September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series (23 page)

He said it so matter-of-factly, like
it was the most natural thing in the world. Hearing those words,
watching them form on his lips, it was like being born again—they
made everything new. I wasn’t being left behind. Jake considered my
part in his life such a permanent thing, that my leaving with him
was never in question. The two torturous words he fumbled were
quieted and the threat of that guitar playing girl seemed
ridiculous. His assumptions, the feelings that put them there in
the first place, were the only thing that mattered.

My chest expanded, filling with a
sensational high.

“I told you from the get-go.” He moved
closer, touching the bridge of his nose to mine. “I won’t go
anywhere you don’t want me to. Even if it breaks up my band,”
Sweeping his lips gently over my mouth, he whispered. “Even if it
breaks my heart, baby. You are more important to me than any of
that shit.”

He covered my lips with his and picked
me up, setting me on the kitchen counter. I stretched both arms
around his neck and held him to me, deepening the kiss. My legs
snaked around his waist.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered when his
mouth moved to my neck. “I shouldn’t be so insecure. It’s just you
said ‘Not—”

“No.” he pulled back,
staring me in the eyes. “You shouldn’t be insecure. Because
I
want
you
.”

“I want you, too.”

A groan echoed from Jakes throat as I
pressed closer; a wonderful humming that drove me crazy. Our mouths
collided and the wonderful heat coursed through me. Little
explosions of excitement rippled over my body as I wiggled to the
edge of the counter top.

Jake picked me up and waltzed into the
living room where he laid me on the carpeted floor and hovered
above me. With a light tug, he untied a shoulder strap on my
sundress. Promising, “I’m gonna give you rug burns.”

+ + +

23

—Avery

No one will ever sit me down and ask
me questions the way they do with Angel. It’s her accounting of
that night that everyone cares about. Like she’s the only one that
can offer anything of substance.

I should be used to this by now. It
shouldn’t matter.

But see, this time we’re serving has
never been about just that one night. It’s about everything: every
single second that has been wrapped up into what is my whole life.
The tragedy of each and every preceding night that led up to the
only one the system cares about.

No. It shouldn’t matter to me, but it
does.

+++

“Just leave,” I screamed, slamming the
passenger door. There were people all up and down the sidewalk
staring at me, but I didn’t care.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to go
alone.” He ran a hand over his short blonde hair, staring at the
rearview mirror.

“I don’t need you, Troy.” Screw him
and his pity.

Angel didn’t an invite. She was at
home with a migraine and if I couldn’t have her, then I sure as
hell wasn’t having Troy.

“I’m trying to take care of my
responsibility, alright? How long is this gonna take?”

Shielding myself with my arms, I
stepped away. “Rosa’s waiting.”

Ticking off the seconds in my head, I
didn’t even get to five before his posture relaxed. He stared out
at the road as his furrowed brow smoothed out. I wanted to puke,
seeing how glad he was. Not another second passed before his Honda
pulled into traffic.

Troy never looked back. Not
once.

Usually, night was when I had the
toughest time. That was when the quiet world screamed, so loud I
couldn’t sleep. But watching him drive away, it was like everything
that made me who I am faded a little more. Like, my very essence
was no more than the dust behind his tires. I was an obligation, an
afterthought, a miserable reflection in his rearview. Just a flat
shape spread across the glass; not quite human. I was a passing
deviant thought he’d already forgotten about. I was the snide
remark he might think, but never say out loud because anyone within
hearing distance would point. Surrounding conversations would be
replaced with half-cocked eyebrows and whispers at my
uttering.

Raw anger boiled in my stomach as
images of that cocky bastard and all the ways I could make him
sorry painted my thoughts. I was on the brink and it was only nine
in the morning.

I took in a deep breath, curling my
hands into fists. The only way to face what I had to do was to keep
my head down and move. So that’s what I did. I put one foot in
front of the other until I made it through the line of picketers
into the controversial downtown building. I signed in with her name
and took a seat.

Barely ten minutes later, I was
getting escorted to a changing room. After putting on the hospital
gown, one scrub-clad worker directed me to follow the next
scrub-clad worker to a desk sitting in an open hallway. I sat down
and held my arm out, palm up, as directed by the next person in
scrubs.

The nurse jerked the bend from my
elbow, stretching it along the length of the half-desk as the hall
behind me filled with passing patients. The tourniquet was too
tight.

“Why are you taking my
blood?”

“It’s a standard check for disease.
Make a fist.”

I did. The needle plunged in, quick
and stinging. I would have jerked away if I wasn’t being held. The
vial filled up quickly. Warm and red.

A string around the nurses’ neck had a
card with her picture beside the name of the clinic. I tried to
read it, but she kept moving; withdrawing to cap the
needle.

“Go on down the hall to room three. A
technician will be with you in a few minutes.” She didn’t even try
to look me in the eye. Not once. The nurse knew the crease of my
elbow better than my face.

I grabbed my pile of clothes from the
floor near my feet. It cost a dollar for a locker, but I only had
one dollar and needed it for bus fare. “Can I put my sweater
on?”

Now the nurse looked at the goose
pimples running up and down my arms. Not my face. “After the
ultrasound.” The blades of her eyes cut back to the sticker on the
side of the fresh tube of blood. “Angel, is there a last
name?”

“No.”

She pointed with her pen. “Down the
hall, to the right. Room three.”

The corridor was filling up with blank
stares, waiting to get into the tiny lab chair to have their blood
taken by a nurse who won’t look at them. Half the towns’ female
populace must have been in there, but I did not recognize anyone,
guessing that they came from another community. That was the smart
thing to do if you wanted to make sure you didn’t run into anyone
that might recognize you. But I already knew what people thought of
me and I didn’t care.

At the other end of the hall, more
girls walked with hunched postures. No one knew how difficult it
was. No one wanted to. So, no one was asking, speaking softly, or
even pretending to comfort us. We were cattle, lumbering through
the course laid out for us; being herded from one station to
another. And no one had sympathy for cows.

The hallway was covered in thin
carpet, no padding. My socks, hanging loose over my feet, had
slipped down during the herding. I stepped into them, shoving my
cold toes a little further back in with each step on my way to the
next room.

The term ‘family planning’ seemed
ironic. Most the girls looked school age. Maybe some were
drop-outs, but all of us were there. Together and alone. There were
a couple of boyfriends in the waiting room, a mom or two, but none
of them were in the back to witness the herding. They didn’t want
to know how the meat got to the market.

I wondered what it was like to work in
a place like that. To be that woman, the one who took the blood.
She probably hit the snooze on her alarm a few times every morning
because she didn’t want to get up—probably because she didn’t like
her job.

I didn’t like her job,
either.

I’d bet good money that
Blood Lady would’ve preferred working in a cancer clinic—a ‘health
planning’ clinic. I knew that the nurses in a place like that would
be nicer than the ones I was seeing. The doctors, too. That’s why
no one was smiling: none of us had cancer. We were going to keep
living, wondering how we became the confused little shits who
didn’t know we were choosing to be there the second we said
yes
to the Troy
Bleechers’ of the world.

Such an
asshole
.

When I woke up afterward, I felt
sick—misshapen—like they gave me the flu by tearing my insides out.
The nearest nurse assured me that it was normal. She told me not to
sit up, that I had to wait for at least twenty minutes. But that
was not going to happen. I had to get up. I had to
leave.

I made the nurse carry my clothes
while I hung onto the wall, steadying myself along the corridor
that led back to the dressing rooms, ignoring her protests. Once I
was there, an old lady with an icy gaze handed me a huge pad: a
giant diaper to catch the rest of my insides.

“Second stall,” the icy nurse pointed
towards a swinging door.

It reminded me of the dressing areas
they had in the shops at the mall. There were no mirrors like a
department store, though. It was probably a good thing: I wasn’t
ready to look myself in the eye.

On the other side of the door, I heard
the voices of the icy old lady and another girl. They were arguing.
I listened and surmised that the other girl had dropped her diaper
when she was putting her underwear on and now she needed another
one.

“You get one. That’s it.”

“But it was on the floor. What if I
get an infection?”

Cancer patients had to worry about
infections, too, didn’t they?

The mean old lady huffed. “Don’t drop
this one.”

When I was almost done dressing in my
sweat pants and flannel shirt, the stall door flew open. Ice Lady
was staring at me. “Are you finished?”

I grabbed my shoes from the lonely
chair in the back corner, ignoring the pleasured thought of
smashing that chair over her head. Passing through the door, I
locked my eyes on the old woman.

“You’re a bitch.”

I used to wonder if I belonged in the general population. Not
the depressive wondering in the abstract, like I was curious about
my place in this great big world. No. I’ve always known there is no
place for me. My wonderment was relegated to the safety of the
general population, if I were a part of it.

If they were exposed to me, was it
safe for them?

Chewing over that question, I shoved
my way through the crowd that was content to ignore me the second
time around. They only bothered with the girls on the way in
because once we’re done in there, they were done with
us.

The inter-city bus passed right by the
clinic. The receptionist inside said it was ten ‘til one. That
meant the bus would be there any minute. Walking the fifty feet
from the door to the bus stop was exhausting. I thought for sure
that I would fall apart before I got there.

The bus bench was hard and warm to
touch even though it was shaded from the beating sun by an
overhang. I welcomed the heat. Pulling the flannel tight around my
empty stomach, the hot Arizona weather was not enough to chase away
the cold I felt. It seemed to radiate from within.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I opened my eyes to find a girl with
two blond braids and a baseball cap. She was resting a sign at her
feet. It was a good one. Must have taken her hours to mutilate and
paint a naked baby doll before tacking it to poster
board.

“Aren’t you supposed to have someone
drive you home?” She sat on the bench beside me, tucking her sign
away behind her. “My dad makes me come to these things. He doesn’t
know, but I had to have one last year.” She almost smiled, like
revealing this secret gave her so much pleasure.

“Guess you really showed him.” I
rolled my eyes as they filled with cool moisture.

“I have my license. I could take you,
if you don’t live far. The car’s just around the corner. My dad
won’t even know I’m gone.”

“Go away.”

“But, you look green.”

I needed to go home. I had to
disappear into the feathery goodness of my pillow for at least
forty-eight hours. Inhaling deep, I let out a long, relaxing
breath. That damned water pricked at my eyes, but I clamped them
closed and turned away from the girl. “Why are you here? Fuck off,
already.”

Glimpsing back at the street, I found
myself alone and let out a breath.

It was a pure, self-centered tragedy
the way I reached for things I’d never have. Sometimes, when the
void was gaping and clawing, it was tempting to forget that no one
like me should ever be around children. My leeching would drain
them. Any family I created would end up hollowed out—peeled like
old paint from dead wood. Bleached bone and ash. Whenever I forgot
to remember that, I ended up making things worse.