Freefly (5 page)

I ran into the bathroom and grabbed the roll of bandages, the box of rubbing alcohol, and the tape, then slowed down and tried to look as unassuming as possible as I returned to the bedroom.  The girl’s hands were in her lap, and her eyes were on the floor.  She did not move as I knelt in front of her and moved my hands toward her pant leg.  When she remained still, I carefully rolled up the fabric.

A red spot darkened the white bandage on the inside of the girl’s calf.  I put my fingers under the edge of the bandage and ripped it free, then carefully unwound it.  The leg did not look good.  The puncture itself was deep black, surrounded by a shiny, swollen ring of purple skin.  I couldn’t help but gasp. 

The girl lifted her face toward the ceiling.  “Is it bad?”

“No.”

Her body sank slightly as she sighed in relief.  “Good.  Because I’ve been feeling kinda funky.”

“How so?”

“Dizzy.  And heavy, too.” 

“Heavy?”

“Yeah, my limbs feel heavy.” 

“Was it harder to fly?”

She nodded solemnly. 

“The arrow was supposed to keep you from flying,” I said.

She met my eyes.  “I guess.”

There was a moment of silence between us, while I battled the urge to ask her if she knew anyone off the top of her head who might want to shoot her.  The only sounds were her long, even breaths, carefully controlled, as if she was trying very hard not to suffocate. 

“My name is Sammie,” she said.  Her blue eyes were wide, her brows raised, like she was very afraid.  

I held out my hand.  “Damien.” 

Slowly, like she feared my outstretched arm could explode at any moment, she closed her fingers around my hand.  Her skin was cold and clammy.  I squeezed her hand in return, conscious of the fact that my palm and fingers must have seemed large and warm to her.

She snatched her hand away.  I cleared my throat. 

“I should clean out the wound again.”  I ripped open a packet of rubbing alcohol. 

“God, not that again.”

“Infection bad.” 

She set her jaw and closed her eyes.

I cleaned the injury, then unraveled another length of bandage and wound it around her calf, securing it with more tape.

“Good to go,” I said. 

The girl
—
Sammie
—
yanked down her pant leg.  Then, to my shock, she lay back on the bed, as if she was going to go to sleep. 

“Mind if I, like, hang out here?” she said. 

“No!” I blurted.  “I mean, uh, that would be cool.”

She laughed, then tossed her body to the side and shut her eyes.  I rose from the ground, thinking she’d gone to sleep, but she said, “Do you have homework?”

I chuckled.  I hadn’t even thought of my heavy backpack sitting near the door, crammed with my biology, microbiology, and calculus textbooks.  “You'd better believe it.” 

The girl sat up, hugging her knees to her chest.  “Are you a good student?  Or are you a slacker?  I imagine you being a good student.”

“I’m a good student.”

She grinned.  “Knew it.  Let me guess, you’re one of those do-it-all guys:  smart, athletic, popular.  I bet you have a girlfriend.  Do you have a girlfriend?”

I coughed.  “No.”

“Tell me about high school.  Is it like the movies?  Is it really awful?  Or is it wonderful?  I imagine it being wonderful.”

I shook my head, baffled by the girl’s excitement.  She could fly through the air, and she wanted to hear about the place I got beat up each day?  “It’s not that wonderful.” 

Her face fell.  “Oh.”

I realized this girl needed me to lie.  “Actually, it’s awesome.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  I’m, uh, a baseball player.” 

“Cool!  What’s that like?  Do you get a lot of hits?  Are you a pitcher?  Or a...first baseman?”

“Short stop.”  Back when I was five.

“What’s that?”

“Uh, it’s like halfway between second and third.  Do you want anything?  Food?  Water?”

“Is that a good position?  Did you have to beat out a lot of other guys for it?”

I pressed my fingers to my temples.  “For someone who won’t answer any questions, you sure ask a lot.”

She looked mortified.  “Do most teenagers not ask a lot of questions?  Should I be more...statementy?”

I laughed, realizing I might have finally met someone with less social experience than myself.  I wondered what on Earth she did, if she didn’t go to high school. 

“You’re fine,” I said.

“Okay, good.  Because there’s a lot of stuff I want to know.” 

She grilled me for hours, gobbling up every detail of my life, down to what cafeteria pizza tasted like.  I did my best to answer her, but found myself lying more often than not.  What was I supposed to do?  She was so excited, and I didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm by telling her I would give anything to get out of my high school and go somewhere else, somewhere like GLOBE, where being dorky and unathletic would be the norm and not the exception.  Plus, if she found out I was a social outcast, the butt of Joe Butt’s antics, she’d stop looking at me with admiration and start pitying me.  Perhaps she’d even leave, which I didn’t want to happen. 

At ten o’clock, when my eyelids started to feel heavy, I told her I absolutely had to do some homework before the night was out.  Already, I would be so behind for the next day.  She enthusiastically declared that she didn’t want to interfere with my success, and then, without a word, rolled over and went to sleep. 

Thus began a precedent.  Sammie flew through my window almost every night, usually sometime after ten o’clock.  (She said she wanted to give me enough time to study.)  Always, she had question after question for me:  about my parents (who weren’t allowed to know about her), my friends (who suddenly existed), the baseball team (hah), college plans, GLOBE, astronomy, lunchboxes, meat loaf, learning how to drive, just about anything you can think of.  It was like she had zero real-world experience, like the only time she came down from the sky was when she was standing on my carpet.  I lied to her because she looked at me like I was really something, and I didn’t want that to go away.  I lied to her because it felt good to pretend to be someone who deserved her. 

Sammie was sensitive.  She acted tough, but when I flipped on the television to catch the news before bed, she turned away and sometimes hummed to herself, to block out the hard voice of the newscaster.  She loved to be told stories, especially if they involved my baseball victories or stuff from my childhood, like family vacations at the beach.  She loved to hear about Mom making me smoosh sunscreen into my skin every hour-and-a-half, about peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in tin foil, about Dad teaching me to lie flat on a boogie-board and let the waves sweep me to the shoreline.  She laughed at everything:  knock-knock jokes, riddles on popsicle sticks, kid shows on
Toon Network
.  She loved junk food.  Every night, her knapsack bulged with processed calories, from Twinkies to beef jerky, all of which she wolfed down as quickly as possible, as if it was oxygen and she was suffocating.  She cared very much about my success.  She wanted me to get into GLOBE as much as I did, and it felt amazing to have her cheering me on.  Plus, if I got in, I wouldn’t have to lie anymore about being someone great. 

Aside from these things, I knew nothing about her.  Unlike her, I wasn’t allowed to ask questions.  This was torturous.  Sometimes, I broke her rule and demanded to know where she had gotten some strange bruise, or begged her to tell me what it felt like to fly.  When this happened, her whole body tensed, and her eyes grew dark and distant, like she was thinking about something awful that had happened to her.  I always felt bad when these questions slipped out, but sometimes the frustration at knowing nothing was too overwhelming. 

I was quite in love with her, you see.  Can you really blame me?  She was gorgeous and smart and funny, and she cared about
me
.  She wanted to know about
my
life.  It made as much sense as a person who could float.

Unfortunately, she was about as interested in
that
sort of relationship as a carnivore in spinach.  “I don’t know that much,” she said, “but I know sometimes a guy and a girl will get all coupley if they spend a lot of time together.  That can’t happen to us, okay?  Not ever.”

It was that depressing. 

She also hated to be touched, hated it like no one I’d ever seen.  Once, we’d been watching a movie, and I grabbed her hand.  She shot into the air and slammed against a wall.  It was like she couldn’t handle the idea of someone physically trapping her, couldn’t see holding hands as anything less than an attempt to restrain her.  I wondered what she had been through, to make her this way.  It wasn’t like I could ask. 

It’s been a year since I first saw Sammie limping along MacRearigan Road.  In the yellow light of my bedside lamp, her eyelids droop as she sits with her legs crossed on my bed, her face in her hands.  I can barely make out a thin, pink line across her neck, no longer crusted over with blood, but deep enough that I imagine it will scar.  How did this happen?  I wish, for the millionth time, that she would be open with me. 

She scoots to the end of the bed and slides off, yawning.  “We should go through your interview questions.  One week till the big day.” 

“Good idea.”  My hand moves toward my drawer, to grab the laminated sheet of questions, but stops.  “Sammie.” 

She tilts her head, eyeing me suspiciously, as if she already knows I am about to leap into forbidden territory.  “What?”

“Please tell me what happened.” 

“Just now?  I got off the bed.”

“You know what I mean.  You come in here with a cut across your neck, like someone tried to kill you, and you expect me to not ask questions?”

Her mouth goes hard.  Perhaps unconsciously, she sidesteps toward the window, her arms folded over her chest.  “I’m not talking about it.  Period.”

I take a step toward her, one hand raised.  “Sammie
—

She rips into the air and flattens herself against the frame of the window, her sneakers hovering about a foot above my desk.  “Don’t
do
that!”

I lower my hand.  “I’m sorry.”

“Just stop, Damien.”  She lowers herself onto the desk and presses her fingers to her temples.  “Would it be so bad for us to just be what we are?”

I look at the ground.  I hear her land lightly on the floor and walk to within a few feet of me.  I lift my head.  Her face has shifted entirely, from hardness to complete vulnerability.  Her eyes are wide.  Her lips tremble.  Shocked, I almost rush forward to comfort her, but stop myself. 

“What’s wrong?” I say. 

She swallows.  “Nothing.”

“Come on, Sammie."

“I
—
I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

She shuts her eyes, then opens them.  “I just need you to know...that I don’t know when I’ll be back.”