The Failing Hours(24)

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I don’t want her to, but curiosity wins out. I move near her on the bed, present her with my back so she can slide the zipper down the back of my dress.

The same dress I’ve worn to every special occasion in the past year, and thank god it still fits.

I remain quiet so Winnie will start reading the posts out loud.

“Someone wrote: Zeke Daniels is a sexist pig.”

Yeah, I could see that.

Winnie goes on. “Zeke Daniels’ number one talent, besides wrestling, is to hit it and quit it.” She glances up. “Yikes.”

“Zeke Daniels had sex with me at a party in the bathroom and didn’t bother to wait for me to pull my pants up before walking out the door…Zeke Daniels is a fucking prick.” She looks up after that one. “Is that true?”

I shrug. No sense in denying it. “He’s a little rough around the edges.”

Her brow goes up, face back in her phone. “Zeke Daniels deserves a medal for biggest asshole on campus…there is nothing nice about this guy…Zeke Daniels is everything your mother warned you about, and then some…don’t bother ladies, he’s not interested in commitment…can someone say issues…”

I cut her off before she can finish that last one. “Winnie, s-stop. Th-Th-that’s e-enough.”

She lowers the phone to her lap, looking abashed. “Shit. Sorry, Vi.” Loud sigh. “What do you know about this guy? Is he safe?” Her bottom teeth nibble her top lip. “I mean, is this the kind of guy you’ve been hanging out with?”

“I-I wouldn’t say we’ve been hanging out.”

Not really.

“What would you call it then?” she wants to know.

“Studying mostly. Volunteering together.” I begin ticking off all the things we’ve been doing the past few weeks. “Play dates. Homework. Tonight’s fundraiser.”

“Holy crap, Violet! Are you dating him? This guy is ridiculously good-looking.”

My dress falls to the floor and I bend to scoop it up, not caring that she’s seeing me in my strapless bra and underwear. She’s seen me without clothes on a million times before; we’ve been roommates since her parents let her move out of the dorms sophomore year.

“Look at me Win.” I raise my pale, sunless arms, running my palms along my narrow hips and stomach. “Do I look like the type of girl he would want to date? Do I s-sound like his t-type?” Pfft. “G-get real.”

She straightens, sitting up. “What is that supposed to mean? Have you looked in the mirror lately? You’re beautiful. If he isn’t interested, then he’s a freaking idiot—not that I’m telling you to date him, but if you wanted to, you could…not that I want you to.”

“Good, because I’m not.”

“I’m just saying you’re freaking incredible.”

“No, you’re just saying that because you’re family.”

The family I created for myself when I got to school: Winnie, Melinda, and our friend Rory, who still lives in the dorms.

Winnie leans back, propping herself up by the elbows. Rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. “I just know how you are, okay? You’re so…what’s the word I’m looking for? Compassionate. Not everyone has a broken wing that needs mending, Violet. Maybe this guy isn’t worthy of your special brand of caring.”

But she’s wrong.

He is.

She goes on. “I mean, he sounds like a total asshole. Please consider that before you sleep with this guy.”

I slip out of my bra and replace it with a ratty old t-shirt, Winnie’s deafening silence filling the room. Her eyebrows speak a thousand words.

I turn away.

“I hope next time you put the moves on him you know what you’re getting yourself into. I don’t mean to be a creeper, but dude, I was checking to see who was in the driveway when you guys pulled up. Totally was not expecting that giant truck to be parked there, and then the cab light went on, and I could see that it was you, and, well, I couldn’t look away.”

She rambles on. “I know it was you who kissed him first—he wasn’t going to make a move on you. If you could have seen his face from where I saw it—you kissed the stuffing out of him, Violet. He was in complete and utter shock.” She laughs, tipping her head back. Her shocking black hair hits my purple bedspread. “I about died. Died! Swear to God, if Melinda had been home…” Her head gives a shake.

I pad barefooted to my dresser and pull out a pair of yoga pants, stepping into them one leg at a time. “I assure you, I am in no danger of falling into anything with Zeke Daniels without thinking it through.”

“I think you’ve missed my point, Violet,” my roommate says. “Maybe you’re in danger of…him falling into you. Because from where I stood, he didn’t look that terribly awful.”

I go to the closet and pull out a sweatshirt, slide it over my head. “He’s not.”

“Because everyone online makes him sound like a shitty human being.”

“He has his moments, trust me, but…mostly he has no filter. He’s coming around—he’s better with the kids.”

Winnie hands me a pair of fuzzy socks from the drawer of my bedside table. “So what was it like? Kissing him?”

“I don’t know.”

She recoils, face scrunched up. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Your lips were all over him—what was it like?”

I laugh, joining her on the bed. “It was…” I sigh. “Electric.”

My roommate groans. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say. Crap, I’m going to have to monitor this situation.”

“There’s nothing to monitor, but be my guest. And get off my bed, I’m tired.”

Once Winnie finally goes back to her own room and I finally climb into bed, I lie atop the covers, twisting the new bangle on my wrist, the metal warmed by the heat of my skin.

In the dark, the pads of my fingers trace the etched sunflower, the beautiful words engraved in the metal.

“Everything happens for a reason,” I murmur, marveling at how the heat from my body now radiates from the bracelet.

Everything happens for a reason.

I know this.

I’ve been learning it the hard way my entire life, one disappointment after the other, starting with the death of my parents—both of them—when I was young. I’ve had time to recover and grow and move on with my life, but—

I never do.

Never.

What I’ve done is adjust. Bend. Amend.

Change.

Learn to live without the things I once had.

That’s what you do when you lose people you love.

They say that once someone dies, they’re always with you in spirit; it’s something I know to be true, because I feel my parents every second of every day. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It only hurts less.

Their memories remain, but I have to work so hard to retrieve them, fragmented as they are. They’re pieces I struggle to puzzle together, obscure and fleeting with every day and week and month and year that passes by.

I was so young when they died. So young.

They were so young when they died.

But I’m here.

I’m alive.

Lying in a bed, staring up at a ceiling I pay for with money I earn myself.

The death of my parents is what led to my stutter; I don’t remember ever not having it, but my cousin Wendy does. I stayed with her family for a while when I was in elementary school, until they couldn’t afford to keep me anymore. They just didn’t have the money.

Wendy, who was ten when I went to stay with them, said one day I talked like a normal kid, and the next…I didn’t.

It used to be worse; I couldn’t get through a sentence without getting my tongue tied on my words. I guess it was the trauma of being tucked in one night by your parents and having them disappear the next. When you’re four, you don’t understand the concept of death…I mean, maybe some kids do, but I didn’t.

I was sensitive, Wendy said. Retreated further into myself.

She was older, and kind. I slept on her bedroom floor; she and her sister—my cousin Beth—slept in the double bed. Together my aunt and uncle had four kids and couldn’t afford one more, especially with my youngest cousin, Ryan, wheelchair bound with mounting medical bills they couldn’t pay.

Eventually, I was able to start collecting a pension from the state, but that didn’t come until later…too many months later when I was already in the foster care system.

Then, as a final blow, my uncle was transferred out of state and I couldn’t see them anymore. I’ve never been able to save enough money to visit them, and lord knows they can’t afford to come see me.

I’m not a fool; I know I’m one of the lucky ones that went through the system and came out fighting for a better life. Quiet but strong, if you don’t count my stutter.

One last parting gift from my parents.

One last memento from the trauma surrounding their deaths.

From the cops showing up at my house the night of their accident. A fluke. A freak accident. On their way home from a play, their premature, untimely deaths involved one strung-out addict who shouldn’t have been behind the wheel, a speeding pick-up truck, and my parent’s compact car. I vaguely remember my babysitter Becky—a teenage neighbor girl—freaking out when the cops came to the house…the scramble to place me because our family was…well, it was small.