Take Me With You (6 page)

Yes, this was definitely the right thing to do.

I feel better already.

Chapter Six

Eric

She had no idea I was feeling that way. When I finally had her attention, breaking down through my stutter and telling her everything, she admitted she knew there was something going on with me, but had no idea it was that.

Isabelle picks up on a lot more than most people do. We’re the same that way. A lot of the reason with her is because she didn’t talk so it was easier for her to just watch. For me, it wasn’t because I didn’t speak; it was because socially, I don’t have a clue what I’m doing so it’s just easier sitting in the background and taking it all in.

Her knowing that I wasn’t right, it’s more than I could have ever asked for because it means that eventually she would have called me on it. It’s been this way since I moved here in the summer and our families connected because of some online autism support group they were all a part of. We’ve always been able to tell when something’s not right and we’re usually so blunt about it that we don’t waste time finding out why.

~*~*~

“How long?”

“What do you mean?”

“How long have you been feeling like this and keeping it a secret?”

“Awhile.”

“Eric, tell me.”

“A few months, I guess?”

She nods in understanding but her eyes tell a different story. There’s pity in them, which she knows I hate almost as much as she does. I don’t want her to pity me or feel bad because I’m the way I am. It won’t make anything better.

“It’s no big deal.”

“Eric, it’s a very big deal. I’m still sort of new to this whole girlfriend thing so I get caught up in Kayden a lot. It’s unfair to you that I do that.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I thought you were upset about Cadence.”

I don’t wanna talk about that. Sure, it was right after she got with Dillon that these feelings started, but nothing else is about her.

“It wasn’t Caddy.”

“I know you like her, Eric. We all do.”

“Who else knows?”

“Me, Kay and Dillon.”

“You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Eric,” she sighs and the sound is like a knife to my chest. I hate making her act like this. She should be happy, not depressed or sad because of everything that’s wrong with me. “I’m sorry that I made you feel like a third wheel.”

“You don’t need to be—”

“Yes I do.” She says, completely cutting me off. “You’re my best friend and I made you feel bad. So, yes I do need to apologize.”

Unsure of what to say now, I just let the air go dead around us, focusing instead on the blades of grass in front of me, pulling them up from the ground one at a time until there’s a pile in front of me. It’s only when a shadow makes its way over me that I realize how much time has actually passed and that we’re no longer alone.

“That shit he was saying, it won’t happen again.”

Kayden to the rescue. Another thing I can’t stand. I should be able to deal with this myself instead of falling apart and letting him deal with it. Dillon was right before, I am a big baby.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does. I told you that I wouldn’t let that shit happen anymore and I meant it. I don’t give a shit that it’s not physical stuff. The taunting and name calling stops too.”

“You’re only gonna get in trouble, so why even bother?”

Kneeling down in front of me and bringing his hand up, twisting my face until I’m looking directly at him even though he knows how hard that is for me, he speaks again and he’s so serious there can be no mistaking that he means every word he’s saying.

“I bother because it’s wrong. I bother because you don’t deserve it. I bother because you fucking mean something to the girl I’m head over heels for and Eric, I bother because you mean something to me.”

~*~*~

“Hey.”

Looking up, shaking off the conversation from earlier and raising my hand to block from the sun now beaming directly into my eyes, I struggle to see who’s standing in front of me.

With another thirty minutes to go until my appointment, sitting outside seemed like a better choice than sweating to death inside. Even knowing that she’s seeing the same doctor as me didn’t prepare me for her to be standing here now and speaking to me.

“Uh—hey.”

“You mind if I sit and wait with you?”

“What time’s your appointment?”

“An hour from now.”

Motioning to the rock beside me, letting her know with a simple wave of my hand that she can sit, I open my mouth and blurt out the first thing that comes in my head.

“Why are you here so early?”

Her head dips, her hair falling in her face so I can’t make out her expression and I sit back and wait for her to respond, copying her movements by letting my own eyes fall to the ground in front of me.

“I couldn’t be at home anymore.”

“Why?”

Looking back up as soon as I ask the question I have no business asking, I see her lips go from being slightly raised to completely straight and want to kick myself. This is exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t have a filter. I’ll ask whatever the hell I want and not think about what it might mean to the other person until way after the fact.

Obviously I’ve pissed her off.

“When’s your appointment?” she asks, completely disregarding what I’ve asked. Redirecting. Something I’m the master of.

“Half hour. It was hotter in there then it was out here so I figured I’d kill time out here instead.”

Way to overshare Eric.

“Being at home, it’s too much.” She leans in and whispers. “Figured it would be safer here.”

The way she’s leaning into me, I can feel her breath exhale on my neck. I know she’s only doing it so that no one walking around us can hear her, but she has no idea what it’s doing to me, her being so close. She also has no clue that I’m liking the bubble gum smell coming off her a little too much.

“Can I ask—you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you being so nice to me? Why are you talking to me at all?”

If I didn’t see it with my own eyes I wouldn’t believe it’s happening, but she physically flinches at my questions and backs away. The same tight lipped expression from a few seconds ago is back again and this time, her blue eyes are darker.

I’ve definitely pissed her off this time.

She lowers her head and just like she did in the office two days ago, she starts fiddling with her sweater sleeves and it bothers the hell out of me. Right when I’m about to put my hand out to stop her, she jams one of her hands into her pocket and pulling it back out, I see the lighter in her hand.

I know what the lighter means when it comes to this girl. My questions, they’ve obviously pissed her off enough that she’s about to retaliate and there’s no one around that will stop her. She might get caught at school, but there’s nothing stopping her here.

Jumping up from the rock, I start backing away and it’s only when her eyes come up, focusing on me and not the object in her hand that she understands what’s going on.

“Shit! Eric, I’m not gonna do that.”

“Since when?”

“Since,” she pauses and I back up a little more, not sure what’s about to come next, but wanting to be prepared in case I need to make a quick getaway. “Since this is how I deal with things.”

Huh? Before I can ask her what the hell she’s talking about, she takes a few steps toward me and despite my readiness to flee, I stay locked in place.

“This,” she flicks the lighter in her hand. “It’s what calms me.”

For the first time since she walked up a few minutes ago, invading my space and my thoughts, I get it. When things are too much for me, I use video games, my phone or something else to redirect myself, but for her, she uses the lighter. Knowing what I do about the marks on her arms though, it doesn’t make me feel good.

Does she use the lighter on herself? Is that why she’s so burned?

“Does it calm you when you’re using it on other people?”

Taking another couple of steps forward until she’s standing directly in front of me, she stops and looks me directly in the eye. Struggling to keep my eyes locked in place when my natural way of being is dying for me to look away, I wait to hear what she’s gonna say next.

“Yes.”

Amelia

I’m such an idiot.

This guy is friends with Isabelle. The minute I pull the lighter from my pocket and he sees it, of course he’s gonna jump up and halfway across the sidewalk. He’s going to see it the only way he knows and think I’m gonna burn him.

That’s not the only reason I’m an idiot though. It’s because I showed it at all. No one knows my secret, even though I know he caught the way my arms look when he bumped into me last week. Other than pulling it on the girls at school though, no one else knows what it means to me.

If Tim, Charlotte and Eve caught me talking to him right now, they’d be relentless in their teasing. I’m basically committing social suicide even being seen in the same area as him, let alone beside him having a conversation. It should keep me away from him, the risk I’m taking, people seeing us, but it doesn’t.

Seeing his picture earlier, the emptiness in his eyes, maybe even a little sadness, it was too much for me. It was like looking into a fucking mirror. So despite knowing what I’m risking being around him at all, I’m gonna do it. I want him to say something funny again the way he did two days ago, so I can laugh. I don’t care how selfish it is.

I thought about lying to him when he asked me if I was calmed by burning other people, but at the last second I chose not to. As far as I can tell, he’s been pretty up front with me since we came across each other last week. I feel like maybe I should do the same for him even though I don’t have the first clue why.

Eric Carmen is
supposed to be nothing more than a stain on humanity. The big red mark on a test when the rest is written in black. He’s everything that’s wrong with the world, the byproduct of two morons choosing to reproduce.

He’s also the first person to make me genuinely laugh in years and the one that doesn’t ask for anything in return.

“Why does that calm you?”

His question, I can’t answer it. It’s too personal. If I tell him the reason that hurting other people brings me calm, it’s gonna make whatever this is between us, the bond we somehow have being here and not wanting the rest of the world to know, disappear. There is no way he could hear it and not be sickened by it.

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

“I’m curious?”

“Like the monkey?”

He laughs and there’s something about the way his cheeks lift as he’s doing it that makes me happy. Spending as much time as I have making sure the last thing he does is smile or even laugh, I forgot that he was even capable of it. It’s boisterous yet shaky, which just proves there’s nothing fake about it. It’s a genuine laugh.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’m Curious George. So—uh, where’s your yellow hat?”

“Left it at home under my bed.” I say, choking down the laugh that’s threatening to escape any second.

“You should never leave home without it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Have you seen it? It looks like a gigantic dick.”

All hopes I had of keeping the laugh down are gone now as it falls easily, my cheeks heating up at the same time, another reaction that I never expected him to cause. Is Eric really making me blush?

“Wow, tell me how you really feel.” I manage to get out once I’m finally able to contain the laughter.

“Okay.” He says and before I can question what he means, he speaks again. “You have a really nice laugh. You should do it more.”

If I thought my cheeks were on fire before, it’s even worse now, but one look at him and I see I’m not the only one. His eyes go wide first and then once he realizes what he just blurted out, his cheeks turn the same shade that I’m sure mine are. As wrong as it should feel, reacting to someone like him, it just doesn’t.

It feels right. Normal.

“Um…”

“Uh, yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s time for me to head in now. So—uh, I’m just gonna go do that.”

Before I can react, say goodbye, see you around or whatever else might have fallen out, he’s running off and his body is disappearing behind the door, leaving me completely alone out in the street, wondering what the hell just happened.

What the hell is going on with me? It’s bad enough that I didn’t have to leave my house early, doing it because I wanted to see if he was going to be here, but to actually search him out, admit things to him and then laugh and blush because of things he said back to me? This isn’t like me at all.

I hate this guy. He means absolutely nothing to me. He’s a joke, a pathetic waste of space that up until a few days ago I got pleasure out of torturing and scaring.