“Dinner,” Josh says, coming around from behind with what can only be described as a trough of ice cream. He sets it down in front of me. He must have gotten every kind of ice cream they have. It reminds me of something my dad would do. Something so utterly ridiculous that I would have no choice but to be cheered up from whatever tragedy had befallen my young life. Back before I knew what real tragedy was. When the hard things were the fact that Megan Summers had better clothes or that I had messed up during a performance. Charles Ward was the master of cheer ups when I was little. Better than a barrel full of puppies. Maybe even better than melty ice cream.
“I didn’t know what kind you wanted so I got them all.” He’s not lying. I look at the trough and I’m fairly certain the only ice cream flavors not in there are the ones they haven’t invented yet. He sits down across from me and leans his elbows on the table, unsuccessfully trying to stifle the shit-eating grin on his face.
I don’t have a pen and talking here is out, so I grab my phone from my purse and text the boy sitting across the table from me. His phone beeps a second later and he pulls it out to read the two-word message I sent him.
Where’s yours?
And then he does something that shocks even me. Josh Bennett, king of the brooding stoics, laughs. Josh Bennett laughs and its one of the most natural, uninhibited, beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard. I know Kara Matthews is watching us and people will talk tomorrow. But right now I can’t even care. Josh Bennett laughs, and for one minute, everything is right in the world.
***
“We’re going on vacation over Thanksgiving,” my mother tells me on the phone when I get home from Josh’s.
It’s ten o’clock and there were three messages from her, along with a text that simply read Please call. Ten o’clock is never too late for my mother. Not anymore. She pores over pictures until all hours. Before the attack, I never remember her working through the nights like she does now. But after, it was all she seemed to do. My mother went through the most prolific period in her life while I was recovering. She’d say she stayed up because she wanted to be awake if I woke up and needed anything, but I don’t think she could sleep. It was easier to crawl into a computer full of her photographs than a bed full of her nightmares. I’d sit up with her sometimes, because I couldn’t sleep, either. I’d watch her, amazed at just how much a person could accomplish fueled by tea and regret.
“We’re staying in a beautiful house. We’d like you to come.” She waits for a reaction. She always waits. There’s a hope my mother never loses that, one day, I’ll fill that pause. She probably wouldn’t even care what the words were at this point, just that they were there.
“We thought it would be fun to go skiing.” Skiing? Seriously, Mom? With the hand? I don’t want to go on vacation. I certainly don’t want to go skiing. I’d rather be hit in the face with a dodgeball. Repeatedly.
“I already talked to Dr. Andrews. We can make an appointment to have your hand looked at again before we go. She thinks it should hold up fine as long as it isn’t for too long of a period. If it starts to bother you, we can go in and sit by the fire and drink coffee.” I hate coffee. I can’t ski. I’m from Florida. I have no sense of balance or coordination and a hand that likes to randomly lose its grip at inopportune times. Not to even mention the fact that it’s so full of plates and screws that it will set off every metal detector in the airport.
My brother is the athlete. He must be in heaven. I don’t want them not to go because of me, but I don’t think that’s an issue. They’ll go whether I do or not. And I’m not going. I’ll be miserable and then everyone will be miserable and it’ll be my fault. Again. I’m tired of being responsible for other people’s misery. I can’t even put up with my own. My mom keeps talking. She’s not afraid of being interrupted, but she wants to get all of her selling points made. Like the faster she gets them out, the more convincing they’ll be.
“The house is big. It belongs to Mitch Miller, your father’s boss, and he’s not using it this year so he offered it to us. Addison is coming, too.” Addison is coming? It fits. Morals were never the big issue with my mother, just excellence. Asher and I could probably screw half the country under her roof as long we didn’t lose focus. I wonder if it would still apply to me now that I’m not good at anything anymore. Knowing Asher, he probably isn’t even sleeping with the girl yet, but it’s an easy thing to judge my mother on so I use it.
I tap the phone three times which means I’m hanging up.
“Please at least think about it. Margot’s going to come, too, and I don’t want you to be alone on Thanksgiving.” I hang up before she can tell me that she loves me. Not because I don’t want to hear that she says it, but because I don’t want her to hear that I don’t.
***
My life outside of school has become virtually unrecognizable, but almost nothing between the hours of 7:15 and 2:45 has changed. Josh and I barely acknowledge one another, Drew flings sex-bombs at me at every turn and I try to sidestep dress code violations. The rest of my time, I spend avoiding whatever it is that needs avoiding that day. Nasty looks from Tierney Lowell. Being propositioned by Ethan Hall. Everyone at lunch.
I’m passing through the courtyard on my way to my favorite empty bathroom where I can get twenty-five minutes of uninterrupted angst before heading to shop. I look at Josh before I start across. He’s already there. His third period is right off of it so he usually gets here first. I only let myself look at him now because he’s far enough away that no one will notice. When I get closer, I always make sure to avert my eyes because I’m afraid if I glance at him for even a second, the whole world will know everything that goes on in my head. I’m just walking by, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see that he’s looking down at his hands in the exact same position he was in the first time I saw him and I start wondering if he sits like that because he knows how amazing it makes his arms look.
“Sunshine.”
It’s so quiet that I almost don’t hear it, and thankfully, no one else can, but I know it’s real. He doesn’t look up until I stop and stare at him, wondering what the hell he’s thinking. Then he’s staring back at me like he couldn’t care less who sees.
“Sit.”
I walk over to him so at least I’m no longer standing in the middle of the courtyard. My back is to everyone else when I face him and narrow my eyes. What are you doing?