DAY
4
As I got ready for school, Toby stayed quiet. He looked as if he hadn’t slept well, but his eyes brightened when I told him he could turn around and he saw me in the clothes he’d picked out.
“I was right,” he said, nodding in admiration, “you look great.”
I wasn’t sure I thought so myself as I stood in front of the dressing mirror that I had to get from my closet, where I had hidden it. My bottom was just a little too round, if you asked me, and I wasn’t able to hide my massive stomach. I expressed my fears to him.
“Mariah, I know how much you want to hide your flaws. But the honest truth is they’re not so bad. Besides, you have some features that are quite admirable.”
I decided to trust him on this, but I had to ask one last time. “I’m not dressing like a tramp though?”
He stepped back to view the complete ensemble. “No, just beautiful.”
Did he call me beautiful? I half-smiled and looked back into my mirror. That’s when I noticed my hair. It was way out of control. “I’ll have to take a shower this morning,” I said, trying to smooth down the mile-high frizz. Toby nodded. “Can you make sure you stay outside the curtain? No matter what!”
“Oh,” he said, grinning, “you mean no closing my eyes!” His teeth shone, and his deep eyes danced.
“You betcha, buster!” I said, placing my hands on my hips. I didn’t know what I’d do if he ended up in there with me—naked!
“Hey, I’m the dead one here,” he said. “This may be my last chance to catch a peek.” But he smiled then added, “You can trust me.”
I didn’t laugh, and he stayed true to his word
I grabbed my lunch money and found extra, with a note from my mother: “Here is your money for clothes this month. If you ever call me at work again when it isn’t an emergency, I will take it all away!” I shoved the money in my pocket, feeling guilty about disturbing her. Still, I had been successful… sort of. Today felt like it was going to be good! It was the first day I’d felt this way in a very long time.
On our way to school, when we had walked about halfway, and we were on a street that was mostly two-storey houses with fences, Toby said hesitantly, “I remembered something about my life yesterday, but I’m not ready to share it yet.”
“Oh, what?” It took a moment for what he’d said to sink in. “And why not?” He remembered something yesterday, and it took him until now to tell me!
“I need to figure out what it means,” he said, “but I felt I had to be completely honest with you, so I wanted to tell you.”
Why did he wait until today? “I wish you hadn’t. Now I’m always going to be wondering and worrying about what you aren’t telling me.” If he wasn’t going to tell me everything, why had he said anything at all? I kept my pace brisk, even though my legs felt heavy.
“That’s not fair. I told you so you wouldn’t think I was keeping things from you.” He sounded frustrated.
“Ya, but now I know you are keeping something from me.” I knew he was trying to do the right thing, but I hated not knowing.
“No matter what I did here, I’d be wrong,” he said in a defeated tone and ran his hand through his hair.
“Why don’t you just tell me now?” It seemed the only way to make things better.
“Because I don’t want it to ruin everything.”
Ruin everything! My heart pounded. Now I was sure I needed to know. “Is it so bad that it will change things between us?”
“It might.” His voice sounded strained.
I stopped dead in my tracks. “I need to know,” I said, not willing to budge until I was told. The sun hadn’t quite had time to warm the chill from the air, and wet dew was still thick in the grass. I crossed my arms and stared at him.
“Mariah.” Toby had stopped a foot away.
“No,” I said with great determination. “I won’t be happy until you tell me, and it will bug me all day! You owe it to me. You get to know everything about me, so I deserve the right to know whatever you know about yourself—and don’t give me ‘it’s over,’ because if you’ve remembered something, then it might not be as over as you thought!” I was amazed at how brave I felt. Only three days earlier, I would have accepted his excuses and let him be, but I would never have been happy with myself.
“I’m afraid to tell you,” he said softly. “You are all I’ve got. You are my world, and I’m scared that if I tell you, you won’t think of me in the same way any more. And I don’t want you to hate me.” I could see him begging me with his eyes.
“It’s something I could hate you for?” My resolve hardened. “I have to know!”
“Alright.” It sounded like telling me would actually physically hurt him, but I stayed steadfast in my resolve. I needed to hear this, and that mattered more than his discomfort. “It was yesterday in the lunch room.”
Those words delivered a real punch to my gut. He had known since then, and he was finally saying something now! But I kept my thoughts to myself. I was angry, but I didn’t want to distract him from telling me.
“I was watching the table near the door, where all the in-crowd comes to sit. It started with a particular guy at the table who had noticed you for the first time; I think it was because I’d convinced you to lose the sweater. Anyway, he was goofing around. You weren’t much more than a passing fancy, but his friend caught him gazing over your way and confronted him about it. This friend is the leader of the pack, just like Effie is with the girls, well, he’s her equal for the guys. But he confronted the guy that noticed you and asked why he was staring in your direction, and well, I won’t mince words, what he said wasn’t pretty, but it was all an act, see? And I was going over what I had told you in the washroom about why everyone treated you so rotten, and that it’s really up to you how bad they make you feel, and wondering why it felt so familiar. Then it hit me!” He paused.
“Because you used to be the equivalent of the male me?” I wondered aloud. I wanted him to say yes. I could see why he would think that I’d be disappointed in him. It would make sense; he would feel the same contempt for himself that I felt about myself everyday. I knew that wasn’t what he was going to tell me from the drawn-out pause before he answered.
“No, not really.” He looked down, typical of someone making a confession. “I was that popular kid, like Effie, at the top of the chain. I was the one who decided who was in and who was out, and if I wanted to make someone’s life miserable, I could, and no one would ever try to defy me. In fact, I could get anyone to do just about anything…”
My head spun, and my knees wobbled. I couldn’t look at him, I felt so sickened. I turned away and even bent forward, so if I became ill, I wouldn’t get it all over myself. I stayed that way for what seemed like an eternity. I could feel Toby hovering just a few feet away, and I loathed him. Why him? He was my enemy. He was the one that held me down so I couldn’t get up and kept me so low I had no place to go.
The faces of everyone who’d ever been mean to me flashed in my mind, but they were replaced by Toby’s. I straightened up and started to run. I wanted to escape him, and all he represented. He was the reason I felt so miserable every day! I wanted to get as far away from him as possible, though I knew it was futile. As my pace slowed, I knew that he would still be mere feet behind me.
Now my legs trembled with the exertion, and my lungs fought to pull in enough air. I felt the sting of the cool morning air on my cheeks. I kept walking at a brisk pace, not even turning to see if he was there. I knew he was. I could feel him, and it made my skin crawl! Sobs emanated from my throat as I felt renewed grief over my life.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a few steps behind me. I could hear real misery in his voice. I kept walking, not giving him the courtesy of a response. I wanted to make him as miserable as I felt. I wanted to make him pay.
I felt his hand catch my wrist, and with surprising strength he held my arm, forcing me to stop in my tracks. Still, I didn’t face him.
“Mariah,” he said through clenched teeth.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Instead I pulled against his grip. I even used my free hand to try and pry his fingers off.
“Please, talk to me,” he pleaded.
I managed to break free from his grasp, but I lost my footing in the struggle and fell into the grass that formed the divider between the sidewalk and the street. I sat there shaking, partly from my own anger, partly from embarrassment.
Why? I wondered again over the bizarreness of our situation as my body began to feel more normal. The true irony of all this was becoming increasingly clear. He was no angel, with that statement I wholeheartedly agreed now, but why was he here? I had this boy, almost my own age, glued to me by some invisible force, and he had to care, but in his life he would never have paid me a second thought, unless it was for malice.
As I sat, I felt the damp from the ground seeping into my pants. Finally I pulled myself up, not indicating my own feelings, for I wasn’t certain how I felt about any of it. As I started walking I heard him take a deep breath, and I put up my hand to let him know I didn’t want to hear anything. The rest of the walk to school was more peaceful, apart from my sore legs and damp pants.
As I made my way up the front steps, past Effie and her groupies, I saw her eyes scan me head to foot. She didn’t say anything until I had passed.
Then she squealed with delight. “My, Mariah!” she exclaimed, “Did you pee your pants?”
I hurried into the school before I could hear any more, shooting Toby a fierce look, as if he had taunted me himself. If he had been alive, it would have been him! He bowed his head and stared at the floor.
He didn’t utter a word all throughout the day. I noticed that he stayed extraordinarily close to my side but still managed to give me space. Only as the day went on and more and more of the school caught on to Effie’s new claim that I was a baby who peed my pants—even though my jeans had dried before the end of the first period—did I feel an increasing need for Toby. Despite who he had been when alive, he was now the only person I could count on my side.
He kept a watchful eye on me while continuing to watch everyone else. I guess he used the time to set his own thoughts straight. As I thought about it more and more throughout the miserable day, I was sure that to discover this truth about his past was a shock for him as well, especially after spending some time intimately in my life, and I started to marvel at how painful it must be from his angle.
I decided to forgive him, because though he represented in my head everyone who had ever been unkind to me, he had never done anything to me personally. I could see that now. I also realized, with some reservations, that I needed him.
My last class of the day was home economics, and as we had just finished a lesson on baking bread, we had a lot of free time at the end. I sat down and jotted out a few words on my note page: “Still shopping, looking forward to your help.” This produced one of the widest grins I’d ever seen on Toby’s face.
“Yes, I’ll enjoy helping you,” he said with enthusiasm. “And now we know I have some knowledge about these things,” he added, and I curtly nodded as the last bell rang. Then I quickly erased our note and headed down to my locker.
As we made our way to the mall on the bus, I pulled out the paper and scribbled: “Do you remember anything else?”
Toby answered, “No, and to be honest, I don’t remember that much other than I was the popular kid. I don’t know anything about what I did, though I feel it in my gut that I was just as slimy and malicious as the rest of them. I haven’t got any specifics, and honestly, I’m almost afraid of them. Things look a lot different from this side of life.” He fell silent then.
Inside the clothing store, I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted to ask Toby all sorts of questions, but I didn’t dare in fear that I’d look like I was talking to myself, so I chose my words carefully and wrote: “I trust your judgment completely, so you tell me what’s first.”
Again he grinned, then blushed, “Sorry, but this is personal—you need to start with good bust support,” he said and led the way to the bras. “Now, again I’m going to be pointed, the nicer the bra, the better it looks, whether us guys can see it or not, so try this one and this…and that.” The last was a neon pink bra.
‘You sure about that?’ I wrote on our pad.
“Yes,” he answered.
So I went and collected the three Toby had pointed out. I took my choices to the change room attendant; she was a short, plump woman with graying hair and kind hazel eyes. I said aloud, sort of to her, but more for Toby’s benefit, “Don’t you think this will show under some of my shirts?” I caught Toby’s eye and winked.
“Probably, hon, you might want to be careful what you put over it,” the attendant answered. She led the way to an empty change room and clipped a number to the knob.
I smiled my gratitude, and then Toby stated, “I’m the dead one here, yet you walk around like you can’t see. Haven’t you noticed that it isn’t uncommon these days for your bra to be showing?” I closed the door behind us, thankful that there was no mirror in the small space.
I had the first bra on and was adjusting the straps as I braved whispering, “But again I ask, isn’t that too much?”
“Well, you’ll have to be tasteful. You don’t want to be hanging out, but just one bra strap is all right. And you wouldn’t want to wear a thin white shirt, but a pale yellow one or a light grey, where a soft outline showing a bit isn’t too flashy.” Toby scratched the back of his neck. “I used to like it when girls hinted at their assets. I didn’t like the ones that would put out all their wares for show and tell. But I was very hard on the girls who were clueless about their beauty; you know the ones that would hide behind their clothes like they had nothing good to offer…” Toby turned around abruptly after he made that last statement. When he realized I was in nothing but the new bra, he closed his eyes so quickly that I only saw him for a second.
I went red with embarrassment, but I didn’t like him being invisible! I needed his help. Holding my arms over my chest I said, “You can open your eyes now!”
After a brief moment he did. “Nice,” he said awkwardly, and then he turned to face the wall again.
I tried on the other two, but neither one seemed quite as impressive as the first. Toby helped me to find a pair of jeans that fit better than anything I’d ever worn, and with his input, I also got several shirts that completed the outfit. On the bus ride home, he said I was gonna really “wow” the boys now. I wrote my reply: “Absolutely, and won’t Effie be shocked.”
“Stop focusing on her so much. She’s who she is, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. I think it’s time we start changing you, and I don’t just mean what you wear.”
I waited until we were safely inside my house before I replied. “What do you mean ‘changing me’?” We were down in my room. I had put on my new clothes and was admiring myself in the mirror. I could see how easy it was to get vain about your appearance. I had curves, not like those girls that starve themselves, and the new bra defined my breasts, giving me an almost trimmer look.
“How many friends do you have?” he asked.
The question reverberated through me like a shot.
“None, then,” he said when I didn’t reply.
“I used to…” I answered slowly. “None since we moved,” I added, even though I knew that wasn’t the entire truth. I had lost all my friends long before the move.
“Good, then we can assume you are capable of making friends again,” he smiled. “How long ago was that?” He stood next to the mirror, looking assured of himself. I could see how it would have been easy for him to be popular.
I pondered his question, trying to work out the math in my head.
“How old were you?”
I went over to my desk and sat thinking. I had friends when I was nine, and they didn’t just disappear when my father had. When had I realized I didn’t have any friends left? Was I still nine, ten?
“Don’t bother, I can see it all,” he said softly, coming to kneel in front of me and taking my hands in his. They felt warm and friendly, and that made me want to cry.
“Let’s just say it’s been too long.” He nodded in agreement with his own statement. “Regardless, it’s time to start making new friends.”
“I don’t know,” I said, and a great mounting fear seemed to rise up from some unknown source, catching my breath. I looked away.
“What is there to not know about?”
“What if they don’t like me?” I said. The memory of betrayal clung to the crags of my mind.
“What happened to your old friends?” Toby asked. His eyes were narrowed, making him look like he was trying to see far-off into the distance, and I could feel a tug on my own memories, from the time my father had walked out to the time I’d realized that I didn’t have any friends left.
“They betrayed me!” I cried, shutting my eyes and trying with all my might to block out those painful memories I’d spent so long pretending didn’t exist.
“Were you ever honest with your friends?” I could see, like a silent motion picture, my friends disappearing.
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked, feeling all cut open for him to see.
“Be honest,” he replied, and I saw Stacy, my best friend since I’d started school, coming to me in tears, begging me to tell her something, but I didn’t. Instead, I just turned and walked away. Her sobs followed me as I left.
“I was hurting!” I raised my voice and opened my eyes in hopes that the visions would stop.
“She knew about pain,” he said, conjuring up a second vision of her crying, only two months before my dad had left, over her dog Champ. He had to be put down because they found cancer in his leg, and her parents wouldn’t pay for him to get fixed. “Friendship is a two-way street,” Toby said, his eyes drilling into me. “You can’t shut out your friends and expect them to let you in. You have to be able to stand up for your friends and sometimes fight to keep them.”
“That’s enough, Toby!” I closed my eyes and fell to my knees. “I get the point.” Visions of Stacy’s tear-stained face danced in my head, along with some really great times we’d had together: going to the local pool, and the mall, and walking to or from school. Remembering these things only made me angrier with her.
Toby rested his hand on my shoulder. “You had good friends. They would have fought for you.”
I looked up into his face and brought back a memory of Stacy taunting me outside on the playground at school. “My a, my a, baby Mariah!” she yelled when I had dropped one of my stuffed unicorns that I brought to school in the secret pocket in my jacket. She then tossed it around to all her friends until it was muddy from being dropped and torn from being fought over. Toby’s eyes darted to my stuffy shelf. He knew the one I meant. It stood off to the side. I’d patched it up with rough stitches and washed it as best as I could. It was now my favourite, because it was an outcast; just like me.
“They betrayed me,” I said with resolve in my voice. “I don’t need friends.” I stood up with determination. A friend could turn on me in an instant. I was better off alone.
“They didn’t understand you,” Toby corrected, his eyes pleading with me to listen. “She was scared of how much you’d changed and felt betrayed by you for keeping her out.” He continued to kneel on the floor and looked up at me.
“That wasn’t the only time!” I screamed. I stood trapped. I couldn’t get past him.
“I know it wasn’t,” he said calmly. “But you know I’m right!” Toby shook his head and stood beside me. “You do need friends,” he said, bringing his hand up to rub his sore cheek. It had seemed to be healing, but now it looked all freshly bruised again.
I felt terrible. I’d forgotten and gotten used to that bruise there, but now I remembered it was me who had put it there. “Does it hurt?” I stepped closer to him.
“Pain is sort of twisted for me.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s like it’s somehow in its true form.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You know the other night, you were having a nightmare. I could feel your pain like something was punching me. It actually took me a while to figure out that you’d hit me for real. Now, with this bruise, when you ache, it feels like I’ve just been punched all over again. This morning, when you were lying on the ground having that, I don’t know, panic attack, I felt like I was being squeezed on all sides. It really hurt, and that’s how I knew how much you were hurting.”
“So just now?” I asked gingerly.
“It hurt. Whoever is throwing the punches has a fairly good arm. I feel winded a little, and my whole skull feels like something’s going through it.” He turned to me. “You want to know my theory?”
I shrugged. Somehow without doing a thing, I was hurting him, and I was scared I wouldn’t be able to stop it.
“I think this is how you feel. Your pain is so sharp and so strong, but you swallow it, you push it off to the side, you make it evaporate. I get hit with the blows, while you stuff it down so it doesn’t feel so real. But it’s real, and it’s there, and it’s like a beast waiting for your weakest moment to come back and bite you.” Toby rubbed his cheek again.
“Does it hurt right now?” I asked, afraid of the answer, because I knew what he said had made me feel upset, and I could feel the beast trying to escape as he spoke about it.
“Ya, quite nice and raw. This is the true pain, the pain you keep locked inside. I don’t think it would hurt as much if you’d just let it out. But I can see it scares you. You aren’t ready to let go of it yet.” Toby put his arm around my shoulder and drew me against his chest. “If this is the price I pay to be your one and only friend, I’ll pay it gladly.”
I felt small. I wondered at how I could feel so small, when in comparison I was half again as big as Toby, but as he pulled me close, it was as if I were no bigger than a three-year-old, and I could climb into his lap if I tried. I knew I couldn’t, and I also knew something else. “But the truth is that you have to pay it, you are connected to me, and until that goes away you are stuck here. Stuck caring, stuck hurting, stuck so it’s not your choice.”
“If I told you that I wouldn’t leave now, even if I had the choice, would you believe me? No, I know you don’t. However, believe me or not, it’s true.” I felt him lean over and kiss my hair softly. “The former me wouldn’t, that’s true.” He sat up again. “But a lot of who I thought I was has disappeared in death. I’m glad I’m here with you right now.”
I wrapped my arms about his waist as tight as I could and held on. True or not, it felt good being right here in this place, and I didn’t want him to go. Time dragged on, and my stomach began to growl. I reluctantly let go of him and raised myself. How could I be sure he wasn’t an angel after all? I wondered, and then I turned and headed for the kitchen.
“Right behind you,” he said softly, getting to his feet more slowly.
I put together a real cooked meal that night, with a full salad and a side dish with some lamb chops I’d found in the freezer. I made sure that I cooked enough for Mom, whenever she got home, and for Jake, in case he bothered to show up. I didn’t make anything for Jake’s friends, because I hoped that them all coming over had been a one-time shot just to get back at Mom. I hoped.
Halfway through cooking, Jake emerged from the basement. I jumped a little as I heard him on the stairs and felt foolish. Jake always looked more like Dad than I did; his hair wasn’t as dark as mine, and it only had a small wave to it, but he kept it long. His eyes were green, his cheeks sunken and his brows quite thin for a guy. His nose was flat on the bridge, and his chin had a dimple. Then there were the spacers he wore in his ears. He’d stretched them to two centimetres and had three piercings over his nose, two in his nose and three on his one brow. Jake was not tall, but he was skinny. When we were face to face, I stood taller than him by an inch or two, but I tried hard not to do so. I’d slouch because I knew it made him mad.
“You gots a friend over?” he asked as he drew level with me.
“No,” I said, feeling a shiver of panic, “why do you ask?”
“Well, I thoughts I heard you talking to some-un earlier.” He shuffled past me to the kitchen.
“Nope, no one.” I scratched my head like I was pondering the question. “How do you know I wasn’t talking to myself?” I asked. I stole a glance at Toby, and he smiled back as I followed Jake to the kitchen.
“’Cuz I thoughts I heard two different voices.” Jake sat heavily at the table. He looked tired.
I felt my eyes widen. I didn’t want to do anything to give myself away, but I felt them betray me. Jake looked around the room. For a moment he seemed to be looking right at Toby. He stood up and took a step towards him.
Toby must have thought the same thing, because he waved, but Jake didn’t respond. He only went closer and said, “Iz that the real time?” He was facing the clock on the microwave that Toby was standing in front of.
“As far as I know,” I said, trying not to let the relief show. I put the salad off to the side.
“You sure you didn’t have a friend over?” I nodded. “’Cuz if yous did, I’d’a had to meet this guy and set him straight.”
“Set him straight?” I asked.
“Ya, ya know, make sures he’s the type that would treat me baby sista right.” He went back to the chair and threw himself on it. Whenever Jake talked, it sounded like he was uneducated and dumb. I knew it was his street talk, but it sounded funny, especially when he said stuff like that.
“Well no, big bro,” I said, trying to tease him back, “I don’t got no one here with me…evah.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Jake said, slamming the table and making me jump. “It don’t sound right.”
I sat down across from him. “Why not, Jake?” The timer said I had five minutes until the chops were finished, and then I could eat.
“You are way too pretty and smart to talk the way I do,” he said, and even the twang of his accent had disappeared. He stared at me until I looked away.
“How do you know that?” I never felt smart and far less pretty!
“Because you always have been.” He looked annoyed.
“But Jake, people change,” I said. “I changed. Haven’t you noticed how much I changed?” I could feel the pain welling up inside again, and out of the corner of my eye I caught Toby flinching.
Jake leaned back in his chair, his scarecrow figure draped all over it, and he looked at me, really looked at me for what I felt to be the first time in ages. “You’ve gotten prettier,” he finally said. “And those clothes makes you look very fine. I can see why my boyz take an interest in you.” He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “I don’t think I’m gonna to let them hang about here any more.” This last statement was more for his benefit than mine, but it made me feel uncomfortable nonetheless.
“I made dinner,” I said, trying to change the subject. But Jake’s eyes were glued on me wherever I went in the kitchen. I looked at Toby to see if he could help me. He shrugged and seemed to concentrate on Jake all the more.
Jake finally looked away when I put a plate before him. “You know, sis, you are some kind of wonderful,” he said, and reaching over, he smacked my bottom.
I dished him out some food, and he ate it with several comments like: “This is delish” and “You’re the best.” And one that haunted me later that evening: “I still remember mom’s cooking, but this is better.” When dinner was done, Jake took his plate to the dishwasher and loaded it himself, then bid me goodnight and left for who-knows-where. I retired to my bedroom with Toby on my heels.
“Okay, tell me you weren’t nervous when Jake said he heard two voices,” I said, placing the chair up against my door.
“I was, but then I realized he was high.” Toby stood only a foot behind me.
“No way,” I said. “He was?” I went to my desk and sat down.
“Yup, didn’t you notice how strange he acted the whole time?” Toby took up his spot at the foot of my bed. I looked at this boy, dressed in black, sprawled comfortably out on my rose-covered bed spread.
“Well ya, but that’s just Jake,” I said then added, “Lately.”
“For about the last five years, am I right?” He stretched out, looking so relaxed.
I nodded. “Everything fell apart then. Or at least it did for Jake and me. Mom doesn’t seem to have suffered as much.” I resented her for that.
“She suffers, just in a different way,” Toby said. I didn’t believe him. “But I’m not worried about either of them, I’m worried about you!”
His words filled me with warmth. I moved over to the bed so I could lie next to him.
“Now, tomorrow you are going to make friends.” His voice was kind but determined. It didn’t sound like he was giving me a choice.
I rolled over onto my stomach, stuck out my tongue and put up my hands like a puppy, then panted.
Toby gave my cheek a push. “So, who do you want to be friends with?”
I rolled over to my back and put my head on his arm. “You,” I answered.
“Alright, other than me.” He rumpled my hair.
“No one,” I said. I just didn’t want to be hurt again.
Toby pulled his arm out from under my head and rolled onto his side. “Come on,” he persisted.
“No, Toby, I don’t want to come on.” I said, crossing my arms and rolling away.
I think he could sense my frustration. After an eternity of silence, he said into my ear, “You do, you know you do, and you are just scared of trying.”
“You bet I’m scared!” I said, more forcefully than I had intended.
“Don’t let fear win. That is what gives bullies like me power. I know, I remember. You come across all weak in the knees, and we know you’ll just let us do whatever we want to, because that’s what you expect us to do.” He reached out and touched my back. I jumped. Would I ever get used to the initial shock of his touch? “Break the cycle. I know you want to. And I’m here to help you.”
“You are probably right.” I felt overwhelmed at just the thought. “It’s getting kind of annoying, you always being right.” I got up and gave the signal for him to turn around so I could change.
“Sorry,” he said softly. I didn’t reply, but I crawled into bed and lay down. I fell asleep before I could think another thought.