“What do you think?” A voice asks quietly.
I turn and there stands Dimitri. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here. I can leave.”
“Please don’t leave,” he whispers.
I have to look away, back at the car. “The car looks awesome.”
“I’m afraid it’s too nice to drive now. The Porsche may not be retired after all.”
“You must be really proud. You did a great job.”
“Thanks. Your dad did most of the work. He’s so talented. It’s like watching an artist. I don’t know quite how to repay him. He won’t accept any money. Do you have any ideas?”
That sounds like my dad. “My dad loves to help people, even more so when he can teach them something in the process. Believe me, he probably enjoyed this more than you did. But I’ll let you know if I come up with a good idea.”
I feel him standing right next to me. He isn’t touching me, but I can feel his presence. His hand comes within an inch of my arm, hesitates and then lowers before any contact is made; it’s shaking. Tears fill my eyes and I know I need to get back in the house … quickly. I turn and head for the door.
I pause as I turn the doorknob and my voice cracks. “Cubs tickets,” I screech. “My dad’s always wanted to go to Wrigley Field.”
Life is sometimes … consumed with guilt.
Chapter 10
Bruises that are ugly
And painful
And more than skin deep
During the next few weeks I try to keep myself as busy as I possibly can to keep my mind off Dimitri. I fill out college applications and even talk to my guidance counselor at school. He’s actually a pretty cool guy and I find myself regretting that I haven’t taken advantage of getting to know him before now. He answers a lot of questions and quiets some of my fears about the next four years, including scholarships, loans, and majors. I’ve talked to my friends a lot about their plans, too, and it is comforting to know that we all seem to be in the same boat. Everyone is a little scared and uncertain about the future.
At the beginning of February, the optometrist office closes and my job ends. It’s a sad day, but I’m relieved when the final day arrives. Being around depressed people is physically and mentally draining and I’ve had a hard enough time lately just being with myself. I am looking forward to something a little more positive. I can’t help but feel like a mom watching her grown kids leave home and go out on their own. I worry about my former coworkers and what they’ll do next.
A lot of my time has been spent with friends lately. I’ve gone to the movies with Piper and hung out at Monica’s house a few afternoons. Teagan and Tate came to my house and watched a hockey game one night and even John stopped by to drop off a loaf of his famous banana bread and a new sci-fi book for me to read. I have friends again and it’s great, but something is missing. I can talk to all of my friends and they are always there to listen, but they don’t hear me the way Dimitri did. He “got” me better than anyone else ever has.
It’s Thursday morning and all that’s on my mind is the fact that my parents are going out of town for the weekend. I’m looking forward to having a quiet house all to myself. My plans are simple: I’m going to sleep in and lie around in my pajamas all weekend and watch TV.
The school day is completely normal until after lunch. I realize that one of my textbooks is in my car, and I have to trudge through the snowy parking lot to get it before science class. As I’m running back to the building, I see Teagan opening the door just ahead of me.
“Teag, wait up!” I yell.
He holds the door, but doesn’t respond or turn to acknowledge me.
I’m out of breath by the time I catch up. “Thanks,” I say, panting.
He’s still quiet and distant.
I put my hand on his massive shoulder and try to turn him. Impossible. “Hey, Teag? What’s the matter?” I ask.
He turns slowly, but his eyes look past me.
I cup my hand over my mouth. “Oh my god!” I lower my voice realizing that the few people straggling in the hall are now staring at me.
He looks disfigured. The skin around his right eye is black and blue and bulging as if there’s a golf ball lodged beneath it. The lid is swollen shut. He’s still avoiding looking at me, with his good eye at least.
“What happened?”
He shrugs. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Calm down.”
“Not as bad as it looks? It looks awful! Teagan, who did this to you?” I’m shaking his arm, his shirtsleeve clenched in my fist. How can he be so calm?
“I got in a fight last night with a couple of guys from North Ridge. I’m fine, really.” He’s trying to put on his best macho Teagan face, but something is off and that worries me more than the black eye.
I know he’s lying to me, but I don’t know why. “Listen, we need to get to class, but this isn’t over. We are talking about this after school, okay?”
He shrugs.
“I said after school, okay?” I can be bossy when I want to.
He half smiles. “Okay, okay Mom. Am I grounded, too?”
“Funny … Maybe … Meet me in the parking lot after school. I’ll take you home and we can talk.”
He nods and the sight of him makes me feel sad and distressed all over again.
• • •
As promised, Teagan is waiting next to Jezebel after school. I see him from across the lot. He’s so big he’s hard to miss, even from a distance.
“Ronnie!” A voice calls from behind me. I chalk it up to my imagination and keep walking. The only person at school that calls me Ronnie is Dimitri and we aren’t talking much lately.
Then I hear it again. “Ronnie!” I decide to glance behind me this time. No one else will realize I’m hearing voices, right?
Dimitri is jogging up to me, out of breath. He begins speaking breathlessly. “Damn, you walk fast. Where’s the fire?”
I shrug, but can see Teagan waiting anxiously. He’s leaning against my car with his arms crossed in front of his chest. I know him well and his body language is threatening. Unless I want a testosterone-induced confrontation, I need to keep this brief. “What’s up? What do you need?” The words come out harsher than I intended because Teagan is making me nervous.
Dimitri seems taken aback by my tone. “Well, Sunny wants to talk to you and she was wondering if she could stop by your house sometime tonight? Will you be home?” The conversation has taken an impersonal turn.
I’m shocked. “Sunny wants to talk to me? Why?”
His answer is short. “That’s between the two of you.” The confused look on my face prompts him to elaborate. “It’s not about us. Okay?”
I relax a little and nod. “Okay.”
Dimitri’s noticed that I keep glancing in the direction of my car and finally looks for himself. He sees Teagan standing next to Jezebel, and his expression morphs from irritated, to crushed, to pissed all within two seconds. “I see that I’m keeping you from something. I’ll see you later.” He turns abruptly and walks toward his car, which is parked next to Sebastian’s on the other side of the lot.
Suddenly I feel irritated, crushed, and pissed, too. I stomp toward Teagan.
“What did he want?” Teagan asks. His voice is filled with disgust.
“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.” I say as I climb in my car. “Are we going to your house or mine?”
Teagan doesn’t hesitate. He never hesitates when I ask this question. “Yours.” I start the engine. Teagan and his dad live with his grandma in a rundown trailer home. I’ve only been there a few times in all the years I’ve known him. He’s ashamed of it, and not many people aside from me and Tate even know where it is.
When we arrive at my house Teagan makes himself at home, like he always does. Teagan loves coming to my house. He turns on the charm, and though my mom can see right through it, she can’t help but love him. Teagan adores my mom, too. He’s spent a lot of time at my house over the years and I
think he sees my mom as the mom he never had. When he was eight he even asked her if she would adopt him. He never knew his own mother; she left him and Larry when he was only a baby. Larry drinks a lot and has trouble holding a job. Teagan’s grandma does what she can, which isn’t much. Teagan’s home life sucks, but he never talks about it.
“When does Mom get home?” he asks as he helps himself to a soda from our refrigerator.
I hand him some ice cubes wrapped in a dishtowel for his eye. “Jo gets home around four-thirty. Why, are you staying for dinner?”
He smiles and sits down at the table holding the ice pack to his eye. “I don’t know. Is she making anything good?”
That comment earns him a smack on the back of the head as I walk by. “My mom’s an awesome cook; everything she makes is good. You know that.”
He removes the ice pack and sets it on the table in front of him. “Guess I’m staying then,” he says, as he chugs down the soda in a few loud gulps.
I sit down across the table from him and stare at his black eye. He looks at me with his good eye for a while and then looks away. I know I’m making him uncomfortable staring at the bruises, but I’m trying to figure out what’s really happened and how I’m going to convince him to tell me the truth about it.
“Does it hurt?” I ask quietly.
He shakes his head without looking at me. “No, it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt.”
Slowly I get up from my chair and walk around the table until I’m standing in front of him. I bend over and look closely at his bruise. He tenses up, but doesn’t move or say anything. It’s deep purple in the center and more red around the edges. His eyelid is puffy but I can see his eye moving behind the swelling. Teagan closes his good eye and winces in pain when I gently brush my finger across the angry bruise.
My hand retracts at the first sign of pain. “I knew it. It hurts, doesn’t it? Are you sure nothing’s broken? What if your eye socket is broken? Or … or your cheek bone?”
Teagan exhales loudly. “Now you’re a doctor, too? For Christ’s sake, nothing’s broken, Veronica.”
The staring commences when I sit back down at the table across from him. It’s like I can’t think straight unless I’m focused on his injury. Staring at it quiets every other thought in my head and enables me to give him my full attention. “Teag, you know you’re my best friend, right? You know that I’d do anything for you, right?”
He nods.
I reach across the table and take his hand in both of mine. He lets me. “Then will you please, please tell me what really happened? Who did this to you? The truth this time.”
He looks away, but his grip on my hands tightens. It’s quiet for a long time. The expression on his face hardens, not in anger, but sadness.
The sadness hurts my heart. “Teag, do you remember that time, the summer after fourth grade, when we were riding our bikes on the dirt hills and I thought I was Evil Knievel and tried to pull off a double hill jump and ended up careening off and crashing into the chain link fence?”
His face softens a little and he nods.
“Remember how I split my leg open? I tried to tell you I was okay, but you knew I wasn’t. I was bleeding all over and my left leg hurt so bad that I couldn’t walk. You carried me six blocks to my house.”
He nods again.
“When we got to my house you were barely out of breath, even though you’d just carried me all that way. Your shirt was soaked in blood and I remember wondering how in the world your grandma was going to get it clean. I felt so bad for ruining your shirt. It was your favorite.”
He snorts out a laugh. “You were worried about my shirt and I was convinced that your leg was broken and they were going to have to amputate it.”
I laugh too because I’d forgotten that part. “That’s right. You kept telling my dad to take me to the hospital so the doctors could find a way to ‘save’ my leg.”
We sit quietly for a few several moments just staring at each other.
He smiles again and says, “Remember how pissed Jo was when she came home and saw that huge gash butterfly-bandaged shut? I thought she was going to kill your dad for not taking you to the doctor to get stitches.”
“I survived though, and got a pretty wicked scar out of the deal.” I squeeze his hand.
“It is a pretty wicked scar.” He agrees. “I’m kind of jealous of it actually.”
“And you know what? To this day, every time I look at my scar I think of you. I think about how lucky I am to have a friend like you. Someone who cared about me that much, even at ten years old, to carry me six blocks and let me bleed all over him in the process.”
He looks down at the table and blinks several times and then mumbles, “I’d do it again.”
Now my eyes are tearing up and I am pleading quietly again, “And I’d do it for you, if I could. Please tell me what happened. Who hit you?”
His head has dropped to look at the table and I can’t see his face anymore, but tears are hitting the table in rapid succession.
I jump up and circle the table to stand behind him wrapping my arms under his and around his huge chest. I press my cheek between his shoulder blades and hug him as tightly as I can. He places his hands over mine and holds them against his chest, which rises and falls with each sob. As the sobs lessen he pulls my hands away and turns to face me. He stands up pulling me into a hug. We stand there for a very long time. He cries and I hold him. I’m oddly calm until he stops and then I start to panic.
Finally, he takes a deep breath, looks me in the eye, and in a whisper tells me something I am not prepared to hear. “Larry.”
I’m the one crying now. It’s an angry sort of hysterical cry, completely unhinged. “What?!” I scream. “Your father did this? Who in the hell does he think he is?” Teagan grabs me by the shoulders. He’s trying to calm me down now, but it’s not working. “Does your grandma know about this? He can’t do this to you!”
He turns his back to me. “She knows. It’s been going on most of my life. He only does it when he gets really drunk and I mouth off to him. He’s just never punched me in the face before. He knows better than to leave bruises … where people can see them.”
I’m in complete and utter shock at this point. “This has happened before and I never knew?”
He nods.
It’s a punch to my gut. “Teag, I’m so sorry. I can’t let you go home. You’re staying here.”
“Veronica, are you out of your fucking mind? I can’t stay here. Larry will know I told you.”
“So? He should be rotting in jail for what he’s done to you.”
He grabs my arm and looks me in the eye. “We’re not telling anyone about this. I’m not reporting this to the police … and neither are you. I mean it.”
“Teag, this is serious.”
A disgusted, humorless laugh escapes his lips. “No, this is my life, Veronica. It’s always been this way and it always will be.”
I interrupt him, still pleading, “But it doesn’t have to be like this. Can’t you see that?” Just then I hear my mom’s car pulling into the driveway. “I’m telling my mom,” I whisper.
I take his lack of response as approval.
As soon as my mom walks in the door and sees him, Teagan tells her everything. I’m floored that I never knew any of this before today. My mom listens intently, gives Teagan a hug, and then also refuses to let him go home. She calls his grandmother and asks her to put Teagan’s soccer gear, clothes, and toiletries in boxes while Larry is still at work and she races over and picks them up. She tells him he can stay with us as long as he needs too. He agrees … as long as we don’t call the police. We find out Teagan has an aunt that lives about ten miles away. He doesn’t see her often because she refuses to speak to his grandma or dad. My mom tells Teagan she’ll call her.
• • •
Teagan, Mom and I eat dinner after that, which, after all of the commotion, seems quiet and almost normal. My mom gives Teagan a pillow and bl
anket and apologizes over and over for our lack of a spare bedroom. There’s a futon just outside my room in the basement, and he can sleep there. No one uses it except on the rare occasion that company visits. It’s not very comfortable, but it could be worse. I’m helping Teagan make the bed when I hear the doorbell ring. I don’t think much of it until I hear the voices coming from the front room above us and my mom yells down for me to come up.
It’s Sunny. My stomach turns inside out. I haven’t seen her since Dimitri and I broke up. “I forgot she was coming,” I say under my breath.
“What? Who is it?” Teagan knows I’m nervous.
“It’s Sunny, Dimitri’s mom. I’ll be right back.” I start for the stairs.
Teagan booms, “Dimitri’s mom? What in the hell is she doing here to see you?”
I turn and shoot him an angry glare. “Shh! Teagan, shut up! She can hear you. I don’t know why she’s here. Now be quiet so I can go talk to her.”
I walk tentatively into the front room. Sunny and my mom are sitting and talking quietly. I overhear my mom asking about Dimitri. They both go quiet when I enter.
“Hi Sunny,” I say softly. I feel a wave of guilt, and suddenly I fear she’ll start yelling at me.
Instead, she walks over and gives me a hug, saying, “Hi sweetie. I’ve really missed seeing you. How are you doing?”
My guilt turns into relief. Sunny Glenn is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. “I’ve missed you, too. I’m doing alright.”
She’s listening intently—the same way Dimitri does, I realize. She nods and takes me by the hand to sit down on the chair next to her. “I won’t keep you long. I know it’s getting late. The reason I wanted to talk to you tonight is to ask if I might get your help with something.”