I pull my hand back as soon as he smooths it over his chest. I don’t want to feel him anymore. I don’t want to feel anything anymore. If I could I would draw my paralysis up the rest of my body until nothing could touch me ever again.
I jerk farther away, using my hands to brace against the seat, and shift closer to the window so our legs no longer touch. One of his hands falls to my thigh, resting there until I wrench that part of me away too.
I can’t feel it anyway.
I dig my teeth into my lips as another tear comes dangerously close to falling.
You were drinking...
I squeeze my eyes shut at the memory of his words and the look in his eyes, that mix of pain and guilt and...hurt.
“You gotta talk to me,” he says, the fingers of his right hand inching closer to my bare leg, and I start viciously tugging the ridiculous dress back down again.
I don’t want to see my skin, to see the parts of me that haven’t felt like mine in years. They feel dead, my legs. And they are. They don’t move or register touch, and the parts that I can feel are wrong, miswired. None of it’s right and I don’t want it anymore. I pull with all my strength on my skirt.
My dress rips, right along the seam, and something inside me tears too.
“Why? Why did he have to die and I have to break?” I’m gone then, my body shaking with sobs I can’t control. “And she doesn’t want me. You don’t want me, never enough to stay.” I whimper and pull into myself when he tries to reach for me. “No. I’m done. Do you hear me? I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.”
He hesitates then moves his hand forward, deliberately trailing over the newly exposed part of my leg, the same part that I had him trace that very first day we found each other again out by the pool.
Sensation sparks to life, not quite like it used to before the accident, but I feel his skin on my skin, warm and alive, and my chin quivers. And then I cry harder when, just as deliberately, he moves his hand to the side and that feeling fades until it’s only pressure, only the slight weight that I register. He’s trying to make me understand that to him, there’s nothing broken about me.
“Then tell me. Yell if you want at whoever you want. I know I deserve it.” His other hand rises to cup my face, angle me toward him when I turn away. “But trying to hide from what you feel like this?” He shakes his head. “One drink is too many and a thousand is not enough.”
I brush his hands away, both of them. I don’t want his hands on me, the one I feel on my face and the one I don’t on my leg. I don’t want any of it because all of it hurts. “You don’t know anything about what I feel.”
A thread of anger weaves its way into his voice. “I know what it’s like to be around somebody who wants to feel anything other than what’s going on inside.”
“’Cause I’m your mom now? Is that what you’re saying?” I sneer at him to hide the sharp sting from his words.
“You know I’m not.”
“But that’s what you want, isn’t it? Another broken person for you to throw your life away for?” He has to know that’s what I am, that’s what he’s trying to make me. And I forgot for a minute, because I was sad and a little drunk, but I’m not the stupid one here.
“Rebecca. Stop.” The muscle in his jaw clenches. “You drank too much and you’re mad at me for reasons you won’t be when you sober up enough to think clearly.”
“Oh, really? So I’ll wake up tomorrow and magically I won’t care that you left and forgot me on the anniversary of my accident and my dad’s death? Hey, maybe I’ll even laugh about my mom not caring about me yet again.” That stinging pain inside me grows and collides with the deep cut from his rejection and crashes into the festering wound of my mother’s apathy.
“But I disappointed you, right? That’s what you said outside my shop when you lectured me about unanswered texts.” I lean into his face when he tries to drop his gaze. “No, you don’t get to do that, look the other way and pretend that everything is fine when you leave. I’m not letting you do that anymore.” Another sob tries to claw its way from my throat. “I break again every year on that day and the only time you cared was when you had to face me afterward.”
His eyes are fierce when they snap to mine. “That’s not true. You don’t know—”
“Stop! I’m sick of that excuse. What don’t I know? What’s gonna make this all better?”
But he doesn’t say anything because nothing will.
“You’re so smart, Ethan. Always one step ahead of everybody. Am I thinking clearly enough for you yet? Is that what your mom did? Realize she loved you enough to get sober without rehab? Call you right away because you were her first thought when she got out and not her next fix?”
His face goes hard, unmoving, and I know I’ve gone too far, that I should take his suggestion and stop, but I can’t because inside it still hurts too much.
“At least you got to save one of us tonight, huh? Does it make you feel good? Being the hero?”
“I was never the hero,” he says, staring straight ahead when he restarts the car. “And none of this feels good.”