Dedicated to Defiancy_ cause she's just plain awesome and agrees that Pokemon is also awesome ;)
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Nine
Dad steals my roll of camera film without telling me. I was sure I still had a few pictures left, but when I wake up in the morning a few days later, now in my own bed, I reach for my camera. I try to snap a picture of a seagull sitting on my railing outside, looking at me with his head tilted through the glass. The black and white would make the whole scene look creepy compared to how neat it is right now, but when I press down on the button, it makes an unfamiliar click.
So when I come downstairs this morning, I’m already in a worse mood than usual. And when I find my mother in the kitchen, standing there as she looks over a set of papers, I feel my annoyance come to a boil. I still have yet to confront her about what Evan told me. I’ve been debating it for days, hoping that she or my father had the decency to tell me. But so far, nothing has gone as planned.
“What are those?” I ask as I lean against the doorframe. My arms are crossed over my baggy long-sleeved t-shirt and my voice is already in a tone.
Mom’s back is to me and it tenses noticeable when she hears me. Slowly, she sets down the papers on the kitchen table and turns around, hiding them.
“Just some research for my book,” she says. She smiles but her eyes are wary. She’s lying.
“Let me see them?” I take a step forward, hold out my palm. Mom moves closer to the table and slides her hands behind her, holding the papers flat on the table as if a gust of wind might pick up and blow them directly into my hands.
“It’s boring stuff, Bam.”
I narrow my eyes at her and drop my hand. “You’re lying.
“W-what?”
“I know about the charges, Mom.”
My mother is speechless. Her mouth hangs open and her eyes are wide, like she’s a deer caught in headlights. I wait a few minutes, waiting for the news to sink in and for her to defend herself, or lie and say she was going to tell, but she doesn’t say anything at all.
I don’t sell Evan out because my parents like him.
“Why would you do it without my consent, and then go to this length to hide it from me?” I sound more hurt than I intend to, but for once I’m glad it hasn’t come out in anger. “It was me who got hit. I deserve to make the decision to press charges or not, not you.”
“Bama,” she says quietly. Her arms drop to her sides and her gaze meets mine. Her eyes are pleading. “You’re a child, honey. You don’t get to make these decisions. Your father and I did what we thought was best for you, and without doing what we did, we would just be letting that man get away with what happened. That’s not fair, is it?”
“You should have asked me,” I snap. “Not everything about my life is your decision! You already picked me up and shipped me where with you and Dad without even asking me if I wanted to leave home! Did you think I wanted to go away for the summer after what happened back home? Did you ever think that you were leaving for you and not me?”
Mom is silent. She looks upset, but more than that, she looks angry. I pause, waiting for her to respond. But when she says nothing I turn around and head for the door. I expect her to call for me, tell me not to leave and that I should still be taking it easy, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t hover, doesn’t get worried, she just stands in the kitchen, not saying a word.
ღ
I head towards downtown for the first time on my own. I’m sort of familiar with the way after going through it a few times with one of my parents, so it’s not too hard to navigate on my own. On the plus side, the way there is also a straight line if I turn right from the end of my driveway.
The day isn’t as warm as usual and I’m glad to have my sweater, but the breeze causes goose bumps on my legs. In the sunnier spots, where it peeks through the clouds, I’m warm but like always, the shadows are closer to Antarctica rather than the normal summer weather.
When I reach the main beach, it’s practically empty except for a flash of blue and pink hair. I’m surprised that no one is here, even if it is a bit colder and cloudier today, but Hadley is the only one. I walk slowly up to her, hugging my sides with my arms to protect me from the wind. The ocean is full of whitecaps and the waves they tail are the biggest I’ve seen them.
Hadley’s facing the water, sitting with her knees hugged to her chest. When I plop down beside her, she looks over at me, but doesn’t say anything. Her red-rimmed eyes are full of about-to-spill tears and her whole face is that dark shade of pink that everyone gets when they cry. She turns her gaze back to the ocean without saying anything to me.
I follow her suit and hug my knees to my chest, this proving to be the warmest position to sit when the wind coming off the ocean is so strong. My brown hair whips around my, getting caught in my vision every so often. Hadley’s is doing the same, but something about the colours dancing in the wind makes the act more interesting than annoying. A small braid is tied around her forehead and ends at the back of her head. I make a note to ask her how she did that with her own hair.
“I’m sorry for not being home that one day,” I say over the wind. Hadley still doesn’t look at me and I don’t look at her. I don’t know why she’s crying, but I don’t feel like it’s my position to ask. I’ve never been good with dealing being upset myself, so comforting other people isn’t a very good task for me to handle. “My parents made me go to work with my dad.”
Hadley shrugs.
“I went looking for you,” I mumble, still talking even though I just want to shut up. I think this is my way of trying to cheer her up, even though it’s not exactly the best way for that to happen. “And then I met Evan. He was going to take me to your house, but then I got hit by a car.”
Hadley looks at me again, her expression hard. “Is that your way of trying to get me to talk to you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “It actually happened. That…Craig, guy, I think. Evan said he was drunk. You didn’t hear about it?”
Hadley turns back to gazing at the water and her hair flies across her nose. “I heard that someone got hit. I didn’t know that someone was you.”
I shrug and pull a hair away from my mouth.
“Are you okay?”
“I have a concussion. Or at least, I think I still do.”
“I’m sorry,” she states.
I shrug again and realize that I need to stop doing that. “Things happen,” I say.
We listen to the sound of the waves in quiet for a long time, neither of us wanting to interrupt each other’s thoughts. Hadley isn’t crying anymore, but her face is still red, and despite only being with her twice – this time included – I can tell that she’s sad.
I rest my chin on my knees and wonder what my mom is doing. I don’t know how upset I made her, or angry. I hope for angry, because I can deal with that. When my dad gets home, I know she’ll tell him, whether she wants to or not. He always knows when something’s off and he always has a way of getting my mother or I to say it, even if it’s the last thing we want to talk about.
I wonder if he’ll be mad at me. I wonder if I made things worse with them. They always act like I’m their problem, like I’m the one they have to watch out for and made them move here for the summer, like I had begged them to. But I’m the one dealing with a loss, not them.
“He’s not coming home next week,” Hadley whispers. I lift my chin just as she rests hers down on the space between her knees. “My dad, I mean. He’s stationed overseas and was supposed to come back, but now he’s not.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because she’s sad about it and I don’t know what else to do.
“My mom pretends she’s not upset but I know she is. She’s just trying not to upset my brothers and sister, for their sake.”
“But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
Hadley presses her lips into a thin line. “I guess it is. But I don’t like her seeing her pretending things are okay.”
“Sometimes pretending is better than feeling,” I say.
Hadley looks at me, but not like she usual does. It’s like she’s trying to see into me, trying to tell what I’m thinking and what I mean, but she doesn’t ask about my words. She just nods and let’s go of her legs.
“I should get back and help my mom. You can come if you want, but I don’t think it will be very much fun.”
I give her a small smile as we both rise to our feet. “It’s more fun than what I was doing before.”
The first thing I smell when I walk into Hadley’s small, cozy white cottage is the smell of paint. It’s so strong that I cough as soon as it hits me, but after a few moments I get used to it. Hadley cracks a small smile as we take off her shoes.
“My mom’s an artist,” she explains. “And by that I mean an over-the-top one, hence the smell.”
Hadley leads me into the kitchen, past three, running and screaming children who almost knock me over, to where her mother is. When I step on the tile, all I can see is the giant – maybe enormous is a better word – canvas. It takes up a whole, long, tall wall. If it wasn’t for the splatter of paint in the middle of it, it blended in so well I would have thought it was the wall.
“Hey, Mom,” Hadley says quietly. The way she sounds tells me that like my mom and I had early, Hadley and her mom had some kind of upset. “I brought Bam home, if that’s okay.”
I barely notice the woman until she turns around. A thick, black ponytail almost as long to reach her waist hangs down her back and swings as she turns. Her white over-sized painting shirt, covered in splatters of colours fans out around her. In her hand is an artist’s tray with paint and in the other is a paintbrush. She looks sad for a moment but then her eyes meet mine. She smiles.
“Bam!” she walks over to me with open arms. “I’ve heard so much about you! I don’t want to get paint on you, so air hug?”
She pretends to hug me so I return the gesture. My cheeks flush and Hadley smiles at me before turning her gaze towards the floor.
“What are you girls up to?” she asks, swirling some paint around with her paintbrush.
“We thought you might want us to watch my siblings,” Hadley replies.
Her mother grins. “That would be great! I’m just starting to figure out what I want to do with this painting. Maybe you can take them for ice cream next door? I’ll give you money.”
“Sounds good.” Hadley takes the paper and calls her brothers and sister. The three of them run quickly in, the youngest boy falling down and brushing himself off in the process. “Want ice cream?”
It turns out that taking three children under the age of ten to get ice cream – even if the parlour is right next door – deems to be a very hard task. The twenty minutes it takes to get ready and take them over there are frustrating. Hadley and I never have time to talk because she’s either running after her youngest brother or I’m answering her sister’s constant, pestering questions.
When we do get to the ice cream parlour, which seems like a small victory to me, I have the job of holding onto one of the boys hands, making sure he doesn’t run off like Hadley says he’s notorious for. As Hadley orders, I glance around the shop, taking in its old, classic features. When my eyes graze over the tables, they stop, meeting a woman’s. My heart skips a beat and my breath catches in my throat.
She smiles, but it’s more sad than happy.
I whip my head back towards the counter so quickly that my braid smacks Hadley’s shoulder and she jumps.
“What was that for?” she asks with a laugh. When her eyes meet mine, her smile falls away. “Hey, are you okay? You look really pale.”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. Or pass out. Maybe both.
“I have to go,” I breathe, my voice sounding choked as if I’m suffocating. Hadley asks if I’m okay but I don’t answer. Without pausing, I drop her brother’s hand and make a run for the door. My eyes meet the woman’s on the way out and she looks upset, maybe even angry.
I run and run and run, having no idea where I’m going. I just want to get away; as far away as I can from that woman.
Eventually, I end up at the far end of Mermaid Bay – the most part I’m unfamiliar with. The wind throws my hair in all directions as I reach the sand of a beach I didn’t know existed. I walk along it, kicking up the occasional stone and focusing on my breathing. I feel like someone has knocked all the wind out of me and my lungs aren’t getting enough air.
Waves wash up onto the beach, filling my ears with their sound. I double over until my hands are on my knees and I’m leaning over the sand. Something about it makes it easier for me to the breath and I refuse to even think about standing up. Colour starts to come back into my vision, as if a foggy film has been lifted away. I still don’t straighten.
“Are you okay?”
I can barely hear the voice over the waves. Slowly, I lift one of my hands and wave them away. The last thing I want to do is talk to somebody I don’t know right now, when I’m scared I might pass out. Even though I’m feeling better, the light headedness is still here.
The person says something else, something I can’t hear as I place my right hand back on my knee. I stare down at the sand, praying they’ll leave. Every part of the beige view in front of me blurs together, and I feel like a weight has been set on my chest.
My body feels too heavy for me to handle and the world swirls around me. Everything turns lopsided as the left side of my body collides with the sand, barely conscious. My beige vision of the sand turns entirely black.
After I faint, I’m only out completely for a moment.
“Bam!”
I don’t know who’s calling me, but I must know them since they know my nickname. I feel a hand on my upper arm, moving me slightly to see if I’m still here. I open my eyes, but everything is too bright, even after blinking. I shut them again.
“Bam, are you okay?”
I hear them sit down in front of me and feel their fingers in my hair. They push it behind my ear and leave their hand there for a moment. I try to move, try to sit up, but the person keeps me down.
“Just take it easy for a minute. Take some deep breathes.”
I do what I’m told and despite feeling stupid about how strange I must look, lying tangled in the sand breathing deeply, I open my eyes.
Evan’s face blocks out the bright and his hair falls around him, down towards me. He smiles slightly when he sees me looking at him and quickly removes his hand.
“Welcome back.” He laughs, but it sounds strained, like he forced it.
I blink a few times as Evan sits up, giving me my space. I put my fingers into the sand as my vision comes back to me and the sound of the waves quiets. Slowly, I sit up onto my hands and look at him.
“Promise me you won’t tell anyone I fainted,” I whisper, still feeling nauseous.
Evan nods. “Promise.”
“Thank you.” I brush my hair up over my head and sigh. “I think I should have stayed home today. My concussion clearly isn’t gone.”
Evan’s smile fades away as I sit up and cross my legs, feeling a little bit better. He avoids my gaze and I stare at him.
“What?” I finally ask.
Evan looks up from under his hair, but doesn’t lift his head. He’s looking at me as if to ask, do you really want to know?
I continue to stare at him.
“I don’t think it was entirely your concussion,” he admits.
My eyes narrow. “Then what do you think it was?”
“I think you were upset.”
I rise to my feet without thinking and I get a head rush from moving too fast. I brush the sand away from my knees as my vision goes grainy. When I stand up straight again, it goes back to normal.
“How would you know?” I question after a few moments.
Evan rises to his feet and shoves his hands in his shorts pockets. For a moment, he leans back, rolling on the balls of his feet. “I saw you run past my house, staggering, almost falling and crying. I’m pretty sure you were upset.”
I touch my fingers to my cheek and sure enough, it’s wet. I’ve cried twice within the same week – twice since the night of the funeral. What’s gotten into me?
“It’s okay,” Evan continues. I forgot he was talking. “But you need to watch your breathing. You don’t want to hit your head again, especially while you’re healing- hey, Bam!”
I’m already walking away from him, my shoes sinking into the sand, causing my steps to be uneven. By the time Evan reaches me I haven’t gotten very far. I can’t even see the pavement yet, and from there, I still don’t know my way home.
“Bam,” Evan says, placing a hand on my arm to stop me. He slowly turns me around and meets my eyes. “It’s okay,” he repeats.
Slowly, he lowers his arm, and for a moment I want to turn around and leave again. But this time, I nod once, and Evan leads me towards his house, smiling.