Dare Me to Live

Chapter 6

A weak, watery sunlight filtering through the tissue paper curtains woke me the next morning. The breeze that snuck in through the cracked window smelled of rain. My eyelids were gummed together from mascara and sleep, blurring the sharp edges of the room together in a blue-gray watercolor painting. I knuckled them hard, the creases in my fingers coming away black.

My stiff joints cracked like popcorn as I stretched and the ache in my chest, a chronic side effect of my nightmares, still pressed heavy on my sternum. My therapist attributed it to the memory of being trapped in the car door after the crash, but didn't seem to know how to get rid of it.

Uselessness had been one of my many complaints about him.

I tried to bury the memory as I always did, but the one that rose to take its place did nothing to alleviate my discomfort. Last night with Tyler emerged murky from my muddled thoughts, settling itself firmly in the forefront of my mind. I shivered involuntarily; he had come to my aid and then withdrawn. I had never liked it when my parents or shrink or friends had pressed me to talk about the crash believing it would help me, but the manner in which Tyler had walled himself off made me feel contaminated. Like there was something wrong with me, which, I suppose there was.

I swung my legs off the bed, more goosebumps rising on my arms as my feet touched the cold floor, and walked to the door. The house was silent except for the soft groaning of pipes and the almost indecipherable breathing of Tyler on the couch. I tiptoed to the front door, cursing the creak of the floor under my weight, but he remained fast asleep.

His face was relaxed, peaceful, the way sleep was supposed to look. His right arm was crossed over his chest, resting on his heart, while the other dangled out over empty air, palm up. The sunlight illuminated a white scar that divided his hand perfectly in two. One leg protruded off the edge of the couch that was too small for the length of his body, and the blanket warmed more of the floor than it did him. Even as I watched, he shifted and the rest of the blanket slide to the floor, but he slept on.

A quick flashback of him straightening the covers around me last night ran across my mind. I quietly turned the doorknob and slipped out into the morning.

Dreary storm clouds hung low in the sky, suffocating me with their proximity. A mist that wasn't quite a drizzle, but still damp enough to be irritating clung to my skin and limp hair. Something in my peripheral vision caught my eye. The corner of a neighbor's shade flipped back into place just as I looked back over my shoulder.

I must have looked like a one-night stand with my smeared, make-up darkened face, wrinkled clothes that were still twisted with sleeps and dirty, bare feet. I didn't even have shoes in my hand.

My cellphone rang as I turned right at the end of the street and ducked into a side-alley off of Main Street. A selfie of my mother and our cat, Nordstrom, appeared on my screen. I bit my lip. I couldn't get away with ignoring my mom forever; sooner or later she would take it upon herself to drive down to school.

Resigned, I swiped my thumb right to open the call.

"Hey, mom," I said, trying to keep my voice natural as I tiptoed around broken bottles and water-logged trash. She would drag me straight back home if she could see me now.

"Megan," she said. The pause after my name, my real name, was a sign of trouble. The fact that she wasn't demanding if I was okay was a sign I was in very deep shit.

"I'm sorry." My toes squished into something that was a combination of mud and unidentifiable oozing garbage. I gagged and picked up my pace, finally emerging onto a sidewalk just down the street from my dorm.

"We had an agreement," she said.

"I know, it's just that I've been trying to settle into school and my roommate is—well it's been a bit of an adjustment," I said, pausing to wipe my feet off in the wet grass. I was suddenly glad for the rain.