Twisted Roots (9 page)

He pulled back and brought his fingers to my chin to gently lift my face, forcing me to look into his eyes so he could search mine for truth and sincerity.
"Are you sure about this. Hannah?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered.
There would be times when I would question whether or not I had come to him out of just as much desperation as he had when he had come to me. In a sense I still felt deserted, too, felt alone, drifting. My mother and Miguel had a whole new world to live in and develop, and I didn't feel as much a part of it as they would expect. Most of my life I had been caught in that vacuum that existed between my mother and my father. Now, with the little attention he had given me my whole life diminishing, and with Mommy having a new top priority in her thinking and taking up her time, I could sense the vacuum growing bigger, wider, deeper.
"Yes,"
I
whispered again. It brought our lips back together. His moved off mine and to my neck. He took me back with him on his pillow, and he stroked my hair and gazed into my eyes.
"I think you could make me forget the end of the world." he said.
He kissed me again and then his hands slipped under my blouse and to my breasts. When I moaned, he lifted himself over me and flooded my face with more kisses. He unbuttoned my blouse and kissed me just above my bra. Then he reached behind and unfastened it. When he pushed it up and over my nipples and brought his lips to one and then the other, I began to question myself.
What are you doing, Hannah Eaton? Aren't you throwing yourself at someone too quickly'
I didn't even care to answer my conscience. I felt so good, so warm, so detached from all the unhappiness and pain in the world.
His kisses grew more demanding, his fingers playing me, drawing the music out of me. I soon saw myself rolling down a hill of passion, speeding so fast, there was no possibility of putting on the brakes. He had his hands under my skirt. When his fingers went over the elastic band in my panties. I thought
I
had stopped breathing. Even my heart waited like some hammer held back.
He paused, too, and his hesitation was so long. I opened my eyes and looked up at him.
I
felt him retreat.
He looked down at me with suspicion clouding his eyes. "What?" I managed.
"How many boys have you been with. Hannah?"
"None." I said. "Not like this."
His lips twisted with doubt.
"I'm telling the truth."
"Then why are you letting this happen so fast?" he asked.
I
pushed him away and sat up.
"Now you're making me feel guilty,"
I
said and reached back to fasten my bra.
I
started to button my blouse.
"I don't mean to do that."
"Well, you are," I threw back at him and stood,
"I've been with other girls." he said. "and the ones who were fast the first time were always the ones who didn't matter to me after a short while or the ones
I
never mattered to very much at all. I just don't want that to be how it will be between us."
Now it was my turn to look skeptical.
"I mean it. Maybe I'm fantasizing, but I was hoping you and I were on the way to being very special."' he said. He looked so conflicted.
I
couldn't help but believe him.
"You're not fantasizing."
"I'm just tired of disappointments and
betrayals," he said with a sigh.
I stopped buttoning my blouse,
"I'm not going to betray you. Heyden, and when
I
do or say something. I mean it. I know you have trouble accepting what I tell you, but please try to stop thinking of me the way you think about the other girls at our school. I have a lot more than bubbles and straw in my head."
He laughed. "I know you do," he said. "And you're right. I'm being guilty of the very thing
I
accuse people of doing to me: stereotyping. Sorry," he said, holding up his hands.
"It's all right. Actually. I'm glad you hesitated and put on the brakes. We could have gotten into trouble, or at least. I could have. I'm dangerously close to that zone of ovulation. Imagine me making my mother a grandmother just when she has become a new mother." I said.
He nodded. "My fault. too. I'm usually not this carefree, forgetting to take precautions. Everything has just got me nuts. I feel like I'm sinking into some cesspool of oblivion."
"Well, let's get you up and out of that immediately," I said. standing. "Take me to your new guitar,'" I ordered.
He laughed and reached for a shirt he had draped over the back of a chair. Then he hurried to get on his sneakers.
"If you're really sure you want to do this," he said. "If you're really sure..."
"I'm sure. Heyden. Stop talking about it already and let's just do it."
"'Right," he said. "Right."
We started out of his room. He stopped in the hallway. Elisha's music was still loud. He looked at her closed door and then shook his head.
"C'mon." he urged. "Let's get out of here. This is the only chance I'll ever have to get out of here."
I followed slowly, wondering what would become of Elisha. At least Heyden had his song writing and his guitar. He was using music to lift himself up and out of the din. She was using it like a blanket to cover her misery.
Maybe Mommy would give me some suggestions as to how to help her. I thought.
But then again, maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would be angry at me for trying to involve her and myself in Heyden's family problems. She had warned me about it already.
There wasn't time to really think about it. but I was glad of that. I wanted to keep rushing, to keep charging forward with Heyden. Together, we would make the music that could drown out both our voices of sadness and disappointment.
Couldn't it?
.
Heyden cradled the guitar in his hands with as much pleasure in his face as Mommy had holding little Claude. I thought. It was so rare that anything I was given gave me such pleasure. I was actually jealous of the instrument and not jealous of Heyden. It put him into such a pure ecstatic state, he practically glowed. Would he love anyone with as much passion as he loved his music? I wondered. Maybe he was more like his father than he cared to admit.
In one of her more revealing moments with me. Mommy told me she loved Miguel because it was so clear to her that there was nothing more important to him than her. She made it sound almost as if she was therefore obligated to love him, and I wondered if anyone could truly love someone out of obligation. It seemed to me it had to come from a different place, sprout from a garden different from the garden of responsibility and expectation. It had to have more of a spontaneity. It was richer and far more exciting when it surprised you, when you looked again at someone and realized a force greater than anything you had experienced before was drawing you to him.
Was that too romantic, too fantastic to come from the mind of Dr. Willow Fuentes's daughter?
Watching the careful and loving way Heyden handled his guitar made me think of the careless way Adrian and Cade treated all their possessions. There was always a nonchalance and often an indifference. Neither of them was ever surprised at receiving anything, truly believing that for some reason, it was all coming to him. They deserved it all simply because they existed.
Heyden smiled his pleasure at me and then tuned the strings while the store clerk watched us with a half-annoyed, half-suspicious expression on his face. He couldn't decide if we were just toying with him and the guitar or if we had the wherewithal to actually purchase the instrument.
Heyden tried a cord and nodded. "It's in cherry condition," he said. "It's a find."
"Well, then, let's get it," I said.
The clerk's eyebrows were nearly hoisted off his head. "Is this the best price?" Heyden asked him.
His smirk returned. "Absolutely," he said. "As you just said, it's cherry." he tagged on with a gleeful smile.
"Right," Heyden turned to me and I produced my credit card. The clerk looked at it carefully.
"Do you have a driver's license or any other farm of identification?"
"Yes,"
I
said and showed him my license. Still skeptical, he processed the card, looking as if he expected it would be kicked back. When it wasn't, he became more pleasant.
After we had left the store with the guitar in our possession. Heyden couldn't contain himself. All the way back to his house, he played.
"This is the song I wanted you to hear." he said and began. It was a beautiful sang about someone who was afraid of falling in love and yet very much wanted to fall in love. He warned his lover that when he was touched, he would be too weak to keep from falling in love.
This is for forever, he sang, so don't touch me with your eyes, your lips, or your fingers unless you want for us to be true.
Before he finished. I joined in with him on the final chorus. I pulled up in front of his house and he played the song again, this time with me singing as much as
I
could remember. After a third time I knew most of the song and we were bath laughing,
"Just come in a little faster and don't be afraid to reach for that high note. I'll be there like a net to catch you if you fall," he said.
We were at it again. While we were singing and he was playing.
I
saw the front door of his house open and his sister came out. She stood there watching us and listening to us and then she walked toward the car. Heyden stopped and looked out at her.
"You comin' in for dinner?" she asked,
"Why? You making it?" Heyden retorted.
"No. Mama's home."
"She's home?"
"Yes, she's home and she's just workin' in the kitchen and cryin' at the same time,:' Elisha said.
Heyden looked at me.
"Go on," I said. "I'd better get home anyway."
"Where'd you get that guitar? You take it from your precious school?" Elisha asked.
"Where I got it is none of your business, Elisha, but you touch it, even look at it too long, and I'll--"
"Kill me? Get in the back of the line," she muttered and then glared at me, but with more of a plea for help, a look of desperation than empty anger.
She turned and walked back into the house.
'Don't be too hard on her, Heyden. I'm sure she's very frightened."
"As frightened as a shark." he said. "Don't worry, Dr. Hannah. I'll be a good big brother."
I laughed. "Call me later if you can." I told him.
"Okay," he said, leaned over to kiss me on the lips, and then smiled and stepped out of the car. "Drive carefully... partner," he said.
I
smiled back at him and started away. In my rearview mirror I saw him holding on to his guitar tightly, embracing it lovingly and protectively before walking into his home the way someone would embrace and protect a little loved one in a hurricane.
Back at my home, Miguel came bouncing down the stairs the moment I opened the front door and stepped inside. He paused near the bottom step.
"Where have you been, young lady?" he demanded. It wasn't often that Miguel was angry at me, but I knew whenever he referred to me as young lady, he was about to reprimand me far something.
"I had to help my friend Heyden get his new guitar," I told him.
'Do you realize your mother has been home for hours and has been lying there thinking all sorts of terrible things? Don't you ever turn that cell phone on. Hannah? Why did
I
buy it for you if you're going to let the battery die down or forget to turn it on? How can you be so self-centered at a time like this? Don't you realize how traumatic it is for a woman to Give birth and then have to leave her newborn infant back in the hospital?
I
had a lot more respect for your intelligence until today, Hannah."
"I told you!" I cried back at him, the tears streaking down my cheeks.
"I
had to help Heyden. It was very important. He needed me."
"Your mother needed you, too. and I would think she would have some priority over someone you just met. Hannah."
"She doesn't need me. She has you: she has little Claude," I shot back.
"What kind of a dumb thing to say is that?"
"Maybe I'm just stupid!"
I
screamed and shot past him. pounding my way up the stairs and to my room.
I
slammed the door shut behind me and threw myself on the bed.
Moments later Mommy, dressed in her robe, came to my door, knocked softly, and entered.
"What's going on. Hannah?" she asked.
I turned and looked up at her. She looked drawn, tired, even a bit pale. I had a terrific surge of guilt rush through me and just started to cry, bawl like a girl half my age,
"Oh. Hannah, what's wrong?" she asked coming to me. "I'm sorry, Mommy. I just lost track of the time."
"That's all right." she said, sitting on my bed. "but tell me what you're doing? Why did you lose track of time?"
"Heyden didn't come to school today," I began. "Heyden? Oh, yes, your new friend. And?"
"So
I
went to see what was wrong and learned his father has deserted his mother, sister, and him. He ran off with someone from his band, and it had happened weeks ago, but Heyden's mother never said anything until last night."
Mommy nodded. She didn't look impressed with my story. and
I
imagined that over the years she had heard many similar tales of woe.
"What does his mother do?"
"She's
a
chambermaid at the Breakers." "I see," she said. "How old is Heyden's sister?" "Fourteen.
I
think."
"And Heyden?"
"Seventeen. I think."
"Well, his mother should have his father pursued far child support at minimum," she said.
"She can do that?"
"Of course she can."
"Will you tell me how so
I
can tell Heyden and he can tell his mother? They don't have much money,"
I
added quickly, "and Heyden thinks he has to drop out of school to get more work."
Mommy sighed, "It's like an epidemic," she muttered to herself. "I'll tell you, Hannah, but you're getting yourself in too deeply with someone else's problems. These are not simple problems. They don't get solved over a weekend and then everyone forgets them. I'm sure Heyden's mother has her hands full with his sister. too. Was she close to her father? Is she heartbroken about the breakup?"
"I think she is, but she likes to appear tough and unaffected."
"Classic," Mommy said. 'Oh, sweetheart, you're too young to get yourself so involved in these sorts of matters. Can't you take a few steps back?"
"You wouldn't,"
I
said with accusatory eyes.