I backed away.
Could I let go of the numbness? It would be like unclenching your fist from the blade of a knife. You don’t feel how deep the cut is until you let go. But the wound can’t close until you do.
Feeling and numbness. What it takes to choose between them.
“Listen.” Cyndra’s emerald eyes searched mine. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”
The laugh compressed out my mouth.
It seemed like all I ever made were mistakes.
Cyndra’s eyes wouldn’t let mine go. “Then you know, right? What it feels like. That’s how I feel about all of this. That I made a mistake being with him. Maybe not from the beginning, but somewhere after. After me and you.”
She opened her hands, little cups of hope. “Haven’t you ever held on to one thing? And kept holding, even when things began to go bad? Even when they were bad?”
The Plan.
That I was going to do something. That I was going to save Janie. Save myself. That there was something worth fighting for. A purpose.
Revenge.
Cyndra gripped my arms. Her jaw tightened, and her eyes narrowed. Like it took everything she had. Like she was opening herself to a madman with a knife.
“You have to really forgive me. You have to feel that much. There’s got to be something. You’ve got to feel something for me. I know you do.”
“You’re right.”
Her fingers gripped tighter, digging into my upper arms. “It’s not small, either. What you feel.” Her chin lifted, a fighter, daring me with the target.
“I loved you.”
“You love me.”
Something shifted inside my chest. A small movement. A buoy released and rocketing toward the surface.
“Fight for it,” she said.
I’d have to trust her—and something outside of myself. Beyond my control. That she saw something I couldn’t. Something in me.
Would that be enough? Or would it cost too much to feel it?
Cyndra loosed her hands, like she saw my choice before I made it. That smile torqued her lips. Her arms lifted to my shoulders. “I’m a fighter. So are you.”
I felt my arms going around her. Squeezing her against me, pulling, desperately tight. Something unraveling inside, spooling into the darkness and piercing it there.
Her lips were clean water, and I needed to drown.
? ? ?
That night, I walked her to the Mercedes, the only car left in the school lot. I needed to get back to the home before curfew—and before I cracked in two from the swelling of my heart.
“I could drive you,” Cyndra said, settling into my arms for another hug.
“You and I both know we’d never even get the car started.”
She laughed but tipped her head back and studied me. She waited.
“It’s been a long day,” I said. “I need the walk.”
“Okay.” Her lips brushed over mine. “I’ll pick you up in the morning, though?”
“Definitely.”
Berry-flavored kisses, soothing and stinging at the same time. Medicine doing its work.
The walk back to the group home wasn’t bad. I wandered down tree-lined streets, past small houses with postage-stamp yards, fences and yappy dogs, wind chimes and rusted grills.
I thought about what Michael had said, that there are two types of people in the world. Feeling his words ping in my head like sonar searching for belief. Hitting on something, a jagged outcropping of truth.
He was right. There are users. There are the used. But sometimes people can be both at once.
And there’s more than that. Victims and victors, and how a person can journey from one to the other. Like Janie. How she’s so much stronger than I ever knew. Digging deep in that trench. Then climbing out again. And Cyndra. Her courage to face it. To risk pain. Strength that isn’t about power, or force, or how hard you can hit. Strength that is resilience. If you can come back, all the way back, from anything.
And then reach out, beyond yourself, to grab on to something bigger.
Like Clay, an activist at heart, all the way down, not just pretty words. How he’d take anything, put up with anything directed at him, but how he was willing to cross that line for me.
How everyone is struggling for something. Trying to keep the balance.
Struggling to find their way back. Doing the best they can with what they’ve been dealt. Staying in place, doing anything to keep from sinking. To keep from rising.
Until something changes. Like a day at school, a friend at lunch, someone standing up for you.
And the choice to feel. Standing before you.
Realizing what part is yours. What you can and can’t do. Who you are. Who you are meant to be.
More than the sum of all your broken parts.
In the group home TV room, Danny was crying, the robot dog in two pieces in his hands.
Alex sprawled on the sofa, flipping channels. His eyes slid to me, assessed the threat level, and slid back to the TV, unimpressed.
Something inside me burst with the silent force of an underwater explosion. The final piece breaking away. The last of the captive water rushed away in a torrent.
My hands curled into fists, fingertips lifting and pressing into the flesh. Thumbs locked in front. Left fist poised for a jab. Right fist cocked for the straight drive.
Fight back. Punch Alex in the gut, then drive an elbow up into his face, knock him back. Knock him flat. He’d fall against the bookshelf, take it with him. Mr. Lance and Ms. Jay would come. Alex would get grounded and lose phone privileges for breaking the dog. I’d get sent to juvie.
And Danny would be scared of me. And nothing would change. Nothing would be saved or solved. Nothing ever is.
But you can’t just accept it. You can’t just take it, because it will never stop. Just gather and grow, this dark weight in your chest, a sucking wound that eats more of you away. All the pain that you hide, and never let yourself feel. Never let out.
Lies, half-truths, and things you tell yourself to feel better.
It wasn’t that bad.
I have a plan.
I can take it.
I’m in control.