JACK (8 page)

I climbed up next to Noah on the sofa and knelt beside him. Our knees sank into the thick cushions and we hid behind the back of the couch to watch. There were a couple of other residents in here sitting around with their visitors. Not many. I didn’t recognized any of them except for Grom who occupied a small round table across the room. A blond haired man sat across from him. He wore a suit but it didn’t make him look stiff.

Grom frowned and fiddled with his tie. I wasn’t sure if I would look any happier if Emma came to visit me.

“Noah.” He shushed me. I dropped my voice to a whisper and moved closer. “Does anyone ever come visit you?”

He pinched his bottom lip between his teeth and tightened his grip on the swell of fake leather. Noah shook his head.

“Me either.”

His shoulders fell and his gaze was sad but understanding.

Grom and Jonas talked but we were too far away to hear what was being said. After a few minutes Grom sat back in his seat. He rubbed the top of his head then patted down the pockets of his pants. He didn’t find what he was looking for and put his fists on the table. His knuckles were white.

“What’s going on?”

Noah tipped his head in my direction. His gaze stayed on Grom. “He wants to go home and see Sarah.”

Where had I heard that name before? I remembered. “Sarah of the Sunflowers?”

Noah nodded.

“And Jonas won’t let him?” Grom stood up and paced around the table.

His angry voice echoed across the room. “This is an atrocity. You are a barbarian. A scourge. I need to see Sarah, let me see Sarah. I command it!” Grom slammed his fists down on the table. Jonas reached out to him and Grom yanked back. “You, my boy, obviously do not know who you are talking to.” He jabbed a finger towards the sky. “I am the great Gromwaldengreenwich. And I will bring down my wrath upon you. I will blight you with boils and plague. I demand to see Sarah or I shall unleash my wrath upon you and yours!”

Jonas said something we couldn’t hear and shook his head.

“Blasphemy! That is blasphemy!” Grom slapped a chair back against the floor and stormed out.

Jonas slumped against the table with face in his hands. After a moment he ran his fingers through his hair. He looked tired. Standing, he moved like a much older man.

Noah climbed off the sofa and motioned for me to follow. I stopped near the door and watched Jonas pick up the chair Grom had been sitting in. He slid it under the table next to his. When he turned to walk out he caught me staring. I didn’t understand how someone with such gentle eyes could be so cruel to Grom. What would it hurt to let him see Sarah of the Sunflowers?

Jonas raised a hand and waved and for some reason I waved back.

Noah came back through the door to stand beside me. He stopped, gaze narrowing on Jonas.

“What’s wrong?” He shook his head. “Noah?” He took my hand and pulled me out the door.

We found Grom standing in the corner of the dayroom looking out at the parking lot. He was far past his prime, but right then he looked a hundred years old.

“Grom.”

He swiped his fingers under his eye and grinned at me. “Ah, Just Jack. How are you this fine and wonderful day?”

“I’m okay. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you okay?”

“Right as rain, my young knight, right as rain.” He put a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Have you practiced your incantations and your potions today?”

Noah hid his smile by looking at the floor.

“Yes or no, boy?”

“Yes.” Grom looked at me. “Just this morning Noah was showing me the hummingbird spell.”

Grom’s forehead wrinkled. He looked at Noah. “That’s a very advanced spell. How did it go?”
Noah shrugged and pulled out a straw from his pocket. The end looked chewed on.

Grom gasped. “I am impressed. So it worked! That’s wonderful!” He clapped Noah hard on the shoulder and he fell against me. I put out my arm to catch him.

Noah’s hand brushed my hip and his shoulder pressed against my breast firm enough I knew he could feel the swell under my bindings. The contact made my skin tighten and an ache form in my stomach. His gaze met mine.

My cheeks burned and I backed away. “I’m sorry.” Only I had no idea why. Noah tried to hold my hand and I took another step back. “I need to go.” He said something but I was already running down the hall.

*** *** ***

I stayed in my room. It was dinner time before I saw Noah again.

“Jack?” Noah stood in the doorway, checker board under one arm and his pockets bulging. He cleared his throat. “Are you going to eat dinner?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m not hungry.” I was hungry. I was completely empty. A giant hollow space inside me that no amount of mushy beef stew could fill. I was convinced nothing would ever fill it and I realized as much as I’d loved Momma, the hole had always been there. And I knew even if she could come back it would always be there. I ached with the knowledge. It set fire to my insides, turning me to ash. Destroying my will to care or to live.

Voice gone, Noah held up the checker board.

“I don’t really feel like playing, either.” Why? I liked Noah, he’d become my friend. He made it possible for me to let Elliot go.

“Can I…” Noah pointed to the bed.

“Yes, you can come in.”

He walked over and sat on the edge of my bed. My eyes burned. I rubbed my cheek against my pillow. The fabric was sticky and damp from where I’d been crying. Noah put the checker board down on the floor. He took the milk caps out of his pocket. They clicked against one another and then the board.

Without asking he lay down beside me. His knees touched mine and he tucked his hands under his chin just like me. I imagined I was looking in a mirror. That his blunt chin, Adam’s apple, and square shoulders was mine. There was parts I couldn’t see, but they’d also be on my body. Even covered up in clothes I’d be aware of every detail, from how the muscles in my arms wouldn’t be without shape, how my chest would be flat, to the weight between my legs. I’d be constructed of straight lines and not curves.

The want of these things made me angry with Noah, and I didn’t want to be angry with him. Did he see my jealousy? He had to. It ate at my body like a disease.

I stared at Noah and he stared at me.

“Noah?”

He blinked in that slow way that told me I had his attention.

Shame made it hard for me to swallow. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

His eyebrows came together.

“Emma sent me here because she thinks there’s something wrong with me.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to be a girl.”

“Why?”

“It feels wrong.”

He frowned and I could tell he was thinking.

I didn’t want to cry again and fought against the burning in my eyes and throat. “I cover everything up but it doesn’t change anything. I’m still a girl on the outside and a boy on the inside. It doesn’t change and I want it to change.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“No one understands. They want me to wear dresses and they want to call me Jacqueline. I want to be kissed but no one wants to be with a girl who is a boy.”

“How do you know?”

“What?”

“No one wants to kiss you?”

“I loved Elliot and he wouldn’t kiss me because I wasn’t a boy.”

“Maybe someone else won’t care.” Noah moved closer to me and the collar of his shirt pulled down enough to reveal his scars. There were more around his wrists and they disappeared up his sleeve. When he breathed they pulled against his skin. The shape and texture reminded me of how bubblegum looked stuck to the bottom of a shoe.

I brought my gaze up and could see the green in his blue eyes. Rimmed by dark lashes they all but glowed. Noah tilted his head. His eyelids fluttered closed and his lips pressed against mine. His skin was warm, soft, sweet.

When he pulled back he smiled.

So did I.

The new orderly’s name was Frank and I did not like him. He had hard eyes and a chiseled face. He’d watch me while pretending to look somewhere else. Cold chills would race up my spine when I turned my back on him. At night when he walked the halls I locked my door.

I swear sometimes he’d stand right outside. Like the demon in the side hall of A wing. His shadow would clog the window and I could hear him breathe. A beast as dangerous as the river.

I was tired when I went to my Wednesday session to see Dr. Chance and of course he noticed. “Not sleeping?”

I lay my head down in the crook of my elbow, propped on the arm of the couch. “I’m fine.”

“You have circles under your eyes. Is there a reason you’re having problems sleeping?”

Yes. The beast. “Not really.”

“There has to be a reason, Jacqueline. I’d like for you to share it with me.”

I picked up my head. “I asked you not to call me that.”

“You want me to call you Jack?”

“Yes.”

“But Jacqueline is a beautiful name and it suits you very well.”

“I don’t care. It’s not who I am.”

“Because?”

“You know.”

“Why does being a girl frighten you so much?”

Was he serious? “I’m not scared of being a girl. I just don’t
want
to be a girl. There’s a difference.”

“Which is?”

“To be scared means something happened to make you that way.”

He nodded and took his pen out of his breast pocket. “Did something happen to make you scared?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“No, because I’m not scared.”

The ball point scratched against the paper. “When did you decide you wanted to be a boy?”

“I didn’t decide.”

He stopped writing. “There had to be some point you decided to leave your female self behind and adopt the idea of being male.”

“No, there doesn’t.”

“Jacqueline.”

“Jack!”

“Ok, Jack.”

“Thank you.”

He waited, pen poised over his important notebook. “Would you please answer my question, Jack?”

I asked one of my own instead. “When did you decide you were a man?”

“Excuse me?”

“If I made a choice to be a boy, when did you decide to be a man?”

His smile was forced. “I never chose to be a man, Jack, I was born that way.”

I shrugged. “So was I.”

*** *** ***

I carried my tray over to what had become my usual spot in the cafeteria.

Grom grinned at me. He had eggs stuck in his teeth. “Ah, Just Jack, how wonderful for you to join us.”

I yawned as I sat down next to Noah. He watched me with a worried expression.

“Are you well?” Grom said.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” I spooned up a bite of oatmeal.

“I see. The sandman has not been kind to you, has he? Have you tried placing stones in your window in the shape of a fish?”

The oatmeal on my spoon slid off into my plate. “A fish?”

“Yes. The sandman loves fish.”

“Why fish?”

Grom twisted his mouth to the side while poking his fork into his eggs. “Come to think of it, I have no idea why he likes fish.”

Noah laughed and so did I.

After a moment Noah said, “Sometimes I have nightmares.”

“Your voice is coming back.” I really liked the sound of it.

“Takes a while.” Noah put a hand to his throat for a moment. “Are bad dreams the reason why you can’t sleep?”

I drew shapes in my oatmeal with my spoon. “It’s not nightmares that keep me up.”

His right eyebrow went up.

“It’s the new orderly.”

Noah leaned forward so he could see around my shoulder. I didn’t have to look to know Frank was watching me.

I put my lips close to Noah’s ear. “He stands outside my door at night.”

“Are you sure?” He turned his head. Now his mouth was close to mine.

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear him breathing and he blocks the window.”

“What do you do?”

I shrugged. “The only thing I can. I close my door.”

“And he just stands there?”

“Yes.”

“All night?”

“Not all night. He leaves but he comes back. He watches me, Noah. All the time.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Grom tapped his finger on the table. “What are you two whispering about? You’re not planning a quest without me, are you?”

I laughed. “Of course not.”

“Good. I’m too busy with my flight spell right now to accompany you and you’re too young to go off on your own. Ogres and demons, beasts of all kinds are out there in the forests.”

I held up my hand. “I promise, Grom. We won’t go on any quest without you.” When I dropped it back into my lap, Noah’s fingers pushed between mine.

“It’s supposed to storm tonight.” He squeezed and I squeezed back.

“I won’t let you be alone.” I never left him alone when it stormed. I just had to make sure the hall was clear before I snuck into his room at night and again in the morning.

“What about Frank? I don’t want something to happen to you.”

“It won’t.”

“How will you…” His gaze went over my shoulder.

“I’ll come through the vent.”

*** *** ***

I was given a new privilege. The freedom to go outside. The garden wasn’t much, mostly grass and a few scraggly bushes. There wasn’t a view because the stone walls were too high for anyone to see over. There were benches and a couple of trees in the garden. The new leaves made patches of shade for people to sit under. It was warm for the end of May but I didn’t care. I stood in the sun with my face turned up, letting the warmth bathe my eyelids, my nose, and my lips.

If only I could have touched it. Wrapped myself up inside. I’d never known how to describe my momma before. Now I knew.

“Jack.”

I heard Noah all the way from the door. He walked over. “C’mere, I want to show you something.” I followed him to the corner of the yard where there was no one else. He turned to face me. “If I show you this, you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“What is it?”

“Something really neat.”

I grinned. “Okay.”