Little Battles (22 page)

“And?”

“A-and you n-n-need ssssomeone to look out fffor you.”

Sophie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Since when?”

I was confused that she always got so defensive when someone mentioned being concerned about her.

“E-everyone n-needs hhhhelp ssssometimes, Soph-phie. P-people can’t b-be strong all the time. Ffffffor as b-big and ssstrong as D-David is, hhhhe ssssstill thinks hhis mmm-mmmom w-will change her m-mind about him. Hhhe ssstill needs SSStephen and R-Robin and R-R-Rebecca t-to hhhhelp him get through some d-days.” Sophie looked away but I continued, even though I was fatigued from talking so much. “It’s o-okay t-to let sssomeone c-c-care about you.”

Silence loomed as we began painting, and I worried that I’d said something wrong. I never knew with her. I liked the color she had picked out. It reminded me of a perfect mid-western summer day, where the sky was exactly this shade of blue.

“Do you like football?” she finally asked.

“N-no.

“Score. Me either.”

“W-what do you think of o-o-orchids?”

“Pretty overrated. Sure they’re pretty as hell, but they’re a fickle flower. I’ve never taken care of one, but I’ve seen that shit on the Discovery Channel. I don’t know. Now, aloe is a much better flowering plant. It’s functional and beautiful all at the same time.”

She paused to dip her roller in the pan of blue paint. “How’re your hands?”

“O-okay.” In actuality, they were hurting quite a bit. She didn’t ask me anything else.

“I-is that your question?”

“Sure,” she answered quickly, continuing to paint, “Your turn then.”

I’d known what I wanted to ask her without thinking about it. “If you c-could do anything r-right n-now, w-w-what w-would it be?”

She stopped painting and craned her neck to look at me. “Really?
That’s
what you’re asking me?”

I was confused. I thought it was a good question because she would have to say more than one or two words. “Y-yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Y-yes. W-w-w-wh…” My words died in my throat when she put her roller down in the pan and came over to me.

“You might not like it,” she said quietly, and my mind went blank. Unable to stop myself, I took an involuntary step backward as she moved closer. I wondered if she knew how intimidating she could be.

If I stepped back any farther, I would be against the freshly painted wall. She pressed her hand against the thick, wet paint on the wall beside her. Her other hand shot out so quickly that I barely saw it come toward me to lift my shirt, completely baring my stomach, and just as quickly, she pressed her painted hand onto it.

“I would do that,” she said before letting my shirt drop again. “And maybe this.” She rose up on her toes and pressed her mouth against my neck. I stumbled backwards into the wall and she came with me.

As my shoulders hunched forward, I bent my neck so our lips were in alignment. I put my arms around her and pressed her closer to me. She moved her hands to my waist and just rested there.

The kiss intensified until my whole body was on fire from it.

I should have stopped it, because Sophie thought that all guys wanted from her was sex, and while we weren’t having sex, what her mouth was doing made it impossible not to think about sex.

A cough forced her to pull away abruptly and I was thankful for the chance to catch my breath and collect my thoughts, but I was more than a little embarrassed that her father could see my reaction to her.

“What?” she asked in annoyance, throwing a look at her father, who stayed very carefully just outside her door.

“It’s time for Elliott to go.”

I licked my lips as I glanced at my watch. He was right. I pulled away from the wall, knowing that my clothes were now ruined from the paint, and realizing just as quickly that I didn’t care.

When I got home, I was reluctant to take a shower as I stared at my torso in the mirror. Her painted mark and the surprising lingering tickle of her lips were all I had left of her.

I took a Vicodin before my session with Wallace because I knew she would continue to ask me questions I didn’t want to answer. So I sat somewhat lump-like in the chair and just waited. She would ask and I would probably answer, because that was what we did now.

But she didn’t ask a question this time; instead she handed me a small book. I scowled. “What’s this? Homework? Because I have enough of that already.”

When I finally looked at it, I saw it was a book of collected recipes.

“It was my mother’s. She cooked all the time.”

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“Because I don’t cook and there’s no real hope for Rebecca to suddenly pick up a spatula or don an apron. She excels in more social arenas. Cooking doesn’t interest her, and I’m not much better.”

Whatever. “But why are you giving it to me?”

She smiled. “Because you’re quite the skilled cook, Sophie, and my mother would appreciate someone with your skill level possessing it.”

I didn’t want someone else’s recipes in a book. “Okay.”

“How was your week?”

“Elliott wasn’t in school, the bus made me late, and Horticulture was stupid because I had no one to work with, and his fucking fingers are broken.”

“Are you concerned about him?”

I shrugged, not really wanting to reveal to someone who was so connected to Elliott what the hell I was feeling about him. “I wish his fingers weren’t broken.”

“I’d like to have a session with you and your father.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, as though it was an obvious jump in topics.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

“Don’t you think it’s time that you ask him all of the questions you’ve been wondering about?”

“There’s nothing I want to ask Tom.” We both knew that statement was untrue.

Wallace was quiet for a moment as she jotted something down. “Do you think it’s fair that he has no idea what’s happened to you in your life?”

My jaw tightened and I sat up straight, digging my fingers into the arms of the chair. “No, I don’t, but it’s not fair to
me
because he would know if he’d wanted to know.” I slumped back. “He could have known anything about me at anytime, but he didn’t quite give a shit.”

Wallace smiled again and as usual, it made me uncomfortable. “Your father is thirty-five-years-old, Sophie, which made him a parent at eighteen. I’m sure thirty-five seems old to you, but not all people over the age of thirty are skilled parents, and they definitely aren’t at eighteen. When you were eleven, he was only twenty-nine, so by the time your mother’s boyfriend—”

“Shut up.” I didn’t want to hear her say it. I was aware she knew because I had told her, but I didn’t want her to keep bringing it up all the time.

She just sighed, and continued. “The point is, everyone makes mistakes and I think that you’re holding your father to a very high standard that would be hard for him to live up to.”

“I don’t care how old he is or how old he was. He could have bought a clue.”

She was silent for a while before folding her hands over the yellow legal pad on her lap. “I think you love your father, Sophie.”

I desperately wanted to deny that statement, but I couldn’t seem to find the words.

“I think that while you have a right to be upset with him, you’re putting quite a lot of your anger over what you had to go through onto him, when he doesn’t deserve the brunt of it.”

So this was what it was going to be? A session with Know-It-All-Wallace telling me that Tom didn’t deserve my anger? He could have stopped Helen from taking me in the first place. Jesus, he could have stopped it all. He was a paramedic! He should’ve put it all together instead of assuming his dumb-ass ex-wife was a good mother.

Didn’t they train the paramedics in Podunk, MD to spot that kind of shit? And if he fucking knew, why did he let it go on? I would have told him everything a long time ago if he would have just asked a question! Couldn’t a thirty-year-old ask why I suddenly didn’t want to be around him? Couldn’t a thirty-year-old see that I’d lost a bunch of weight between the summer I was eleven and twelve? Wasn’t that a clue that something was seriously wrong with his daughter?

I thought back to when I was eight and arrived badly bruised. There wasn’t much opportunity for him to see them on my body since Helen made sure they would be well-hidden under my clothes. I was far beyond needing help showering, and I mostly wore pants or long shorts. But I remembered sitting on the couch in pajama shorts. I always had a blanket on me because it helped keep the bruises covered. It was far too warm for the blanket, but Tom must have thought that Maryland in the summer was still far colder than Florida.

One night I shifted while reading a book and the blanket didn’t. I’d thought he’d been too immersed in whatever sports show he was watching to notice, but he caught sight of the big blue welt on my thigh and asked about it. I remembered telling him about gymnastics. About what a klutz I was and how the coach said I had no natural talent.

The coach never said that. Helen did. Tom frowned and said that I had enough intelligence to compensate for my lack of physical grace, and “good brains” more than made up for being clumsy.

That was the summer we hiked at Falling Branch. We climbed the rocks of Kilgore’s Breath, which were damp from the mist of the waterfall. We got soaked and Jace and his dad descended long before Tom and I did. I didn’t slip or fall one time. I wasn’t a klutz, and he should have been able to see that.

It was particularly hard to go home that August. I’d had a really good time and all of my bruises were gone. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a long time, just staring at my healed body and imagined staying in the small little town my father had lived in his whole life.

I cried at the airport and begged him to let me stay. I promised I’d be good and not make trouble for him. He said, “Baby girl, I can’t imagine you making trouble for anyone and I’d love for you to stay, but your mama’s waiting.”

I couldn’t let go of his hand. I didn’t want to. I asked him about Christmas, but he said that my mom had custody and she determined when I could come. He promised he’d ask her, but nothing ever came of it. I still spent Christmas alone in my mom’s house.

“I don’t want to talk about Tom anymore.”

“Okay,” she said quickly, “tell me about the first time you got high.”

I looked away. “I don’t want to talk about that either.” Elliott had already brought that crap up, and I’d spent plenty of time lately running from those thoughts.

It was amazing how awkward some moments could be. I was standing just inside Elliott’s bedroom while everyone else besides the two of us were downstairs. He’d closed and locked his door as always, but neither of us moved any farther into the room. Usually by now I was on the couch, and he was sitting timidly on his bed.

But today he stood there with me, his bandaged hands just hanging at his side. It was awkward because just yesterday I had made a painted handprint on his stomach and then ruined his clothes by kissing him back into a wall.

Now we just stood there, not knowing what to do.

But I needed him like I needed water, so I moved closer, feeling the unusual sense of happiness as he extended his arms to hold me.

“I took a painkiller,” I admitted even though he didn’t ask. I felt and sounded tired. Even though he said nothing, he tightened his arms around me and I pressed myself into him.

I didn’t really know why I was doing this. Even though last Saturday night happened and he wasn’t at the party to stop it, he had been there for me afterward, and that meant something. Also, he finally decked Chris Anderson and that made it seem like he saved me or something.

No one had ever saved me from anything.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured into his chest.

“H-h-hhhave you eaten?”

I nodded, partially unwilling to think about anything other than the steady thump, thump of his heart.

“W-w-what did you eat?”

“Mmm.” I closed my eyes and felt his heat and smell, and the rhythm of his heart wash over me. “Food.”

“SSSSophie.” The way his concern dripped from my name made me sigh and pull out of his embrace.

“Stop worrying about that shit.”

“N-no. I w-won’t.”

I crossed the room to his books, slipping my hand into the pocket of my jeans and wrapping my fingers around the green rock. “I had a salad.”

It made me incredibly depressed and angry when someone questioned me about shit like that. It was like they were saying I was incapable of caring for myself.

There was a rustle behind me and I glanced around, suddenly feeling just a little bit lighter when I saw that Elliott was sitting on his bed like he owned it.

This stuff with him was hard. He made me want to cry all the time now because he was just about as perfect as they came. While dipshits like Anderson made fun of his stutter, I kind of liked it. It was special. He was special, and not like the “short bus” kind, but special like
precious
. He was like something to be cherished.

He’d called me a first edition or whatever, but he was a much better read than I was. If he was a book, I could read him every day and never get bored. It sucked that I wasn’t a better person for him. The universe was a bitch for putting Elliott around the rest of us Screw-Ups that did nothing but mess up. It wasn’t fair for him to have to associate with people like me.

He should’ve been a guitar-playing, straight-A, god-amongst-mortals football player giving his dick to a cheerleader named Ashley or MacKayla, who was a virgin and who could let him touch her face without thinking about shit that no teenage girl should ever have to think about. He should be able to think about college and the awesome career he’d have one day, instead of thinking that he wasn’t good enough.

The pull I felt toward him was strange. He was on the bed as usual, but instead of flopping down on the couch, I went over to him almost automatically, crawling onto the bed and sitting down next to him. I ignored the fact that his eyes were wide, probably from shock, because that would just freak him out more.

So much between us was awkward, and yet the underlying feeling was that of casual comfort. It was like, even though it was awkward now, I could feel that it was going to be different at some point.

The silence was looming a little too much, so I searched my sluggish mind to find something to talk to him about. “I read this book once about reincarnation and how all the people in our lives now have been in our past lives. Like we all made a deal to stick together each time we come back. Like a fate that we agreed upon before we were born.”

Elliott brushed his fingers over my knuckles before wrapping them around the side of my hand.

“But I think it’s kind of bullshit because it was all about how our souls, or whatever, chose our lives before we were born and I have to say, if my soul chose this life, I’m going to kick its ass.”

“I w-w-w-want to touch your cheek.”

Although my breath hitched, I didn’t acknowledge what he said. We’d already had this discussion, and I was tired of it. “Who do you think you were in your past life?”

“C-c-can I touch your ch-cheek?”

Shit. I expelled a ragged breath and I knew this was going to be one of the things he decided he’d push me on. That he’d just keep asking in different ways until I let him do it, because that’s what he did with questions I didn’t want to answer. He was pretty damn good at wearing me down.