Текст книги "Reclaiming the Sand"

Автор книги: A. Meredith Walters

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

And just like the last time, Flynn was sat at a table, his hands moving deftly through a mound of clay. His fingers molded and shaped without hesitation. I had always enjoyed watching him like this. Creating. He became someone else. Someone confident and almost ballsy. It was awesome.

I stood in the hallway a little while longer, debating whether I should go inside. I didn’t know if I would be crossing into territory I needed to stay away from.

But then I acted without thinking. I pressed down on the door handle and faltered only a second before taking the plunge. The door hit the wall as I pushed it open with more force than was necessary. The bang bounced around the quiet room.

Flynn looked up, his hands still deep in the clay and he appeared startled to see me.

“Ellie,” he said flatly.

“Flynn,” I replied just as emotionless.

I stared at him long after he had dropped his eyes and continued to work on his project. I was already second-guessing my brash impulsivity.

“I’m glad you came,” Flynn’s words carried across the room and hit me directly in the chest.

Not able to stand there any longer, I shuffled toward him, my flip-flops slapping against the tiled floor. My bag hung off my shoulder and my terrified reluctance echoed in every step.

I still hadn’t said a word. I didn’t know what to say. So I watched him and it was easy to fall back into an old pattern. I sat down on the bench beside him, careful to allow a certain amount of space between us. I dropped my bag to the floor and leaned forward, my hair brushing the backs of my arms as they braced the wood in front of me.

I followed the movements of his hands with eager eyes, wishing, not for the first time, that I contained an ounce of his talent. What I wouldn’t give to be able to express myself like that.

The clock on the wall ticked its way through the hour. Each second punctuated by a growing sense of familiar ease. His art was therapy. Not just for him but for me as well.

After almost thirty minutes, Flynn blew a lock of hair out of his eyes and rolled his shoulders. “My fingers are starting to ache,” he explained, pulling his hands out of the clay and flexing them in front of him.

I leaned my head on my hand and stared down at the tiny structure he had sculpted. It looked like a gingerbread house with a latticed roof and decorative trim. It was tiny and perfect.

“What is it?” I asked him, as he stretched out his back in exaggerated movements.

“It’s a house,” Flynn replied blandly.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I see that, but what’s it for?” I asked.

“I’m making a model of the Candy Land board game village. This is going to be the Peanut Brittle House. I’ve already made the Gumdrop Mountains and the Lollipop Forest,” he explained, rubbing out the edges of the small roof with his finger.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because someone paid me to,” Flynn replied, already returning to his sculpture.

“Who would want a replica of Candy Land?” I asked, genuinely curious.

Flynn shrugged. “It’s for a shop window in New York for Christmas. It’s going to light up and have animatronic stuff around it.”

I blinked in shock. “New York as in New York City?” I gaped.

“Yep,” he responded, seeming a lot less impressed than I was.

“And is that what you do? You make sculptures and people buy them?” I don’t know why I was asking. I shouldn’t care what he did for a living but I could admit that I was sort of interested. Though I was working hard to convince myself that it didn’t mean anything.

“Yeah. I make it and people seem to like it. They pay me a lot of money for it too,” he said with zero modesty and absolutely no tact.

“So you’re loaded then,” I inquired, sounding more than a little bitter.

“I make more money than a lot of people. Probably more than you,” he said and I tried not to be insulted. Who was I kidding? I was really insulted.

I had the urge to smash his stupid little house with my fist. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t let him get to me. I wouldn’t be hurt by his thoughtless comments that I knew he didn’t really mean.

It sucked how he was able to reaffirm every crappy thing I had thought about myself and my life with only a few words.

Flynn didn’t realize the massive blunder he had made with his insensitive observation. I picked up the tiny detailing knife he had been using and carved a line through the smooshy clay.

“Don’t touch that,” Flynn said, grabbing the implement from my fingers, though I was aware of how he made sure not to touch me. So many things had changed for him, but some were fundamentally the same.

“Sorry. That was probably rude huh?” he asked and I blinked up at him in surprise. Was this Flynn being self-aware?

“Yeah it was,” I agreed.

“Sorry,” he said again and I found myself smiling again.

“You said that already.”

Flynn gave me a shy grin. “I always liked it when you smiled. You have really pretty teeth.”

I snorted and it came out as a cough.

“Uh thanks,” I stuttered, finding myself without a witty comeback. What could I say to something like that?

“They’re really straight and white. They fit your mouth really well,” Flynn went on as he peered at my teeth. I wondered if I should open my mouth and let him have a look inside.

“I don’t even know what to say to that, Flynn,” I told him honestly. Flynn laughed. It was stilted and strained but it was a laugh. And it made me smile with a rusty stretching of lips.

“Do you still want to learn how to do this?” Flynn asked and I frowned. What was he talking about? When had I told him I wanted to sculpt?

Flynn turned back to the table and started rolling the extra clay into a ball and then flattened it with his palm. He repeated the movement over and over again. He was methodical. Every pat, every roll, done in perfectly timed increments.

“You told me that day in school when you were wearing the blue shirt with the torn collar that you wished you could draw. You said you didn’t think you were talented enough. I offered to teach you,” Flynn said, surprising me with another accurate recollection of a conversation that had occurred almost seven years ago.

“You did offer. I never took you up on that,” I said, forcing my brain to think back to a time I had worked hard to forget. My mind stretched and strained as it sought to extract the event Flynn was talking about. I had worked hard to suppress so much of my past that trying to remember things I actually wanted to was difficult. One of the many therapists I had been forced to see over the years had told me that it was my defense mechanism. My mind shut down and shoved away the things that hurt.

It had served me well up until now. Up until I wished to remember specific elements of my past with the same clarity that Flynn did.

“You never asked me again. But if you want, I can show you now,” he said, his voice slow and unsure.

I slid across the bench until I was beside him. I still didn’t touch him. I knew he didn’t like that. I didn’t want that either. But I was close enough to smell the soap he had used in the shower and the sharp acridity of sweat drying on his skin from sitting in the warm room.

Flynn cleared his throat and looked at me from the side of his eyes, never meeting my gaze head on. It was amazing how his nuances and behaviors were familiar to me. Even after all this time and no matter how much my mind blocked out, there were still some things I couldn’t forget.

One was the awkward twist of his hands when he was nervous. Another was the slight tick in his jaw when he was worked up. He was doing both right now.

With what seemed to be a conscientious effort, he stopped rubbing his hands together and placed them back in the clay. He took the ball he had made and rolled it across the table until it sat in front of me.

“Knead it for a few minutes. Make it pliable. It will be easier to mold,” he told me in small, complete sentences.

I did as he said, enjoying the way it oozed between my fingers.

“Break off a small piece and roll into a cone, like this.” Flynn’s fingers formed his own piece of clay expertly. I fumbled as I tried to do the same. I held up my finished product with a wry grin.

“Like this?”

Flynn’s lips twitched. His smiles were rare things. He gave them sparingly and I found that I resented him for withholding them from me.

He plucked the clay out of my hand and pressed it together between his palms, flattening it before rolling it back into a ball. He put it down on the table.

“Try it again,” he instructed. I fought the urge to become oppositional and angry. I had never taken direction well. I balked at authority and had made it a mission while growing up to fight against the system in the only way that I could, with complete and total defiance.

But with Flynn, I knew he wasn’t trying to be bossy. It was just who he was. And I felt like I was trapped in an endless loop of déjà vu as I fought down my annoyance and attempted to accept this man for who he was.

It was becoming frighteningly easy to slip back into our old roles. I was slowly stepping back into the shoes of an Ellie McCallum that I had thought long gone. An Ellie that had existed only with Flynn.

Swallowing thickly. I rolled and spread the clay again. And once more Flynn flattened it and handed it back.

“You’re not doing it right. It should look like this,” he held out his own flawless example and I thought childishly about squishing it, ruining it the way he had ruined mine.

But his insistence on perfection resulted in me finally creating a cone he was happy with.

“That looks good. Now pinch off another ball of clay and roll it between your fingers,” he said and I followed his directions. I watched and mimicked his movements, often not to his standards. And I would get frustrated when he’d insist I do it over again.

Forty-five minutes later, I was grinning from ear to ear as I put the last touches on a tiny, detailed bouquet of clay flowers that I had made all by myself. With Flynn’s help of course.

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” I breathed out; hardly able to believe I had made something so delicate. My clumsy, inept fingers seemed incapable of something like this. But here I was, holding something lovely. It filled me with pride.

And it had been fun.

I had enjoyed myself.

Flynn nodded his head. “It is. You did a good job,” he said, his praise making me happier than I’d like to admit.

“What should I do with it now?” I asked, not wanting to touch it, afraid I’d mess it up. My hands, so unaccustomed to making anything worthwhile, seemed poised ready to destroy it. It’s what I was good at.

“It needs to go into the kiln,” Flynn said, indicating the clay oven on the other side of the room. I carefully picked up my tiny creation and followed him. He gently took the flowers from my hand and placed them on the rack inside.

While he situated the pieces I looked at the pottery on the table that Flynn had just removed from the kiln. I picked up a tiny dog that was strangely familiar.

“This is cute. Did you make it?” I said, rubbing the rough edges with my finger.

“Yes,” Flynn muttered, taking the dog from my hand and placing it back on the table.

I stared closer at the creature he had made and struggled with another memory I had shut away. “You had a dog that looked like. What was his name?” I asked, hazy recollections of a hairy dog danced through my head.

Flynn’s face paled and he dipped his chin until it hit his chest. His hands clasped together in front of him and he started to rub furiously.

What had I said?

“Marty,” Flynn said quietly.

Marty?

That’s right! He had a Border Collie named Marty!

“You would throw balls around your yard and he’d pick them up and put them in a pile by your feet,” I said, smiling. Images of long fur and a wet tongue on my cheek made me feel warm inside.

Another memory of sitting on Flynn’s living room couch and Marty laying his head in my lap flooded my mind.

It was a memory of happy days and smiling faces. His mother’s banana bread and Flynn’s hesitant touches followed by breathless laughter and dog fur tickling my skin.

“Did you bring him with you?” I asked, hoping Flynn would say yes.

“Marty’s dead,” Flynn barked out with obvious anger. He gripped the clay dog in his hands and then in a flurry of violence, he threw it against the wall. It exploded in a rain of rubble to the floor.

The room was deathly quiet after Flynn’s outburst.

I waited a few beats, unable to move.

“Flynn…” I began but he shook his head.

“Shut up! Don’t say anything. Just leave me alone for a minute!” He retreated to the other side of the room and I was left standing there, not knowing what in the hell I said to send him spiraling like that.

I listened to the ticking clock and wondered whether I should leave. It seemed our nice afternoon was at an end.

But it felt oddly wrong to leave him while he was so upset. So I sat down and fiddled with the small sculptures.

The minutes ticked by and I chanced a look at Flynn. He seemed composed now if not a bit embarrassed. His face was flushed red and he was chewing on his bottom lip.

“It was the fire. The fire killed him. He never got out,” he called out, startling me.

“What?” I asked, not sure I had heard him correctly.

“The fire at my house. He died in it. He used to sleep in the basement and Mom couldn’t get to him.”

Air left my lungs and my head began to buzz.

Flynn slowly came back to my side of the room. With shaking hands, he bent down and started cleaning up the shattered remains of the clay dog.

I felt sick. I felt horrified. I wanted to run screaming from the awful truth I had just been given. I hastily tried to shove the guilt into a more manageable space inside of me before I choked on it. But it was too late.

Marty, the beautiful Border Collie was dead. The dog I had cuddled and kissed and who Flynn had loved was gone.

Because of me.

I felt it deep in my soul. The unjust futility of his lost life. The tragedy of it threatened to undo me.

I started the brutal and violent process of smothering the shame in the pit of my stomach. Shove, push, cut it up into tiny compact pieces so that it was easier to get rid of.

Once I had packed it away I was finally able to face him again and express the words that were expected in this kind of situation.

“I’m so sorry, Flynn” I began but he interrupted me.

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t kill him. The fire killed him. He couldn’t get out.”

The door to my emotions flew wide open again and I was left speechless.

What?

My throat closed up and my mouth went dry.

Flynn didn’t know.

Somehow he had been shielded from the reality of that horrific night.

I had lived the last six years thinking all my cards had been on the table. That Flynn knew what had happened.

But for some reason he hadn’t been given that particular painful piece of knowledge. And I was jealous of his blissful ignorance. He didn’t have to carry around the knowledge of what I had done to him. He was oblivious and a hateful part of me despised him for it.

My head hurt. My chest felt too tight.

I needed to leave.

Without another word, I grabbed my bag and left the art studio. Flynn didn’t call after me. He didn’t follow me. I didn’t expect him to.

But some tiny, annoying part of me that hadn’t been beaten down by emotional numbness was sad that he didn’t.

-Ellie-

Spending time with Flynn had been a mistake. And it wasn’t one I wanted repeated.

Our brief encounter had been as explosive as a land mine. It had blown open doors that I had kept resolutely shut for a very long time. But in the end it had also fortified me in the way only self-destruction can.

Days faded into one another and I didn’t see him. My feet were itching to walk across campus once or twice, heading in the direction where I knew I’d find him, but my rational mind reigned supreme over traitorous desires.

I hated myself for the weakness. I hated him for bringing it out in me. I was in a thick quagmire of all around loathing.

But it wasn’t all bad. Even as I struggled with Flynn’s presence in my world, I was finding dreams perhaps weren’t so unattainable.

Professor Smith had called my name before I left class one Friday afternoon. I startled at the sound of his bland, non-descript tone. I immediately began to catalog the million and one ways I could have possibly gotten into trouble.

It was instinct. I couldn’t help it. Rarely was my name called for a good reason.

So I was shocked to the tips of my toes when he pulled out the essay I had handed in several weeks ago on Young Goodman Brown with a red A blazoned on the top.

I took the paper and stared at it. Was this a joke? I don’t think I’d ever gotten an A in my life.

Professor Smith had written a few comments along the margins. Excellently explained! And wonderful analysis! Well done!

Professor Smith pointed at my essay. “This is excellent work, Ellie. It was one of the better essays I’ve read in a long time. Your arguments were solid and well thought out. There was a level of deduction that is highly complex and in my opinion more in line for a graduate level class. I have to say I’m extremely impressed by your work in this class. I would urge you to take some more challenging English classes next semester. Your writing is effortless and fluid. It’s clear you have a natural gift. It would be a shame for you not to pursue it.”

My mouth gaped open and I closed it quickly. I didn’t know what to say. I had taken the class on a whim. And here I was being told I was actually doing well.

I couldn’t think of a time in my life when I was told I was good at something. In school, I had barely coasted by and the people at juvie had been anything but encouraging.

But here was a college professor telling me I sort of rocked in his own boring, uninspiring way. Pride was nice to feel.

I rolled my essay up and gripped it tightly in my hand, scared to accept what he was telling me, but unwilling to dismiss it altogether.

“Have you signed up for classes for the spring yet?” Professor Smith asked me.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to say that I was suffering from a severe case of chicken shit. Not knowing how to believe in yourself was hard on the whole planning for a possible future thing.

Professor Smith wrote something down on a sticky note and handed it to me. I looked down and saw that he had listed three other classes. British Literature, Creative Writing, and the Development of the Short Story.

“These are just some ideas when you’re putting your schedule together. They are good pre-requisites for transferring to a four-year school.”

I almost swallowed on my tongue. Four-year school? It was the carrot dangling in front of my face. The cheese at the end of the maze. Tantalizing but still so out of reach.

“I don’t think” I began, ready to give voice to the idiocy of these pipe dreams.

Professor Smith interrupted me. “Just think about it. No need to make a decision about it now.”

Think about it.

Yeah I could do that.

I tapped my essay with my finger. “Will do, Professor. Thank you,” I said and I meant it.

Maybe Professor Smith wasn’t so bad after all.

I left the Dunlop building in good spirits.

And then my phone rang.

Damn that phone!

“Miss McCallum?” a voice said on the other end.

“Hi Mr. Cox,” I said, trying not to snicker. It was my probation officer. Mr. James Cox. Mr. Cox to me. I couldn’t say his name without wanting to bust a gut. I was pretty sure his dickish demeanor had a direct correlation to the amount of teasing he received as a kid bearing the brunt of that unfortunate name.

He wasn’t the worst as far as probation officer go but he was still a jerk. I for one didn’t like having someone look over your shoulder every time I sneezed. I had to account for all of my X,Ys and Zs. I may have mentioned that I didn’t care for authority and Mr. Cox embodied everything I hated about people with power.

“I’m going to need you to head over to the Straight Lab office to submit some urine for a drug screening,” he informed me.

“I’m supposed to be at work in twenty minutes, Mr. Cox,” I argued.

“And this is mandatory as per your probation. Or perhaps you like the view inside a jail cell,” Mr. Cox said shortly.

I thought about giving him a sarcastic response but Mr. Cox was not a person who appreciated my dry sense of humor. Mostly because he had no sense of humor himself. His wife must hate him.

“Fine. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I muttered, despising the man who jerked me on a string.

“Good. I’ll call you in a few days with the results. I hope for your sake they’re clean,” he warned. He didn’t need to tell me what would happen if they weren’t.

“I know, sir,” I snapped. I couldn’t help it. He was pushing the asshole thing a little too far today.

“We all need a reminder now and then. Goodbye.” Mr. Cox had hung up.

I grumbled a few choice obscenities under my breath as I made my way to my car. I shouldn’t be so pissy about having to go take an impromptu piss test. It was my own stupidity for getting myself in this situation to begin with.

But it still sucked being tugged around like that.

I drove over to Straight Labs and went inside. I gave a humorless laugh to find Shane and Stu sat in the waiting room.

“The crew’s all here,” Shane grinned when he saw me. Stu didn’t look up from his phone but raised his hand in a lazy wave.

I checked in with the receptionist and went to have a seat across from my friends.

“So what were you doing when you were told to drop everything and come piss in a cup?” Shane asked.

I picked at my cuticles. “Uh, I was at home, no biggie,” I lied.

“Well, I was getting some seriously fantastic head. Nothing destroys a hard on like a call from your PO,” Shane grumbled.

“Nice,” I replied dryly.

“Oh, baby, don’t be jealous. You know I’ll always have a spot in my heart for that pretty mouth of yours,” Shane leered and I rolled my eyes.

“You coming to the party tonight?” Stu asked, still not looking up from his phone.

“Didn’t know there was one,” I said. I had no plans to go out tonight. I was exhausted and had a lot of reading before Thursday’s class.

“I’m wounded, Ells! It’s my birthday! How could you forget?” Shane pouted.

“Sorry, Shane. I forgot,” I apologized though it wasn’t surprising I forgot his birthday. Stu and Shane weren’t the remember-their-birthdays kind of friends.

“You haven’t gone out with us in ages. What’s up with that?” Stu asked, looking up finally. I didn’t want to look at him. There was something about his eyes that always made my blood run cold.

“I’ve just been busy,” I responded lamely.

Before Stu could say anything else he was called back to give his urine sample.

“This better not take too long. I need to get back to my apartment. I’ve got things to take care of,” Shane said, grabbing his crotch.

I made a gagging noise. “God, Shane. Enough with the visuals. So who’s the lucky girl?” I teased.

I wasn’t expecting him to flush red and refuse to meet my eyes.

Huh.

“Shane…come on, tell me!” I goaded.

“Uh…” Shane stuttered.

I had never known Shane to be so secretive about his conquests. He was the type of guy to kiss and tell everyone. Including some grandmothers and a priest or two.

I raised an eyebrow, instantly suspicious.

“Shane…” I said, giving him my best tell-me-or-I’ll-twist-your-junk look.

“Dania, okay. But don’t say anything to Stu. He’s been talking about hooking up with her again.”

I groaned. What the hell was wrong with my friends? They jumped in each other’s pants faster than a case of crabs. It was gross.

“You jealous, baby?” Shane asked, looking entirely too hopeful.

I threw a magazine that had been sitting on the chair beside me at his face. “No, I’m not jealous you moron! But my god, can’t you find someone to fuck that isn’t in our immediate group of friends? And I thought Dania was hooking up with that guy from the river party.” I realized it had been a while since I had bothered to find out the latest goings on in Dania’s personal life. I wasn’t sure if that made me a bad friend or a protecting my brain from the images.

“I don’t know if she is or not. It was just a random thing. She came by to pick up a movie she left at my place last week and you know how she is,” Shane smirked and I threw another magazine at him.

“And you’re saying Stu wants her back? Seriously?” Well there went my Stu is gay theory.

“Yeah. Maybe. He’s been sort of nostalgic about her lately,” Shane said, rubbing the cheek that was hit the magazine.

My mouth dropped open in shock. “You’re kidding me! Nostalgic about what? The time she broke his window? Or the time he called her a slut in front of the entire cafeteria?”

Shane shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t really care what they do. I was just getting my rocks off and I don’t need Stu up in my ass about it. So just don’t say anything.”

I curled my lip in disgust.

“Yeah, whatever. I’ll let you keep that lovely tidbit all to yourself,” I said, looking away. Dania and I were definitely having a talk later about this one. What the hell was she thinking?

You would think after getting knocked up, she’d learn her lesson. Spreading your legs to randoms, even if the random was Shane Nolan, was a stupid idea.

But obviously she needed to be beaten around the head a few more times before she saw it. And I was happy to do the beating.

Shane was called back a few minutes later and then it was my turn.

After I was finished, I went outside and found Stu waiting for me.

“You wanna go get a drink at Woolly’s?” Stu asked. My mouth fell open for the second time in less than twenty minutes. Stu Wooten was actually asking me to hang out?

Stu and I weren’t close. I could pretend at a relationship with Reggie and Shane but never with Stu. He wasn’t a talker. And it was no secret he was a bit homicidal. The truth was he freaked me out. He was the type to shank you as much as look at you.

“Uh, no thanks. I’ve got stuff to do,” I mumbled, unable to come up with a better excuse.

Stu lit up a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I saw you talking to that freak,” he said, surprising me.

“Flynn?” I asked.

“Is that his name?” Stu countered.

“Yeah. That’s his name. And when the hell did you see me talking to him?” I asked. And why did I feel like I was being interrogated?

“At Darla’s. You guys seemed pretty cozy.” Stu blew out another puff of smoke, this time in my face.

I coughed and waved a hand in front of me.

“What’s it to you, Stu?” I was getting annoyed by this whole conversation.

Stu dropped his cigarette and stomped it out.

“It’s nothing to me. Just thought it strange that you were hanging out all friendly like with the tard. Seems to me you should be a little more selective in who you hang out with,” Stu remarked.

I was going to blow my top. Stu Wooten was the last person I needed shit from.

“Look, Stu, I don’t hang out with Flynn. And if I did, that wouldn’t be any of your business! And he’s not a tard. He has a name. So freaking use it!” I had to take a deep breath to calm myself down. I was getting strangely worked up.

Stu didn’t say anything about my outburst. And that made me feel even more foolish. What had possessed me to defend Flynn like that? But it infuriated me to hear Stu disparage him like that.

“Whatever. Later, Ellie,” Stu said, climbing up into his truck and I was left standing there feeling completely unsettled.