Chapter 17

Chapter 17

 

For the next few days Mom would watch over my back when ever I did anything. Wednesday she had once again had made a terrible dinner. After years of wonderful meals, her new, easier meals are salty and bland. Because of this I skipped my meal, making this a day I went with out eating. Around midnight I decided that I wanted carrots and ranch.

Of course, Mom never went to asleep so she just had to walk into the kitchen and she saw me chopping carrots with a huge knife. Mom quickly jerked the knife from my hand.

“You could cut yourself, here let me do it.”

Annoyed, I sat back into my chair and watched her cut the carrots.

“Will you can get hurt, that was a big knife.” She told me when she looked at my face.

I took the bowl from her and walked up stairs. I turned on the lamp beside my bed and slipped house shocks on. I was tired beyond reason so after snacking I fell into a deep, coma like sleep.

Finally Wade woke me up when he turned up his music until it blared.

I dreamily stood up from my bed and ran to the walls. “Hay!” I screamed hitting my fists against the walls. The sound from the stereo was like a blanket, it covered up any sounds I could try to make.

The heavy metal music was causing me to start having a headache.

“I don’t have time for this.” I growled lowly under my breath. Storming into Wade’s room I pulled the plug on his stereo. I meant to turn around to say something, but he was coming after me. His eye’s were bulged to the point you could clearly see the whites of them. The fist he threw at me was white also.

I thought he was going to try to punch me. Instead he grabbed my arm and was twisting it behind my back.

“Stop!” I screamed. I tried to pull away but it only made the pain worse.

“Get out of my room.” He said angrily.

I brought my other fist up and into his crotch. He took the punch there and rolled in the floor in pain.

“Why did you do that?” He gasped. Tears were gushing from his eyes.

I couldn’t really answer why.

When I was six my foster mom found out that a child molester had moved next door. She had told me that he, or any other man, was to grab me I had to hit his crotch. Thankfully this was the first time I had ever had to use it.

I just done it.

I slipped out of the room. I wanted to take a bike ride, but when I saw the empty spot near Dad’s tools, where my bike used to be, I just took a walk.

At Mrs. Walker’s I had a cup of coffee. I drank it quickly. The very hot liquid ran down my throat. The pain causing my heart to race, and for a moment made me tired after the pain dulled.

My mind weaved in and out of memories, thought and the depression that was swelling in my chest. In my mind’s eye I saw Kiya laughing and I wondered how many times we had taken a short bike ride to here.

I wonder where her bike is?

Right where she last left it just like everything else.  I quickly answered. If Kiya wasn’t dead I would take the bike, but I know that if I even look at it that I might cry.

I left exactly a hour after I came there. The sun was baking anything that wasn’t shaded. Dad had said something about a drought that was going on that he had to write about. I craved for the feeling of the water running over my skin. So I went to Mrs. Davis’.

I pounded on her door and went she came she had her rollers in and was dressed in a silk nightgown.

“Wilma? What’s wrong?”

“I just thought I would stop by.” I said lowering my fist.

She paused for a second, “Well come on in. The house’s dirty, so I hope you don’t mind.”

Despite what she had said her house seemed very clean to me, but I never told her so.

Mrs. Davis picked a fleece blanket off of the couch and folded it and laid it on top of the couch.

“You don’t mind coffee do you?”

“No.” I said sitting on her couch. The furniture gave with me and a deep sigh escaped from my mouth.

She handed me a cup of brown liquid. I looked down into the cup looking deeply in the reflection of my frowning face. All of the sudden my phone went off.

“Hello.” I said as I opened it.

“Hi this is Leo.”
            “Leo?”
            “Yep, hay listen I was wondering if you wanted to come by my house?”

“Why?” I asked dragging the word out.

“Just cause.”
            “Did your mom sat you up to it?” I asked shacking my head.

“Kinda. She’s been bugging me to ask you over, but I have nothing to do so…”
            “So I’m your back up plan.” I asked angrily.

“Just c’mon, even your mom said it was a good idea. She’s going to come and get you.”

“Ahhh…” I sighed. The way things were going Mom would blow her top if she knew I walked to Mrs. Walker’s and then Mrs. Davis’ alone. “Just tell her that I’ll get a ride to your house.”

“Okay then, bye.” He hung up before I could I could ask how he got my number.

“Everything alright dear?” She asked.

“Sure. Will you take me to Leo’s?” I asked grabbing my shoes.

She nodded, “Well I need to get milk anyways. Wait a second while I dress.”

Mrs. Davis wobbled out of the living room and down into the hallway. When I heard the door close I got up a looked around the room.

Book cases covered the walls. Each bookcase was filled with a book. On the cover of one of the books it said, “God is truly great.”

“How?” I seemed to ask the book. “How can something I’ve never seen, heard, or touched help me?” My fingers ran  over the spine but paused at the word ‘Great’. Nothing nowadays seems too great.

Mom would sleep for hours on the couch and Dad would yell at us when we would walk into his study and of course Wade has become more aggressive.

Mrs. Davis came back with a purse in her hand and a folder in the other.

“Here Wilma I had found this the other day. I knew you would use it. It was an old copy of a piece of music I’ve never heard of.

The yellow pages crinkled in my fingers when I pinched the paper. “Thanks.”

At Leo’s the door was open. I creped into the house felling like an intruder.

“Hello?” I called timidly. Leo’s mom came around the corner with a can of pop in one hand.

At first her face went from surprise then to frustration.

“I wish Leo would tell me when he invites someone over. This place is a wreck.”

“I’m sorry Leo just invited me over.”

She stuck out her hand and waved it, “It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m glad you’re here.”

“So where is Leo?” I asked stepping out of her way. When she stuck her hand out it almost hit me.

“In his room. He sleeps in the basement. Turn around the corner and go down the steps.”
            When I came to the door I gave her a shy smile and walked down.

Leo was sitting on a beanbag watching TV. A bowl of Cheetos was in his lap.

“Leo?”

I turned around and his face showed shock, but he never moved.

“Hay.”

“So…” I said awkwardly. “Why did you call me here.”
            He picked up a Cheeto and shoved it into his mouth. “No reason.”

“None at all?” I whispered.

“Nope, none at all.”

The awkward air to the room seemed to steal my breath. I pulled up a bean bag beside him. He was watching the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and that’s all he seemed to notice.

“Any thing new?” I asked reaching for a Cheeto. Leo looked up at as my hand hovered over the large bowl. “Is it okay for me to have one?”

“Sure.” He said handing me the bowl. I snacked on Cheetos for what seemed to be forever until finally Leo said, “Sorry about Kiya.”

“Is that why you invited me over?” I asked wanting to know. He didn’t seem interested in my visit. “I really don’t need your sympathy you know.”

“I know.” He shrugged simply.  He turned his head around as if he was looking for something.

I did also, but all I saw was a pool table, bed, and posters. The dimly lit basement seemed comfortable despite the lack of carpeting.
            “My Mom just thinks that you need to treat people who lose somebody different, because of…”
            “What their going threw…” I said before he could.

“I was about to say that.” He snapped. Embarrassment burned on my cheeks as I silently reprehended my self for interrupting.

“Sorry.”

“Anyways, I don’t think the same thing. I just wanted to see you that’s all.”

“Just see me?” I said suspiciously.

 “Sure, why not. That’s what you do with friends. You invite them over.”

I paused thinking, “I guess that’s fine with me. Your Mom’s nice.”

“Annoying is more like it. She likes to smother me.”

“My Mom too. Now she won’t let me cut anything and she took away my bike for no reason!”

“Mom is always watching what I do, and she’s nosy. I can’t wait to move out when I’m 18.” He confessed.

I shrugged. “My Mom’s been crying all the time, and my Dad’s always alone and when you want to talk to him he yells.”

“Your Dad sounds like as much as a jerk as mine.” He said frankly.

I had never looked as dad as a jerk, but it made sense.

“My dad has nothing to do with me. He live in New York and he sends money every summer so I can come up there. He sent the money last week and I called him and told him that I didn’t want to come.”

“My Dad’s just…”

“Grieving,” He interrupted.  “I know. My dad would make those kind of excuses when Mom would go off the deep end.”

“Who was she grieving for… or what?”

“My brother.” He said simply while turning the channel.

“Your brother’s dead, I’m sorry.” I said automatically.

“I never knew him.” He huffed. “He died a year before I was born.”

I was silent to let him talk. “I’m kinda glad that I never knew him. If I would have known him then I would be grieving like Mom.”

I paused felling the silence weigh down on my chest. The message was close to being directed to me.

I reached for my throat as he turned off the TV. “I wouldn’t ever be like your Mom or my mom in fact if someone would die. I would just forget them and end it there.”  

“My Mom?”

“Ya your mom takes her lunches to go to Kiya’s grave to ‘talk to her’. How ever that could happen. She always comes back wiping away tears or with puffy red eyes.”

I never answered.

“Never knew? Well did you know that Dr. Davis has been trying to talk her into seeing a professional and taking meds?”

“No.” I yelled. “How the hell do you know that?”

“It’s all happening all the time. You probably didn’t know about it because you’re always daydreaming. Your head’s in the clouds all the time.”

I couldn’t argue with him because he was right. Most of the time at work I would daydream about taking naps or watching TV, not giving a patient the right date for their next appointment.

“Your mom’s bad off maybe she should get help.”
            “Since you know it all then why don’t she?”

“She says she just doesn’t want to.”

That seemed odd for Mom. She was the one who wanted to get help for the anorexia including all the psychologist that the healing would need.

“I’m sure she has her reason.”

“You need to go with her.” He said plainly. His gazed went to the blank TV screen. He looked as if he was about to turn it back on, but he didn’t.

“No I don’t.” I said defensively. “I’m fine.”
            “Ya that’s what you say.” He said under his breath.

I stood up and picked up my shoes and tucked them under my arm. “Listen it’s been nice and all, but I’m going. Bye.”

Leo stood up and pushed the bean bag out of the way. “Well come back then.” He said shyly.

I walked to the door and draped my hand over the knob. “I might.”