-Ellie-
“So my lease is up at the end of November and my landlord said he’s renting it out to someone else,” Dania was saying as I counted the money in the cash register at the beginning of my shift.
I hoped my friend would leave soon. I had three chapters of reading for my English class that I had hoped to finish this evening. I then had to write a five-page essay. I was strangely excited to get started. I was finding that I loved my college class.
After I had gotten over my initial feelings of inadequacy I was able to get into the experience. And even though Casey and the others kept their distance I was too engrossed in the lessons to care about the looks I still received.
I had even done something crazy. I had spoken with the financial aid lady about whether I could afford to take more classes next semester. She had looked into it and said that the state would pay for me to take four classes. That would make me a full time student at Black River Community College.
I never thought I would be full-time anything other than possible jail inmate or JAC’s employee.
We had talked too about the possibility of my transferring to a four-year school after next semester. I had immediately shut that conversation down. While I was making the step to even consider continuing my education at the community college, talking about going on to an actual university had me close to a panic attack.
I just wasn’t emotionally ready for that kind of preparation and commitment. I was only now getting used to the idea that perhaps there was more for me than minimum wage and the prestigious honor of being Jeb’s employee of the month.
My bag toppled over, my textbook falling out onto the floor. I hastily kicked it under the counter before Dania could see it and start asking questions. I wasn’t ready to hear her unsupportive opinion.
I tried to give Dania my full attention. I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t looking very good. Her skin was chalky and she had dark circles under her eyes as though she hadn’t been sleeping well. Her long, dark hair, normally glossy and full of body, was lank and dull.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked her, knowing that problem solving wasn’t Dania’s strong suit. I knew I would be called on to help fix her situation. It’s what I had always done.
So why was I now feeling slightly resentful at her inability or unwillingness to figure this stuff out on her on?
Dania shrugged, grabbing a beef stick from the glass jar and peeling the plastic back. She took a bite and gagged, dropping it on the counter. “That tastes awful!” she blanched.
I picked up her discarded snack and put it in the trash. “Try one of these. You’ll like it,” I said, handing her a raspberry flavored sucker.
She popped it into her mouth and smiled around the candy. “Thanks, Ells,” she said, smiling genuinely.
She hopped up onto the counter, letting her legs dangle. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve got nowhere else to go. I don’t know why Mr. Lewis is being such an a*shole! How can he go to sleep at night knowing he’s kicking a pregnant woman out on the streets?” she fumed.
I could hazard a guess as to why Mr. Lewis was more than eager to see my friend find somewhere else to live. Dania’s penchant for not paying rent probably made it pretty easy for him to toss her on her backside.
But I’d never tell her that. “I can help you look for a place if you want,” I suggested less than eagerly, closing the register and switching on the security monitor.
“Or…” Dania began, giving me a look I knew all too well.
It was a look that meant only trouble.
For me.
“Or what?” I prompted.
“We could look for a place together. It would be like old times, Ells! Come on!” Dania urged, her face lighting up.
I suppressed the urge to groan. The last thing I wanted was to share a space with my best friend. Aside from her inability to pay her bills, her penchant for bringing home random men and excessive amounts of recreational drug and alcohol use didn’t make her an ideal roommate.
Even though she had been the only person to help me out after I had come out of juvie, it wasn’t a time in my life I cared to repeat. I had hated living with her. Aside from the reasons already mentioned, she was also a bitch to deal with on a regular basis. I could handle her dramatics and mood swings when I had my own space to disappear to at the end of the day. Being around her 24/7 could very well push me over the edge.
When I didn’t answer with equal enthusiasm, Dania’s face clouded darkly. “I get it. I help you out when you need it but I shouldn’t expect it in return. That’s fine. At least I know where our friendship stands.”
She was angry. And angry Dania was an irrational and scary Dania.
“Don’t be like that. I’ve just worked really hard to get my own place. You know that. I don’t do well living with other people. Having to share a room for my entire life makes me possessive of my own space,” I tried to reason. But Dania wasn’t listening.
She hopped off the counter. “I’m in a f*cking bind here, Ellie. You think I want to have to grovel at your feet for help? But I have nowhere to f*cking go! I’m almost five months pregnant!” She poked her belly hard. “What the hell am I supposed to do if my own best friend won’t help me out?” Her voice had become shrill and borderline hysterical.
“Of course I’ll help you, Dania. Don’t be stupid,” I said, feeling the familiar exhaustion of having to deal with her temper tantrums setting in.
“Don’t make me your charity case, Ellie!” she spat, knocking a canister of gum off the counter, sending it crashing to the floor.
“I’m just the knocked up idiot! The view must be great on that pedestal your fat ass is sitting on,” she sneered. “It must feel good to be able to look down your perfect little nose at the rest of us. Did you forget that I know you? I know all of your ugly secrets? I was there when you sucked off half the football team for a line of coke!” I grimaced. Nothing like having your worst mistakes flung in your face by the person who was supposed to be your best friend.
She was going in for the kill. And when Dania was pissed, she was cruel. She didn’t care about the consequences or effects of her words.
“Or in your efforts to be better than the rest of us did you forget about slashing the gym teachers tires after you told him you loved him and he turned you down?” God, did she have to bring that up?
It hadn’t been my finest hour. But I had been young and desperate for attention. And the hot, young gym teacher had been sweet and attentive. He had been nice about it when I declared that I was in love with him and that he should leave his wife for me. But I had been devastated. I was only fourteen for crying out loud.
And it had been Dania who suggested that we trash his car. She stood there while I took a switchblade to the walls of his brand new tires. She handed me her house key so I could scrape it down the pretty red paint job. But she took off when the principal came out into the parking lot. And I was the one left to take the fall.
Dania’s memory was selective at best. She remembered things in a way to make it easier for her.
But she didn’t mess around. She was digging her claws into every single wound and ripping them open.
“Or how about that f*cking freak you used to hang out with? Did you conveniently forget what you did to him?” she shrieked. I needed to calm her down. Of course she chose to lose it when there were actual customers in the store.
A little, white haired lady was glaring at a seething and venting Dania.
“Dania, stop it!” I hissed, coming out from behind the counter. She slapped my face when I tried to get close to her.
“I hate you, Ellie McCallum! You’re the worst friend ever! How could you turn your back on me when I’m like this?” she screamed, beating her fists on her stomach. She was unraveling quickly.
I grabbed her by the upper arms and gave her a firm shake. “Calm the f*ck down, Dania! Right. Now!” I demanded. She shook her head, her dark hair flying. And then like a switch had been flipped, she wasn’t raging anymore. She crumpled into a heap on the floor and started sobbing.
The white haired lady gave my friend a look of disgust and quickly left the store. I hurried to the door and flipped the closed sign.
I returned to Dania who hadn’t moved from the ball she had curled in. I was unfortunately too used to her meltdowns. They had been occurring with more and more frequency since she had gotten pregnant. Dania was volatile on a good day. Pump her full of hormones and you had a level ten detonation.
I realized as I helped her to her feet that at some point in the past year I had grown increasingly tired of Dania’s dramatics. Of her selfish and narcissistic behavior. It was easy to excuse when we were young and stupid. But now that were staring adulthood and all the responsibilities that entailed in the face, I was less willing to excuse her craziness.
That’s just Dania didn’t really cut it anymore.
But I still found myself helping my borderline psychotic friend to her feet.
“Stop crying, Dania. We’ll figure something out!” I told her firmly, needing her to snap out of it so I could get back to work.
“You’ll help me?” Dania asked, instantly brightening.
I nodded, knowing I had been played. How often had she flipped out in the past to get her way? Someone hadn’t grown out of the toddler tantrum phase apparently.
She’s my friend. She’s the only family I have. She helped me; I have to help her.
I repeated this over and over again, hoping it would erase some of the growing irritation I felt toward her. And it did. Somewhat.
I didn’t have anyone. But I had Dania. Whether I really wanted her or not.
“Of course I will. Now I’ve got to clean this up,” I admonished her gently. Dania rubbed her red eyes with her hands and just like that she was fine.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” she giggled and I wanted to strangle her for her self-involved indifference.
I bit down on my frustrated sigh and cleaned up the mess while Dania hopped back up on the counter and started talking about the places she knew would be just perfect for us to move into.
I pulled out my essay that I had somehow been able to finish in between dealing with Dania and agreeing to take the closing shift at JAC’s the night before. I had come to the college campus two hours early so I could type up my sloppy hand written paper.
I passed it up to Casey, who had obviously forgiven my outburst a month earlier. We were never going to be best buddies, but I could talk to her without growling and Casey could look at me without looking like she wanted to run away.
“What did you end up writing about?” Casey asked as I handed her the rest of the papers from the people behind me. We had been reading Nathanial Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. I’d really enjoyed it and I had gotten into my topic.
“I ended up writing about the role of Satan,” I told her quietly.
“Wow. That’s good! I just did a plot analysis. It totally sucked.” Casey made a face. I didn’t respond.
I was hesitantly pleased with my paper. I think I had done a good job, but considering the chaos of my evening I couldn’t be sure. I hated that I wanted to focus on this. That I really wanted to give it a shot, but it seemed like everything else in my life was determined to get in the way.
Dania had stuck around for another hour after her flip out. I had practically counted down the minutes until she left. By the time she went out the door she had somehow convinced me to go apartment hunting later in the week.
I didn’t want to live with her. I’d rather chew off my own arm. But somehow she made me feel that I owed it to her. Good to know her friendship was so conditional.
I had been more than eager to get to school the next day. Somehow, someway in the last month, Black River Community College had become my sanctuary. I was only there for four hours a week but it was enough to keep me going the rest of the time.
Being on campus, sitting in class, talking about things like symbolism and plot devices, I could put some distance between Ellie burgeoning college student and Ellie my life sucks and I’ll never get out of Wellsburg McCallum.
It had been almost two weeks since I had ended up at Flynn’s house. Two weeks and I watched and waited for him to pop back up at the most inconvenient moment.
Imagine my disappointment when it was almost as though he had vanished.
And that annoyed me. And it annoyed me that it annoyed me.
Sure, I could have gone to the art studio. Flynn had asked me to stop by after all. I could have appeased my potentially destructive Flynn Hendrick curiosity and gotten it out of my system by seeing him again.
But I just couldn’t.
I was more than embarrassed by my behavior the last time I had seen him. I had been weak. I had been vulnerable. I had been a big, whiny a*shole.
Flynn represented a life I had left behind me. A world I had severed ties to when I had gone to juvie.
A world I thought I’d never exist in again.
I had lost everything because of that unusual man and I was beginning to think he had no idea.
I had held onto my bitterness and anger for so long it had become a part of me. If I let it go I wasn’t sure what I’d be left with.
My anger had kept me strong. It kept me whole. It was part of the person I had become.
As I talked with Flynn in his moonlit yard, I felt the snarls of my rage loosen and fade away.
It had everything to do with the way he spoke to me. The way he had me reminiscing. The way he had reminded me of the girl I had been. One that wasn’t angry. That wasn’t bitter.
He made me remember a lonely girl who had been drawn to a sad boy and had found comfort in him.
I had to push him away. It’s what I did. It’s how I ensured my continued survival. It’s how I protected my heart. I had to destroy the renewed connection before it had a chance to destroy me.
Keeping my distance seemed the only real way to do that. But it also felt like a coward’s way out.
And if I knew anything, it was that Ellie McCallum was no coward.
After class, I gathered my things and walked with purposeful strides across the manicured lawns.
“I see you found your way to class.” I stopped and turned to see the sunburned girl walking in the same direction I was headed.
Her brown hair was now in matted dreads down her back and her sunburn had faded into a healthy, golden brown.
“Guess so,” I responded, not in the mood for superficial conversation. The girl was clearly not tuned into subtle cues because she fell into step beside me. I gave her the ubiquitous once over and rolled my eyes. She was obviously of the pseudo hippie persuasion with patched jeans and dirty toes peeping over the edges of her battered Birkenstocks. Just give the girl a second hand guitar and the look would be complete.
“Is this your first year?” she asked and I thought about ignoring her. I hadn’t come to school to make friends. Hell, I could barely tolerate the ones I had, so I wasn’t looking to acquire any new ones. And small talk would invariably lead to conversation, which would end up in invitations to hang out and expectations to develop a relationship I wasn’t interested in beginning.
But some strange compulsion had me answering her honestly. “Yeah. It is. You?” Shit, why had I asked her that? Now she would think I was interested in anything she had to say.
“Nope. I’m a second year. I plan to transfer out of here in the spring. Get my Bachelor’s. Do something with my life, ya know?”
No I didn’t know. But I didn’t tell her that. No sense in unloading my lack of forward planning with a girl who obviously hadn’t washed her hair in a while.
I didn’t respond and we fell into silence. Awkward for me, easy and comfortable for her.
“I’m Kara Baker,” she said, offering her name in the same tone you offer a cigarette. Unbothered. Noncommittal. Whatever.
I nodded and kept quiet. She laughed after a few minutes. “Am I supposed to guess yours? Because I’m really bad at that shit.” Her rich laugh had me smiling in spite of myself.
Whether I wanted to or not, I kind of liked this chick.
“Ellie McCallum,” I answered.
“Ellie. That’s a cool name. Is it short for something? Eleanor maybe? Elvira? I know it’s Elora!”
I smirked and shook my head.
“Nope, just plain ole Ellie.”
“Plain my ass. You’ve got the whole tortured lone wolf thing going on. There are probably all kinds of crazy shit going on with you.”
“Not exactly,” I mumbled, the momentary softening I had felt already freezing over. I was officially done playing let’s get to know each other.
“There’s a story there. I can feel it,” Kara teased but I wasn’t in the mood for teasing.
“Nope, no story. Look I’ve gotta go,” I said abruptly. Without waiting for her response, I picked up the speed and hurried ahead. I heard her call something after me but this time I went with my first instinct and ignored her.
I pushed through a door I had only been through one other time and silently moved down the almost empty corridor until I found myself standing outside the large windows looking into the art studio.
And just like the last time, Flynn was sat at a table, his hands moving deftly through a mound of clay. His fingers molded and shaped without hesitation. I had always enjoyed watching him like this. Creating. He became someone else. Someone confident and almost ballsy. It was awesome.
I stood in the hallway a little while longer, debating whether I should go inside. I didn’t know if I would be crossing into territory I needed to stay away from.
But then I acted without thinking. I pressed down on the door handle and faltered only a second before taking the plunge. The door hit the wall as I pushed it open with more force than was necessary. The bang bounced around the quiet room.
Flynn looked up, his hands still deep in the clay and he appeared startled to see me.
“Ellie,” he said flatly.
“Flynn,” I replied just as emotionless.
I stared at him long after he had dropped his eyes and continued to work on his project. I was already second-guessing my brash impulsivity.
“I’m glad you came,” Flynn’s words carried across the room and hit me directly in the chest.
Not able to stand there any longer, I shuffled toward him, my flip-flops slapping against the tiled floor. My bag hung off my shoulder and my terrified reluctance echoed in every step.
I still hadn’t said a word. I didn’t know what to say. So I watched him and it was easy to fall back into an old pattern. I sat down on the bench beside him, careful to allow a certain amount of space between us. I dropped my bag to the floor and leaned forward, my hair brushing the backs of my arms as they braced the wood in front of me.
I followed the movements of his hands with eager eyes, wishing, not for the first time, that I contained an ounce of his talent. What I wouldn’t give to be able to express myself like that.
The clock on the wall ticked its way through the hour. Each second punctuated by a growing sense of familiar ease. His art was therapy. Not just for him but for me as well.
After almost thirty minutes, Flynn blew a lock of hair out of his eyes and rolled his shoulders. “My fingers are starting to ache,” he explained, pulling his hands out of the clay and flexing them in front of him.
I leaned my head on my hand and stared down at the tiny structure he had sculpted. It looked like a gingerbread house with a latticed roof and decorative trim. It was tiny and perfect.
“What is it?” I asked him, as he stretched out his back in exaggerated movements.
“It’s a house,” Flynn replied blandly.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I see that, but what’s it for?” I asked.
“I’m making a model of the Candy Land board game village. This is going to be the Peanut Brittle House. I’ve already made the Gumdrop Mountains and the Lollipop Forest,” he explained, rubbing out the edges of the small roof with his finger.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because someone paid me to,” Flynn replied, already returning to his sculpture.
“Who would want a replica of Candy Land?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Flynn shrugged. “It’s for a shop window in New York for Christmas. It’s going to light up and have animatronic stuff around it.”
I blinked in shock. “New York as in New York City?” I gaped.
“Yep,” he responded, seeming a lot less impressed than I was.
“And is that what you do? You make sculptures and people buy them?” I don’t know why I was asking. I shouldn’t care what he did for a living but I could admit that I was sort of interested. Though I was working hard to convince myself that it didn’t mean anything.
“Yeah. I make it and people seem to like it. They pay me a lot of money for it too,” he said with zero modesty and absolutely no tact.
“So you’re loaded then,” I inquired, sounding more than a little bitter.
“I make more money than a lot of people. Probably more than you,” he said and I tried not to be insulted. Who was I kidding? I was really insulted.
I had the urge to smash his stupid little house with my fist. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t let him get to me. I wouldn’t be hurt by his thoughtless comments that I knew he didn’t really mean.
It sucked how he was able to reaffirm every crappy thing I had thought about myself and my life with only a few words.
Flynn didn’t realize the massive blunder he had made with his insensitive observation. I picked up the tiny detailing knife he had been using and carved a line through the smooshy clay.
“Don’t touch that,” Flynn said, grabbing the implement from my fingers, though I was aware of how he made sure not to touch me. So many things had changed for him, but some were fundamentally the same.
“Sorry. That was probably rude huh?” he asked and I blinked up at him in surprise. Was this Flynn being self-aware?
“Yeah it was,” I agreed.
“Sorry,” he said again and I found myself smiling again.
“You said that already.”
Flynn gave me a shy grin. “I always liked it when you smiled. You have really pretty teeth.”
I snorted and it came out as a cough.
“Uh thanks,” I stuttered, finding myself without a witty comeback. What could I say to something like that?
“They’re really straight and white. They fit your mouth really well,” Flynn went on as he peered at my teeth. I wondered if I should open my mouth and let him have a look inside.
“I don’t even know what to say to that, Flynn,” I told him honestly. Flynn laughed. It was stilted and strained but it was a laugh. And it made me smile with a rusty stretching of lips.
“Do you still want to learn how to do this?” Flynn asked and I frowned. What was he talking about? When had I told him I wanted to sculpt?
Flynn turned back to the table and started rolling the extra clay into a ball and then flattened it with his palm. He repeated the movement over and over again. He was methodical. Every pat, every roll, done in perfectly timed increments.
“You told me that day in school when you were wearing the blue shirt with the torn collar that you wished you could draw. You said you didn’t think you were talented enough. I offered to teach you,” Flynn said, surprising me with another accurate recollection of a conversation that had occurred almost seven years ago.
“You did offer. I never took you up on that,” I said, forcing my brain to think back to a time I had worked hard to forget. My mind stretched and strained as it sought to extract the event Flynn was talking about. I had worked hard to suppress so much of my past that trying to remember things I actually wanted to was difficult. One of the many therapists I had been forced to see over the years had told me that it was my defense mechanism. My mind shut down and shoved away the things that hurt.
It had served me well up until now. Up until I wished to remember specific elements of my past with the same clarity that Flynn did.
“You never asked me again. But if you want, I can show you now,” he said, his voice slow and unsure.
I slid across the bench until I was beside him. I still didn’t touch him. I knew he didn’t like that. I didn’t want that either. But I was close enough to smell the soap he had used in the shower and the sharp acridity of sweat drying on his skin from sitting in the warm room.
Flynn cleared his throat and looked at me from the side of his eyes, never meeting my gaze head on. It was amazing how his nuances and behaviors were familiar to me. Even after all this time and no matter how much my mind blocked out, there were still some things I couldn’t forget.
One was the awkward twist of his hands when he was nervous. Another was the slight tick in his jaw when he was worked up. He was doing both right now.
With what seemed to be a conscientious effort, he stopped rubbing his hands together and placed them back in the clay. He took the ball he had made and rolled it across the table until it sat in front of me.
“Knead it for a few minutes. Make it pliable. It will be easier to mold,” he told me in small, complete sentences.
I did as he said, enjoying the way it oozed between my fingers.
“Break off a small piece and roll into a cone, like this.” Flynn’s fingers formed his own piece of clay expertly. I fumbled as I tried to do the same. I held up my finished product with a wry grin.
“Like this?”
Flynn’s lips twitched. His smiles were rare things. He gave them sparingly and I found that I resented him for withholding them from me.
He plucked the clay out of my hand and pressed it together between his palms, flattening it before rolling it back into a ball. He put it down on the table.
“Try it again,” he instructed. I fought the urge to become oppositional and angry. I had never taken direction well. I balked at authority and had made it a mission while growing up to fight against the system in the only way that I could, with complete and total defiance.
But with Flynn, I knew he wasn’t trying to be bossy. It was just who he was. And I felt like I was trapped in an endless loop of déjà vu as I fought down my annoyance and attempted to accept this man for who he was.
It was becoming frighteningly easy to slip back into our old roles. I was slowly stepping back into the shoes of an Ellie McCallum that I had thought long gone. An Ellie that had existed only with Flynn.
Swallowing thickly. I rolled and spread the clay again. And once more Flynn flattened it and handed it back.
“You’re not doing it right. It should look like this,” he held out his own flawless example and I thought childishly about squishing it, ruining it the way he had ruined mine.
But his insistence on perfection resulted in me finally creating a cone he was happy with.
“That looks good. Now pinch off another ball of clay and roll it between your fingers,” he said and I followed his directions. I watched and mimicked his movements, often not to his standards. And I would get frustrated when he’d insist I do it over again.
Forty-five minutes later, I was grinning from ear to ear as I put the last touches on a tiny, detailed bouquet of clay flowers that I had made all by myself. With Flynn’s help of course.
“Wow, that’s beautiful,” I breathed out; hardly able to believe I had made something so delicate. My clumsy, inept fingers seemed incapable of something like this. But here I was, holding something lovely. It filled me with pride.
And it had been fun.
I had enjoyed myself.
Flynn nodded his head. “It is. You did a good job,” he said, his praise making me happier than I’d like to admit.
“What should I do with it now?” I asked, not wanting to touch it, afraid I’d mess it up. My hands, so unaccustomed to making anything worthwhile, seemed poised ready to destroy it. It’s what I was good at.
“It needs to go into the kiln,” Flynn said, indicating the clay oven on the other side of the room. I carefully picked up my tiny creation and followed him. He gently took the flowers from my hand and placed them on the rack inside.
While he situated the pieces I looked at the pottery on the table that Flynn had just removed from the kiln. I picked up a tiny dog that was strangely familiar.
“This is cute. Did you make it?” I said, rubbing the rough edges with my finger.
“Yes,” Flynn muttered, taking the dog from my hand and placing it back on the table.
I stared closer at the creature he had made and struggled with another memory I had shut away. “You had a dog that looked like. What was his name?” I asked, hazy recollections of a hairy dog danced through my head.
Flynn’s face paled and he dipped his chin until it hit his chest. His hands clasped together in front of him and he started to rub furiously.
What had I said?
“Marty,” Flynn said quietly.
Marty?
That’s right! He had a Border Collie named Marty!
“You would throw balls around your yard and he’d pick them up and put them in a pile by your feet,” I said, smiling. Images of long fur and a wet tongue on my cheek made me feel warm inside.
Another memory of sitting on Flynn’s living room couch and Marty laying his head in my lap flooded my mind.
It was a memory of happy days and smiling faces. His mother’s banana bread and Flynn’s hesitant touches followed by breathless laughter and dog fur tickling my skin.
“Did you bring him with you?” I asked, hoping Flynn would say yes.
“Marty’s dead,” Flynn barked out with obvious anger. He gripped the clay dog in his hands and then in a flurry of violence, he threw it against the wall. It exploded in a rain of rubble to the floor.
The room was deathly quiet after Flynn’s outburst.
I waited a few beats, unable to move.
“Flynn…” I began but he shook his head.
“Shut up! Don’t say anything. Just leave me alone for a minute!” He retreated to the other side of the room and I was left standing there, not knowing what in the hell I said to send him spiraling like that.
I listened to the ticking clock and wondered whether I should leave. It seemed our nice afternoon was at an end.
But it felt oddly wrong to leave him while he was so upset. So I sat down and fiddled with the small sculptures.
The minutes ticked by and I chanced a look at Flynn. He seemed composed now if not a bit embarrassed. His face was flushed red and he was chewing on his bottom lip.
“It was the fire. The fire killed him. He never got out,” he called out, startling me.
“What?” I asked, not sure I had heard him correctly.
“The fire at my house. He died in it. He used to sleep in the basement and Mom couldn’t get to him.”
Air left my lungs and my head began to buzz.
Flynn slowly came back to my side of the room. With shaking hands, he bent down and started cleaning up the shattered remains of the clay dog.
I felt sick. I felt horrified. I wanted to run screaming from the awful truth I had just been given. I hastily tried to shove the guilt into a more manageable space inside of me before I choked on it. But it was too late.
Marty, the beautiful Border Collie was dead. The dog I had cuddled and kissed and who Flynn had loved was gone.
Because of me.
I felt it deep in my soul. The unjust futility of his lost life. The tragedy of it threatened to undo me.
I started the brutal and violent process of smothering the shame in the pit of my stomach. Shove, push, cut it up into tiny compact pieces so that it was easier to get rid of.
Once I had packed it away I was finally able to face him again and express the words that were expected in this kind of situation.
“I’m so sorry, Flynn” I began but he interrupted me.
“Why are you sorry? You didn’t kill him. The fire killed him. He couldn’t get out.”
The door to my emotions flew wide open again and I was left speechless.
What?
My throat closed up and my mouth went dry.
Flynn didn’t know.
Somehow he had been shielded from the reality of that horrific night.
I had lived the last six years thinking all my cards had been on the table. That Flynn knew what had happened.
But for some reason he hadn’t been given that particular painful piece of knowledge. And I was jealous of his blissful ignorance. He didn’t have to carry around the knowledge of what I had done to him. He was oblivious and a hateful part of me despised him for it.
My head hurt. My chest felt too tight.
I needed to leave.
Without another word, I grabbed my bag and left the art studio. Flynn didn’t call after me. He didn’t follow me. I didn’t expect him to.
But some tiny, annoying part of me that hadn’t been beaten down by emotional numbness was sad that he didn’t.