I am not running away from Ethan Kelly. I’m not. But I know that’s what it must look like to him. My mom used to have to track me down for dinner when we were kids, and I made that quite the task for her, hiding in bushes, sprinting around corners, and pretending not to hear her. Now I do the job of pulling myself away from my friends for her.
I’d meant it when I told him things were different.
The second I wheel up the ramp and through my back door, I toss my towel in the general direction of the open laundry room, then hurry into the kitchen, which isn’t really accessible despite the limited changes Mom was able to make on our one-income budget while I was in the hospital recovering.
Cooking a full meal on my own is something new I’m trying, more of a last-ditch effort really. Before the accident, we had a routine: Mom, Dad, and I all sitting around the table together, no devices, no TV. Dad would ask us a million questions about our days and Mom came to life in a way she always seemed to struggle with on her own. So. Dinner...which I’m really going to have to hurry on if I want to surprise her when she gets home.
I lock my wheels before shifting up until I’m sitting on the wheel closest to the counter. It gives me the few extra inches I need to reach into the upper cabinet. My balance is a bit precarious whenever I do this, but I manage. A few more tricks and only the tiniest burn on my forearm and I have rice on the stove and chicken in the oven.
I have time to rinse off in the shower—my hair already hates me from the amount of chlorine I expose it to on a near daily basis, but we’ve reached something of a truce as long as I rinse it out before it can fully dry.
Back in my room, I pull out easy clothes, a short olive green sundress, then throw everything, including myself, onto my bed to finish drying off and dress.
“Keri? Rebecca?” a man’s voice calls out.
“Just me!” I answer, heading to the kitchen to get the rice before it boils over. John, Mom’s boyfriend of over a year, barely beats me there.
John is a big guy. We have tall doorways in our kitchen and he still has to duck when he walks in. He grins back at me, but falters as he sees the food. “You’re cooking?”
“I thought it’d be a nice surprise.” I’m zigzagging around the kitchen as I talk, pulling out dishes and silverware. “Are you dropping something off or can you stay? I’m making a Creamy Chive Chicken recipe that I saw on TikTok and it’s probably mostly edible. And,” I add, slipping into an infomercial voice, “I can guarantee it won’t give you salmonella.” Mostly because I for sure overcooked it. John looks less than enthused by my sales pitch; in fact, he looks slightly uncomfortable at a dinner invite he now knows he can’t turn down.
I start talking at John the second he sits. “So get this, Ethan’s already here.” John’s discomfort vanishes and his suddenly wide-eyed expression matches mine exactly. I have to ignore the sharp twist of my heart whenever he does stuff like that, match my emotion without any kind of prompting. My dad always did that too.
“Ethan-Ethan? I thought he wasn’t coming until tomorrow?”
“I know.” He helps me start setting the table. “Surprised me too. He seems different. More different than I was expecting.” My movements slow. He’d said I didn’t know what he was dealing with... Would he ever tell me? I clear my throat when I realize I’ve paused for too long. “And tall. Really tall.”
John’s deep brown skin wrinkles between his brows. “Oh no,” he says, hanging his head in his hands. “Layla’s only six. I’m not supposed to have to deal with this kind of stuff yet. I haven’t read the right books. Um...okay.” He straightens up, looking very serious, for John anyway. “You see, there are these things called hormones—”
I shove hard at his massive shoulder and succeed only in rolling my wheelchair back a few inches. John laughs. “Okay, so he grew up well. He’s not the only one.” John still doesn’t know how to give me a compliment without being weird about it, so he pats my head, deliberately awkward. I pull away before he tries to ruffle my hair.
“Right. Thanks.”
“I’m just saying...”
I’m saved by Mom bursting through the door.
Slim and pretty in her gray pencil skirt and steel blue silk blouse, her curls are pulled back into a soft twist with tendrils slipping free against her pale face. I can see, like actually see John’s heart skip a beat when he spots her. That should make me happy, shouldn’t it?
“You weren’t waiting long, were you?”
I’d started to turn back to the table, so at first I think she’s talking to me and my chest swells with unexpected happiness. But when I spin to face her, I see she’s gazing up at John.
“Bec’s been keeping me company. And, um, cooking.”
Mom glances over at me for the first time. Like always, her glance bounces away as quickly as it touches me. It feels a little like dying of thirst just as I reach the edge of a river.
“Oh, Rebecca.” She slips free of John’s embrace and smooths her skirt. “I thought you’d still be swimming.”
“I finished early and decided to make dinner.” I wasn’t expecting clasped hands and exclamations of delight, but something more than the awkward glances she and John keep exchanging would have been nice. “I already invited John to join us if that’s the problem...?”
John gives her a “tell her” look, but it’s only after I say, “Mom?” that she answers.
“The Sandovals finally approved my design for their primary bedroom. They invited John and me to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse to celebrate. I think he wants to talk to me about a commercial job for his new hotel.”
“Hotels. That’s great.” I take a shallow breath. “The Sandovals. Good job.”
I don’t know who the Sandovals are any more than she knows that Ethan was coming back. But John does. We talk to him way more than we talk to each other. But I thought tonight could be different. Not heavy or hard or anything important, but a start. I’d hoped anyway.
She glances at me, then at the food on the table, the single chair and the space for my wheelchair. Then she looks to John, in such a familiar move that my throat squeezes like a fist. She wants him to intervene, to smooth everything over with me like Dad always did.
I think I might be sick if he does.
“It’s just that it might be an important dinner.”
Unlike this, she means. I just cooked my first full meal since the accident and she hasn’t even asked why.
“A big project right now would be good. With college expenses coming up...”
The sick sloshing in my stomach gets worse.
Cal State University Northridge is one of the most wheelchair-friendly colleges in the country, which is the reason Mom says she insisted I apply and, even after I got my acceptance letter, still asks me for updates constantly. But that’s not the real reason. I know with every passing second she spends staring at the table instead of looking at me.
“You two should go. I’m feeling kind of tired actually. Not really up for eating anyway.”
“Rebecca, you need to eat,” is what she says.
Eating is not what I need, but it’s the practical thing so that’s what she focuses on.
I agree to eat, whatever she wants. I’m very convincing so she eventually drops the issue.
She promises to be home early, but I’m not surprised when a text comes in—from John—letting me know they are going to catch a late movie and I shouldn’t wait up.
I’d put all the food away hours ago, so I’m in my bed in less than ten minutes, and I lie there with my eyes and ears wide open waiting for her.
I turn my head to the side, away from the door. I’d forgotten to close the curtains before getting into bed so I can see straight across to the Kellys’ house and Ethan huddled over the desk typing on a battered laptop held together with duct tape.
My heartbeat picks up as I think about that first sight of him earlier, the way he’d said my name like it was special, beautiful. I hadn’t felt that way in years and he gave that back to me in an instant.
That feeling is long gone now as I wait for Mom to come home. I hope in vain for a light tap to sound on my door, even if it’s only to poke her head in and assure herself that I’m safe in my bed, but what I get instead is a text.
Mom:
I’m home.
I pull my blankets up even higher, wanting to hide from so much more than the boy next door. It’s no good though. Every time I open my eyes I see the open curtains. I’m the worst at sleeping even on good nights, and this is not a good night.
I hate the fact that I’m thinking about how easy it would be to just walk over there and pull them shut. I could be back in bed in a matter of seconds. Instead, I loll my head to the right to where I’d left my chair. I’m thankful for my chair, I am, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to hurl it across the room, set it on fire, and leave the smoking remains on a train track sometimes.
And I still have to close the curtains.
Sitting up, I slide to the edge of the mattress, lower my legs off the side and, leaning forward to shift my center of gravity, transfer into my chair. I settle my feet on the footplate and then I’m pushing over to my window, tugging at my curtains and not even noticing at first that Ethan isn’t at his desk anymore. He’s at his window too, not to draw curtains, but to climb out after the bag he’s already dropped to the ground.