the—”

I sighed heavily, effectively cutting her off as I hoisted my lethargic body out of the chair. “I’m not talking to you about this shit. Who I do and why I do it isn’t your business, so write what you want in your shitty little notebook and leave me alone.”

As I walked to the door, Wallace didn’t give up. “Why haven’t you had sex this week?”

Jesus. It wasn’t because there was no one bangable around, that was for sure. It took everything I had in me to
not
screw Jason daily. The real reason was probably sitting downstairs looking all uncomfortable and pained. I didn’t know which was worse: not having sex, or not having sex because I liked Elliott.

Instead of answering, I walked out, slamming the door.

I lay on Elliott’s couch, my head filled with stupid thoughts spurred by Wallace’s questions about the men I’d had sex with, as Elliott fiddled with his iPod trying to find some music for us to listen to. I was no more energetic now than I was an hour ago talking to Wallace, but everything just
felt
better when I was in his room.

As I looked at the ceiling, I tried to find something else to think about. I had no more pills, so I wouldn’t be able to get high until after I got home, and probably not until after Tom had gone to sleep.

“Do you have pictures of your family?” I was about to add, “Your
real
family,” but stopped. Adopted kids were sometimes sensitive about that stuff, and I didn’t want to imply the family he had now wasn’t real. I turned toward him, immediately lusting over his sexy back. He was wearing a gray button-down today and it was pulled tight across his shoulders and then loosened at the middle. “What was your name before Dalton adopted you?”